Sweet Dreams: A Sugar Rush Sweeter Treat

by Nina Lindsey

  “I’m scared to go,” she admitted. “But seeing how brave you’ve been for ten years makes me think I can be that way too.”

  Hannah looked almost startled. “You think I’m brave?”

  “Of course. To travel the way you do, for as long as you have? That takes tremendous courage. I’ve always envied that about you.”

  Hannah blinked, disbelief crossing her expression. “It doesn’t take courage to get on a train and leave. It takes courage to stay and help your mother even though you know she might not get better. It takes courage to try and save a failing business. To believe the way that you do.”

  Tears stung the backs of Polly’s eyes. “Then please do this for me, Hannah. I just need a chance.”

  As they looked at each other, a current of warm tenderness passed between them, an echo of the bond they’d once shared as children. Hannah reached out and squeezed Polly’s arm.

  “All right, Polliwog. It’s your turn to go.”

  Chapter 26

  “Where’s the fucking budget report?” Luke snapped.

  And what the fuck was wrong with everyone? Why couldn’t they do their fucking work and get him the fucking paperwork on fucking time?

  “Sir, you just asked Roger for it two hours ago.” Kate looked so implacably unmoved that Luke was all the more annoyed. “I’m certain he’s working on it.”

  “What’s taking him so long?”

  “He’s running the numbers as we speak.”

  Luke shoved away from the desk, his fists clenching. Why was his executive assistant so calm when there was a volcano roaring inside him, scorching his veins with lava and burning him to the core? Why were people acting as if nothing was wrong, as if the world hadn’t fallen off its axis? Why was the sun still rising every morning?

  Everything should have damn well stopped the second Polly Lockhart walked out of his life. No. Flew out of his life, on the way to live her dream in Paris.

  She’d been gone by the time he returned from Switzerland. He’d gone straight back to work. Because what else was there?

  Countless times he’d reached for his phone, desperate to call her, to hear her voice, but something always stopped him. The truth of his responsibilities. The knowledge that he’d been right to let her go.

  Cowardice. Fear.

  “I’ll call Roger and get you an ETA.” Kate strode to the door. “Will there be anything else?”

  “Yes. Get me a coffee.”

  “You don’t drink coffee, sir.”

  “I do now. Black. Not one of those fancy au laits or whatever. Nothing French.”

  “Yes, sir.” Kate pulled open the door and tossed him a glance over her shoulder. “By the way, I forgot to tell you your aunt is on her way up.”

  Luke ground his teeth together and shot Kate a glare that could have sliced metal.

  “You forgot, huh?” he snapped.

  Kate blinked, somehow managing to look innocent despite her severe, scraped-back hairstyle and crisp black suit. “It completely slipped my mind, Mr. Stone.”

  “See that things don’t slip your mind again,” he gritted.

  “Yes, sir.”

  He could have sworn she muttered something under her breath as she stepped outside. He heard her talking to Julia, and before he could get to the door and lock it, his aunt entered his office.

  “I hear you’re terrorizing everyone from here to Timbuktu.” Julia tossed her handbag onto a chair. “And that your employees are working beyond overtime to get shit done for you.”

  “I pay them well to do their work,” Luke retorted. “What are you doing here?”

  “Someone has to tell you you’re being an asshole, and everyone else is too scared to confront you,” she replied bluntly. “Not to mention that I’ve gotten half a dozen calls about your association with the inventor of the Declair.”

  She took out her phone and scrolled through it before turning the screen toward him. Luke took the phone, his chest twisting as he stared at a photo of him and Polly standing beside each other at the museum exhibition. Although the photo was grainy and dark, his girl glowed with an iridescent, inner light.

  He handed the phone back to his aunt. “There’s no association. She’s gone.”

  Polly had been gone for exactly one week and three days. Wild Child was still selling plenty of Declairs to the customers lined up outside every morning, and they had launched online orders through their website.

  According to Julia, Clementine had delayed her move to help Hannah settle in, and Polly’s friends Mia, Tom, and Ramona were all now working at Wild Child. Everyone had rallied to help Polly fulfill her dream of going to Paris.

  Everyone except him.

  “She rented an apartment in the seventh arrondissement,” Julia remarked. “In a building that used to be an artist’s atelier. Her classes haven’t started yet, but she’s met her instructors and is enrolled in French lessons.”

  Luke glowered at his aunt. “How do you know all that?”

  “We’re texting. And she sent me an email last week.” Julia looked at her phone. “I told her to contact my friend Marie-Laure, who can introduce her to people her own age. Not that Polly will have trouble making friends.”

  And having fun. She was probably already having a blast. Hell, she’d probably forgotten about him already. When a young woman went off to live a dream in Paris, why would she give a second thought to the jerk she left behind?

  Except Polly wasn’t like that. She loved with everything she had, and she sure as hell didn’t forget about the people closest to her. Just the opposite—she had a permanent place in her heart for them.

  Luke shrugged into his suit jacket. “I gotta go.”

  “Where are you going?” Julia asked.

  Anywhere that wasn’t here. Anywhere that he didn’t have to be reminded he would spend the rest of his life in the corporate offices of Sugar Rush.

  “Just out.” He grabbed his keys and went to the door.

  Kate was still at her desk, and she looked up at him. “Sir, Roger is on his way up with the budget report. Lucy is fetching your coffee right now.”

  “Forget the report and the coffee.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Go home, Kate. Tell everyone else to do the same.”

  Luke headed for the elevator. Outside, it was already getting dark, the faint scent of fall in the air. He got into his car, flexing his hands on the wheel. He couldn’t stand the thought of returning to his “space station” house, so he put the Porsche in gear and headed toward Rainsville. Twenty minutes later, he found himself pulling into the parking lot of the Troll’s House.

