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www.millsandboon.co.uk
For my children, who have added a dimension of fun to my life that I never expected. Having them has taught me that it’s okay to completely humiliate yourself in a driveway basketball game and that the point of Scrabble isn’t to win or show off my vocabulary skills, but to share laughs and groans with the family.
I love you both, more and more every day. Every laugh, every smile and especially every hug is a treasure I hold dear to my heart.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER ONE
CARTER MATTHEWS screamed into the parking lot, road gravel spitting a wake behind him as he slid his red Lexus into a front space. The ads had said the car could go zero to sixty in the blink of an eye. They had lied.
Carter’s new toy could go zero to a hundred, making the Lexus worth every penny.
He slid out of the car, feeling a twinge of guilt that he’d blown off most of the workday to take the car out for a spin. Pearl, his assistant, had given him her famous evil eye as he’d darted out the door this morning, barely five minutes after striding through it. What Pearl didn’t understand was that TweedleDee Toys was undoubtedly better off when Carter wasn’t running the ship.
“Mr. Matthews! I’m glad I found you!”
He spun around. Mike, TweedleDee’s design intern, scrambled across the parking lot, trying to hold a bulky paper bag against his chest with one hand while keeping his glasses on his nose with the other. “I…well, we, had this brainstorm today and the guys wanted me to rush over to you.” He thrust the bag at Carter, then caught his breath. “Meet Cemetery Kitty. We think it’s going to revolutionize the stuffed animal industry.”
“Cemetery Kitty? As in another stuffed animal?” Carter tried to work some enthusiasm into his voice. This week, he’d given his toy designers a single task—to come up with something to wow the buyers at this fall’s Toy Convention. He’d expected a water blasting outdoor gun, a snazzy remote control car, anything but one more faux fur pet.
“Are you going to look at it now?” Mike’s entire body went frenetic with anticipation. He clasped and unclasped his hands, nodding at the bag. “You, ah, haven’t been in the office all that much, so I thought I’d track you down. If you like it, we can rush right into production.”
The stuffed toy would undoubtedly be one more in a string of failures, but he didn’t voice his reservations, not while he was still riding the high of driving his new car. He had no desire to ruin that by inserting the failing toy business into the mix.
“It’s been a long day. I’ll look at it later. But thanks.” He gave Mike a wave, then headed into his building.
The intern who had enthusiastically cleaned out the office supplies cupboard and color-coded the Post-it notes, remained undaunted and caught up with Carter. “Mr. Matthews?”
Carter turned around, at the same time tapping the car’s locking remote, waiting for the answering beep. “Yeah, Mike?”
“Uh, the guys are kinda concerned,” Mike said, clearly here as the sacrificial lamb for the employees. “You’re not at work a whole lot and well, with your uncle Harry gone and all, we, ah, kind of wanted some direction.”
Carter glanced at the Lexus. About the only thing he had experience directing was a fast car. And a few fast women. Every time he tried to manage the toy company, all he’d done was manage it further underground.
So he’d abandoned it today, just as he had last Wednesday to play golf, and the Tuesday before that for a rousing tennis match with his brother. Lately he’d been out of the office more than in. Considering Carter’s managerial abilities, it was a good thing all around if he stayed away.
And yet, he couldn’t bring himself to hire a manager. To admit failure.
Again.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Mike,” Carter said, because he didn’t have an answer to the whole direction thing. Hell, even Carter didn’t know which direction to head.
Mike hesitated a second longer, then pushed his glasses up his nose and said goodbye. He crossed the lot, shoulders hunched, steps heavy and measured and looked back, two, three times, then slipped into his battered ten-year-old green truck and left.
Carter let out a sigh, climbed the stairs to his apartment, let himself in, dropped his keys in the crystal dish by the door, then opened the bag.
Inside was a cat. Life-size, gray and white striped fur, looking reasonably realistic. Certainly not the blockbuster he’d been expecting, given Mike’s raving.
But pretty much par for the course at TweedleDee Toys.
