The Invitation

by Vi Keeland

  I nodded slowly. “Umm…yeah…sure.”

  I turned and headed for the door. But before I could open it, Hudson’s voice stopped me. “Stella?”

  “Yes?”

  “I gave the perfume you made for me to my grandmother. She’d like more.”

  I smiled. “No problem.”

  ***

  Later that night, the cleaning crew knocked on my office door to ask if they could come in and empty my garbage can.

  “Oh. Of course.” I wouldn’t have guessed it was time for them already, but I’d gotten engrossed in typing up my vendor list and making notes on which products I bought from who and the terms. It was definitely going to be a task to move all of the knowledge from where I currently kept it—in my head—to the different systems Rothschild Investments offered. But in the end, I knew it would be for the best. I picked up my cell and was shocked to find it was already 6:30. I’d looked at the time after Olivia said goodnight, and it had been a little before five o’clock. That felt like only ten minutes ago.

  A smiling older woman dumped the contents of my wastepaper basket into a bigger garbage can in the hall and came back in carrying a vacuum. “Would you mind? It will take less than five minutes.”

  “Oh, not at all. I need to stretch my legs and use the ladies’ room anyway.” I shut my laptop and made my way down to the bathroom. As I approached, I found Hudson leaning against the wall right next to the door, looking down at his cell phone.

  “Waiting to jump out and scare someone when they exit the ladies’ room?” I teased.

  He frowned and pointed to the door. “Are you going in there?”

  “I was about to.” My brows drew together. “Is there a reason I shouldn’t?”

  He pushed off the wall and dragged a hand through his hair. “My daughter’s in there—Charlie. She gets lost in a bathroom, says she likes the clue sticks.”

  “Clue sticks?”

  “Acoustics. I correct her, but she says it sounds better her way.”

  I chuckled. “Do you want me to hurry her along?”

  He looked at his watch. “I have an important call with an investor overseas at six thirty.”

  “Go. I’ll make sure she’s okay and walk her back to your office.”

  “You sure?”

  “Of course. No problem.”

  Hudson still looked hesitant.

  I rolled my eyes. “I crashed a wedding once, but I promise I won’t lose her.”

  He blew out a deep breath. “Okay, thanks.”

  Walking into the bathroom, I was absolutely curious. Charlie was nowhere to be seen, but one thing quickly became apparent—why she was concerned about the clue sticks. The sweetest little voice was singing… Was that “Jolene”? The old Dolly Parton song? Why yes, yes, it was. And little Charlie seemed to know all the words.

  I noticed her little legs swinging underneath the first bathroom stall. I stood quietly, listening with the biggest smile on my face. She really could sing. Her voice was tiny, but by the size of her legs, I suspected it fit the body. Yet she sang on key and put in a vibrato that didn’t usually come out of a little girl.

  When the song ended, I didn’t want to be standing there staring and scare her, so I gently knocked on the stall door.

  “Charlie?”

  “Yes?”

  “Hi. My name is Stella. Your dad asked me to walk you back to his office when you’re done in here. I’m just going to go to the bathroom. But don’t leave without me.”

  “Okay.”

  I went into the stall beside hers and started to relieve myself.

  Mid-pee, Charlie said, “Stella?”

  “Yes?”

  “Do you like Dolly?”

  I stifled my laugh. “I do.”

  “Do you have a favorite song?”

  “Hmmm. I do, actually. I don’t know if it’s a very popular one, but my grandmother lived in Tennessee and the song ‘My Tennessee Mountain Home’ always reminded me of her. So I’d have to say that’s probably my favorite.”

  “I don’t know that one. But my dad’s is ‘It’s All Wrong, But It’s All Right’. He won’t let me sing that one, because he says the words are too old for me. But I memorized them anyway. You want to hear it?”

  I most certainly did—even more so now that she’d told me her father said she couldn’t sing it. But I stopped myself from telling her to belt it out. The last thing I needed was Hudson thinking I’d corrupted his kid.

