by Cara Colter
He took a deep breath, scrolled through to her information and added it to his contact information. He hesitated and pressed the green phone symbol.
She wouldn’t answer. She was in the middle of—
“Hello?” Her voice was breathless.
He had the renegade thought he would like to make her breathless in quite a different way. It nearly made him end the call, because what the hell did a thought like that have to do with honoring her father by helping her out a bit? But there was no placing an anonymous call these days, so he sucked it up.
“Can’t get the taste of your cookies out of my head,” he said.
Funny that thinking about taste made a vision of her lips pop into his mind.
“I try to warn people,” she said. “Spells and enchantment.”
He thought of her lips again! That must be it. He was spellbound. Now would be a great time to tell her he had pocket-dialed.
“Aside from my charity function, I thought we should talk about the possibility of you supplying my office staff room. And meetings.”
She was silent.
“Bree?”
“It’s very kind, but—”
There was suddenly a great deal of noise.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “it’s intermission. I’m going to have to—”
“Meet with me next week.”
“Um—”
Geez! He was offering her a huge opportunity here. What was the problem? While the rest of the world was yapping at his heels wanting things from him, she was resistant—the lone exception.
“I’ll be in the office all day Wednesday,” he said smoothly, “if you want to drop by and we’ll figure out the details.”
Again there was hesitation, and then she asked, “Around ten a.m.?”
“Perfect. My office is—”
“I know. It’s in the article.”
“The damn article,” he said.
She rewarded him with that laugh, soft, like a brook gurgling over rocks. “Okay. Wednesday at ten. Dear Lord.”
“What?”
“Crystal Silvers is walking toward me. Good grief. She hardly has any clothes on.”
And then she was gone. Brand stared at his phone. “Beau?”
The dog lifted his head and gave him a watery-eyed look.
“You’re an expert on all things stinky. I stink at relationships, right?”
The dog laid his head back down with a groan as if there was no point in having bothered him with such a self-evident question.
“That’s what I thought. I’m putting on my big-brother shirt.”
He remembered the refreshing innocence about her. Crystal Silvers had been walking toward her, the chance of a lifetime, possibly, and she focused on the no-clothes-on part.
Innocent in a world that was fast. Old-fashioned in a world that could be slick. Real in a world that distracted with shock.
So, she needed a bit of coaching. His offer to get her under contract to supply his office was perfect. Of course, he could have left the details up to his office manager, but this way he would be able to check up on her a little bit, and make sure some great business opportunities came her way. And maybe, subtly, move her in the direction of happiness, which she so richly deserved.
“Not that I’m any expert on happily-ever-after,” he muttered.
The dog wagged his stump of a tail in approval. One thing that both Brand and Beau knew was that Brand was not cut out for relationships. Brand’s father had abandoned him and his mother. At six he had become the man of the family. He’d been there for his mom, and he still was, but he was pretty damn sure that his father’s genetics ran strong through his blood.
“Ask Wendy,” he said out loud.
The dog’s tail stopped thumping, no doubt a coincidence, but still Beau and Wendy had never seen eye-to-eye. It had been okay when Brand was just seeing her, as he had been exclusively for two years.
But then, she’d moved in. You thought you knew a person until they took down your Elvis posters and replaced them with original works of abstract art. He’d had to rescue the cookie jar from the garbage. People as svelte as Wendy did not let cookies touch their lips.
Within twenty-four hours, she was planning a Christmas extravaganza. Here. In their home. In their private space. She thought they could easily host two hundred people!
Thankfully, in short order, Beau had chewed through the sofa she had brought with her, a ridiculous antique thing that wasn’t even comfortable. Next on the menu had been three pairs of her shoes, imported from Italy. For dessert, Beau had eaten her Gucci wallet, with her credit cards in it. All that had been left was three gooey strands of leather and one slimy half of her Gold card.
She had said, “It’s the dog or me.”
He’d paid for the wallet and shoes and sofa, and chosen the dog. But in his heart he knew it wasn’t really about the dog. It was about being unsuitable for the kind of cozy domestic future she was envisioning. It had all been great when he could pick her up at her house, and take her out to dinner or a function, without her cosmetics and hair products all over his bathroom counter.
Something in him had already been itching to move on, three days after she’d moved in. He was pretty sure he would have got out of it, one way or another, way before the Christmas extravaganza, just as his father had done.
After Wendy’s departure from his home and his life, Brand put the Elvis posters back up. The Elvis memorabilia had been his mother’s pride and joy. Her suite in the seniors home had not been able to accommodate even a fraction of her collection. Always emotionally fragile, she’d gone into hysterics trying to decide what she could keep and what she could part with.
Another reason for a rather large house in Shaughnessy.
Okay, it wasn’t the most pragmatic reason to buy a house. But when he picked up his mother on Sunday afternoons and brought her to his home, she was so happy to see it. Somehow, having them around him, reminded him of exactly what he came from. And that might be the most important lesson not to forget.
As if on cue, his phone went off—it was the quacking ringtone he reserved for his mom, a private joke between them. He glanced at the clock. Late. He could feel himself tensing ever so slightly.
