Grace Anne - By Kathi S. Barton Page 0,3

I’m not selling my building.” She looked over at the people who seemed to have been frozen in place. “Get him out of my building and burn the shots. We won’t be able to use them. I’m sure he’ll sue just to get what he wants.”

“Now, see here. I need this—”

“I don’t give a good fuck what you need. Get out.” She turned her back to him and started toward her office. She’d been humiliated and hurt, but there was no way in hell she’d let him see it.

“This isn’t finished, Miss. Waite. I get what I want and your little design business isn’t going to stand in my way,” he shouted as Mark ushered him to the door. He continued to shout at her then there was silence.

Michael Cunningham was her worst nightmare and the sexiest man she’d ever seen, and tasted for that matter. She stepped behind the curtain to change back into her street clothes when she heard her door open.

“Go away,” she told whoever it was. “I’m not going to come out until you leave the room.”

“Good, then you can’t get away. Want to tell me why I have to burn the best pictures I’ve ever shot and the best ones to come out of this building since…well, since forever?”

She closed her eyes and wanted to scream at her friend Arnold to let it go. But she knew him well enough to know that he’d stay there until she gave in or the next issue was due. She pulled her shirt over her head and stepped out. He was sitting on the small loveseat. She glared at him as he held up his camera.

“They can’t possibly be the best pictures you’ve ever taken. You’re much too professional to use what could only amount to pornography pictures taken in less than five minutes.” She sat at her desk and pulled the first thing she could reach to her. Unfortunately, it was the front cover mockup of the catalogue they were shooting.

“It was twenty minutes and they aren’t porn. They are going to sell you more underwear than anything else you come up with. Christ, the room was practically on fire with you two. I’ve never seen you react that way…” He stopped talking when she glared.

“Forget it. He’ll never let us use them no matter how good they are, and—”

He cut her off when he stood up and came to her desk with his computer. “They aren’t good, Gracie, they’re magnificent. Let me show you.” She sat back and let him set up on her desk. “I thought at first I’d get some shots to tease you with. I thought the man was just too pretty and, yeah, too handsome to do anything more than sell him instead of your clothing line. Then he touched you and you…well, look. He’s looking at you like he wants to have you for Christmas dinner and then maybe a little bit into the New Year too.”

There were perhaps sixty pictures on his screen. They were too small for her to make out what they were like this, so he clicked on the first one and it blew up to full screen. She was standing in front of Cunningham and they were looking at each other like sworn enemies rather than what Arnold had said. Before she could comment, he started talking again.

“I knew there was going to be chemistry, I just didn’t know what sort. As you can see, the two of you look like kids in a play yard ready to throw down the gauntlet.” He clicked ahead a few more pictures to one where he is licking her neck. “Then he got into it. Or better yet, he got into you. Christ, look at that face. You look sexy and wanton. Like you could let him take you right then and there.”

She flushed knowing that she had wanted him to. She had wanted Michael so badly that she’d forgotten that they were in a room full of people, full of her employees, and that this man was trying to kick her out of the building she’d worked very hard to get.

“It doesn’t matter. He’s a dead end. Call the agency tomorrow and get someone else. And that guy that was supposed to be here today, never use him again and put the word out. I don’t want him fucking up another shoot.”

Arnold left her office and she sat there for several minutes thinking about what had just happened.