Clean Slate by Holley Trent Read Free Book Online Page A

file tabs until she found one of particular interest.
“Ben, I really, really hate trade
shows.” She pulled the file and closed the drawer.
    “Why’s that?”
    “Because I’m not charming. I get annoyed easily.”
    “I wouldn’t have thought that about you, Nikki.”
    She narrowed her gaze at him. “Are you bullshitting me?”
    He just grinned.
    “All right, silver-tongue. Normally, if I absolutely have
to send someone, I send Trinity because she knows the chemistry. But this is
too soon and with the wedding coming and all she has on her plate right now,
that wouldn’t be fair to her.”
    “How can I help?”
    “I like you more with each passing minute, Ben. You should
snap him up before someone else does, Daisy.”
    Daisy chuckled nervously as her face flooded yet again.
She snuck a peek at Ben and found his smile had wilted a bit at the edges.
Still friendly, but bearing some hint of familiarity—as if they shared
some secret. With her gaze back to her knees, she wrung her hands.
    “Ben, this show is on Saturday. It’s an honor for N-by-N
to even be invited, even if they’re plugging us into a bigger company’s slot
who had to pull out at the last minute. I’m happy to take away bigger
companies’ market share, and this is how I wedge this little company into
places it otherwise couldn’t go. So, I’ll be candid.”
    She handed him the manila folder she was holding and
waited for him to open it and review the glossy event brochures inside.
    “You’re handsome, you’ve got an accent women seem to like,
and you don’t have shit else to do.”
    He laughed. “Oh, well, if you put it like that .”
    “Four hours including set-up and clean-up. Ten if you
include the driving.”
    “What would I have to do?”
    “Hand out samples, tell everyone how great Nikki
Stacy-Mitchell is, that sort of thing.”
    He raised one eyebrow.
    Nikki shrugged and walked to the front of her desk,
leaning her butt against the edge. She looked at Daisy. “I need some samples,
honey.”
    “Samples?”
    Nikki closed her eyes and nodded. “Mm-hmm. Samples. Small
ones, but pretty ones. I figure around…” She moved her lips silently as if
computing figures in her head. “Three hundred about this big.” Using her thumb
and forefinger to make a circle, she demonstrated an approximate silver dollar
size.
    “Soap, you mean?”
    “Mm-hmm.” Nikki wrenched her torso around and reached for
her pad. “This show is to spotlight new products, and we hadn’t planned
anything for it. If push came to shove, I would have sent out the winter nail
polish palette, but I like this idea better.” She held the pad up and pointed
to her scribbles. “A hundred and ten of each. The thirty extra will be for research
and development.”
    Daisy gaped. “But we’re not going to have time to test
them before…”
    Nikki put up her hands. “I know. Right now, having
anything on the table would be better than showing up with nothing. If it’s
good soap, our presence there will just be one more feather in the collective
N-by-N cap. If folks don’t like them?” She shrugged. “Then they’ll just die a
trade show death and we’ll forget it ever happened.”
    Wow .
    Daisy understood the stakes. If people liked the soaps,
her success would mean Nikki would trust her with more creative endeavors.
Maybe it could mean finally ducking out from under her mother’s wing—to
have something of her own . Something
that showed she had a pretty good brain under all that red hair, and wasn’t
just a robot people fed instructions to.
    This was her chance to grab some confidence and hold it in
her heart forever.
    She nodded at Nikki. “Three hundred and thirty by Friday
night. I’ll need to get some supplies, but I’ll start tonight after Momma
leaves.”
    “Good. I’ll need you to be there on Saturday to explain
the ingredients, because Ben’s not going to remember that shit.” Nikki walked
around her desk and picked up her phone. She dialed