  “Hmmm... As much as I’d love to hear it, we should probably mind your dad.”

  The sound of the toilet flushing was her response, so I hurried and finished up so she couldn’t run out of the bathroom without me.

  Charlie was at the sinks washing her hands when I emerged from the stall. She was absolutely freaking adorable with sandy-blond curly hair that looked like it wasn’t easy to tame, a button nose, and big brown eyes. She wore purple from head to toe, including tights, sneakers, skirt, and T-shirt. Something told me Charlie picked out her own clothes.

  “Are you Stella?” she asked.

  Again, I had to rein in my laugh. We were the only two in the bathroom. “I am. And you must be Charlie.”

  She nodded and watched me behind her in the mirror. “You’re pretty.”

  “Why, thank you. That’s very sweet. You’re beautiful yourself.”

  She smiled.

  I walked over to the sink next to her to wash up. “Do you take singing lessons, Charlie? Your voice is really amazing.”

  She nodded. “I go on Saturday mornings at nine thirty. My dad picks me up to take me because my mom needs her beauty sleep.”

  I smiled. This kid was hysterical and had no clue. “Oh, that’s nice.”

  “I also take karate. Mom wanted me to take ballet, but I didn’t want to. Dad took me to sign up for karate lessons without telling her, and she wasn’t very happy.”

  I laughed. “I bet.”

  “Do you work with my daddy?”

  “I do, actually.”

  “Do you want to come to dinner with us? We’re taking the subway.”

  “Oh, thank you, but I still have some work to do.”

  She shrugged. “Maybe next time.”

  I could not stop smiling at everything that came out of this little girl’s mouth. “Maybe.”

  We both dried our hands, and then I walked her to her dad’s office. Hudson was still on the phone, so I asked her if she wanted to come see where I sat. When she nodded, I gestured to let Hudson know I was taking her down to my office.

  Charlie plopped herself on a guest chair, with her feet dangling and swinging. “You don’t have any pictures?”

  “That’s because today is my first day. I haven’t had a chance to decorate yet.”

  She looked around. “You should paint your office purple.”

  I laughed. “Not sure that would go over so well with your father.”

  “He let me paint my room purple.” Charlie sniffed a few times. “Your office smells good.”

  “Thank you. I’m actually a perfumist. I make perfumes.”

  “You make perfumes?”

  “Yup. It’s kind of a cool job, isn’t it?”

  She nodded fast. “How do you do it?”

  “Well, it’s a lot of science, actually. But what your dad and I are working on together is making a perfume based on how much people like a bunch of different smells. Would you like to try out some of my samples?”

  “Yes!”

  I’d brought a few sample kits with me today, so I grabbed one from my desk drawer and sat next to her on a guest chair. Opening the box, I took out one of the smelling jars and offered it to her. It was calone, which told me if a person had a penchant for a sea-breeze-type smell.

  “What does this smell remind you of?”

  Her eyes lit up. “Mmm…chocolate-banana ice cream.”

  My brows knitted, and I lifted the jar to smell it myself, even though I’d smelled the ocean the second I twisted off the cap. “That sm
ells like ice cream to you?”

  “No. But Dad took me to the beach last week, and afterward we got ice cream on the boardwalk. I got a banana split because that’s my favorite. That smells like the beach, but now the beach just makes me think of that yummy ice cream.”

  I had asked her what the scent reminded her of and not what it smelled like. So her answer was right. I picked up the banana that had been sitting on my desk all day. “You’re a banana fan, too, huh? You want to share this one?”

  “No, thank you.” She swung her legs. “My dad writes on my bananas when he packs my lunch. Sometimes oranges and tangerines, too. But never apples because those you don’t peel the skin off of.”

  “He writes on your fruit?”

  She nodded.

  “What does he write?”

  “Silly stuff. Like ‘Orange you glad it’s Friday?’ Sometimes he writes a joke. On Halloween he wrote ‘What is a ghost’s favorite fruit? A boo-nana.’ Get it?”

