Best of Penny Wylder: Boss Romance

by Wylder, Penny

  “You know, Cassidy.” She stretches her hands across the table, palms up. After a moment’s hesitation, I place my hands in hers, and bite back a wince when she squeezes my fingers too tightly. “I’m really proud of you. I don’t tell you that enough, and I’m sorry for that. But it’s so exciting what you’ve been building for yourself. Your whole little makeup empire.” She winks and squeezes my fingers one last time before releasing me. “You must be so happy. It’s everything you’ve always wanted, no?”

  “Yeah,” I reply, a smile stretching across my face. “It is.”

  “And now that you’ve finally got those career goals out of your system, I’m sure the right man will come along soon too.” Mom’s grin widens. “After all, men love a successful woman these days, don’t they?”

  My cheeks flush, and my gaze drops before I can help myself. “I guess.” When I look back up again, Mom’s frowning this time.

  “What’s wrong?” She tilts her head, narrowing her gaze. “Is there someone you haven’t mentioned?” She straightens in her seat, her eyes brightening. “Did Norman come back into the picture?”

  My stomach knots at the sudden, unexpected mention of his name. “No,” I snap, a little too loudly and harshly. A couple at the neighboring table glance over, and Mom raises a disapproving eyebrow.

  “I always liked him, that’s all,” she’s saying.

  I lean forward in my seat. “It’s not Norman,” I tell her. I ignore the part about her liking him. That’s my fault, really. I never told her how bad things got with him. Because part of me suspected she wouldn’t understand. Or she’d tell me to suck it up and deal with his flaws, because at least he had money, and money kept people safe.

  Never mind that he was making me unsafe, monetary support aside. I felt caged with him, resented and controlled at once.

  But I never explained all of that to Mom, so how could she know?

  “But there is someone,” she replies, her voice dropping to a purr. “I know that look, Cassidy. You get the same doe-eyed expression whenever you’re smitten; you’ve been doing it since preschool.”

  I groan and roll my eyes. But I nod, too. “There’s someone. Or, there was. He turned out to… not be such a good idea.”

  She frowns, suddenly all sympathy. “Unemployed? Bad prospects?”

  I grimace. “No. Not that that should be a reason to break up with someone,” I add.

  “Well, I’m not saying you should break up with someone who just lost a great job. But if it’s someone with no ambition, no drive, would you really be happy dating them anyway? I mean, we were just talking about all your career goals… You need someone who’s as driven as you are.”

  Or someone with tons of money I can mooch, don’t you mean? I resist the retort. “He wasn’t a good fit,” I tell her. “Because he lied to me. He told me he was divorced, and he wasn’t.” At least, not officially.

  “Oh.” Mom sits back in her seat and waves a hand. “Well, relationships can be complicated, sweetie. Sometimes one starts before the previous relationship has quite finished fizzling.”

  “Are you seriously telling me you support cheating right now?” I raise an eyebrow. “That’s pretty bad even for you, Mom.”

  Her eyebrows draw together in a tight line. “What does that mean? Even for me?”

  “I…” Damn. I’d been trying to behave, to be nice to her for once. But the words just slipped out. “I just mean, with your track record.”

  “What track record is that, exactly?” Her voice rises.

  “You know.” I gesture vaguely in her general direction. “You tend to… well… go through guys a lot. And it seems like you normally only like what they can do for you, rather than who the guys themselves are.”

  “I can’t help it if I’m attracted to successful men. Would you rather I pick a bum off the street to date, is that it? Or just say yes to anyone who offers?”

  “That’s not what I mean, Mom. But, come on. You seriously think I should date a guy who’s married?”

  She crosses her arms on the table and leans toward me. “All I’m saying, Cassidy, is that you can be a bit naive about these things. There’s married and then there’s married, you know?”

  I shake my head. I really don’t know.

  Mom just shrugs, though, and tugs her napkin off her lap to daub at the corners of her mouth before she folds it on her plate. “Sweetie, I’ll admit, I came here with an ulterior motive.”

