Hearing the executive use her real name still gave her the willies. William Clayton’s true strength was in the newspaper world, but he had contacts in most industries. Las Vegas resorts lived and breathed through advertising. Still, it had felt empowering to use her given name. She was through hiding behind fake names and fear. She was a capable, smart woman, and she was stronger than she’d believed.
Strong enough to walk away from the man she loved.
Strong enough to stand and fight for the life she wanted.
“Yes, but there are other challenges. New guests to engage, new game and loyalty programs. I have some ideas,” she said, and reached into her bag to pull a manila folder from the depths.
She talked over her plans with Anderson for a solid hour, and as the time ticked by, Miranda felt more and more confident. After a lifetime of trying to prove herself worthy of being a part of Clayton, and nearly nine months working for Connor, she’d found what she loved to do. It wasn’t researching and launching new magazines, it was the challenge of design. Getting the wording exactly right for a campaign.
Anderson stood and held out his hand. “I like your ideas, Ms. Clayton. When can you start?”
Miranda couldn’t hold back the grin that spread across her face. “How about Monday morning?”
“We’ll be waiting,” he said. He walked with her to the elevator, indicating where she should report on her first day, and promised to have a courier deliver her contract with the casino before the weekend.
Miranda pressed the elevator button. “Thank you, Mr. Anderson.”
The older man nodded, and as she stepped on to the elevator, he left. Once the doors closed and she was alone, Miranda clapped her hands and spun in a circle. She’d done it. She’d landed a job that she wanted all by herself. No friend in human resources. No murky lies about who she was. She’d gone in as Unemployed Miranda Clayton and she was walking out as Employed Miranda Clayton.
She handed her valet slip to the car jockey and waited in the vestibule. A few minutes later, the valet returned with her keys and motioned her through the door. She stopped cold on the hot concrete. Leaning against her car was a tall man with dark blond hair and a mouth she knew was the most kissable mouth in the world. He slid his sunglasses off his face, and his blue eyes caused her heart to skip a beat.
“Connor. What are you doing here?”
“Waiting for you,” he said. He straightened and held out his hand. “Do you want to walk?”
No. Yes. Miranda nodded. She handed the keys back to the valet and asked him to park it once more.
“How did the interview go?” Connor asked once they were out of the parking area. They crossed to a sidewalk that ran a circuitous route through the garden and pool area of the hotel.
“How did you know I was here?”
“Lila. And before you write her off, I used my influence as her employer to get her to tell me where you might be today. I wanted to give you something.”
“Another flash drive?” she asked drily.
Connor grimaced. “Just this,” he said, and handed her a plain, white envelope.
Miranda opened it and stopped walking. “You’re giving me fifteen percent of my father’s company?”
He nodded. “I started the buyout after you left that day, and I realized this week that I didn’t want it. Any of it. I like my business the way it is right now. Profitable, but small and growing. We might someday be as large as Clayton Holdings, but I don’t need to buy him out to save Reeves Pub.”
“I don’t want it.” She handed the envelope back to him. “Thanks, but no thanks.”
“I don’t want it, either.”
“Why?” She didn’t know why she asked the question. Miranda swallowed.
“Because you should have it. Not because you’re his daughter, and not because you chose to stand by Reeves Pub instead of Clayton Holdings, but because there was a little girl who went to visit her father at his office once. She saw him working on files and ordering people around, and she thought, ‘Hey, maybe I can do that one day, too.’ He didn’t believe in her, but I do. Fifteen percent won’t give you much of a say in the company, but it’s a start.”
Miranda felt the wall she’d built around her heart these past couple of weeks crack. “Connor.”
“If you really don’t want it, sell it. It’ll make a nice nest egg for you. Or give it away. Whatever you want to do with it, you should do it.”
Under a maple tree, Miranda stopped. She opened the envelope and read the paper again, then flipped to the second page where she could see the value of the shares. “You should keep it.”
“It isn’t for me. I don’t think it was ever for me, although I couldn’t have admitted that back when I convinced Jase and Gage we needed to start a hostile takeover.” She held the envelope out to him, but Connor put his hands in his pockets. He led her to a bench just off the brick walkway, and they sat. “I love you, Miranda, and I’m sorry I ever asked you to side with me against your father. That wasn’t fair.”
“You saw an opportunity to get ahead, and you took it. You don’t have to pretty that up with talk about love.” Her eyes felt tight, and she blinked. “I’m a grown woman; I know how these things work.”
“Then could you explain it to me? Because I’ve been miserable since the day you walked out of my life.”
She couldn’t believe him. She couldn’t. He’d used her once before, and if growing up a Clayton had taught her anything, it was that people in power never stopped abusing it. “Don’t say that.”
“Why? It’s the truth. I didn’t intend to fall in love with you. That day I found out about the new health plan, I was going to use that as a reason to fire you. But I couldn’t do it. Not because I knew your last name was Clayton, but because I’d started to figure out who Miranda was. Miranda is a woman who can’t figure out a coffee pot, but who can design a newspaper layout in a matter of hours. Miranda is a woman who bets the greens on the roulette table, and who researches the hell out of an eco-friendly tourism magazine. She people watches because she likes to see people in love, and she wears high heels that defy gravity, and she’s got the best pair of legs I’ve ever seen in my life. She gets excited about a bunch of petroglyphs in the desert and squeals when she rides a four-wheeler. She steals the blankets when we’re sleeping and can make a pair of feathered flip flops look amazing with a formal dress.”
