Just Her Type (2 page)

“Cute Coupledom” had been fun, for a short while,
but obviously it wasn’t a sustainable model for Kendra Porter.
 
She’d met with Lizzy during the
conference, where they’d caught up and brainstormed ways to ride the
cute-couple train to another best-seller. She opened the autographed copy of
Lizzy’s book she’d snapped up to deliver to her hairstylist so why not show off
a little?

“That’s doing well,” Dominic said right on cue.
“Surprise hit. Congratulations.”

“Lizzy did most of the work of course.”
 
Kendra brimmed with false modesty.

“Yes, but you found it the perfect home by nailing
the right hook. I happen to know it made the rounds. And oh, boy, did it make
the rounds.”

 
Was that a dig?
Kendra pursed her lips.

“I admire your persistence. It wasn’t an easy
sale,” he added.

“But it
sold
.
And as they always say in our business, it only takes one yes.”

 
“True.
And it has struck a chord with a lot of women, much the way
The
Rules,
Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus
did back in the day and
Act
Like
a Lady, Think Like a Man
and
He’s
Just Not That Into You
did most recently. I’m impressed.”

“Thank you.”

 
The
flight attendant droned through instructions regarding oxygen masks and exiting
in case of an emergency.

“So, you in the market for a better half?” he
teased as she turned pages of Lizzy’s book.

“I told Lizzy I would brainstorm ideas for an
additional workbook for the series. Just flipping through again to note what’s
been thoroughly covered already.” Kendra resumed reading, but Dominic
persisted.
 
And he would not give up
on the middle armrest.
 
After the
flight attendant went to her seat and the plane took off, Dominic and Kendra
spent the next ten minutes ever so gingerly maneuvering for territory.

“Your favorite part of the conference?” Dominic
asked.

“Hard to say.”
 
The sly armrest jockeying continued.

A short time later, the flight attendant
reappeared with a cart to take their drink orders.
 
Kendra requested a package of trail mix
and coffee with two sugar packets and three creams.

Dominic also ordered trail mix and coffee with two
sugar packets and three creams.

With drink and package of trail mix in hand,
Kendra sipped her coffee, nibbled her snack, and held her book open at the
proper place, all the while not giving up a millimeter of that armrest.

Dominic tasted his coffee, not spilling a drop
until she nudged him.

Kendra apologized when a bit sloshed over the rim.

“Not a problem.”
 
Dominic winked, dabbing at the damp
stain on his jeans with a napkin.

Kendra tucked the book in the seat pocket in front
of her, positioned the tray table over her lap, and placed a napkin on top to
sort trail mix, separating the dried fruit from the pretzels and cashews.

“What were you saying about the conference?”
Dominic also released his tray table and sorted his trail mix.

“I met with clients, potential clients, editors,
and other agents, the usual.”

“All work and no play?” He popped cashews inside
his mouth.

“Just business.”
 
He did not need to know about her yarn
shop recon missions for her aunt. She ate a handful of dried cranberries and
apricots.

Dominic watched her spurn the nuts. “You’re not
eating those?”

“I hate cashews.”

“And I hate dried fruit. Swap? More cashews for
me, more dried fruit for you. Perfect.”

 
Kendra
agreed to the exchange
.

Dominic asked her opinions about various hot
industry topics, but she replied without elaborating and reached for Lizzy’s
book again.
 

“I hate to head back to the cold,” he said, an
obvious attempt to keep the conversation going.

“Fifty-five degrees Fahrenheit is not exactly
frigid for New York in late September.” She read the same sentence for the
umpteenth time.

“But it was eighty degrees in Dallas. What did you
think of the city?”

Kendra held up her book so he’d get the hint.
 
Rude, but it was the only way she could
keep conversation to a minimum.

Instead of indulging Kendra and letting her read,
he flipped through that
Fingerhut
catalog
and offered running commentary on everything from the moon shoes that let you
“bounce around your home with abandon” to the twenty-three-piece bath set with
the ubiquitous “wolves howling at the moon” motif. Even so, she was charmed by
the effort to coax a chuckle out of her. But then she remembered this was the
sort of thing the exes had also done to break down her defenses after she’d
made up her mind about something. A symptom of control freak tendencies? Just
like the exes, who had eventually shown their distaste for her fierce
independence?

“And we
can
share
this armrest, you know.”
 
He
grinned.

“Or you could be a gentleman and give it up.”

“Oh, but I like rubbing elbows with you,
literally.”
 
He winked
again
, making her wonder if he had some
sort of neurological tic. But then again, maybe the man was just going for it.
Full throttle.

 
Kendra
made quite the show of yawning and stretching, causing her sweater to strain
across her breasts.

“That sweater looks a whole lot better on you,” he
said, not hiding his appreciation for the view.

It disturbed her that his ogling only made her
want to show him more. “Armrest is all yours. I’m tired,” she said.

The twinkle in his eyes dimmed. “Oh, sorry.”

“Nothing personal.”
 
She gave him an indulgent smile.
“Conferences always sap my energy.”
 
She shifted away and propped her head against the cool window. But she
couldn’t unclench enough to fall asleep.

