by Nina Lane
He left Evan’s office and went to the boardroom, finishing the rest of the Sweeties as he walked. He hadn’t been able to shield his family from the bad publicity wrought by the paternity suit. Though they hadn’t wavered in their support of him, even when he’d come close to losing his job amidst the scandal, the damage had been done.
And regardless of Evan’s warnings, Luke would fix the damage or die trying. His brother was right about corporate headhunting, though it still galled him that Evan hadn’t told him about Crown Foods. Maybe because he and Evan didn’t hang out together anymore, what with Luke’s self-imposed work schedule.
The other night had been the first time in months he’d gone to the Troll’s House to grab a drink and shoot pool. After hearing about Crown’s attempt at poaching, he’d needed a distraction.
Which had unexpectedly come in the form of Polly Lockhart.
Luke tried not to think about the fact that if Evan had been at the Troll’s House with him, he would very likely not have ended up kissing Polly in the back corridor.
And wouldn’t that have been a damn shame.
Reminding himself of his resolve to protect Polly the way he did everyone else, he blocked another memory of her as Evan and the other executives came into the room. After the meeting started, their Chief Financial Officer gave a finance report.
“Profits are up by eight percent this quarter, with a gumdrop growth of ten percent, and an indication that we’re gaining market share in the non-chocolate category due to . . .”
His voice droned on. Luke listened, even though he knew all the details. He studied the reports every night before bed, and the numbers were embedded in his brain.
The COO gave an update on the progress with new vitamin-infused lollipops and the latest on edible candy pencils. After another lengthy discussion about the launch of an ad campaign for their new candy pinwheels, the meeting ended.
Luke returned to his office and tossed his briefcase onto the sofa, turning as his father entered.
“Paula down in HR called me yesterday.” Warren closed the door behind him and crossed to sit in a chair in front of the desk.
Luke sighed. Paula in HR had been with Sugar Rush for thirty years, which meant that she’d known all the brothers since they were kids. Under normal circumstances, that would have been nice for a family-run company, but it also meant that Paula looked a little too closely at employee records and got nosy about things that weren’t her business.
“She said you have three months of outstanding vacation time and haven’t requested any of it,” his father remarked. “I thought you were planning a trip to Hawaii.”
“Yeah, uh . . .” Luke scratched his head. He’d told his father that to get Warren off his case about working too hard. “Hotel was booked.”
Warren frowned. “Come on, Luke. You need a vacation.”
After his encounter with Evan and the knowledge that other corporations might be sniffing around Sugar Rush again, the last thing Luke wanted or needed was a vacation.
“I can’t take one right now, Dad. Not with the Alpine Chocolates acquisition about to get off the ground.”
“You need a vacation,” his father repeated. “A real vacation, not one of those fake ones where you say you’re taking time off and you end up in meetings or working from your hotel room.”
“I took time off a few months ago.”
“You took two days off and worked from home,” Warren corrected, frustrated anger hardening his expression. “You haven’t taken a single day off since the board agreed to let you stay on as CEO.”
“I haven’t take—”
Warren held up his hand. Luke fell silent. His father was still the only person in the world who could silence him with one gesture.
“You don’t have to punish yourself anymore, son.”
“I’m not.”
“Then prove it by taking some time off.” His father pushed up from the chair, looking at him from beneath his heavy eyebrows. “I want that vacation time used by the end of the year. Your mother would hate to know that you’re pushing yourself to breaking point.”
Luke’s shoulders tensed. “Low blow, Dad.”
“So is lying to me about your time off, son.”
The intercom on the desk buzzed. Hoping for a way out of this conversation, he turned to answer it.
“Mr. Stone, reception just called to say your aunt is on her way,” Kate said from the intercom. “Should I head her off at the pass?”
He groaned. “No, she’ll just barrel through. Let her in.”
