Match Me If You Can

by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

  They shoved the worst of the food mess into trash bags and carried them out to the alley. Dean gazed at Sherman in disgust. “She actually tried to talk me into trading cars with her. She said driving that heap for a couple of days would help me stay in touch with the real world.”

  “Not to mention giving her a shot at your Porsche.”

  “I do believe I pointed that out.” They headed toward the house. “So how’s come you haven’t tried to shove a contract under my nose tonight?”

  “Losing interest.” Heath held the back door open for him. “I’m used to guys who are more decisive.”

  “I’m decisive as hell. I’ll have you know the only reason I haven’t signed with anybody yet is because I’m having too much fun being courted. You wouldn’t believe the shit agents’ll send you, and I’m not just talking about front-row concert tickets. The Zagorskis bought me a Segway.”

  “Yeah, well, while you’re enjoying yourself, remember that Nike’s forgetting all the reasons they need your candy-ass face smiling down on the homeless from their billboards.”

  “Speaking of presents…” Dean leaned against the counter, his expression cagey. “I’ve been admiring that new Rolex Submariner watch I’ve seen in the stores. Those folks sure do know how to make a great timepiece.”

  “How about I send you a flower arrangement that matches your pretty blue eyes instead?”

  “That’s cold, man.” He dredged his keys from Annabelle’s Hello Kitty cookie jar along with an Oreo. “It’s hard to see how you got to be such a hotshot agent with that kind of attitude.”

  Heath smiled. “It looks like you’ll never find out. Your loss.”

  Robillard snapped the Oreo in two with his teeth, gave him a cocky grin, and sauntered from the kitchen. “Later, Heathcliff.”

  Heath sent Leandro off in a cab. He couldn’t stop grinning. There wasn’t one thing between Dean and Annabelle except mischief. Annabelle didn’t love him. She treated him exactly the same way she treated the other players, like they were overgrown kids. All that crap she’d fed Heath was totally bogus. And if Dean had been in love with her, he sure as hell wouldn’t have left her alone with another man tonight.

  She lay on her side, little puffs of air stirring the lock of hair that had fallen over her mouth. He fetched a blanket, and she didn’t stir as he covered her with it. He found himself wondering how bad it would be to reach under that blanket and slip off her jeans so she could sleep more comfortably?

  Bad.

  Try as he might, he could only come up with one reason Annabelle had set up her charade with Dean. Because she was in love with Heath, and she wanted to save her pride. Funny, feisty, glorious Annabelle Granger loved him. His grin grew broader, and he felt lighthearted for the first time in months. Amazing what clarity could do for a man’s peace of mind.

  The phone awakened him. He reached across the nightstand for it and muttered into the mouthpiece. “Champion.”

  There was a long silence. He turned his face deeper into the pillow and drifted.

  “Heath?”

  He rubbed his hand over his mouth. “Yeah?”

  “Heath?”

  “Phoebe?”

  He heard an angry, in-drawn breath and then the crack of a broken connection. His eyes shot open. Another few seconds passed before he confirmed what he feared. This wasn’t his bedroom, the phone he’d answered didn’t belong to him, and it was—he gazed at the clock—not quite eight in the morning.

  Great. Now Phoebe knew he’d spent the night at Annabelle’s. He was screwed. Double screwed, once Phoebe heard that he’d broken up with Delaney.

  Wide awake, he climbed out of Annabelle’s bed, which unfortunately didn’t contain Annabelle. Despite the career implications of what had just happened, his good mood from last night wouldn’t go away. He headed downstairs from the attic to shower, then shaved with Annabelle’s Gillette Daisy. He didn’t have a change of clothes, which meant he could either pull on yesterday’s boxers or go commando. He opted for the latter, then slipped into last night’s dress shirt, badly wrinkled from Annabelle’s fists.

  When he got downstairs, he found her still curled into a ball on the couch, the blanket pulled up to her chin, one bare foot sticking out. He’d never had a foot fetish, but there was something about that sweet little arch that made him want to do all kinds of semiobscene things with it. But then most parts of Annabelle’s body seemed to have that effect on him, which should have been a big clue. He pulled his eyes away from her toes and headed for the kitchen.