Dominic Tobias gave her butterflies. Huge
butterflies. All the more reason to fake a nap.

Chapter 2

The next day, Dominic
stepped off an elevator in the Manhattan building that housed Impact. Making
his way toward his office, he hid his grumpiness as he greeted the staff along
the way. A fitful night’s sleep had resulted in a lousier morning mood than
usual. He’d fake humanity until he’d had lots of coffee or the clock struck
noon, whichever came first.

Stationed at the desk outside his office was
Quentin, his trusty assistant, looking reedier than usual with his blond hair
buzzed ultra-close and his body clad in head-to-toe black. He looked up from
his cell phone.
 
After ten years,
his incessant morning cheer still mystified Dominic.

 
“Welcome back! Hope you had a good trip down South. Hey, where’s the
ten-gallon cowboy hat, snakeskin boots, and license plate-sized belt buckle?”

“In the hotel gift shop.”

 
“
Venti
Starbucks is on your desk.”

“Thanks,” Dominic said before dropping his
backpack and settling at his desk with an exhausted sigh. Thoughts of Kendra
Porter had lingered since their parting at LaGuardia. He knew Kendra by
professional reputation, but he had also admired her photos in publishing
industry articles and conference literature.
 
Those images had not done the woman
justice. He couldn’t get her off his mind.
 
Large sable brown eyes. Full, pouty lips.
 
Long, lush jet black hair with a sassy,
unexpected streak of fuchsia on the left.

And
ka-pow!
A bangin’ guitar-shaped bod.

The first night during the conference he’d spotted
her in the hotel bar, flaunting those amazing boom-boom curves in a
body-skimming black dress and enjoying beer.
 
A beer girl. Gotta love that. He’d
planned to formally introduce himself and buy her another drink, but then she
took off, leaving skid marks. After the fourth time she’d vanished quicker than
vapor, he’d concluded she was avoiding him. Unfortunately, when the opportunity
to meet presented itself on the plane, he’d come off too strong with the cheesy
come-ons.

Quentin tapped on the open door and then entered
Dominic’s office. “I forgot to mention Brody called several times while you
were away. And he’s in a mood. Said he’d texted, then called your cell number,
but kept getting voicemail. He knew where you were staying.”

“I forgot to bring the charger for my phone. The
conference schedule was packed. Didn’t have time to run out to get another
charger.”
  
Dominic could’ve
tried harder, but a part of him enjoyed disconnection from that cell for a few
days.
 
He rarely checked the hotel
messages while at conferences because they were usually from writers eager to
pitch.
 

“He said he emailed and got your auto-reply.”

“He must’ve used my agency email and not the
personal one.
 
Besides, we had a
long discussion just before I took off for Dallas. It’s only been about what?
Six or seven days. Did he happen to tell you what he needed?”

“No.”

“I’ll call him as soon as I get settled.”

If Impact had a yearbook with superlative
categories for clients, Brody would have a lock on Biggest Pain in the Ass.
Dominic indulged Brody’s blitz of texts, phone calls, and emails spurred by
fits of
artiste
compulsions and
insecurities because he genuinely liked the guy. Brody’s brilliance as a writer
and earnings for Impact had made his constant demand for hand-holding and pep
talks bearable.

“I need a few minutes and a drum of coffee before
I take him on.” Dominic reached for the Starbucks cup on his desk. “This is a
start.”

“Bad flight?”

“Yes and no.”
 
Dominic’s excitement in discovering Kendra Porter on his flight home had
soon turned to disappointment when she’d blocked his attempts to get better
acquainted. Not only had she refused to talk much during the flight, but she’d
also declined sharing a taxi with him.
 

After Quentin left, Dominic gulped his coffee,
pushed up his sleeves, and prepared to lose himself in work. Then perfect blue
sky beckoned.

After all these years in this building, the view
from his office glass wall still took his breath away.

Returning his attention to work, Dominic noticed that
Quentin had left a stack of magazines on his desk. The celebrity weeklies and
tabloids had Post-it notes attached to flag certain pages.
Hubba-hubba!
and
Double
Hubba
-
hubba
had been scribbled on a few of the notes.
 
Dominic flipped through those first,
observing the same poolside photo of him with box office sensation Lucas
Cameron.
 
When Luke wasn’t filming,
he usually had a harem of underwear and bikini models around. Hobnobbing with
jetsetters such as Luke was just one of many job perks Dominic enjoyed.
 
Impact
represented
authors of nonfiction and fiction, mostly genre/commercial fiction with just a
few prestige or literary projects that the literati, a.k.a the snob squad, had
deemed “high art.”
 
He handled
intellectual property in motion picture, television, theater, and new media. He
counted at least a dozen Hollywood A-listers as clients.
 

Shelves of spine-out
books lined two walls of his expansive office.
 
Framed covers of Dominic’s favorite
personal reads decorated another wall.
 
Neat stacks of hardcovers and trade paperbacks filled every corner.
Though the agency had gone largely digital, some paper submissions sat on
shelves.

Dominic had achieved his success without relying
on the Tobias family name, cash, or connections.
 
