Scandalizing the CEO

Freddie had accompanied her, since he was her right-hand man. They had always worked together as a team, and even though she was the boss that relationship—the closeness of it—had remained.

He kept odd hours, though, and she doubted he’d be awake now. So she called room service and ordered a pot of coffee and fiber cereal and fruit for breakfast. She wanted to order the New York cheesecake with strawberry sauce and in the old days she would have, but she forced out the word muesli and hung up before she could give in and order something fattening.

It was silly, but she was constantly battling with food. She had talked to her leader about it when she’d been on Weight Watchers full time and Marianne had suggested that she used food to cope with life.

Ainsley knew that was true. She’d been overweight most of her life and then at college, when she’d been on her own, she’d found comfort in doughnuts and carbs. Before she knew it, she was obese. That had helped with her studies. Had made it so much easier to focus on her education because most men weren’t in the least bit interested in her.

It had been almost three months since she’d been tempted by a sweet like the cheesecake. And she knew that it was because of Steven.

He was making her feel unsure of herself, and she had always combated those feelings with food. It didn’t help matters that she knew if she were fat he probably wouldn’t have even noticed her. Ugh, this was making her crazy—he was making her crazy.

When she closed her eyes, she could still see his face as he’d kissed her. And she wanted to be a girl worthy of his attention. She wanted him not to be disappointed in her. But she was afraid that wouldn’t be the case.

She had lost all her weight by dieting, not by exercising. So even though she was slim now, she still had parts that weren’t as fit and toned as those of someone who hit the gym every day, twice a day.

What if he saw her naked and changed his mind about her? What if…

She’d never been this wishy-washy. Any other man she would just walk away from. But this was Steven. The man she’d always wanted.

She wasn’t going to let her doubts feed her food obsession. She wasn’t going to let her doubts overwhelm her or let her miss the opportunity to be with him. She wasn’t going to let her doubts control her. If she’d done that, she’d still be sitting in her apartment in Chicago having never left school.

She opened her e-mail to find the very first one was from Steven. She read it and felt herself flush. She needed to be much more confident if she was going to be with him. But she had no idea how to do that. She couldn’t change the fears she’d always had of her body that easily.

She walked away from her computer and stood in front of the mirror. She stared at her features. Her face was so different now that she scarcely recognized herself sometimes: her cheekbones thin and prominent, her mouth still full and pouty. The biggest change had been her figure.

No it wasn’t, she reminded herself. The biggest change had come at work. She remembered when she’d been called to Maurice Sheffield’s office. The owner of the Sheffield Group had taken thirty minutes out of his day to congratulate her on running the British Fashion Quarterly and bringing up revenue at the magazine. No one got thirty minutes with Maurice, her boss and the publisher and CEO of the consortium.

She looked at the slim woman in the reflection and wondered where she’d come from and prayed in the same breath that she’d never leave. In her heart she knew that her weight had nothing to do with her success. She’d changed on the inside and she just wished she’d stop seeing the old Ainsley when she looked in the mirror.

She shook her head. She needed to believe in herself as a person the way she believed in herself as a professional. She was capable of winning Steven’s affection…was that what she wanted?

Her assistant, Cathy, had sent a note to Tiffany Malone, Lynn Grandings and Princess Louisa to see if they’d consider being interviewed. Maurice loved the idea of a retrospective fashion piece on these women, and Ainsley wasn’t about to disappoint her boss.

Freddie had suggested letting Danielle do the interviews, but Ainsley wasn’t about to risk giving it to someone she had placed on probation. Instead, she had assigned the story to Bert Michaels. He’d interviewed Prince Harry last year for a Mother’s Day piece they’d run about how mothers influence fashion—his mother had set a standard many other women were still trying to live up to.

And she had an appointment with Malcolm’s attorney to talk about interviewing him. Malcolm Devonshire was one of the most famous personalities of their time. He was legendary not just for his affairs but also for his zest for life. As much as he lived big, he’d been very private about his personal life. Only the tabloids had ever run stories about him.