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Chase laughed, then removed the straw and took a gulp. Sylvie watched, mesmerized by the swell of his neck muscles as he swallowed. He slammed the empty cup to the table. “There. If I’m going to die, at least I’ll go out with something tasty on my tongue.”
Tongue. The word alone gave her an inner twinge. Ridiculous. Sylvie grabbed her box and they set off.
“How was Mary Beth as a manager?” Chase asked as they walked.
“She worked hard. She cared. She was a bit disorganized, as you saw from her computer, and maybe too social. I filled in where I was needed. We made a decent team, I think.”
“You’d be good on any team, Sylvie.”
“I try.”
He stopped in front of her and touched her arm. “I’m serious. Despite what my father said about loyalty, no one would blame you if you wanted to move on. We’d give you a strong recommendation, of course.”
“What are you trying to say?” A chill shot through her. “Are you telling me to quit?”
“I’m just saying you have options beyond Starlight Desert.”
“I love it here and I intend to stay.”
“Got it,” he said, hands up at her vehemence.
She introduced him to more shop owners and he handed out umbrellas. When they reached the space Marshall had rented to his golf buddy, the jai alai booster, Chase stopped. “Jai alai?” He turned to her.
She shrugged. “This spot’s tough to rent and the president of the booster club is a friend of Marshall’s. They want to bring a professional team to Phoenix, I gather.”
“Sounds bizarre to me. Jai alai’s a big betting game in Florida, right? Those big high stadiums—frontons, I think they’re called.”
“I guess. This is just an office. They hold meetings and making fund-raising calls…. This is Free Arts,” she said, nodding at the space next door. Two heavily tattooed boys in muscle shirts were airbrushing a Virgen de Guadalupe onto the window. She recognized one of them. “Nice work, Rafael.”
He turned, puzzled. “You know me?”
“I saw your b-boy crew perform for Cinco de Mayo. You organized the group, right?”
“Yeah.” He nodded, pleased, but acting cool about it.
“Tell your guys there’s a gig here the day after Thanksgiving. We can’t pay, but there will be tons of people in the mall that day.”
“’Scool.” Rafael strutted a little, then turned back to his work. His friend hissed out, “dawg” to embarrass him for talking to the gringa mujer.
“What’s rent on that space?” Chase asked as they walked on.
“It’s a token amount since that’s a difficult section to keep tenants in. It’s part of our effort to support the community. Starlight Desert is a good neighbor.”
“I noticed a lot of For Sale signs driving here. Lots of boarded-up shops. Is the neighborhood going down?”
“There have been a few problems, but nothing that has affected us. People love Starlight Desert.”
“You love Starlight Desert, Sylvie. Everyone else just shops here. A mall is where you spend money or get a smoothie to escape the summer heat. People aren’t that loyal.”
She felt a stab of outrage. “You haven’t been here long enough to know. Read our surveys and the consultant’s report, talk to our tenants. You’ll see I’m right.”
The man who had stolen her job was trash-talking the place she loved. She would just have to give him the full picture right this minute.
CHAPTER FOUR
CHASE’S HEAD SPUN. The moment he mentioned that the mall was a business not a place of worship, Sylvie went crazy on him. The simple tour of the mall shops to introduce him to the tenants became a lecture on the Wide World of Retail Malls.
He listened as patiently as he could while she explained door-busters, per-foot kiosk rental charges and how Starlight Desert interspersed food venues among the shops to increase the shopper-to-buyer conversion rate due to “improved shopper eye scans,” which evidently was much better than the food-court ghetto at most malls.
In between speeches, he handed out those stupid umbrellas to the store owners, who clearly adored her. Face after face registered disappointment that Sylvie wasn’t the new GM.
Rose of Rose’s Hobby Hut thanked her for locating a cheaper supplier for dollhouse furniture. He gathered Sylvie built dollhouses in her limited spare time. She’d evidently loaned money to the camera store owner and mediated a fight that would have ended the Toy Town owners’ partnership.
Business peaked on Saturday, she informed him. Monday was decently busy due to the weekend’s lookie-loos. Tuesday was the quietest shopping day of the week.
