by Hart, Taylor
But her frankness reminded him a bit of his mother’s way of getting to the heart of the matter. Jeremy had never been able to fool his mom about anything. He climbed out of bed and changed into running shorts and a T-shirt. Then he queued up the music on his phone and grabbed some water from the fridge. He exited his apartment and went into the elevator that would take him to the ground level. His top-floor apartment in the city was where he’d been spending more and more of his time lately.
He owned a cottage in Martha’s Vineyard and a cabin in Pine Valley, but home had always been his parents’ estate outside of Boston. Maybe he’d go there this weekend, spend time with his dad, get in a golf round.
The elevator dinged open, and he stepped out.
“Hello, Mr. Lode,” Raphael said.
The doorman was in his usual black suit, holding court in the lobby.
“Hi, Raphael,” Jeremy said.
“It’s a nice day for a run,” Raphael continued, his dark eyes crinkling at the corners with his smile.
“Yes, it is,” Jeremy said. They had the exact same conversation every morning. And when Jeremy returned from his runs, Raphael would update him on something about his family. His young daughter’s new tooth, or his son’s latest art creation in preschool.
Jeremy took his shorter, three-mile route today, so that he’d beat the traffic into Boston. He was determined to stick to the 9:00 a.m. contract deadline. It wouldn’t take long to revise the boilerplate contract he always worked from, but he wouldn’t put it past Mandy to find some fatal flaw that would cause her not to sign quite yet.
And for some reason, Jeremy was determined to lock the contract down today.
After his run, he showered, dressed, and was in the office by 7:00 a.m. Mornings were his favorite, especially if he could get in before the hustle of the day began.
He’d barely sat down at his desk when his cell rang. “Hi, Dad,” he answered.
“I’m reading the email you sent over a few hours ago . . . at one in the morning?”
“Yeah, can I come home for the weekend?” Jeremy asked. “Or do you have other guests around?”
His dad chuckled. “Depends. Are we talking business or pleasure?”
“Downtime, that’s all,” Jeremy said.
“In that case, Harold and John will be here. We have a few tee times lined up.”
Jeremy didn’t mind his dad’s friends; both men were semi-retired.
“Want to join us?” his dad continued. “We can play a four-man scramble.”
“Maybe for one round,” Jeremy said. “Speaking of golf, Sidney told me you’ve reneged on the charity tournament. I didn’t know you were going to Europe.”
“Ah, well, Harold talked me into following the Tour.”
“Tour?” Jeremy prompted.
“You know, the Tour de France,” his dad said. “Harold’s been a bunch of times. Says it’s good times following the race, staying in different villages every night, enjoying the French wines.”
Jeremy suspected that Harold probably enjoyed the French ladies too. Jeremy couldn’t care less what Harold did with his time, but now that his dad would be going too . . . “You know that Harold’s a ladies’ man, and he’s not exactly picky.”
“Don’t worry, son,” his dad said. “Your mother can still scold me from heaven. If I do meet another woman someday, she’ll speak English.”
Jeremy knew he should laugh, but the thought of another woman replacing his mom was nothing to tease about. Not yet. Two years was too soon. “Well, I’ll see you this weekend, then,” Jeremy said, keeping the frustration out of his voice. “Book me for a golf round.”
“Great,” his dad said, his tone bright.
They hung up, and Jeremy busied himself with the contract for the On the Go app, and at 8:35 a.m., he officially sent it to Mandy’s email.
The office outside his door was coming to life, and he heard Dustin’s rather loud voice. Phones rang, doors opened and shut, and Jeremy clicked through his emails, addressing the more urgent ones first.
At 8:58, his cell rang.
Mandy.
Jeremy had assumed she’d call his office number during business hours or, like she’d said, stick to emails and texts. So a phone call on his cell sent a warning bell through him.
“Jeremy Lode,” he answered, ready to hear out her negotiating terms.
“The request for monthly reporting was stated in my spreadsheets more than once,” Mandy said without preamble. “Quarterly reporting is too long to wait and delays the numbers so that if new strategies need to be made, it’s too late to customize to market.”
