by K. L. Brady
She’d acknowledge to herself, if not to Mia, that her sales slump directly correlated to the point at which Hart Cards had risen to the number three greeting card company in the country. Hart rose on the brilliance of her plan for Sweet-Hart Cards, a fact that wasn’t lost on her although it seemed to be lost on Cody.
"Humph. Why would I need to outdo myself? He-who-shall-not-be-named could never conceive the idea on his own."
Mia remained unmoved by Tessa's protest. "You sound a whole lot like a bird with ruffled feathers to me. Seeing he-who-shall-not-be-named at the Charity Gala last week isn't the source of this latest wave of angst, is it?"
"The gala? Pshh." Tessa batted her hand in the air, playing off her agitation. "Child, please. I have no idea what you're jabbering about."
Lying to herself had come easy for Tessa—deceiving Mia was harder.
Her mind drifted back to the moment at the ball she and Cody locked eyes on one another. The event, all glitter and glam, hosted throngs of D.C.'s best and brightest. They assembled to donate to the Historically Black College and University scholarship fund. Cody, Mia, and Tessa were A&T Aggies.
At various events over the years, she'd passed him with nary a stolen glance, but for some reason, on gala night, her eyes lingered on him. To her surprise, she did not stay there alone, even as he stood across the room with the Pop-Tart on his arm. Tessa didn't think much of it; he'd displayed many fill-ins over the years, no doubt attempting to burrow in her skin. But this time was different—Tessa not only gazed at him, she saw him, the man she remembered and the man he'd become. He materialized all wrapped up in an Armani tux and clinging to Miss Frosted Blueberry.
"Oh, you’re not picking up what I’m putting down, huh? You haven't dated anyone, at least not seriously or long-term, since the infamous card delivery. Methinks someone doth protest too much."
"I beg to differ. I doth not protest at all. In fact, I doth not wish to continue this conversation. Cody Hart is a non-factor."
The mere sound of his name caused the shattered pieces of her heart to crumble to dust.
"Good thing. This morning, I read he's engaged and getting married soon. The announcement's in The Post, Style section, page seven." Mia retrieved the article from one of the bags and slid it across Tessa’s desk until it was so far under her nose, Tessa couldn't deny it.
Of course, she refused to acknowledge the article, even as her eyes glued to the photos and the couple’s toothy grins.
Married? Tessa heard the sound of flushing in her mind. It was the toilet that was her life…right before it stopped up and flooded. Married.
"You're not bothered, are you?" Mia asked.
"Bothered." She shrugged. "By Mr. and Mrs. Poptart? Whoop-de-ding-dang-do for them." Tessa both loved and hated how well Mia knew her. Right now, she wanted to pluck her in the forehead. An alarm beeped at her wrist. "It's meeting time! Let's go see what fresh and original ideas Creative will deliver."
"Mmm-hmm. I see what you did there. We're not finished. This conversation will rise like Lazarus. We'll pick it up later...whether you like it or not.”
Cody and the Poptart. Married. Five years ago, she tried to kill herself with Hershey’s kisses and struggle yoga because of her breakup with him. What would she do now? She hated healthy meditation crap.
“You’re doing it wrong,” Mia had told her back then. “There’s no crying in yoga. What do you think happened? Is he seeing someone else?”
“If he had another woman, I could just maim him, do some jail time and be over it. No, sadly, what happened between us is worse—an obstacle emerged between us, one neither of us could overcome.”
As they gathered their things to head for the writers’ meeting, Mabel knocked on the door and poked her head inside. The whine session drew to an abrupt halt when she entered.
"Uh, Tessa, can I speak to you for a second? We've got a situation needing your immediate attention. Right now."
"Message received,” she replied. She had no idea what nightmare had befallen the company, but Mabel's scrunched eyes and pursed lips spelled direness and doom.
The urgency in her voice pushed Tessa up from her chair as she announced her swift exit. "I'll be back shortly."
"No, she won't," Mabel countered. "She’ll return this evening...or tomorrow if we're lucky."
