Nick Harrison was a man who had every reason to be content, with a beautiful fiancee whose father owned the advertising agency Nick worked for.
And since Nick had worked long and hard to reach the point now where he could swing his swivel chair around to stare at the array of Manhattan skyline from his office on the fortieth floor, he let himself stare at the tall buildings and bask in his happiness.
He sighed and leaned back in the leather chair and his thoughts flowed leisurely and quickly over his recent promotion to account executive at Connors and Ross, on top of his engagement to Julie Connors.
Nick knew people would say one thing logically followed another. But he knew he was a good enough man to get to the top without marrying the boss's daughter. After all, his rise in Connors and Ross had been rapid and sensational a long time before Marshall Connors' only daughter returned to New York from school in Europe.
The phone rang and Nick swung around and moved up to his huge desk and picked up the receiver.
"Mr. Connors wants to see you in his office right away, Mr. Harrison," his secretary said in a crisp, professional voice.
"I'll go right in, Miss Lewis," Nick said.
Nick hung up the phone and shoved the chair back and got to his feet. As he crossed the deep carpet, the feeling and contented confidence came over him again, and he speculated if Connors wanted to discuss the Jarvis account, or the marriage.
Nick straightened his striped tie in the mirror over the small basin behind a partition in one corner of the large office. Then he walked out, and stopped beside Miss Lewis' desk, in the cubicle just before the long hall.
Miss Lewis' smile was dazzling, and filled with perfect, bright-white teeth and full, red lips. "Shall I hold all calls or have them transferred into Mr. Connors' office?" she asked. Her darting, devilish green eyes stared up at Nick and her voice softened to a husky, hardly-veiled intimacy.
"No, don't transfer them," Nick said, and he allowed himself the luxury of a rapid glance at the protruding mounds against her tight, green sweater.
"Very well, Mr. Harrison," she said, and took a deep breath, which accentuated the up tilted mounds. "What shall I do while you're gone?"
"You've earned a break," he said. "Have some coffee or something. Use your imagination."
"Thank you, Mr. Harrison," she said, and her smile deepened. "I'm a very imaginative girl. In everything I do."
Nick glanced a final time at the thrust against the green sweater. "I'm sure you are, Miss Lewis," he said.
Nick turned and walked out into the corridor and moved leisurely toward Connors' office. He nodded at other people who came from offices along the corridor, but he thought of Miss Lewis and that smile and those eyes and that body.
Nick shoved open the double doors and walked into the entrance foyer to Marshall Connors' suite of offices. His secretary, Miss Morgan, looked at him over the tops of wire-rimmed glasses. It was rumored that Miss Morgan had been in his office forever, that they had built the whole place around her neatly-kept desk, and as Nick looked at the compilation of wrinkles on her hawk-thin face, he was inclined to believe the story.
"Mr. Connors is waiting," she said briskly, and turned at once to her typewriter.
Nick opened the large oak-paneled door and stepped into Marshall Connors' cavernous office filled with nostalgia as well as elaborately expensive, dark-wood furniture.
"Come in, Nick," Connors boomed, and got up from behind the walnut desk at the far end of the room.
Nick walked quickly across the room, glancing as always at the huge portraits that hung along the walls, and at the framed degrees and testimonials and awards and cups along the shelves and on cabinet tops.
Connors, a tall, wiry man with brush-cut grey hair and a face which showed little evidence of his sixty years, stood between two enormous paintings, one of himself as a thirty-year-old pioneer in the advertising business, the other of Carlton Ross, his partner, who had died several years ago. Nick shook hands with Connors, and as always was impressed with the firm, aggressive handshake. Then Nick sat in the huge leather chair to which Connors gestured.
"Well, Nick, I've been looking over the Jarvis account and the new advertising campaign," Connors said, as he settled down into his chair. "And I could not possibly be more pleased. And Frank Jarvis told me at lunch today that he feels the same way."
"Thank you, sir," Nick said, and allowed himself the smugness of knowing the flattery was justified.
Connors leaned forward, his elbows on the desk. "Normally I would be inclined to reward you at this point," Connors said. "But I'm not going to Nick, my boy. Not in the normal sense, at least. Because I don't consider you a normal man."
"I don't quite follow you, sir," Nick said.
"Nick, I'm taking you off the Jarvis account," Connors said.
"Taking me off?" Nick asked. "But the campaign is just getting under way."
"Nick, anyone here can direct the campaign, now that you've set it up," Connors said. "Many men here with far less ability and drive can handle things now. Instead of a rest and a reward, I'm going to give you a challenge."
And Nick sat up in his seat and knew suddenly what the challenge would be, but allowed Connors the deference of seeming to have surprised him. "Again you've lost me," Nick said. "I'd welcome a challenge, but I don't quite understand."
