“Richard, darling, would you get us some coffee?” Jocelyn asked, never taking her gaze from Melinda’s face.
Mel raised her chin and squared her feet, bracing herself for whatever came next.
“Drinking again, Melinda?” Her mother gestured to her mimosa.
Mel’s hand clenched around the glass. “What do you mean, again?”
“Didn’t you have enough last night?”
“No, Mother. Clearly I didn’t.”
Jocelyn shrugged. “Empty calories.”
Melinda raised her flute and drained the contents, barely restraining the childish urge to wipe her mouth with the back of her hand and then belch. “They’re well worth it to me.”
“Melinda, I think you owe me an apology.”
She gasped. “You think I owe you one? It’s the other way around.”
“You owe me respect, young lady.”
Mel took a deep breath. “Respect is a two-way street, Mother. If you’d respect me enough to stop needling me about my weight—”
“The only reason I do that is because I care about you! And I’d like your life to be different.”
“Yeah? Well, it’s my life! So you can stop caring. Because if this is the way you demonstrate motherly love, then I’m terrified to see what you do to people you hate.” Melinda whirled around to leave and slammed headlong into her father, who’d arrived with two cups of coffee for them.
The cup with cream went all over her dress. The black coffee soaked her dad’s shirt. Not a drop spilled on her perfect mother, of course.
“Dad, I’m so sorry! I was trying to get away from her—” Mel shot a glance at Jocelyn, who turned her back and ignored her.
A waiter came to the rescue with a couple of cloth napkins, and they mopped miserably at themselves.
“What is going on between you and your mother, Melinda?” Her father spoke under his breath, and his tone was gentle, but he was clearly frustrated.
“Ask her! I’m tired of being treated like a criminal if I eat something with more than a hundred calories in it. I’m tired of being told I’ll never catch a man. I can’t stand being around her—she’s a walking reproach and clearly I’m nothing but an embarrassment and a disappointment to her!”
Richard sighed. “That’s not true. Your mother loves you, Mel.”
“She has a funny way of showing it.”
“And we’re both very proud of you.”
Melinda stood on tiptoe to kiss him on the cheek, inhaling the familiar scent of Old Spice and cigar smoke that characterized her father. “Thank you. Now, I’m sorry but I have to go. I can’t be around her right now. I hope you understand.”
Richard nodded unhappily. “I do.”
She turned and started to walk away. She’d only taken a few steps when he called, “Melinda? Do you need any cash?”
She stopped. She looked over her shoulder at him and shook her head. “Thanks, Dad. But no.” I’m a grown woman with a business and I no longer need movie money. “It’s very sweet of you to offer, though.”
Mel made her excuses, retrieved her belongings from her room and checked out of Playa Bella. She never once ran into Pete.
It was just as well. He wasn’t going to call her, anyway.
9
ON MONDAY, PETE WAS still disappointed. Melinda had disappeared without saying goodbye, and he’d never had a chance to get her number. Fortunately, her business number was easy to locate.
He sat, lost in thought at his desk, picturing her at the breakfast as she stumbled through her apology for unzipping his pants. He’d loved that she did that. He remembered the unexpected surprise, the delicious shock as her warm little hand had slipped inside the fly of his boxers and taken him in a firm grip. Had stroked him until he thought he’d blow right there on the beach.
And she’d felt the need to apologize?
She’d felt the need to tell him that she understood that it meant nothing; that it had just been a booty call?
Pete frowned. He hadn’t thought beyond the instant attraction he felt for her, beyond the heat of the moment. He’d just acted. And now she was complicating things by stating baldly how uncomplicated they were. Damn it.
It was her vulnerability that got to him. The way her mouth had trembled ever so slightly as she said it. He’d instantly wanted to reassure her; to do exactly what she was telling him he didn’t have to do.
Did that make him ornery? No. It just meant that he liked her. He wanted to make her feel good.
There’d been something brave in the way she faced up to the “fact” that things would end in a one-night stand. Something dignified and sad about the way she’d let him off the hook. And that something, whatever it was, touched a chord within him. The fact that she had low expectations made him want to raise them.
