I almost always got the same thing. The fish tacos. Very low calorie and easy on the diet. Except they were also kind of boring after about a million years of eating them. I took a deep breath. “I’ll take the taco salad with shredded beef too.” Good Lord, it was possible that I was going to die of the food choices I’d been making in the last few weeks. What was wrong with me?
“Okay.” I held up my hands again because apparently this has become my thing. “Now. First you have to tell me if you found what you were looking for down here in the valley. You said you wanted to meet near my office because you had to go to an antique shop?”
“Oh right!” Thayla brightened immediately. I noticed that she had done her hair differently today. Or rather she had done her hair. As in she had washed it, dried it, and then left it to sort of frame her face. It looked amazing. And I wasn’t sure if she’d actually lost a few pounds or if she had just started wearing clothes that didn’t drape over her body like a tent. “So there was this customer at the shop the other night who was looking for this particular style of lamp for a gift for her mother-in-law.”
“Wow. Like a custom thing?” I felt my eyebrows lift in surprise. “That’s really cool!”
Thayla shrugged. “I just remembered seeing what she wanted in an online ad for this store here in the valley. So I got the lady’s number and now I’ll go deliver these to her later. She’s super excited.” Thayla seemed more excited about the customer being happy than by the thought of getting what would hopefully be a tidy sum of cash for finding these lamps for what was obviously a custom order.
I could not resist the cheese dip. I usually didn’t eat it. God knew how bad it probably was for you, but seriously? The stuff was made out of crack cocaine. I was pretty sure of it. You stuck your chip in and then lifted it to your lips and there was an explosion of white cheesy amazing goodness. So incredible. So yummy. I was going to die of food. Yep. It was going to happen.
“Okay.” I licked a bit of cheese off my fingers, which is rude, but whatever. “So I interrupted you about the suggestion. What were you talking about?” I felt as though my gut were about to knot itself into nothing because I had a feeling I knew exactly what Thayla had been talking about. “You took my suggestion? About what?”
“I only paid half the rent,” Thayla told me, her dark eyes huge. “The rent on Brock’s apartment. I only paid half. And I didn’t pay the utility bill at all. And usually I deposit at least one paycheck into his account in order to give him spending money.”
“So you didn’t give him any money at all other than that half of the rent?” My voice came out squeaky. I felt as though I could not breathe. Had I actually told her to do something this foolish? Was I out of my mind? I cleared my throat and tried to find some semblance of normal. “Did you hear anything from him about it?”
“I got a text demanding the spending money.” Thayla pulled out her phone. “He sent it last night at about ten o’clock. He told me that he needs the money so he can go out this weekend.”
“Wait.” I felt every bit of reticence go flying out of my body. “That’s actually what the text said?”
Thayla held up her phone. “Right here. It says you better put the money in my account or I won’t have any money to go out this weekend and that’s going to piss me off.”
“Did you respond?” I felt a shot of outrage fly through my system. “Because I can’t even tell you how rude that is! He didn’t even ask if you were okay? Have you seen him? If he goes out this weekend is he going to go with you?”
“Oh no.” Thayla shook her head. “He goes out with this guy friends. He never hangs out with me like that. We just hang out during the week when his friends are too busy with work and stuff.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I said flatly. “You should tell him that you can’t give him anything else. You just don’t have it. Or something like that. There is nothing that says you have to give him your income! That’s ridiculous!”
“I don’t know.” Thayla looked skeptical. Our food was zipping its way out of the kitchen, steam rolling off the plates. “I’ve never done that before. He might get really angry with me.”
I felt that big knot in my gut and knew I had to say it out loud. “Thayla, you deserve way better than this guy. You can’t marry him! He’s treating you like a slave and that’s not fair!”
Thayla tucked into her taco salad. So did I. The beef was so well seasoned and so yummy that for a moment I was pretty sure that I was existing in a food coma. Then all at once I realized that there was someone else standing beside our table. Thayla was now looking like a deer in the headlights and I had just found myself enjoying that moment where worlds collide.