Connors leaned back in his chair and stared at Nick a moment. Then he leaned forward on the desk again. "Nick, I'm putting you in charge of the Dennison account," Connors said, in a voice he would have used had he been a doctor telling a patient he had cancer.
Nick pretended surprise, but already his mind was racing. "The Dennison account?" he asked. "My God, everybody in the agency has had a crack at that account."
"And everyone in the agency has failed," Connors said. "You know, of course, that we're on the verge of losing the account. Not only is it one of our oldest and largest accounts, but it carries a great deal of prestige."
"To be blunt, though," Nick said, "isn't at least a part of the trouble the fact that old lady Dennison is impossible to deal with, since her husband died?"
"Frances Dennison is difficult," Connors said. "At times, difficult to the point of eccentricity. But she also has a shrewd business sense, and she does not suffer fools easily. She feels, and I must agree, that no one here has come up with an original idea for selling Dennison Beer in a long time."
"How soon do you want me to start?" Nick asked.
"Immediately," Connors said. "We'll have a meeting tomorrow at 10 and you can turn the Jarvis account over, and get briefed on Dennison. And this time tomorrow, Nick, it will be your baby."
"How much freedom will I have?" Nick asked. "I mean how much will I be bound by the things the agency has done in the past?"
"You will have complete freedom," Connors said. "Dennison Beer is losing money. Their sales have been steadily plunging. I want you to come up with something that reverses the plunge, and also makes Mrs. Dennison happy."
"I'll start right away, sir," Nick said. "Frankly, the Jarvis account was getting a bit boring. I'm glad that you gave me this challenge. And I'll do my best."
"Better than your best," Connors said. "Keeping this account is important to me. Very important. I know that other men have failed to satisfy Mrs. Dennison, and I know she is old enough to be considered senile. But, I respect her judgment. And Nick, other men that have failed this account have not been future sons-in-law, with an obvious shot at the whole agency some day."
Just the thought of sitting behind that desk in his impressive old office made Nick go tense. And he realized now that Connors was really testing him, and that failure could be disastrous to all his plans and ambitions.
"I'm both overwhelmed and flattered you're handing it to me," Nick said. "And I'm searching for something to say. But I'd rather wait and let my actions speak for me."
"I like to hear you talk that way," Connors said. "I'm depending on you Nick. This account will be crucial to our future relationship. Now, about the Jarvis account. Are there any loose ends that can't be resolved by tomorrow morning?"
"I don't think so," Nick said. "Later I'm auditioning girls for a new, brief commercial spot on TV. Once I wrap that up, someone can pick things up, I think."
"Then so much for business," Connors said. He stood up and walked over to an ornate oak cabinet and opened a panel that contained a bar. "What are you drinking?"
"Scotch and water," Nick said.
Connors mixed two drinks and walked around the desk and handed one to Nick. Nick stood up, and tilted his glass to Connors, and they drank silently a moment.
Nick savored the good Scotch and glanced around the office, and despite the challenge of this new assignment, the confidence and contentment warmed him and he thought how perfect his life was now, and how logical and ordered everything seemed. There was the upward movement in the agency, doing the best job with the hardest accounts, and there was the coming marriage to Julie. And Nick even let himself steal a glance at the chair behind the huge desk beneath the twin portraits.
Connors finished his drink. "Nick, I've got to go down and look at some layouts for the magazine saturation campaign on the Senesco account," he said. "Maybe you'd like to join me for just a few minutes."
"Of course I would," Nick said. "But I've got those girls coming in on the Jarvis TV spot."
"Of course," Connors said. "I forgot about that."
"I'm anxious to meet Frances Dennison," Nick said. "I know I have to come up with something good, really damn good. But I also know I have to deal with her and please her. I feel I could work better if I was familiar with her."
"The theory of know your enemy," Connors said. "And a very sound theory. I'm sure she is as anxious to meet you as you are to meet her. I'll tell you what. I was supposed to drop over to her place tonight and have a drink. I've been working night and day to save the account. But why don't you go in my place? Yes, that's perfect. It's at nine, and I'll call and make the arrangements."
"All right," Nick said. "I'll be going in blind, of course. I'll have only the vaguest idea about the beer, and no plans at all."
"That might be best," Connors said. "I think Frances Dennison might respond to that kind of approach. And be straight with her Nick, because she can spot a phony a mile off, and she's far too shrewd an old lady to be impressed by anything but how sharp you are…"
The ringing of the phone cut into Connors' words and he trailed the sentence off and went around and picked up the receiver. Nick saw the old man smile broadly and mumble something into the receiver.
And the face showed wrinkles as the smile broadened and Connors hung up. Nick was puzzled a moment, then he realized who was on the phone.
And just as the recognition hit him, the door burst open and Julie walked in.