Pete pulled up the internet on his computer and found her business number. He was about to dial her when Mr. Reynaldo walked into his office. He silently thanked God that he hadn’t been caught making a call to a woman after the fiasco over the weekend.
“Buenos dias, Pedro,” said his boss.
“Buenos,” Pete said, grinning his trademark customer-service grin, even though he hated it when his boss called him Pedro. “How are you, Mr. Reynaldo?”
“After looking over the books, I am very well, thank you. You may entertain as many ladies on the job as you wish, as long as you continue to increase my revenue.”
“Uhhh.” Pete fumbled for the appropriate response, while wanting to point out that he really hadn’t been “on the job” when “entertaining” Melinda. “That…isn’t something I…make a habit of, sir.”
His boss waved a hand dismissively. “You spoke to me about the vice president of development job a couple of months ago.”
“Yes.” One of the reasons Pete had taken the job at Playa Bella was its vast upward potential. If he pleased a man like Reynaldo, a man with unlimited capital and a voracious appetite for expansion, he could write his own ticket.
He wouldn’t be like his dad, trapped for years in some stodgy, compartmentalized corporate behemoth, being micromanaged and going gray while he waited for three percent annual raises. Pete was convinced it had made his old man crazy. And violent, when he drank.
Pete had no intention of becoming like him. He’d deliberately become his polar opposite.
Reynaldo took a moment to examine his manicure, turning his buffed nails this way and that under the light. “The job,” he said, “is yours—if you bring new business up another twenty percent by year’s end.”
Pete was elated, even as he realized this was a tall order. He’d have to hustle, wheel and deal, and schmooze in his sleep to achieve the goal, which was, when he broke down the numbers mentally, to bring in almost a million dollars worth of business.
“Thank you, sir,” he said.
“Don’t thank me yet, Pedro. But make it happen, and you may keep a naked hooker in your office at all times, eh?” Reynaldo winked at him. “I’ll even put her on the house.”
Pete forced himself to laugh, though he was secretly appalled. “That’s…not necessary, sir.”
“I am simply trying to tell you, señor, that I do not much care what you do as long as you make me sufficient money. Comprendes?”
Pete nodded.
“Good. We understand each other. Now, what are you doing this Saturday night?”
He’d mentioned Saturday to Melinda, but Pete said casually, “Nothing important. Why?”
“I want you to come to a fundraiser for Governor Vargas and meet his campaign manager. They will be organizing many more political events, you see. We’d like several of those events—”
“To take place at Reynaldo hotels,” Pete finished. “I get the picture.”
“So. By the end of the evening, you will be the campaign manager’s best friend, eh? If he golfs, you golf. If he fishes, you fish. If he pays a dominatrix to humiliate him, you, too, like to be spanked and told you are a very bad boy.”
&n
bsp; Pete sighed inwardly. Aloud, he said, “I refuse to wear a black leather harness or put one of those rubber balls in my mouth, sir.” He laughed.
Reynaldo did not. “You refuse nothing, Pete. Comprendes? He wants three transvestite pygmies and the original Bat-mobile, you procure.”
Pete didn’t like the sound of that much, but he doubted strongly that the guy would be that weird. He just hoped he didn’t have to find illegal drugs for him. He didn’t want any part of that.
“So. I will pick you up here at Playa Bella at 7:00 p.m. on Saturday.”
“Yes, sir.”
Reynaldo strolled out of the office with the sinuous grace of a jungle cat. Pete was beginning to wonder if he could trust him as much as one—especially when it was hungry. The longer he worked for Reynaldo, the less he cared for the man.
* * *
MELINDA GAVE A SIGH of relief to be back behind the scenes of her bakery, where she belonged, and not on display in Kendra and Mark’s wedding. She’d calmed down after a heart-to-heart about her mother with Kylie. As Jocelyn’s adored younger sister, Kylie loved her. But she also knew her faults and was able to put them into perspective in a way that Mel just couldn’t.
