He directed her to the last page of the application, where he’d already circled the deadline in red.
“But that’s the day after tomorrow. I have a full-time job. There’s no way I could possibly pull everything they want together by then,” she said. “And it says if you’re interested in being the business selected for personal mentoring sessions from Lina, they suggest you send in a video.”
Adam watched the enthusiasm drain from her face, and his gut twisted.
“I guess I’d better look at the other ones,” she said, putting the application for the microloan from the Lina Todd Foundation aside.
Adam stared at the discarded application. He’d been so focused on the loan terms he’d missed the part about the video.
He thought about all the work he had to do. The date of the chocolate competition would be here before he knew it, and while thanks to Brandi he had his first entry, he was still no closer to making a final decision on the second.
Adam picked up the Lina Todd application. Brandi was right. There wasn’t enough time, he thought, and then he caught the disappointed look in her eyes.
“Let’s go for it.” The words came out before his brain could stop them.
“But how?”
“We can focus on the written part of the application and supporting documents tonight. Tomorrow when you get off work we’ll shoot the video.”
“But I don’t have a video camera.”
“I do.” Fortunately for her, he’d recently purchased a camera to shoot photos of his culinary creations. It also took high-definition video.
“But I have no idea what to say or do for the video,” Brandi hedged.
“No more ‘buts,’” Adam said firmly. “You have tonight and all day tomorrow to figure that out.”
A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “Do you really think we can pull it off?”
Adam mentally noted her use of the word we and discovered he liked being on this woman’s side. He’d started out only helping her so she could get busy taste-testing his recipes.
Now he was genuinely rooting for her to be successful.
Adam opened a new browser window on her laptop and pulled up Overnight Express’s website. “We have until midnight tomorrow. That’s the cutoff for the last delivery to New York City,” he said. “And yes, I think we can do it.”
“I can’t believe it.” Her voice quivered with excitement. “Up until now I thought it would be years before I could get Arm Candy out of my spare room and into its own boutique. Now I actually have a chance at getting funding and advice from Lina Todd.”
She held up her hand, as if to calm herself. “I understand it’s a long shot at best, but just a sliver of a chance to get business input from her is the opportunity of a lifetime.”
Her elation was infectious, and it was hard for Adam not to get caught up in the swell of it. Already a beautiful woman, the big smile on her face elevated her to stunning. He swallowed hard, resisting the urge to caress her smooth brown cheek and get lost in those big, brown eyes.
Adam didn’t pretend to like or understand the limitations she’d put on their relationship, but he wouldn’t violate them.
She would.
And he’d bide his time until his neighbor realized the underlying current of sexual tension buzzing between them wouldn’t be denied.
Brandi’s voice broke into his thoughts. Adam started to ask her to repeat what she’d said, when she threw her arms around him and planted a kiss on his mouth.
Stunned, Adam didn’t have time to respond or even savor the brief connection before she abruptly pulled back. She raised her fingertips to her lips.
“I didn’t mean… I mean… Sorry, I guess I got overly excited,” she stammered. “It won’t happen again.”
Adam simply nodded. Not because he agreed with her, but because it would happen again, and next time her excitement would be of an entirely different nature.
Chapter 8
Brandi sprinted through the school parking lot toward her car.
The principal had called a mandatory meeting after school to discuss the letters they’d all received yesterday. The extra hour and a half tacked on to their day hadn’t told Central High’s staff anything they didn’t already know. Soon, some of them would be out of a job.
Brandi unearthed her cell phone from her purse and texted Adam she was on her way. She’d sent him one earlier when she’d first found out about the meeting, saying she’d be delayed.
Adam.
For the hundredth time today she touched her fingertips to her lips, which still tingled at the memory of the brief contact with his. The kiss itself had been innocent, but not the yearning for more that followed her out of his condo and into her dreams.
She snatched her hand away from her mouth and yanked open her car door.
“Quit making a big deal out of nothing,” she mumbled.
Adam had understood it had only been a quick peck in the heat of the moment. Unlike her, he hadn’t let his imagination turn it into a sizzling lovemaking session with her straddling him atop that new dining room table of his.
“Don’t even go there,” she said.
The last thing she needed was to muck up her head lusting after her neighbor, especially now, when it finally seemed like she was making inroads toward expanding Arm Candy.
Brandi threw the car’s gear into Reverse and backed out of her designated parking space. She winced as her tires squealed against the pavement and hoped her students hadn’t spotted her burning rubber escaping the school parking lot.
Her cell phone rang, and Brandi plucked it off the passenger’s seat. She glanced at the small screen and briefly debated whether to let it go to voice mail. In the end, her conscience wouldn’t allow it.
“Hi, Mom.”
“Where are you?” Jolene Collins sounded ticked off, which didn’t bode well for pleasant conversation.
“In my car. There was a meeting after scho—”
“Good,” her mother interrupted, “then you’re on your way here. I was expecting you over an hour ago.”
