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Her father continued, “I’ll get input from your sister, of course,” he said. “And see if your brother can be bothered to celebrate his mother’s legacy. However, I wanted to talk to you first and get the ball rolling.”
“Dad, Malcolm Doyle came to see me last week,” Tia said in an attempt to head him off with some facts before he started talk of celebrations. Expensive celebrations.
Immediately, a frown joined the grooves on her father’s wrinkled face at the mention of the company’s head accountant. He turned away from his late wife’s portrait and ran his hand along the smooth wood of the desk she used to sit behind.
Tia pushed on. “Espresso can’t continue like this. The cosmetics division is bleeding red ink. Malcolm says—”
“I’ve already heard what Doyle had to say,” her father barked. “I’m the CEO of this company. He had no right to worry you.”
But she was worried.
The sanctuary day spas, which Tia herself had founded as an offshoot of the makeup brand, were now practically supporting it.
“Back to the anniversary celebration,” her father continued.
“Don’t you see?” Tia interrupted. “If we don’t make some hard decisions, Espresso Cosmetics won’t exist next year.”
He brushed off her concern with the wave of his hand, as if the motion would sweep away their financial problems. “All we need is one hit to get us back on track. The summer campaign will be in stores this week,” he said. “Calypso Moods is going to bring customers back to our counters.”
No. It wouldn’t, Tia thought.
Truth was, there was nothing exciting about the Calypso Moods collection. It was simply a rehash of her mother’s favorite hot-pink and orange lipsticks and blushes with new island-inspired names.
Espresso’s product-research-and-development team had stopped bringing new ideas to her father’s desk knowing they’d be soundly rejected. So they gave him what he wanted, Selina Sinclair Gray–approved products with different names.
“Even if every item of the collection sells out, it won’t be enough to put the cosmetics division in the black,” Tia said. “The cosmetics division is in survival mode here, Dad, and we have to make some hard decisions, all of us.”
Her father leaned against her mother’s desk and crossed his arms. “Don’t go there, Tia,” he warned.
“If we keep siphoning money from the spas to prop up the cosmetics brand, eventually it will drag them down, too.” Tia swallowed hard. She removed the signed authorization form from her tote bag and placed it on her mother’s old desk. “This is the last time, Dad.”
“Who are you to tell me how the money this company makes is spent?” Victor Gray’s voice trembled with rage. “Your mother put me in place to succeed her as CEO. It’s what she wanted.”
“I have plenty of say in how the spas’ profits are disbursed.” Tia pressed on, first reminding him of what he already well knew. “The spas didn’t exist when Mom was alive. I launched them with money from my trust fund, so there can be no monetary transfers without both our signatures,” she reiterated. “And I won’t authorize another dime until we all sit down in one room, you, me, Lola and, yes, even Cole, and figure out Espresso’s future.”
Tia stood strong in the face of her father’s glare. He hadn’t flinched at her words, but he’d heard them all before. So she wasn’t surprised when he dismissed them as a bluff.
“Like I told you the last time you brought this up, I will make any decisions regarding the future of Espresso Cosmetics, and I expect you to continue to help in any way you can, including financially,” he said. “As far as your brother goes, he’s welcome to come back to the company and this family anytime, as long as he understands I’m the CEO.”
“Dad, be reasonable. We can’t go on this way,” Tia pleaded. “Nobody knows this company or the industry better than Cole. He practically grew up in this building. If we’re going to turn this thing around, we will need his help.”
“But your mother thought he was too young to run Espresso. That’s why she—”
“Mom’s dead,” Tia blurted out, cutting him off. “She’s been gone for seven years now, and if we want to save her legacy, we have to stop thinking about what she would have done and do what’s best.”
Her father jerked as if she’d slapped him.
And while Tia regretted the way she’d delivered them, the words needed to be said.
“Get out!” Victor shouted.
His roar shook the floor beneath her feet, but Tia stood rooted to the spot.
“Get out,” he repeated, this time louder. “I want you out of my wife’s office, out of this building and out of my sight.”
Pushing down her hurt, Tia remained. “Cole may have let you drive him away, but I’m not going anywhere. You, me, Lola, Cole—we all need to have a say in how this business is run.”
“If you won’t go, then I will.” Her father walked past her out of her mother’s office. The next sound Tia heard was the door to his own office slamming shut.
