by Cara Colter
Okay, it might not have been the most professional thing she had ever done, but really? From the look on his face, he was never going to think of her as a child again!
And really? She felt alive, and powerful. She felt she was practically sizzling with energy and life and passion.
“Now,” she said, “are we ready to talk business?”
Under his breath, he said something that sounded like a word a sailor might say. He looked downright wary. That was better!
“I’m not sure we’re done discussing that.”
“We are,” she said firmly.
“If you didn’t think of it for six years, where did that come from?”
“It’s Spells Gone Wrong,” she said, lifting a shoulder. “Again. Deadly, in combination with Little Surprises.”
“You must have brought some Devilishly Decadent, too,” Brand said drily.
He remembered the names of her cookies! Stay on track, Bree ordered herself.
“You’re right, I must swear off delivering that particular combination of cookies. And speaking of cookies, how many people are in your office? I usually recommend starting with two cookies per person per day. Initially, I’ll send quite a variety, but I’ll give you a voting sheet to put on the coffee table. Then I’ll start sending what people like best. If I was going to guess for this office? Earth Muffin. Vegan cookies...”
* * *
Brand watched Bree. She seemed composed enough after what happened, but if he was going to guess? She probably didn’t usually talk this much.
Still, as she detailed her ordering and billing procedures, he noticed that, despite the rather shocking interchange that had just occurred between them, she had a really good business head on her shoulders. Nothing kooky about that part of her.
This whole fiasco was his own fault.
He’d been rattled since the first moment when he’d found her on the floor. His sense of not being in control had deepened when he had seen how she had reacted to the dog licking off her makeup.
No shrieking. No hysterics.
And she hadn’t been putting it on to impress him, either. She genuinely loved animals.
But nobody loved Beau!
Except him.
This suddenly felt like one of the scariest moments of his life: she looked like Little Red Riding Hood, and kissed like a house on fire. She wove spells into her cookies. And she could see the souls of dogs.
He had known she was going to kiss him. He’d known it as soon as she sank down on the couch beside him.
He’d known and yet, he had not moved. He’d been caught in some spell of curiosity and enchantment.
He had to get her out of here, and out of his life. She was right. Absolutely right. She was totally grown up. One-hundred-percent pure woman. She’d proven that beyond a shadow of a doubt. There was nothing brotherly about the way he was feeling about her.
“Okay,” he said abruptly. “Where do I sign?”
“I’ll email you a contract with the terms we’ve just discussed.”
City magazine would love to see him now. The man they’d declared to be the businessman of the decade was going to be emailed a contract and he had not the slightest idea what was in it, or what they had just discussed.
He forced himself to focus on her. A mistake. Her hair was scattered around her face. She was glowing. Her lips looked faintly bruised. She looked more like a woman who had just had some loving laid on her than one who had just made a great sale.
“Cookie delivery will start on Monday,” Bree said, a complete professional now. “The cookies have a shelf life, not refrigerated, of six days. I like to leave them only for a maximum of three. My delivery guy will change out any older cookies when he comes midweek. We donate them to a kitchen that feeds the homeless. Is that okay with you?”
“Fine,” he said.
She stood up. “Thank you for your business, Brand.” For a moment, her in-charge businesswoman persona faded. She took her hand out of her cloak, looked at it and looked at him as if she was considering offering it.
He could feel himself holding his breath. He really did not want to risk the temptation touching her again would no doubt create!
Thankfully, she saw his hesitation, tucked her hand back under her cloak and went out the door. He was aware, as it whispered shut behind her, that he was exceedingly tense.
He deliberately rolled back his shoulders, shrugged them up to his ears, then let them slide back down. He shot his dog a dirty look.
“Traitor.”
Beau opened one eye and thumped his tail a few times. If he could talk Brand was pretty sure he’d say, “Look, buddy, we both kissed her. How is it I’m the traitor?”
“What did I just order, anyway?”
* * *
Bree rode the elevator down. “CEO of the century!” she told her reflection. Despite things going slightly off the rails—well, a lot off the rails if it came to that—it was a great contract.
She was not going to think about that kiss! Or the taste of him. Or the way he had looked after she had kissed him. Baffled and off-kilter and aware of her in a whole new way!
She was not going to think about what strange madness had overtaken her. She suspected he was right.
It was comeuppance for his rejection of her lips all those years ago. She probably had thought of it way more than she should have. Well, now she knew. She knew what he tasted like. She knew she could make him see her as a woman, not a child. She knew and she could put that all behind her.
She was not thinking of that anymore. He could be the worst possible kind of distraction. She was going to keep him at arm’s length. She didn’t have to see him again, and she was not going to indulge the little swoop of loss she felt right in her tummy at the thought of not seeing him again.
She was thinking of her business. How could she be in close proximity to those lips and still think about her business? So, proximity was out.
Between this, the new Perks contract and her special order for Crystal Silvers, Kookies for All Occasions was in the best shape it had been in since she had started the company.
