Adore Me

by Darcy Lundeen

  “Uh, I also hacked your company website and turned it into Devilish Delights, because by then she was really on my case and forced me to do it.”

  “Who is this she?” Meredith asked, but she already had the unnerving feeling that she knew.

  Randy shuffled his feet nervously. “Tippi Turnbull.”

  Meredith sighed. Bingo! “I guess I don’t have to ask why she did it.”

  Randy shrugged. “Why else? Competition.”

  She nodded. “And you needed the money.”

  He lifted his hands in a helpless gesture. “Sick kid.” His weary tone echoed the futility of his gesture. “I mean, the job pays pretty well, but not good enough for me to afford really hi-tech long-term medical treatment. Not even with health insurance.”

  “He’s right,” Vlad said. “Pay’s good, but nobody working there is close to becoming a multimillionaire.” He threw a drop-dead look at Randy. “Not that that excuses what he did. Nobody forced him to do it. So what do you want to do with him?”

  “Do?” Meredith realized she was still clutching the scissors and held them up.

  Randy moved away, trying unsuccessfully to wedge his body behind Vlad for protection.

  She watched his terrified retreat and silently considered her options.

  What should she do with him?

  Have him tied to a block of cement and tossed in the nearest river? That was the first suitable punishment that came to mind. But he looked so repentant, and so panic-stricken, that she couldn’t help it, her heart went out to him and his sick child.

  With a sigh, she put the scissors on the foyer table. “Go home to your child, Randy.”

  His gaze skittered from the scissors to her face, eyes wide with surprise. “Seriously?”

  “Seriously.”

  “So I can go now?” he asked in a small, hopeful voice.

  “Yes.”

  “And all’s forgiven?”

  Meredith narrowed her eyes at him. “Don’t press your luck, Randy.”

  He nodded and stepped cautiously away from her, backing rapidly toward the door. “Right. I’m outta here.”

  As he pulled the door open to make his escape, he paused and the edges of his mouth lifted in a small, tentative smile. “If you ever need anything, just call. I owe you. I mean, big-time.”

  “Hug your child for me,” Meredith said.

  “Will do, Meredith. Thanks.”

  Then he bolted from the apartment, yanking the door closed behind him.

  “That’s it? He gets off scot-free?” Vlad said.

  He moved closer to her and folded his arms across his chest. It was that same damn superior-male pose he sometimes assumed—the one that both annoyed and turned her on in equal measure.

  Meredith ignored the turn-on effect, shrugged, and retrieved her scissors from the table. “His viruses were a pain in the neck, but they didn’t destroy my business. They only made me temporarily crazy.”

  She headed to the living room, conscious that Vlad was behind her. He trailed her across the room and into her office, his body so near that she could feel his heat invading her personal space.

  “What about Tippi?”

  His question was the operative one, and Meredith dropped the scissors on her desk and turned to answer him. “She gets a visit from me and maybe a letter from a lawyer to put the fear of God in her.”

  He abandoned the superior arms-folded posture and nodded. “If you want, I’ll go with you.”

  Okay, now it was getting harder to remember why she should be annoyed with the man and easier to remember how quickly and completely he could always turn her on, dammit.

  “Thank you. I’d appreciate it. And thanks for unraveling the mystery for me.”

  “That first day I worked on your computer, I sensed something was wrong, you having all that trouble. It just took a while for me to figure out what was going on.”

  “I’m glad you did. At least that’s one problem I won’t have to deal with again.” She paused and stared at him when a grin spread across his face. “Why are you smiling?”

  “Hug your child for me.” His grin broadened as he quietly echoed the request she’d made to Randy.

  “And?”

  He shrugged. “Very nice.”

  Meredith narrowed her eyes at him, sure he must be making fun of her. “Are you laughing at me?” she said, sticking her chin out to show she was ready to do battle if necessary.

  “Never. You’re a good person, Merry Crismis. Except for that potent glare you gave me when I arrived. But underneath that you’ve got a heart of pure—”

  “Gold?”

  “I was thinking more in terms of vanilla buttercream.”