In the hall, Mabel took quick paces, led Tessa toward the reception area, and stopped abruptly, increasing Tessa's panic.
What the heck is going on?
"All right," Tessa said. "Spit it out."
"You've been summoned...by Mr. Hart."
"Mr. Hart?" She jerked her head back and sunk into a hard denial. She couldn't possibly be hearing Mabel correctly. There were only two Mr. Hart options, and one was deceased. "Last time I checked, Devon Hart was dead, wasn't he? God rest his soul."
Mabel shook her head. "Really, Tessa? I think we firmly established that...at the funeral. You sat on the second row, remember?"
"Then, you meant Cody?"
"Who else?"
After five years of stone silence? Tessa had read everything he needed to say about their relationship in the message Cody had couriered to her. "Why in the world does he want to speak with me?"
They were kids of publishing magnates, heirs to their respective thrones. Greeting cards were their perfect niche. Tessa Sweet. Cody Hart. Sweet-Hart. That was the plan before the split.
“So, you’re giving up on Sweet-Hart Cards?” Mia had asked Tessa. “You dreamed of starting that company with Cody for so long. If you go forward with Keep It Real, you’re quitting.”
Tessa didn’t give up; Cody did. She’d planned to crush him like a roach, but Mia said Tessa was more Dr. Spock than Khan. When all was said and done, she put everyone ahead of herself…and she was right. Mia believed Tessa’d always come out on top in the end; Tessa wasn’t so sure.
In fact, a pit in Tessa’s stomach told her this meeting with Cody would reveal otherwise.
"All I can say is this—it's about the business, and it's urgent,” Mabel said. “He needs to see you. Honestly, I’m as shocked by this day as you are. I thought he must be pranking me, at least until your father called."
"Dad?" she asked.
"Yes, he rang, insisting I put you in a car. Right now! The service is waiting out front."
"I'd rather drive myself." Tessa huffed. She disappeared into her office, now vacant, and reappeared with her purse. At the elevator, she glanced over her shoulder. "You know what's going on, don't you?"
Mabel inhaled a frustrated breath, tightened her lips, and shrugged. "Take the service. Also, this might be an ideal time for some of that yoga breathing...and a headstand."
As Tessa made her way to Hart, the pain from the old heartache resurrected. She recalled when she finally gathered up the strength to tell Mia what happened.
“This is about Cody. Tell me he didn’t,” Mia had said on that infamous day.
No longer able to maintain her fragile composure, she descended from her pose and made an ungraceful landing into an Indian-style position.
“Mmm-hmm.” Through snot and tears, Tessa strained to say, “Got me all gussied up and took me to dinner with his dad, who I’ve known most of my life. I can’t lie. I felt like I was auditioning for a role I’d already won. Guess I failed. Afterward, he broke it off. Dumped me like last week’s trash—with that.”
He’d couriered a greeting card—one of the Dear Jane variety. He’d used a proxy, a stranger, to deliver the message that would erase what they’d been building since they were kids.
“A square peg in a round hole? We don’t ‘fit’ anymore?” Mia’s brow furrowed. “He must have brain damage because it’s clear he bumped his whole entire head. He’s writing this as if he’s tossing out an old sweater, not ending a years’ long relationship with his childhood sweetheart. He’s a coward.”
Tessa hadn’t seen or heard from him from that day to this.
This meeting should prove eventful, if not en
lightening.
Chapter Two
Cody
* * *
From an upscale, waterfront Penthouse befitting the Hart Enterprises CEO, Cody enjoyed the city's panoramic view in his spacious home office. Waves of red, yellow, and orange leaves dotted the Georgetown harbor as cool winds dusted them into loose swirls. The end of the autumn season approached just as new troubles had begun. As his eyes roamed the tree-line, he held his cell to his ear with one hand and maneuvered his iMac mouse with the other.
"Yes, Uncle Brian. I've couriered the paperwork. It's en route," Cody said, turning his attention to Tessa’s Keep It Real website. "I transferred the payment an hour ago." Guilt flooded his conscience, along with some apprehension. He inhaled deeply and exhaled to release the tension. "No problem. It's my pleasure."