Kylie knew her secret now—though Mel still didn’t know Kylie’s. She’d brushed off questions and changed the subject. Mel had finally given up, but she had an instinct that Kylie had something going on with, of all people, Dev. A banker and an ex-rocker? She couldn’t imagine two people less suited to one another…
Mel gave up her speculating and turned her attention to her shop. The cool, stainless-steel appliances of her commercial kitchen soothed her as nothing else could, and the scent of the finest ingredients money could buy permeated the air.
She cut no corners; used nothing fake or full of fillers or chemicals. No commercially produced, boxed pudding mix; no lab-mixed chocolate substitute; and above all, no canned, aerosol-sprayed Insta-Wip “cream” insulted her customers. They got the real deal, the purest taste, calories and all.
Her mother had once requested that Mel make a cake using sugar-substitute, fake egg whites and zero-calorie Insta-Wip. Mel suggested that she glue a bunch of Twinkies together instead and tie a bow around them. And that had been the end of that discussion.
The sight of Mel’s bulging order book now galvanized her, though in all honesty she’d be hard-pressed to make the rent without Franco Gutierrez’s Java Joe’s order.
Mel closed her eyes, wondering if she could have handled him differently. Could she have laughed it off? No. Maybe a pinch on the rear could be brushed aside, but the man had stuck his beefy hand down her panties. There was simply no going back from there—especially not when he’d suggested, in a very nasty way, that she should be nicer to him if she wanted to keep his account.
Even her Inner Drill Sergeant couldn’t fault her reaction. He simply cleared his throat and growled that she had to work harder to replace the lost income. And she’d have to buy more of her supplies using credit. The thought made her feel slightly ill, and she slid open the bakery case to heist an oversize chocolate-chip cookie. It would settle her stomach.
Don’t eat that! snapped the sergeant. It’s four-hundred calories at a minimum.
Mel crunched down on it and hoped what she swallowed would hit him in the face.
Her assistant, Scottie Duval, waved at her and then continued his task of checking in inventory from a chocolate supplier in Belgium. Scottie resembled a very fashion-conscious leprechaun, with his red hair, narrow chin, wickedly slanting pale eyebrows and pointed ears that always managed to poke through his latest ’do.
He spritzed his face regularly with lavender water mixed with a little moisturizer to combat the drying effects of the air-conditioning. And he complained that the white cotton uniform she made him wear washed him out and made him look pasty.
Scottie was a genius with marzipan, though—he could sculpt anything a customer could conceive of—and he could roll fondant smoother than a baby’s behind.
Just as important, he loved Mami, and not only kept her when Mel needed him to, but competed with Mel to make the tastiest dog cookies from scratch.
“I’m going to win today,” he informed her with a smirk. “Liver snaps flavored with a touch of fontina.”
“Nope.” Mel set her hands on her hips. “Because I made her favorites—sweet potato and whitefish biscuits.”
Scottie’s eyes narrowed and he pursed his lips. “We’ll just see about that, missy. We’ll put them side by side and see which one she goes for.”
“Fine.”
Scottie kept his “Mami-Munchies” in a pale blue tin, studded with pink French poodles being walked by fashionable ladies. He reached for the tin and took out a liver snap. Of course he’d used a daisy-shaped cookie cutter, and iced them with yellow and pink frosting. Show-off.
Mel went to her own jar of treats and took out a fat biscuit. She’d used a fish-shaped cookie-cutter and iced hers in ocean blue and turquoise frosting. She’d also added silver “eyes” and cute little red smiles.
Together, they marched back to her office and opened the door. Mami really wasn’t supposed to be on the premises—the health department would freak—but Mel reasoned that as long as she kept her in the office and she had no access to the kitchen, what the health department didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them. Mami got a bath every Sunday and went to the groomer’s regularly, after all.
The little dog leaped up from her pink-velour beanbag and trotted over eagerly, eyes bright. Her tongue—the same shade as the beanbag—lolled out of her mouth. She weighed maybe nine pounds, if that.
“Hi, sweet girl!” Melinda said.