Damn. She was supposed to go by her mom’s to take care of a to-do list of minor maintenance things her mother needing doing around her house. She’d picked up the supplies she needed at the big-box hardware store a few days ago, so they were already in the trunk of her car. However, in the excitement of working with Adam on her business, it had slipped her mind she was due over there today.
“I’m sorry, Mom. I forgot,” she said. “Can I come by tomorrow instead?”
Silence.
“Mom? You still there?”
Another beat of silence followed by a long-suffering sigh.
“Of course I’m here,” she said. “Where else would I be? After all, my daughter said she’d be here today.”
“Something important has come up, but I promise to stop by tomorrow right after work.”
“And what’s more important than you giving your poor, widowed mother a hand?”
Brandi groaned inwardly. A huge part of her wished she could tell her mother what she and Adam were doing, but she didn’t need the discouragement that was sure to come. She’d wait until she secured a microloan, hopefully the one from Lina Todd, before telling her mom she’d revived her plan to open a boutique.
“Mom, I’ll help you tomorrow. I’ll even bring takeout from your favorite Chinese restaurant for dinner, okay?”
It wasn’t as if her mom had to rearrange anything more important than a spa appointment or bridge game with her girlfriends.
Last year, after her husband’s unexpected death, Brandi’s mother sold the successful temping agency for administrative office workers she’d started for a tidy sum. The windfall, combined with the generous provisions from Brandi’s father, had left
Jolene Collins very well-off.
“Don’t bother. I’ll just dig the ladder out of the garage and change that blown bulb on the ceiling light fixture myself,” her mother said. “Hopefully, I won’t fall and break a hip.”
Brandi checked her side-view mirror and merged her car into interstate traffic headed in the direction of her condo.
“Mom, please. Just leave everything until tomorrow,” she repeated. “Besides, that light needs a special bulb. I’ve already picked it up.”
Her mother treated her to another sigh, this one even more drawn out than the first. “It’s times like this when I miss your father the most. He never let me down.”
Like a puppeteer controlling a marionette, her mother always knew which strings to pull. Nothing, except the mention of her father, would have detoured Brandi from her beeline to Adam’s place.
Her father’s last words to her echoed in her head as Brandi took the next exit off the interstate and reversed her direction.
“I need to know you’ll look after your mother for me and your sister,” he’d rasped from his hospital bed.
Brandi was determined to keep her promise to him.
Though it was becoming harder and harder.
“I’m on my way, Mom,” she said.
“Well, if you’re sure you can fit it into your tremendously busy schedule.”
“See you in a few minutes.”
Brandi’s next call was to Adam. No reason to hold him up waiting on her. There was no way they’d be able to work on a video this evening.
“Just knock on my door when you get home,” he said.
Brandi swallowed the lump of frustration rising in her throat as she turned onto her mother’s block. Both Erin’s and her fiancé’s cars were in the driveway so she parked on the street in front of her mother’s one-level, ranch-style home.
Peals of laughter from the poor, old widow greeted her as she lugged three bags of supplies inside to find her mom in the living room serving her sister and future brother-in-law coffee and peach cobbler.
No one bothered to relieve her of the heavy bags.
“Well, it’s about time.” Her mother sipped from a delicate china cup. “I wanted to set up in the dining room, but of course, I couldn’t have us working in the dark.”
“I’m sure Maurice wouldn’t have minded taking care of it for you.” Brandi leveled a look in her future brother-in-law’s direction.
When Maurice had asked if it would be okay for Wesley to serve as his best man, for her sister’s sake, Brandi reluctantly agreed. Maurice and Wesley had become good friends while dating the Collins sisters. They had remained close after her and Wesley’s breakup and her ex’s subsequent move to Atlanta with his new wife.
Still, Maurice’s lack of empathy for her, along with his dictatorial manner where Erin was concerned, rankled Brandi.
“We’re trying to pull together a wedding in just a few weeks.” Her mother spoke slowly as if she were talking to a moron. “Besides, you can’t expect a physician to waste his valuable time screwing in lightbulbs.”
Brandi rolled her eyes skyward at the way her mother rhapsodized over Maurice. The Collins matriarch was over the moon her youngest daughter was marrying a doctor and never missed an opportunity to make sure everyone was aware of her future son-in-law’s profession.
And for all her bluster about the burden of planning a wedding at the last minute, her mother was truly in her element putting her extraordinary organizational skills to work on the event.
“I’ve been thinking about balloons as centerpieces at the reception instead of roses.” Brandi overheard Erin’s excited voice. “My friend Kara had them at her wedding reception, and they were beautiful. She gave me the name of the woman who did them.”
“If that’s what you want, I can give her a call tomorrow,” their mother said.
“Balloons? Sounds tacky to me,” Maurice said. “We should definitely go with the roses.”
“Oh, okay.” Erin’s voice sounded deflated.
Brandi bit the inside of her mouth. Hard.
