I shot him a look of warning. It didn’t scare him one bit. He continued—and like an ass, I couldn’t look away.
I can’t wait to see what’s underneath it.
I wanted to kill him. I also wanted to hear what he was going to do once he saw what was underneath. Luckily, my focus was forced to return to the room when I heard my name spoken.
Josh had opened a discussion on in-store product placement testing vs. focus groups and asked me to share my experience from Fresh Look. It took a minute to regain my footing, but marketing wasn’t just my job, it was a passion. Once I began talking, that passion took over. Over the next hour and a half, I did my best not to fidget when I found Chase watching me.
At one point I was putting on Chapstick—something I did a dozen times a day—and Chase was mesmerized watching me line my lips. It made between my legs tingle, and I squirmed in my seat.
When it was Chase’s turn to speak, I admired how he dominated the room with his thoughts and ideas. He was so different than my boss at Fresh Look—a typical CEO whose presence had been felt in almost a bullying kind of a way. There was no way Scott Eikman was not sitting at the head of the table during a meeting like this. My old boss would have been there with his arms folded over his chest, making everyone around him sit up straighter.
Chase’s style was understated, and he captured the room with brains and natural charisma. He caught me watching him while he spoke, and the corner of his mouth twitched up. Luckily, unlike me, he didn’t become tongue-tied when being watched so closely.
After all the questions had been answered, Elaine went in to close the deal. “I know you said your timeline was evolving, but we have two focus groups available this week, if you’d like to jump in. One is in Kansas and one here in New York City.”
Of course, she’d also spent a good deal of her presentation speaking about the importance of collecting feedback from the Midwest, in addition to both the coasts. And she just happened to have two such groups available for us to join in the next few days. I had to hand it to her, though—she gave a good sales pitch.
Josh told her we’d get back to her quickly, and the projector had not even cooled down from her presentation when the second appointment was escorted into the room. I was disappointed that Chase had said he wouldn’t be able to sit in on the second focus group presentation, but also relieved I’d have nothing to distract me.
When the meetings finally ended at six, we sat around the conference room discussing the two companies. We agreed unanimously that Elaine’s Advance Focus was the better firm to handle our focus groups. Josh looked to Lindsey and me.
“Think we can pull together the rest of the samples and presentations in time to join the groups Elaine has running this week in Kansas and here in the city?” he asked.
“We can,” Lindsey said. “It’ll be close, but we can pull it together tomorrow, I think.”
Josh nodded. “I need to be here for a photo shoot we have going on the rest of the week uptown. So which one of you is staying in New York and which is heading to Kansas?”
Lindsey looked to me, and I said, “I’ll do whatever you don’t want to do.”
“Good. Because I hate to fly. I’d rather cover the New York focus group.”
“Well, that was easy,” Josh said. “Chase may want to join you for some of the focus group here, Lindsey. Let him know when you’re confirmed with the details.”
She nodded. “Will do.”
While I was going to miss out on spending time with Chase, I knew deep down that I needed some distance between us. A few thousand miles might be the only thing that could separate us enough to let me clear my head.
Chapter 18
Reese
My flight was booked for early on Wednesday so I’d have the afternoon to set up at Advanced Focus’s Kansas City consumer research office for the first focus group session on Thursday morning. Chase had been out of the office all Tuesday afternoon, so I’d texted him that I wouldn’t be able to have dinner. He had responded with one word. Fine. He probably thought I was trying to blow him off again after I’d let things—let myself—get out of hand this weekend.
Now it was nearly six-thirty Wednesday morning, and I was getting ready to head to the airport when he finally expanded on his previous text.
Chase: I’ll take a rain check. But this time I’m collecting it.
There wasn’t time to text back. The car service was coming at six-thirty, and my elevator could sometimes take a few minutes. I zipped my suitcase closed, tossed my phone in my purse, and gave Ugly Kitty a quick pet.