CHAPTER ONE
“CAN I SMELL YOU?”
Kayla Hill’s fingers struck the wrong keys on her computer. Surely she hadn’t heard her boss correctly—her very serious, very handsome boss. “Excuse me. What did you say?”
Angelo Amatucci’s tanned face creased with lines as though he were deep in thought. “Are you wearing perfume?”
“Uh...yes, I am.”
“Good. That will be helpful. May I have a smell?”
Helpful? With what? She gave up on answering an email and turned her full attention to her boss, who moved to stand next to her. What in the world had prompted him to ask such a question? Was her perfume bothering him? She sure hoped not. She wore it all the time. If he didn’t like it or was allergic to it, she thought he’d have mentioned it before now.
Kayla craned her neck, allowing her gaze to travel up over his fit body, all six-foot-plus of muscle, until she met his inquisitive eyes. “I’m sorry but I...I don’t understand.”
“I just finished speaking with Victoria Van Holsen, owner of Moonshadows Cosmetics. She has decided that her latest fragrance campaign, even though she painstakingly approved it each step of the way, just won’t do.”
“She doesn’t want it?” Kayla failed to keep the astonishment out of her voice.
A muscle in his jaw twitched. “She insists we present her with a totally new proposal.”
“But this is a Christmas campaign. Everything should be finalized, considering it’s already March.” Then, realizing that she was speaking to a man with far more experience, she pressed her lips together, silencing her rambling thoughts.
“Now that information about her competitor’s upcoming holiday campaign has been leaked, she wants something more noteworthy—something that will go viral.”
“I thought the campaign was unique. I really like it.” Kayla truly meant it. She wasn’t trying to butter up her boss—that was just an unexpected bonus.
“The fact of the matter is, Victoria Van Holsen is a household name and one of our most important clients. Our duty is to keep her happy.”
It was the company’s motto—the client’s needs come first. No matter what. And if Kayla was ever going to rise up the chain from her temporary detour as the personal assistant to the CEO of Amatucci & Associates Advertising to her dream job as an ad executive on Madison Avenue, she could never forget that the clients were always right. I
t didn’t matter how unreasonable or outrageous their requests might be at times, keeping them happy was of the utmost importance.
“How can I help?”
“Stand up.”
His face was devoid of emotion, giving no hint of his thoughts.
She did as he asked. Her heart fluttered as he circled her. When he stopped behind her and leaned in close, an army of goose bumps rose on her skin. Her eyes drifted closed as a gentle sigh slipped across her lips. Angelo Amatucci truly did want an up close and personal whiff of her perfume.
He didn’t so much as touch a single hair on her, but she could sense him near her neck. Her pulse raced. If this most unusual request had come from anyone else, she’d swear they were hitting on her. But as Mr. Amatucci stepped to the front of her, his indifferent expression hadn’t changed. Her frantic heart rate dipped back to normal.
There had never been any attempt on his part to flirt with her. Though his actions at times could be quite unpredictable, they were always ingenuous. She deduced that his sudden curiosity about her perfume had something to do with the Van Holsen account. But what could he be thinking? Because there was no way she was wearing a Moonshadows fragrance. One ounce of the stuff would set her back an entire paycheck.