Harlequin E Contemporary Romance Box Set Volume 3: Falling from the SkyMaid to LoveWhen the Lights Go DownStart Me Up

by Sarina Bowen

  He turned to Cassidy. “You know what would work even better than connecting the dots between my date for the gala and my visit here today?” Cassidy rested her chin in her palm, hanging on his words as if her life depended on it.

  “What?” Her words held a breathless quality.

  “If Nina was my date.”

  “Nuh-uh—”

  Cassidy straightened. “Oh, that would work. Because she knows you’re not looking for commitment. Any reporter worth his salt is going to immediately pick up on who she is, which puts the business at the forefront—”

  “Not happening—” Nina tried to interrupt but Cassidy kept talking.

  “And you’re not going to throw us under the bus because you know we could just as easily throw your poor, broken heart under Jillian’s six-inch stilettos.”

  Nina stomped her foot. “I am standing right here. And I am not going to be his one-night stand, Cass.” She turned her attention to Chase, who looked like the proverbial cat with canary feathers in his teeth. “I am not going to be your call girl, Chase. Not for a week, not for one night. Not for one hour. It’s ridiculous. I’m trying to get my business out of the headlines, not create more of them.”

  Chase crossed his arms over his chest and didn’t say a word, which only made Nina more wary.

  “It’s perfect.” Cassidy perched on the edge of the desk and held up her hand. “First, you know exactly what you’re in for. You know Chase doesn’t want forever, and you don’t have time for forever anyway, not while we’re getting the business back on track. Second—” She ticked off another point “—you’re both unfamiliar enough with one another that you can fake that first blush of attraction bit. And third, the tabs will pick up on who you are, and then the ‘Madam X’ innuendo will be replaced with ‘Matchmaker Makes Her Match’ headlines.”

  “I like it,” Chase chimed in. “We show up on the red carpet together, have dinner or brunch sometime so there’s a little more meat to the story. Your name is on the front page for non-madam news with the added benefit that everyone thinks I’m off the market.”

  Nina looked from one to the other. Both faces—Cassidy’s familiar because they’d grown up together and Chase’s familiar because of celebrity—looked expectantly at her. As if she was the crazy one because she wanted nothing to do with this scheme. “You’re both forgetting one thing—I’m not doing this. We already sent a cease and desist to the tabloids, we’ve clipped those three women and the cheating husband off our roster of clients. It’s a non-story. We don’t need to get mixed up in another tabloid affair.”

  Chase hitched his thumb toward the still-pinging computer. “I think your client-loss number is pushing the four hundred mark by now.”

  Nina’s cell rang. She checked the display. Her father. Damn. She hit the ignore button and tossed the phone through the open door and onto her desk. She also ignored Chase’s last suggestion, pushing at the panic threatening to overtake her as the computer kept dinging. “We will deal with it, but we also don’t want those pesky photogs adding two and two and getting five so you need to go.” She put her hands against his back and pushed, ignoring another zing of awareness at the contact. “Back door. Now. You. Go.”

  Chase chuckled and began walking to the back exit and their private parking lot. “Some of them saw me come in.”

  “But if they don’t see you go, they’ll think they were mistaken.”

  “Or they’ll think you’ve had your madamly way with me—”

  “That is so not funny.”

  They reached the back door and Nina peeked her head out just in case some intrepid photographer had made his way up the back stairs to lay in wait.

  “It’s like we’re secret agents, avoiding detection.”

  Nina pshawed. “Secret agents only have to avoid governments. We’re avoiding paparazzi. Much harder.” She looked again and motioned to him to follow. Across the hall, she stabbed her finger at the down arrow on the service elevator.

  He turned back to her and cocked his head to the side. “Teasing aside, I really do just need a break from the gossip. I’m a non-threatening guy. I wouldn’t even expect you to kiss me.”