Her phone vibrated in her pocket just as she exited the office building.
It was Chelsea, and she was talking loudly and rapidly, on the verge of hysteria. Bree had to hold her phone away from her ear.
“Chelsea, slow down. What happened?”
The story came out, bit by disjointed bit. When Bree understood completely, she froze in shock. But this is what she should have remembered about life: for her, good things were followed by disaster.
Since her father had died, it seemed that lesson got hammered home again and again. She had fallen in love with Paul, head-over-heels in love, shamelessly blinded by what she had felt for him. It had been, she thought, the best thing that ever happened to her.
The pregnancy had shown her his true colors. She had been shocked by how, underneath all that charm, he was self-centered and mean-spirited. He had accused her of doing it on purpose! Paul had seemed like the most romantic of men, but it had really been nothing more than manipulation of a vulnerable, very young and hopelessly naive woman. His abandonment had been complete and immediate.
That’s what she knew about unforgivable!
Still, there had been the pregnancy, acting as a beautiful buffer to complete heartbreak. Of course she had been afraid. Of course her life had been disrupted. But underneath all that had been a little hum of joy that walked with her, a constant, through her days.
A baby. Her baby, growing beneath her heart. She sang it lullabies of pure love. She talked to it of hopes and fears.
But her joy stopped abruptly with the miscarriage, and never, if she thought about it, ever really came back. Not completely.
“I am not thinking about that right now!” she said fiercely, out loud, not caring w
ho sent wary glances her way.
No, she was not going to pathetically catalog her heartbreaks and disappointments because of the blow Chelsea had just delivered.
She was harnessing the energy of her visit with Brand. The aliveness of it. The powerful surging energy, a sense of not being able to do anything wrong.
“I am the CEO of the century,” Bree reminded herself. “I’ve been given a problem. A big one, but there is no point in crying over spilt milk. I need to find a solution, not fold up my tent and creep into the night!”
* * *
But forty-eight hours later, exhausted and broken, she admitted defeat.
With what was left of her strength she called his number. For some reason, it felt as if it was going to be her hardest call and so she made it first.
“Bree! I’ve been waiting for that contract.”
She had steeled herself to sound only businesslike. Did he have to sound so happy to hear from her?
“I’m sorry.”
“Bree?”
“There isn’t going to be a contract.”
“Are you crying?”
“No.”
“Not because of what happened here, I hope.”
“I am not crying.” But she was. Still, he couldn’t see her, red-faced and snotty-nosed, the antithesis of the woman she had been two days ago.
So, he was still thinking of that kiss. Well, so was she. The taste of his lips—and the surprising boldness that she was capable of—was one of the few things that had sustained her through forty-eight hours of hell.
“If I was crying it would have nothing to do with what happened there.”
“What’s wrong?”
She found herself unable to speak.
“You are crying, aren’t you? Where are you?” he asked.
“I’m at my apartment.”
“I’m coming over.”
“No, I—”
“Give me the address.”
Oh, the temptation. There it was again, that foolish weakness, not wanting to be so alone with it all. To just lean on someone else, even for a little while.
“There’s been a...situation, and I need to shut the company down temporarily.” She had planned to tell him she hoped perhaps she would be up and running again in a few months, but she knew she could not keep control, so she quickly ended the call. “Goodbye, Brand. It was nice connecting with you again. Thank you for the opportunity.”
“Bree—”
She disconnected.
She looked at herself. Of course he couldn’t come over. Her whole apartment was smaller than his office. It was three o’clock in the afternoon and she was still in her pajamas. Her hair was tied up on top of her head with a neon orange shoelace. Her eyes were puffy. She wandered into the kitchen and opened the fridge. There was nothing in it. Well, a bottle of unopened wine, left over from a girls’ night several weeks ago.
She could not have a drink. That was no way to deal with sorrow. It would be the beginning of the end.
Defiant of the bleak future the wine promised, she took the bottle out of the fridge. It wasn’t even good wine. An Australian screw-top. If she ordered a pizza, it would be okay to have a glass. Lots of people—grown-ups—had a glass of wine with their pizza.
It might be a good idea to eat something, come to think of it. Chocolate ice cream and the broken cookies she’d brought home could not sustain her forever. Plus, she was out of the ice-cream part of the equation. She called for a pizza, and took the wine into her tiny living room. Her cat, Oliver, was in her favorite chair, so she took the less comfortable couch.
She poured a glass of wine and eyed it. Red. She didn’t even like red wine. It generally gave her a headache. She closed her eyes without sampling the wine.
The doorbell rang. Had she fallen asleep? She glanced at the clock. Only a few minutes had passed.
The pizza place was just down the street, but that was fast, even for them. She looked at her disheveled state: Oliver-approved pajamas with cats on them, furry slippers that looked like monster feet, her hair uncombed, her face unwashed.
