15 Shades Of Pink (43 page)

She gulped, and picked her feet up off the floor as if to protect the little masterpieces. “You work for Jiminy Shoes?” A man who could keep her in shoes?
Swoon….

“Yes, I’m Henry Hubbard. Head of marketing.”

Oh, he’s handsome and he knows shoes. She stuck out her foot and twirled it around. “These are gorgeous.”

“They certainly are. But of course, they’re not for sale.” His voice was deep and soothing.

She could only nod. How could she feel breathless just sitting next to him? Unless it was the shoes causing that reaction. “I couldn’t even afford the heel on one of them. But I’ve never seen anything so gorgeous.”

“I know,” he said, staring at her.

Her gaze locked on his in a perfect, blissful moment. Until a scuffle across the room caught their attention.

He held up a finger. “Wait here just a moment. They’re probably arguing over the last peep-toe slingbacks. I swear this trunk show makes Black Friday look like the little leagues. I’ll be right back.”

Cindi took one last look at her feet encased in true shoe love and sighed. Then she slipped them off and set them on the bench next to her. “Bye, bye my sweets,” she whispered. She looked up to see if Henry had the situation under control.

Then she gasped. Her stepmother was gripping one end of a shoebox, tugging it from the hands of a pregnant woman. Gloria stood with her arms crossed, inspecting her nails.

“Damn,” Cindi whispered. She couldn’t let them see her here. Grabbing her purse off the bench next to the shoes, she snatched the shopping tote from the floor, stumbled, then ran. She wasn’t sure if she was more upset to leave without a pair of Jiminies, or to leave without seeing Henry again. For pure eye candy purposes only, of course. Henry, that is—not the shoes. She could have made a life long commitment to those shoes. If she could’ve taken a mortgage out on those shoes she would have.

She headed for the door and nearly bumped into Veronica with a gaggle of kids in tow. She counted them. Seven children? She hid behind a huge potted palm tree as she tried to make her escape. Palm trees aren’t nearly as big as they lead you to believe in the movies. She crouched down further, then froze when her stepmother marched in her direction, red-faced and shoebox-less. Cindi was thrilled she hadn’t won the battle.

Luckily, she didn’t see Cindi and veered towards Veronica, instead. “What, is my daughter working for a preschool now?”

Veronica rolled her eyes. “Hello, Mother. It’s been a while. No, this isn’t my job. I’ve found a perfectly wonderful rich man who happens to have seven children. He thinks we’re at the park.”

The two older children removed the harness from around their waist. “She’s bribing us to keep it a secret,” one of the girls said.

“Stop it, you two!” Veronica barked, tying the kids up again.

Hildy sighed. “Veronica, how many times have I told you that you don’t watch a man’s children? You get a nanny. Or you ignore them, like I did with Cindi.”

“Mother, don’t worry. I won’t be watching them for long. I’ll find a nanny.”

She patted Veronica’s cheek. “Good girl. Looks like you’ve finally come around to my way of thinking. Come on. Let me buy you a pair of shoes. Something you could wear at your wedding, perhaps? Maybe the third time will be the charm. I can’t believe that last one died and left you penniless.”

“Oh, we’re not that close yet, mother. His wife recently died. These things take time, you know.” Veronica tightened her grip on the harness that linked the kids like reindeer on a sleigh, the poor things.

Clearly, the wicked stepmother gene runs in the family,
thought Cindi, gripping the edge of the concrete planter.

“Well, soon enough you will be! You’re my daughter after all. We Midas girls know how to land a man. Unlike Cindi, who will probably be my burden for the rest of my life….” Her stepmother sighed dramatically as if she’d just remembered the burden she bore caring for her.

Cindi’s gut twisted. What a horrible day. She had to move out of that apartment. She had to strike out on her own. Maybe it was a good thing she hadn’t bought a pair of Jiminies. She could use that five hundred dollars towards a deposit on an apartment. Still, as she fled the hotel after her stepmother and Veronica walked away, her heart ached for shoes loved and lost.

***

By the time Henry refereed the fight over the patent mules—by pointing out that the shoes were half a size too small for the older woman trying to wrestle them away—he realized the beautiful blonde with the tiny feet was gone. He returned to the bench where she’d been sitting, and picked up one crystal shoe. Walking around the bench, he peered under it, but couldn’t find its mate. With one shoe in his hand, his eyes swept the room, searching for the girl.