Not that Julia let anyone do anything. She swept into his office with a worried-looking Kate at her four-inch heels. In her late forties, tall and elegant with blond hair sweeping to her shoulders in a smooth pageboy, Julia Bennett had a crackling, don’t-mess-with-me force field that had served her well since she’d become the self-appointed matriarch of the Stone family after her sister died.
“Thanks, Kate,” Luke said. “I can take it from here.”
Kate nodded and left, closing the door behind her. Julia put her hands on her hips, her gaze sweeping over Warren before coming to a stop on Luke.
“I’m not an it,” she said.
“Hello, Aunt Julia.” He smiled. “You look lovely, as always.”
“Oh, no.” She wagged her red-painted fingernail at him. “Put your charm away, Luke Stone. And I strongly suggest you stop using your charisma among the general female population because my friend Barb spent our entire lunch yesterday bemoaning the fact that you dumped her daughter Cindy.”
“You mean the Cindy who left an engagement ring ad in my car? After two dates that I only agreed to so you’d get off my case?”
“Oh please.” Julia threw up her hands and gave Warren a beseeching look. “Warren, tell your son that dreaming about marriage is what women of a certain age do when they’re dating a rich bachelor.”
Luke’s jaw clenched. “You know the rules, Julia.”
“Maybe it’s about time you changed those rules,” his father suggested.
“Or at least acknowledged that not all women are out to get you,” Julia added. “Not in a bad way, at least.”
“Are we done here?” Luke waved his hand toward the papers on his desk. “Because I have more important, and less weird, things to do than discuss vacations and women with my father and my aunt.”
Julia arched an eyebrow at Warren. “You got him to take a vacation?”
“I threatened him to take a vacation.”
Luke felt the combined forces of Warren’s and Julia’s penetrating stares.
“You could bring Cindy along,” Julia suggested. “She’s never been to the Bahamas.”
“I’m not taking her there. She’ll be expecting a beach proposal.”
“Oh, Luke.” She pinched the bridge of her nose with her fingers and closed her eyes. “Cindy is not a vindictive bitch. In fact, she used to be pathetic. I spent six months reworking that girl’s image and personal style. Before me, she had five pashmina shawls. Five. Pashmina. Shawls. And a waterfall cardigan and wedge boots. Seriously.”
“Crisis.”
“I just don’t want her to regress,” Julia said. “And I have you and her on the guest list for the Manet exhibition opening at the Fine Arts Museum next month. Couldn’t you have waited until after that to dump her? You screwed up my whole seating arrangement.”
A headache started pounding at Luke’s skull. “So put me at a different table.”
“They’re all full,” Julia said tartly, crossing her arms. “And everyone is paired up, except for you.”
“So I won’t go.”
“The hell you won’t go,” Julia retorted. “This is for your mother’s foundation, Lucas Stone, and you will not start any gossip by not showing up.”
Luke didn’t bother looking at his father. He wouldn’t find an ally there. Though Warren and Julia often clashed, they were united on the fact that everyone would continue to honor Rebecca Stone’s memory. Eleven
years ago, Warren had lost his beloved wife and Julia had lost her older sister, but they’d pulled together for their family’s sake.
And especially for Hailey, the only Stone daughter who had been in the backseat of the car when it careened off the road and overturned in a ditch. Rebecca had died on impact, and Hailey spent months in a hospital bed, wrapped in bandages and attached to enough machines that she’d been almost unrecognizable.
In the wake of the tragedy, larger corporations circled Stone Confectioners like vultures looking for a weak spot to attack. With his father both focused on Hailey and ready to retire, Luke had stepped in to run the company.
He realized now that his drive to protect and improve Stone Confectioners had been his own way of dealing with the tragedy. He overhauled the product line, streamlined production, rebranded the company, modernized manufacturing, and renamed it Sugar Rush.
In the eleven years that Luke had been CEO of Sugar Rush, the company had raked in millions in profits, turned down multiple offers of mergers and acquisitions, established an international presence, and had been on a trajectory leading to the same level as the biggest names in the candy industry. Then the paternity lawsuit had hit the company hard, damaging all his hard work and progress.
