by Gina LaManna
Her shouts faded into an uncomfortable silence in which Mrs. Dulcet simultaneously offered water, coffee, tea, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Nobody needed anything, so the four of us stared at one another dumbly until Randall arrived.
“Good morning, folks,” he said, beaming at the room as he put a hand on his wife’s shoulder. “How did everyone sleep?”
Amanda pursed her lips into a tight circle. “Where are the rest of our things, Mrs. Dulcet? And please alert Anders we’ll be arriving at his place shortly.”
“Yes, of course,” Mrs. Dulcet said and scurried away on a breath of relief.
“I don’t suppose you’ve begun planning the event, have you?” Mrs. Clark asked Dane coldly. “The festival has already kicked off, and the gala is on the last day. That’s two weeks away.”
“Oh, the event.” Dane’s voice was measured, calculated as always, but underneath was a layer of panic that I could only decipher thanks to the amount of time I’d spent with him recently. “Yes, the event.”
“Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it?” Amanda’s voice reached screeching levels, and her husband winced as she continued. “If you haven’t booked anything, we might as well cancel it now! Any suitable venue will be gone, the caterers booked, and... oh, dear. I might as well never show my face at the festival again. Can you imagine the disappointment?”
“Mother, I’m sor—” Dane started, but I took the opportunity to swoop blindly into battle.
“What Dane is trying to say is that he assigned me the task months ago,” I said. “I’m on top of the event planning—don’t worry.”
“I thought you were a new hire,” Mrs. Clark said, her eyes beelining toward mine. “Mrs. Dulcet said you’ve been here weeks.”
“He hired me as a freelancer before bringing me on full time,” I said, scrambling for logic. “I’ve got everything under control.”
She took a long moment to scan my body from the top down. “Have you ever attended a charity gala in your life?”
I thought back to the one time I’d attended the local church’s fall festival. I’d played the basketball shoot and a ring toss where I’d won a goldfish—and I was almost certain a few bucks from that event had gone to a charity. “Yes, I have.”
“Which one?”
“Oh, I’ve been to so many that I lost track.”
“Women for Hearts? Breast Cancer? Hearts for the Homeless?” She paused, a finger on her lips as she watched me for signs of recognition. “I thought the latest adoption event was just marvelous. We found homes for hundreds of dogs and raised a significant sum of money for the shelters.”
“That was a great one,” I said faintly. “I read about it.”
“Here are the last of your bags,” Mrs. Dulcet said, accompanied by a bigger, burlier member of the staff. “Anything else I can get for you, Mr. and Mrs. Clark?”
“A new personal assistant?” Amanda asked sweetly.
Mrs. Dulcet froze, her hand on one of the suitcases. Next to me, Dane tensed. The pressure of his fingers on my shoulder increased until it became painful, and I had to wriggle out of his grasp.
“This is my—” he started, his tone low, decidedly dangerous.
“I know, it’s your home, sweetie.” Amanda interrupted as she crossed the room, stepped in the tiny space between her son and me, and patted him on the cheek. Then she kissed him on the other cheek. “We’ll be at Anders’s place for the next two weeks until the festival is finished. Of course we’ll be attending the gala—but then again, you wouldn’t know that, would you? I haven’t seen a save-the-date card yet, and those should’ve gone out months ago. Maybe if you stopped locking lips long enough to look at a calendar, you would’ve noticed your staff wasn’t up to par.”
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled. “It’s been a busy few months.”
A newly disgruntled Amanda clicked her heels straight out the front door while her husband, looking a little shell-shocked, followed closely behind. Mrs. Dulcet bustled about getting them into an idling limo while we waited inside the hall.
Dane turned to me as soon as Mrs. Dulcet closed the door. “Thank you,” he said. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“How about we have some coffee while you tell me exactly what event I’m planning?” I suggested. “The more caffeine the better.”