“Baby want a cookie?” Scottie crooned, crouching down with his butt in the air.
At the mere mention of the word “cookie,” Mami began to spin around in circles.
“Biscuits are better, aren’t they, sweet girl? Hmm?” Mel dangled the fish-shaped treat a couple of feet from the dog’s nose, and she stood up on her hind legs.
“Cookie, cookie, cookie!” Scottie said, waving his daisy.
Mami looked from one to the other and yipped.
“Sweet potato and whitefish is your yummy-yummy favorite, isn’t it, Mami?” Mel’s voice had degenerated into blatant baby talk.
“Liver and fontina…fit for a princess puppy! There’s no resisting, darling. Come over to the Dark Side.”
“Okay,” said Mel. “On the count of three, we put them down and see which one she goes for first.”
“Loser has to deal with Mrs. Temperley when she comes to pick up her husband’s birthday cake.”
“Fine. Don’t let me down, Mami,” Melinda muttered.
Two wary combatants, they squared off.
“Ready?” Mel bent at the waist, one hand braced against her knee, the other one holding her fish biscuit.
Scottie nodded, poised to spring forward with his cookie.
Mami yipped again, as if to say, “Let’s get on with it!”
“One,” Mel said. They both bent forward even more. “Two. Three!”
They each slapped their treats on the floor, right in front of Mami’s tiny nose, which worked almost comically, twitching back and forth as she sniffed first the daisy cookie, then the fish biscuit. She cocked her head and sniffed at the daisy again.
Melinda was mortified when she daintily took it between her teeth and crunched down.
“Yes!” shouted Scottie. “I knew you were a lady of discriminating tastes, Princess!”
Mel glared at him.
Scottie gloated. “I guess she has a new favorite cookie.”
“Huh.” Melinda was only partly mollified when Mami eagerly chowed down her fish biscuit as well, and then looked around for more.
“Traitors don’t get seconds,” Mel said, scratching her behind the ears. Mami wagged her tail, not understanding a word. When Mel failed to give her more cookies, she tried spinning around in circles again.
“Go ask your best buddy, there.”
Scottie preened. “That would be moi, baby girl.” Mami ran to him, tiny tail wagging. He scooped her up.
“Cookie slut,” Mel murmured, and picked up the order book. Not that she herself hadn’t been a slut just a couple of nights ago… She wondered if Pete did actually want to see her on Saturday night. Then her mother’s words echoed in her mind again, try as she might to banish them.
You were easy and available. I’ll bet he told you that you were beautiful, didn’t he? And you took your dress right off for him.
Even two days later, humiliation and uninvited suspicion heated her cheeks and caused something inside her to physically ache.
Scottie finally gave back Mami, who snuggled into Mel’s chest and poked her little nose under her arm. Then she pulled it out again and looked up at her with adoring brown eyes.
Mel’s heart melted. She rained kisses all over Mami’s fuzzy head. Then her competitive instincts kicked in and she headed for the computer to do a search. Liver and fontina? She’d do Scottie’s recipe one better: she’d add bacon. And maybe even some gouda, just to show him who was truly boss.
10
TUESDAY MORNING ARRIVED despite Pete’s best efforts to will it away. And the hands of his clock spun all too quickly toward eleven, when he’d have the dubious pleasure of Jocelyn Edgeworth’s company once again.
He really couldn’t imagine what she had to say to him, or what he would say in response. It wasn’t the eighteenth century, so she couldn’t possibly be about to demand that he make an honest woman out of her daughter after despoiling her.
He supposed that she would demand that he not see Melinda again, which he wasn’t at all prepared to promise. He genuinely liked Mel, and decided that neither his friendship with her brother nor attempted bullying by her mother would dictate his next move, complicated as the situation might be.
Pete braced himself for a difficult conversation. He searched for ways to be tactful.
“Mrs. Edgeworth,” he’d say, “I understand your concern for your daughter’s happiness and your desire to protect her from hurt. But I can’t promise not to see her again, and I hope you will understand and forgive that. She’s an adult, and so am I.”
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