He flicked the on/off switch. The furry thing rolled over, thrust its four paws into the air and let out a plaintive belching squeak. The cat shivered twice and went still.
“Just what a toy company needs,” Carter muttered. “A cat that plays dead.”
He tossed the play animal into a chair and crossed to his tidy, stainless steel kitchen. After this, he needed a stiff drink, a pretty woman and a long vacation, preferably on some desert island.
But his liquor cabinet was empty, his apartment devoid of anything female since Cecilia had walked out in a huff last Tuesday and his vocabulary had been missing the words “extended vacation” since he’d taken over the top spot at TweedleDee Toys.
A mistake of epic proportions.
He had no idea what his uncle Harry had been thinking when he’d written his will and left Carter in charge of a toy company. If anything, his twin brother Cade would have been a more logical choice. Cade, the organized one, the one who could take on a project and see it through to the finish line. He’d done that at their father’s law firm and now, after leaving there, was working with his wife, Melanie, building her Cuppa Life coffee shop franchise throughout the Midwest.
Unlike Carter, whose greatest accomplishment in life had been running Uncle Harry’s company into the ground.
Not to mention, disappointing his father. In his nearly forty years of life, Carter had managed to do only one thing well—perfect the art of being a disappointment.
He glanced around the apartment he’d moved into last month, to be closer to TweedleDee Toys and to escape the constant disapproval of his father back in Indianapolis. The space was neat, tidy and perfect—and totally devoid of personality. It didn’t welcome or invite him in at the end of the day. The apartment simply existed, like something out of a catalog.
The Pier 1 furniture, the pale beige walls, all chosen by a decorator because Carter hadn’t had the time or inclination. A weekly maid service polished the glass coffee table and set it at a right angle with the lines in the area rug.
Every space he’d ever lived in had been like this. Cold, impersonal and cared for by someone else. Just as he had been most of his life. He’d never settled down, never found his calling, and hadn’t wanted to until the reading of Uncle Harry’s will.
Six months ago, Uncle Harry’s boat, The Jokester, had been found drifting at sea somewhere in the Atlantic. The Coast Guard had searched, then finally declared him dead two months ago, an announcement that seemed to make Carter’s father, Jonathon, Harry’s only brother, even more withdrawn and colder than usual.
At the reading of the will, Carter had looked around at his family—Cade and his father—and realized each of them had a purpose. Cade had Melanie, the franchise. Jonathon had the law practice. They seemed to be holding a card that Carter had never seen.
And then, when the stunning news that Uncle Harry had left TweedleDee Toys to Carter came out, the crazy thought that Carter could be something had popped up. The attorney had handed over the ownership of TweedleDee Toys and Carter’s father had let out a snort of derision. “You’ll be filing bankruptcy in a month. That place was a mess when my brother ran it and it’s undoubtedly only gotten worse in his absence.”
A thousand times before his father had predicted Carter’s failure—with pinpoint accuracy. For some reason, though, that day the comment had gotten Carter’s dander up. “Never,” Carter said to his father. “I can turn that company around.”
His father had laughed, then shook his head. “Face it, Carter. You’re not made of CEO material.”
The only thing that had kept Carter from throwing in the towel in the last two months was the knowledge that he would once again prove his father right. And if there was one thing Carter was tired of doing, it was that.
Their father was a perfectionist. Every detail of his life was organized and filed, structured and meticulous. He expected nothing less of his sons. Cade, who had followed him into the family law practice, had measured up to that impossible standard while Carter had continually fell at least a mile short.
Carter shrugged off the thoughts, then crossed to the kitchen and opened the fridge, found a few sips of red wine left in a bottle shoved behind the expired carton of milk and poured the alcohol into a glass. “Cheers,” he said, hoisting the drink toward the stiff furball in his armchair. “I think you’ve got the better end of the deal, my petrified friend.”
He had just tipped the glass into his mouth when someone started banging at his door. Nosy Mrs. Beedleman and her binoculars, he was sure, had seen him and Cemetery Kitty through her courtyard window. And, as Mrs. Beedleman was wont to do, had assumed the worst about him and called the authorities.