"Well, I'll swear," she said. "I know when the two most important men in the agency get together it's very important. But to be kept waiting and then have to call to see if I'm allowed to interrupt is a bit much."
Nick got a quick provocative smile and then she hurried over and put her arms around her father's neck. Nick stared at her quick, nervous movements, and watched the short voluptuous body strain into tenseness as she leaned up on tiptoes to kiss Connors' cheek.
Then the burning black eyes were blazing at Nick and he smiled as she moved to him. Her full lips were soft and warm and quick on his mouth.
Julie danced away a bit and took his hand and cocked her head up at him. "What grave, valuable aspects of the business world were you discussing?" she asked.
"Things so grave and valuable it would stagger your imagination," Nick said, and stared down at the long, jet black hair and black eyes set in the pale face, and down past the puffed lips to the surge of the cone-shaped breasts beneath a tight, smart black sheath, and down to the flare of the hips, and the rounded melon-small buttocks.
"I've got those layouts to see about," Connors mumbled. He crossed the room quickly and muttered, "I'll see you at the meeting in the morning, Nick."
Julie squeezed Nick's hand and stepped to him. "Oh, Nick," she said. "That sounds ominous. What has he given you now? I know if he says he'll see you in the morning, it means you have something to do tonight. And you were supposed to come over and help me make final arrangements for the wedding."
Nick glanced at the door and then pulled Julie to him and delighted in the feel of her breasts against his chest as she stood on her toes. Nick cupped her face up and kissed her softly.
"Your father has just given me the Dennison Beer account," he said, and put a hand to her narrow waist and squeezed. "It's only the toughest account in the agency, and we are on the verge of losing it. And tonight I am scheduled to meet Frances Dennison and try to soothe and sell her. And I understand she is not only old, but also difficult to please."
"As long as she's a woman, darling, I'm sure you'll please her," Julie said. "Can we have an early dinner, or at least a drink after work?"
Nick shook his head. "I'm interviewing girls for the Jarvis TV spot," he said. "And I'll probably be late."
"And I had been looking forward to seeing you so much," Julie said, and wiggled her body against his, in a way that made him go warm.
Nick let himself unwind for a moment, and he bent down and smothered her warm, full lips in a surging kiss and forgot Jarvis and the job and everything. Her little hands dug into his back and her body moved in subtle arousing ways.
Nick stroked her black hair and closed his eyes and remembered the first sweet, stolen kiss many months ago, in her father's study in their luxurious Sutton Place apartment.
Then he pulled abruptly away from the sucking lips and shoved her body back. "Christ, Julie," he said and stared into her provocative, dark eyes and his breath rushed out.
"Just a sample of what you're missing tonight," she said. Then her sexy voice changed. "Call me, darling? At least twice?"
"At least twice," he said.
She pecked at his lips. "Then I'll run along," she said. "I've got just oodles of shopping to do. And I know you have to get back to work."
"I love you," he said.
"And I love you," she said very softly, and kissed his cheek, then turned and walked from the office.
Nick took a deep, contented breath and looked around the office, and then he headed back for his office. As usual he nodded and spoke to people he met in the corridor, but his thoughts were far from the deep-carpeted, office-lined hallway.
The touch of Julie's body still lingered and he thought wildly of taking her there on the floor of her father's office. She was obviously warm and primed for love-making, and this was not that common a thing for her.
Nick stopped at the water cooler and had a leisurely cup of the cool, pure mountain water, and remembered how stiff and nervous Julie had been recently when they made love. Whenever she relaxed, she was terrific, but she had never been able to adjust to the idea of making love before marriage, though she was 23 and not a virgin when she met him.
Nick threw the paper cup into the basket and turned toward his office. Again, he thought of the touch of her eager body and told himself that when they were married and she let herself go, she would be one hell of a woman in bed.
Nick turned the corner and saw that the area outside his office was filled with lovely young girls. He nodded at everyone in general and stepped to Miss Lewis' desk.
"No calls," she said, her teeth dazzling in the broad smile. "Looks like you're in for quite an afternoon. Maybe I should tryout for the part. It might be interesting."
"You're too valuable as a secretary," Nick said. "And besides, though I know it isn't proper to say this to a woman, baby, you're too old. The girl I want must be only seventeen or eighteen."
Miss Lewis turned her beautiful, beaming face into a mock pout. "Then I'll return to the typewriter," she said.
"Give me five minutes," Nick said. "Then send the first girl in."
Nick nodded to the group again, and went into his office and sat down. He knew he should look forward to an afternoon of interviewing lovely, young girls, and a couple of years ago he knew he would have jumped at the chance.
But now he thought of Julie and of marriage and the Dennison account, and then he let himself think of sitting behind the desk in that enormous office. The thought was pleasing and he smiled with contentment as he leaned forward and waited for the first girl.