by Peggy Jaeger
It was her turn to nod. She topped off the travel mug, turned and asked, “You want to take some of this with you?”
“Nope. One cup’s my limit, thanks. So far, like everything else I’ve sampled, it’s delicious.”
“Thanks, but I can only take half the credit. I borrowed an old mix recipe of Grandma’s and added a few spices.”
“Again, if you packaged this stuff, you’d make a fortune.”
Smiling at the compliment, she looked at her watch and said, “Time to go.”
Once they were settled in the waiting limo, Josh asked, “Is this your normal daily routine? Leave this same time every day?”
“Pretty much.” She dug into her briefcase and extracted some papers. “I’m usually at the office by six fifteen. The film crew arrives by eight, so by the time hair, makeup, dressing, and blocking are done, we shoot anytime after nine thirty.”
“Weekends, too?”
“No. Weekends are a sacred cow. I won’t film on those days unless it’s unavoidable. The staff deserves time off.”
“I got the impression your weekends were spent working.”
“I usually do, either at the condo trying out new recipes or putting together ideas for upcoming shows. During the summer I drive out to the Hamptons house on Friday nights. Come back Sunday. Sometimes there’s a function to go to on Saturday night, so I’ll stick around in the city. This weekend I’ll leave early Friday afternoon to start getting the food ready for the party. It’ll be delivered that morning.”
Josh nodded. “Someone’s at your beach house to take the delivery?”
“A cleaning lady comes in every Thursday, even in the winter. That’s been Gemma’s Christmas present to me since I got the house.”
“She gave you a cleaning lady for a present?”
She grinned. “Yeah. Otherwise I’d spend the first day dusting and vacuuming.”
“Nice present. Agency hire?”
“No. Gemma found her on her own. She put an ad in the paper, asked some of her friends who have houses in the same town to recommend someone. She’s a real asset, too. Greta. She’s German, sixtyish, and smiles all the time. Hardly speaks any English.”
“Stacy told me you have a housekeeper at your condo, too. I haven’t seen her.”
“And you won’t. Not unless we’re there during the day, which I almost never am. She comes in at nine, twice a week. She’s very reliable and I’ve never had any trouble with her.”
“Even when you thought she’d riffled through your closets?”
“Let me guess; Stacy again?”
“Yup. She told me you border on obsessive/compulsive, too, but I figured that one out for myself.”
Just inside of insulted, in most part because it was true, Kandy frowned. “I’m not OCD. I’m just uber-focused.”
“Call it whatever you want.” He explained the incidents Stacy had already reported to him. “Is there anything else you can add, aside from last night’s phone message?”
She’d tried to forget about that. The venom in the voice, the hatred in the words. “No.”
“I’m meeting with your agent at the studio today, and Stacy’s going to bring me to the kid in charge of your media stuff.”
“Tricia Walters. She’s my aunt Callie’s oldest.”
“Why aren’t I surprised?”
When his mouth pulled into a grin, all teeth and boyish mirth, Kandy’s pulse jumped. All of a sudden it was hot in the back of the limo, though the air conditioning was turned up high.
“I’m also doing background checks on all the people close to you. My partner is working on it back at the office.”
The heat infusing her system turned to a block of ice.
“I can’t allow that.”
He put his hands up. “Hold on. I know you don’t like it, but it’s necessary.”
“No, it’s not. Whoever is bothering me isn’t someone close to me. I know it. I feel it.” She pounded on her chest, once, for emphasis.
Josh stared at her for a few moments, then said, “Think this through. The person responsible obviously is close to you or can get close to you without worrying about discovery. It’s someone who knows you, knows your schedule, knows how to reach you anywhere, anytime. Someone you won’t, can’t, suspect.”
To hear him put it in words so simple numbed her.
Her breath hissed out and her vision faded, all the blood rushing down to her toes.
Josh closed the distance between them in a heartbeat. The papers she’d removed from her bag scattered about in disarray.
Taking her hands with his, Josh worried the knuckles.
“Look, Kandy, I’m sorry to be so direct, but I need you to understand what you’re dealing with. I know it hurts to think someone you know is behind this. But for your own safety, you need to accept it’s probably true.”
Kandy looked down at their coupled hands. She’d always thought hers were large for a woman, but right now, tucked into Josh’s massive and powerful ones, for the first time in her life they felt small. Dainty. At twenty-eight the skin over them was still smooth and clear, but the sinew and muscles beneath them were strong and coarse, used to hard work and labor. Her nails were kept short so she could cook without worry of damaging an expensive manicure.
In comparison, Josh’s hands were massive hulks of muscle and tanned flesh, the fingers long and solid, the nails short. A smattering of freckles peeked out from under his sleeve, his skin warm and smooth against hers.
She took a deep breath and let herself look at his face. Concern and kindness were grooved into the lines on his brow and in the downturn of his mouth.
“I understand.” She swallowed, her gaze steady. “I don’t like it one bit, and, for the record, I don’t think it’s true. But I understand. Just please be discreet. I don’t want anyone hurt by this snooping.”
He squeezed her hands and let them go. In an instant she felt empty and cold.
