A Fine Romance (23 page)

He parked his hands on her ass, snugging her close. The fact that Mira hadn’t even enjoyed her super-sexy boyfriend feeling her up, albeit while checking for bumps and bruises, proved she’d spiraled to a dark, unhappy place. “Want to tell me what’s bothering you, sweetness? ’Cause you’re only supposed to howl like that when you’re naked and under me.”

“Bad afternoon. Ivy and I got in a fight. A big one. An I’m-not-sure-we’re-still-friends kind of a fight. An I’m-not-sure-if-I-still-have-a-job kind of fight.” She leaned into him, absorbing the comfort of his hard muscles. Of knowing he’d take her side, because that’s what boyfriends did. Having him in her corner steadied Mira, smoothed off the jagged edges of the emotional wounds Ivy had both stirred up and inflicted. A girl could get used to this.

Sam kissed her cheek. “Of course you’re still friends. And of course you still have a job. Arguments are rough. But people make up. You’ll both apologize, hug and put it behind you. Would I be a sexist dog if I suggested shared ice cream on the couch and a viewing of
Pride
and
Prejudice
would fix it all?”

“Yes,” she said in a particularly aggrieved tone. Why let him know he was probably right?

“You’ve been burning the candle at both ends. You’re worn to a nub. Chances are you blew things up bigger than they really are.”

“So what—you’re telling me I just need a nap?” Mira knew she sounded testy. Maybe total exhaustion spurred a bit of an overreaction. But things were still dire.

“An early night, after a proper dinner, wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. I could bump up ravishing you on my schedule,” he said with a double squeeze of her ass. “Preview week’s over, so the store’s closed until the big grand opening. Cut yourself some slack. Maybe you and Daphne could relax by going shopping tomorrow.”

That drove her blood pressure straight back up into a borderline stroke. “My parents sent me a Bloomingdale’s gift card today.” Mira picked up the note and the card, waving them under Sam’s nose. “To wish me good luck and help me buy an appropriate outfit for the grand opening. Can you believe that?”

“I guess. Why? Is it something insulting like twenty-five dollars?”

She huffed out a breath that fluffed her bangs. “Try twenty-five hundred.”

Sam plucked the card out of her hand and stared in wonder, as though it were an actual pile of cash. “Damn. What are you supposed to buy—mink-trimmed panties?”

“Don’t you see what an insulting gesture this is?”

“No.”

“It says they don’t think I can afford to buy a new outfit for myself.” She grabbed the card back and skittered it along the counter.

“Can you?”

Not according to the store who’d cut up her credit card into tiny pieces half an hour ago. “Well, not one that costs a thousand dollars,” she hedged. “I’m not destitute, for God’s sake. There’s a roof over my head, and working utilities. I’m not living on ramen noodles.” Although she did have some on the pantry shelf. And cans of tuna, because it was cheap, too. Yogurt for breakfast and peanut butter sandwiches for lunch kept her grocery costs pretty low. Ivy never needed to know that every single time she opened a can of tuna, Mira’s resolve slipped another notch. Or that the last time she had ramen for dinner, she went so far as to look up the password to her untouched trust-fund account. Just in case...

“Yeah, but a couple of months ago you were in a Red Cross shelter.” Sam ran his hand through his hair, standing the black thickness straight up like a miniature Mohawk. “Pointing out that you’re rebuilding from scratch isn’t an insult.”

“It’s their way of sending a message. They know this store will flop, just like the others did. I’ll run it right into the ground, and I’ll need the family money to bail me out.”

“You sure they’re sending that message? Or were you already thinking it yourself?”

Back against the wall, Mira slid to the floor. She hugged her knees to her chest. When did her baker boyfriend decide to moonlight as a shrink? At least with a real shrink she wouldn’t be sitting on the floor. “I’ve had a string of failures. Why should this store be any different? Why should I kid myself that it will succeed?”

“Because you’ve worked too hard for any other outcome to be possible.”

She shook her head. “I work hard every time. Look what it gets me. No house, no car, no savings in the bank. Blood, sweat and tears, but nothing to show for it.”

“Okay, before you go completely off the rails, you should just stop.” Sam held up his hands at eye level, palms facing her. “Stop wallowing, stop whining, and just stop. Maybe you do need that nap after all.”

