Going All the Way (Kiss the Bride #1)

by Cynthia Cooke

  The phone rang and she hurried to it, hoping it was Ryan.

  It was Stu.

  She didn’t answer, but let the machine pick it up.

  “Hi Carrie. I was hoping you’d had a chance to look at that file.” His voice softened. “It would mean the world to me.”

  The line disconnected.

  For a second, she considered calling him back and telling him her ideas, but she wanted to tell them to Ryan first. She wanted him to know she’d taken his advice, that she wanted to help him. He told her to focus on her art and forget the rest, and that’s exactly what she’d done, letting her mind wander free, and she’d loved it. But most of all, she wanted to tell him how sorry she was and if he was willing, maybe they could start again.

  She continued to wait for any sound from next door that told her Ryan had come home.

  But he never did. And the longer she waited, the more she began to feel like a first class fool. How’d she let herself get into this mess? She knew better than to let herself care for someone again. She tried not to, tried to keep him at a distance. But it hadn’t worked. She just hadn’t expected to care about him so much, and so soon. Obviously, she was worse off than she’d thought.

  …

  Ryan found a doggie hotel for Riley at a local pet store and the poor guy hated every moment of it. Ryan couldn’t blame him. He hated to do it, but had no choice. He stayed away from the duplex most of the weekend, working instead at the office. They were finally making progress on the Costas account, and it was such a relief. It was time to move on from this job, from this town. From Carrie. He had to. The fact that she didn’t tell him she was married to Stu bothered him more than he cared to admit. Somehow he’d let his defenses down with this woman, and he’d managed to get sideswiped. He overreacted, he knew that, but only because he’d allowed himself to think they had something more than they did. Not her fault, his. He broke his number one rule—no attachments. Relationships didn’t last, and they caused more distractions and trouble than they were worth. He knew that. He’d just forgotten with this one.

  He’d apologize, see if she wouldn’t mind taking care of Riley for the rest of the week, and pretend their relationship never happened. Once he got past the presentation on Friday, he would close the door on this account, on her and San Francisco, pack up Riley and his things and move on to greener pastures. It was his standard Modus Operandi and it sounded like a good plan.

  He walked out the front door with a trash bag in hand, ready to collect his garbage cans from the street, and then go apologize to Carrie when he heard her on the phone. He looked up and saw her pulling her cans down the driveway wearing tight-fitting yoga pants and a sports bra. He sucked in a breath, and told himself it was okay to admire the package, but that was all. Shouldn’t be a problem to keep his distance, to stay emotionally detached—until her words reached him and all the hurt came rushing back.

  “Stu, I realize what you’re saying. I just don’t want to go back there. Yes, I have some ideas. Yes, I understand. And I appreciate that, I really do.” She turned and saw him standing there. “I got to go. I’ll talk to you later.” She disconnected the call.

  “Don’t hang up on my account,” he said, but the truth was, her talking to Stu bothered him more than it should have. He took a step toward the driveway and his cans.

  She paused, stopping him. “Ryan, I’ve been wanting to talk to you, but I haven’t seen you all weekend.”

  “I know. Things got a little crazy. I spent most of the weekend at work.”

  “I wanted to apologize. I know I should have told you about Stu, and I’m sorry.”

  He took a deep breath. “No need to apologize, really. You didn’t have to tell me anything. I shouldn’t have gotten so upset. It was no big deal.”

  “He wants my help with the account, and I do have some ideas—“

  “That’s great. I’m sure he’d love to hear them.” He was wrong. He couldn’t do this. Couldn’t go back to the easy banter they had before. Couldn’t ask her to watch Riley when he needed to stay away, to keep his distance. Warning lights were flashing in his mind.

  Don’t go there. Don’t let your guard down. Move on. He started to walk away.

  She touched his arm, stopping him once more. “Truthfully, I’m not interested in what Stu thinks. I wanted to share my ideas with you. Your opinion matters to me.”

  This surprised him, and touched something inside, making him feel better than it should have. He considered it for a moment and then thought better of it. He needed to keep up his defenses. “Listen, I’m really swamped and need to get into the office. We have our presentation on Friday, but I guess you already know that. I’m sorry, but I need to focus on my project right now, and this account.”

  Her expression hardened. “Why are you acting like this?” She followed him up the driveway. “I thought we had something good going.”

  He turned back to her. “We did.” Too good. “But I was reminded that I need to focus on this account and get it wrapped up. Like I said, I’m not here for very long. I have to get back to work free of distractions. I’m sure you can understand that.”

  “You’re leaving?” she asked, a tremor in her voice.

  “On Friday, we sink or swim. Either way, my job at Steinhem will be done. I wish you the best.” He turned and continued up the driveway and toward his garbage cans, but not before he saw the hurt and disappointment in her eyes. It pulled at his gut and twisted up his insides, but he had to stay strong and stick to his convictions. He would be gone by the end of the week and this moment would be no more than an uncomfortable memory. She’d be better off if she went back to Stu anyway. They obviously still had something going. Besides, he had a decision to make about his dad and the company.