He
had not turned a solo-man
agency into a super agency by shying away from challenges. He thrived on them.
On to the next.
Kendra Porter!

Several women Dominic had gone after banished him
to that guy purgatory of no return known as the “Friend Zone.”
 
Over the years, Dominic’s patience and
no-pressure strategy had been a failure. He hadn’t pushed. Instead, he’d put
their need to work through their issues first and his own desires last.

Mistake No. 1: He’d listened to women drone on and
on about other men for hours on end when he should’ve respectfully shut that
down after the initial ice-breaking romantic résumé swap. Exes
should never be the subject of more than ten minutes of conversation during the
first few dates. Brief references only, as a sort of grounding maneuver, much
like establishing one has transferrable skills in a certain field when applying
for a job.
 
Cara had been a little
too addicted to the drama in a past toxic relationship.
 
Leah, who’d also been burned one too
many times by men who had treated her poorly, nursed deep-seated fears of
intimacy. And Dominic couldn’t get past the creepy feeling that Simone,
recently divorced, was just one paycheck away from having her ex-husband, a.k.a
that Cheating Rat Bastard
, bumped off
by a professional.

Mistake No. 2: Dominic had displayed too much
gentlemanly restraint even when he was hot for someone. There had been no
peeking down their cleavage and poaching lines from the
pinkie-ring-and-chest-hair-flashing crew:
Hey,
baby, ah,
(insert Binaca spritz, heavy breathing, and lip lick)
your legs must be tired because you’ve been
running through my mind all night long.

 
To let
women know he was just as interested in getting in their heads as in their
panties, he hadn’t done nearly enough groping or dispatched sufficient smoldering
looks to telegraph his sexual intentions. By the time he had moved in for
something more than a chaste hug or peck on the lips, their reactions had been
downright frustrating:

 
Stacey’s heart wounding,
I thought you were different! You’re like
the rest! Just one thing on your mind!

Jasmine’s soul crushing,
Eww! You’re like a brother to me!

Lauren’s boner wilting,
Um, er, I thought you were gay!

Mistake No. 3: Trying to eradicate the spirits of
boyfriends past.
 
Dominic was the
first to admit he liked the challenge of exorcising the memory of a former
love, but when a woman made it clear she wasn’t ready to move forward with him,
he needed to check his damn ego and get the hell up out of there. Resist
amateur attempts at psychoanalysis.

Mistake No. 4:
 
Playing Mr. Too Nice Guy.
 
Like men, some women apparently also
relished the chase. There was little appreciation for love that came too
easily. Where’s the fun in that? They couldn’t resist the appeal of damaged
guys who required rescuing. The Bad Boy,
 
the Brooding Rogue, or Mr. Playa-Playa who needed redemption and a
female willing to do all the emotional work first. And while Dominic believed a
bent toward colossal assholery was not directly proportionate to virility, hey,
who was he to argue with Darwinian theories that had launched millions of
best-selling Hearts & Flowers romance novels?
 
He’d always been more of a
relationship-type guy, but he needed to dole out just the right balance of
nasty and nice to keep things interesting.

He would not bungle things with Kendra
Porter.
 
Or was it already too
late?
 
When she’d tried to read on
the plane, he’d jostled for that armrest to get her attention and pestered her
with a freakin’
Fingerhut
catalog and
its twenty-three-piece bath set with a “wolves howling at the moon” motif. He’d
shifted to motormouth mode even though he’d figured women appreciated men who
exuded quiet strength and mystery. And what the hell was up with all that
excessive winking like a malfunctioning tail light. He dragged a hand down his
face.
 
Desperate loser moves.

Do
-
over
time
.
He reached for the phone and paused. In his approach to professional and
private matters, it wasn’t always easy to distinguish self-assurance from
cockiness, persistence from compulsiveness.
 
Had he misread her signals? Men were
notoriously obtuse when it came to gauging women’s romantic interest in them.
Had he mistaken static electricity for true romantic sparks?

Nah.
 
Those beautiful brown eyes of hers
did not lie.
Of course she wanted him,
too!

And above all, Dominic Tobias did not like to
lose.
Choo
-
choo!
Full steam ahead!

Ms. Porter deserved an apology for his buffoonish
behavior
.
He’d put his romantic
intentions out there.
Again.
But with
a bit more cool the next time around. Or at least he’d give suave a shot. No
promises because he couldn’t remember feeling so completely captivated by
someone.

Only one way to describe it: Knocked off his feet.

 
Dominic pushed the celebrity magazines
aside, tipped his chair back, and contemplated which flowers Kendra might
prefer. Maybe he’d send a bouquet to her agency. He reached for the telephone
to call Quentin to arrange it, but thought better of it.
 
Too cliché.
 
A gift basket of soaps and body lotions?
Too soon
.
A giant fruit basket? Too
Aunt Aubrelia
.
She’d always sent him
and his brothers elaborate baskets of pears, apples, and oranges at
Christmas.
 

If only Kendra had opened up more. He drummed his
fingertips against the desktop and turned to his computer. Mid-Internet search,
it came to him. With a triumphant smile he reached for the phone again.