Jeremy couldn’t help it. The sound of her voice made him smile. Plus, her business jargon was sexy. “Did you google that?” Perhaps he’d taken his teasing a little too far.
“I googled a lot of things, Mr. Lode,” she said. “But that wasn’t one of them. Remember, I’m an—”
“You’re an accountant,” Jeremy cut in. “Yes. I know.” He rose from his chair and crossed to the floor-to-ceiling windows of his corner office. Being the president had perks he never complained about. “But if you look at the notes I put in on that line, monthly reporting costs eighteen percent more than quarterly reporting.”
Her phone beeped as if she had another call coming in. “My firm will offer us a discount, which I also stated in the spreadsheet.”
Jeremy decided he’d rather talk to Mandy in person. Over the phone wasn’t the same. “I don’t think it’s wise to use the same accounting firm you work for. If this thing grows and we take it public—”
Her phone beeped again.
“—we’ll need the separation,” he finished. “I’m looking out for the long term, Ms. Wurst.”
She exhaled. “We can hire another firm then, but I still think eighteen percent would be worth it.” Her phone beeped. “Sorry about that. I should have called you on the landline, but then I would have to be in my cubicle. Lots of ears around, you know.”
“I can call you back in a few minutes if you need to take care of something.”
Mandy scoffed. “This will take more than a few minutes. Hang on, let me send a quick text.”
Jeremy slipped one hand into his pants pocket and gazed out over the Boston skyline. The morning’s dawn colors had faded to a perfect blue. Not a cloud in the sky.
“Okay,” Mandy said into the phone. “Sorry again. Daisy is the most persistent person I know, next to me of course.”
“Is she all right?” Jeremy asked, unsure why he was taking this detour in the conversation.
“Oh, Daisy’s great,” Mandy said. “I forgot to throw out the invitation to my ten-year high school reunion. When she found it this morning, she asked if I was going. Which of course I’m not. It’s tomorrow night, and everyone will have their spouses or significant others. Their topics of conversation will be about their adorable toddlers or second vacation homes. Daisy thinks that if she’s my plus-one, it will make all the difference.”
“You’re twenty-eight?”
“Is that all you got out of what I said?” Mandy said, her tone a mixture of exasperation and amusement.
Jeremy chuckled. He wanted to see that amused gleam in her eyes. “So are you going?”
“I wasn’t what you called popular in high school,” Mandy said. “I was the classic geek. Five-foot-ten by the time I was a sophomore, didn’t play any sports, couldn’t carry a tune in choir, or play an instrument to save my life.”
“I’ll bet you got straight As,” he mused.
“Well, yes, but what fun is that when every minute in school makes you want to throw up?” she said.
Jeremy stilled. “That bad, huh?”
She didn’t answer.
Jeremy felt hot and kind of antsy. He wasn’t sure what happened next, but the words just came out. “What if I was your plus-one? Would that make a difference?”
Although Mandy had one ear plugged with her finger and the other ear glued to her cell phone, she wasn’t s
ure she’d heard Jeremy right.
“Are you still there?” Jeremy said through the phone.
“Yeah,” Mandy said. “Did you just tell me that you want to come to my high school reunion?”
“I did.”
Mandy turned toward the painting on the wall at the end of the hallway where she stood. The painting was some sort of mountain scene, with a dark-turquoise river snaking through the velvety-green meadow. Beyond rose a majestic violet-and-slate-gray mountain.
“Mandy?”
“I couldn’t let you do that,” she said. “I mean, you’re . . . a beautiful man . . . and you’re successful . . . and wealthy. The popular girls, who used to dump tampons into my locker so that they’d fall out when I opened it, would know something was fishy. And when they find out that we aren’t really dating, they’d be all over you. You’d go home with at least a dozen phone numbers—”
“Mandy, stop.” Jeremy’s voice was commanding enough that she did stop talking.