Again.
Carter sighed, placed the glass on the counter and opened his apartment door.
“Let me guess,” he said to the slim brunette in his hall. She wore a funky pair of dark purple glasses that turned up at the corners, in that popular sixties style. Tall, thin, she wore her brown hair in an angle cut bob that set off a graceful neck. But the suit she had on was all business and Carter knew better than to flirt with a government employee. “You’re from the ASPCA and you’re here to write me up on charges of animal cruelty, right?”
“No. I—”
“The thing is stuffed. Tomorrow, I’m firing the guys who invented it. So go on back to the office or wherever you came from because there’s no dead cat in my apartment. At least, not a real one.”
She blinked. “Dead cat?”
“I told you, it’s not real. It’s the Cemetery Kitty toy.”
She blanched. “Uh, I think I knocked on the wrong door. Thanks anyway.” The woman turned to leave.
She looked like someone he knew, but hell, so did half the city of Lawford. As a new CEO, he made more friends he didn’t need at city networking events and golf tourneys, then forgot their names as soon as he put on his coat.
Still, something was familiar about this woman. Not familiar in the kind of way that told him he’d dated her, though.
Had he?
How deplorable. He had dated so many women, he’d forgotten more than he remembered. Unlike Cade, who had found his true love in high school, married her after graduation and was still enjoying the fairy tale.
Carter was more of the big, bad wolf smart fathers warned their daughters about rather than the prince on the white horse.
The woman in his hallway had a long, delicate face with a slim nose and defined cheekbones, giving her a Grace Kelly kind of beauty. But unlike the screen legend, her hair was a medium brown, and the easy way it skipped over her jawline and neck seemed made for convertibles and lazy summer days. And her legs—well, hell, they were made for a lot of things he was pretty sure were illegal in Indiana.
Whoa. He needed a bigger drink.
Either way, hers was the first friendly face he’d seen all day. And here he was chasing her from his apartment, like a fool. “Wait.” She pivoted away from the elevator. “Can we start over?”
She paused a moment, then relented and returned to his doorway.
He ran a hand over his face. “Sorry. It’s been a long day. I’ve got an unmarketable stuffed cat sitting on my recliner and I’m out of wine. Let me try this again. I’m Carter Matthews, and you are?”
“Daphne Williams.”
Daphne. Didn’t ring any bells.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Daphne.” He slipped on the smile that had won a number of women’s hearts—and broken a few, too. “What brings you by?”
“I have a message for you.”
“Now that’s intriguing.” Carter leaned against the door frame and sent a second glance running over her. “And what might that be?”
She smiled, any trace of friendliness gone. “Actually, a little hate mail.”
He thought of telling her where she could stick her hate mail, then reconsidered.
She was, after all, a pretty woman and he had wished for one a few minutes earlier. He had the drink, albeit a thimbleful a wine, and with the certain demise of TweedleDee Toys now that his designers had launched a goth theme for spring, he’d have that vacation he wanted—a permanent one.
Be careful what you wish for, Matthews. It might just come true in spades.
Yet again, he was proving his father’s adage that he was about as useful as snow in August. Carter hated when his father was right—and hated how easy it had become to be the kind of man who fell instead of rose to the occasion.
“Tell me who hates me now,” Carter said. Besides his entire staff, and himself, of course.
“Me.”
“You? Why?” Oh Lord, she must be an ex-girlfriend. Definitely a sign he was dating and drinking too much.
Daphne Williams parked a fist on her hip and glared at him. “You made me break up with my boyfriend for no good reason.”
“Are you insane? I don’t even know you.”
“No, but you do know a—” she reached in her pocket and pulled out a small card “—Cecilia, who sent you a breakup basket today.”
Oh, damn. That really did take the cake for his day.
“A breakup basket?” Not that he hadn’t been more or less expecting something similar from Cecilia, who had made it clear that his inability to commit was no way to conduct a relationship.