But Luke had saved Sugar Rush once. He’d do it again.
“This is important,” Julia said, tapping her finger on his desk. “Call Cindy and tell her you made a mistake.”
“No.”
“Leave the boy alone, Julia,” Warren said. “There are plenty of other women he can ask.”
“Like one of his harem harpies?” Julia rolled her eyes. “No, thank you.”
Warren slanted her a look as he opened the door. “They’re good women from good families.”
“So was she,” Julia replied tartly.
Resentment tightened the air. Luke’s teeth clenched.
“And because of her,” Warren told Julia, “you want Luke to be with a woman you can control.”
“I want him to be with a woman we can trust.”
“Then stay out of his business and let him find one.”
Warren strode out of the room. Julia gave an exasperated cluck of her tongue.
“As if he knows anything about women,” she said. “When you marry your high school sweetheart and spend the rest of your life mourning her loss, you’re not exactly an expert on the female species. I, on the other hand, know what I’m talking about.”
“Julia.” Luke’s headache pounded harder. He didn’t want to be reminded of how deeply his mother’s death had changed Warren. And not for the better. “I’ll be at the dinner with a date.”
“Not one of the harem.”
Luke shook his head. He didn’t want one of them. For the past few years, he’d had a select group of women—acquaintances and former girlfriends—whom he called when he needed a date or a fuck, or both, but they’d all lost their appeal. The sex was good because it was sex, but a couple of the women had gotten too clingy lately, culminating in Cindy and her engagement ring ad. Luke wouldn’t tolerate that, especially not when he was still putting everything he had into the company. Tenfold.
His commitment to Sugar Rush was just one reason his relationships with women had expiration dates. And when they overstayed their welcome . . . well, he wasn’t such a dick that he’d throw them out, but they went away with a nice severance package.
Of course, none of those possessive, materialistic women were like the artless girl who’d drunkenly smashed her mouth against his and begged him to fuck her.
The image flashed like fire in his brain. Polly’s voice echoed in his ears again. “I really want to have sex with a man who knows what to do . . . if you won’t do it, I’ll find someone who will . . .”
Luke suppressed a rush of jealous anger, reminding himself of his polite brotherly plan with her. He crossed the room and opened the door pointedly, stepping aside to indicate that he was more than ready for his aunt to leave.
“I’ll figure it out,” he said. “I will have a date for the sole purpose of keeping your seating chart intact. Now go. I’ll call you later.”
“Hah.” Julia gave him a haughty sneer and swept across the room. “You say that to all the girls.”
“But for you, I mean it.”
She flipped him off and walked out, slamming the door behind her.
Luke returned to his desk. He let Aunt Julia get away with a great deal because she’d stepped in after his mother died and helped their family. And despite her steamroller approach to his dating life, Julia had never pressured him to get married. She wanted him to date the right women and attend charity events to continue restoring the family reputation in the public eye, but she wasn’t marriage-minded.
That was more than Luke could say for his father, who believed fifty-year marriages were still an attainable goal. But his father and mother were the only people he knew who would have reached that goal . . . if Rebecca Stone hadn’t died.
He pushed the memory aside as his phone buzzed. He picked it up.
“Turn on the news,” Evan said. “We’ve got trouble.”
“I CAN’T BELIEVE IT,” MIA squealed, zipping Polly into a black sheath dress. “I mean, you horked all over the guy!”
“Thanks for reminding me,” Polly said dryly.
“As if you could forget.”
“True.”
“And still he asked you out and sent you both flowers and candy.”
Also true. Polly glanced at the bouquet of two dozen perfect red roses interspersed with Swirl Pops, Rock ‘n’ Roll candy sticks, Rainbow lollipops, and several boxes of Nibblers and Honeybee Toffee. It would have been a delightful gift no matter what, but the fact that it included her favorite candies made her feel especially warm inside.