She held up her hand. “Stop.”
“She belongs in Las Vegas, and even if she doesn’t want me any longer, she’ll always be in my heart.”
Miranda looked at the envelope in her hands. He was giving her fifteen percent of a company she had dreamed of running her entire life. And now that she had it, she didn’t want it. She didn’t want to be tied to Clayton Holdings. She wanted her own life, her own profession.
The interview today was the first step toward that. When she’d lied to get the job with Connor, she’d thought that was the first step, but that was just trying to prove to her father that she could do what he wouldn’t let her do. If she took the shares, she was right back where she had started. Tied to Denver.
“I want you to sell them.” She handed the envelope back to Connor, and when he didn’t take it, she let it fall to the ground. “Sell them and give the proceeds to a women’s shelter. One with programs to help women get back on their feet and that provides work clothing. They have programs that help homeless women get back on their feet, and provide work clothing. That’s what I want these shares to do.”
“You can set it up.”
“And I want you to call it the Helena Reeves Scholarship. I didn’t know your mother, but I’d like to think that she would like that. Because as many times as she left, she always came back.”
Connor folded the envelope over in his hands and finally put it in his pocket. “Okay.” He stood and ran his fingers over her jaw. Miranda closed her eyes and basked in the touch. God, she’d missed him. “I’m sorry, Miranda,” he said after a long moment.
“Me, too.”
Connor started walking, and Miranda panicked. She couldn’t let him go. She knew she should, but now that he was here, she couldn’t.
“I’ve always wanted a place to belong,” she blurted, and Connor stopped. He pivoted and froze. “I never felt like I belonged, not until I came to Las Vegas. In Denver, I had to work so hard just to get a nod. Not a nod of approval, but a nod that said they had noticed what I’d done. It made me feel so small.” She took a breath, stood, and walked to Connor. “You never made me feel as if I didn’t belong. Not even when you doubted why I’d taken the job with your company.”
“I figured the best way to get you to drop your guard was to act as if you’d always been at the paper. After you’d been there a while, even when you were still burning the coffee, it was as if you had always been there. Like you belonged there.”
Miranda’s heart stuttered in her chest. He loved her. He’d said the words, but until that moment, she hadn’t really believed that he meant them.
“I never thought I would find the place that I belonged in a desert filled with petroglyphs and neon. It’s just too surreal. But I do belong here, and I want to stay here.”
He put his hands in his pockets. “Then stay. You can come back to the newspaper, or you can deal roulette at a casino, or you can figure out something else entirely. But stay, Miranda, with me.”
“I already have a job. I start on Monday.” She watched him for a moment. “I don’t not want to work for you. But I feel like I need to make my own way. Outside of newspapering, away from my father.”
“Away from me?” he asked.
Miranda shook her head. “Not in the way you mean. As much as I belong in Las Vegas, Connor Reeves, I belong with you. Wherever you are, that is where I want to be. But I need to have my own space, too.”
“You can have all the space you need. Just come home with me, tonight and every night.” He took his hands out of his pockets, and drew her to him. “I love you, Miranda.”
She reached up on her tiptoes and caressed his lips with her own. “I love you, too.”
Connor deepened the kiss, and below the maple tree, in the middle of the desert, Miranda finally found her home.
More from This Author
What the Bachelor Gets
Kristina Knight
Callie Holliday cleared the memory on her calculator and began inputting the same numbers she had punched in at least five times this morning. They still added up to a paltry seventy dollars and change.
Crap.
“Mandy, what do you have for focus, wisdom, and strength?” she called through her open office door to her only employee.
In addition to being a damn fine masseuse, Mandy was a firm believer in all things woo-woo. Crystals, incense, candles. Just a few weeks before, Callie had attended what Mandy called a ritual burning—she took all the pictures of her jerk of an ex-boyfriend into the desert, set up a stone circle, and burned every last image. Callie had come along for moral support and found herself wishing she could do the same with her lying, cheating ex-husband, Eddie. But she’d sacrificed enough for Eddie—both when they were together and when she left Philadelphia with only her clothes and her car. She wasn’t sacrificing anything else on the man. Today, though, she needed a little of the woo-woo that had left Mandy so peaceful that night in the desert.
In just under an hour she had a meeting with an angel funding group that might be interested in investing in her upstart day spa. If she didn’t get the money, she could kiss her business dreams good-bye.
She joined Mandy at the front desk as Mandy rummaged in a filing cabinet drawer and came up with three bottles and two burners. She dribbled several teaspoons of lavender into one bowl, crushed something flaky into another, set a bottle of water to the side, and then lit the tiny tea light candles under the lavender and flaky substance.