She described the daily changeover: seniors walked the mall in the early mornings, moms with strollers arrived midmorning, followed by serious ladies-who-lunch shoppers. Kids washed through after school, working women breezed in to pick up cosmetics or panty hose after five.
As she talked, he amused himself by taking in her flashing eyes, her kissable lips wrapped around a torrent of words, her energetic gestures, the way she filled out that white blouse, and, of course, her fresh-baked pie scent.
Ya smell good, kid. He couldn’t believe he’d said that, then rubbed her hair like she was ten or a puppy. What a jerk. He was normally pretty easy with the attraction dance.
Sylvie had thrown him. Because of their history? Or maybe just her. She sort of sucked him into her swirling energy, put him in a trance until he acted like a teen with no control over his urges whatsoever.
At least she was no longer pissed at him.
Until he told her about maybe selling the mall, of course. He dreaded that exchange. He’d tell her as soon as he knew enough to confirm the possibility.
After rounds, they headed back to the office where Sylvie buried him in printouts and minutiae about “A Starlight Desert Christmas,” the Black Friday event that evidently was the GM’s responsibility.
Nearby schools would present performances and an art show, stores would give discounts for parents, and there would be raffle prizes and a hidden-coupon scavenger hunt. Chase was impressed with the plan. Even if they decided to sell, banking higher revenues would be smart.
“Sounds good, Sylvie. You’ve put a lot of effort into it.” He started to stand.
“Wait. We still need to discuss the tenant party on Thanksgiving afternoon, when we prep for Black Friday.”
“Okay.” He sat down again.
She explained that the tenant party consisted of food, of course, plus a white elephant exchange. Then the employees shopped in the mall for gifts for a needy family, which they placed under trees decorated to represent each store’s merchandise.
It all sounded nice, but Chase’s brain was jammed already. Sylvie wasn’t helping, hypnotizing him with her cherry-pie smell and the way her breasts shivered whenever she gestured, which she did a lot. The generic khakis and simple white blouse she wore started to seem like something a stripper might wriggle out of.
Sylvie didn’t seem to mess much with her appearance—her nails were plain, she wore next to no makeup and her honey hair was a mass of curls held back by two clips—but with her natural beauty she didn’t need to fuss.
Then he’d seen her bra. He’d been innocently standing over her at the computer when her blouse gaped and there it was. Pink and lacy, cupping the soft rise of her breasts, and he’d wanted to tear it off with his teeth.
To escape the urge, he’d dropped to a crouch, only to get trapped in a close-up of her face in all its appealing detail—her snapping green eyes, edible mouth, that hint of a dimple when she smiled, right next to a beauty mark—pretty punctuation for her face—and her breasts close enough to—
“How do you want to handle it, Chase?”
“Handle…huh?” Had she read his mind? He whipped his attention to her words. She was looking at him impatiently.
“The work. The prep party and Black Friday itself. Officially both are GM duties. I’ve handled the prep party the past two years, though, since it was my idea, but it’s up to you.”
“Why don’t you keep doing that, then?” he said.
“All right. Black Friday is new and a lot of work as you saw. We have Olive, our marketing assistant, but she’s about to have her baby and has cut back her hours. Cyndi will do what she can, but she’s stuck on phones, so—”
“This is your plan, Sylvie. You know it inside out, so you should be in charge of it.”
“I’d love that, of course,” she said with a sigh, “but that was when I expected to be the GM. I’ve got operations to manage. This is your job, Chase. And it’s crucial. Black Friday revenues are make-or-break for our shops. I’ll help as much as I can, but it will take all of us working as hard as we can to pull this off. I’m not kidding.” Her eyes flashed at him. “You said you wouldn’t leave us hanging.”
“I won’t.” But he sure as hell wasn’t ready to throw the kind of energy at this stuff that Sylvie was. She was clearly worried, chewing her lip like mad. She’d already put so much work into this project, he wanted her to see it through.
“What then?”
She clearly doubted him. She had a point. “Okay, I get it. I don’t know a door buster from a loss leader, while you could do this job in your sleep.”
She went pink. “I wouldn’t have put it so bluntly, but basically, yes.” She lifted her chin to emphasize the point.