  My stomach knots all over again. Great. Here it comes. Time for a speech about hard times, about how she’s trying but just can’t find the right situation… And then she’ll ask for money. Like always.

  Mom meets my gaze, her own expression deadly serious. “I’m worried about you,” she says.

  Whatever I expected, it wasn’t that. I blink, thrown. “About me?”

  “What I said earlier—I am proud of you. I’m proud of your career, of your hard work. But, well… it’s not like you’ve been at this for very long. You’re seeing some success now, but what about your future? Have you started saving any money for retirement yet? And have you considered looking into purchasing property instead of renting? If you’re going to continue on through life the way you’ve been going, these are things you’ll need to think about.”

  “What do you mean the way I’ve been going?” I protest.

  “You know.” She gestures at me, as if that should make it obvious. “If you plan to live your whole adult life a single woman.”

  My jaw drops. “So, just because I said I didn’t want to date a married guy, you assume I’m going to, what, grow old alone and die a spinster?”

  “Sweetie, at a certain point, you just need to be realistic about where you’re headed.”

  “I’m going to date!” I exclaim. “Once I find the right guy.”

  “Well, if you wait too long, Mr. Right will already be married and the father of several children by then. You need to start looking now, sweetie, while your prospects are still good. I could set you up if you like; a few of my friends have some very cute sons living nearby. Well, within an hour’s drive, but that’s not too far, for a serious relationship.”

  “What is this obsession with getting me a boyfriend?” I protest.

  “I’m not getting any younger,” Mom replies. “And neither are you. Then there’s the matter of children to consider, and, well… I just don’t want you to wind up like me.” She sighs then, wistfully. “I’ve just never been able to make it work long-term. I put so much time and effort into the men I date, and none of them stick around to help me or offer me a sense of security. I’m all alone, with no one to turn to for support now.”

  “You know that’s not true,” I say, even as my instincts kick in yet again.

  She smiles at me. A little too broadly. “Oh, I know I can always count on you in a real emergency. I just don’t want to have to ask you for more money, again. You’ve got enough on your plate without worrying about your poor old mother.”

  Old. As if she’s some wizened crone, instead of a pretty lively 49. “Mom…”

  “I just want better for you. I want you to find a man who will stay by you, through thick and thin. Someone who can take care of you, the way you deserve.” Her voice drops an octave, and she looks away. “Lord knows I never got what I deserved.”

  I frown. “Is there something you need help with?” I can’t help it. I hate seeing her like this. Dejected and down on herself. Even if part of me knows it’s all an act.

  But her gaze jumps to mine almost at once. “Of course not, Cassidy. What did I just say? I can’t ask you to help me again.” She laughs, a little too high pitched. “A mother can’t always rely on her daughter for support. Even her very successful daughter, whose business is taking off so well…”

  And there it is. The real reason she came here today, I’m sure of it. “Spit it out, Mom,” I say, my voice dropping into a sarcastic register.

  Her jaw drops. So does mine, honestly. I’ve never actually call
ed her out before. Part of me feels guilty—what if I’m wrong, what if I’m misreading this situation?

  But another part of me, a bigger part, thinks that my therapist would be proud if she could see me right now.

  “What on earth do you mean?” my mother replies, flustered, her cheeks turning pink.

  “How much do you want this time?” I fire back. “It’s obvious why you asked me here. You need money again. So, how much are you in debt for?”

  “Well. I… you… what.” Her face, if possible, reddens even more. “Of all the ungrateful—”

  “Mom, please. We’ve done this dance enough times for me to recognize the opening lines.” I lift an eyebrow at her.

  “Can’t a mother want to spend quality time with the daughter she hasn’t seen in months? A daughter who, I might add, is terrible at returning my calls. I can’t miss you without having some ulterior motive?”

  “That’s what I thought.” I spread my hands on the table. “But then you start bringing up money, again, and, well, this is too familiar for my liking.”

