Lucas’s hands had yet to shuffle again. He just continued to watch her.
“Please deal,” she said again, shifting under his assessing gaze.
Lucas placed the deck back on the table. “Tell me what’s bothering you, Elena. I obviously said something to upset you.”
His words snapped her back to her lonely reality. And here she’d been, spending time with him as though nothing had happened, forgetting herself. Forgetting what he’d done to her.
She stood and walked over to the window. “You really want to know? What did you do for Thanksgiving, Lucas?”
“Thanksgiving?” He hesitated. “Uh, I went to my sister’s house. She cooked and had the whole family over.”
Whole family. Those two words formed a giant knot in her stomach.
“That sounds nice.” She turned to look at him. “I would have spent Thanksgiving with Scott and his family. Instead, I offered to work, had a cold turkey plate at my desk, then went home to an empty house and put myself to bed at seven o’clock just so I could make the day be over that much faster.”
The expression on Lucas’s face shifted to guilt, which was fine. Because if it had been anything remotely close to pity, she would’ve walked outside and thrown herself into a snowbank right then and there.
“Look, I don’t expect you to understand how I feel now, because I don’t think many could, but you’ve ripped away something very important in my life that I can’t just forgive and forget. I—”
His cell phone buzzed on the table. She nodded for him to check it.
Lucas reached down and read the text. “It’s from the Emergency Management office I contacted earlier. Looks like the roads are back open,” he said without enthusiasm.
Relief mingled with something close to disappointment, but she brushed off the feeling and headed toward the stairs. “Thank goodness,” she said briskly. “I’m out of here.”
“I’ll change and help you clear off your car,” he offered.
“No need. I’m perfectly capable of doing it myself.”
“I know you are. I just thought…”
She stopped at the top of the steps and peered down at him. “Thought what? That you’d make it up to me somehow by shoveling snow for me? Lucas, I don’t think there’s enough snow in Antarctica to make us even.”
He blew out a rough breath, and rubbed the back of his neck. “I know, I know. But I just wanted to tell you…”
She arched an eyebrow. “What?”
“It’s been a pleasure seeing you again, Elena. I mean that.”
A pleasure? Was he truly being serious? “I’m sorry I can’t say it’s been a pleasure back. Because it’s been anything but. In fact, I hope we never run into each other again.”
He cocked his head at her, like she was the most fascinating thing he’d ever seen. “Well, in case we don’t ever see each—”
“We won’t.”
“We might. But in case we don’t, have a Merry Christmas.”
She turned away in frustration. Yeah, thanks to him, she wouldn’t be doing that, either.
…
Monday morning, Lucas adjusted his tie, then carefully swept a hand over his hair. This was it. He had one chance to wow this client, and he hoped he’d done enough to do just that. Not long after Elena had left on Saturday, the electricity had come back on and he’d spent the rest of the weekend at the condo working on his proposal.
Elena. Unfortunately, he’d spent the rest of the weekend thinking about her, too.
Why a woman as beautiful and talented as her would still be pining over someone like Scott was beyond his mental ability. Not that he didn’t like Scott. Scott was a good guy. They’d been friends for what seemed like forever. Therefore, Lucas knew better than anyone that his friend was not a man ready to settle down yet.
He and Scott had been roommates in college and stayed friends after graduation, since both had gotten jobs in New York City. Neither had ever had trouble attracting women. But Lucas had grown tired of playing the field and when he’d met Catherine, he tried his hand at marriage. And ultimately failed. When Scott had gotten engaged to Elena, he thought his friend had changed as well. But then he’d caught the way Scott had looked at other women when Elena wasn’t around, even started noticing how Scott had talked about other women. He’d even confided that maybe he’d rushed into his engagement with Elena. Obviously, he’d been having doubts about getting married way before Lucas said anything to him.
Then one night after work, Scott and Lucas grabbed a beer at their favorite pub, and Lucas might have let his feelings about marriage out of the bag. Not that it should have surprised Scott. He’d seen the deterioration of Lucas’s marriage and ultimate divorce with his own eyes. Scott knew about Lucas’s parents’ disastrous marriage as well. Lucas didn’t want Scott or Elena to go through what he’d experienced.
