You did blindside her, you know, his conscience yelled out. Annie had no idea you were going to drop the big L-word bomb on her tonight.
Matt thought it over and decided it was too damn bad. Annie had done her fair share of blindsiding, too. Like the first night she showed up at his apartment while he was minding his own damn business. She was the one who had started what had turned into this full-blown disaster, not him.
He headed back across the living room. He picked up the tray filled with hors d’oeuvres and walked into the kitchen. He also picked up the new serving platter he’d purchased especially for the occasion, the one holding the grilled-to-perfection salmon steaks he’d had especially catered. Then he walked over to the waste can and dumped the whole mess, platters and all, into the trash.
With the same determined resolve, Matt walked back into the living room. Once he had the beaded pillows stacked under his chin, he walked back to the kitchen, slid open the glass sliding door and walked up to the iron railing surrounding his patio deck. He was still feeling like the village idiot Annie had turned him into when he sailed the first pillow off his fourth-floor balcony. By the time he’d finished pitching all six pillows as far as he could throw them, he felt pretty damn good.
Forget Annie.
She wanted no part of what he was willing to give her, so forget her. He had a new promotion. And he had a long list of new goals to reach when he became Paragon’s youngest executive vice president ever.
He was going to be just fine.
At least, that’s what Matt kept telling himself when he walked back inside to blow out the friggin’ candles and to proudly put Babe, Mickey, and Lou right back on his soon-to-be defeminized single-guy wall where—by God—they belonged!
CHAPTER 17
By the time Annie made it to her car, she was crying so hard she could barely fit the key into the lock on her car door. She finally got the door open, dropped onto the seat, and threw herself against the steering wheel, sobbing even harder.
Of all the times for Matt to decide he wanted to try his hand at a serious relationship, he had to pick now. Just when their careers were coming together for both of them. Just when they were having so much fun together. And just when Annie had finally decided she liked her life exactly the way it was.
But it’s my fault. Not Matt’s.
She never should have shown up on his doorstep. She should have left things between them exactly as they were—nothing personal.
Annie leaned her head against the steering wheel and sobbed a little more. Matt was right. He’d practically handed her his heart on a freaking silver platter—something she’d never let herself even hope for from him. She hadn’t meant to sound like she was making light of his telling her he loved her. Her response had just been a knee-jerk reaction when she felt her no-strings-attached unraveling to put a noose around her neck.
No, it wasn’t fair to make Matt pay for the losers who had walked into her life and right back out again. Annie knew that. But she couldn’t help it. To have Matt, only to lose him later, would destroy her. Completely. She’d never be able to survive it.
Sob. Sob. Sob.
Blubber. Blubber. Blubber.
She wouldn’t blame Matt if he never spoke to her again. Who did she think she was, playing with both of their lives like that? Pretending they could bing each other’s brains out night after night without one of them getting hurt?
Oh God. Oh God. Oh God.
She might not survive this, either.
Annie didn’t know what was worse. Having Matt and losing him. Or never having his arms around her again.
When her cell phone rang, hope eternal sprang forward and grabbed it on the first ring. “Matt?”
“Who’s Matt?”
Not what Annie needed at the moment.
“You know Matt’s my boss, Mother. I’m busy.”
“I gathered. Since you didn’t return my call all day.”
Annie bit back a groan. “What do you want, Mother?”
“I need to see you, Annie,” Bev said. “Tonight. It’s important, or I wouldn’t have been trying to reach you all day. Come over. I’m at home.”
Bev hung up without waiting for Annie’s answer.
Annie walked up to the house she’d grown up in and rang the doorbell for the first time in her life. She’d learned her lesson about walking in without any warning on her last visit home. She had no intention of making that mistake again.
When Bev opened the door and Annie stepped inside, the first thing she noticed were the suitcases stacked to the right of the front door. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask what was going on. And she would have asked that question—if her mother hadn’t taken one look at her and asked instead, “What’s wrong? You’ve been crying.”
Annie couldn’t explain it, but the concerned look on her mother’s face took her right back to her childhood. She threw her arms around her mother’s neck and sobbed against Bev’s shoulder.
“My whole life sucks,” Annie blubbered as her mother patted her back supportively.
Bev allowed her to cry a few minutes before she took Annie’s hand. “Let’s go make you some hot herbal tea and you can tell me all about it.”
As distraught as she was, Annie almost laughed as she followed her mother to the kitchen. Hot herbal tea had always been Bev’s cure for everything. She was amazed Bev had never organized a hot herbal tea crusade as the answer to achieving world peace.
“So?” Bev said thirty minutes later, as they sat across the kitchen table from each other, sipping their tea. “Do you love Matt?”
Annie was surprised at how quickly she said, “Yes.” She did love Matt. She loved Matt completely. His good points. His bad points. Everything in between.
Bev shrugged. “Then what’s the problem?”
Good point. Annie sighed and said, “Fear, mainly. That it won’t work out between us. That he’ll regret giving up his freedom. That I’ll never survive losing him.”
“Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose,” Bev said.
