Bad Boys Down Under Read Online Free Page B

stared at it, half-hypnotized.
    â€œI can’t begin to describe what I feel for that shirt.”
    He chuckled. “It’s from our clothing line. Crane Casuals.” Like there might be Crane Formal Wear?
    He rose and came round to greet her, and she discovered he was wearing baggy black cargo pants with that shirt. “Everybody, this is Jennifer Talbot from the States. You can all introduce yourselves in a bit,” he said.
    â€œYes, I’d like that.”
    â€œHere. Welcome to Crane and to Australia.” He handed her a cellophane bag. Inside were two tank tops made of lycra and cotton, she suspected; one in fuchsia, and one in aquamarine. A baggy shirt in a floral pattern—not quite as bright as Cam’s, but sunglasses-preferred bright—went with each of them. And, to complete the ensemble, there was a pair of drawstring surfer shorts in aquamarine, trimmed with the same pattern as the shirt.
    â€œLike the boardies?” Cam asked with a grin as she inspected the shorts.
    â€œYes. Thank you,” she said holding up the shorts. Everyone was grinning at her, so she decided to show them she could be part of their team, or at least try to fit in. She slipped the shirt from the bag and put it on over her outfit. When in Rome. “I’ll never have to worry about getting lost at sea,” she joked weakly, wishing she were feeling as wide awake now as she had at three in the morning. Right now, she wanted to crawl off for a nap.
    She glanced at Cam Crane. Yep, that shirt jolted her awake faster than a double espresso—a short black, as she’d discovered when she stopped at a café on her way into Crane’s building when the cab let her off. Cameron Crane had told her she was certifiable when she insisted on taking a cab to his office when he was driving that way in his car. But if he didn’t know that his employees would get the wrong impression of her if she arrived at nine in the morning with him in tow, she—whose entire career was about creating image—knew.
    Taking her own place at the other end of the long oval table, she listened carefully as everyone introduced themselves. Because she knew image and reality didn’t always coincide, she refused to take these surfer kids at face value. There had to be some smarts in the room. Cameron Crane hadn’t built the number one surf and boogie board company in the southern hemisphere all on his own.
    â€œOkay,” she said, once the introductions were done. She gestured around the room, feeling the new cotton on the wow-your-eyes-out shirt scrape her upper arm. Hanging on the walls were glossy posters and magazine ads, pictures of Crane surf and boogie boards and the clothing line, each with the tiny black crane logo.
    Their ad campaigns tended to be straight up. The people in those photographs were defying waves, cresting breakers that made her—a born-and-bred Californian—shudder. As far as she could tell, the photos weren’t studio-shot or airbrushed to perfection; they were as raw as the powerful waves, and they packed quite a punch.
    These were surf products for honest-to-God surfers. But if she was going to help them launch in the U.S., they were going to need a different approach.
    She turned back to the group eyeing her with expressions from curious, blank-eyed, and possibly hungover, to the man at the end of the table whose expression read come to bed. She did her best to telegraph back, forget it, and then tried to ignore his presence.
    â€œCrane Enterprises has saturated the Australian and New Zealand markets. Am I right?”
    Nods all around the table.
    â€œSo, you think, they surf in California, they surf in Hawaii, we’ll take over those markets.”
    More nodding.
    â€œHow are we going to do that?”
    They gazed at her collectively as if to say, What do you think we hired you for?
    â€œThe vast majority of foreign products that try to sell into the