After hanging up, a brief burst of contentment transformed into more unease. His latest business move had come with a hefty bill, one much costlier than his financial outlay—and this debt was long overdue. Avoiding the inevitable wasn't an option.
He could no longer deny the fact that he and Tessa, and their futures, sat on a collision course.
Wouldn’t be the first time they were destined to clash.
They were on summer vacation, and she strolled into the Hart Enterprises grand entrance hall on her father’s arm. Pops and Uncle Brian Sweet, Tessa’s dad, together had built the media giant in an eclectic nook of the city. Every summer vacation, their fathers invited the heirs to the throne to learn the publishing business.
Each time he saw Tessa felt like the first time; on this day, she wore a blue dress covered in pink flowers and butterflies. A brief reintroduction reminded him that her name suited her perfectly. Tessa. It sounded like a whisper, a sweet one. Gazing at her reminded him of opening his favorite present, the giant one with his train set inside.
The youthfulness that left him secretly crushing on her also rendered him clueless about the difference between being the boss and being bossy. He leaned into his father’s advice to be aggressive, pushy, never take no for an answer—but, for him, bad things happened. Even then, he remembered thinking that making Tessa fall in line wasn’t supposed to be so hard.
Perhaps he should’ve considered those things when he made critical decisions about their companies’ futures, especially now that he had risen to serve as the Hart Enterprise CEO.
After scanning Keep It Real's newest web collection, he stared at the "About Us" link. He resisted looking at it for months, but after a brief hesitation, he gave in to his desire and clicked. There she was, the girl he crushed on, the girl who once wore the butterfly dress. It seemed like minutes, not weeks, had passed since they last saw one another.
When they crossed paths at the charity auction, he wanted to take his eyes off of her, he'd even tried to avoid her, but he failed. She glowed with confidence and seemed to possess a strength beyond mortals like him. She wore a grown-woman blue dress split to her hip, and her eyes sparkled as if she were lit from within. Her whole vibe unearthed sweet memories of endless days Cody had spent worshipping in the church of her.
His eyes drifted closed as he remembered the way he used to trace the line of her cheek with his index finger until he reached into the depths of her dimples. Back then, his sole purpose in life had been to expose them to the world.
She’d become so much more than Pops ever gave her credit for. He once called Tessa a chicken and Cody an eagle before their breakup. He said eagles and chickens could not coexist; he all but threatened Cody to let her go—but looking at Tessa in that blue dress at the ball, she was no chicken, and he wondered if he should have caved to his father’s request.
Perhaps he wouldn’t have if he had the courage and fight of a young Tessa wearing Chuck Taylors. He’d never forget those shoes.
Her Chucks had spent more than a few days in the sandbox. They were capped with frilly white ruffled socks. From her head sprung twin kinky puffs; they finished off her sweet face, like a bow on a gift. Her cuteness stole his heart; and he started on a mission to win hers way back then.
He’d made up the game they played, Big Business, to impress her. In his mind, he’d take the role of CEO and sit in the coveted big chair; she’d play receptionist and admire and adore him.
She had an entirely different idea.
“First of all, you don’t tell me what I’m gonna be!” She had placed a sassy hand on her hip and fixed her mouth to tell him all the way off. After notifying him that her daddy told her she could be anything she wanted to be, she added, “That’s why I’m going to be the CEO, too. The chair’s big enough. Why can’t we both sit in it?”
When he refused, well, Cody met Chuck in a way that branded on his brain.
He couldn’t blame her. Tessa’s dad declared she would succeed and someday lead; he was a girl-dad.
Now, looking at her webpage, it’s clear she’d taken him at his word.
She'd been more than a lover. She was the best friend he'd ever known. They laughed about everything and nothing. The connection they shared—a once-in-a-lifetime bond—could not be replicated with anyone, including his fiancée. The latter now stood in his office doorway, wielding a spatula and wearing a "Kiss the Cook" apron. She was as opposite of Tessa as he could find—light, not dark brown, thin, not curvy, compliant, not unpredictable. He tried to offer a genuine smile in the face of his impending deception. The struggle was real.
