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“Can I help you?”
“Dave around? Tell him Charly’s here.”
The man blinked at her name, then pointed to a posterboard sign on the counter. “Sorry, it’s Retail Staff Appreciation Day. The regular sales staff is off today.”
“Maybe I can help,” said another voice, and a tall, dark-haired man with brown eyes and a strong, square jaw stepped into view, a clipboard in one hand. “I’m in charge of the shop today.”
A blatantly handsome man, he looked to be about Charly’s own age, early thirties. The older fellow slid over and made room at the counter for him, an obvious act of deference. The newcomer wore his RuCom T-shirt with khakis, sans dress shirt, so Charly could only assume that he pulled rank due to actual sales experience. An odd, unfamiliar awareness shimmered through her, which was puzzlingly uncomfortable. She wished David was here, but since he wasn’t, she could only consider her options. The fees for the team had to be paid to the soccer league tomorrow, or the team would not be scheduled for games. If she struck out here, her only option was to borrow against her credit card and pay the fees herself. Might as well give this a shot.
Smiling, she stuck out her hand. “Charlene Michman Bellamy.”
The man put down the clipboard and took her hand in his, brown eyes sparkling. “Darren, uh, Rudd.”
“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Rudd.” Charly took her hand back and tried to relax, but a strange tingle made her tilt her head and shift her weight. “I have a problem I hope you can help me with. Actually, it’s sixteen four- and five-year-olds who need your help. These are underprivileged kids who can’t afford to buy their own school lunches, let alone the cleats, balls and uniforms needed to play soccer. I was hoping that—in exchange for advertisement, of course—your shop could sponsor the team.”
“I see.”
His gaze swept over her, and she wondered just what it was that he thought he saw. Fighting the urge to tug down the bottom of her demure navy business suit jacket, she pushed back her short, wispy red hair and squared her shoulders.
“I take it that your husband is the coach?”
Charly lifted both brows at what she considered a sexist remark. “Certainly not. I am the coach.”
His smile broadened, and he leaned forward, bracing both elbows on the countertop. “That’s cool. I just assumed…I mean, it’s usually the spouse who gets stuck with the fund-raising.”
“Well, I don’t have a spouse to stick with the fund-raising,” Charly retorted, amazed by the speculative gleam in those brown eyes. She cleared her throat. “What I have is a five-year-old who desperately wants to play soccer and no team to play on unless I get this thing off the ground.”
“This ‘thing’ being a team of underprivileged children,” he clarified.
Charly nodded. “The soccer commissioner gave me a list of kids who couldn’t get on teams because there weren’t enough scholarships to cover their fees. I intend to see to it that those fees are covered and the kids get to play.”
“Even if it means soliciting funds and coaching the team yourself,” he surmised.
“Yes.”
He straightened and folded his arms, asking, “Have you ever coached a soccer team before?”
She held his gaze. “No, but I’ve been reading a great deal and—”
“You think you can coach soccer from a book?” he interrupted skeptically.
She lifted her chin. “The proficiency level at this age is quite low, anyway. Besides, the most important thing is that they get to play.”
“So you don’t expect them to actually win any games.”
She didn’t, but she wasn’t about to admit it. Some of the teams in the league were outfitted with the very finest equipment and had committed, competitive coaches with the time and skill to turn out first-rate players. Some of them handpicked their players from a pool of eager applicants desperate to get onto winning teams. Most of that occurred with the older age groups, but the commissioner had already warned her that one coach in her level with a flawless win record had put together a team of all five-year-olds which he expected to “kick serious butt.”
Looking Darren Rudd right in the brown eyes—and quite enticing eyes they were with their long, black lashes and warm centers—Charly said, “Can you help me or not?”
To her surprise the older fellow butted in. “I’m afraid it’s just not possible, young lady. RuCom policy—”
“I am in charge here,” Darren Rudd interrupted mildly. The other man silenced like a tap turning off, but the look he turned on Rudd was all questions. The younger man smiled at Charly and said, “What Stevens was trying to say is that we don’t usually make such donations, but since the cause is so very good, I think we can make an exception this time.”
Charly closed her eyes in relief. “Thank you. This means more than you’ll ever know. If you’d like to verify what I’ve said, you can call the soccer commissioner.”
As she spoke, Darren Rudd moved to the cash register and began punching buttons. “Oh, I don’t think that will be necessary. You look like a trustworthy sort.” He smiled, and the cash drawer slid open. He started pulling out cash and counting it. “Will, say, five hundred dollars take care of it?”
Five hundred! Charly nearly collapsed. It was enough to pay the fees with nearly fifty dollars left over. “Yes!”