  I found that very interesting. I wouldn’t have envisioned Hudson doing something goofy like that.

  “Can I smell some more?” Charlie asked.

  “Of course.”

  I opened another jar. This one smelled like sandalwood—oil from the Indian sandal tree.

  She scrunched up her little nose. “That smells like a bellyache.”

  I had no idea what that meant. I brought it to my nose to try to figure it out. “Really? Does it make your belly hurt just by smelling it?”

  She giggled. “No. Sour ice cream does. That smells like the man at the ice cream store around the corner from my dad. We don’t go there anymore because the ice cream might have been bad.”

  Ohhh, well, that made more sense. Sandalwood was in a lot of popular men’s colognes. Charlie had a knack for this. She was also apparently really into ice cream. “You know…” I said. “That’s the second answer you’ve mentioned with ice cream. I’m sensing a pattern.”

  A deep voice from behind me chimed in, “Figured that out already, huh?”

  I turned to find Hudson leaning against the doorframe to my office. It looked like he might have been eavesdropping for a while.

  “Charlie here has a great sense of smell.”

  Hudson nodded. “She also hears things from a mile away, especially the freezer door. If I so much as crack it open, she comes running, thinking ice cream might be involved.”

  Charlie scrunched up her nose again. “He likes strawberry ice cream.”

  “I take it you don’t?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “It’s gross. All lumpy.”

  “I’ll have to side with your dad on this one. Strawberry is one of my favorites.”

  Hudson smiled, and I realized it might’ve been the first genuine smile I’d seen on his handsome face since the night of the wedding.

  “You ready to go, Charlie?” He looked over at me. “We’re going to dinner.”

  “I know. You’re taking the subway.”

  Hudson’s lip twitched. “The subway, Dolly Parton, and ice cream. She’s not hard to please…yet.”

  “And notes written on fruit and the color purple.” I motioned to my office. “Charlie suggested I paint my office purple. I told her I’d think about it.”

  Hudson smiled. “I wouldn’t put it past you.”

  Charlie surprised me by jumping out of her chair to give me a hug. “Thank you for showing me your smelly things.”

  “You’re welcome, sweetheart. Enjoy your dinner.”

  She skipped across my office and grabbed her father’s hand. “Let’s go, Dad.”

  He shook his head like her being the boss of him was a bother, but I could tell she was probably the only person in the world he enjoyed being bossed by.

  Nodding at me, he said, “Don’t stay too late.”

  “I won’t.”

  After they disappeared, I could hear Charlie talking all the way down the hall.

  “Stella’s going to come to dinner with us next time,” she said.

  “Charlie, what did I tell you about inviting people you just met to things?”

  “Doesn’t she smell good?”

  There was a pause, and I thought maybe they’d gone so far that I couldn’t hear them anymore. But then Hudson grumbled, “Yes, Stella smells good.”

  “And she’s pretty, too, right?”

  Again there was a long pause. I moved closer to my door so I could be sure to hear the answer.

  “Yes, she’s pretty, but that’s not how you decide who to invite to dinner, Charlie. We work together.”

  “But last month when Mommy dropped me off early at your house on Saturday morning there was a woman there, and she was pretty and smelled good. You’d said she was someone you had business with, and she’d come back in the morning because she’d forgotten her umbrella. I asked if she could come to lunch with us, and you said another time. But you never brought her.”

  Oh boy. I put my hand over my mouth. That Charlie was a whip, and I was curious how Hudson was going to talk his way out of this one. Unfortunately, instead of hearing his answer, I heard the lobby door open and close, and that was the end of the show.

  I sighed and walked back to my desk—where it quickly became apparent that I could no longer concentrate. Today had been a whirlwind. Being introduced to so many people here at Rothschild Investments, a half dozen different meetings, new systems for accounting, inventory, orders, and an all-new, high-speed website interface. It was pretty overwhelming. But none of it was half as exciting as three little words Hudson had said earlier today.

  “To be continued…”

  CHAPTER 11

  Stella

  I might’ve been a bit overeager the next morning.