Was he wrong to have done that?
At the time he would have answered no. But after seeing the pain that Elena was still going through even now, so many months after, Lucas had his doubts. He had failed, but perhaps Scott wouldn’t have.
A hand clapped him on the back, startling Lucas out of his thoughts. He turned and saw his boss, Marshall Sundberg, grinning at him.
“Hey, Lucas. You ready to wow him today?”
Lucas shifted his portfolio from underneath his arm. “Yes, sir. Ready as ever.”
His boss nodded. “I hope so. We have a lot riding on this.”
Oh, no pressure then. Lucas wanted to laugh.
Marshall opened the door to the conference room, and they walked in to greet the head of Fun & Games Toys, Craig Campitelli. Craig was an older gentleman—somewhere in his sixties—who had a perpetually stern expression every time Lucas saw him, which seemed a bit ironic considering he was in a business that was supposed to bring fun and games to young children.
“I hope this won’t be a waste of time,” Craig said gruffly, before he sat down.
Lucas gave Marshall a nervous glance before proceeding with his presentation. He truly hoped it wasn’t going to be a waste of time, either. Not only for Craig’s sake but for his job’s sake.
“Craig, I have some ideas here that I outlined for you,” Lucas said, opening his portfolio in front of him. “I know it’s almost Christmas, but you need to think sales that will transcend into other seasons as well.”
Craig steepled his fingers and grunted. “Go on.”
“Here,” he said, sliding the logo closer to Craig. “We want your company to be associated with Christmas prices, ready availability, and joy at any time during the year, so I came up with this: Fun & Games Toys—Where Christmas Never Ends.”
Craig’s scowl didn’t change as he continued to stare at his design in silence. Lucas looked at his boss and shrugged.
Marshall cleared his throat. “Um, we can of course play around with the wording if you’d like.”
After several agonizing seconds, Craig finally looked up. “I like it,” he said simply.
Lucas let out a breath of relief. Craig liked it. Thank God. “That’s great. We can—”
“But we need a better Santa,” Craig cut in.
A better Santa? Lucas looked at his drawing with new eyes. “What don’t you like about the Santa?”
Craig shrugged. “He looks unoriginal. Nobody is going to remember that Santa. I need unique. A Santa that doesn’t look like Santa.”
But then it won’t be Santa, Lucas wanted to point out. But before he could ask for more specifics of what exactly his client wanted to see, Craig flipped through the other pages of ideas he’d come up with and then suddenly stopped and pointed.
“This,” Craig said, tapping his finger on the paper. “Yes. This is exactly it.”
Lucas looked to where the “it” was and felt his stomach bottom out. Oh, crap.
Craig was pointing down to the sketch Elena had done of her own version of Santa. She had left it behind in her rush to leave on Saturday. Lucas hadn’t wanted to lea
ve it at the condo but had forgotten he’d stuffed it into his portfolio.
His boss stepped closer to get a better look. “Hey, not bad, Lucas. Maybe we’ll just get rid of the Jet Ski and put him on a different kind of vehicle, though.”
Craig nodded and for the first time, Lucas actually saw a smile on the man’s face. “Yes, I like that idea. Although the Jet Ski is different. And different is good. What do you think, Lucas?”
I’m completely screwed. That’s what I think.
Lucas scratched his head, trying to come up with a way to deflect their attention off Elena’s drawing. “Um…maybe we don’t have to do a Santa. Maybe I can draw a snowman instead.” A reindeer? A gingerbread man? Anything else!
“Snowman?” Marshall said with a laugh. “That’s not thinking yearlong. However, this Santa on a Jet Ski would be great for summer. We could do a promotion for each season with your Santa in a different vehicle. A sleigh for winter and maybe horseback for spring.”
“A wagon for fall. Like a hayride,” added Craig.