The older man gasped and exclaimed, “But Mr. Ru—”
Rudd held up a hand, cutting off his subordinate in midword. “If anyone has a problem with it, I’ll replace the funds out of my own pocket, all right, Stevens?”
Stevens gulped and nodded. Rudd handed over the money to an impressed Charly. With those warm bills in her hand, she felt as if she’d met a kindred spirit, and the way he held her gaze made her wonder if perhaps she hadn’t found more, but then she took a good look at him and mentally shook her head. The man was a hunk. It wasn’t just those gorgeous eyes or that wavy brown-black hair, the chiseled features or even the broad shoulders and powerful build. He exuded an aura of confidence and potent masculinity that made itself felt as surely as any physical touch. He wouldn’t really be interested in a woman like her. If she couldn’t hold Dave’s interest, she certainly couldn’t hold the interest of a man like this! Oh, he flirted. Of course he would flirt. It seemed a part of his nature. He probably didn’t even realize he was doing it, but even if it had been more, it was still out of the question.
“The kids will be so thrilled,” she told him. “We’ll have the team shirts printed up with RuCom Electronics Store 796 on the front.”
“RuCom Electronics will suffice,” he said, sounding amused, “and it’ll save on printing costs.”
She laughed. “So it will.”
“By the way, what’s the team name? You never said.”
“Well, we haven’t really decided that yet,” she admitted.
“Good,” he said. “I might have some ideas about that. I mean, since you’ll be representing RuCom, we’ll want it to be something cool, naturally.”
“Oh, ah, well, the team would have to vote on it, you understand.”
He shrugged. “No problem. When can we have a team meeting?”
“Uh, Thursday. We’re practicing at a field over on Lovers Lane at Arroyo. We start about six.”
Darren Rudd smiled. “Then I’ll see you Thursday. Probably not by six, more like half past.”
“No problem. You could even come after practice, about seven.”
He rubbed a spot just in front of one ear and said, “We’ll have to see. Now if you’ll just give me a number where I can reach you…”
“Oh, yes, of course.”
He plucked an ink pen from the counter and turned over a brochure touting a certain computer package. She recited all ten digits of her home phone number, knowing that Bellows, Cartere, Dennis and Pratt took a dim view of her “bleeding-heart projects.” Darren Rudd jotted them down and wrote the name Charlene above them in bold block letters. “Actually,” she heard herself say, “nearly everyone calls me Charly.”
He hitched an eyebrow at that. “Is that a fact? Funny, you don’t look like any Charlie I’ve ever seen.” He actually winked at her then.
To her horror, she felt a blush start to rise. With her pale, golden coloring, it was impossible to hide it. “I’ll, uh, see you Thursday then.” Quickly she turned away, but then she turned back long enough to add, “Thank you. Thank you so much. And it’s Charly, with a Y.”
“Charly with a Y,” he echoed, tucking his hands beneath his folded arms and nodding.
Charly got out of there as fast as her sensible pumps could carry her without knocking something over, blaming her pounding heart on her haste. It was only after she’d made it out to the sidewalk that she began to think how this must be her lucky day, after all.
Dave would never have given her five hundred dollars! Oh, he’d have given her something, certainly more than Pratt, but five hundred? Never. She laughed as she stuffed the bills into her purse. She could kiss the feet of whoever had thought up Retail Staff Appreciation Day at RuCom Electronics. Just one thing bothered her.
Why had she told him to call her Charly? Only her family and friends called her that. Professionally, she was Charlene. Charlene was an attorney, all business. Charly was just a woman with friends and family. Charlene was a sharp, Amazonian warrior on the field of legal expertise. Charly was a much more vulnerable soul, a woman who desperately wanted a family of her own. Something told her that vulnerable was not a good thing to be when it came to dealing with Darren Rudd. He might be just some exec who’d worked his way up to the home office via outstanding performance in the retail end of the business at this point, but he was the sort of decisive, bulls-by-the-horn type. If she wasn’t careful, he’d steamroll her, and this would be his and RuCom’s team rather than hers and the kids’.
If she wasn’t careful, she’d take his flirtatiousness seriously, and that could only lead to trouble. Maybe he would call her Charly, but when it came to Darren Rudd, she was going to have to be Charlene.
Darren snapped his fingers, hovering over the open cash drawer where he’d just put in some bills. “Come on, come on. I only had three hundred on me. You’ll get it back, I promise.”
“It’s not the money,” Stevens said, passing Darren two hundred in cash. “I just can’t believe you, of all people, have expressively gone against company policy, policy you dictated, I might add. I knew nothing good could come of this retail staff appreciation program.”
