Without so much as acknowledging Jack, Howie or Larry, he moved to greet her. “Hello. I’m Allen Walter. I’ve long been an admirer of yours from afar, Ms. Ferrer, but I must say that you are even more exquisite in person.”

“Mary, please,” she said as she let him draw her into the room and introduce her to the other members of the board.

Jack guessed she must have played this role dozens of times in her career, meeting strangers and making them feel as if they were already friends.

Once the introductions were made, Allen said, “I’d love to know to what we owe this pleasure?”

Mary took a seat beside Jack and nodded for him to deliver their news to the chairman. “Mary has agreed to be the face of the Pocket Planner.”

After three decades of running his large and powerful company, Jack doubted there was much that surprised Allen anymore. This news, however, clearly had. Despite being quite obviously impressed that Jack and his partners had managed to pull Mary into the project, he approached the situation as any good chairman of the board would: with questions.

“You have been associated with some of the most exclusive products in the world. May I ask why you would agree to work with a group of fledgling start-up engineers?”

Larry was yanking at his tie as if it had just shrunk three sizes too small and Howie was sweating. Clearly, they were waiting for Jack to jump in and salvage the situation before it could go too far off track. But Jack simply sat back in his leather seat. He had every faith that Mary could answer the chairman’s question better than anyone else could.

“I met Jack yesterday in Union Square. I believe it was right after your meeting, when you indicated that the product needed more sex appeal.”

Though his partners’ eyes went wide at her honest response, Jack appreciated her candid reply. She was nobody’s fool, and she didn’t expect anyone to be hers, even when he himself had tried to change the words sex appeal to mass appeal.

Mary smiled at each of the powerful businessmen in the room, not in the least intimidated. Even as a brand-new teenage model so many years ago, he guessed she must have been a force to be reckoned with, her strong will just as potent as her gorgeous face.

“I appreciate the advertising power of sensuality,” she said in a voice as smooth as Glenlivet whisky, “but sensuality is nothing without the smarts to know what to do with it. The Pocket Planner is a brilliant invention. More than that, it’s actually useful. I can literally think of a dozen men and women I could give it to as a Christmas gift this year. And I can guarantee they’d all love it simply because it would make their lives easier.”

That was when Allen actually clapped his hands in glee, a sixty-something man who Jack thought might have just fallen head over heels in love with the beautiful woman sitting before him.

But when the man at his left leaned over to whisper something into his ear, Allen frowned. “There’s no question that you’re perfect for the job, Mary. However, there may be one small problem. At this point in the fiscal year, our budget is rather low, and I’m sure your fee is, justifiably, extraordinarily high.”

Jack had already decided on a solution to this issue. “I’ll split my royalty share with Mary.”

Everyone turned to him with a shocked expression, including Mary. “Jack,” she said as she put her hand on his arm, “you don’t have to do this.”

“And you don’t have to, either,” he said softly, “but you’re here.”

“In that case,” Allen said before anyone could change their minds, “I believe we have ourselves a deal.”

The four of them shook hands with the board, and while Mary was chatting with one of the other men, Allen pulled Jack aside. “I don’t know how you pulled this off. Mary Ferrer is one in a million. People will be tripping over themselves to find out why she’s so excited about your invention.”

Jack liked and respected Allen. It was one of the main reasons he’d wanted to work with the man and his company. But he had no intention of using Mary as if she was a product to be sold.

“We’re very lucky that Mary has agreed to work with us,” Jack said in a measured voice. “Very lucky,” he repeated, before adding, “I expect everyone to treat her with the utmost respect at all times, all the way down the chain of command. And if someone should forget to do so and she feels she must leave the campaign as a result, it will be our fault. Not hers.”

Allen’s eyes narrowed at the clear warning, but Jack didn’t care how many millions the man was worth. The two men stared at each other in silence for several moments before Allen finally nodded. “Agreed.” He glanced at her again. “She is most definitely one in a million.”

Chapter Five

“It’s time to celebrate!”

Howie had used the receptionist’s phone to call his girlfriend, Layla with the good news. She left work early to meet them at the Gold Dust Lounge in Union Square.

After they got off the trolley, Jack and Mary walked down the sidewalk behind his partners. He was strong and steady at her side, just as he’d been in the boardroom.

The sharp winds from the previous day had blown out of the city, leaving behind bright blue skies and a surprisingly warm sun. It was one of the things Mary liked best about San Francisco—the weather could be so topsy-turvy, with cool, foggy summers and warm, sunny winters. And, now, Mary felt just as topsy-turvy over what Jack had said to her just before they’d gone into the meeting.

If it’s a choice between selling a million Pocket Planners and getting the chance to be with you, I’ll figure out some other way to get this product off the ground.

When was the last time a man had put her first?

She honestly couldn’t remember.

Though she was a naturally positive person, Mary had seen enough over the past thirteen years as an in-demand model to develop a necessary cynicism. As much as she would have liked to take everything people said and did at face value, she made herself ask the difficult question: Had Jack simply been trying to make her feel good by telling her what he thought she wanted to hear?