“I’ll prepare coffee and a few bites,” Mrs. Dulcet said before scurrying off. “Seat yourselves, please.”
“I’m sorry about everything,” Dane said. “My mother can be difficult.”
“You could use that word to describe her, I suppose.”
“And many other words that are less kind,” he said evenly, a half smile turning his normally serious features into a lighter expression. “But she’s my mother, and I do love her, so I’ll refrain. She’s just very prejudiced against anyone who didn’t grow up in her world. Or really, anyone who doesn’t believe exactly the same things she does.”
“I understand.”
“It’s a hard line to walk,” he said, a hint of uncertainty in his voice. “I am not glad she felt the need to go stay with my Uncle Anders instead of remaining at the castle, but if she can’t respect my staff, I don’t believe she belongs here, either.”
I nodded, though I couldn’t bring myself to agree. “I’m sorry if I caused any issues between you and your mother. I didn’t intend to do anything of the sort.”
“Lola, none of this—none of that—was your fault. Can we please forget about it and move on? I’d prefer to focus on the busy day we have ahead.” Dane looked up as Mrs. Dulcet brought out oatmeal and grapefruit. “We already had a busy schedule, and now there’s...Andrea, too.”
“Sure,” I said. “But first, how about some details on this event I’m supposed to have planned in two weeks?”
“Oh, right.” Dane looked at his food. “I forgot about that.”
“Dane, you never forget about anything business related.”
“I don’t understand these events, so they’re not my first priority.”
“Charity dinners? Well, you have a bunch of people pay a boatload of money to show up and eat fancy green beans off gold-lined plates. Donate money to charity. Rinse and repeat.”
He grinned, actually grinned, which gave me a rush. I liked making him smile. “Well, we can start by...” he trailed off mid-sentence. Then he set his fork on his plate and stared into his oatmeal as if it were a crystal ball.
“Dane?” I waved a hand from my end of the table. “What’s wrong? Don’t let your mother bother you about this. I’ll help you get everything pulled together in time, I promise.”
“I know, but I haven’t even thanked you for what you did in front of my mother. That was generous of you,” he said gruffly. “You didn’t need to take the fall for my mistake.”
“It’s no problem,” I said, reaching for another piece of grapefruit as a distraction. “She already had it out for me, so it was just easier.”
He stood up then, his chair skidding as it flew back from the table. He crossed the room in a few short steps, and before I could take a breath, he had my face in his palms and his mouth on mine. I sighed into the kiss, his lips molded to mine as his warmth spread to every inch of my body.
Dane had never kissed me like that before. It was as if he’d taken whatever rulebook he lived by and thrown it out the window. For the first time, I sensed true passion—real, unbridled energy that he poured into the moment with me.
My arms curved around his neck as I fell mindlessly into him, my thoughts fading to black as I sank a little bit more in love with Dane Clark. Love. There was that word again, the word I couldn’t, wouldn’t yet address. The situation was too confusing, too messy, and all I knew was that his hands against my skin, his lips on my mouth—all of it was right.
“I managed to hide a container of cookies, and—” Mrs. Dulcet stopped abruptly as she entered the room. “Sorry. Sorry.”
Dane straightened, an almost goofy smile plastered on his face. His ha
nd never once left my back, his thumb drawing tiny circles against the tender skin at the base of my neck. “Bring in the cookies, please.”
Mrs. Dulcet blushed tickle-me-pink, set the cookies on the edge of the table closest to me. “Carry on, carry on,” she said, gesturing as she left the room. “I was never here.”
“Well,” Dane said once we were alone again, his voice rough as he struggled to regain his former composure. “I think we should get started on the charity event.”
I nodded. “Dane,” I hesitated. “I hate to ask, but what is happening with Andrea’s case?”
“The police are looking into it.” Dane’s shoulders stiffened as he surveyed me. “I intend to fully cooperate with them and lend assistance where needed. I have nothing to hide. In the meantime, I believe the only choice is to continue business as usual.”