Cecilia had expected the usual Carter Matthews treatment—dinner at fancy restaurants, drinks in jazz bars, impromptu trips to a B& B, but when Carter had told her he needed to spend his time making a stab at this CEO instead of stealing away with her for weekend rendezvous and late nights on the dance floor, she’d thrown a fit.
“According to Cecilia,” Daphne went on, “you’re a no-good jerk and she doesn’t want to see your face ever again, even if you were—” for this, she looked down at the card for the exact wording “—the last cockroach left on earth.”
“Ouch.”
“And this, I believe, is yours, not mine.” She pivoted, picked up a massive black wicker basket he hadn’t noticed earlier and thrust the thing into his arms. Skulls and crossbones decorated the outside, along with words like “never again” and “make hate, not love”.
Inside the basket were all kinds of goodies. A voodoo doll with spiky dark hair that he suspected was supposed to be him. Stuffed and tortured with pins and red X’s marking the mortal wounds. A half-dozen dead, shriveled black roses, a copy of Men Who Are Jerks and The Women Who Dump Them, a can of dog food with a spoon taped to the side, and a pint-size bottle of Lester Jester’s Eau de Skunk.
“Guess she wanted to get her message across,” he said.
“You must be one heck of a boyfriend.”
“I’m actually a very nice guy.”
She arched a brow at him. Apparently it was too late to make a good first impression.
Carter glanced again at the voodoo doll and noticed the hat pins sticking out of its eyeballs. Granted, that didn’t speak well for him. “I don’t get it. Tell me how my breakup ruined your life.”
“This—” she pointed at the basket “—was delivered to me.”
“I’ll be sure to complain to the delivery company.”
“Too late. I already ended a perfectly good relationship because of this thing.”
“Did it breed in your living room? Or were you totally overcome by the fumes of Lester’s skunk aroma?”
“I thought it was from my boyfriend.” She glared at him as if every glitch in the universe was Carter’s fault. A few he’d lay claim to, but not this one. “So I broke up with him.”
He smirked. “A preemptive strike?”
She colored. Clearly Daphne Williams didn’t like having the tables turned on her. “Yes.”
“Didn’t you read the card?”
“I didn’t open the box until…after.”
He tried to bite back his laughter but gave up the effort. “You broke up with your boyfriend, thinking he was breaking up with you, and you hadn’t even opened the box?”
She parked her fists on her trim little hips. “I have had a very bad day.”
“Well, so have I.” He grinned. “But you just made me laugh, so it’s starting to improve.”
She gave him a glare. “I don’t find this funny.”
He raised the can of liver-flavored dog food in her direction. “I can’t believe you ruined a relationship over this.”
“It’s your fault.”
“It is not.”
“If you hadn’t been such a horrible boyfriend, Cecilia wouldn’t have sent you this and I wouldn’t have thought it was meant for me and ended things with Jerry.” She threw up her hands. “You have no idea how this throws a wrench into all my plans. I needed Jerry, and not just for a little dim sum on Friday nights.”
He shook his head, needing a second to follow her long-winded logic. He hadn’t had any dinner and the lack of sustenance had his brain firing in the wrong directions. “First off, I wasn’t a horrible boyfriend.” He thought a second. “Well, I wasn’t exactly a horrible boyfriend. Second, you breaking up with Jerry was your choice, not mine. So I don’t see why I owe you anything at all.”
“I truly don’t care what you think, Mr. Matthews. The way I see it, you owe me a favor. Two, in fact, because I lugged this thing all the way up to the fourth floor to deliver it to the right recipient.”
“I disagree. I say Jerry was just waiting for an excuse to break up. My basket happened to be handy. So there’s no favor required here at all.” He started to shut his door.
She blocked him with a dark blue two-inch heel. “That’s not true. I was a wonderful girlfriend.”
He gave her a sardonic grin. “If you were so wonderful, then why did he let you get away so easily?”
Carter Matthews looked at Daphne Williams’s furious, silent face and thought he’d never seen anything so pretty as a woman who didn’t have a ready retort. She stepped back, sputtering and steaming, but not a single word came out.
“Have a good day, Miss Williams,” he said, and shut his door.