“Even if a miracle happens and the store flourishes, it’ll take a long time to get in the black. There’s certainly a cap to my salary. It isn’t as if there’s any place for advancement from store manager. I won’t earn my first million this year to satisfy the terms of the family trust.” Heck, working here, she wouldn’t earn her first million in ten years.

“You knew that when you signed up for this gig.” Sam eased to his knees beside her. Today the scent of carrot cake and pecan pie clung to him.

“I was drowning. Homeless, jobless, and Ivy tossed me a life preserver. I didn’t have the luxury of worrying about the Parrish family legacy.” Every day that ticked closer to her birthday, she felt it. Mira felt the weight of turning her back on generations of her family. Of a financial legacy they’d all protected, kept safe for the future. One that she’d basically thumbed her nose at for the last ten years. Ever since she’d informed her parents that she wanted to be respected for who she was, not the size of her bank account. That she wanted to be able to respect herself, and her choices, first and foremost.

She’d tried to sign away all her rights to the family money, to be strong and independent, but her parents’ lawyer wouldn’t let her. And, having given up access to the family fortune, Mira couldn’t afford to go hire another attorney. So she’d lived with eschewing the money in principle, knowing that by her thirtieth birthday, all temptation would be permanently removed.

“So now that you’ve committed yourself to this store, and to Ivy—what? You’d back out? How would that get you to a million dollars in the next year? Unless you win the lottery, that’s a fucking unreachable goal. There’s no way to make it happen.”

Mira was so tired. Maybe her quarter-life crisis was hitting a few years late. Maybe Sam was right and she really just needed one solid night’s rest. Did the why really matter, or just the absolute knowledge that she was drained to the core? Tired of working twelve-hour days. Tired of trying her hardest and still not ending up where she wanted to be. Tired of scrimping and saving and still not being in the same place as her peers. Being strong and independent was freaking exhausting. Was it really so wrong to want life to be a little bit—okay—a lot easier?

“There is one way.”

“Join a high-end escort service?”

It stung, but Sam’s jibe wasn’t far from the truth. “Close. I could marry someone suitable. That would solve the problem entirely. I’m sure my parents have a string of candidates just hovering in the wings.”

His face shuttered closed so fast she couldn’t glimpse even a second of his true reaction. “You’re bluffing.”

Bluffing, babbling, brainstorming—why label it? “I call it exploring my options out loud. It would sure be easier.”

“Okay, if you’re not bluffing, then I’ve got to ask what the hell you and Ivy drank over lunch. How many beers did you throw back?”

“None. I left without touching a bite.” Big mistake. Near starvation on top of her exhaustion probably wasn’t helping her frame of mind. It would be nice if she could talk Sam into cooking dinner for her. He might be a certified pastry chef, but he sure knew his way around the rest of the kitchen, too. The other night he’d made them a
boeuf
bourguignonne
and warm spinach salad for dinner. She thought her taste buds had died and gone to heaven. Later that night, he’d given her a completely different reason to scream the Almighty’s name.

“Then you must be experiencing short-term amnesia. There’s no other explanation.”

“For what?”

“For forgetting that impassioned speech in your bedroom the other night. You know, the one where you told me not to toss away my hopes and dreams without a fight?”

“I remember.” Mostly she remembered how their whole conversation felt like she’d been talking to a patch of the concrete her family sold. Mira didn’t think she’d gotten through to him at all.

“So why the double standard?”

“You’re talking in riddles, Sam.” Thoroughly dispirited, she ran her palm across the glossy wood floor. It kept her from reaching out to Sam, from giving in to the urge to stroke his leg. The hard-as-Plexiglas tone in his voice and the shuttered glaze to his eyes pretty much screamed
hands
off
.

“Why are my dreams worth chasing, but yours get shoved under the carpet?”

“Because you
have
dreams, Sam. Big ones. Dreams that can and should blossom into a beautiful reality. I don’t.”

“Give me a break. You’re one of the most driven people I’ve ever met. Next time we all go hit the lanes, your bowling nickname should be Pile Driver.”