“Hi, Mom.”
“There was a movie tonight,” she told him. “Abracadabra. Have you seen it?”
“No, I heard it was good, though. Tell me about it.” The tension left him as her happy voice described the movie.
* * *
It was, Bree told herself firmly as she glanced at her wavering image in the polished steel elevator cage that was whisking her up to the forty-third floor, a second chance to make a first impression. Technically, her third chance, if she counted the prom.
Even though she was going to pitch a cookie contract to Brand’s office, there was no cookie beret today and no quilted apron.
Something in his voice when he had called her offering her the contract had given her pause. It was why she had hesitated. Did he consider her a charity that would benefit from his generosity? It was as if he had relegated her to a perpetual little-sister position in his life. No doubt he had done the same the night of the prom! No wonder he had refused her lips that night. Not that she was offering her lips today. Or even letting her mind wander in that direction.
No, today, Breanna Evans was erasing cute from his impression of her, erasing a cookie beret and a quilted apron. Today, she was going to be one-hundred-percent professional. Polished. Pure business.
And grown up!
Even the night of the gala, when he had pronounced her all grown up, it seemed to her now, in retrospect, it was something said to a thirteen-year-old that you had last seen when she was ten.
Toward this goal, Bree had dug deep into her resources and purchased a stunning deep red, bordering on burgu
ndy, Chloë Angus hooded cloak to wear over her one and only business suit, a nondescript pantsuit in a color that might be best described as oatmeal. The cloak made her hair, piled up on top of her head in an ultrasophisticated look, seem like sun-kissed sand.
Then, to compound the insanity, she had bought a matching pair of heels. The shoes made her look quite a bit taller than she really was, and hopefully, more powerful, somehow, like a busy CEO. She wasn’t quite as graceful in them as she wanted to be, but she wasn’t planning on running a marathon wearing them, either—she just wanted to make a crucial impression.
The one to erase all other impressions.
“CEO,” she muttered to herself in the elevator, and then more firmly said, “Chief executive officer. Who got a contract to provide Crystal Silvers with five thousand cookies for her birthday blow-out? You! That’s who!”
She hoped the elevator didn’t have security cameras that recorded sound. A security guard somewhere would be having a good laugh at her expense.
She was carrying two large, rectangular white bakery boxes of cookie samples, which she always took, as a gift, when she was pitching an office contract. Unfortunately, the samples would not fit into a briefcase. Or maybe that was fortunate: who knows what kind of money she would have spent on that power item?
The elevator stopped. Despite her pep talk to herself, her heart fell to the pointy toes of her new red shoes. She considered just riding back down. She felt overcome by nerves, despite all the money she had spent trying to shore up her confidence with the beautiful, subtle raven-imprinted cloak.
But when the doors whispered open on the penthouse floor of one of Vancouver’s most exclusive downtown office towers, Bree took a deep breath and forced herself to be brave. The world did not reward cowardice after all!
She stepped out into a gorgeous foyer, and her feet sank into a deep carpet. Hard surfaces would have been so much better for the heels! The lighting was low, and she noted two white leather sofas facing each other. Beyond them was a receptionist desk, currently empty of a receptionist, in some kind of exotic wood. On the far wall, to the right of the elevator, a stone wall had water trickling down its face, and was embossed with shining, wet gold letters that announced she was at the right place, BSW Solutions.
It looked like a solid wall behind the receptionist’s desk, but then a sliver of light appeared in it, and Bree realized there was a door hidden in the wall. It pushed open a little more, swinging out into the room.
And then it was flung back with such force that the door hit the wall. Bree took a startled step back just as a monster shot out the door and galloped toward her! Her surprised mind grappled with the fact it was a dog. Not just any dog, but the largest one she had ever seen. He was brindle-colored with a head the size of a pumpkin. He was dragging a leash, and slobber was flying from his mouth as he covered the distance between them in three gigantic bounds.
Was he going to jump on her? Her own safety was not as paramount in her mind as the new cloak and her cookies.
She let out a little shriek and took a step back. Her heel caught in the extravagant pile of the carpet, and she lost her footing and dropped the cookies. She windmilled her arms, trying to stay upright, but to no avail.
She fell on the floor and closed her eyes tightly, resigned to being killed by a beast in the luxurious foyer of Brand Wallace’s business. Why did nothing ever go quite as she planned it?
After a full second of anticipating her imminent death, nothing happened.
She opened an eye and sat up. The beast had skidded to a stop, and as she watched he nudged open the lid of a box and began to gobble up three dozen or so Spells Gone Wrong cookies.
“Beau!” The tone commanded the dog’s complete respect. He sat immediately at attention, eyes on his master, his cookie-encrusted muzzle the only evidence he had done anything untoward.
“Bree. Oh, my God, I’m so sorry.”
Brand was standing over her, his forehead puckered with concern, his eyes on her face. He reached down to her and his hand, strong and warm, closed around hers. He pulled her up and then he just stared at her, as if he’d never seen her before. Somehow, he forgot to let go of her hand.