“Hey, Lena.” I smiled at my sister.
Of course, I’m not sure what was making my sister look more shocked. My choice of company, the food I was consuming, or the fact that she probably had no clue how all of these things were tied together. Lena’s expression was pleasant because she’s almost always pleasant, but she definitely looked confused.
“Eleanor, I had no idea you were heading down here for lunch today.” Lena glanced at my lunch companion.
I made what I hoped was a friendly and completely casual gesture toward Thayla. “Thayla was down here in the valley today picking up a special order for a customer. So, we decided to have lunch here because—you know—cheese dip.” I glanced at Thayla and the both of us were smiling at least. That was good. I wanted her to be confident. It was just my sister.
“Cheese dip.” Lena sounded even more confused. “I was not aware that Eleanor consumed cheese without a permit.”
“Yeah, I think sometimes that you don’t know me all that well,” I informed my sister. “But that’s all right. I’m glad you stopped by our table. I think you’ve probably met Thayla Landau. She was quite a few years ahead of you in school, but Thayla works at that little shop on Grand called The Sweet Shop.”
“Oh my God, I love that store!” Lena gushed. “And not for nothing, but have you seen the displays in that place lately? It’s like they hired a professional stager or something.”
“A stager?” I murmured the word because an idea had just hit me so hard that I was afraid for a moment that my head was totally going to explode. I looked across the table at Thayla. “Thayla is the one who has been doing the displays, Lena. She’s crazy talented with that kind of stuff.”
“Seriously?” This was where I had to give my little sister credit. She can be in a pain in my ass and she can be pushy and rude and she can drive me out of my mind with her stubbornness. But Lena has a good heart. And right now, I could see exactly what she was about to do with it. “Thayla, that’s a really high demand talent. You’ve got no idea. Us real estate people pay good money to have people come in and stage our listings.”
Thayla was gaping now. “Really? I mean, I adore staging. It’s so much fun. It takes me almost no time at all to walk into a space and just figure out what would make it inviting.”
Lena was already waving her friend Tansy over. Tansy was a licensed real estate agent. Lena was still working on getting her license, but Tansy already had hers. “This is Tansy Economides. She’s an agent in an office where I used to work.”
I listened to Lena and Tansy and Thayla all chatting excitedly about some of the staging stuff that they’d done in the past. Tansy asked Thayla if she had a business card. I think I officially saw Thayla blush with excitement and then no small amount of pleasure as she wrote her phone number on the back of one of Tansy’s cards and gave it back to her.
“I’m going to call you this afternoon,” Tansy informed Thayla. “I’ve got this listing over in Tower Grove and I can’t do a thing with it. I’m just not good at that stuff.”
“Call me!” Thayla bubbled. “I’d be happy to take a look. It’s right around the corner from the shop. Maybe I could even get the owner to let us borrow some stuff if we give her credit for it.”
“Oh, great idea!” Tansy gushed. She was s
till waving at Thayla when she and my sister went strolling out the door.
Thayla beamed at me for a minute and I wasn’t quite sure what she was about to say. Her expression went from ecstatic to troubled in the blink of an eye. I wished I could help her, but I wasn’t even sure what was wrong.
“Thayla?” I swallowed back the urge to apologize for throwing her out there with my sister and her friend Tansy.
“I feel like my life is just finally getting started,” Thayla said suddenly. “And I have you to thank for that. I really do. I’ve never had a friend like this.”
Guilt lanced through me. I had first wanted to be friends with Thayla because I wanted to see what was up with Brock Mortensen. It had more or less been a request from Thayla’s brother. Now what? I really liked Thayla. Even if nothing ever happened again between Kevin and I, it wasn’t going to change the fact that Thayla was my friend.
“I know that you were my brother’s girlfriend for a long time,” Thayla told me fiercely. “And I know that your mother didn’t necessarily like that.”