"Ahhh," Cody said. "Nothing like the fresh smell of burnt toast and crunchy grits to start the day."
"Hey, you better be glad we're still in the honeymoon phase, or you'd pay for that." In good humor, she snickered and flipped her thick mane over her shoulder.
Her laugh bounced like an old, familiar song. It had a decent beat even if he too often struggled to dance to its groove. The pleasant moment sobered in a hurry as she breached the long-established boundaries and crept into his work zone—headed straight for his computer.
Tessa's photo consumed fourteen inches of his twenty-seven-inch monitor.
Surprised by her incursion, he rushed to grab the mouse—but she beat him. He proved too slow to minimize the Keep It Real window in time.
She leaned over to kiss him and flashed a nosy eye toward the screen. Her baby browns narrowed into fire-spitting slits. Her entire body stiffened.
"Really?" She pressed her palms together as if praying for strength not to wallop him. "See, what you're not gonna do is gawk at your ex-girlfriend's picture and expect to sit here and eat your breakfast without fearing for your life."
Before he could stop the words, he quipped, "What are you talking about? Every time I eat your cooking, I fear for my life."
An awkward laugh slipped out, one that nearly cost him his ability to inhale oxygen, based on the evil eye she flashed.
"Too soon,” she snapped.
"I just hung up the phone with my Uncle Brian...Brian Sweet, the head of Sweet Media and Tessa's father. I'm working with him to solve a problem, a business challenge."
Her perfectly sculpted eyebrows scrunched. "Humph. I call B-S.”
She stood there, unamused. Her face blanked to the point at which he couldn't figure out which way to duck. Before she fixed her mouth to curse him out in the manner to which he probably deserved, he attempted to quell the storm by speaking the words men never should say in the heat of battle. "Baby, it's not what you think."
To his surprise and relief, she only crossed her arms over her chest and huffed, waiting for him to reach into one of his orifices and pull out a satisfactory excuse.
So, how and why did Tessa consume his mind? And why didn't he confess the business deal to Chandra? After all, he'd been planning it for weeks.
He suspected he had lingering questions neither he nor Chandra could answer.
"Why are you behaving this way? Nothing's going on. This is business," he lied. If the mere sight of Tessa's likeness on his screen angered her to this degree, she'd go a mile past off when she learned the full truth. He couldn't
tell her yet, not until he'd broken the news to the person who most needed to hear it first.
Chandra’s Tina Turner legs got a full two steps into stride when Cody jumped up and tugged her elbow. Hurt flooded her eyes. The entire scene that morning—Tessa's picture, the half-truths—all conspired to worsen already bad optics. The situation might appear shady, but his intentions weren't, not in the least.
"What could you possibly have to say to Brian Sweet? Didn't your father all but ban the Harts from engaging with that family?" she said, her voice brimming with unnecessary contempt. "Your sisters go into anaphylactic shock at the sound of the name Sweet."
"Well, my father's not here anymore. This is a new day. I respected his choices, even though I disagreed with them. But, understand this—they've never been enemies to this family, our business, or me, despite chatter to the contrary. I'd advise you to ignore Renee and Regina."
He frequently referred to his sisters as The Devilment Twins—the most accurate way to describe them with so few clean words.
"So." She huffed and jerked out of his grip. "What kind of deal requires you to sit around gawking at...her picture on your screen?"
"Gawking?" An angry heat rose into his chest and up through his collar. "Listen, I can't discuss the details yet. This is a private matter, and I'm going to keep the information exactly that—private. The only place you'll find anything nefarious about this situation is in your mind. My hands are clean."
"Is that right?" she snipped.
He nodded. "I'm not only right, but I'm also correct. Your suspicion is not only unnecessary, but it's also unattractive. Insecure's not a good look on you."
Shot fired.
Her nostrils flared. Instead of consoling her, pulling her into his arms, and loving reassurance into her, he’d crossed the line, deepening the divide between them. On a positive note, the distraction of this terse discussion about Mr. Sweet would help him conceal the truth...a little while longer.
