Southern Comforts - JoAnn Ross

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that a proposal?” If he were the last male on earth, Chelsea couldn’t imagine marrying a man like Cash. Of course, she considered as his intimate caress made her head spin, the thought of bringing Cash home to her mother, then sitting back and watching the fireworks, was definitely appealing.

      “Hell, no.” As forceful a lover as he was, Cash was not without finesse. Two fingers had replaced the one and his thumb was doing incredible things to her tingling flesh.

      “I’ve already told you, baby, I’ve got too many things I want to do before I tie myself down with a ball and chain. And even if I ever do decide to get married, it damn sure won’t be to any uptown Yankee girl.”

      Despite her disinterest in marrying Cash, the Yankee reference stung. Refusing to give him any more power than he already held over her, Chelsea chose to concentrate on his unflattering description of matrimony.

      “A ball and chain. What a lovely original metaphor.” Her voice dripped with sarcasm. Wanting to make him as desperate, as hungry as he was making her, she managed to snake her hand between their bodies and unzip his black waiter’s slacks. “I must remember to write it down.”

      “You do that.” He was hard as marble in her hand. But much, much hotter. “When you can think again.” One last flick of that wicked thumb sent her over the edge. Even as she felt the first orgasm ricocheting through her, Chelsea knew there would be more.

      Chelsea had never thought of herself as a particularly sexual person. Oh, she’d slept with Nelson, of course. After all, she’d known him all her life.

      But this crazy time with Cash Beaudine had changed something elemental inside her. Since their first stolen time together, she couldn’t stop thinking of Cash.

      Wanting him.

      And heaven help her, needing him.

      He’d filled her mind as completely as he’d filled her body. The more of Cash she had, the more she wanted.

      Before the last of the ripples had faded, he’d set her away from him and was zipping up his slacks. “Let’s go somewhere there’s room to do this right.”

      Now that her eyes had adjusted to the light, she could see his devilish grin. It was arrogant, mocking and sexy as hell. “An uptown girl like you deserves more than a quick stand-up fantasy fuck in a broom closet.”

      “Once again your mastery of the English language overwhelms me.” Chelsea was not by nature a sarcastic person. She had, however, recently resorted to snapping back at him in order to maintain some small sense of balance in this relationship.

      Not, she reminded herself firmly, that two people having sex at every opportunity could be considered a real relationship.

      “Besides, Susan will be throwing her bouquet soon. I have to be there.”

      “Which would you rather have?” His deep voice heated her blood all over again. “A bunch of overpriced hothouse roses tied up in pink-and-white satin ribbons?” Taking hold of her wrist, he pressed her hand against his swollen groin. “Or this?”

      What should have been an easy question was anything but. Chelsea thought of Nelson, waiting back at their table, armed with new arguments he’d undoubtedly worked out during her absence.

      She also thought of tomorrow when she’d be off to her mother’s summer home at the Hamptons for a week’s visit before beginning work at the paper, and Cash would be on his way across the country to San Francisco. He’d landed a job with a famed international architectural firm whose name she recognized.

      And even as she wondered how this rebel would fit into the buttoned-down world of designing high-rise office buildings for the corporate elite, Chelsea couldn’t help being impressed.

      “You’d better make up your mind quick.” The thick, south-of-the-Mason-Dixon-line drawl was the same one he pulled out whenever he sensed her wavering. “Before we croak from inhaling too much Pine-Sol. Or your boyfriend suddenly stops thinking about himself long enough to notice you’re gone and sends someone to find you.”

      Leaving with Cash Beaudine would not only be wrong, it would be the most outrageous thing she’d ever done. And for Chelsea, that was admittedly saying something.

      She hesitated another heartbeat. Then, as she drank in the mysterious male scent emanating from Cash’s dark neck, Chelsea pictured the rumpled, unmade bed where she’d discovered the true meaning of passion.

      Heaven help her, she was going to do it!

      Five minutes later, she was sitting on the back of Cash’s jet-black Harley, racing down the road away from the country club. The wrinkled pink taffeta skirt was hitched up around her thighs, her arms were wrapped around his waist and her hair streamed out like a copper flag from beneath the black motorcycle helmet he’d stuck on her head.

      It was a night made for romance.

      A night when anything was possible.

      A night Chelsea knew she’d remember for the rest of her life.

      Chapter One

      New York City, Seven Years Later

      The Power Behind The Pretty Face

      

      

      Roxanne Scarbrough is the doyenne of decoration, the maven of modern style. In addition to her monthly magazine, Southern Comforts, several New York Times bestselling how-to books, videotapes and a syndicated weekly television program, America’s favorite Steel Magnolia has inked a six-figure deal with Mega-Mart stores. Middle-class shoppers frequenting the booming, 347-store chain can now live and shop the Scarbrough way.

      Mega-Mart’s budget for the new advertising campaign announcing their Southern Comforts line is 12 million, which should make the folks over at Chiat/Day a great deal more comfortable. Whatta deal! Whatta gal!

      Adweek, March 26, 1996.

      For a woman whose public image made Donna Reed look like a slacker, Roxanne Scarbrough proved to be a dragon lady extraordinaire.

      Chelsea had never met anyone like America’s most famous southern belle. Which, for someone who had managed to survive interviews with both Madonna and Roseanne, was saying something. As she sat on the sofa in Good Morning America’s greenroom, waiting for her interview with Charlie Gibson, Chelsea watched Roxanne’s off-screen theatrics in amazement.

      Since the limousine had delivered America’s most famous lifestyle expert to the studio from her suite at the Plaza an hour ago, she’d thrown a brush at the hairdresser who had quick reflexes and ducked just in time, stomped out of the room when the makeup woman had made the fatal mistake of suggesting a concealer to cover the faint scars from recent eyelid surgery, and managed to deride her personal assistant at every possible opportunity.

      The makeup room was too hot. The greenroom too cold. The orange juice was frozen. And the Danish, horror of horrors, were cold.

      “Honestly,” Roxanne huffed with a brisk shake of her sleek blond bob, “you Yankees have absolutely no sense of style!”

      “I expect that’s why you’ve been invited on the program,” Chelsea replied blandly. “To bring culture to the philistines.”

      Only the sharpest ear would have caught Chelsea’s veiled sarcasm. The glint in her green eyes would have warned anyone who knew her. As it was, the other woman was so wrapped up in her pique, it flew right over her head.

      Roxanne’s gaze flicked over Chelsea like a medical researcher checking out the dog pound for potential experimental material.

      “A hopeless task,” she asserted between bonded teeth, then announced to no one in particular, “This is a shitty time of day.”

      When she pulled a cigarette from a crushed gold mesh pack and planted it between her lips, her assistant, a harried, pleasantly plump thirty-something

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