She didn’t owe an explanation to the pizza-delivery boy! He probably saw it all. Wasn’t there even a commercial about that? Where a guy goes to the door in his underwear to get his pizza? Still, she found herself formulating a story about the flu as she opened the door.
The shock was so great, she tried to close it again.
CHAPTER SIX
“GET YOUR FOOT out of my door,” Bree said. She shoved hard on the door. She felt like a mouse trying to move a mule.
“No.”
“What are you doing here? I never gave you my address.” Having failed to shut the door, she tucked herself behind it and peeked out at him. This was worse than being seen in her Kookies apron and beret. She was an absolute mess.
He, of course, was not. A mess. Or anything close to it. He was supremely put together in a light blue button-down shirt, dark chinos, boots, a black leather jacket and a scarf. She thought one man in a thousand could wear a scarf well. Naturally, he would be that one.
“I work with the world’s best computer geeks,” Brand said smoothly. “Your address, to them? Child’s play. A great big yawn. Not even a challenge. Had it in my hand forty seconds after I asked for it.”
“I’m not sure if that is completely ethical,” she said crisply, from her station behind the door.
He cocked his head at her. “I’m not sure it is, either,” he said thoughtfully. “But you should think of how easy it was next time you are arranging to meet a stranger on e-Us.”
“How did you get in the front door of the building?”
He blinked at her twice, slowly, demonstrating his hypnotic charm. “This is a face that inspires trust, particularly in a little old lady trying to manage an unruly beagle and a bag of groceries at the same time.”
“Mrs. Murphy,” she said, annoyed. “Why are you here, Brand?”
And why did he have to look so good? Strong, and put-together, and sure of himself, the kind of guy a woman in a weakened state might want to throw herself at.
“I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“Well,” she said, “you can clearly see I’m okay.”
“You’re hiding behind a door. How do I know if you’re okay? Maybe one of your computer dates hit you over the head with a club.”
She stepped out from behind the door. “See?”
He looked her up and down. He looked insultingly unconvinced about her okayness. He stared at her feet for a long time before he looked up again.
“You look as if you’ve been crying,” he said softly.
“I have the flu, sick to my stomach, cold symptoms, runny nose, puffy eyes. You know,” she said, relieved she had prepared an excuse for the pizza-delivery boy.
Who chose that minute to get off the elevator, in his distinctive red ball cap and shirt, and come to her apartment door.
“Your front-door security clearly sucks,” Brand noted in an undertone.
“Medium, everything on it, double anchovies?” the delivery boy asked cheerfully.
Brand raised an eyebrow at her. “Flu food?”
She glared at him and turned to get her wallet out of her pint-size kitchen. When she returned the pizza boy was gone, and Brand was inside, holding the box, her door shut firmly behind him.
“Really? Double anchovy?” he asked.
“My weakness.”
“Mine, too.”
She searched his face for the lie and found none.
“Can we share it?” he asked. He was grinning that boyish grin, the same one that had, no doubt, sucked Mrs. Murphy into letting him into the building. Bree found herself as helpless as Mrs. Murphy. Who on earth could resist this overpowering charm?
“Since you paid for it, would it seem churlis
h to refuse?”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t have to come.”
“No, I didn’t. What can I say? I find a damsel in distress irresistible.”
Somehow, with Brand, there was no point telling him he did not have to do the decent thing.
“I seriously doubt there is one thing about me that is irresistible at the moment,” she said as she led him through to the tiny living room. Oliver gave him a disdainful look and curled into a tighter ball, which left them the option of sharing a too-small couch. Brand sat down on it.
“I should go get dressed. I’m at my worst.”
“Well, I’ve already seen it, so I wouldn’t get too twisted. It’s not as if I can unsee it.”
She flopped down on the couch beside him. “The old ‘no point shutting the barn door after the horse is out,’ eh? That bad?”
He slid her a look. “Kind of adorable.”
“Adorable,” she said glumly. He was ready for his GQ cover and she was adorable. “Like a Pomeranian puppy?”
“More like a Yorkie. It’s the furry-feet slippers. And the bow in your hair. You know how Yorkies wear those little bows on their heads?”
She reached up and yanked the shoelace out of her hair.
He sighed. “The adorable factor just went down, oh, maybe five points.”
Don’t indulge him, she ordered herself. “On what scale?”
“Out of a hundred. Being a perfect hundred before and now minus the five points.”
“If I take off the pajamas?”
He went very still.
“I didn’t mean it like that.” She gave him a good hard punch in the arm.
He held his arm and made a face of exaggerated pain. “Oh. Okay. I just couldn’t be sure. Because of that kiss—”
She punched him again. “Don’t ever mention that to me again!”
“Bossy. Another five points off. And ten for each time you hit me in the arm.”
“I should be a rottweiler pretty soon then. I can only hope. People respect rottweilers,” she muttered, though inwardly she was greatly enjoying his banter. Only because it was proving a distraction from the last few days, which had been so without lightness of any kind.