Chapter 2
Ethan stared down at his cleared desktop, marveling at the rarely seen wooden surface usually hidden by stacks of paperwork.
Nearly all the items on his vacation-prep list had been completed. Clients briefed, contracts read and no scheduled court appearances for the next two weeks. Even his grandma problem had been tentatively resolved with his visit to Espresso Sanctuary’s offices that morning.
Visions of Tia Gray came to mind, those shapely legs dominating most of them, and Ethan quickly shoved the illicit images aside. He should be focused on wrapping up his afternoon schedule, not imagining a particular pair of legs wrapped around his waist.
Especially when those legs were attached to a woman who had caused nothing but trouble.
He looked down at his open diary and saw that one last appointment remained.
Afterward, he’d follow up with his grandmother and make sure Ms. Gray had indeed done as he’d instructed. Then tomorrow morning he’d set off for Hawaii and his first vacation in years.
Again, his mind drifted to Tia.
Ethan exhaled. Maybe it was a mistake for him to go solo on the trip planned a year ago when he was still part of a couple. That had to be the only reason for his reoccurring thoughts of the woman he’d met today.
He needed to get laid. Soon.
A knock sounded at Ethan’s open office door and the glazed-over expression in the secretary’s eyes indicated his next appointment had arrived.
“I don’t believe it.” His young but normally unflappable secretary gushed, her voice an awestruck whisper. “Wangs is actually sitting in my office.”
She clasped her hands together. “Wangs!” she squealed, as if Ethan hadn’t heard her the first time.
Ethan’s enthusiasm over the hip-hop superstar’s visit didn’t match that of his secretary’s. In fact, it had taken a pleading call from the young man, whose legal name was Jeffrey Ritchie, to persuade Ethan to even see him at all.
“Send Mr. Ritchie in,” Ethan said, refusing to use the ridiculous moniker. The kid’s mother had saddled him with it in childhood after his favorite food, chicken wings, and the twenty-three-year-old now used it professionally.
Ethan glanced at his watch, planning to give his former client a few moments of his time before sending him on his way. He’d tried to bestow Jeffrey with the benefit of his expertise a few years ago, and the kid had told him where he could stick it.
Seconds later, Jeffrey crossed the threshold looking totally different than the young man who’d sat in his office three years earlier.
The discount-store wardrobe had been replaced with clothes bearing the labels of the hottest urban designers, and he’d exchanged his beat-up sneakers for a pair of pristine ones named for a basketball legend. Ethan guessed Jeffrey had paid more for the platinum medallion spelling out WANGS in diamonds that adorned his neck than most people would pay for their cars.
Yet, the biggest difference wasn’t in Jeffrey’s appearance but his demeanor. The cocky swagger was notably absent, and he now possessed the weariness of a much older man, a man weighed down by burdens.
Financial burdens, Ethan surmised. Five minutes into their conversation, the younger man confirmed it.
“You pleaded with me not to sign that contract,” Jeffrey said, shaking his head.
“No attorney would have advised you to put your signature on it,” Ethan said. “The document was no more than an indentured-servant agreement.”
Jeffrey snorted. It was a hollow, jaded sound unexpected in someone his age. “At the time, you called it a slave contract,” he said. “But I didn’t want to hear what you were saying. All I wanted was to be a superstar.”
Stardom was one of the two things the multiplatinum artist had gotten out of the deal, Ethan thought. The other was a hard lesson in record-company math. From what Ethan remembered, the deal had been structured in a way that would keep Wangs perpetually in debt to Bat Tower Records.
“All the limos, the parties, the liquor, I thought they were celebrity perks. Hell, I didn’t know I was paying for them. Right down to the last drops of thousand-dollar bottles of champagne.”
Ethan leaned back in his office chair and listened, not bothering with the pointless I told you so perched on the tip of his tongue.
Three years ago, the young man now sitting in front of him filled with regrets had tied his hands. Jeffrey had refused to let him attempt to negotiate more favorable terms out of fear the record company would balk and take the deal off the table.
Ethan had doubted it, and even if Bat Tower Records had reneged, Jeffrey would have been better off.
Unfortunately, he hadn’t been able to convince his client back then. Jeffrey had stormed out of his office full of attitude, blustering he wasn’t taking or paying for Ethan’s bullshit advice.
