by Karen Booth
The guilt wasn’t merely crushing, it was suffocating. Ashley couldn’t take money out of someone else’s mouth, let alone the mouth of a good friend. “I don’t know how I can convince him to say yes.”
Grace crossed her legs, pulling on her long auburn locks, seeming deep in thought. “You both have to eat, don’t you? Just go out to dinner with the man. Remind him how much good it’ll do for Chambers Gin.”
Ashley sighed, slumping back in her chair. “One dinner?” Why did the task seem so Herculean? Oh, right. Because Marcus had made it clear last night. He couldn’t be around her.
“After that, it’s your call. We’ll just let all the world wonder what you two are doing up in that lovely high-rise apartment building. You do live across the hall from each other, after all. The proximity is nothing but sheer temptation.”
Given Ashley’s current level of sexual frustration, she couldn’t argue, even though she was certain Marcus didn’t see it that way at all. “Fine. I’ll ask him. But I’m not promising anything.”
Grace stood up and clutched the stack of newspapers to her chest, smiling wide, victorious. “Where are you watching the premiere tonight? Do you want to come over?”
Ashley shook her head. “Are you kidding me? The last thing I want to do is watch myself on television.”
* * *
Marcus couldn’t stand to look at the newspapers. Except that he couldn’t stand not to look at them, either. He’d removed all copies from his personal office, save one tucked away in the bottom-right desk drawer. There’d been more than one moment during the day when he had to see it. See her. See them. Last night had really happened. He’d kissed Ashley. He’d touched her. He’d kissed her and touched her and the entire world had shifted, exactly as he’d feared.
Marcus stepped into Joanna’s office just as she hung up the phone. He had to catch up with her. They’d both been working nonstop all day. He nearly collapsed in the chair opposite her desk. The ripple effect of kissing Ashley was rife with bizarre good fortune. New orders and inquiries had left everyone in the office scrambling to keep up.
“That was Dad,” Joanna said. “He’s right chuffed, Marcus. I haven’t heard him so excited in I don’t know how long.”
He’d had rumblings of this, but only Joanna had spoken directly to their father. It seemed that the kiss heard round the world had taken no time reaching across the pond. “More orders?”
“They’ve gone through the roof. And it’s not just for No. 9. Orders for the original are more than triple what they were for April of last year. All from one day. We’re bumping up UK production, and I think we need to take a long, hard look at doing the same in the US.”
He would indeed need to speak to their production manager about bringing the new distillery up to peak production. It was a scary proposition, seeing as it hadn’t been tested at full capacity.
“Dad asked whether there will be any signage linking Chambers and Manhattan Matchmaker. I guess several of the distributors are wondering about it.”
Bloody hell. A vision of a cardboard cutout of Ashley holding a bottle of Chambers gin materialized in his head. He could see Joanna wanting to put one out in the reception area. As if it wasn’t difficult enough to live across the hall from Ashley, he’d have to walk past that every day. Plus, that was not the image of Chambers Gin his family had worked at cultivating for more than a century. He and Joanna had been working their fingers to the bone to make the US venture a success, but even a big break like the publicity of last night needed to be contained. This would get out of hand in little time if he didn’t put a stop to it. “There’s not going to be any signage. Last night was a one-time thing, and that was that. There is no link between us and her show.”
A cheeky smile crossed Joanna’s face. She held up one of that morning’s newspapers. “We could always just laminate this. From the look of this photograph, I’d say that Chambers gin and Manhattan Matchmaker are about as linked as can be.”
A familiarly unsettling mix of embarrassment and excitement returned. “That kiss was for the cameras. And that’s all it was. It will not be happening again.” Except that the cameras were a convenient excuse. Something else was behind it, and he knew it. Something else was behind kissing her in her apartment, taking off her dress. If he thought about the look on her face as he’d sent her into oblivion, he felt drunk. If he thought about what had happened afterward—his sheer panic—he felt hungover. There was no getting around it. He absolutely had to stay away from Ashley. He simply wasn’t his normal, sensible self around her.
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Last night was huge for us. And hey, at least you kissed someone.” She giggled, her eyebrows bouncing.
“Please, Joanna. I beg you. I’m a grown man. Can we stop talking like a bunch of teenagers?” He brushed away a piece of lint on his pants. “Last night was a one-time thing and that’s it. End of discussion.”
Joanna twisted her lips. “Uh, yeah. About that...”
“What?”
“Dad really wants you to take out Ashley again.”
“He said that?” Marcus bolted forward in his seat. “He explicitly said that?”
She nodded. “And I have to agree with him. You should at least take her out for a nice meal to thank her for last night. It’s great for business and don’t forget that it was your idea to expand into the US.” Joanna tapped away on her laptop. “I think the fact that you met Ashley and had the chance to take her out is wonderful. You can’t argue it’s not the best thing that’s happened to us since we came to New York.” She patted the stack of new orders and wholesale inquiries sitting on her desk. “If you play your cards right, it could be the best thing that’s happened in your personal life.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Joanna closed her laptop and folded her arms across it. “She’s lovely, Marcus. And granted, I haven’t met her or anything, but she seems like quite a nice woman.”