“‘Bobby McGee?’” Annie wailed. “We’re talking about my life, and you’re quoting lines from a song you played nonstop when I was a kid?”
Bev only smiled, a melancholy look on her face as she stared into her teacup. “Your father loved that song.” She looked up at Annie. “I know I’ve never liked to talk about your father, but I’ve thought about him a lot since I met Umberto.”
Annie forced herself to ask, “Why? Does Umberto remind you of him?”
Bev shook her head. “No. It’s being in love again that reminds me of your father.”
“But Mother—” Annie protested.
Bev held her hand up. “I know what you’re going to say. You’re going to say I haven’t known Umberto long enough to be in love with him. That he’s too young for me. Maybe you’re right. But I’m not going to let fear keep me from taking this chance. If it doesn’t work out between us, then it doesn’t. At least I won’t have any regrets. I’ll know I tried.”
Bev stood up and walked over to put her cup into the kitchen sink. When she turned back around, she said, “That’s why I needed to see you tonight. Umberto and I are going to Mexico for a couple of weeks. We have an early flight in the morning, so I’m going to his apartment tonight. I wanted to see you before we left.”
Annie sat there for a moment. “And you want me to check on things here at the house while you’re gone?”
Bev said, “Yes. But that’s not all. When we get back from Mexico, I’m moving in with Umberto. Downtown. He owns the building where he has his shop. It makes more sense for us to live in the apartment above the flower shop. He needs to be close to his plants.”
“You’re selling the house?” Annie’s stomach rolled over. The thought of Bev selling the house broke her heart. It was home. Where her roots were. This house held her fondest memories. She’d hoped to see her own children playing in the backyard someday, making memories of their own.
Annie blinked. “Are you serious?”
Bev nodded. “It will be yours one day anyway. Why not give it to you now while you can enjoy it?”
Annie got up from the table and gave Bev a long hug. “I love you, Mother. I hope you know that.”
Bev smiled when Annie let her go. “There’s plenty of room in this old house for Matt, too, you know.”
Annie didn’t comment.
She had the house in the suburbs now.
But did she have the guts to go after the guy?
She remained sitting at her grandmother’s kitchen table long after Bev hurried on her way to her beloved Umberto’s. Annie still couldn’t believe it. Her mother? Going off on trips? Talking freely about being in love? Moving in with a younger guy—who sang opera to his plants?
She still had her own misgivings about the bizarre relationship, but she’d never seen her mother so happy. And that made Annie happy.
Bev’s new life sure beat the merry-go-round she’d been trapped on for the last few weeks. The brass ring was waiting for her—life was just spinning so fast Annie couldn’t reach out and grab it.
When another tear slid down her cheek, she reached into her purse, searching for a tissue. What she came out with instead was a handful of lottery tickets.
Helena!
Between Matt and her mother both shocking her senseless, she’d forgotten all about her promise to Rico.
She reached into her purse again, this time for her cell phone. The fact that it was midnight didn’t keep her from punching the button for Collin’s number.
She could tell he’d been asleep when he said a barely understandable, “’Lo.”
“Wake up, Collin,” Annie told him. “We need to talk.”
“Who is this?”
“You know who this is,” Annie said. “Get up and walk around until your head clears. I need your full attention.”
As Annie filled Collin in on her conversation with Rico and the plans she wanted Collin to arrange, she amused herself with the scratch-off tickets she’d spread out on the kitchen table. One after another, she took her fingernail and scratched away the hidden boxes. What a rip-off, she thought—until her fingernail made a swipe over the last ticket.
“Hot damn!” Annie yelled, cutting off Collin’s question about where he should arrange for Rico and Helena to meet. “You aren’t going to believe this, Collin. Helena just won five thousand dollars.”
She heard Collin sigh. “Are you drinking tequila tonight, Annie?”
He should have been the one to play the role of Joe Video, Matt decided, after the Oscar-worthy performance he’d delivered on Friday. Annie wasn’t a bad actress herself. She’d been as pleasant as a sweet Georgia peach from the moment they’d arrived for the last day of filming.
Smile. Smile. Smile.
Nod. Nod. Nod.
At least, they should be finished filming by noon, right on schedule. Matt didn’t know what was responsible for the sudden change in Rico’s attitude, and he didn’t care. All he cared about was putting an end to his involvement in the video game that had changed his life forever. Annie’s fab concept had made his promotion possible, sure. But it didn’t make up for his badly stomped-on heart.
After he endured J.B.’s celebratory party, he intended to get as far away from Annie as possible. Hide out and lick his wounds. Heal a little.
He watched her from across the idiotic bedroom showroom where he was standing. She and Gretchen were talking with the women who had won the right to watch Annie’s phony-ass video game star during the last segment of filming.
Every time he looked at her, it was a sucker punch straight to his stomach. Matt shook his head. At least they wouldn’t be working side by side after today. They’d occasionally pass in the hall. Face each other in a meeting now and then. He could handle that. If Annie needed help screening the new employees she’d be hiring for the creative department, or with reports or whatever, he’d send Collin to help her. That’s why executives had executive assistants—to free themselves from life’s unpleasant little chores.