Ethan figured the next time he’d see Jeffrey would be as another broke artist featured on VH-1’s Behind the Music.
“When I got that first big check from the record company, I thought it was the first of many,” Jeffrey said.
Ethan sighed. “I told you it would be an advance against future royalties.”
“Yeah, I heard you, but like I told you, I wasn’t listening. I burned through it on crap like this.” He flicked a hand toward the diamond-encrusted platinum chain. “Now the jeweler who sold it to me for thousands of dollars will only give me a couple hundred bucks for it.”
Jeffrey dropped his head into his hands, his bony elbows propped on his knees.
Ethan cleared his throat. He knew where this conversation was headed, and he wanted no part of it. He was done with Jeffrey Ritchie.
“So what’s the bottom line?” Ethan resisted the urge to glance at his watch. “Why are you here?”
Jeffrey lifted his head and stared at Ethan with eyes that appeared on the brink of tearing.
“Because I’m surrounded by people who all want something from me, and I don’t know which ones I can trust,” Jeffrey said. “But I do trust you. I should have taken your advice, man. You don’t know how sorry I am for acting the way I did.”
The young man pulled what looked like a copy of his contract from the back pocket of his baggy jeans. “I need your help.”
“Whoa.” Ethan held up his hands in a halting gesture. “Even if I wanted to take you on as my client again, I doubt there’s anything I can do,” he said. “As I tried to explain to you before you went against my advice and signed it, that contract was full of gotcha clauses.”
Jeffrey exhaled a defeated breath. “What am I supposed to do now?”
“I told you I’d hear you out, and I did.” Ethan stood to indicate their meeting was over.
The kid opened his mouth to protest, but Ethan silenced him with a shake of the head. “Good luck finding another attorney, Jeffrey.”
Finally, the superstar known as Wangs hefted his gangly frame from the chair and moved toward the door. The young man had brought his current problems upon himself, but it simply wasn’t right for him to make millions for a company and have next to nothing to show for it.
Ethan sighed. So much for his vow not to let Jeffrey’s sob story get to him. “Leave the contract,” he said. “I’ll be on vacation the next two weeks, but I’ll take another look at it when I return.”
Jeffrey looked up at him, a grin overtaking the sadness marking his features.
“That’s cool. I’m in the middle of my U.S. tour, and I’ll be on the road for the rest of the summer.” He grabbed Ethan’s hand and gave it a vigorous shake. “And thank you, Mr. Wright.”
“I can’t make any promises,” Ethan said. “Like I told you before, I’m not sure if I can help.”
Jeffrey gave him a signed copy of his latest CD, which Ethan accepted, although he doubted he’d be listening to Wang-It anytime soon. Or ever.
“I appreciate anything you can do,” he said. “And if you need anything from me, tickets to my show, backstage passes, you just say the word.”
A few hours later, Ethan steered his Audi TT down his grandmother’s street. He spotted her in her front yard, and the results of Tia Gray’s handiwork still threw him. His grandmother had eschewed her familiar pastel dresses for jeans, T-shirt and red Converse sneakers.
He parked his car at the curb in front of the wood-framed cottage. A closer look revealed the words Recycled Teenager emblazoned across the front of his grandmother’s T-shirt.
At least she appeared to be acting like her old self, Ethan thought. He was relieved to see her watering the vibrant blooms of the well-tended garden and gabbing with her friend and next-door neighbor Alice Fenton. He hoped it was a sign that Tia Gray had done as he’d asked and his grandmother was slowly returning to normal.
“Hello, Warden. Thought you’d be packing for Hawaii.” A smirk accompanied his grandmother’s greeting. “I didn’t realize you’d be making evening rounds.”
Ethan ignored his grandmother’s sarcasm. Instead, he leaned over to plant a kiss on Miss Alice’s upturned cheek. “Don’t you look pretty today,” he said.
His grandmother’s friend smiled broadly and smoothed the yellow housedress, similar to the ones his grandmother preferred until Tia Gray’s disastrous makeover, with a wrinkled hand. “This old thing. I’ve had it forever.”
“You have a similar dress, don’t you?” Ethan asked his grandmother.
“Not anymore,” she replied. “I donated it, and every dress in my closet that looked like it, to the church clothing drive. Why? Considering instituting a dress code here at Shawshank?”