  He and Dean hadn’t done the best job of cleaning, and the morning light revealed remnants of Chinese food stuck to the counters. While the coffee brewed, he grabbed some paper towels and got up the worst of it. By the time he looked into the other room again, Annabelle had made it into a sitting position. Her hair draped most of her face except for the tip of her nose and one cheekbone.

  “Where are my jeans?” she muttered. “Never mind. We’ll talk about it later.” She pulled the blanket around her and staggered toward the stairs.

  He went back into the kitchen and poured himself coffee. As he was about to take the first sip, he noticed that a big pot of African violets had been shoved under the table. He didn’t know much about plants, but the foliage on this one looked a lot the worse for wear. He couldn’t actually prove anybody had peed in it, but why take the chance? He took it outside and hid it under the back steps.

  He’d just finished reading the motivational messages on Annabelle’s refrigerator when he heard a rustling noise. He turned to enjoy the sight of Annabelle shuffling into the kitchen. She hadn’t made it as far as the shower, but she’d twisted her hair up and washed her face, leaving her eyelashes spiky and her cheeks flushed. A pair of plaid cotton sleeping boxers stuck out from beneath an oversize purple sweatshirt. He followed the line of her bare legs down to her feet, which were tucked into ratty chartreuse running shoes. All in all, she looked sleepy, rumpled, and sexy.

  He handed her a mug of coffee. She waited until she’d had her first sip before she acknowledged him, a little gravel still in her voice. “Do I want to know who took off my jeans?”

  He thought it over. “Robillard. Guy’s a sleaze.”

  She glowered at him. “I wasn’t that out of it. You copped a feel when you unzipped them.”

  He couldn’t have looked repentant if he tried. “Hand slipped.”

  She sank down at the kitchen table. “Did I imagine it, or was Delaney here last night?”

  “She was here.”

  “Why didn’t she stay and help out?”

  Now came the tricky part. He made a play of rooting around in the cupboard for something to eat, even though he knew she’d been cleaned out. After he’d shuffled around a couple of cans of stewed tomatoes, he closed the door. “The whole thing was a little too much for her.”

  She sat up straighter. “What do you mean?”

  Too late, he realized he should have been figuring out how he wanted to spin this instead of hiding African violets and standing in front of the refrigerator reading inspiring quotes from Oprah. Maybe a shrug would help stave off this particular discussion until she was wide awake. He gave it a try.

  It didn’t work.

  “I don’t understand.” Annabelle untucked the leg she’d crooked under her hip and started looking worried. “She told me she was starting to like football.”

  “As it turns out, not when it’s quite so up close and personal.”

  The lines on her forehead deepened. “I’ll coach her through it. They’re only intimidating if you let them get the upper hand.”

  He shouldn’t smile, but wasn’t this exactly why his new plan would work so much better than the old one? From the very beginning, Annabelle had made him happy, but he’d been so focused in the wrong direction that he hadn’t understood what that meant. Annabelle wasn’t the woman of his dreams. Far from it. His dreams had been the product of insecurity, immaturity, and misdirected ambition. No, Annabelle
was the woman of his future…the woman of his happiness.

  His clearer vision told him she wouldn’t take his news about Delaney well, especially when he couldn’t quite rein in his smile. “The thing is…Delaney and I are over.”

  Annabelle’s coffee mug dropped to the table with a thud, and she rose from the chair. “No. You’re not over. This is just a bump in the road.”

  “I’m afraid not. Last night she got a good look at my life, and what she saw didn’t make her happy.”

  “I’ll fix it. Once she understands—”

  “No, Annabelle,” he said firmly. “This one can’t be fixed. I don’t want to marry her.”

  She exploded. “You don’t want to marry anyone!”

  “That’s not…exactly true.”

  “It is true. And I’m sick of it. I’m sick of you.” Her arms started to flail. “You’re making me crazy, and I can’t take it anymore. You’re fired, Mr. Champion. This time I’m firing you.”