  Meredith bit her lip to keep from grinning, then couldn’t help it and grinned anyway. With a sigh, she gave up completely on annoyance and admitted to herself that being turned on was the only logical option. “Make it chocolate ganache, and I agree.”

  He nodded. “Chocolate ganache, it is.”

  “You know, that answering glare you gave me was pretty potent, too,” she protested.

  “Only because you glared first.” He held his hand out to her. “Truce?”

  The smile wreathing his face was so genuine there was no way she could refuse, or resist, so she grasped his hand. “You bet.”

  He squeezed her fingers gently. “I apologize for criticizing your candy-heart obsession.”

  She squeezed his fingers in return. “I apologize for concentrating so much on one sale that I became unbearable.”

  He shook his head firmly. “Never unbearable, just slightly single-minded.”

  He settled his butt on the edge of the desk and opened his arms to her. “Come here. Somehow you don’t look deliriously happy about it. I thought you’d be dancing on the ceiling to know those computer screw-ups weren’t your fault.”

  She went willingly, letting him envelop her in a warm embrace. “I would be, if it weren’t for that cake.”

  He groaned. “That damn ‘Adore-Me’ cake.”

  “The same,” she admitted, hoping he wouldn’t get ticked off again and break their embrace.

  He didn’t, but his attention suddenly seemed diverted to something in back of her.

  “Hey, you have a package.”

  Meredith spared a glance behind her at the mystery box. “Uh-huh.”

  “You haven’t opened it.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  He leaned toward her until they were almost nose to nose. “Will you stop saying, ‘Uh-huh,’ and open the damn thing?”

  Meredith stared at him. Okay, this was strange, him being obsessed by someone else’s mail. “Why are you so interested in my package?”

  He leaned back again and cleared his throat. “Because…uh…because closed packages intrigue me,” he finally said.

  “Seriously? Since when?”

  The stricken look on his face told Meredith that he was struggling to find a logical answer. It also told her something was wrong. And then instinct kicked in, and she knew her surprise delivery was the answer to what that something was, so she twisted around in his arms and pulled the carton closer.

  She’d only had time to give the box’s return address a cursory glance before being interrupted by Vlad’s unexpected arrival with Randy. Now her eyes zeroed in on it as her mind rearranged the pieces of the puzzle until they all fell into place, and she suddenly realized what had happened.

  She tightened her hold on Vlad, hugging him against her to let him know how grateful she was. “Oh my gosh, you did this, didn’t you? You bought ‘Adore-Me’ hearts.”

  He nodded. “Enough of them to decorate a wedding cake and a bunch of cupcakes.”

  Enough hearts to decorate a six-tier cake and a bunch of cupcakes?

  Meredith shook her head. Something about that didn’t compute. Two-million hearts would be enough to decorate a mere six-tier cake and a simple bunch of cupcakes only if the cake was big enough to fill an amphitheater and there were enough cupcakes to
feed a small nation.

  Pulling out of his arms, she grabbed the scissors and slashed the tape that secured the flaps. Then she yanked the carton open and dug in, unearthing boxes of hearts. A few more scissor snips and one of the boxes gaped wide.

  She reached in, felt the smooth candy surface against her skin, and joyfully pulled out a couple of hearts, one yellow, one blue. “Adore Me” was imprinted on them, and she grinned with wonder and relief.

  The hearts had the right phrase, and there were undoubtedly enough for Julia’s wedding extravaganza, but there was no way this box held almost two million of them.

  “How did you get these? Dana saw an article that said if anyone wanted a retired phrase, he’d have to order a full production run. In other words, one-point-seven-million hearts. But there aren’t that many here.”

  He grinned, looking totally pleased with himself. “Always go to the source, babe.”

  Meredith’s eyes widened when she finally understood. “You mean—?”

  “I mean the company itself. Now they have a policy that lets you order as little as a one-pound bag. You can even have personalized phrases, like this one.”

  He pulled a ring box from his pocket and offered it to her. “Go on, open it. There are about four-hundred-and-forty-nine identical hearts where this one came from, but at least it’s not almost two-million.”