“Of course,” I said, turning my gaze quickly onto the stack of papers he slid before me. “Let’s get started.”
Chapter 7
HOURS LATER, I LIFTED my head from a stack of scribbled Post It notes, ready to call it quits for the day. Or longer. Forever. Planning a party of this caliber wasn’t for the faint of heart. Setting out paper napkins and grilling a few brats and dogs wasn’t on the agenda for an event this size—forty investors, a hundred folks from the charity, press, and more.
My phone buzzed then, preventing me from banging my head against the desk. “Hey, Babs,” I said, reading the name across the screen. “You just saved me from a concussion.”
“Great,” she chirped. “I love when that happens. Do you have a pen?”
“Yes, along with enough Post Its to build an igloo.”
“You use snow for that, Pink. Anyway, I’ve got something for you.”
“About Andrea?”
“Yes. It’s like you said—she’s a local model. Her biggest gig to date has been this PR campaign for the self-driving cars she’s teaming up with Clark Company on—she’s in a recurring role on it and seems to have drawn some attention to herself. Seems she’s made enough of a name that she got a gig in one of the main fashion shows that’ll be running during the Sunshine Shore festivities.”
“I guess we’ve got a rising star on our hands.”
“That’s not all. Her parents? Total wackadoodles,” she said. “They’ve been arrested about twenty times in the last ten years. They’re living a very experimental lifestyle.”
I raised an eyebrow and scribbled furiously. “What sort of arrests—violent stuff?”
“None of it’s violent. In fact, it’s very peaceful. I think they’re ingesting a few too many special brownies, and we’re not talking about Mrs. Fredericks’s brownies that are made with love, if you catch my drift. Just last month they spent a night in jail because they wouldn’t get out of the highway during a protest.”
“What cause do they feel so strongly about protesting to get arrested?”
“Oh, you name it, they’ve got their hands in it. Women’s rights, men’s rights, gay rights, black rights, white, brown, yellow, short, tall, animal, human...you name it, they care about it. They’re just so full of love and brownies they join every protest that comes to the coast.”
“It’s a lifestyle for them?”
“I guess so. Must get a thrill out of it. Anyway, they don’t live on the Sunshine Shore—no surprise there. They live in Glassrock.”
“That’s far!”
“It’s twenty minutes by car.”
“I don’t have a car, and it’s a tough bike ride. There’s hardly a trail, and where there is a trail, it is jagged rock.”
“I’ll go with you,” Babs offered. “I don’t have a client meeting until five. I can pick you up in fifteen minutes.”
“What’s the catch?”
“There’s no catch,” Babs said a little too sweetly. At my extended silence, she sighed. “Fine. They have a Froth & Foam on the way there, and I want a root beer float.”
I considered it, but then shook my head. Realizing she couldn’t see that, I spoke instead. “No, Babs. I don’t want to get you into this. I’m doing it as a favor for Dane—and I haven’t even mentioned it to him yet. I don’t want to involve you.”
“He doesn’t know?”
“No,” I whispered as footsteps approached in the hallway. “He’d never ask for help with something like this.”
“What’s he going to say when he finds out? Because you know he will.”
“Oh, um...” I hesitated, dragging my gaze from the floor up to a pair of bright blue eyes that stared intensely back at me. “You know, nothing much. Gotta go.”
“Cough if he’s standing over you.”
I coughed enough to hack up a lung. I stopped only when Dane’s face crinkled in concern.
“Bye, Babs,” I said. “Talk to you later.”
“I know you’ll change your mind. This delay caused my price to increase,” Babs said quickly before I could hang up. “When you show up at my office begging for a ride, you better have two coffee mugs you stole from me ready to return and five bucks.”
“Why five bucks?”
“Root beer float,” she said, and then disconnected.
“Who was that?” Dane entered the room with painstaking patience, his steps slow, deliberate. “Babs?”
