Free The Main Attraction by Jayne Ann Krentz

larger women, the ones who are on the other side of the average scale. They’ve been as overlooked by the designers as we shorter types have been.“
    Trent nodded, the business side of his nature momentarily coming to the fore. „Where are you going to get the capital for that kind of expansion?“
    „That’s part of the problem,“ she admitted. „But Glenna and I are working on it. We’ve got a loan application into a bank that financed us three years ago. They were reasonably supportive in the past, and I think they will be again.“
    „Maybe you shouldn’t try to do both projects at once,“ Trent suggested. „Opening your own shops is going to be a very expensive proposition, and so is starting a new line of clothing. Pick the one you think you can handle and let the other idea ride for a while.“
    She flashed him a piercing look. „You’re hardly an expert on the fashion business.“
    „True, but I am an expert on such basics as the dangers of overexpansion and the problems of finding financial resources. Maybe you and your partner should get a financial consultant in to look over your situation before you go off in a direction that could sink you and your firm. I know a good man in Seattle named Handel. He’s made a specialty out of advising growing businesses like yours. He knows how critical these expansion stages are. A lot of companies collapse at this point ;n their development.“
    „If I want your advice,“ she said dryly, „I’ll ask for it.“
    „I doubt it. You’ve probably decided I’m not qualified to advise you on the grounds that I’m too large.“
    She stared at him for a second and then burst into laughter.
    Trent began to relax. It was going to be all right, he told himself. He could handle her. She was a challenge, but he was good at responding to challenges. All he needed was time.
    Time and opportunity.
    He would have time this summer, but he began to worry about opportunity. It wasn’t going to be easy enticing Filomena Cromwell into a love affair when her whole family and a good portion of the local residents would be watching with avid interest. Filomena herself was too busy putting on her flashy show for the hometown folks. She was having too much fun being a big fish in a small pond. It wasn’t going to be simple to distract her long enough to lure her into his arms.
    He watched her eat a dill pickle and told himself that somehow, some way, he had to get her into bed. He had to find a way to overcome her wariness, a way past that slick, polished facade. Above all, he wanted to teach her that she could trust him. But he was going to have to get her full attention first.
    Based on what he had learned last night when he’d held her in his arms, he had a hunch the fastest way to accomplish his goal was to awaken the passion she kept leashed inside her.
    Opportunity, he told himself again. That was what he needed. He had been in the business world long enough to know that sometimes a man had to create his own opportunities. He let the conversation wander off into a variety of pleasant byways while he considered hi? problem.
    Two hours after they had left the lodge, Trent and Fil-omena returned. They walked across the wide lawn toward the terrace of her parents’ home, where Amery, Meg and Shari were sitting with glasses of iced tea. Trent had just decided that the afternoon had been a reasonable success and was congratulating himself on his clever handling of Filomena when the tension of the three people seated around the table finally got through to him.
    It seemed to get through to Filomena at the same time.
    „Hey, what’s up? You three look as if you just got advance word of an earthquake,“ she remarked cheerfully.
    Amery glanced at Trent and then at his daughter. „I don’t think it’s quite that serious. But you managed to shake Meg and Shari up a bit along with a fair number of neighbors.“
    Filomena’s eyebrows rose. „Is that right? How did I do