  It was an impressive display of temper, so he proceeded cautiously. “I’m a client,” he pointed out. “You can’t fire me.”

  She bored into him with those honey eyes. “I just did.”

  “In my defense, I had good intentions.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the jeweler’s box. “I was planning to propose last night. We were at Charlie Trotter’s. The food was great, the mood perfect, and I had the ring. But just as I got ready to give it to her…you called.”

  He paused and let her draw her own conclusions, which she, being female, was quick to do.

  “Oh, my God. It was me. I’m responsible.”

  A good agent always shifted the blame, but as her consternation grew, he knew he had to come clean. “Your phone call wasn’t the real problem. I’d been trying to give her the ring all evening, but I couldn’t seem to get it out of my pocket. That’s got to tell you something right there.”

  By putting the blame where it belonged, he set her off again. “Nobody’s right for you! I swear, you’d find something wrong with the Virgin Mary.” She snatched the ring box from him, flipped it open, and curled her lip. “This was the best you could do? You’re a multimillionaire!”

  “Exactly!” If he’d needed any more proof that Annabelle Granger was a woman in a million, this was it. “Don’t you see? She likes everything subtle. If I’d chosen anything bigger, she’d have been embarrassed. I hate that ring. Imagine how the guys would react if they saw a puny rock like that on my wife’s finger.”

  She snapped the lid shut and shoved the box back into his hand. “You’re still fired.”

  “I understand.” He slipped it into his pocket, took a last swig of coffee, and headed for the door.

  “I think it’ll be better for both of us if we cut if off right here.”

  He hoped that tremor he heard in her voice wasn’t all in his imagination. “Do you now?” The urge to kiss away her outrage nearly overwhelmed him. But while short-term gratification was tempting, he needed to focus on the long term, so he merely smiled and left her alone.

  Outside, the morning air held the crisp smoky scent of autumn. He breathed it in and, with a light step, headed down the street to his car. Watching her with the men last night had opened his eyes to something he should have realized weeks ago. Annabelle Granger was his perfect match.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Ever since the day Annabelle had walked into Heath’s office, her life had been a Ferris wheel spinning at triple speed. She’d soar to the top, hang there for a few blissful seconds, then take a stomach-turning plummet to the bottom. As she got ready for her birthday party, she told herself she was glad she’d fired him. He was crazy. Even worse, he’d made her crazy. At least tonight she wouldn’t have time to think about him. Instead, she’d be making sure her family saw her as she was, no longer a failure but an almost-successful, just-turned-thirty-two-year-old businesswoman who didn’t need anybody’s advice or pity. Perfect for You might not be a candidate for the Fortune 500, but at least it was finally turning a profit.

  She screwed the top back on a tube of lip gloss and headed across the hall from the bathroom to the full-length mirror in Nana’s bedroom. She liked what she saw. Her cocktail dress, a long-sleeved A-line, had been a splurge, but she didn’t regret a penny. The flattering off-the-shoulder neckline made her neck look long and graceful, as well as dramatizing her face and hair. She could have chosen the dress in safe, conservative black, but she’d opted for peach instead. She loved the dramatic juxtaposition of the soft pastel with her red hair, which was behaving perfectly for a change, floating around her face in a pretty tousle and providing peekaboo glimpses of a delicate pair of lacy gold chandeliers. Her buttercream stilettos gave her a few extra inches of height, but not nearly as much stature as the man on her arm would provide.

  “You’re bringing a date?” Kate’s astonishment over breakfast at her parents’ hotel that morning still grated, but Annabelle had held her tongue. While Dean’s relative youth might work against her, the Grangers were huge football fans. With the exception of Candace, the family had followed the Stars for years, and she could only hope that Dean’s status would compensate for his youth and diamond studs.

  She took one last look at her reflection. Candace would be wearing Max Mara, but so what? Her sister-in-law was an insecure, social-climbing dork. Annabelle wished Doug had brought Jamison instead, but her nephew was home in California with a nanny. Annabelle glanced at her watch. Her trophy date wouldn’t be picking her up for another twenty minutes. Before Dean had agreed to do this, she’d had to promise to be at his beck and call for the rest of her natural life, but it would be worth it.