“Whoa. Hang on.” I felt the need to put the brakes on here. “Are you talking about the beauty parlor thing? Kevin told me about that. Do you really think our mothers were like frenemies or something?”
“Honey, you’ve got no idea,” Thayla snorted. “But that’s really not important right now. I just wanted you to know that I hope you and Kevin can work things out.”
“What?” I was totally taken aback by this. “You do?”
“Yes. I do. You would make a kick ass sister and probably the best thing that could ever happen to my kiss ass of a brother.” She was grinning at me and I could not help but grin back. “You don’t understand, Eleanor. But my mother doesn’t really want my brother to get married any more than your mother wanted you to get married.”
“And what about you?” I prompted. Brock Mortensen needed to go as far as I was concerned. “Because, babe, that jackass you’re engaged to is going to break your kneecaps and put your family in the hospital.”
Thayla bobbed her head up and down. “Thanksgiving.”
“What?”
“Thanksgiving,” Thayla said again. “It’s all going down on Thanksgiving. That’s what has to happen. You need to get my brother back. I need to get rid of Brock. And maybe we can even get my dad out of his stupid recliner for an hour or two. That would make my mother so happy that she might even stop trying to secretly get Kevin to move back home and be her Mama’s Boy for the rest of his life.”
“Oh honey, that sounds bad!” I gasped as I laughed out loud.
Thayla started laughing too. We probably seemed as though we had totally lost our minds as we sat there in the restaurant laughing over the remains of our taco salads and cheese dip. But the truth was that things were better right now that they had ever been before. I think they were. Did I really want Kevin back? I wasn’t sure. But I knew that I wanted a second chance. I didn’t even know what that meant. And he needed a second chance too. He needed to prove to his bosses in Kansas City that they had been wrong to just assume that he was going to fail. We weren’t going to fail. I didn’t know how. But we were totally going to succeed.
Thayla reached across the table and impulsively took my hands in hers. She gave them a warm squeeze. “I’m so glad that you came into the store the other night,” she said fervently.
“Me too.” I shook my head and wondered at the coincidence. “I don’t shop that much. Almost never. But your brother had me so stressed out that I needed retail therapy.”
“Sometimes fate works double time to fix all of the stuff that got messed up the first time,” Thayla informed me. “So, hold on because I have a feeling the ride is about to get really wild.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Kevin
Where was Eleanor? This was a question I found myself continually wondering throughout the morning, but never more than at lunch time when I kind of figured that she and I would be heading out to grab a bite to eat at the café down the road. But no. Eleanor was nowhere to be found. There was apparently one administrative assistant working for the company now. Not that this was a big deal. But this was very likely why Damion Alvarez made it all the way into the building, up the stairs, and right through my office door without anyone bothering to stop him.
“Hey,” Damion said casually as he pushed open my door. “Can I come in for a second?”
I think it is quite possible that all brain activity in my head stopped right at that moment. When coming face to face with someone that you consider a competitor, it’s usually best to be on the best footing possible. You know, starting with prepared and aware that the person is even in your freaking building.
“Um, sure?” I cleared my throat. The office was a mess. This had a lot to do with the state of things thanks to Lawrence Moss. But it wasn’t all him. I struggled to clear off that single extra chair where Eleanor had been sitting just the day before. “Have a seat. What can I do for you?”
This seemed like a better response than say—what in the hell are you doing here? Right? But I’ll admit that this was what was going through my head. I waited for Damion to settle himself in the chair. He looked extremely relaxed and confident. Maybe he always looked that way. I’d never met the man in person before. I had seen him in photographs related to magazine or newspaper articles and I believe I’d even seen him speak on a few occasions at public events. That was it.
“So, my future sister-in-law tells me that your bosses Dan and Todd have pretty much sent you here to St. Louis to pilot this ship into the ground,” Damion began in a conversational tone of voice.
