Juicy. Noelle Mack
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“my sainted mother.”
But hey, the old lady had worked hard all her life and it had been her money. There was plenty left over to build this gleaming new HT factory, which provided jobs for a whole lot of people. Bliss wasn’t going to judge the late Mrs. Sargent, not for one minute.
She took a last look down into the immense vats and stepped gingerly on the walkway to where the giant in coveralls was waiting for her. He waved her through a door that opened into a cavernous hall. The noise was deafening, and the giant offered her a tiny, airline-style package of earplugs from a receptacle mounted on the wall. Following his example, she hastily unwrapped them and stuck them in her ears. They skipped the extrusion unit at her request and came out on a high, grated walkway near the ceiling. She looked down at a wide conveyor belt carrying filled, baked fruit pies that chugged past in endless rows, moving under nozzles spraying a sugar glaze as uniform and thick as car paint.
Bliss could feel her eyelashes sticking together, even though they were thirty feet above the belt. She nodded to the giant and they walked on, coming to another door and entering a corridor that led to the executive office suites.
A man was walking toward them. Make that six-foot-four of gorgeous man, Bliss thought. With a cocky, confident walk. She liked a man who swaggered a little.
Whoever he was, he wasn’t going to pay much attention to her, not dressed like this. He was wearing Armani himself, unless she missed her guess. She edged back behind the giant and got the earplugs out, sticking them into a pocket.
The man reached them in a few swift strides, glancing at the giant but making eye contact with Bliss. His voice was deep and warm. “You must be Bliss Johnson. I’m Jaz Claybourn.”
She forced her lashes to unstick. No wonder she hadn’t recognized this godlike being as the new CEO of Hot Treats right away. Jaz thrust out his hand and she took it, enjoying the feel of his strong fingers clasping hers despite her embarrassment.
What a smile. It was even more effective in person. Bliss squirmed and sweated inside her coveralls, wishing she could rip them open and kick them aside, whipping off her hairnet while she was at it and letting her hair tumble free.
“Aren’t you hot?” he asked, looking straight into Bliss’s eyes.
“Melting.” She met his gaze. His eyes were an intelligent shade of green, and fringed with lashes as black and straight as the hair that fell in a shock across his forehead. His features weren’t perfect but they sure as hell were bold and sexy, something she’d noticed in the press kit photo. Bonus points for reality: he was at least a head taller than she was in heels.
“Well, take that thing off and come into my office,” he said genially. “I’d like to talk to you about the new campaign.”
Bliss got to work on the Velcro tabs immediately. The ripping sound was definitely unsexy, like little-kid sneakers or nursing home restraints. But Jaz wasn’t looking her way, so it didn’t matter. He clapped the giant on the shoulder. “Thanks for showing her around, Earl.”
“No problem, boss,” the giant said, too loudly. He still had his earplugs in. Earl nodded to Bliss and ambled away down the corridor. She clutched the bunched-up coveralls around her waist, not sure if she should just let them fall down and step out or what. She would probably trip if she did.
“Need a shoulder to lean on?” Jaz asked in a friendly way.
Of course she did. One to lean on and one to cry on would do it for her. “No, thanks,” she said, reaching out a hand and bracing herself against the wall. She let go of the coveralls and they collapsed around her ankles. Bliss struggled to get a foot free, and lost her shoe. She stepped out of the coveralls on that foot and kicked the other foot free, but the folds of fabric swallowed the second shoe too.
Jaz reached down and plucked them out with his left hand as she steadied herself, as if he had a lot of practice returning high heels to women who’d kicked them off.
Bliss gulped. An instant vision of his bedroom came to mind, strewn with satin-doll dresses and fuck-me shoes. Smiling down at her the way he was, it was easy to imagine him—big, built, and buck naked—sprawled out on a king-size bed with his head resting on his crossed arms, a lazy grin on his face as he watched his date get dressed to go home.
Date. Not a girlfriend. Not a wife. Taken wasn’t the word that popped into her mind when it came to Jaz Claybourn. But maybe that was just wishful thinking. She looked at the hand that still held her high heels—he wasn’t wearing a wedding ring, for what that was worth. Bliss blushed and accepted the shoes, still bracing herself against the wall as she slipped them on. She straightened her skirt and pulled down her red sweater.
“Thanks,” she said breathlessly.
Jaz nodded again, then reached out one finger and gently pulled off the hairnet she’d forgotten about. “That’s much better,” he said with a smile. He tucked the net in his jacket pocket.
“Oh, geez. I must be a mess.” Bliss quickly finger-combed her thick, tousled hair.
“You look fine. In fact, you look great. Ready for the second part of the tour? My assistant picked up your things from the changing area after you left with Earl. She put them in my office.”
“Oh. I don’t think I met her but—sure. Lead on.”
He turned and headed back down the corridor the way he’d come. “Fair warning. My office is a train wreck.” He held the door open for her, and Bliss entered a spacious, mahogany-paneled executive suite with an immense, gleaming desk in its center. A leather chair with studded trim was behind that, and a long sofa in the same studded leather took up the space beneath a billboard-size plate glass window. There wasn’t a piece of paper in sight, or a computer, for that matter.
“This isn’t where I work,” he said. “Right this way.” He pushed on a section of panel that swung open into a much smaller space with four flat-screen monitors displaying different things: spreadsheets, commodities trading reports, agricultural weather reports, and international news. The floor-to-ceiling shelves held reams of printed-out reports, organized and labeled by factory department.
Bliss silently noted his framed MBA from Dartmouth. It hung next to a Young Executive of the Year award from some other company, near a shelved tennis trophy topped by a silver guy executing an overhead smash.
There were personal photos, too, placed here and there. Several of Jaz—broad-shouldered and bare-chested and gloriously buff, wearing frayed chino shorts far enough down on his hips to reveal the muscle in his groin—on the beach somewhere with a pack of happy-looking people around his age. Friends? Siblings? Hard to tell from where she was standing. One great big guy did resemble him, but his hair was blond and long.
She noted Jaz and his mom, who looked very much alike, in a formal studio shot that nonetheless glowed with feeling. Bliss looked around discreetly for a matching photo of him with his dad, but didn’t see one. Mama’s boy? Child of a broken home? Orphan wolf boy raised by random grandma, resemblance coincidental? Could be issues there. She wanted to stop but she couldn’t.
Jaz waved at the cluttered room with obvious pride. “This is it. Operation Strawberry Pie. Our latest and greatest hot treat.”
Bliss looked around. “Alf seemed to think that, uh, Nutty Balls were going to be your next big thing.”
Jaz shook his head and pulled out a small swivel chair for her. “They might catch on in limited distribution. Sometimes you can get away with a product name like that in Southern markets. But not nationwide.”
She smiled. “I agree.”
“Can’t change the name,” Jaz said resignedly. “That was his sainted mother’s recipe. I guess he showed you the picture. Alf shows everybody that picture.”
“He sure did.”
He spun the swivel chair around with a laugh. “Sit down. I’ll explain the business side and then we can do creative brainstorming on the product launch. Want coffee?”