“How’d you know?” I squeaked. “Er, I guess I said her name.”
“What were you talking about?”
“Life.”
“And death?”
I blanched. “What do you mean?”
Silence rang in my ears as Dane made his way across his office, stopping when he reached the mahogany desk. Resting his knuckles on the wood, he leaned over it, his nose inches from mine. “Were you, or were you not, just having a conversation about Andrea’s death?”
From my place at the head of the desk, I tried to look confident. But Dane Clark had eyes that could pierce solid metal, and I wasn’t nearly that tough. I melted in two seconds flat. “I promise I was going to tell you! We haven’t done anything yet except ask around a tiny bit.”
He rose to his full height, the lean, strong muscles intimidating in his quiet concentration. “Go ahead then and tell me what you found.”
“Dane, don’t be mad,” I pleaded, sensing a chilliness in his voice. “The police think you killed someone, and you didn’t. That’s not right. I know you’d never ask me to look into it, so I was just trying to help.”
“I have my people on it, Lola. Do you really think I’d just sit around and do nothing?”
“Well, how much do your people care?”
“Quite a lot,” Dane said. “I’m paying them quite handsomely—I always have, I always will. If they know what’s best for them, they’ll care very, very much.”
“About money,” I said quietly. “But what about you?”
Dane blinked as if he didn’t quite understand. He took his time to think, analyzing the look on my face and the words on my lips. “What does that have to do with anything?”
His question, though logical, surprised me. “Well,” I began. “I’m not sure.”
Dane perched against the edge of his desk, and I was temporarily distracted by the view. He looked handsome there, corporate and professional with an edge of something more. Something riveting that stole my attention and, if my suspicions were correct, wouldn’t be letting go anytime soon.
“What I’m trying to say, Dane, is that I care more about you than some lawyer who’s hanging around for a fat paycheck. Sorry—but it’s true. I’m here because I like you. And that means I’m not going to give up. Ever.”
“Neither are my lawyers.”
I blew out a breath of exasperation. “I’m not telling you to take your lawyers or the police off the case. I’m just saying that I can’t sit around and do nothing while you’re falsely accused of murder.”
“You’re planning a party. That’s something.”
“False. I’m trying to plan a party. Every single venue worth booking is full for months. At this rate, we’ll
be having it in your backyard.”
“No—nothing within Castlewood grounds.”
“Unless you have other ideas...” I raised my hands. “I’m running out of options.”
“What can I do?”
I shook my head. “I’ll figure it out. Right now, though, I have to go.”
“Where?”
“I’m meeting Babs.”
“Does it have to do with Andrea?”
Pushing myself to stand, I dragged my gaze to meet his. “Yes.”
“Lola—”
“Look—I know you would never hurt somebody. Do your lawyers know that like I do? Dane, I hate to say it, but the cops think you’re guilty. What do your lawyers think?”
Dane’s eyes watched me as I paced to the other side of the desk, squeezing between him and the edge of it. We were a breath apart.
“I’m not letting anything happen to you. I’m your Personal Assistant,” I said with a smile. “And if you go to jail, I lose my job.”
The corner of his mouth twitched up in a smile. “And you need money to finish Shades of Pink.”
“Yes,” I said. “That too.”
Dane’s hand came up to brush along my collar bone. The motion was surprisingly sensitive, and I shivered. His hand paused. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” I hung my head, my hand coming up to rest over his. The beat of my heart pulsed underneath our fingers. “But I’m going to look into this one way or another. Whether you like it or not, I care about keeping you out of jail because I—” The forbidden four-letter word hung on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn’t say it. “I like you. Which means you have two options: I sneak around in secret on my own time or—”
“I don’t like that option.”
“Then let me finish,” I said with the start of a smile. “I keep you in the loop with where I’m going on my little investigation and what I’m doing. You don’t have to like it, but you’ll know where I am.”
“What about a third option?”
“Which is?”
“You let me come with you.”