Mira bit her bottom lip. “Sure, I work hard. I keep reaching for that golden ring with my eyes shut because I don’t know what it looks like. Is my dream to manage a store? Manage a corporation? I don’t know. For years my only goal was to do the opposite of what my parents wanted. That’s not really a fleshed-out life aspiration. When it comes down to it, all I really want is to be happy. And wouldn’t that look stupid on a business card—Mira Parrish, Happy Person.”

Finally Sam thawed a little, scooting closer to touch her side. “I think it’s great. That’s all most people want. They’re just too scared to admit it. Life doesn’t have to be some huge complication. Happiness is a great goal. An honest goal.”

“Most importantly, it is achievable.” Not the way he meant, however. No matter how hard she worked, the store could tank tomorrow. Or she could work herself to the bone for six months, scrimping and worrying the whole time—and
then
have it tank. That very real possibility did not, in any way, make her happy. “I could reach it tomorrow if I relent and get married. I think it’s safe to assume my parents would give me a mixed assortment of eligible men far nicer than a box of Godivas. I’m sure I could be happy enough with an appropriate man.” Well, not
sure
. But pretty darn close to throwing in the towel on struggling for something better. What was so wrong about taking the easy route? Aside from the fact that it was caving and Mira wasn’t positive she’d be able to look herself in the mirror with any modicum of respect the rest of her life.

“No.” The shutters fell away from Sam’s eyes, revealing a frantic desperation that shocked her. “You’d be content, at best. Cows are content. Weeds are content. What about your independence? Caving to your parents means tossing that away. What about your chance at true love?”

Love didn’t enter into the equation at all. The choice to fulfill her family’s legacy, carry on the name and the company and yes, live in the style she’d quite enjoyed for her first twenty-two years, was about business and generational responsibility. Not something as pie-in-the-sky as true love. “Ivy’s the one who believes life’s like a fairy tale. Not me. There are no guaranteed happy endings.”

“You don’t believe in true love? Or you don’t believe it’s out there, waiting for you?”

“You make it sound like love is tangible.”

“It is. It’s sitting right next to you. I love you, Mira.”

Her mouth went instantly dry, like she’d licked the floor of the Sahara. “If this is your way of convincing me to follow my wholly unclear dreams, I’d say that’s cheating.”

“I love you,” he repeated. A soft smile teased at the corners of his full, sensuous lips. Sam’s version of five o’clock shadow—one that showed up by two—darkened his jaw and lent him a hint of bad-boy roughness. In short, he was everything she never realized she wanted in a man, in a sexilicious package. And he loved her? How could the universe be so cruel as to dump this in her lap today? It complicated everything exponentially.

Sam took her hand, and kissed the back of each finger in turn. “Look, I know you’re already juggling a million things right now. You don’t have to say anything. We don’t have to discuss it. I just figured that if you were about to decide the next step in your life, you ought to have all the facts.”

“Oh.” So utterly romantic that she wanted to squeal in glee. And practical. But Sam was right. She couldn’t respond now. Letting slip how crazy in love with him she was wouldn’t be fair to either of them.

“Every time Diana and I tried to take a shortcut in life, my mom would give us the same speech. She’d ask if we wanted to do things the easy way, or the right way? You could take the easy way. But would it be right for you?”

A heavy, smothering blanket of unease tightened her chest when she tried to think about it. When she first left grad school, it had been so easy to be righteous and declare her independence from the shackles of the family trust. But living these years without it wore her down. If A Fine Romance didn’t succeed, Mira didn’t know if she had the strength to start all over again. To persevere. Not when there was a far easier solution within reach. “I don’t know.”

“Just please, don’t make any snap decisions,” Sam begged. “Get through the grand opening. Put it out of your mind until then. The what-the-hell-do-I-do-next part, I mean. Feel free to dwell on how I love you.”

His declaration of love would undoubtedly scroll nonstop through her mind like the CNN news ticker at the bottom of the TV screen. “Oh, I’ll be dwelling, alright.”

“Good.” He flashed a wicked grin. “I plan to make a multisensory presentation later to show you just how much I love you. Your only job is to lie back and enjoy it.”

“Now
that
I can commit to, on the spot.”

Chapter Seventeen

Mira pulled her hood up to protect her ears from the steady wind. It might land her on Glamour’s infamous back page with a black box across her face as a fashion disaster, but she didn’t care. Huddling into her coat like a scared turtle was the only way she’d found so far to combat the icy wind off Lake Michigan. Living in Florida had lessened her cold tolerance to an embarrassing level. She told herself every morning not to pull out the puffy winter coat until at least October. There might only be two days left in her self-imposed stricture, but a person could die of hypothermia in two hours.