  “It’s not my fault you’re making more than me right now, Cassidy.” My mother’s lips purse. “If I were in your shoes, with all that business investment money and my face all over the television, I would help you out.”

  I snort into my wine glass. “Would you, though? Because in the past, it’s always been, ‘you need to learn how to support yourself, Cassidy,’ and ‘I spent all my money raising you when you were a child, Cassidy.’”

  “I did. You have no idea how expensive it is to raise a child, especially as a single mother.” Mom scowls.

  I just laugh. “Good thing you had all those boyfriends to help us along the way, then.” I raise my hand, and gesture for the waiter. “Tell you what, Mom.” I lean forward, smiling, and take a slow, pointed glance around the nice restaurant. “I’ll pick up the check for this. Least I can do, since you’re right, we haven’t spent any quality time together in so long. But after this? I’m done helping you out monetarily. It’s time for you to learn how to support yourself,” I tell her, mimicking a phrase she’s used since I was fresh out of college, and one that’s always set my nerves on edge.

  To judge by her souring expression, Mom doesn’t like hearing her own words any more than I ever did.

  “I love you,” I add. “But I’m done being used. By you or by anyone else in my life.”

  The waiter drops the check, and I slip enough cash to cover the bill, along with a healthy tip, inside. Then I rise and gather up my coat, smiling. My mother continues to glare at me, muttering words under her breath. But for once, her words just roll right off my back. Because I know, without a doubt, I’m doing the right thing.

  I’m setting boundaries. Creating a new pattern for myself. Just like I promised myself in therapy.

  For once, I leave a meal with my mother actually smiling.

  25

  Cassidy

  The smile lasts until I make it home from our lunch. It falters, however, the second I pull into the parking lot outside my apartment complex, and I register the shape leaning against my front door frame. Even with his back turned, even though I only glimpse him briefly as I’m stepping out of my car, I know at once who it is. I’d recognize him anywhere. Not just his face, but his height, his lanky body, his way of standing and his posture and even his gait when he walks, shoulders thrown back and chin high with confidence.

  He doesn’t look so confident today, though. He’s slumped against my door, and his hair is a tousled mess. Even before he turns to face me, I already guess his face will look gaunt, drawn with stress.

  Lark.

  It’s only been a few days since I last saw him, yet it had already started to feel like a lifetime. As if my time with him were a dream, pleasant and all-consuming when I was in the middle of it, but painful as hell to wake up from. It made the real world stark and gray by contrast.

  As I start up my steps toward him, a welcome counter-emotion floods in. Anger. He has no right to keep showing up like this. We made it clear the last time we spoke. Things were over between us. I thought he was finally respecting me, giving me the space I needed to get over him. But now…

  The anger, however, is short-lived. It falters the moment he hears my foot on the steps behind him and turns to look at me.

  God. I knew he looked dejected, but seeing his face… His eyes are red, lined in deep purple bruises, like he hasn’t slept since I saw him last. He’s still handsome, of course. Handsome enough that I want to shove him for it, back up against the door he’s leaning against, and then grab his lapels and pull his face down to—No. I stop myself right there.

  Handsome or not, sad or not, he still lied to me.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask. My voice comes out harder than I intended, but I don’t apologize for it. He’s over the line right now.

  “I’m sorry,” he says, immediately. “I know I shouldn’t be here. But I tried calling. I didn’t get an answer.”

  I think about my phone, shut off for the duration of my lunch with Mom. I didn’t turn it back on afterward. I was still buzzing from finally standing up to her. That, and I didn’t want to see if she called me afterward, to leave me guilt-tripping voicemails about how I’d just acted.

  “You can’t just show up like this,” I say, shaking my head. “We talked about this. About how I need space now.”

  “I know, but.” He takes a step toward me, hands outstretched, and for a moment, I catch his scent, the familiar, heady musk that always makes me want to close my eyes and sink into his arms. To let myself go, to feel safe in his embrace—even if that safety’s a lie. “I can’t stop thinking about you, Cassidy,” he says.