I blinked. I stared. I had no clue what to say in response to that. His future sister-in-law. Eleanor. Sometimes I forgot that the family connection existed at all. Had Eleanor been feeding information to Damion Alvarez? How did he know all of this?
Damion was utterly composed. The guy was just a hair shorter than I was and his Hispanic heritage was very evident in his dark complexion and dark wiry black hair. His eyes were also a deep color but filled with intelligence and maybe even humor. It was hard to say. He was dressed like any self-respecting CEO would be in designer clothing. He looked like a million bucks. But then he easily made that and more every single year. Damion was what I would have cut off my right arm to be.
“Before you get angry at Eleanor,” Damion told me in a blasé tone. “Let’s remember that the woman does not have a disloyal bone in her body. I spoke with her yesterday and in so many words she practically told me to go fuck myself.”
“Excuse me?” I half stood in my chair.
Damion looked amused. “Right. Lena told me that the two of you used to be involved. I’m not being negative toward her. I promise. I’m just telling you that she’s not the one to blame. I actually got a lot of information about what’s going on with your company here in St. Louis from my recruiters. They were whining nonstop that they can’t do much to outbid your company’s recent offers to new hires in this market.”
“I see.” There. I said two words. Good for me. My brain was going about a thousand miles per hour. So Gateway IT was feeling the sting of that five percent salary boost that Eleanor cooked up to go along with the benefits package offered over six months sponsored by the client and not by Midwest IT. “I’m sorry if your recruiters had difficulty sniping our new hires. I’ll put in a word to my recruiters that they’re doing their damn jobs.”
“Ha. Right?” But Damion put his feet up on my desk and folded his hands over his middle. “See, I’ll admit that I’m more than just a little pissed off that your bosses have decided to come and play in my yard.”
“Excuse me?”My heart was speeding up. I wasn’t sure where this was going. “The entire push is to move eastward. St. Louis isn’t really the target market.”
“Exactly,” Damion agreed as he bobbed his head. “And so far I have deliberately kept myself out of most of the cities where Midwest IT does business. I’m the one who has the market farther e
ast. Don’t I?”
“I suppose you do,” I conceded. This was something that had bothered me from the beginning, but then it wasn’t my choice where the company’s vision plan went. That was Todd and Dan’s problem. “But that doesn’t give anyone exclusive rights to any one city.”
“No,” Damion agreed. “But if your bosses aren’t going to play nice, I’m about to kick them out of the sandbox.”
“Meaning what?” I swallowed. Why did this feel like a threat? And even worse, why did I feel like I wanted to tell Damion to go right ahead? “Honestly, they’re not putting enough money into this office to do much with it.”
“Nope, they’re not doing much but pissing on my lawn and causing the local market to stand there and scratch its head for a few minutes as the new hires struggle to decide what they really want to do when it comes to employment,” he agreed. Damion spread his hands. “But then they’re not being fair to you either. They saddled you with this office full of ancient operating procedures and totally unmotivated employees.”
I coughed. It was highly tempting to agree with the guy, but that would be dancing on the line between loyal and something totally not loyal. I wasn’t ready to do that yet.
“So,” Damion said suddenly. “Here is what I propose.”
“I’m listening.” I half expected him to say he wanted to buy out this office and that I should prepare to get my ass back out onto the street.
“I don’t care about this office,” Damion informed me with a lazy wave of his hand. “It wasn’t intimidating when Lawrence Moss ran it. It’s even less now. No offense.”
“None taken,” I murmured. Where was this going?
“I would like to offer you a job.”
I felt my eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “Excuse me?”
“I want to open an office in Kansas City. You know everything there is to know about that market. You know what jobs are available, what skills are in demand. Everything. I want you to run an office that will put enough pressure on Todd and Dan Hopper that the two of them can’t take a crap without thinking about Gateway IT.”
Tangled: Contemporary Romance Trilogy Page 40