The smart thing would be to go inside, get out of the surprise cold snap. Except that she’d already walked around the block three times to avoid going inside. Specifically, to go inside Aisle Bound and apologize to Ivy. Not for trying to push the matchmaking idea. That was pure gold. But neither one of them handled the discussion—and the ensuing argument—well. As much as she hated to admit it, Sam had been right. After sleeping for an amazing nine hours and carbo-loading on pasta, Mira was ready to either run a marathon or deal with Ivy. An apology for her behavior seemed in order to salvage their friendship.

Lights blazed from the floor-to-ceiling windows of Aisle Bound. The display showcased Daphne’s amazing talent, in the form of a multitiered arrangement of pumpkins carved with a happy couple’s name, dates and location. Orange gerbera daisies and sunflowers twined their way between the levels. Wheat sheaves fanned out in a sunburst behind. Inside, Mira could see Ben lounging on the white sofa, feet on the glass coffee table. His concession to the weather was to add a Cubs hoodie to his preferred uniform of cargo shorts. She’d waited until after dark, hoping Ivy’s staff would be gone for the day. Having Ben as a witness didn’t bother her enough to give her an excuse to stomp around the block again. Squaring her shoulders, she pushed through the door.

Ben dragged his eyes up for a split second, then resumed thumbing the keyboard of his phone faster than a thirteen-year-old girl at a boy-band concert. “Hey, Mira. You nervous about tomorrow night’s big opening?”

“Do you want me to go into detail about the nine distinct bullet points of anxiety currently haunting me? Or will a simple
ohmygodyes
be enough for you?”

Her rushed and slurred delivery teased out a snicker, and he tossed his phone onto the lavender throw pillow beside him. “Sounds like you need a glass of wine and a foot rub. Why isn’t Sam taking care of you? Doesn’t he know the rules to being a good boyfriend?”

“Whatever you think the rules are, I guarantee the women of the world have a very different list.” Mira eased down the hall toward Ivy’s office. “I’m too wound up to be around Sam. I’d probably bite his head off.”

“Like the female praying mantis does to her mate after having sex? Or the way you and Ivy went at each other yesterday?”

“She told you?”

“Of course. I know that one’s in the rulebook. Tell each other everything.” He winged up a sandy eyebrow. “Didn’t you tell Sam?”

“Of course,” she mimicked, with a twist of her lips. “I just wish nobody knew how poorly we dealt with each other.”

Ben leaned forward, resting his forearms on his tanned thighs. “Between you and me, I think your dating service idea’s a winner. Full to the brim with potential.”

A flush of validation spread through her. Or a stress-induced early onset menopause hot flash. “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it. Seriously.” He pointed his thumb and finger at her like a gun. “I didn’t share my opinion with Ivy, and for the sake of our super-fancy upcoming wedding, I’d like to keep it that way.”

“I understand.” Mira mimed zipping her lips and throwing away the key.

“You two going to kiss and make up?”

“That’s my plan.”

His face lit up, hope etched in every inch of his raised brow. “Really? Because if you promise there’s going to be actual girl-on-girl action, I’ll need to break out my camera and record this.”

“You’re such a pervert, Westcott,” she said, not bothering to hide her grin.

“Package deal. That is, it comes with my package, if you know what I mean.” Ben gave her an exaggerated, lecherous wink.

The over-the-top sexist teasing steadied her. Gave her a couple of minutes of normalcy and peace before heading into the eye of the hurricane. “If you hear shouting, call for backup and run like hell.” Mira walked the last few feet to stop in front of Ivy’s closed door. She didn’t want to give Ivy the chance to put her off for another few days. So she knocked with her right hand and simultaneously opened the door with her left.

“Hi.”

Ivy’s head popped up faster than a Whac-A-Mole. She spread her hands across the piles of fat bridal magazines covering every inch of her desk. “Oh, it’s only you.”

Great beginning. Annoyance flared. Mira tamped it down, remembering her mission. Her apology could only stem from cool, professional detachment. Not heated-up pissiness. She smoothed the front of her deep yellow sweater. “Sorry to interrupt.”