“That’s perfect,” Marshall said. “We can cleverly put the logo on each vehicle but your brand will definitely be the Santa and the promise of Christmas and Christmas prices all year.”
Lucas stood immobile in a haze as Craig and his boss took his idea and Elena’s drawing and ran with it. Suddenly it was a train that couldn’t be stopped.
Craig finally stood. “I’m fully on board. Let’s run with it as soon as possible.”
Lucas blinked, trying to muster a response, but his mouth had gone dry. Elena was going to kill him. That was if his boss didn’t kill him first when he found out they weren’t his drawings.
“Yes,” Marshall said, shaking Craig’s hand and leading him out the door, “we’ll get on this immediately and send you the contracts as well as the four seasonal looks we sketch out.”
“Sounds good.” Craig turned to Lucas before heading out the door and beamed. “Good work. I’ll be in touch.”
Lucas nodded, his stomach rolling with nausea. He wasn’t sure how he was ever going to explain to his boss that the Santa sketch wasn’t his. Not only that, but that the person who drew it would probably rather eat fire than commission it out to him.
Once Craig left, Marshall did a fist pump in the air. “You did great, kid. That man is not easy to please and I hate to say it, but I didn’t think we ever would. When do you think you can have the other three sketches done?”
Considering he didn’t do the first one, he really couldn’t say. “Um, about that…”
“You finalize this account, Lucas, and I’ll recommend you make partner here.”
Lucas struggled to catch his breath and wondered if he’d heard right. “Partner?” he repeated.
“Yeah. You’ve put in the time, but this… This account was tough, but you pulled through in the clutch. We need a dependable and creative mind like yours here.”
He had to sit down. It was hard to take it all in. A partner. He’d worked so hard, for so many years. He would finally succeed. Funny how he’d thought for sure he had a fifty-fifty shot of losing his job but instead would now be offered a partnership, the security he’d been striving for. The feeling was fantastic but also horrific. After all, the drawing wasn’t his to sell. It was like being handed a winning lottery ticket but not being able to cash it in.
“Um, thank you, sir,” Lucas managed. “I don’t know what else to say. Except you should know something about that Santa drawing…”
“What’s that?”
Lucas hesitated. “It’s…well, it’s not mine.”
Marshall’s eyebrows jumped a clear inch up his forehead. “What? What do you mean? Whose is it then?”
“A friend of mine’s.” Okay, friend might have been too loose of a term to use in this particular situation, but it sounded a little better than mortal enemy. “She does some sketching as a hobby. It accidentally got placed in my portfolio.”
Marshall let out a breath. “I see. Well, the good news is she doesn’t work for another firm. We can still commission out her work for this project. There shouldn’t be a problem.”
Um, yeah, on the surface his boss could safely assume there wouldn’t be a problem. However, considering his and Elena’s history and the fact she made it pretty clear she didn’t want to see him again or for anyone to see her drawings, there could and would be some huge obstacles to overcome for her to ever do anything that Lucas could potentially benefit from. But his boss didn’t need to worry about that just yet. For his job’s sake, he’d handle it—and her.
Hopefully.
He had no choice. He needed this win for himself.
“Right. No problem,” Lucas said, but he already felt a looming migraine over the tactics he was going to have to come up with to get her to sign over her artwork.
Marshall shook his hand. “Good to hear. Once you secure the drawings, email me a timeframe for the completed seasons so we can get this rolling.”
Lucas swallowed. “You bet. As soon as I can.”
“Great.”
Once Marshall left, Lucas got right to work by taking out his cell phone. If he was ever going to convince Elena to help him, like it or not, he was going to have to do that in person. So help him.
He Googled The Harbor Light Hotel, where she worked, and figured a one-week stay in Cape Harmony ought to do it. Okay, maybe two weeks to play it safe, since Elena had definitely hardened toward him. He couldn’t let this opportunity slip out of his reach. Like his boss had said, he and his career had everything riding on this.
For that, Lucas was willing to do whatever it took to crack her shell.