Ethan sighed. “I’m merely checking on you.”
“Humph,” she grunted. “More like checking up on me.”
“After the other night, can you blame me?”
“Well, you can relax. After I finish tending my flowers, Alice and I are going to make popcorn and watch a DVD.”
Alice frowned. “But what about the motorcycle...” she began.
His grandmother turned to Ethan. “We’re watching Easy Rider,” she said by way of explanation.
Ethan shoved his hands into his pants pockets. There was no way to bring up the topic of Tia casually. He might as well just come out with it.
“Have you talked to your friend Tia, from the spa, lately?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I have. She’s invited me out for breakfast tomorrow.”
Ethan felt some of his unease ebb. It appeared Tia had taken the matter as seriously as he’d hoped and was indeed on the case. Maybe he’d be able to relax and enjoy his vacation after all.
His grandmother raised a suspicious brow. “Why?”
Ethan shrugged and diverted his eyes.
“I hope you didn’t track her down and bully her into it,” his grandmother said sternly.
“We just had a chat.”
“Oh, Ethan, you’re becoming more like your grandfather every day.” She rolled her eyes. “Bless his heart. He’s no doubt in heaven right now exasperating the good Lord with his bossy ways.”
“I’m not bossy. It’s just all these sudden changes since your spa visit. I’m worried about you.”
His grandmother groaned. “I swear, I wish you’d get back together with Britney or Tiffany or whichever one of your dull, fill-in-the-blanks girlfriends you were supposed to take on this vacation with you.”
“Heather?” Ethan asked, slightly taken aback. “But you said she was all wrong for me.”
“The women you go out with usually are. They’re like those obedient, bland robots on that old movie we watched last night.” She turned to Alice. “What was the name of it again?”
“The Stepford Wives?” Alice asked, unsure of her memory.
“That’s it,” his grandmother confirmed. “‘Yes, Ethan.’ ‘Great, Ethan.’ ‘Whatever Ethan thinks is best.’ ‘I’d better ask Ethan,’” she mimicked before she and Alice burst into a fit of laughter.
There was nothing wrong with dating an agreeable woman, Ethan thought, but he didn’t bother pointing that out to his grandmother.
However, with Heather, sweet and easygoing had morphed into pushy and demanding once she discovered their relationship wasn’t moving any closer to marriage, motherhood and a suburban mini mansion.
Finally, the cackling subsided, and his grandmother turned her attention back to him.
“At least those bubbleheads kept you occupied. You didn’t have so much time to stick your nose in my business.” She brandished her index finger in the vicinity of his chest. “Go talk to the last one. Maybe y’all can kiss and make up before your flight in the morning. You’ll have a life of your own again, and then you can stop riding my ass, and—”
“Grandma!” he cut her off. This had to be more of Tia’s handiwork, he thought, because his grandmother had rarely sworn before her mess of a makeover.
Alice covered her mouth to stifle a giggle.
Ethan captured the hand of his grandmother’s wagging finger with his own and kissed it. “You know full well why I worry.”
She patted his cheek. “As you can see, I’m fine now.”
Ethan watched her check her wristwatch on what she thought was the sly. What was she up to now?
“I’ll be out with Tia in the morning, so I won’t see you before you leave,” she said, the words coming out in a rush. “Give me a hug now, and enjoy your vacation. Think about giving what’s-her-name a call.”
As Ethan hugged his grandma, he made a mental note to change his morning flight to one leaving tomorrow evening.
His grandmother was up to something—and until he was assured she was back on track, he wasn’t going anywhere.
* * *
Tia smiled when she saw Carol walk through the restaurant entrance the following morning.
Although her friend’s grandson had been the impetus behind asking her to breakfast, Tia looked forward to chatting with the woman who’d helped her get through the most difficult period of her life.
After yesterday’s blowup with her dad over Espresso’s financial woes, she was especially glad to meet with her.
The two women greeted each other with a hug, and Tia was gratified to once again see the expertise of the spa’s staff in action.
Carol had done an excellent job of re-creating her new look on her own. She’d applied her makeup with near-expert finesse and even customized the pixie haircut they’d given her with a few gelled spikes. She wore a denim skirt, a black T-shirt emblazoned with the name of a sixties band and a pair of wedge sandals.