“Don’t be an idiot.” Ivy beckoned her with a frantic wave. A wild glint in her hazel eyes looked out of place in her pristine office. “Come in and shut the door. Fast.”

Curiosity erased the last vestiges of her sputtering temper. “What’s going on?”

Ivy leaned back in her chair. She wore a dark purple cardigan over a lighter camisole that matched the bow around her ponytail. Kind of the way Purple Honker would look dressed up as a cheerleader. “Ben made me promise not to start looking at wedding dresses until after the store opens. He says that I only have a finite attention span. Apparently dress shopping is going to turn into a giant black hole, rendering me incapable of any extra tasks.”

“Well, we both know he’s right.” Cautiously, Mira eased down into the white brocade armchair. The epic fight that probably started her down the road to her first ulcer seemed not to have fazed Ivy one bit. Mira didn’t want to dredge up all that ugliness again. But she also didn’t want to sweep the incident under the rug as if it never happened at all.

“Of course he’s right,” Ivy hissed. “But yesterday I cracked. I pulled every magazine from the last two years off the bookcase. Told Ben I had a late phone consult with a nervous bride.”

Devious, underhanded wedding planning. Classic Ivy. Mira bit back a grin. “And tonight’s excuse?”

“Supposedly I’m working up a proposal for a small March commitment ceremony. Two gay men, both of their dachshunds to be included in the ceremony, and they want it held at that crazy Mexican restaurant with the cliff divers.”

“Huh?” What on earth was Ivy talking about? No restaurant had cliff divers. Mira wasn’t sure she was following the zigs and zigs of this overly intricate fib.

“Casa Fiesta. They run commercials every eight seconds on television. You haven’t seen one yet?”

“Daphne and I watch lots of movies. And so far, Sam and I don’t watch anything but each other.”

“Nice.” Ivy gave an approving nod. “The Casa’s sort of an entertainment complex more than a restaurant. Big waterfall, mariachis, flame jugglers and a puppet show. Seats close to five hundred people. They had their first date there.”

“Your imaginary gay couple?”

“Yes. Chauncy and Rick.”

Mira wished for a glass of water, and the chance to go back in time by about three seconds. If anything in the world ever demanded a spit take, it was those two names joined in pretend couplehood. “Those are the worst fake names ever. They sound like porn stars.”

“What do you want me to do? Go buy a baby name book to come up with something more appropriate for my wholly fake clients?” Ivy closed the magazines one by one and stacked them neatly in two piles. “I’m desperate. I can’t bring these magazines home. Planning fake weddings is my only way to look for my dream dress.”

Mira mentally drew thick black lines across her entire prepared apology. She and Ivy had a bigger-picture issue to hash out. “You and I love Mexican food. How many gallons of guacamole do you think we’ve eaten together?”

“Not enough?”

“Exactly. Why haven’t you taken me to this spectacularly tacky Mexican restaurant yet? It sounds like it’s the perfect place for us to do a girls’ night.”

“You’re right—you’d love it.” Ivy marked a page with a purple stickie and closed the last magazine. “I want to take you there. We just haven’t gotten around to it yet. We’ve both been busy.”

Technically a valid excuse. However, true friends didn’t make excuses to each other. They carved out time for one another, no matter what. Until Mira moved out here, they’d been the truest of friends. This friendship apathy was as insidious and miserable as a cold virus.

Mira drove her point home with the sharpness of a syringe full of antibiotics. “Why are you using the most elaborate lie I’ve ever heard to hide from your fiancé and drool over dresses? Why not just tell him you’re going out to lunch with me? Don’t you see the bigger problem here? You work with me, but you don’t play with me anymore. I can’t wait to go dress shopping with you.”

“Really?” Ivy stopped lining up the magazine stacks to stare at Mira.

“Of course.” The thought of arguing over bridesmaid dresses filled her with icy dread. And argue they would, because she and Daphne would fight to the death to prevent being crammed into Ivy’s favorite shade of cotton-candy pink. The wedding dress shopping, however, would be wonderful. Worthy of at least two purse-packs of tissue. “I’m sure the allure will tarnish after the first fifty you try on and discard, but for now, I can’t wait.”

“I like that idea.”