  So he shouldn’t have been surprised or disappointed when, an hour later, he saw Carrie walk into the bullpen at Steinhem Company wearing one of the executive suits he’d seen hanging in her closet. Her hair was pulled back in a sleek knot at her neck, her make-up and jewelry screaming high-end exec. He never would have guessed she was the same woman who had wrestled a wet, sudsy dog to the ground.

  He couldn’t take his eyes off of her. Seeing her like this made him wonder what she must have thought when he’d asked her to dog-sit Riley, as if she had nothing better to do. As if her time wasn’t as important as his. He cringed inside. No wonder she was there. He told her to take her ideas to Stu, and apparently she was. So why did it bother him so much?

  He watched her until she disappeared inside Stu’s office. Was she coming back to work? Would she tell Stu about them? Would it matter if she did? He tried to put her out of his mind, but couldn’t. He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her, the hurt in her eyes that morning. He shouldn’t have let himself care. That had been his first mistake. Not finding out more about her was his second, and his biggest. So how was he going to get her out of his head now?

  Maybe he wouldn’t. Maybe he was destined to spend his life wondering, what if? Even Riley had been sulking in the backyard all weekend, lying next to the fence with his head on his paws, waiting to hear some sound from her. He was truly pathetic. Ryan was going to have a talk with him about getting too attached to beautiful women.

  He opened the files on his computer, but before he could get settled Carrie walked out of Stu’s door. His eyes lingered on her pencil skirt, not too long, not too short, with the perfect amount of tight. A silk blouse and dark jacket. She looked…perfect for the corporate world. Though he preferred the yoga pants.

  She moved slowly toward his group, her gaze sliding over each of them. Assessing. Calculating. If he didn’t already know better, there was no way he would believe she was the same woman he’d made love to a few days before. She gave the term Ice Princess new meaning—calm, cool, collected, and judgmental.

  She glanced toward him, her beautiful eyes passing over him as if he weren’t there, as if she hadn’t know him intimately. He sighed.

  They wouldn�
�t have worked anyway. He wasn’t long-term relationship material, and she wasn’t a casual thing kind of girl. It would be better if he didn’t see her again. If she would turn around and walk out the door.

  But as rational and logical as all that sounded, it wasn’t what he wanted. He had to be practical. She had gotten under his skin. He needed to get a handle on it, and if he couldn’t, he needed to spend as little time with her as possible. Hopefully this visit with Stu would be her last. No sooner did he have the thought than she stopped inside the bullpen with Stu by her side.

  “Everyone, I’d like you to meet Carrie Steinhem,” Stu said, getting everyone’s attention. He stared at Ryan for a long contemplative moment. Long enough that Ryan became certain she’d said something to him about them. “Carrie is going to be coming on board to help us with the Costas account.”

  You could have heard a pin drop. Ryan’s stomach tightened.

  “Some of you might remember Carrie from a few years back. We built this company together, and I can assure you, she is the best. She’s our secret weapon that’s going to put Steinhem back on the map. I want all of you to make her feel welcome and to understand that she’s in charge. Whatever she wants, whatever she says, goes. You got that?”

  “Yes, sir,” Ryan mumbled along with everyone else. No one looked happy.

  “All right, let’s meet in fifteen minutes in the board room and show her what we’ve got,” Stu said, and then led her to one of the outer ring offices.

  Ryan stood rooted to his spot. Great. The woman he wanted to forget, to stay away from, the woman he couldn’t stop thinking about…was now his boss.

  Chapter Thirteen

  After Ryan left that morning, hurt and angry, Carrie pulled out one of her business outfits, got dressed and drove to Steinhem. Ryan was right. Why should she share her work, her ideas, with him? He never asked for them. Stu did. All Ryan wanted from her was a little sex and for her to watch his dog. At least Stu appreciated and respected her work. She enjoyed working on this account, and she was looking forward to sharing her ideas. And if he didn’t like it? Too bad. She parked in a nearby garage then walked into the offices. It had been a long time since she’d entered this building, but George the doorman still remembered her.

  “Good morning, Ms. Steinhem,” he greeted.

  “Good morning, George.” She smiled and walked through the lobby to the elevators without even the slightest twinge. Without the urge to turn-tail and run. Maybe she could come back to work here. Just for this one account. If she could convince Stu to let her do things her way. She pushed through a heavy wooden door into the receptionist’s area and walked across plush carpet.

  “May I help you?” the young blonde asked from behind a tall U-shaped desk.

  “Yes, tell Stu that Carrie is on her way.”

  “But…” The young woman tried to stop her, but Carrie wasn’t going to sit in the waiting room. She wanted to see the place she helped Stu create. To see what had changed, and what stayed the same. She blazed through the double doors and into the bullpen—a large circle of cubicles with the walls at mid-length to encourage team building and the sharing of ideas. A wall of windows filled the entire length of the room with natural light.