Darren slid the bills into the cash register and closed the drawer, chuckling. “I’ll be honest with you, Stevens, having corporate staff substitute for retail associates is more about giving you stuffed shirts in your ivory tower a taste of the real business than letting the sales staff off for the day, though they do deserve it since they’re the real money-makers.”
Stevens made a face. “Point taken. But I don’t see what that has to do with sponsoring a soccer team against company policy.”
“It hasn’t a thing to do with it,” Darren admitted. “I just wanted to get to know the lady.”
Stevens rolled his eyes. “Five hundred dollars to get to know a woman, when you’ve got a whole string of them dangling after you?”
“It’s my five hundred bucks,” Darren said with a shrug.
“What about the company policy?”
“My company, my policy.”
“And how long do you suppose it’ll be before she figures out you’re D. K. Rudell instead of simple Darren Rudd?”
Darren grinned. “Long enough, I hope.”
Stevens shook his distinguished gray head. “I do not understand you, sir. I have never understood you. I don’t think I ever will.”
Darren laughed and clapped his vice-president of operations on the shoulder. “Stevens, weren’t you ever young and single?”
“Of course.”
“Well?”
“Well what?”
“Didn’t you ever run the race just for the joy of the chase?”
“I couldn’t afford such indulgences,” Stevens intoned dolefully.
Darren shook his head in pity, then grinned unrepentantly and crowed, “Well, I can, and I have a closetful of track shoes to prove it.”
“And the notches on your bedpost, no doubt,” Stevens muttered.
Darren tapped his temple with a forefinger. “The only record I need is right up here.”
“Let us hope you keep it there,” Stevens said with a sniff. In another life, Darren mused, Stevens had undoubtedly been an English butler. No one else could be that starchy. Still, he was a genius at corporate management. Thanks to him and his team, RuCom ran like a well-oiled machine. His only real fault was in his attitude toward the sales staff, whom Stevens and most of the other executives in the corporate office considered beneath them, when in reality they were the lifeblood of the company. Darren had instituted a yearly Retail Staff Appreciation Day as a means of giving his corporate staff a taste of real retailing, and being one who believed in leading by example, at least in his business life, he had gladly taken a turn behind the counter.
In truth, he’d thought it would be just like the old days when he’d been struggling to find his niche in a marketplace dominated by giants, but it wasn’t. Too much water had gone under the bridge since he’d opened his first shop in Lubbock, fresh out of college at Texas Tech. The water had rushed under that bridge, actually, sweeping him along with it, and now he was the biggest boy in the business. Sometimes he missed the old days—but not for long. He made a mental note to ditch the Porsche and go with the Caddy when he met Charly on Thursday.
Charly. Odd nickname for a woman, especially one that looked like her, not that she was drop-dead gorgeous or anything. Now that he thought about it, she wasn’t his usual type at all. He tended to gravitate toward the heavily, usually surgically, endowed sort. He liked long hair, blond preferably, blue eyes and stunning figures, stiletto heels and red lipstick. What was it about redheaded, shapely but unremarkable Charly that revved his engines so? It certainly wasn’t the way she dressed! He’d had Sunday school teachers who dressed with more pizzazz.
Funny, he hadn’t thought about that at the time. Now that he did, he was pretty sure she hadn’t been wearing any makeup. Her squarish face was pretty, yes, in a wholesome fashion, her mouth pleasingly plump and dusky rose, nose short and, well, neither wide nor narrow, blunt nor pointed. Her brows were straight, short dashes of red-brown above round eyes that were definitely her best feature. An odd golden color mottled with specks of green and blue, they were rimmed with thick lashes much brighter and lighter than her brows. He’d had the strange sensation of waking up to find those eyes gazing at him from the next pillow, their red-gold lashes sparkling with morning light. He wondered what she’d be like in bed.
He always wondered what they’d be like in bed. That’s what kept him moving on, what made him one of the hottest top ten bachelors in the nation, according to the press, that and the millions he had stashed away. He didn’t fool himself that his appeal to the opposite sex was strictly personal, and while he was definitely not above taking advantage of the appeal of his millions, it secretly rankled, just a bit, that his luck with women had improved so phenomenally once his business had taken off. Maybe Charly was his chance to put that old hang-up to rest. Maybe that was why he’d invented a new identity for himself on the spur of the moment.
Something had told him that Charlene Michman Bellamy would run from D. K. Rudell. So he’d be Darren Rudd and let her run to him instead. It would be a new experience, and new experience, after all, was the name of the game, wasn’t it? Same old same old got boring all too quickly, especially these days. Yeah, it was worth five hundred bucks and more just to see if plain Darren Rudd could pull it off.