“I know where you’re going with this, and you can stop right now. You know my situation, Jo. Better than anyone.”
She rose from her seat and rounded to the front of her desk. “What is your situation, Marcus? Working impossible hours to measure up to some imagined standard you set for yourself, then going home and reading a book to Lila? Spending the weekends taking her to the park, but not interacting with another soul in this enormous city? There are thousands of single women in Manhattan, Marcus. Tens of thousands. One of them could make a wonderful wife and mother, but you’ll never find her if you don’t look.”
He crossed his arms in front of him. “I’ve looked. I’ve dated three women in the six months since we’ve been here. That seems like a respectable number to me.”
“Including Ashley. And none of them went beyond the first date.”
“None of them was right. There’s no point in wasting my time with a woman when I know she isn’t right.” It made perfect sense to him, but he and Joanna had argued about this before. “And you know that dating is a complicated situation for me. I refuse to introduce any of them to Lila until I’m serious. And let’s be honest—most women do not want a baby right off the bat.”
His heart ached as the words came out of his mouth. Dear, sweet Lila was the most precious thing in the world to him. He still couldn’t fathom how Elle had walked out on her, except that he’d witnessed it—the desperate look in Elle’s eyes that told him she was equally horrified by her own distaste of motherhood. She didn’t want to be a mom, never had, and Marcus had talked her into it. With their other problems, the fights, he’d thought for sure parenthood would save them, would save her. Quite the opposite had happened. It had been the final, wretched straw. She couldn’t stay. She couldn’t do it anymore. She couldn’t pretend. Freedom was all she longed for, away from England, her father and the expectations that had been foisted on her from a young ag
e. Away from all of them. Away.
“Surely you’re interested in Ashley. That kiss is awfully convincing.”
How did Joanna talk him into these circles? “She’s very pretty. I won’t deny that. But she’s wrong for me, just like Elle was, and I can’t make the same mistake twice. I need solid. Reliable. Sensible. Ashley is none of those things.”
“Please promise me you will never, ever set up a profile on an online dating site saying you’re looking for a solid, reliable woman. You’ll end up with an incredibly loyal lumberjack.” She took the seat next to his, reaching over and touching his arm with the tips of her fingers. “Marcus. I want you to be happy. God knows you deserve it. Please just ask Ashley out to dinner. Thank her for the nice thing she did for our business. It’s not a big deal.”
Everything in Joanna’s voice said how much she pitied him, and he hated that. Part of him wanted to ask Ashley out, try again, at least apologize for last night. The rest of him was certain he didn’t have time to spend on a date with a woman he’d never end up with. And that was assuming a lot. Ashley had every right to want his head on a platter. “She’ll probably say no.”
“You won’t know until you ask.”
His mind flew back to last night—the look on Ashley’s face when he’d left her alone in her apartment. “No, I’m certain the answer will be no.”
Eight
Ashley stepped off the elevator and came to a stop. Normally she’d head straight for her apartment on the right-hand side of the vestibule. Marcus’s door was directly opposite. The two were separated by a thirty-foot expanse of the finest marble floor, a fussy old chandelier and a sea of differing opinions.
I promised Grace. If she was going to ask him to dinner, she should probably do it in person. Calling or texting from across the hall seemed juvenile. She was a grown woman, for God’s sake. A grown woman did what she needed to do, no regrets, no second thoughts about rejection. Still, she was drawn to the idea of going home. It would take a lot to prop up her busted confidence after last night.
She inched closer to his door, casually leaning in, craning her neck to see if she could hear what might be going on in there. It was dead quiet, of course. Marcus loved his calm and quiet. She raised her hand to knock but stopped herself. It was after seven. Maybe this was a bad time. Maybe it was Lila’s bedtime. Or her bath time. Or story time. Not that Ashley would know anything about Lila or her routine—Marcus had kept the most precious thing in his life, the reason he couldn’t or wouldn’t take Ashley seriously, as far away from her as possible.
Ashley did an abrupt about-face. Her purse went flying, as did her metal travel coffee mug, which clattered and clanged across the marble floor. She shushed the damn thing as it noisily collided with the wall. She scrambled to collect her things, then rushed to her door. She was shoving her key into the lock when she heard Marcus’s door behind her.
“Ashley?” he asked.
She froze. Her shoulders rose to her ears. Why did that have to be his effect on her? Why did his voice make her behave like a smitten idiot?
“I heard a noise.”
“Marcus. Funny running into you.” She turned, and his presence hit her like a tidal wave. She was still so hurt from last night, and seeing him felt as though she’d scraped a fresh wound. The problem was that her inclination was to fold herself into those arms of his, not run away and hide, even when he’d had the gall to suggest last night that feelings like that for him were foolish.
“Is it? Funny, I mean? We do live across the hall from each other.”
She shook her head, trying to wrench her thoughts away from the kissing variety. How she wanted to kiss him again. Just one more time. Just so she knew it hadn’t really been that amazing. It was her womanly due diligence. One ordinary kiss and she’d know it was okay to walk away from Marcus Chambers. “It’s been a long day, Marcus.”