Or was she right to feel that every word he’d spoken had rung with sincerity?

She couldn’t forget the shocking offer he’d made in the boardroom to give her half his royalty share. It was completely crazy, and she could never take him up on it. He’d worked on his invention for ten years, whereas she would only be promoting it for a short while. But, still, the gesture said a lot about him as a man.

At quitting time on a Friday night, the popular piano bar was just coming to life. Some things, Mary mused, were the same all over the world. The bars in her hometown in Italy would be full of friends and family members greeting each other with kisses on the cheek and sighs of relief that they had a weekend of relaxation ahead of them. The only difference was that the men in her hometown would be coming from ancient palazzos wearing work clothes rather than from high-rise buildings wearing three-piece suits. And the women would be nursing a glass of wine while keeping one eye on their children playing tag out by the fountain rather than sipping cosmopolitans before deciding where to go dancing for the evening.

A sudden pang of homesickness for all that she’d left behind twisted inside her as she thought about the old friends she hadn’t seen in over a decade.

“Mary?” Jack’s eyes were concerned. “Is everything all right?”

She forced her lips up into a smile. “Of course it is. We’re here to celebrate, after all.”

Before he could probe further, she followed his partners into the bar and slid onto an open stool. Howie’s girlfriend Layla came in, then, and after several minutes of nonstop gushing about how excited she was to meet a world-famous model, Mary was extremely grateful when Larry appeared with a bottle of champagne.

“To the fabulous, amazing, lifesaving woman who saved our business singlehandedly!”

Mary laughed at his obvious hyperbole and held her glass up even higher. “To the three fabulous, amazing men who invented the Pocket Planner!”

The five of them clinked glasses and toasted to the hopes of continued success. Mary had always enjoyed champagne, but with Jack beside her, all of her senses were on especially high alert. The bubbles felt crisper, the wine sweeter, the effect of the fizzy liquor headier.

When she noticed that Larry had pulled out a pen and was making notes on a napkin, Jack leaned over and said, “His brain rarely shuts off. Even,” Jack said pointedly, “when we're here to celebrate rather than work.”

“That’s one of the things I like about the three of you. You’re all so committed to what you’re doing. So passionate about it. And,” she said as she looked at how comfortable they were with each other after so many years of working closely together, “you seem more like brothers than business partners.”

Larry held up the list he’d made. “These are our highest level action items.” He pointed to the first one with the tip of his pen. “Do you think you’ll be able to get that great photographer you worked with in Union Square to work on this campaign with us?”

“I hope so. I’m sure Gerry will be as excited about it as I am, and even if he’s busy, I’ll do my best to convince him to squeeze us in.”

Continuing to ignore the warning looks Jack was shooting him across the table, Larry said, “If we’re going to get the word out by Christmas, we need to shoot the first ad by Monday, so—”

“Don’t worry,” she promised him, “I’ll make sure we either have Gerry or another top photographer scheduled by Monday morning.” With Jack so near her like this, Mary decided it would be a very good idea to keep herself wholly focused on business rather than how good he smelled, or how deep and dark brown his eyes were. “In fact, while we’re here, why don’t we do some brainstorming about how you’d like to set up the ads?”

For the next thirty minutes, she had a great time throwing out ideas from what she’d learned in her shoots over the past decade, most of which were very well received by Jack and his partners.

“I honestly don’t know what we would have done without you,” Howie said, when they’d put together a fairly comprehensive starting plan. “You’re not just a model who’s going to make our device look a heck of a lot prettier—you’re like a whole ad agency wrapped into one person.”

Jack nodded his agreement. “Walter Industries has connected us with a couple of ad agencies during the past year, but nothing they came up with was anywhere near as fresh as this.”

“We’ve got some brilliant ideas here,” Larry murmured almost to himself as he made a few additional notes on his stack of napkins before shoving them into the front pocket of his jacket.

So many times during her career, Mary had been treated as if she couldn’t possibly have anything between her pretty ears. And, since she’d started modeling in her late teens, she’d never had time to get any degrees to prove that she did, indeed, have brains. Clearly, these three men with their Ph.D.’s from Stanford University were geniuses. For them to call her ideas brilliant meant a great deal to Mary.

“Look,” Layla suddenly said as she pointed up to the ceiling above Mary and Jack, “the two of you are sitting under the mistletoe.”

Mary looked up and confirmed that there was a fresh green sprig of mistletoe hanging directly over her and Jack. After a quick scan of the rest of the room, she realized it was the only one in the entire bar.

What were the odds that she and Jack would end up sitting under it?

Larry, Howie and Layla were already happily making their way through a second bottle of champagne. Clearly, the bubbly had gone to their heads, because when Layla said, “I’ve heard it’s bad luck not to kiss under the mistletoe,” in an earnest voice, Jack’s two partners nodded their heads, eyes bright from success and the drink.