  Meredith took it from him and flipped the cover back. A pink candy heart lay inside inscribed with the words: “Merry C., UR the 1!”

  “Oh, my God,” she said, brushing a hand across her eyes because she knew that at any moment she was probably going to start bawling like a baby. “I virtually kicked you out, and you still did this for me?”

  “I told you, when someone is important to me, I always go the extra mile or two or two million to help them get what they want…even if they toss me out without dinner.”

  “I’m sorry. I thought you didn’t care.”

  “Think again. I’m absolutely mad about you…and your desserts, especially the chocolate cupcakes.”

  He wrapped his arms around her and rocked her back and forth.

  “You know, I was going to check the manufacturer’s website, but then the Divine Desserts site got hijacked, and we received all those last-minute Valentine’s Day orders, and things became so frantic that—” Meredith broke off and groaned. “The terrible things—they were all Tippi’s fault.”

  “Right you are. It was always Tippi’s fault. Busy lady, wasn’t she?”

  “Busy, desperate, and underhanded. But she’s not going to win. I’m going to give Julia Ogilvy a wedding cake that will be the culinary highlight of her reception. And all because of you.”

  “So thank me properly, already.”

  “Constantly,” she promised and drew his face down to hers so she could nip gently at his lips to begin fulfilling her promise.

  “Wonderful. And from now on we’ll put candy hearts on everything,” he said as his mouth took over the kiss, raising all sorts of wonderful tingling sensations in her skin.

  “Even on each other?” she asked, happily remembering their first foray into sex-with-candy.

  “Especially on each other. After all, we’ve got four-hundred-and-forty-nine of the things to use,” he murmured and deepened the kiss so thoroughly that she lost all desire to speak.

  But at the back of her mind she knew that even if her company didn’t succeed, she’d still won the greatest prize of all—someone who cared enough about her to forgive her failings and support her even when she acted like an obsessed fool.

  And, ooh, could the guy kiss!

  Epilogue

  It had been a perfect day for an elegant wedding and a posh reception.

  That thought kept going through Meredith’s mind as the reception reached its end and Julia Ogilvy, now Julia McCullum, drove off with her groom while a bevy of moneyed guests tossed rice at their limousine and cheered them on as they started their new life together.

  Standing on the sidelines, Meredith watched the spectacle, unable to stop smiling. She’d spent most of the time providing extra cupcakes to those who wanted them, and there had been more than a few attendees who fit that category.

  But as soon as she got through packing up her supplies, she was heading home to Vlad. She found a quiet alcove in a corner of the banquet room and speed-dialed his number to tell him how things had gone.

  “Vlad,” she said when he picked up. “It went off without a hitch. I got tons of compliments on the cake and cupcakes, and several of Nan Ogilvy’s friends want to make appointments to discuss various celebrations they’re planning.”

  “Wonderful.” Then his voice became deeper, more sensual, vibrating in her ear as though his mouth was pressed right against the phone. “Now ditch those deep-pocket folks and come home to me. I thought of a new game we can play with candy. It involves you, me, whipped cream, melted chocolate, candy hearts, and a lot of exposed skin.”

  Meredith shivered as the sound of his whispered words slithered along her spine, kindling a tingly sensation that suffused her skin. “Sounds delicious,” she murmured. “I’ll be there soon.”

  And two hours later, when she got home and fell, laughing, into bed with him, she discovered just how delicious it was.

  A word about the author…

  A writer and researcher who has dealt with subjects as diverse as international organizations, multiple sclerosis, the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, and the Soviet Union (when there still was a Soviet Union), Darcy Lundeen enjoys taking long walks, visiting the Ancient Egyptian, Ancient Etruscan, and dinosaur exhibits in museums, doing Sudoku (but only the easy ones), and concocting stories about everyday people who laugh a lot, cry a little, and ultimately find the happily-ever-after they deserve.

  darcylundeen.blogspot.com

  Thank you for purchasing

  this publication of The Wild Rose Press, Inc.