“We’re fresh out of Bambis, Buzz,” she obliged and tried not to smile for fear it would upset Richard that much more. Not that it wasn’t fun to get him riled every once in a while, but tonight really wasn’t the time.

Buzz shrugged. “Fine. If that’s the way you want it. I’m just saying it’s going to look funny.”

“What’s going to look funny?” Dan, one of the co-CEOs, who had wandered over to their side of the room, asked.

Bridget watched in amazement as Richard instantly smoothed out his frazzled expression. He could go from hysterical lunatic to calm businessman like nobody else she knew. It was all an act, but it was a good one.

“Nothing. Everything is fine. “

Don joined them and pointed to Buzz. “He said that it was going to look funny. We don’t want funny. We’re not paying for funny. You said everything would be perfect.”

“And it will be,” Richard insisted to the two men.

“Not with fourteen girls,” Buzz muttered.

Richard glared at the cameraman ferociously. “I’ll get a girl,” he announced.

Dan, Don and Buzz all looked at Richard expectantly.

“I’ll get a girl,” he repeated. This time with conviction.

Satisfied, Buzz wandered off and so did the executives.

“Great,” Richard snapped once everyone was out of earshot. “Buzz, the biker cameraman is really a junior Steven Spielberg in training.”

“You did insist on the best,” Bridget reminded him.

“I need you to be on my side right now.”

She snorted. “That should be in my job description. Filing, message taking, errand running and permanently being on your side.”

“You mean it isn’t? Add that to your job description as my VP.”

“What do you need me to do?”

“Find a girl,” he ordered her sounding somewhat desperate.

She laughed. “Where am I going to find a sane single woman who is willing to go on a television game show to win a husband in less than ten minutes?”

“Not just a husband…a heartthrob husband. Brock Brickman is America’s daytime heartthrob. Clearly you’ve never seen his work on The Many Days of Life.”

“Yes, but wasn’t he fired?”

“Only a few weeks ago. Which is the only reason he was available to do this show in the first place so let’s consider ourselves lucky. He’s a semi-star, he’s handsome and he’s going to pick one of these lucky women to be his wife. One of these lucky fifteen women. I just need one more…” Richard’s words trailed off even as he surveyed her up and down.

Bridget suddenly got very nervous. Either Richard somehow could see through her dark silk blouse and was checking her out—not likely—or she was being sized up as a piece of meat. A sacrificial piece of meat.

She isn’t Bambi, he concluded silently. She didn’t have the flowing blond hair, the blue eyes or the body. Bridget more or less resembled a modern-day Audrey Hepburn in Funny Face…before the transformation.

She had little to no shape. Her golden-brown eyes, probably her best feature, were covered by thick, dark glasses that he knew she thought were chic, but that actually took up too much space on her face. No doubt her soft pale skin tone would translate as pasty on camera, but he was a desperate man. They could always add a lot of makeup.

“Richard,” Bridget growled. “Why are you looking at me like I’m steak and you are a hungry dog?”

“You’re single.”

“Oh, no,” she protested. “No way. Not me.”

“Bridge, I’m desperate. You heard Dan. He said no funny.”

“That was Don.”

“Whatever. I need you.”

“If you think I would go on a television show to get a husband…If you think I would go on a television show for any reason, you are out of your mind. You know how I hate the spotlight.”

“But this is our future, Bridge!”

Their future. Her heart skipped a beat at his words. She wasn’t sure exactly why. Possibly because she had a very real fear she was about to wet her pants. “I’m not going on TV.”

“Fine. Don’t do this. Don’t make this sacrifice. Really, I don’t know what I was thinking. I mean, hey, you’re happy just being my assistant, right? The idea of running an advertising company alongside me isn’t that important to you, is it?”

Bridget stood firm in the face of his guilt-mixed-with-bribery tactic. He was deluding himself if he thought for a moment that she was going to fall for it. She was way too skilled with this tactic to even flinch.

“Okay, I do know what I was thinking,” he said answering his own question. “I was thinking that you could, for the sake of Buzz’s desire to be a perfectionist, Dan’s—”

“Don’s.”

“—Don’s desire that absolutely nothing go wrong on this million-dollar ad campaign and, of course, my desire that this show put Breathe Better Mouthwash on every grocery and drugstore shelf in America, thus securing my position as New York’s most creative and most successful advertising force, sit in one of those chairs for one hour and look at Brock as if he makes your mouth water! That’s it. That is all that I am asking.” Richard inhaled deeply, then added, “It’s not like you’re going to make the first cut.”

Why that statement, of all things, should sting, she couldn’t say. But she could feel her bottom lip puff out slightly in what she feared was a sulky pout. Bridget didn’t do the sulky pout well. Usually, she ended up looking as though her lower lip had been stung by a bee. “And why not?”

“Look at you,” Richard said, pointing at her chest. “Now look at them.”

Bridget scanned the room of women all working on poses that showed off their…posture…in the best possible light.

“All right,” Bridget conceded. “I get your point. Maybe I don’t have the figure of Pamela Anderson, but that doesn’t mean that Brock might not see my inner beauty.”

“Okay,” Richard said, using his hands on her shoulders to spin her and point her in the direction of Brock. “Now, look at him.”

Brock currently was trying to check out his reflection in one of the elegant silver pitchers sitting on one of the marble-top tables that lined the foyer of the house. Bridget couldn’t imagine that the distorted image satisfied his vanity.

“Hey, do I have something in my teeth?” Brock asked one of the cameramen.

Richard turned Bridget back around to face him. “Please, Bridge. I know you hate the spotlight. But you won’t even know the cameras are there. These guys are professionals. You’ll sit in one of the chairs, balancing out the shot for Buzz, maybe say hello and goodbye to Brock. He’ll pick eight girls, none of whom will be you, and bang! You’re back to being my assistant.”

“Oh, joy!” she exclaimed with mock enthusiasm. “You mean after being rejected and humiliated on network television, I get to go back to being your assistant.”

“It’s not network, sweetheart, it’s cable.”

She crossed her arms over her chest and huffed.

“Please,” he cajoled, and she could hear him struggling to muster actual sincerity. She hated when he did that. It always weakened her.

“You’re my best friend. You’re going to be my future business partner,” he added. “And friends and partners are supposed to be there for each other, aren’t they?”

“What a load of crap,” she groaned. Internally though, she felt herself caving.

“No, really, it’s true. I read it in a magazine.”

“Richard,” she pleaded, giving it one last shot. “Don’t make me do this.”

Damn, he thought. He was beginning to buckle. He hadn’t lied when he’d said she was his best friend. His only friend, if truth were told. He’d spent so much of his energy focused on this one goal of getting to the top that he hadn’t left a lot of room in his life for family, lovers or even friends. He was pretty sure that Bridget only hung around because of his promise to promote her. Still, she stayed with him and he didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize that. But he couldn’t blow this opportunity, either. He was so close to having everything.