“So, here’s what I propose. You manage the Black Friday extravaganza and the tenant prep party. You know the plan, so that makes the most sense. I’ll fill in where I can with what I can.”
“But what about—?”
“Your operations job, right. It’s full-time and you already work twelve-hour days. Got it. I want you to hire someone short-term to get us through the holidays. Divide up the duties between the three of us however you think will work best. Just keep me informed.”
“Oh.” Sylvie looked startled. “Really? I can hire someone? We don’t have the budget for that, Chase.”
“Take it out of my salary line. No sweat.”
“Really? Oh. Well, okay….” He could see ideas flying behind her eyes, how this changed her goal, which had no doubt been to let the door hit him on the ass on the way out.
“Let me see if I understand,” she said slowly, her expression deadly serious now. “You’re telling me that you and I will share GM duties and I can hire someone to fill in the gaps as I see them? On a short-term contract, hourly wages. And it’s up to me who does what?”
“Within reason,” he said. “I have veto power and you and I need to stay in close communication.”
She beamed. “Then that’s great. That will work, I think. Thank you for being reasonable.” She was trying to restrain her excitement, he could tell. He liked seeing her eyes light up like that. One bright spot in an exhausting and irritating day.
“There’s one more thing I need from you,” Sylvie said, scooting forward, leaning toward him.
How about sex? Right here. Right now. The thought came unbidden and he leaned even closer. “Anything you want, Sylvie.”
“It involves costumes,” she said, her voice low and honeyed, her expression all sex kitten.
“Oh, I’m in.”
“I’m glad to hear that. How about Marshall and Fletcher? You think they’d be in, too?” She licked her lips slowly.
“Eew.” He sat up straight. “Forget it.”
Sylvie laughed her musical laugh. “Relax, I just need you three to dress up like Santa and his elves.”
“Are you nuts? Now, you and me, French maid and butler, would be great. But that…too kinky to even picture.”
She laughed. “I’m serious. It’s the perfect publicity stunt. Holiday shopping news stories are a dime a dozen, so we need a fresh angle to get TV coverage. Starlight Desert is a family-owned, homegrown mall. That’s our hook. How better to illustrate that than to have Marshall McCann be Santa Claus and his two sons Santa’s elves?” She grinned like Christmas morning. “You are nuts,” Chase said faintly.
“You and Fletcher would lead the kids to Marshall’s lap and take their photos. I know TV would eat that up. Chase? Your mouth’s hanging open.”
“You want my father to be Santa Claus? I can’t imagine anyone less jolly. And Fletcher in green tights and pointy slippers with bells?” He burst out laughing.
“He could wear a blazer and a tie if he wants.”
“Business Elf, right. I’d love to see that.”
“Don’t laugh too hard. You’ll be in green tights and bells, yourself, Chase.”
“I don’t see either of them agreeing to that.”
“It would just be for the opening weekend. We’d promote it on Facebook and Twitter.”
“The mall is on Facebook?”
“I created a persona—Bright Star. She’s a personal shopper who posts deals from our shops along with general shopping tips and tidbits.”
“Very smart.”
“So what do you say?” she said, her big eyes drilling him. “You can talk them into it, Chase. It’s important. They’ll have fun, too. And the store owners will love it.”
“I don’t know. I’d have to talk to Fletcher.”
“So call him.” She whipped out her cell phone.
“Jeez, you’re relentless, you know that?” He waved her away and pulled out his own phone. Sylvie had somehow made the most ridiculous idea sound vital to the mall’s survival.
He did like her. He surely did.
“Fletcher, listen. I’ve got a proposition for you,” he said when his brother answered.
“Uh-oh. First, I’m supposed to remind you about the big dinner tomorrow night. Nadia’s afraid you’ll forget.”
“I’ll be there, no worries. Listen, I’ve got Sylvie here with me and we’re talking about Christmas at the mall and—”
“Sylvie’s there? Yeah?”
“She is. And—”
“Put her on, would you?” Fletcher interrupted, his tone abruptly determined, as if he had a job to do.
“Okay….” What the hell? “He wants to speak to you,” he told Sylvie, shrugging as he handed her the phone.