He shoved his hands into his pants pockets. With his shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows, the move only served to torment her with his muscled forearms. “Oh. Sure. I’m sorry. I wasn’t sure I extended a proper thank-you for last night. That’s all.” He closed his eyes for an instant. Was it actually painful for him to grant her a single gracious thought?
Thank me for what? The party? Or the part where you told me how wrong we are for each other, only after we got naked together? She nearly clamped her hand over her own mouth to keep the words from coming out. Regardless of how she felt about last night, trying to dish it back to him would only make things worse. She’d have to ask him to dinner some other time. A decade of waiting seemed about right. It simply hurt too much right now. “You’re welcome.”
He pursed his lips and nodded. “Okay, then. Good night.”
“Night.” Bastard. She rushed to her door and collapsed against it when she was inside. A strong smell of varnish hit her nose, but apartment renovations were the last thing on her mind. She never should’ve invited Marcus to the premiere. Things weren’t merely strained between them now. They were stupid.
She padded back to her bedroom, which felt like returning to the scene of the crime. If things hadn’t been in such disarray in the living room, she would’ve slept on the sofa last night just so she wouldn’t have to smell Marcus on the pillows. She kicked off her heels, rubbing her tired feet and ankles, then slipped out of her skirt and blouse and dressed in yoga pants and a tank top. Finally. A tiny measure of comfort.
Her stomach growled. No big surprise considering she’d scarfed a protein bar at two that afternoon and eaten nothing else. She’d had a ridiculously busy day, just like she did every day. She longed to slam on the brakes, just for a few days, but there was no stopping the Manhattan Matchmaker train. Not now. Not when the network was seriously considering First Date in Flight, a crazy idea Ashley had for a show where couples would have their first date on a cross-country flight. Not when she had a massive online dating site asking her to do commercials for them. She had to strike while the iron was hot. Her kind of good fortune was never long-lived, and she wasn’t about to let her family down, ever. Nor was she about to let down Grace, which meant she still had to find a way to get Marcus to dinner.
She ate cold leftover lo mein straight from the carton. The kitchen was progressing nicely with gorgeous white custom cabinets and a gray quartz countertop. The white glass tile backsplash was installed, but there was still wiring hanging out of the outlet junction boxes. For today at least, her apartment was moving forward. No complaints from Marcus. Tiny victories. She’d have to take them.
She tossed the takeout container into the trash, grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and retreated to her bedroom. Climbing into bed, she made a point of putting the television remote out of reach. According to the clock on the cable box, it was only two minutes until the start of her premiere.
That left her with a book that wasn’t holding much interest and her phone. Should she call Marcus and get it over with? Text him? The thing was, she didn’t really mind asking the question. It was the dialogue that would surely follow. She could hear it now. I told you last night that it’s a horrible idea.
Her phone lit up with a text from Marcus. She nearly went into cardiac arrest. Are you awake?
She frowned at her phone. What in the world could he want?
It’s 8. I don’t go to bed this early.
Can we talk?
Again she had nothing in the way of pleasant facial expressions for her phone. If he was about to hurt her, again, she was done. Absolutely done.
About?
An invitation.
An invitation to what? Step into a boxing ring? Less than twenty-four hours ago, he’d used her pride as a punching bag.
Well? he added.
Yes. Just call. Her phone rang a few seconds later. “Hey,” she said, with a voice so sultry and warm she wanted to slap herself. She was just ma
king things worse.
“I know you must be getting ready to watch your show. I won’t keep you long.”
“I believe the more pressing question is, are you going to watch my show?”
“I don’t watch television at night.”
“Ah. Likely story.” She shifted in bed. “And no, I’m not watching my show. I never watch it. I can’t stand to see myself. And my voice. Ugh. I don’t like that, either.”
“Why don’t you like your own voice? I like mine.”
“Well, of course you do. That’s hardly fair. Pitting a Southern accent and a British accent against each other isn’t fair at all. I’ll never win.”
She heard strains of the Manhattan Matchmaker theme song through the phone line. The vision of Marcus watching her show materialized before her.
“You’re watching my show. I can hear it.” She’d never been in his apartment, so she had to make up that part. Was he sitting in the living room, maybe watching with the ultimate fans in his household, the nanny and housekeeper? Or had everyone gone home for the day? Was he doing what she was doing, curled up in bed, dressed in pajamas? Boxer shorts?
“I’ve got it on right now. I can see why you don’t like your voice.”
She sat up in bed and did the unthinkable—she grabbed the remote and turned on the TV. “What’s that supposed to mean?” She cringed a bit every time she had to watch herself on screen. She couldn’t fathom what it would be like to be a film actress, to have to watch herself on the giant screen.
“It’s not so much your actual voice. I like your real voice. It’s the one on TV that doesn’t sound quite right. It doesn’t sound real.”
She smirked and sank farther into the pillows. His voice was a definite weakness of hers. She’d better not tell him how much she’d be willing to give up if he asked her in the right tone. “Well, the whole thing isn’t really real. The matchmaker part of it is real, and the couples are real, but the rest of it is just a show. That’s not even my real office.” She pointed at the screen as if he were in the room.