“Lavender for focus.” Mandy pointed to the bluish liquid that was beginning to simmer, and then pointed to the flaky mixture in another bowl. “Sage for strength.” The scents mingled and, along with the Chinese flute CD playing in the background, helped Callie shake off the nerves that hit when she rolled out of bed this morning, and had continued to worsen as the morning wore on.
“What about that one?” She pointed to the water bottle.
“Regular water, in case the sage does more than smoke.”
Callie chuckled. “Don’t tempt the fates; we don’t need any more bad luck around here.”
She closed her eyes and concentrated on the scents until the vultures flapping in her belly calmed. It would be okay. Yes, every bank within a fifty-mile radius of Vegas had turned down her loan application, but angel funding was different. These investors banked on entrepreneurial ingenuity as much as they banked on business plans. Although a solid plan was mandatory. She had the plan. She had the experience. She just needed a little luck—or maybe some good juju—to get her life back on track.
Forty-five minutes later, Callie sat calmly outside the wide oak doors leading to her future. At least, she hoped they would lead to the future she saw in her mind. And she hoped she looked calm. Even in temperature-controlled seventy-six degrees, she was sweating inside her lightweight Donna Karan suit. She crossed her legs and wiggled her ankle to quiet her tapping foot that echoed off the Travertine-tile floor. She scored a quick fifty-three points on the word game on her phone. Nervously skimmed a couple of emails. Deleted the spam. Opened a puzzle app but couldn’t focus. Apparently Mandy’s lavender-and-sage mixture had worn off already.
The clock on the wall ticked off a few more seconds. It was fifteen minutes past the time the funding board was supposed to invite her inside to pitch her day spa to them.
She dropped the phone into her lap, ordering her mind to focus on the meeting. She needed to be poised and ready, not distracted.
Seventy dollars in her bank account. Thousand-dollar rent due in less than a week. Her personal savings were just as uninteresting. Callie believed in her business, so much that she’d asked the bank for a second mortgage on her pretty little condo in Henderson but was told she didn’t have enough equity for the loan. The vultures in her stomach began beating again. She had zero savings, no property of value.
She had no options left.
Her cell chirped, and she jumped. Luckily, the receptionist didn’t seem to notice. Callie glanced at the screen.
You can do this. Knock ’em dead.
Optimistic Mandy, at it again.
But her vote of confidence made Callie straighten her spine. She took a deep breath and tried to channel Mandy’s burning lavender and sage. Lavender for focus. Sage for strength.
Still waiting. Kill me now.
She texted back.
Not before payday.
Callie grinned, hearing Mandy’s deadpan voice on that last line. Mandy was right; she could do this. She might not have the resources of a global gambling chain, but she knew her business. Knew how to cater to wealthy vacationers. She hadn’t knocked out a cum laude degree from Wharton or come back to Vegas to fail now.
She loved everything about Vegas, even the neon-lit Strip that drove many of the locals crazy.
She took another deep breath, drinking in the imagined scent and envisioning signing her name on the signature line of the funding agreement.
The golden hands of the clock on the wall ticked off another minute, and still there was no movement behind the oak door. No movement at the front desk, either, although the receptionist, with her muted-grey silk suit and her hair pulled back into a classic French twist, sporadically answered calls in a hushed and cultured voice. Callie imagined the woman wore square-toed, square-heeled pumps. The receptionist had stopped looking in Callie’s direction ten minutes before. Did that mean they were skipping her application? That she wouldn’t even have a chance to plead her case? That this long wait would end in another resounding no and an escort to the sidewalk?
Callie swallowed and pushed the negative thoughts
out of her mind. To solidify the good juju she was trying desperately to channel, she set her phone to vibrate and hid it in the bottom of her bag. No more distractions, not even well-intentioned texts from her assistant. She pulled out the file holding copies of her business plan and skimmed over the bullet points.
The big problem was her off-Strip location, an issue she’d gambled on when signing the damn lease. She’d been confident in her services, and the pricing schedule, and had very little choice because rentals on the Strip went for at least double what the off-Strip location charged. The first couple of months were fine, but then another spa opened a few blocks closer to the Strip, and her tiny clientele nearly vanished. Now there was just the odd walk-in—many of whom were looking for more than a massage.
She shook her shoulders. Past was past, done was done. She’d signed the lease, so there was nothing to be done about the business location now; she had to get the funding or her dream of owning a classy, top-flight Vegas spa would dry up like the desert. She could kiss her pretty little condo in Henderson good-bye, too, because the bank would take it back.
Her father had always dreamed the name Holliday would be big in Vegas. Callie had no illusions that a spa was the same as a big casino or resort, but it was her dream, and it had started with all the fantasies her father wove about turning their small ranch into the cornerstone of a big hotel chain. Holliday Spas. Sweat beaded on her upper lip, and Callie swiped at it with a tissue from the box on the coffee table.
She would not lose her condo, her business, or the one foothold she had in Las Vegas now that her parents had left to begin a retirement filled with RVing around North America.
The receptionist rose from behind the massive desk and clacked her way across the tile floor to stand before Callie. No square-heeled, square-toed pumps. Five-inch platform heels.
“Follow me.” The woman didn’t wait, but continued across the vestibule and opened the doors.
What the Heiress Wants Page 17