CHAPTER ONE

      KEENA WHITMAN’S DAY had gone backward from the moment she got out of bed. Two of her best sketches had been destroyed when Faye turned a cup of hot coffee over on them. Naturally, the sample-room staff had been livid when they had to wait for Keena to redo the sketches so that they could make up the rush samples for the salesman. Like all salesmen, he was impatient and made no attempt to disguise his annoyance. She’d missed her lunch, the seamstresses had missed theirs and to top it all off, she’d gotten the specifications wrong on a whole cut of blouses, and they had had to be redone with the buyers incensed at the holdup. By the time Keena was through for the day and back home in her Manhattan apartment, she was smoldering.

      She kicked off her high-heeled shoes and threw herself down on the long, plush, blue-velvet couch with a heavy sigh. How long ago it seemed that she’d worked at textile design and dreamed of someday working for a big fashion design house. And now she had her own house and was one of the most famous designers of casual wear in the country. But the pleasure she should have been feeling simply wasn’t there. Something was missing from her life. Something vital. But she didn’t even know what. Perhaps it was just the winter weather making her morose. She longed for the freedom and warmth of spring to get her blood flowing again.

      She lay on her back and stared at the ceiling. She was slender with short black hair and eyes as green as spring leaves. Her complexion was peachy, her mouth as perfect as a bow. At twenty-seven, she retained the fresh look of innocence, despite her sophistication. At least Nicholas said she did.

      Nicholas. She closed her eyes and smiled. How long ago had it been when Nicholas Coleman had offered her the chance to work as an assistant designer in his textile empire? It was well over six years ago.

      She’d been utterly green at twenty-one. Fresh out of fashion design school in Atlanta and afraid of the big, dark man behind the desk of Coleman Textiles in his Atlanta skyscraper.

      It had taken her a week to get up enough nerve to approach him, but she’d been told that he was receptive to new talent, and that he was a sucker for stray animals and stray people.

      Even now she could remember how frightened she’d been, looking across the massive desk at that broad leonine face that looked as if it had never smiled.

      “Well, show me what you can do, honey,” he’d dared with a cynical smile. “I don’t bite.”

      She’d spread her drawings out on the glass surface of the cluttered desk, her hands trembling, and watched for his reaction. But nothing had shown in his dark face, nor in his dark brown, deep-set eyes. He’d nodded, but that was all. Then he’d leaned back in his swivel chair and stared at her.

      “Training?” he’d shot at her.

      “The—the fashion design school, here in town,” she’d managed to get out. “I...that is, I worked on the third shift at the cotton mill to pay my way through. My father works for a textile mill back home—”

      “Where is back home?” he interrupted.

      “Ashton,” she replied.

      He nodded, and waited for her to continue, giving every impression of being interested in her muddled speech.

      “So I know a little about it,” she murmured. “And I’ve always wanted to design things. Oh, Mr. Coleman, I know I can do it if someone will just give me the chance. I know I can.” Her eyes lit up and she put her whole heart and all her youthful enthusiasm into her words. “I realize there’s a lot of competition for design jobs, but if you’ll give me a chance, I promise I won’t let you down. I’ll design the sharpest clothes for the lowest cost you’ve ever seen. I’ll work weekends and holidays, I’ll—”

      “One month,” he said, cutting into her sentence.

      He leaned forward and pinned her with his level gaze. “That’s how much time you’ve got to prove to me that you can stand the pace.” He threw out a salary that staggered her, and then dismissed her with a curt gesture and went back to his paperwork.

      He’d been married then, but his wife of ten years had died shortly thereafter of a massive heart attack. Rumors had flown all over the main plant, where Keena worked, but she ignored them. She didn’t believe that an argument had provoked the heart attack, and she told one of the women so. Mr. Coleman, she assured her tersely, wasn’t that kind of man. He had too much compassion and, besides, why would he keep a picture of his wife on his desk if he didn’t love her?

      Somehow the innocent little speech had gotten back to him and the next week, he’d sought her out in the canteen on the pretense of asking how everything was going.

      “I’m well on my way to making you fabulously wealthy,” she assured him with an impish grin as she held her plastic coffee cup between her hands.

      “I’m already fabulously wealthy,” he replied.

      She sighed. “In that case, you’re in a lot of trouble.”

      He’d smiled at that—the first time she’d seen him smile since his wife’s death. The late Mrs. Coleman had been a beauty—blond