Breathe. Showing up with billionaire Jeremy Lode as her plus-one at her high school reunion would be worse than staying home and sulking. She’d be laughed at because everyone would see right through her. No way would she have a boyfriend like Jeremy Lode. It would take minutes for the vixens and their dopey followers to discover that Jeremy was in fact her investor.
“They put tampons in your locker?” he asked, his voice a mixture of incredulity and steel.
“That was a good day,” Mandy said. “The racoons thought my last name was the best bait for teasing, but not the right kind.”
“Racoons?”
“It’s how I labeled the popular girls who wore layers of makeup, since their eyeliner made them look like racoons.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “We’re way off track here. I’m not going to the reunion. Even if you are changing the terms of my spreadsheets, I wouldn’t put you through that.”
He didn’t say anything for a moment, and she was about to check to make sure they were still connected when he said, “I’m the one who suggested going with you. Picture it. I’ll drop the word about how amazing and successful you are. How I can’t believe how lucky I am to be dating a woman like you. We arrive a little late, take some pictures, drink some cheap wine, shake some hands, then get out of there.”
Mandy visualized the moment as if she were in a movie scene. She and Jeremy walking in. Him: drop-dead gorgeous. Her: dressed up as much as Daisy could help. Mandy could even wear heels because he was that much taller than her. They’d mingle. Say some fake words. Laugh. Pretend they were dating . . . No. Was she really considering taking Jeremy up on his offer? Then she remembered. “It’s black tie.”
“No problem,” he said. “I have a tux.”
Of course he did, and he probably looked amazing in it.
The temptation to do this with Jeremy at her side was growing stronger. “Wait,” she said. “What’s this going to cost me?”
“Excuse me?”
“I mean, this is a huge favor,” she said. “Are you going to ask for thirty-five percent again?”
She heard Jeremy exhale on the other side of the line.
“Sometimes life isn’t all about the money, Mandy.”
Well, that was a reprimand if she’d ever heard one. And now she felt horrible. And guilty. “You’re right,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
“If you need a plus-one for the reunion, let me know,” Jeremy said. “Otherwise, does everything else in the contract look good?”
His tone was cordial, and Mandy hated it. She wanted to hear him teasing or even arguing with her—anything but the professional-Jeremy.
“You addressed my only concern,” she said. “I’ll get it signed and emailed over.”
They hung up, and Mandy leaned against the wall and closed her eyes.
Now what?
She called Daisy. “You can stop texting me now,” she told her roommate.
“We’re going?” Daisy practically squealed into the phone. “You can borrow one of my dresses, you choose first, and I’ll—”
“Daisy,” Mandy cut in. “Jeremy Lode offered to be my plus-one.”
This time Daisy did squeal. “Wow, just wow. He totally has the hots for you.” She squealed again.
Mandy could have predicted everything that Daisy would say about Jeremy, and she was right. After about a minute of Daisy’s gushing, Mandy cut in. “I haven’t decided if I’m going, but if I do, Jeremy says he already has a tux.”
More squealing and gushing. From Daisy.
The more Daisy talked, the more nervous Mandy became. Her pulse was doing wild things because she was seriously considering going with Jeremy. It would feel good to maybe once have those mean girls from high school rendered speechless.
When Mandy hung up with Daisy, she knew she needed to get back to work. First she’d sign the contract though. Whether or not they went to the reunion together, she wanted to get the production on the app underway. Work was always the best way to deal with all the other things her life lacked.
By lunchtime, she’d emailed over the contract, caught up on her accounting work, and decided that the reunion was going to happen. Her stomach was in too many knots for her to eat, so she opted to take a walk along the city streets until her lunch hour was up. On the way, she could think about how to talk to Jeremy about the reunion. She could simply text him. Email might be better. Or a phone call.
As she stepped out of her building, she wondered if she should see him in person. Surely he was busy—in meetings, likely. But maybe if she saw him in person, she’d better gauge whether this whole reunion thing would work. She could hire a Uber, and . . . No.