Then he realized winning the battle didn’t seem quite so victorious, considering he was left alone with a faux dead cat and a basket full of hate messages.
And a few truths about himself that weren’t so fun to face.
Daphne stomped her way back to her apartment, considering various methods of torturing and killing Carter Matthews. She rejected drawing and quartering as too kind.
The man had the gall to make an analysis of her life when he was the one being sent a pin-stuffed voodoo doll? She’d been a darn good girlfriend to Jerry, even putting up with his endless obsession with Mortal Kombat, figuring the man had a dream and she should support him as he supported her.
Well, he didn’t exactly support her. Or understand what she did. Or listen to eighty percent of what she said, because he called her work as a creativity coach “way above his mental ability level.”
That part might have been true.
In the beginning, Daphne had found him distracted, and endearing. Then, in the last few weeks, his inattentiveness had become annoying.
Hurtful.
But he had been behind her idea of building a creativity center for children. It was the one thing that drove Daphne, fueled her desire to create all that she had never had as a child. A center like that could be a place of mental freedom, allowing kids to open their imaginations to the world.
To have fun, to create. And maybe, to feel like their ideas, their creations, were welcomed.
Jerry, the indulged only child of wealthy parents, had pledged to give her the start-up funds, then continue his support through the family foundation. Groundbreaking was scheduled to happen in two weeks—
Or had been anyway.
She’d had her funding and a comfortable relationship that demanded nearly nothing of her, until she’d made that rash—
Preemptive strike.
Whatever. She refused to use Carter Matthews’s words, even if her mind might betray her.
Her doorbell rang and Daphne crossed to it, half hoping Jerry would be there, ball cap in hand, calling the whole thing a silly mix-up. And half hoping he wasn’t.
Maybe the Breakup Basket had been a sign—or an open door—to force Daphne to change her life. To do more than go to work and come home to an empty apartment and an empty heart.
She shook off the thought as she opened the door. All she needed was a minute to recoup and get her plans back on track.
“How was Reno?” Kim, her best friend from kindergarten on up, stood on the other side of the door, a steaming bag from Garden Palace Chinese in one hand and a bottle of Jose Cuervo ready-mixed margaritas in the other.
There were many reasons why Kim was her best friend. And she was holding two of them.
Daphne opened the door wider, waving Kim in and relieving her of her burden. “The creativity convention in Reno was fine. It was the trip home that stunk. My direct flight was delayed—twice—then forced to land in Sioux City when the pilot’s appendix burst. They lost my luggage somewhere over the continental United States, I lost my lunch in the turbo-jet’s bathroom during ungodly turbulence and then finally lost my car.”
“Your car?”
Daphne nodded. “I forgot where I parked it in the Indianapolis lot. Even the guy who ran the lot couldn’t find it. So he gave me a phone number and told me to call the manager after nine tomorrow.”
“Wow, talk about a bad day.”
“I came home to worse.” Daphne sighed, grabbing some dishes, then sinking into a chair at her kitchen table and telling Kim about the basket, her mistaken call to Jerry, and the mix-up with Carter Matthews. “That man is an evil monster, Kim. We should hang a warning poster about him outside the building.”
Kim laughed, her blond ponytail swinging and her bright green eyes dancing as she did. “Aw, he’s not that bad. He’s the guy who just moved into 4-B right?” Daphne nodded. “The women around here have been buzzing about our new neighbor and trying to outdo each other to snag one of the last bachelors standing.”
“Why?”
“Don’t you read the paper? He’s a frequent flyer in Gloria’s Gossip and Gab column. You know, one of those moderately wealthy, handsome guys who think marriage is for wimps. If that’s what evil monsters look like, sign me up for the movie.”
Daphne thought of Carter Matthews’s dark brown hair, the way the waves were displaced when he ran his fingers through it, leaving him looking like he just tumbled out of bed. His eyes, deep and blue, the kind most women fantasized about. Most women, though. Not her. And not Cecilia anymore, either, apparently. “Looks can’t make up for bad personality.”
“But they sure help.” Kim winked. “So, what are you going to do about Jerry?”