Even so, her head was still spinning from the kaleidoscope she’d just fallen through—the one that had taken her from a basement with a green shag carpet to the back corridor of the Troll’s House to a dinner invitation from the hot, insanely wealthy CEO of a major candy company.
“Hair, perfect.” Mia walked around Polly, looking her over assessingly. “Makeup, perfect. Dress, awesome. Shows off your boobs to excellent advantage. Wear the two-inch pumps, though. The three-inch ones are sexier, but if you trip and twist your ankle, the whole effect will be ruined. And I’m sorry to say, my dear, but you can’t afford to ruin another effect.”
“Tell me about it.” Polly smoothed the dress over her hips. “You’re sure this dress isn’t too short?”
“Pols, it comes halfway down your thighs.” Mia fluffed Polly’s hair around her shoulders. “God, you are such an old lady sometimes.”
And she was so tired of being an old lady at twenty-three years of age.
She looked at herself in the mirror. Still the same Polly Lockhart, just all dressed up and beautified. Except that this Polly Lockhart was about to have dinner with the astonishingly handsome, if arrogant, CEO and heir of The Sugar Rush Candy Company.
Panic fluttered in her belly, and she stumbled back.
Mia grabbed her arm. “What’s wrong?”
“He’s . . . um, he’s really rich.”
“I know, right?” Mia patted her shoulder and went over to examine the bouquet of flowers and candy. “You can order lobster and champagne without blinking an eye. Heck, he probably had the lobster flown in from the Arctic Circle. Can I have this?”
She held up a box of multi-flavored Licorice Twirls.
“Go ahead.” Polly studied her reflection again and yanked at her skirt. “I don’t know anything about rich people.”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake.” Her friend groaned. “What happened to we are the world? It’s dinner, Polly. Rich people eat like the rest of us, just better food. Enjoy it. Or if you don’t want to, I’ll go in your place.”
“No!”
“See? You really do want to go.” Mia smiled with satisfaction as she opened the candy box. “So have fun. Kiss him again, but this time please be sober. Maybe do
more. In fact, definitely do more.”
“He’s totally out of my league.”
“Oh no, girlfriend.” Mia shook her head so hard her long blond hair whipped around her shoulders. “We don’t do that shit. No man, not even Mr. Richie Rich Hottie Pants, is out of your league. If anything, he should be lining up to play on your field. Though I would suggest you do a bit of mowing before he goes up to bat.”
Polly laughed. “What do you know about my landscape?”
“Pols, I’ve known you since we were ten.” Mia wagged a purple Licorice Twirl at her. “You didn’t let me pluck your eyebrows until we were in college, and when I told you about the Brazilian wax, you gave me a lecture about the anthropological history of hair removal.”
“Well, I was taking a women’s studies class at the time.”
“Really.” Mia narrowed her eyes. “Are things at least neat down there?”
“Things are always neat down there, thank you. Why are you so interested anyway?”
“I’m just saying you need to be prepared,” Mia said. “And you need to stop overthinking this. Have a good time, okay? Live a little. These are delicious, by the way.”
She took another bite of the licorice and gave Polly a quick hug before heading out the door. Polly put on the two-inch pumps and looked at herself again in the mirror. She nodded firmly.
Despite their very different lives and his rather domineering attitude, she liked Luke Stone. He’d been nice to her when she was making a fool out of herself, and he’d been adamant about not taking advantage of her. Not to mention he hadn’t been fazed by the fact that she’d upchucked on his shoes.
And he’d actually worked in the Sugar Rush factory and knew how to do all the hands-on stuff, instead of just being ushered into an executive position. He was also clearly protective of his business and family. Fiercely so.
Really, what were the chances of Luke Stone and Polly Lockhart meeting at the Troll’s House? And then again at Sugar Rush?
Though Polly wasn’t convinced everything happened for a reason—explain cancer, universe—she had to admit that Luke Stone had come into her life right when she needed someone like him the most.