He was dressed casually, far more so than he had been the night of the gala. He was wearing a jacket over a T-shirt, faded jeans and a nice pair of leather loafers with tassels on them.
The stunned look on his face made the Chloë Angus cloak and the shoes worth every penny of the investment.
“Are you okay?” he growled.
“Yes, I think so. Just in a bit of shock. You don’t expect, er, that in an office like this.”
“No, I know. I apologize. It’s unforgivable, really.”
“Brand,” she said firmly, “I could tell you a thing or two about unforgivable, and believe me—” she looked at the dog, comic in his contriteness “—he doesn’t even register.”
She was shocked she had said that, as if she was ready to share confidences from her sordid past with him, which she most certainly was not. His hand was still holding hers. That was the problem. She had just been attacked by a monster beast, but her hand in his made her feel safe and protected.
And about as far from a CEO as you could get!
“Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Positive, though I do think we have to stop meeting like this.”
He realized he was still holding her hand. He looked down at their joined hands with surprise, and then let go abruptly. He looked at his hand. He looked at her hair, and lifted his hand as if he was going to touch the scattered tendrils of what was left of her lovely upsweep. Then he looked at her cloak. It seemed as if he was debating whether or not he should be brushing her off, and then thought better of it. He jammed his hands in his pockets. Bree actually found herself smiling, and then chortling.
She could tell it took a lot to rattle Mr. Brand Wallace, but he was rattled now.
“This is not a laughing matter,” he told her sternly, and then looked to the dog. “Bad dog.”
The dog flinched at the reprimand, but then turned a repentant gaze to Bree. His stub of a tail thumped hopefully.
“It’s okay,” she told the dog. He came out of his seated position. His whole monstrous back end wiggled.
“It’s not!” Brand said. The dog sat back down.
Just then a breathless girl came out the door that both the dog and Brand had come through.
“Mr. Wallace, I’m so sorry. He’s never done that before! I was just bringing him in off the terrace, when he bolted. I just wasn’t expecting it. One minute I had the leash, and the next I didn’t.”
Brand looked really annoyed, despite the explanation. “Jennifer, he knocked over our guest.”
“No—no, he didn’t,” Bree said quickly. “He startled me and I took a step backward. I fell over all on my own.”
The girl was close to tears. It was obvious she had a bad case of hero worship for her boss and felt far more terrible that she had let him down than that their guest had taken a spill in the main foyer.
“I’m so sorry,” Jennifer said tremulously.
“I take the blame,” Bree said, still smiling. She picked up the open, and now empty, box of cookies and held it up. Spells Gone Wrong was clearly written across the lid. “Things always go off the rails whenever I make them. When it’s combined with Little Surprises, watch out!”
“Oh,” Jennifer said knowingly. “Cookies.”
“That dog could not have possibly smelled cookies through that door,” Brand said. “It’s impossible.”
He looked hard at his young employee, and seemed to realize she needed forgiveness. Nothing could be changed now. Unfortunately, Bree’s sense of him being somehow safe in a stormy world intensified when his tone softened as he addressed the girl.
“Cookies are his weakness. I’m afraid I give him the odd o
ne. Keep a firmer hold on him next time, Jenn.”
Jenn heard the next time and beamed. “He likes the vanilla Girl Guide cookies,” she told Bree. “Mr. Wallace has a closet full of them for the days he brings Beau to work with him.”
The girl’s attitude reminded Bree so much of Chelsea being altogether too revealing about Bree’s personal life that she laughed out loud. Brand—one of the most successful men in Vancouver’s business community—owned the world’s ugliest dog. And brought him to work with him. And fed him Girl Guide cookies.
“He probably won’t eat Girl Guide cookies ever again now,” Brand said woefully, looking at the empty box and the dog’s cookie-encrusted muzzle.
“I’ll take him, Mr. Wallace.”
“No, it’s okay, I’ve got him now. If you could look after this mess I’d appreciate it.” He stooped and picked up the leash, though it was probably entirely unnecessary. The dog was stuck to him like glue, as he leaned into his leg.
The dog made a moaning noise, as the mashed cookies were packed up, and Bree looked at him. He gave her a woebegone look that she could not resist. She got down on one knee in front of him.
“Don’t touch him,” Brand warned, too late. “He stinks.”
But she already had the dog’s big, wrinkly face between her hands. “Did you call him Beau?”
“He mostly answers to ‘bad dog,’” Brand offered, “but sometimes I call him Beau.”
“Beau,” she said softly. “You are not a bad dog. You have one of the most beautiful souls I’ve ever seen.”
The dog regarded her thoughtfully, and then his big, ugly chops spread into an unmistakable grin. His big tongue whipped out and removed most of her makeup before she could move her face away. She laughed, and stood back up, while wiping at her face with a corner of her brand-new cloak.
She stopped, aware Brand was staring at her.
“What?” she said.
He was looking at her with the oddest look.
As if he had found a treasure he had waited his whole life to find. A woman lived for a look like that.