Just when she calmed herself down, she overheard Erin telling her mother she wanted to add a pink accent to the red and white theme of the wedding.
“How about we add a few pink carnations to your and Brandi’s bouquets? We could also alternate the red velvet bows on the church pews with sweetheart pink ones,” Jolene suggested.
“Oh, that will look so pretty,” Erin agreed.
Brandi didn’t have to wait long for Maurice, not to suggest or ask, but to tell her sister what they were going to do.
“Let’s stick with the red and white,” he said. “It’s more classy.”
“You’re right, honey,” Erin agreed.
None of your business, Brandi silently chanted to herself through gritted teeth. She dumped the bags in the kitchen before heading out to the garage to retrieve the ladder and her father’s old toolbox. She slid her hand over the beat-up metal box he took to work every day on construction jobs, before picking it up.
With her dad’s final request of her in mind, Brandi squared her shoulders and sucked in a calming breath before returning inside the house, ladder and tools in tow.
She was on the ladder screwing the frosted-glass cover back over the light fixture when she heard Maurice call out to her.
“I’ve got my eye on the last piece of cobbler, speak up if you want it,” he said.
“Goodness, no, Doctor. The last thing Brandi needs is pie,” Jolene Collins chimed in before she could reply. “I’ve already had to buy her a larger maid-of-honor dress, and I don’t want her bursting out of it.”
A red-hot flush of mortification stung Brandi’s cheeks at the words. God, she hoped the extra sessions she’d booked with Heather made her mother have to eat those very same words.
Three hours later, Brandi dumped the dirty air filters she’d replaced in the trash and checked off the last item on the list. Her mother continued to preside over wedding planning, only breaking to add an additional task to Brandi’s list.
“Well, that’s everything,” Brandi said to the trio. Finally.
Between work and her handyman duties, she was beat. All she wanted was to crawl into bed, pull the covers over her head and stay there until her alarm went off tomorrow morning.
“Brandi, did you take a look at the ceiling fan in my bedroom yet? It’s been wobbling.”
“Ceiling fan?” She scanned the list again. “This is the first I’ve heard of it.”
“Well, there’s definitely something wrong with it. Go see for yourself.”
“Mom, it’s been a long day.”
Her mother put down the guest list she and Erin had been reviewing. “You’re already here. It won’t take you a minute to check it out for me.”
“It’s January. You won’t even need it for a few months.”
“Now how would you feel if it fell off the ceiling right on top of my head?”
A thought flashed through Brandi’s mind she’d have to beg forgiveness for in her prayers tonight. She bit down on her tongue as she trudged outside to the garage to retrieve the ladder she’d just put away.
* * *
“What happened?” Adam asked, taking in the sight at his front door.
The bubbly Brandi, who had left his place last night eager to begin working on the video for the Lina Todd application, had been replaced by a woman who looked like she was about to drop on the spot.
“I got caught up at my mom’s and couldn’t get out of there.” Brandi stifled a yawn with her fist. “I’ll just have to send in the application as is and hope for the best. Sorry I kept you waiting for nothing.”
Something about her defeated demeanor tugged at his insides, and he was tempted to write a check to get her handbag business into any retai
l space she desired. Plus, he was pretty sure he could also pull enough strings to have Lina Todd contact her within the week.
Instead, he glanced at his watch. “We still have three hours until midnight.”
It would be wrong just to hand everything to Brandi, he thought, no matter how badly he wanted to. He’d only end up depriving her of a huge sense of accomplishment, and she’d never feel like her success was truly her own. That, he knew from experience.
“Adam, I appreciate the effort, but I’m barely coherent. All I want to do is sleep.”
“Sleep is overrated.” He grasped her shoulders and turned her in the direction of her front door.
“What are you doing?”
“You’re going home, where you’re going to revive yourself with a shower and apply whatever magical potions women use on their faces to make them look as if they’ve had eight hours of sleep,” he said. “Meanwhile, I’m walking over to Jolt’s to get you an espresso.”
“But…” Brandi began, until Adam cut her off.
“If you have energy left to argue, then you have enough to see this project through,” he said.
She shot him a withering look. “Okay. I’ll shower and get ready,” she grumbled. “Hope Jolt’s makes one helluva espresso.”
After she was inside her condo, Adam stared at her closed door and wondered if he weren’t the one who needed a strong drink to clear his head.
What difference should it make to him if she wanted to scrap the video and go to bed?
Right now, his mind should be on the chocolate fig and pistachio sponge cake he planned to attempt tomorrow or reviewing the diagram of the competition kitchen he’d received in an email attachment earlier this evening.
Not on a coffee run.
Twenty minutes later, he watched a decidedly perkier Brandi pace the length of her living room. She’d changed into black velvet pants and a silky top in a flattering shade of green. A hint of strategically placed makeup gave her pretty face just the right amount of color.
Taste for Temptation (Kimani Hotties) Page 8