“Look happy. The day’s almost a wrap,” the very executive assistant he’d been thinking about said when he walked up beside Matt.
Matt looked down at his watch. “You’re right. The day is almost a wrap. Where have you been? You left right after you got here this morning?”
“Running errands,” Collin said with a smug smirk.
Matt glanced at the envelope Collin was practically shoving under his nose. “What’s that?”
Collin put the envelope behind his back, as if he hadn’t meant for Matt to see it. Then he leaned over and whispered, “Can you keep a secret?”
“I’m not even going to answer that question, coming from you,” Matt said.
Collin lifted his nose in the air. “Then I’m not going to tell you that inside this envelope is a key to a premier suite at the Georgian Terrace Hotel downtown. A key Annie asked me to give to Rico. Right after the luncheon.”
Right jab. Left jab. Another below-the-belt punch.
Annie was the windshield.
He was the bug.
SPLAT!
“Excellent job. All of you,” J.B. Duncan said, shaking hands with Matt, Collin, and then Annie.
He put his arm around Matt’s shoulder. “I told Matt earlier I wanted the three of you to take next week off. Your portion of Joe Video is completed. So enjoy your time off and relax before you come back to work and start your new positions.”
Annie glanced over at Matt. He wouldn’t even look in her direction. Was he thinking the same thing she was thinking? That if she hadn’t blown it, they could have spent next week together? Annie sighed. If she hadn’t made such a mess of things, maybe her mother and Umberto wouldn’t be the only ones heading off to tropical shores with sandy beaches.
Of course, she’d blown it only if she left things the way they were. Which Annie didn’t intend to do. She’d made that decision last night. They’d just been so busy all day, she hadn’t had the opportunity to beg Matt for a second chance until he agreed to give her one.
What’s wrong with now?
J.B. had just told everyone good-bye and left. Collin was hurrying over to give Rico the key to the hotel where he’d find Helena waiting for him. And Matt was standing all by himself, pretending to ignore her, less than two feet away.
Do it!
“Matt,” she said, moving closer. “Can we talk a minute?”
He refused to look at her. Annie followed his gaze. He was looking across the patio at Collin and Rico. He finally turned his head with a pissed look on his face. “Is it a work-related talk?”
“You know it isn’t,” Annie said.
“If it isn’t work-related, Annie, we don’t have anything to talk about,” he said. “My idle chitchat days are over.”
He sauntered away, heading for the patio doors. Annie started after him, until Rico called her name and waved, signaling for Annie to wait.
Damn.
Annie felt like crying. She’d hurt Matt deeper than she’d thought. “I’m sorry” wasn’t going to cut it.
I’ll have to show Matt I’m serious.
She put on a false smile when Rico brought her hand to his lips and kissed it, the same way he’d done the first day he’d shown up at Paragon.
“You are my dream woman,” Rico said happily. “For finding my Helena. To repay you one day, Annie, this will be my biggest wish.”
Annie leaned forward and hugged him. “Just send me an invitation to the wedding, Rico. That’s all the payment I need.”
“That,” Rico said, “I will do.” He shook hands with Collin, blew Annie a final kiss, and hurried away.
“I just love happy endings,” Collin said, staring wistfully after Rico. But he frowned and mumbled something overtly foul when he saw Claire Winslow heading their way.
“Did Rico leave?” she demanded, purposely ignoring Collin and looking
directly at Annie. “He was supposed to wait for me.”
Annie looked at Collin. “Didn’t Rico say he had to hurry to the airport?”
“Airport?” Claire shrieked.
Collin rolled his eyes. “Wouldn’t you be hurrying to the airport if Quentin Tarantino wanted you in Hollywood first thing in the morning?”
Claire turned and ran.
Collin and Annie burst out laughing.
“Chaos, panic, and disorder,” Collin said cheerfully. “Our work here is done.”
Annie linked her arm through Collin’s. “Let’s get out of here.” But as they left the patio, she said, “Catch me up. Did you caution Helena when you took her to the hotel that it might be wise to keep where she’d been a secret? At least for now?”
“I did,” Collin said.
“And did you give Helena the envelope and tell her not to open it. To give it to Rico when he arrived?”
“I did.”
“And did you get Helena out of her spandex and turn her into a supermodel during your shopping spree yesterday?”
Collin didn’t answer. He opened Groveman’s front entrance door and pushed Annie through ahead of him.
Annie laughed. “I told you you’d never get Helena out of that spandex.”
“I just couldn’t do it,” Collin said as they headed across the parking lot. “Helena is one of the most unique individuals I’ve ever met. Turning her into a ho-hum version of everyone else would be the equivalent of turning Cher into a faceless backup singer. I just couldn’t do it. We bought every piece of spandex we could find.”
“Why, lovey,” Annie said. “What incredible insight.”
Collin smiled. “See? I’m not always as shallow and materialistic as I appear.”
“Plus you just love happy endings,” Annie said when they stopped beside her car.
“I adore happy endings,” Collin agreed.
“I hope you mean that, Collin,” Annie said. “I have a lot to tell you. You might not be happy about some of it, but I need your help. I’m running out of time.”
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