  My stomach tightens. That makes two of us.

  “I just… I know I messed up. I should have told you everything, from the beginning, and let you decide whether you wanted to get mixed up in my damn drama. I realize that now. Keeping this from you was wrong. Which is why…” His throat bobs with a tight swallow. But he holds my gaze. The whole time he’s saying this, those green eyes of his never leave mine. “I want to tell you everything now. The full truth.”

  I bite my lower lip. Glance away, toward my front door, hesitant. This is pretty much the opposite of what I promised to do in therapy—to set boundaries and hold them firm. I told him we were over. To let him in now would be…

  As if reading my mind, Lark lifts both hands, palms extended toward me. They hover in the air between us. Even his hands seem nervous, trembling a little, the nails bitten down to the quick. “No strings attached,” he says. “You don’t have to take me back or give me another chance or anything. But even if we never see each other again, you deserve to know the truth.”

  That, at least, I can agree with. I press my lips together, still internally debating. But searching his gaze, curiosity rises inside me, overwhelming the part of me that says it would be safer to tell him to leave. “Fine,” I say, eventually, and his shoulders sag, relief blooming across his face. I hold up one finger, though, to stop it. “But you’re right. No strings are attached. This doesn’t mean I’m giving you a second chance or anything. You do owe me the truth, though.”

  He nods, all too eager to agree. “Whatever you want, Cassidy.”

  What I want is to go back in time, I think bitterly. What I want is for him to have opened up to me from the start. But since I don’t have a time machine, I step around him to unlock my front door.

  Inside, I take a seat on the couch. I don’t offer him a drink, or even water. He doesn’t seem to expect it, at least. And unlike last time, when he sat so close to me that I could hardly breathe, he takes a seat at the far end of the couch, perched on the edge of it, his whole body still tense, like he’s ready to jump up and leave any moment that I order him to.

  “First of all, I just want to apologize, again,” he starts. “It… I know my life is a mess. And I don’t blame you for not wanting to get involved in it. Honestly, that’s the smart reaction.” He squ
eezes his eyes shut for a breath.

  I hold mine. I’m not giving him anything. No sympathy. Because he’s right. It is smarter of me to stay detached.

  When he opens his eyes again, they find mine. Lock on. “Sheryl and I are getting a divorce. We filed for it a year ago. Well, actually, I filed for it. She contested… it’s been a whole back and forth.”

  I press my lips together, waiting. I knew this much, at least.

  “But… well. Due to some bad decisions on my part, the contract of our company, Anderson Investments, it’s…” He clears his throat. “We set the whole thing up in Sheryl’s name when we first founded it. She talked me into it; I wanted to make us 50/50 partners, but she convinced me it would be simpler to keep it all under her. She was the finance person, after all; I was the one who worked with our clients face-to-face, and more on the marketing and business-building side. I don’t…” He bites his lower lip. “My only explanation is that I trusted her, back then. I mean, she was my wife. I thought…” He shakes his head.

  My chest tightens. I take another breath, unaware I’d been holding mine.

  “Anyway, long story short, she has complete control over what happens to the company. And we’ve spent years working on it, I… I poured everything I had into this business. When things between us soured, when I started feeling unfulfilled and unhappy in my marriage, I dealt with it by working harder, putting all my hopes and dreams into the company. It’s my baby, really.” He laughs, a little bit bitterly. “And now, well… That’s her leverage, I guess.” He blows out a long sigh. “Sheryl knows how deeply I’m invested. She couldn’t care less about how the business does, whether it thrives or not—as long as she can skim her usual cut off the top of the profits and sustain her lifestyle.”

  I wince, and glance across the room, at where my stacks of makeup supplies sit. I know how that feels. To pour your heart and soul into a company. One that may or may not succeed. I spent so much time struggling on my own company, after all. And it was only with Lark’s help that I was able to break out.