  “That’s comforting,” she said sarcastically. But his words were sincere. Too sincere for Nina to ignore completely. She reached out and squeezed his hand. She swallowed hard. Time seemed to still between them. Their gazes locked but Chase didn’t leave the building. And Nina didn’t push for him to go. “I am not the right girl for your little scam.” The words were as much a reminder to herself as they were for him. “You should just be honest with your ex. Bare your heart.”

  He stood there for another long moment and then held out his card. “If you change your mind.”

  She took it. “I won’t.”

  And then he was gone.

  * * *

  Nina sank into her leather executive chair, did a headdesk and tried to push Chase MacIntyre and her raging hormones out of her mind.

  What she needed was a plan. A Step One to be followed by Step Two which would be rounded off with Step Three: A New Phase for Wright Attraction.

  What she had instead was the image of Chase’s back as he walked out the door and a lingering heat from when she shook his hand. And when he almost-but-not-quite touched her shoulders.

  Damn it, why had she done that stupid spin move just because he’d waggled his index finger?

  “Okay, so it wasn’t the most technically proficient plan and if you presented it to any of our grad school professors you’d have been laughed off the campus.” Cassidy spoke from the hall but Nina kept her head resting on her forearms. Maybe if she didn’t move Cass would give up and return to her perch at the front desk. She heard shuffling feet and then a light thump as her office mate sat across from her. “On the other hand, Chase’s idea was so outrageous that no one would ever think it was legit. Who would actually think you showing up on a red carpet with a mega-stud like Chase was anything but hormones and attraction? You avoid the spotlight, Nina, you’ve never courted it.”

  Nina slipped one arm out from under her head, reached into the second desk drawer and pulled out Aunt Molly’s reserve stash of scotch. The bottle clunked against the desk and Nina rose from her position.

  “It isn’t a plan at all. It isn’t even the Band-Aid that an influx of cash would bring to the table.” Nina opened the third drawer but the tumblers she remembered Molly keeping there were missing. She settled for Dixie cups and poured a couple of fingers into each. She handed one cup to Cassidy and put the other to her lips. “To the sinking of our ship.” She slugged back the liquor and it burned fire down her throat and into her stomach where it started a war with the Bran Flakes she’d had for breakfast.

  “Where’s your optimism?”

  Nina pointed her finger toward Cassidy’s desk and the pinging computer. “It’s dying a slow death to the tune of Gmail pinging. How many calls have we gotten?”

  Cassidy swallowed her drink, grimaced and tossed the cup into the trash can. “You mean of people not canceling their membership? Goose egg.”

  “I meant the other kind.”

  “There isn’t enough scotch in that bottle for that number.”

  “Then this is very much the Titanic and we’re sinking.”

  “That isn’t what you told Hottie McBody MacIntyre.”

  Nina blew out a breath. “That’s because he isn’t my business partner and the partnership he was suggesting is something I’m not interested in.” Her cell phone buzzed and she looked at the display. Her father again. She hit the ignore button and tossed it back down on the desk.

  A plan. A plan. She’d give anything for a solid plan that would save the business Molly entrusted to Nina just three months ago. The business that was technically under her father’s corporate umbrella because of the three-year fight between Molly and cancer.

  Chase’s seductive grin came to mind but she pushed it away.

  She needed a plan that didn’t include throwing out ev
ery rule of business she’d come to respect.

  Her cell buzzed, signaling an incoming message and almost immediately the landline started ringing. She checked the display. Her father. He wasn’t going away.

  “Our next iceberg wants to chat.”

  Cassidy hopped up from her chair and motioned to the front desk. “I’ve got email to ignore and phone messages to delete.”

  “Don’t, you may as well hear the whole thing.” Nina took a deep breath and hit the speakerphone. “Hi, Dad.”

  “You’re shutting that business down. Now.” Her father’s gravelly voice echoed around the room and Nina immediately straightened her shoulders and stiffened her spine.

  “I’m fine, thanks, how are you?” The knots in her stomach tightened.

  “I’m not playing games, Nina. Matchmaking does not fit into the profile for Wright Industries. It didn’t when it was making money and it certainly doesn’t now that my daughter has been painted as the next Hollywood Madam.”