Chapter Four
Elena’s house was eerily quiet when she came home from work Tuesday night. That alone would have been depressing enough, but then she remembered she hadn’t gone food shopping since returning from the Pocono Mountains.
No wonder she’d been so crabby these last few days. Vacation cut short and now undernourished. Maybe she should buy some vitamins. She glanced at herself in the hallway mirror and thought she looked a little pale. She needed to take better care of herself.
Grabbing a butter cookie from the plate that her coworker Chef Rick had sent home with her, she automatically headed to the guest room. Although honestly, the room wasn’t much of a “guest” room, considering she still had piles of unpacked boxes of her parents’ belongings scattered around so that she could barely walk.
Surrounded by her family’s things, the room offered her a bit of comfort whenever she had a bad case of loneliness. Like today. And like Monday. Okay, like most days since her breakup with Scott.
She sat down on the floor and pulled out one of her favorite photo albums—around the time she was a junior in high school. The pictures of her dad trying to teach her to drive always made her smile. But when she pulled out the album this time, a slim book that was stuck to the back of it fell at her feet. It was a diary. Her mother’s diary.
Her heart began pumping wildly. All these times she’d rummaged around these albums to discover it only now. Such a gift to have these special thoughts from her mom written down as a keepsake. She was about to open it when her cell phone began ringing.
Scott.
She blinked at the name. Wait. Was that her Scott? It had to be!
“Hello,” she quickly answered.
“Elena.” His deep voice draped over her like a warm blanket. “I’m glad I caught you. Can you talk?”
“I—uh, yeah. Of course,” she said, setting aside the diary.
He let out a sigh on the other end. “Lucas mentioned he ran into you this past weekend.”
Ran into? More like barged into. “Um, yes, I…saw him.” Unfortunately.
“He told me you looked and seemed to be doing well.”
She sat up. “He did? I mean, did he?” She was a little surprised Lucas would have told Scott that. He’d seen her at her low point. She most certainly could not have seemed “well.” And she knew she didn’t look so hot,
either. But a diet of wine, s’mores, and butter cookies over the past few days could do that to a girl.
“I know we’ve texted a few times over the last couple of months, but after he told me about this past weekend, I started thinking about you. A lot.”
Aww… He’s thinking about me! Take that, Lucas Albright III!
“So I thought maybe we could have dinner this Friday,” Scott said. “To talk. I could get down to Cape Harmony by six.”
Talk. Talking was good. She could talk. She smiled into the phone. “Sure, I’d like that.”
“Great. I’ll see you then.”
After Scott hung up, she sat in stunned silence, trying to make out what him inviting her to dinner could mean to their relationship. She thought about calling Arden or Kinsley, but it was kind of late. Things weren’t exactly the same now that they were both married and had their own lives to lead. She didn’t want to be a bother. She’d have to wait and talk to her friends in the morning. Then she remembered her mom’s diary.
Feeling the need for comfort and some kind of guidance, she picked it back up, and began to read.
…
When her boss, Kinsley St. James, plopped two chocolate chip muffins in front of her on Wednesday morning, Elena knew she had done a poor job this week of hiding her disappointment at having her vacation cut short.
“I brought you coffee, too,” Kinsley added in a hopeful tone. “Oh, and Judy at the Drip N Sip wanted me to remind you that all you need to do is say the word, and she’ll fix you up with someone really nice. She posted a picture of him on the Cape Harmony Facebook group if you want to take a peek. She heard he’s shaving the goatee, by the way.”
Elena snorted. Judy Tavish owned and operated the local coffee shop downtown and prized herself as being a phenomenal matchmaker. No offense to the woman, but Elena had seen her handiwork. No, thank you. Last year, she even tried to fix up Kinsley’s brother, Wade. But love was the last thing Wade had wanted. He even had to pretend to be engaged to her friend Arden to get Judy off his back. Elena had thought they were a real couple, too, though it was supposed to be all fake. Poor Wade. The joke was on him when he actually fell in love with Arden while pretending.
Romancing the Rival (Accidentally Yours) Page 4