Her nerves were wound too tight, and she’d say something she’d later regret. Mandy reached the end of the block and paused at the corner to wait for a traffic light. The spring air was warm today, and she relished the sun’s rays on her face. The crosswalk light changed, and she stepped off the curb, walking with the other pedestrians who’d collected at the corner.
The more she walked, the more confident she felt.
She was successful, so to speak. She was a college-educated woman living on her own, financially independent, on the brink of more success, and she had friends: Daisy and, well, Jeremy. So what if showing up with him on her arm would be a bit of a ruse?
She paused near a café and sent a text to Jeremy. Are you busy tomorrow night? Then she started to walk again, heading back to her office. Before she reached the corner of the block, he’d texted back.
I have plans to go to a friend’s high school reunion.
Relief buzzed through Mandy. He was back to the teasing Jeremy. Can you be ready by 6:00?
Yes.
Mandy’s pulse drummed. We can meet somewhere or I can pick you up.
His reply came almost immediately. I’ll drive.
Okay, then. Jeremy obviously had no trouble making decisions. Mandy texted: See you tomorrow at 6:00.
Somehow Mandy made it through the next twenty-four hours of anticipation. She even survived Daisy’s mantra about Jeremy liking Mandy as more than a “friend.” She elected to wear one of Daisy’s fitted black dresses. It was shorter on Mandy than on Daisy, but that couldn’t be helped. All of Daisy’s dresses were short.
“Should I bring a jacket or something?” Mandy asked as she surveyed herself in the full-length mirror at the end of the hallway in their apartment. The black dress had a high neckline, but her shoulders were bare and the back cut into a low scoop.
“Jeremy will keep you plenty warm,” Daisy said.
“Stop saying that kind of stuff,” Mandy said. “You know this isn’t a real date.”
Daisy merely smiled.
Both women jolted when the doorbell rang.
“It’s six already?” Mandy whispered.
“He’s five minutes early,” Daisy hissed.
Mandy felt light-headed. This was really going to happen—Jeremy Lode was taking her to her reunion.
“I’ll get the door,” Daisy said
when it became apparent that Mandy was frozen in place. “We don’t want to make him knock.”
No . . . That wouldn’t be good. Just before Daisy opened the door, Mandy hurried into her bedroom. She didn’t want to be caught staring from the hallway.
The rumble of Jeremy’s voice filled the apartment, and Mandy checked her appearance one more time. Thank goodness for Daisy’s help.
“Mandy . . .” Daisy called in her super sweet get-in-here-right-now voice.
Mandy exhaled. Then she left her bedroom.
Yep. Jeremy looked amazing, and Mandy decided she was proud of herself for not tripping on something as she walked toward him. She could practically feel Daisy’s smirk, because, yes, Jeremy was looking at her like he was very much appreciating her appearance.
Oh boy.
Jeremy’s dark hair was more styled than usual, and he seemed even taller in her apartment. His tux was black, as she expected, and it looked as if it had been tailored to perfectly fit his broad shoulders, then taper at his waist to the final half inch. His gray eyes were focused solely on her. And if that wasn’t enough to get her heart pumping, he had brought . . . roses.
“Hi,” Mandy said, because that was about all she could manage to say at the moment.
“Looks like you’re ready.” Jeremy’s gaze slid down her body then back up.
The appreciation in his gray eyes made her skin hum. And . . . apparently she was tongue-tied.
“I hope you like roses,” he said, the edges of his mouth curving.
He knew the effect he had on her. She had to snap out of it.
Mandy blinked and stepped forward. She took the roses and breathed in their scent. “I do. Thanks. They’re beautiful. Thank you.”
Jeremy’s smile made her heart start racing all over again. She turned to Daisy. “Can you put these in water?”
“Sure thing,” Daisy said, amusement in her voice. “Have a great time, you two.”
“Thanks,” Mandy said. How many times was she going to say thanks tonight?
Once outside, Mandy breathed a little easier. At least she didn’t have to deal with Daisy listening to every word between them. But she was still plenty nervous about facing the racoons tonight.
