Page 308 of Under Her Skin

I think it’s time to force him to see me. Maybe if he does, it will stir some kind of want in him again. I make the call and find his secretary answering his phone. “Hello, Miss Richards. Mr. Vanderbilt is in a video conference. Can he call youlater?”

“Can you tell me what time he’ll be done with that and if he has anything else scheduled afterthat?”

“These things usually last about an hour. He has something at four, but he’ll be free here in the next thirty minutes for a couple of hours. You should come by and see him. I think that would help him,” she says in a hushed voice. “He’s prettyGrinchy.”

“Grinchy, huh? Well, we cannot have that. I will come see him. I’ll be there soon. Thank you. I believe he told me your name is Blanch,right?”

“Yes, Miss Richards, I’m Blanch. I went to school with his mother. She was one of my best friends. And I saw a light in the man when he was hanging around with you and those kids at the hospital—a light I hadn’t seen since he was a kid, before she passed away. He’s lost it again, and I hate that. I love the man. I wish I could do more to help him, but he never lets me get veryclose.”

“I see. Thanks for telling me. I’ll show up with lunch. He and I can have an office picnic and perhaps I can rekindle that light that’s left him,” I say and end thecall.

Now to find someone to cover for me for the next little while so I can go find out if there’s anything left of the Blaine I found myself fallingfor.

BLAINE

“Why would you make a deal with that crappy company, Blaine?” my brother asks me after I end the video conference meeting we had with a toy company fromTaiwan.

“The items were dirt cheap, Kent. How do you not understand that? The toys can be here on our shelves within one week. We need something filling up the toy shelves. With Christmas fast approaching, the toys are flying off the shelves. Manufacturers know there’s a high demand and most of them are making their prices higher than normal. This is always how I do business at this time ofyear.”

“But I thought we were going to look for better products for our customers. Those toys will all be broken the same day they open them. Think about the poor kids who get these cheap things,” Kent says as we get up to leave the video conferenceroom.

Kate finds us in the hallway. “Hey, Blaine, we need to talk.” She steps in next to Kent and walks with us down the long hallway. “You haven’t signed off on the new return policy. I have everything together to start the training of the customer service staff. I have even made a video that can be shown to them so I don’t have to go from store tostore.”

“About that,” I say as I recall the document she gave me. “You have our policy so very different. You have in there that we will exchange things and accept all returns without any exceptions. Now, how are we going to make money when we take back broken things the manufacturers will not accept back from us for credit with them? You’re not looking at the big picture. Only the manufacturers who accept returns are the ones we can do thatwith.”

“You don’t use ones who accept that,” Kate says as we stop at my office door. Her hands go to her hips and she looks at me like I’m the one who’sannoying.

“You need to go to the files and pull the companies we do business with. If you find one that takes returns for credit, you can accept returns on their merchandise. You’ll have to make a whole new return policy. Sorry. It’s just business,Kate.”

“But I thought we were going to try to make this store better,” Kent says as he also is looking annoyed atme.

“Well, we are. But you two have to understand what it is my stores do for people. They provide the cheapest versions of things they want or need. When you pay the cheapest price, you cannot expect top quality. If they want that, they need to shop elsewhere. It’s not so hard to understand,” I say as I put my hand on the doorknob.

“But you ran the places of business where they could get quality products out of their towns. What do you expect them to do?” Kent asksme.

“Not my problem,” I say as I shake my head. “Are you telling me these people don’t have a way to get to a large city to make higher quality purchases? Because that’s also not myproblem.”

“You know what your problem is, Blaine?” Kate asks as she looks at me with eyes that tell me she’s disappointed in me for some reason. “You don’t really think about otherpeople.”

“I do think about them. I think about them a lot more than I used to. And you know what I found out? I can’t really do anything to help any of them. So why try? I’ve found out a way to make money. Lots of money. Money that’s paying you both more than you could ever make on your own. So let that sinkin.”

Then I open the door to my office and find a half-naked elf lying on top of mydesk.

Chapter2

DELANEY

“Finally!” I say as the door opens and Blaine stepsinside.

“Delaney, what in the world are you doing?” he asks as surprise moves over his face—a face that had been void of any emotion when I first saw it as he camein.

I sit up, getting out of the sexy position on my side, as he comes to me. “I came to see you. I missed you. Don’t you miss me atall?”

“Now that I see you, the answer to that is yes.” His hands move over my shoulders as he looks into my eyes. “I have missed you very much, and now I’m trying to figure out why the hell I’ve been putting youoff.”

“Because I would get in the way of you being Grinchy,” I tell him as I wrap my arms around him. “I love the business suit on you. Now you really look like a billionaire. So hot!” I press my lips to his neck and hear him make a little moaningsound.

“Delaney, my God, I’ve missed how you feel in my arms. Don’t let me go this long without being with you again,” he says, then his lips graze my neck as he moves them tomine.