  She gripped the phone tighter. “I see you’ve been reading the papers.”

  “Reading the papers, fielding phone calls from irate investors and turning down interview requests from everyone.” Before Nina could try to dissuade him, Lambert Wright III continued on. “You’ll hire a moving company, close up the office and come back to work for me in the marketing department. We will be divested of the company by the next board meeting.”

  Divested? She couldn’t let him do that, not after Molly entrusted her business—her baby—to Nina. Besides, she loved Wright Attraction, and not just because she’d followed Molly around for a paper in high school and then interned here every summer during college. She’d learned to believe in love from watching the happy couples who visited Molly or sent her cards from their honeymoons. If only Molly handed the reins to her when she was diagnosed instead of entrusting that Lambert would take as much interest in matchmaking as he did in real estate development.

  Instead of paying attention, Lambert handed off Wright Attraction to a management firm that was happy enough to cash his checks and sign on anyone and everyone who knocked on the door. Including the married man.

  Cassidy hurried to the front desk, grabbed her laptop and returned. Nina continued, “I think you’re forgetting that Aunt Molly left the company to me. We may be under the Wright umbrella but I’m not closing down, Dad. It has a solid foundation and there are millions to be made from making people happy.”

  “Solid foundation my ass. It’s been a black hole for the past three years and these headlines—” she heard rustling papers over the phone line “—aren’t going to change that.”

  “During that time you ignored the business and waited for Molly to die.” Nina’s voice cracked on that last word. She swallowed. “I can fix this, Dad. I can make Molly’s business strong again.”

  “Fine, you can bring Cassidy Thorpe with you. She can be an assistant or something.” His voice gentled. “Before you spend every last dime Molly left you, shut the doors and come back to work at a job with a real future.”

  Nina clenched her jaw. She took the phone off speaker and put the handset against her shoulder. “What’s our number?”

  “We just hit twelve hundred. That’s more than half our client list.” Cassidy clicked her mouse. “I kind of hoped he was calling just to check on you.”

  Not Lambert. Nina couldn’t remember him ever checking in on her. Not when her appendix burst in fifth grade, not when she was wait-listed to Columbia. All she had was Molly’s company and she couldn’t lose it now. Molly’s algorithms were gold; she only needed to hold on. Turn this tabloid spotlight off. Or on for a different reason.

  Nina swallowed hard and squeezed her hand around the phone. Her father’s voice, still telling her what to do, streamed through the handset. Ordering her around like an intern, not trying to help. Not being a father.

  “Dad, I have an important client meeting in a moment. I’ll call you later. We’re not closing the doors.” She clicked off the call and then switched the system over to voicemail. She stabbed the business card Chase had offered with her letter opener and lifted it to the sunlight. “Tell me this isn’t the stupidest thing I’ve done since I sang in that talent show in high school.”

  “This isn’t the stupidest thing.” Cassidy reached across the desk, pinkie first. “It may be the riskiest.”

  “That helps immensely.” Nina caught Cassidy’s pinkie with her own. “For what it’s worth, I’ve got your back.”

  “For what it’s worth, I’ve got yours.” Cassidy sat back in her chair. “If this doesn’t work, you’re not allowed to worry about me. And I’m not going to work for your father.”

  Nina shook herself and took the business card off the letter opener. “Go pretend you’re solving a major crisis so I can crawl through the phone messages in peace.”

  Chapter Two

  Nina watched another car slide past her living room window without stopping. She wrung her hands.

  She wasn’t this nervous when she had a real date, what was her problem?

  The man picking her up, she admitted. The scam they were about to portray on the covers of countless magazines, internet sites and social media. Nina sucked her lower lip between her teeth. Tabloid gossip had focused on her exactly one other time in her life, and she’d survived then. She was older now. More experienced. It was Molly who held her hand after the appendectomy, who made a call to get her into Columbia and who cried with her when The Jerk used her connection to Wright Industries to pad his resume.

  Nina couldn’t lose.