  As she headed downstairs, she grew uncomfortably aware that there was something pathetic about a now thirty-two-year-old woman still trying to earn her family’s approval. Maybe when she was forty she’d have gotten past this. Or maybe not. Face it, she had reason to be apprehensive. The last time she’d been with her family, they’d staged an intervention.

  “You have so much potential, darling,” Kate had said over Christmas Eve eggnog on the lanai of their Naples home. “We love you too much to stand by and watch you waste it.”

  “It’s fine to be a screwup when you’re twenty-one,” Doug had said. “But if you haven’t gotten serious about a career by the time you’re thirty, you start looking like a loser.”

  “Doug’s right,” Dr. Adam had said. “We can’t always be watching out for you. You need to dig in.”

  “At least think about how your lifestyle reflects on the rest of the family.” That had come from Candace, after she’d tossed back her fourth eggnog.

  Even her father had piled on. “Take some golf lessons. There’s no better place to make the right kind of connections.”

  Tonight’s “party” would be at the stodgy Mayfair Club, where Kate had booked a private room. Annabelle had wanted to invite the book club for protection but Kate had insisted it be “just family.” Adam’s newest girlfriend and Annabelle’s mystery date were the only exceptions.

  Annabelle tested the temperature outside. It was chilly, almost Halloween, but not cold enough to ruin her outfit with one of her ratty jackets. She stepped back inside and began to pace. Another fifteen minutes until Dean was due to pick her up. Surely tonight her family would finally see that she wasn’t a failure. She looked good, she had a very hot, make-believe boyfriend, and Perfect for You had begun to turn the corner. If only Heath…

  She’d been trying so hard not to gnaw over her unhappiness. She hadn’t talked to him since the party last weekend, and, so far, he’d honored her demand to leave her alone. She’d even managed to resist calling him to acknowledge the boxes of gourmet groceries and pricey liquors he’d had delivered to replenish her pantry. Why he’d included the lone African violet remained a mystery.

  As painful as it was, she knew he was an emotional investment she could no longer afford. For months, she’d tried to convince herself that her feelings for him centered more on lust than love,
but it wasn’t true. She loved him in so many ways she’d lost count: his basic decency, his humor, the way he understood her. But his emotional hang-ups had roots a mile deep, and they’d caused him irreparable damage. He was capable of absolute loyalty, of total dedication, of offering strength and comfort, but she no longer believed he was capable of love. She had to cut him out of her life.

  The phone rang. If Dean was canceling, she’d never forgive him. She rushed into her office and snatched up the receiver before the voice mail could kick in. “Hello?”

  “This is personal, not business,” Heath said, “so don’t hang up. We have to talk.”

  Just the sound of his voice made her heart leap. “Oh, no, we don’t.”

  “You fired me,” he said calmly. “I respect that. You’re not my matchmaker any longer. But we’re still friends, and in the interest of our friendship, we need to discuss page thirteen.”

  “Page thirteen?”

  “You’ve accused me of being arrogant. I’ve always thought of myself as confident, but I’m here to tell you, no more. After studying these pictures…Honey, if this is what you’re looking for in a man, I don’t think any of us are going to measure up.”

  She had a sinking feeling that she understood exactly what he was talking about, and she sank down on the corner of her desk. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Who knew flexible silicone came in so many colors?”

  Her sex toy catalog. He’d taken it months ago. She’d hoped he’d forgotten it by now.

  “Most of these products seem to be hypoallergenic,” Heath went on. “That’s good, I guess. Some with batteries, some without. I suppose that’s a matter of preference. There’s a harness on this one. That’s pretty kinky. And…Son of a bitch! It says this one is dishwasher safe. As much as I like—I’m sorry, but there’s just something unappetizing about that.”

  She should hang up, but she’d missed him so much. “Sean Palmer, is that you? If you don’t stop talking dirty, I’m telling your mother.”