The Sexiest Man Alive (The Romanos 1)

“Pretending? How could a woman not have a good time, out on a dinner date with that gorgeous hunk?”

“He did not take me on a date. He accompanied me on assignments for the magazine. And I don’t really see why you’d call him a gorgeous hunk.”

“Wrong adjective? Sorry. A studly hunk.” Claire had grinned “Come on, Suze, you can’t deny that just thinking about the guy is a turn-on.”

“For you, maybe,” Susannah had said, with a smile that said she was above such foolishness. “I don’t think of him at all.”

It was, of course, a lie.

“Suze?”

Susannah blinked and sat up straight Everybody was looking at her, their expressions expectant.

“Suze? You agree that it sounds good?”

People were smiling and nodding. Well, what the heck. Susannah smiled and nodded, too. Then she picked up her pencil, pulled a notepad toward her and made what she hoped were convincing doodles on the page.

She did think about Matthew. A lot. And the more she did, the more angry she became.

All that stuff about staying in New York to oversee the magazine had been nonsense. He’d never given a damn about CHIC. Why would he? Its failure would be a dent in the Romano empire. Its success would be a barely noticeable blip.

The truth was that he’d stayed so he could set things up for what she thought of now as the Big Seduction Scene.

And wasn’t it just too bad she’d spoiled it? First she’d told him something about herself, when anyone could see that he was not a man interested in exchanging cozy confidences with whatever woman he’d set his sights on. She’d sensed that from the first day she saw him on Cape Cod with a blonde. What he wanted was sex, the same as all CHIC’s readers, busily plunking down their two ninety-eight for the current issue. Not that there was anything wrong with wanting sex. It was just that her interests were elsewhere. She didn’t need them diverted from the one meaningful goal…

Success.

Susannah sighed and worked the tip of the pencil across the page.

No, she certainly hadn’t wanted any involvement with Matthew. Still, it was a good thing for her pride that she’d let him think there was already a man in her life and in her bed. A man named Peter.

Peter… Katz.

Susannah’s lips twitched. How come she’d never thought of it before? Peter Katz, her companion in bed. Peter Katz, sitting across from her at the kitchen table, wearing a tux.

She laughed, and Claire let out a shriek that almost started Susannah out of her skin.

“You like it,” Claire said. “Oh, wow, Suze, you like it!”

“What?” Susannah asked, staring at the smiling faces around the table while her heartbeat fell back toward normal.

Claire looked at everybody one by one. “Be honest, guys. Didn’t you all think we were going to have to push this one on our fearless leader?”

Heads nodded in eager agreement. Susannah felt a tingle of alarm. What were they all excited about? What had she just implied she was excited about, too?

“I wasn’t sure how you’d react, you know, Suze? After all, it’s a little bit—”

“Crazy,” Amy said, and giggled.

“Right,” Claire said, “crazy, and probably expensive as heck—well, not when you realize all the incredible benefits.”

Susannah looked around. Head bobbing seemed to have become the action of the hour.

“And the time problem,” Marcy chirped. “The logistics thing. All taken care of, right?”

“Well,” Susannah said, “well…”

“Nobody’s ever done this before,” Amy said. “You agree, Suze?”

Claire laughed as she looked at Susannah’s face. “She’s having second thoughts. You are, aren’t you, Suze?”

“No. I mean, well, maybe. I mean…”

“I know. You’re worried the Romanos won’t approve.”

“The Romanos,” Susannah said, feeling like the only person at a party who didn’t know the secret sign “Yes, well—”

“Joe will go for it. It’s a bundle of money, but he’ll see that it’s going to be well spent.” Claire frowned. “Will he have to get Matthew’s approval, do you think?”

Susannah cleared her throat. “I don’t—actually, I don’t think we—”

“That’s true. If he needs Matthew’s approval, it’s Joe’s problem, not ours. Although I can’t imagine Matthew would give us the thumbs-down, either. How will you pitch it, Suze?”

Everyone looked at Susannah, who cleared her throat again.

“Tell you what, Claire. Since it’s, ah, your plan, and you know the details better than any of us, why don’t you try pitching it to me?”

Claire wrinkled her brow. “I just did.”

“Oh, of course you did.” Susannah laughed so gaily that she could almost see the Ha, ha, ha’s spilling from her lips. “What I meant was, why don’t you try pitching it as if you were me pitching it to Joe Romano? It would be a huge help.”

Claire nodded, shut her eyes, took a deep breath, then looked at Susannah “Mr. Romano,” she said.

Everyone smiled.

“Mr. Romano, here’s what we want to do.” Claire pushed back her chair and got to her feet. “We’ve had enormous success with the current CHIC issue, and it’s vital we stay on a roll.” She stepped behind her chair, curled her hands around its top rung and looked seriously at Susannah. “This is our proposal, sir. We’ve narrowed our choice of sexiest getaways to one.”

Susannah blinked “We have?”

“Yes,” Claire said impatiently, “remember? That’s part of the plan. Eliminate that hotel in the Pocono Mountains, the lodge on Lake Michigan, the island in Seattle. They’re all great, but they can’t compare to Paris.”

“Paris?” Susannah asked, sitting bolt upright. “As in Paris, France? I didn’t even know we had a Paris contender.”

“We didn’t. I mean, we did. I mean, when you first told us about the sexiest getaway, you mentioned a weekend in Paris for a prize.”

“Yes, but I still don’t remember anybody nominating a place in—”

“It

was Amy’s idea.”

Amy smiled modestly. “Jimmy and I went there on our honeymoon.” She blushed. “We had a suite in this hotel—”

“We send you to that hotel, Suze,” Claire said, while Amy sat back and sighed. “Along with a photographer, a makeup guy, a stylist…the works.”

“Me?” Susannah’s voice squeaked. “What for?”

“So we can photograph you,” Claire said. “Honestly, Suze, weren’t you paying attention?”

“I, ah, I must have misunderstood. Claire, this is silly. Photograph me? Why would our readers want to see—”

“Because,” Claire said, as if she were explaining things to a somewhat backward five-year-old, “because, Suze, you are their personalized connection to CHIC, and to the life-style CHIC stands for, remember? That was your idea.”

“Yes. Well, sure, but—”

“Well, what could be more personal, more romantic, more sexy, than Susannah Madison in Paris?”

“You’re kidding.

“Susannah,” half a dozen voices said, all of them fraught with exasperation.

“Susannah,” Claire said, shaking her head, “you haven’t been listening. Didn’t I say this was an incredible idea? That it would save time? That it would make history?”

“Claire, you haven’t been listening. There’s nothing time-saving about photographing me in a Paris hotel, and the only thing incredible about it would be all our readers, shaking their heads and saying, well, there she is, a woman spending a weekend all by herself in the world’s most romantic—”

“The world’s sexiest—”

“The world’s sexiest city,” Susannah said, nodding at the Greek chorus that corrected her. She sat back, folded her arms and looked at Claire. “Right?”

Claire folded her arms and looked back. “Not all by herself,” she said smugly. “You’ll be in that suite with four, count ’em, four gorgeous studs.”

Susannah blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“We send you to Paris,” Marcy said excitedly, “with our sexiest guys. They wine you. They dine you. They take you dancing. You pose in the arms of every last one. You interview them. And Jimmy gets the pictures he needs for the getaway issue and for the Valentine’s Day issue at the same time, with January leading straight into February. Ta da, we end up in the winner’s circle.”