Bruno ran up to him. “I just spotted your friend running out the door with one of the shoes sticking out of her bag. She was in a real hurry. She hopped in a cab before I could stop the little thief”

Henry frowned. “Why would she take just one?”

“Even one is worth a hundred grand.”

“Right, but if you’re going to steal them, you’d take both.

“She’s a thief. Who knows how they think.”

Henry shook his head. “She’s not the type.”

Bruno poked a stubby finger in Henry’s chest. “You say that only because she’s
your
type.”

He ignored Bruno even though it was true. “She’s a size five. She won’t be hard to find. I’ll go look through our preferred customer list and sort out all the size fives.”

But half an hour later, he learned none of their preferred customers who’d been invited to the sale wore a size five.

“How can we find her, boss?” Bruno asked him. “Want me to make some calls?”

Henry shook his head. “On the off chance she did steal it, we don’t want to give her a heads up. A one-of-a-kind diamond Jiminy isn’t something you can unload quickly. I’m sure she still has it.” He rubbed his chin. “We’re going to have to go find her.”

Bruno threw up his hands. “How?”

“Grab the address list for the customers who received tickets to the trunk sale. We’ll have to conduct a door-to-door search—disguised as a contest.”

“Do we go to the press with this?”

Henry sighed. “Yes. Maybe she’ll see the report and turn herself in, or double-check her bags. It might have just fallen in.”

Bruno gave him a look.

“What? It might have. I’m hoping for a happy ending here.” And not just for the company, either.

“I’m sure you are.”

“I’ll handle this. Watch me spin PR gold, my friend.”

***

Henry called a press conference, and all the news outlets showed up. A missing hundred-thousand-dollar shoe? That’s great water cooler stuff.

He held up the shoe and explained how it had been made out of crystals and tiny diamonds, how it was an unusual size—and incredibly expensive.

“Was the shoe stolen?” called out a reporter.

Henry shook his head. “We think the person would have grabbed both if it was a theft. There was a woman at the sale who fit into these shoes perfectly. We believe she took it inadvertently. When we find her, we have a special gift to apologize for all this trouble.” What that gift was remained to be determined, but cops caught criminals all the time by offering free concert tickets or merchandise to people wanted on warrants. They showed up thinking they were going to get a free Blu-Ray only to get a free ride to jail.

Not that this woman was a criminal. But a little incentive never hurt, did it? He’d had such an instant attraction to her; he pleaded with the universe to let this all be a big misunderstanding. Even at his most desperate moments as a child, when he and his mother and brother had nothing to eat, he wouldn’t have considered stealing. Was Bruno right? Was he too blinded by her beauty to face the truth?

***

Cindi headed for her secret stash of chocolate when Gloria and her mom came home with bags of shoes and purses and other Jiminy Shoes goodies. Gloria paraded around the apartment, putting on a new pair every few hours.

Cindi locked herself in her room and searched for twenty new party contacts a day for the next few days when she wasn’t busy scrubbing toilets and changing sheets at the hotel. Things just had to change; she couldn’t go on like this.

Three days after the sale, the doorbell rang and she assumed it was another one of Gloria’s friends who’d come to see her new shoes. She’d had more visitors over the past few days than if she’d been showing off a new baby.

But it wasn’t high-pitched cackles of her friends that she heard; it was a man’s voice. Cindi cracked open the door and did a double take—it was the gorgeous man from the sale. Henry Hubbard. What was he doing here?

She opened the door a bit more, leaning forward to hear. Fortunately, Gloria turned off her music when the man arrived, so Cindi could see and hear most of their conversation.

Gloria and her mother smiled like fools while the man explained the reason for his visit. “It seems we made a perfect match at the shoe sale. A mysterious woman fit into our beautiful diamond sample shoes. But she escaped before we could award a special prize—a modeling shoot with the shoes and a one-thousand dollar shopping spree at our store.”

Cindi’s heart was in her throat. He was looking for her! But if she burst out there and said, ‘Oh, it was me, me, me!’ her stepmother would find out about the ticket, and lord only knew what she’d do to Cindi and Mrs. Robinson and her dog.