“Discretion’s a job requirement. Don’t worry. The only one who’ll be hurt is the one making your life uncomfortable. I promise.”
She believed him.
The car pulled up to the studio building, and she bent down to retrieve her fallen papers. Josh did as well.
Their faces were a breath apart, a fistful of paper between them.
Kandy stared into a green so intense she felt she could fall into it and be transported to a calm and serene meadow, bright with sunshine and hot with passion. His warm breath whispered against her cheek as they remained, bent, lost in each other’s eyes. Her stomach careened through a small series of somersaults. All she needed to do was move a few inches and her lips would be on his.
That she considered shifting her position so she could capture them, flabbergasted her.
Without blinking, she sat back in one quick rush.
“Here.” He handed her the pages he’d grabbed.
Was it her imagination, or wishful thinking, that his voice sounded a little gruff? A little tight?
The driver opened the car door and she was brought back to reality.
“Thanks.” She shoved all the papers back into her briefcase, never once looking at them.
When they entered the lobby, Kandy greeted the security guard at the front desk before the duo went up in the elevator.
“I have a meeting with the production crew in a few minutes,” she told him.
He nodded, his gaze zeroed in on the floor numbers as they ascended.
“There’ll be breakfast, if you’re hungry. It’s prepared by the network caterers, so you’ll get a sample of everything. It’s usually a pretty extensive spread.”
I’m babbling. Good, God. It’s nerves. Just nerves.
When the doors opened, Josh followed her out and down to her office.
“I have to go over these papers,” she told him as she settled down behind her desk.
“Go ahead. Pretend I’m not here,” he said, and dropped
onto one of her couches, cell phone in his hand.
“Impossible,” she muttered.
The needed work got the better of her a moment later, and she was able to focus her attention on it.
But she never forgot he was in the room.
Fifteen minutes later a knock on the door propelled him to an upright position.
“It’s just me,” Stacy said, coming in. “Are you ready for the meeting?”
Rising, Kandy said, “Yeah. Everyone here?”
Stacy nodded. “Morning,” she said with a smile to Josh.
He returned it. “You look fresh. Didn’t make it a late night?”
“No. And speaking of.” She turned her attention back to her cousin. “You left entirely too early.”
Kandy shrugged. “I was tired. Plus, seeing Evan spoiled the whole thing for me.”
“If you’d hung around ten minutes more you would have seen your mom.”
Kandy kept walking. “So she showed up after all?”
“She sure did,” Stacy said with a laugh. “I thought Harvey was going to need cardiac resuscitation after she sucked him into her web. Really, Kan, you missed a classic scene.”
“Did Harvey survive?” Kandy asked, knowing how powerful a force her mother could be when in seduction mode.
“Yup. The last time I saw him, Reva managed to get him away from Aunt Hannah and was offering him a napkin to wipe the sweat pouring off his head.”
Kandy’s mouth twisted at the description. “I’ll call him today and make amends.”
“Oh, you don’t need to. I heard him tell Reva if he was straight he would have left with her in a heartbeat.”
Kandy chuckled at the thought of her sex-kitten mother with her debonair publisher.
“I told you we should have stayed,” Josh said. He held the door open to the conference room for both of them. “Sounds like we missed a good show.”
As she walked passed him, she glanced up from under her lashes and said, “Don’t worry. You’ll get your chance to be seduced.”
Chapter Six
Once everyone was seated, the production crew surrounding the table, Josh ambled over to the food prep area and filled a plate.
There were plenty of empty chairs at the conference table, but he chose to stand off to the sidelines and be as unobtrusive as possible, just as he’d promised.
With a hip settled against one of the window ledges, he watched Kandy interact with her team. A few of them tossed inquisitive glances his way, but no one questioned Kandy—or him—about his presence.
Kandy herself took no food, just a bottled water, while those around her had full, overflowing plates.
He wasn’t surprised that she was a natural leader. Questions were asked succinctly and with a clarity that impressed him, and brokered no confusion or disorder in her answers. He saw her challenge some of her staff’s views, compliment them on the presentation, and question several standards he had no clue about.
When the meeting ended he was much more cognizant of the roles involved in shooting a television show than he’d ever thought he would be.
“What’s next?” he asked when everyone quit the room except Stacy, himself, and Kandy.
“Hair and makeup,” Stacy answered. “Then we shoot.”
“Today we’re filming in the garden on the roof,” Kandy said. “I’m doing a segment on homegrown herbs and spices.”
“Homegrown on a midtown roof. Impressive.”
“We think so,” Stacy told him, before answering her cell phone.
While she spoke to the caller, Kandy and Josh continued on to the dressing room.
“Well, Joshua, we meet again,” Lucy said when they entered.
Her perfume engulfed him, a wide smile, all teeth and scarlet lips, gracing her face.
“You must be the hunk my sister has been telling me about,” Josh heard. When he turned he was met with the deepest pair of blue eyes he’d ever seen, surrounded by the face of a well-cared-for woman of about fifty.
“Aunt Callie, this is Josh,” Kandy said, plopping down in the makeup chair. “He’s a…a friend.”