  The plan was simple and she knew the rules going in: a few dates, a few headlines and leaving with her heart intact and stopping all the madam headlines. Which should go a long way toward building trust with the public and, hopefully, encourage the clients who dropped her to give Wright Attraction a second chance. If the changed headlines didn’t, maybe the free month of dating would. She would personally input the client profiles into Molly’s system to find the perfect matches. Nina smoothed her hands over her hips, feeling the slip of silk beneath her fingers. She wore black cigarette pants and a 1920s-inspired fringed top. Like any other woman in L.A. who wanted to be seen.

  A limo slid to a stop on the street, but rather than the driver hopping out, Chase exited alone. He looked up at her window, as if he’d known she would be there, and tipped his fedora slightly. It made her smile.

  He wasn’t her type, she reminded herself, despite the movie-star looks and charming demeanor. Actually, because of those things. She wanted real in her life and Chase MacIntyre might be real flesh and bone but his world was photographers and innuendo. Her world was quiet nights watching reality TV with a man she had a solid, real connection to. A man she could trust with her heart.

  He buzzed her intercom and she pushed the thoughts away. For now, though, he was real enough to take the spotlight off the scandal hurting her business. She would help him re-engage the ex because even if he hadn’t admitted it she suspected he did love Jillian. Everyone deserved love.

  “You’re late,” she said as she opened the door.

  Chase shrugged. “Don’t worry. The restaurant has never given up one of my reservations before.”

  That wasn’t exactly the point but since they weren’t really in a relationship he didn’t have to know that tardiness was on the list of things that made her twitchy. He put his hand at the small of her back as they walked down the stairs to the street and heat burned along Nina’s spine.

  “Holding the reservation isn’t the point. And do you take a limo everywhere?”

  Chase handed her inside the sleek car with its butter-soft leather seats, an array of television screens and tiny blinking lights along the floorboards. Nina scooted to her side of the car and snapped her seatbelt into place.

  “And what is the point?” Chase asked, lounging on his side of the back bench seat sans seatbelt. Nina’s hands itched to fasten his seatbelt, too, but he wasn’t a child. Besides, her urge for safety mig
ht be her subconscious wanting to cop a feel of the chest that was accentuated by the lightweight sweater and leather jacket. He wore jeans again, faded in all the right places, with a fatigued leather jacket and had traded in the boots for suede loafers.

  Nina shook herself. “Plans give us boundaries and direction. It just threw me a little.”

  “My being five minutes late?” Chase glanced at his Patek Philippe watch.

  “I like plans.” She knew she sounded prim and she hated it. But Nina did like plans. She liked knowing that every day at lunch there was a turkey on rye in the mini-fridge in the office. Some called it boring. She called it knowing what she liked. She blew out a breath. “But you’re right. Five minutes won’t impact our plans in the least. If anything arriving casually late will add a little mystery to what held us up.”

  Chase watched her from his corner of the limo and Nina just resisted running her index finger under the edge of her blouse. There were temperature controls in here somewhere, right? She didn’t see any but they had to be here. Finally, he spoke.

  “We’re going to have to improvise a little, you know, to pull this off.”

  “I know. I’ll be fine.” She found the air conditioning button on the armrest and pushed it down a few degrees before folding her hands in her lap again. “So, where are we going?”

  Chase named a hot Italian bistro in Beverly Hills where people went to be seen. “I had a friend leak that I’d be there with someone new.”

  The limo slowed and Nina looked out the window at the palm trees along the boulevard. A row of photographers stood just off the restaurant sidewalk. She exhaled and didn’t even pretend she wasn’t relieved that she wouldn’t have to face the paps on her own. People did this every day. Some chose to play with the tabloids, some did their best to avoid the headlines, but she couldn’t stop staring at the men and women standing there, cameras in hand. How they went en pointe as limos and luxury cars pulled to the curb. Nina couldn’t make out anything they said through the windows, but she could guess they weren’t being nice to the overly thin model-turned-actress whose last film bombed at the box office. Her posture was too stiff, her smile just a hair too bright.