“Of course! I remember you trying them on,” her stepmother said, elbowing Gloria.

“No, I don’t think so.” Gloria blinked her beady eyes at her mother, confused.

“Remember?” Hildy hissed. “They were a perfect fit on you, Gloria.”

Henry looked doubtful. “Then please, try this one and we’ll see.”

Even from far across the apartment, Cindi could see that Gloria’s big toe barely fit in the shoe. Yet Gloria persisted, plastering on a smile, and trying to force her foot into the poor little shoe.

Finally, Henry pulled it away, probably out of concern she might break it. He frowned. “I don’t think you’re the one. I was really hoping to find that girl.”

And that’s when Cindi leaned a bit too hard against the door and tumbled out, tail over teakettle.

Three heads turned in her direction. When she stood up rubbing her sore head, Henry beamed. “It’s you. Size five, am I right?” He was as handsome as she remembered, but she couldn’t keep her eyes off that dazzling shoe.

She grinned. “I am.”

“Come, try on the shoe.”

Her stepmother crossed her arms and sneered. “Oh, it can’t be her. She wasn’t at the show. She didn’t know anyone who could get her a ticket.”

“Trust me, I wouldn’t forget someone like her. Please, come see if it fits.”

She didn’t care what punishment her stepmother would come up with; she had to get that shoe back on her foot.

She sat on the couch and held out her foot. Henry smiled at her, and slid on the sparkly, clear shoe. “Perfect fit,” he said, with his fingers circled gently around her ankle. She could imagine them sliding up her calf, over her knee and onto her thigh.

The big security guard from the sale stormed in the apartment. “I knew it! Now hand over the other shoe or you’re under arrest.”

Henry held out a hand to stop the man from getting any closer. “Bruno, we haven’t even heard her side of the story.”

“My stepdaughter’s a thief? No surprise there.”

Cindi’s hand flew to her throat. “What are you talking about?”

Henry’s shoulders slumped. “We’re missing the mate to this pair. Bruno saw you running from the sale—with the shoe sticking out of your bag.”

She could feel the blood draining from her face. She’d tossed the bag in her closet after getting home from the sale empty handed. “My bag’s in my room. I haven’t looked in it since I got home that day.” Her heart raced as she headed to her room—followed by Gloria, her stepmother, Bruno, and Henry.

She pulled the bag out of her closet and sure enough, there was the shoe. She held it up and forced a smile. “Oops.”

“It’s a pretty big oops,” Bruno said.

Henry stepped in front of Bruno. “No harm done. It’s gotten us some good press coverage, actually.” Henry held out his hand for the shoe.

Press coverage? That got Cindi’s attention.
Think, think, think. There has to be a way to spin this to your advantage.
She couldn’t lose these shoes, not again.
She looked at Henry and smiled. “There’s no reason for the good publicity to end. I have an idea.” She led him back into the living room and slipped on both shoes. “People following this story must be dying to know where this shoe has been. They’ll all tune in to hear about it. But now that’s its been found, the story is over. People stop paying attention and the shoes go back on display.”

“Under lock and key this time,” Bruno mumbled.

She held up one finger in a just-a-minute gesture. “But what if I wore these shoes for a week, and you follow my adventures! These shoes were made for walking, and dancing, and shopping!” She actually clapped, she was so excited by the idea. “And maybe Jiminy Shoes could make a more affordable version that everyone would be clamoring to buy!”
And perhaps I’d get a free pair….

Henry nodded, visibly impressed. “And maybe once you’re done with the shoes, we could send them to someone else with size five feet somewhere else in the world, and see what a week’s like in their shoes, so to speak.” He smacked his hands together. “It’s a killer idea.”

Hildy stepped forward. “Who cares what Cindi does? She’s as interesting as wet paint.” She pushed Gloria toward Henry. “You should follow my daughter around.”

Henry totally ignored Hildy, bless him. “Then when the week’s up, the whole thing ends at a big party where you slip out of the shoes at midnight.”

“Shoes in the City,” Cindi offered, stepping closer to him.

“A Week In Her Shoes,” Henry countered, setting his hands on her arms.

“Shoe Love,” Cindi whispered, just inches from him.

They stood for a moment, as if poised for a kiss. Then Henry stepped back. “Let me call the boss on this. It’s a great idea.”