I'm Your Man Read Online Free

products that embraced simplicity and classic beauty, yet never went beyond the drugstore and beauty supply market. I’d gotten my shot at the account because Frank wanted to change the direction of Allure Cosmetics’ advertising, hoping to appeal to a younger market, and I was the youngest member of the firm. Rehashing an old idea, I launched the “Lady in Red” campaign. We repackaged his line in bright red boxes with black letters and did a series of ads featuring a model with a Grace Kelly appeal. She had a patrician beauty, but somewhere beneath her surface, one sensed a temptress. One of the first ads featured her in a red dress, clinging to the back of a tuxedoed man on a motorcycle. She traveled in style, but she did it dangerously. She never checked a coat, only a helmet.
    Allure Cosmetics’ sales rose ten percent, and Frank wanted to keep me and the Lady in Red. But he’d also decided Trueluck and Frost was too provincial to deliver the kind of audience he wanted his ads to have. He was courted by Breslin Evans Fox and Dean, a powerhouse agency in Manhattan. When he signed with them, it was with the stipulation that the firm hire me.
    My early days at Breslin Evans were brutal. With the move, Allure Cosmetics became a little fish in a big pond, so I wasn’t much more than plankton. The competition for accounts was intense. It was only thanks to Frank’s loyalty that I held on to Allure during a time when I was given every third-rate, undesirable project that my superiors—which included basically everyone, since even the administrative staff got more respect than I did—could throw at me.
    Through it all, the Lady in Red never waned in popularity. But what did she smell like?
    Frank had no experience with perfume, so he asked me to find a line that would mix well with his company. I would never have thought to merge Allure Cosmetics and Lillith Parker Designs if it wasn’t for my then-assistant, Sharon. We’d been holed up in my office for a week with Allure samples and hundreds of bottles of perfume, trying to find a good match. My office smelled like the main floor of Bloomingdale’s, and we were giddy from the fumes.
    â€œFor Pete’s sake, open a window, Sharon,” I barked. “It smells like my Aunt Gladys in here.”
    â€œBelieve me, I would,” she said, “but we’re on the twenty-third floor, and the windows don’t open. Where’s that can of coffee? It’ll cleanse your nose. Here you go.” When she passed me the coffee, the can knocked over an open bottle of Halo by Lillith Parker. My desk and several Allure compacts were saturated with the smell of verbena and lilac. “No! Not the eye shadow! I was going to wear it at my bridal shower!” Sharon screamed.
    â€œMy desk! You got perfume all over my desk!” I hollered.
    â€œMe? You got perfume in my compact!”
    â€œHey, wait a minute. Which perfume was that?”
    â€œLillith Parker’s,” Sharon answered. “Why?”
    â€œShe’s the one with those wacky names, right? How about, Allure Has a Halo? ”
    Sharon found the file on Lillith Parker and read aloud, “Lillith Parker Designs manufactures perfumes with celestial imagery in its bottles and titles.” She scanned the file. “Aura, Halo, Saturnine, Balance. You could work with these names, Blaine. They’d go well with Allure.”
    â€œI think we found it. Where is Lillith Parker located?”
    â€œBaltimore.”
    â€œBook us on a flight tomorrow.”
    â€œI’ll book a flight for you and a temp,” Sharon said. “I’m getting married and moving to Connecticut, remember? You need to learn to live without me.”
    â€œWhatever, Sharon. Just do it. And send a memo to purchasing that I need a new desk. This one reeks.”
    Over the next few months, I’d lost Sharon, but Frank Allen gained Lillith Parker as a partner in