  Olivia had told me to meet her in the office at 8AM so we could start working with her team on the Signature Scent marketing plan. Yet the sun was barely up when I arrived at the offices of Rothschild Investments. Since I was so early, I went a few doors down to a twenty-four-hour deli and figured I’d get a cup of coffee and a muffin. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who’d gotten a head start on today. The line was ten deep with suit-clad men and women, every one of them with their noses buried in their phones as they waited.

  When I finally arrived at the register, a kid who looked like he should be getting ready for high school instead of working took my order.

  “What can I get you?” As he spoke, he took out his phone and stared down at it. I thought perhaps he had to type my order in for someone else to make it in the back.

  “I’ll have a coffee, light and sweet, and one of those crumb-cake muffins, please.”

  He held up one finger and texted into his phone. When he was done, he punched something into the register. “One coffee, light and sweet, and one blueberry muffin. That’ll be six seventy-five. What’s your name?”

  “Well, my name is Stella, but I wanted a crumb-cake muffin, not a blueberry muffin.”

  The kid frowned as if I were annoying him. He hit some more buttons on the register, but then his phone buzzed, so his attention shifted there again. I took a ten out of my wallet and extended it to him, but he ignored my waiting hand. When a solid two minutes had passed and he still hadn’t looked up from his phone, I leaned in and peered over at what he was doing.

  Texting.

  The kid wasn’t putting my order in on his phone, he was texting someone named Kiara.

  I flicked my wrist in an attempt to catch his eye. “Umm… Here you go.”

  Again, he held up a finger.

  Unbelievable.

  Eventually, he plucked the bill out of my hand and gave me change. Then he picked up a tall coffee cup, opened a marker, and scribbled a name on it. Simone.

  My brows drew together. “Is that supposed to be mine?”

  He huffed. “It’s got your name on it, doesn’t it?”

  Rather than argue, I smiled. “Sure. You have a wonderful day.”

  “Next!”

  I assumed that was his way of asking me to step aside
so he could take the next customer.

  A few people were milling around at the other end of the counter, so I went to join them and proceeded to do what everyone else was doing: look down at my cell phone. Fisher had texted a few minutes ago.

  Fisher: Good luck working on the marketing today. I know that’s your favorite part!

  I texted back.

  Stella: Thank you! I’m nervous but excited.

  He then sent me a picture of a man from the newest dating site he’d joined. The guy wore only a pair of tight, gray boxers. His smile was nice, and he had good hair. But when I panned down to the rest of him, my eyes bulged. Now I knew why he’d sent it to me. Another text arrived underneath.

  Fisher: You told me to stop picking men by their abs and look for a genuine smile. That thing is definitely smiling. ;)

  Stella: That can’t be real…

  I lifted my phone closer and zoomed in on the bulge. No way was that all him. The guy had to have a banana stuffed in there somewhere. No, forget that, it was definitely a zucchini. Did penises even come in that size? Surely none that I’d ever seen.

  A deep voice over my shoulder startled me.

  “And to think I start my morning off by browsing The Wall Street Journal…”

  I jumped, and my cell phone tumbled from my hands, hitting the floor. I bent to scoop it up and scowled. “Oh my God, why would you sneak up on me like that?”

  Hudson chuckled. “How could I pass up interrupting when you’re watching porn?”

  “I’m not watching porn.” I felt my face redden. “My friend sent me a picture of a guy from a dating site.”

  He looked skeptical. “Uh-huh.”

  Embarrassed, I tried to convince him it was the truth by holding up the phone to show him—only to realize I’d been zooming in on the guy’s dick. “No, really…”

  Hudson held up his hand to block the view. “I’ll take your word for it. Thanks. But I’m glad to see you and your friend are both focusing on the important qualities in a man.”

  I shook my head. Awesome. I kept making one good impression after another with this guy. I sighed in defeat.

  “Simone!” the barista yelled.

  I heard him, but it didn’t click at first.