  Faces turned her way—some in curiosity, some in recognition. The few who knew her raised their hands in greeting or called out her name. She smiled and nodded, but kept moving through the pen toward the outer ring of offices and Stu’s corner executive suite. She didn’t see Ryan, but didn’t want to appear overly obvious looking for him either. She wondered if he saw her, and if he did, what he thought about her being there. If he even cared.

  “Carrie, I’m so glad you’re here,” Stu said, popping out his tall heavy doorway before she even reached his office. “Have you read the file?”

  “Yes,” she said, following him inside his office. With one last look around the room, she shut the door behind her.

  Stu dropped into the worn, maroon leather chair behind the massive mahogany desk and smiled. “Good, I’m glad I can still inspire you.”

  Ryan had inspired her, but no reason to tell him that. “Well, I wouldn’t go that far.” She sat across from him and admired the striking view of the San Francisco skyline.

  “I’m relieved you’re here,” he admitted.

  “So tell me, what do you think happened with Pepsi?” she asked, wanting to get a little background on what was going wrong with the company.

  “We don’t seem to be hitting the mark. That’s why I need you back. Why we need you back.”

  “You can butter me up all you want, but I haven’t decided if I’m staying to help. I’m just here to listen. To see what the others have come up with and to share some ideas I’ve had of my own.”

  “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that,” Stu said.

  “But I’ll only stay and help you on one condition.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I work from home.”

  “How are you going to work with the team if you’re at home?”

  “Easy. I’ll meet with them once, hear what ideas they come up with, and then I’m on my own. They work up theirs, I’ll work up mine, we’ll come back together on Wednesday, get a consensus, pick one and run with it.”

  “The presentation is on Friday.” He frowned and tapped on his desk, concerned.

  She was tempted to relent, to do it his way for this one week, but if she gave in on this she’d find herself giving in again next week or on the next account—if she decided to stay that long. She had to be strong, and damn it felt good to do it. She stiffened her back. “Those are my terms. It’s the only way I’ll help out.”

  He leaned back in his chair and stared out the window for a moment, contemplating her demands. “All right. If that’s the way it has to be, then let’s do it. Half of you is better than none of you. Are you ready to meet your team?”

  Was she ready to jump back into the fire? To face Ryan? This wasn’t about him, she told herself. She wanted to work on this account, with or without him. Reading that file sparked a flame inside her, and she wanted to see how far she could take it. “Absolutely.”

  “Great. Here are the feedback reports from the focus groups.” He pushed the files across the desk toward her. “Let’s go introduce you. I’ll tell the team to meet you in the conference room in fifteen minutes. That enough time to go through everything?”

  “Should work.”

  Carrie sat in the conference room going over the reports on the Costas account, crunching numbers as one after another as her new team walked in. She glanced up at each, but tried to not look directly at Ryan. She was still hurt over his dismissal of her that morning. All weekend long, she hadn’t been able to get him out of her mind, thinking about his smile, his touch, about how easy it had been for him to work his way into her heart and her life. But then he walked away. He never even gave her the chance to fully explain, or for things to cool enough between them to have a logical, rational discussion. He just cut her off completely. What kind of person could do that?

  And worse, he wasn’t even interested in her help with the Costas account. Could care less what she’d come up with or what she had to say. It was as if her thoughts weren’t relevant, and didn’t matter. But they did. And soon he would see that.

  Once everyone was seated, she started right in with her findings on the campaign. “Preliminary polls show viewers do not like the new ads.”

  Everyone in the room was silent for a long moment.

  “What sells chips better than a group of guys watching football?” one of the team members asked.

  “Your name?” she asked, jotting down a brief note in her notebook.

  “Mike,” he said, and then saw her writing and zipped up, sitting stiffly in his seat.

  “Yeah, hot girls in the kitchen, filling up bowls of chips,” another added.

  She looked at him, her eyebrows raised.

  “Paul,” he said.

  “All right. Let�
��s see if we can keep the comments productive,” Ryan said, obviously trying to rein his men in. Something Stu should have done. “The team is obviously disappointed by the feedback.” He turned to Carrie. “We’ve been working on this account for a while. What else do you have for us?”

  She gave him a cool look. “Ninety percent of the female viewers shot them down as boring. Redundant. Out of touch.” She glanced at her notes. “As you are all aware, it is our female viewers that do the bulk of the food buying. This is the audience we need to target.”

  “Then what do you suggest?” another of the team demanded, distaste twisting his square face.

  She was beginning to remember why she was so insistent on working from home.

  “We need something fresh,” she said. “Something different. What’s the message you’re trying to send? Ask yourselves, how does eating Costas Chips make you feel?”

  “How do they make us feel? Are you kidding?” Mike asked then burst into laughter. “What is this, a therapy session?”

  Carrie focused on keeping her expression blank. No reason to feed the animals.

  “Okay, so women don’t want to see the guys watching football. What do they want to see? How about women doing…” Ryan paused. “Perhaps we focus on family.”

  “Or women getting their nails done?” Paul suggested.

  “How about a baby shower?” Mike added.

  “All right, that’s enough,” Stu said throwing down his pencil.