Mira reached across the desk to grab Ivy’s hand. “It’s only been one day, but it feels like we’ve been fighting for an entire month.”

“I know. I hated it. The whole thing had me so upset I turned down sex with Ben,” Ivy confessed, her voice dropping to a whisper. “And he’s
fantastic
in bed.”

“He looks as though he’s got some moves,” Mira conceded. His body looked lanky under clothes, but in his running gear, his lean muscles bunched with purposeful grace. Ivy lucked out. Finding a guy with such a great sense of humor, buckets of charm and those California surfer good look? Now that was a Triple Crown winner. “But my guy’s full of his own talents. He not only knows how to make chocolate sauce, he knows how to use it.”

Ivy gasped. “Sam got you to eat chocolate again?”

“Yes. Well, his chocolate. I haven’t branched out yet beyond Lyons Bakery. I don’t want to be put off by inferior cocoa products.”

A smile bloomed across Ivy’s face. “I’ve missed talking to you like this.”

“Me, too. That’s my point. We let our friendship fade once I moved here. We’ve managed to stay tight while living thousands of miles apart. Then once I move literally into your neighborhood, we both dropped the ball. Do you realize we haven’t done one thing together?”

“No. Wait.” Ivy scrabbled through the pages of her desk calendar. “You came to the viewing party for
Planning
for
Love
.”

“True. But I wouldn’t categorize you throwing up for three hours straight and then passing out exactly quality time.”

Guilt had Ivy chewing on her bottom lip. “I threw up on your shoe, didn’t I?”

“A little bit.”

“Forgive me if I don’t offer to let you return the gesture.”

“I can let it slide.” Mira straightened in her chair. “I can’t let our friendship slide. The minute I got here, our dynamic changed. We didn’t know how to integrate being friends and being colleagues. So we didn’t. We’re both Type As. Without consciously choosing, we knew the store opening had to be prioritized. To make it work, we back-burnered our friendship.”

Ivy rounded her lips into a circle of dismay. “No. No, I can’t believe it.” She folded her hands and closed her eyes.

Great. Yet another idea of Mira’s that Ivy dismissed out of hand. So much for their five-minute détente. Funny, she’d been so sure she’d figured out where it all went wrong. Instead, maybe they’d passed the point of no return. Well, if the friendship was dead, she might as well try to salvage her job. “Sorry.” After one cold, quick nod Mira braced her hands on the armrest to rise.

“No, I’m sorry.” Ivy jumped up and rushed around the desk. She crouched beside Mira, pulled her back down and enveloped her in a hug. “I really did turn into bridezilla. I’ve been so caught up with Ben that I didn’t carve out any space for you. We’ve wished for years that we lived in the same city again. I can’t believe I’ve been wasting this opportunity.”

Well, that was the thoughtful, loyal Ivy she remembered. Hopefully she wouldn’t disappear again. Relieved beyond measure, Mira hugged back. And felt truly at home for the first time since moving to Chicago.

“You’re pissing me off, you know.” Ivy sniffled and sank back onto her heels.

This time, Mira didn’t jump at the bait. “Really? I apologize, we hug for a minute and you decide to go at me again?”

“That’s the thing.
You
apologized.
I
was supposed to be the bigger person and apologize first. You stole my moment. With a one-word apology. Bigger is better sometimes, you know.”

“Don’t try to take credit now. That’s like claiming you know the answer to a
Jeopardy
! question, without screaming it out loud before they say the answer. You’ve got no proof.”

“Wanna bet?” Ivy grabbed her bag from around the corner of the desk and pulled out a box. “To help officially smooth things over.”

“You mean
after
apologizing for having your head in the sand?”

Ivy rolled her eyes. “Yes, after that. I had a whole, elaborate groveling scene worked out. We were going to meet at the Nature Museum, in the Butterfly Haven. Oh, Mira, you’ll love it there. It’s this beautiful greenhouse filled with one thousand butterflies. Every single day you can watch a butterfly emerge from its cocoon into a tropical paradise.”

Her voice had slipped into a hushed, describing-their-dream-wedding-to-a-client tone. Mira had to nip it in the bud. Otherwise, Ivy would spend the next ten minutes effusing over each color of butterfly, their wingspan and probably far too much scientific trivia. “Okay, but what happened to the groveling?”