Tia glanced down at her own linen-blend shift dress. It had seemed chic and summery when she’d donned it this morning, but now it felt positively frumpy.
She echoed Carol’s order of the restaurant’s breakfast specialty, sweet-potato pancakes, to the busy waitress and studied her friend across the red checkerboard tablecloth.
There was something different about Carol, she observed as the waitress returned with their drinks, and it had nothing to do with her makeover.
“This is a nice treat,” Tia said. “Usually, breakfast for me is a bowl of instant oatmeal eaten over the kitchen sink before rushing off to work.”
“Hmm,” Carol said.
“So how’s it going?” Tia blew on her hot tea and took a tiny sip. “We haven’t had a chance to talk since your big makeover.”
Carol tore open a packet of sugar substitute and slowly stirred it into her coffee. “You can stop with the small talk. I already know my grandson put you up to this.”
“He came to my office yesterday,” Tia said, not bothering to deny it.
“More like pushed his way in.”
Tia lifted a brow. “How’d you know?”
“I raised him,” she said. “Don’t get me wrong. He’s a fine man, but he also inherited his late grandfather’s bossy streak, and it’s currently driving me bonkers.”
So that was where he got it. Tia remembered the way Ethan strode into her office looking like Prince Charming but acting like Attila the Hun.
Still, a part of her understood his point.
“He’s worried,” Tia said. “And although it’s none of my business, I was concerned myself when he mentioned having to pick you up from jail.”
“Oh, that.” Carol waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. “It wasn’t a big deal. Ethan blew it all out of proportion. You’d think I was a bank robber.”
“Then you weren’t arrested?”
The waitress returned with two plates piled high with pancakes and bacon and a decanter of maple syrup. “Anything else, ladies?” she asked.
“We’re good,” Tia said with a smile, eager to hear what had actually gone down.
Carol soaked her pancakes with syrup before cutting into them with her fork and taking a huge bite. Tia waited as she chewed and swallowed, but after her friend went in for a third bite, she couldn’t wait any longer.
“So what really happened?” Tia squirmed in her chair, her initial concern having morphed into downright nosiness.
Carol put down her fork. She glanced from side to side in a conspiratorial fashion before leaning in. “Well, I went to a party.”
“Oh.” Tia shoulders slumped and she took her first bite of her own pancakes.
Carol reached across the table and touched her free hand. “Not one of those stale-cake-and-fruit-punch events at the senior citizens’ center, where everyone treats us like two-year-olds, or the boring law-firm affairs I endured when my husband was alive, but a genuine party, where everyone was actually having a good time,” she said. “I ate. I drank. I danced. It was wonderful. I hadn’t had that much fun in years. Decades, even.”
Tia’s slumped shoulders perked up, along with her interest.
Carol’s brown eyes sparkled with merriment. “I even won eight hundred bucks in a poker game.”
“Really? I didn’t know you played.”
“Unbeknownst to my mother, my dad taught me when I was a little girl, and by college I was paying for my nursing textbooks with my winnings,” she said.
Tia’s own eyes widened at hearing about this other side to the staid nurse she’d met years ago.
Carol sighed. “I hadn’t played in decades. I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed it.”
“So why did you stop?”
The other woman shrugged. “Life, I guess. Marriage, motherhood, a full-time job, my daughter’s death and then raising my grandson,” she said. “I was always busy juggling so many balls. By the time Ethan was out of law school and I’d retired, my husband was dead and I’d lost sight of the things I truly liked doing.”
Carol smiled and patted her hand. “I owe you a thank-you,” she said. “Somehow you and your team looked past my dowdy exterior and brought out the person I’d shut away for years. The true me.”
Pride swelled in Tia’s heart. Max had been right. Her job was done.
Ethan Wright had it all wrong. She wasn’t the one who needed to talk to his grandmother. He did. If Carol told him what she’d just told her, even her stubborn grandson would undoubtedly see her happiness and be thrilled for her.
Still, Tia was curious about one thing.
“So how does a trip to the slammer fit into this story?
Carol pulled her hand back and reached for her coffee cup. “Well, in all the fun, the party may have gotten a little loud. My friend Edna’s neighbors called the cops, who asked us to hold it down,” she said. “And we tried. We really did.”