Stevens had worried that she might be running a scam, that she might not be who she said she was or soliciting funds for anything other than her own use, but Darren didn’t believe it for a minute. She was much too genuine, this Charly. She might be, in fact, the most genuine article he’d ever come across. He shook his head, wondering why that mattered, why it intrigued. But in the end, he didn’t really care: the game was in play, and, as always, he intended to win.
Chapter Two
She was waiting in the parking garage, ostensibly adjusting the strap of a sandal with a four-inch-high heel, her firm rump all but exposed by the minuscule skirt of her spandex slip dress, when he slid the silver sport car into its assigned space. As he got out of the car, she straightened and feigned surprise, one long-nailed hand flying up to her chest and calling attention to the abundant cleavage exposed by the two tiny triangles which comprised the bodice of the so-called dress. Frowning, she adopted a petulant air, rippling her leonine mane with a practiced toss of her head.
“I’m glad I ran into you like this, D.K. I’ve been wanting to talk to you about yesterday.”
He activated the antitheft device on the car by depressing a button in the tiny remote attached to his key chain and said drolly, “So you’ve decided to apologize for stepping out of line—way, way out of line—and making that scene yesterday.”
She folded her arms beneath her ample breasts and threw out a hip, red mouth pursed in an effort to appear either hurt or repentant and managing neither, despite great inducement. Tawny Beekman had been living rent-free in a luxurious apartment two floors below the penthouse that Darren Keith Rudell called home. He’d offered it to her as a means of helping her straighten out her abysmal finances, since he owned the building, the apartment had been empty and she’d been evicted by her roommate. The couple of months’ reprieve he’d initially offered had stretched to nearly a year, with Tawny tearfully declaring over and over again that she couldn’t afford a decent apartment since she’d given up “dancing” for a living. She was supposedly supporting herself as a waitress, but he had his doubts. During that year she had done her best to renew their brief affair, though he had deliberately ended their very casual sexual relationship even before she’d moved into the building.
D. K. Rudell knew better than to let his casual affairs come too close. He never made passes at the women who lived in his building or worked in his employ. He never played around with married women or the family members of his friends or business acquaintances. He made certain that no woman ever spent an entire night in his bed, and he never, but never, gave any woman, save the cleaning lady and his sister, Jill, the code to his private elevator and a key to his penthouse, not even their flighty mother DeeDee.
Jill had rarely used the access he’d given her, but yesterday had been an exception. She’d been waiting for him when he’d gotten home from work, anxious to speak to him about their mother’s latest folly, an investment scheme in a diamond mine located in, of all places, Missouri. Tawny had seen Jill accessing his elevator and assumed that she was a girlfriend. She’d ambushed him then just as she had today, complaining bitterly that he’d lied to her about not giving out his key to his lovers. She’d wept and exclaimed that she could satisfy his sexual needs far better than that “frumpy brunette.” When he’d explained, through gritted teeth, that the woman in question was his sister, for pity’s sake, Tawny had accused him of leading her on and breaking her heart. He’d left her screaming that he owed her, so he wasn’t too surprised to see her here again today.
“Oh, baby,” she cooed, gliding up to him, “I’m so sorry. How was I to know she was your sister?”
“You weren’t,” he said flatly, “because it isn’t any of your business.”
“I know, I know, but I can’t help myself,” she pouted, sliding a hand lightly over his chest. “You know I’m crazy about you, D.K. You’ve ruined me for every other man. I’ve missed our good times so much.”
“But not enough to move out, I’ve noticed,” Darren retorted dryly.
Anger flashed in Tawny’s artificially green eyes but was quickly replaced by woe. “I thought you wanted me near you.”
Darren lightly placed his hand on her shoulder and pushed her away, saying, “You thought wrong.” He dropped his hand and stepped back several steps, adding, “I tried to help out, but you knew the ground rules from the beginning. I’ve been more than generous. Now it’s time for you to go.”
The spigot immediately turned on. “Oh, D.K.!” she warbled, sniffing and blinking her false eyelashes. “How could you?”
He was immune by this time and just shook his head. “End of the month, Tawny. You ought to have a tidy little nest egg put aside by now. It’s nearly four weeks, so you have plenty of time, but I’ll even help you locate a new place if you want. Hell, I’ll help you move, if that’s what it takes, but one way or another you’re out of here by the end of the month. Understand?”
She was sobbing openly now, her lovely shoulders shaking pitifully, her face buried in her hands. “How can you do this to me? I burn for you. You’ll never know how desperately I want you to—”
“Yeah, yeah,” he interrupted. “The thing is, see, I’ve moved on, a long time ago. It’s past time for you to do the same thing.”
“But I only want you,” she insisted petulantly, reaching out for him.