“Wish I had friends who looked like you,” Callie Walters said, extending her hand to Josh.
“Are all the women in your family gorgeous, Kandy?” he asked. “Because I haven’t met one so far who isn’t.”
Callie’s smile grew even wider, as the pleasure of his compliment shone in her eyes. “I see Lucy didn’t exaggerate. This one’s a keeper,” she told her niece.
From her seat, Kandy rolled her eyes. “Can we get started, please? The weather report is calling for rain.”
“Certainly, dear,” Callie said, throwing one last, flirtatious slant Josh’s way.
Reva blew into the room just as Callie began rolling her niece’s hair in curlers.
Josh glanced over what he assumed was her business attire, quite different from the outfit he’d seen her decked out in the night before. This morning her gray bob was pulled off her face by a black headband, allowing a full view of enormous, dropped pearls adorning her ears. Her form-fitting malachite green suit was cut perfectly to her small frame, the body-hugging skirt ending barely an inch above her knee. Jet-black three-inch pumps finished the look.
“Babe, mind if I steal Josh for a few minutes?”
Kandy stared into the makeup mirror at her. Reva’s eyes widened a fraction in a silent question.
“Go ahead,” she told her.
“You will come back?” Lucy said to him from the closet doorway as she pulled out clothing choices for her niece.
Josh knew it wasn’t a question, so he just grinned back at her.
“I’m a little upset you whisked Kandy away so early last night,” Reva told him as they walked down the hallway to Kandy’s office.
He shrugged and dropped his hands into his pants pockets. “It was her call. I thought we should stay, but she’d had enough.”
“Evan Chandler,” Reva said, mouth turning downward into a scowl, disgust filling her voice. “I never liked him.”
“That seems to be the general opinion of everyone I’ve met so far. Why would someone as smart and savvy as Kandy be involved with a guy like that?”
“He’s a professional charmer. I’m sure he played on Kandy’s good nature, for all it was worth. She hasn’t been the most proliferative dater in all the years I’ve known her. In fact, Evan was the first man she spent any considerable time with. Have a seat.” She waved at the couches, went to the refrigerator, and took out a bottled water.
Josh shook his head when she asked if he wanted one.
“What did you want to speak to me about? I don’t want to leave Kandy for too long,” he asked when she settled in across from him.
“A few things. First and foremost, I want to thank you for taking the job. Stacy said Kandy’s been hard to convince something really is going on, and having you in the mix now makes me feel better about her safety.”
Josh waited.
“I thought I’d be able to give you a little more background on what’s happened that’s made me so worried about her.”
“Stacy’s already filled me in.”
“She doesn’t know everything.”
While Josh just stared at her, she took a long pull of water and continued. “The incident in LA was worrisome, I’ll admit. At the time, though, I wasn’t convinced anything other than stupidity on the rental agency’s part was involved.”
“When did your opinion change? With the lighting incident?”
She shook her head. “A little before, actually. I was in here with Kandy going over her book contract. We’d just finished the negotiations for the next one and were having a celebratory glass of champagne because I was able to get Harvey Little to double his first offer.”
“And that’s a good thing?”
“You bet your sweet ass it is. Kandy’s contract for the book being released today was for 1.5 million. The next on
e is 3.5 million. And that doesn’t even include the foreign rights.”
Josh was stunned. “For a cookbook?”
“Not just any cookbook. A Kandy Laine cookbook. She’s sold out every single first, second, and third printing within two months of publication on each one. It’s why Harvey upped the first print run on Sugar-Coated Kandy. He’s releasing over a million and a half copies of this one. You can’t believe the amount of money she pulls in for him. They’ve never gone to paperback. And e-book cookbooks don’t generally do well as a rule, but hers do.”
“Amazing.”
“No. Kandy,” she said simply, with a nonchalant wave of her hand. “She’s hit a niche with the public few celebrity chefs have ever come close to. She’s got endorsement deals for pots and pans, kitchen gadgetry, and I’ve even got one company who wants to market some of her sauces. Everything Kandy has touched so far has turned to culinary gold. But I’m getting off subject.”
She took another sip of water. “We were in here, celebrating, and Kandy slipped out for a few minutes. Her private line rang so I answered it. I’ve done it before. It’s usually her mother calling or one of her sisters. They’re all very close.”
“But it wasn’t this time?”
Reva shook her head. “At first I didn’t think anyone was on the line. I didn’t hear any background noise. After saying hello twice, I was set to hang up, but then this voice screamed into the wire and I just stood there, staggered.”
“Man or woman?”
“After thinking about it, I feel it was a woman. The voice was shrill, not deep.”
“What was said?”
Reva’s hard gaze bore straight through him. Josh thought in that instant she looked like a lioness willing to pounce and protect her cub from danger. He’d never really understood the phrase if looks could kill until he saw Reva’s expression.
“‘Die, whore! Die.’ It was screamed, twice. Then the call disconnected.”
“What did you do?”
“Well, first I just stood there like an idiot with the phone in my hand, staring at it. I couldn’t believe it, couldn’t take it in. Then I thought it must be a crank call, or maybe even a really wrong number.”
“Did you tell Kandy?”