  He went inside, welcoming the loud music emanating from the jukebox, the after-work crowd of blue-collar men who didn’t care who he was or where he worked. He pulled off his jacket, rolled up his sleeves, and headed for the bar.

  His gaze narrowed on the stool where Polly had been sitting when he’d turned and seen her watching him. A college-aged kid was sitting there now, and the sight of him in her seat scraped Luke’s insides with irritation.

  He sat at another barstool and ordered a scotch. The burn of alcohol felt good going down. He reached into his breast pocket and took out Polly’s elephant charm, which he’d been carrying around with him since she left.

  You’re a cardinal sign. Cardinal signs govern the seasons and have the power to change.

  There are too many mysteries in the world. Things you can’t explain by science or logic.

  Your heart line is deep and clear.

  I’ll save you.

  Tell me you believe in love.

  Promise?

  “You want another?” The bartender stopped in front of him.

  Luke dropped the charm back into his pocket and looked at his empty glass. “You got something called a birthday cake shot?”

  The bartender lifted his eyebrows. “Sure. You want one?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Is it your birthday?”

  “No.”


  The bartender shrugged and turned to concoct the shot. He then placed a shotglass frothy with whipped cream and lined with rainbow sprinkles in front of Luke.

  “Enjoy,” he said.

  Luke stared at the shot. He’d first touched Polly when he’d taken a pink sprinkle off her lip.

  “Man, that is the girliest looking drink I’ve ever seen.”

  Luke glanced up. Evan slid onto the stool at his right and his father got onto the stool at his left. Tension tightened Luke’s chest. He knew an ambush when he saw one.

  “What the hell is it?” Warren nodded at the drink.

  “Birthday cake shot.”

  Luke lifted the glass to his father in a salute and downed it in one gulp. The sugar rush burned his chest and hit his bloodstream like an explosion. He coughed.

  Evan grinned. “Guess you can’t handle the girly stuff, huh?”

  “The girly stuff is messing with my head big time.” Luke thunked the glass back on the bar and pushed off the stool. “Come on.”

  They went over to a pool table. Luke racked the balls while Evan and Warren chose their cues. They started playing. For a few minutes, Luke was able to focus on the game, despite the sweet taste in his mouth and the undying thoughts of Polly. He lined up a shot, fired, and missed.

  “I got an email from Carson suggesting we ask the board to address your recent plunge into a dictatorship,” his father said, as they waited for Evan to take a shot.

  Given the number of times he’d overridden decisions in recent weeks, Luke wasn’t surprised. He was, however, surprised that he didn’t much care.

  “Go ahead,” he said.

  “Son.”

  Luke’s heart sank. His father only called him son when things were getting serious.

  “Morale is down,” Warren continued. “After you called Carson out at the board meeting, two VPs have told me this is exactly what happened after the paternity suit. People are even scared to approach you with ideas now. Unless you want another mutiny, you can’t keep doing this.”

  “Yeah.” Luke dragged a hand down his face, defeat suddenly spiraling through him. “I know.”

  “You need to take some time off,” Warren said.

  “I can’t.”

  “Actually, you can,” Evan said. “You just don’t want to.”

  “And it’s time that you did,” Warren added.

  “No.”

  Evan and Warren exchanged glances. Luke gestured to the bartender to bring them another round of drinks. He hated the fear simmering inside him, the sense that he had no idea what he would be or do without Sugar Rush. He’d spent his adult life working for the company. What else could he do?

  “Don’t push me out,” he warned his father and brother. “I saved the damned company, remember?”

  “Yeah, we remember,” Evan said. “God knows you remind us often enough.”

  Warren clapped a hand on Luke’s shoulder. “I’ll never be able to tell you how much I appreciate everything you’ve done. I know you wanted to fix things, and you have. Net sales are up, North American and international profits have increased, and we’re regaining our market position. You’ve worked damned hard to get those results. But it kills me to see you living your life for the company instead of…living your life.”

  “You mean like you are?” Luke snapped.

  Warren was silent. Regret speared through Luke. He moved to line up a shot, unable to look at his brother. None of them had ever mentioned their father’s self-imposed isolation after their mother’s death. Even twelve years later, Warren remained focused on work and family. Not himself.

  Luke stared at the pattern of balls on the pool table as if it would somehow provide him with answers to all the questions crashing through his head. He was starting to sense that his controlling nature had affected his relationships with his family more than he’d been willing to see or admit. Not for the first time, he wondered how different their lives would be if his mother were still alive.

  His chest tightened. He didn’t want his father to be alone any more than he wanted himself to be alone. And a future without Polly was a bleak, arid desert of nothing.

  Surely there had to be a way to fix what he’d broken, to figure out how to run Sugar Rush and give Polly everything she deserved at the same time, to make it work.

  He just had no idea how.

  She’d been standing right next to the stove. Even with her curly hair hidden under an ugly plastic cap, Luke had known exactly who she was. He’d felt her presence the instant he’d walked into the Sugar Rush test kitchen all those weeks ago. It had taken every ounce of his self-control to find a way to get rid of everyone else so he could be alone with her.

  He stirred the mixture of sugar and corn syrup boiling on the stove. He added coloring and flavor, then checked the candy thermometer and carried the pot over to the counter.

  He was pouring the mixture into the heart-shaped molds when the kitchen door opened. His younger brother Spencer walked in, still in his lab coat despite the fact that it was past eight at night.

  “Hey, man.” Spencer’s eyebrows lifted behind his glasses. “What’re you doing here?”

  “Experimenting.” Luke set the pot down. “You?”

  “Need a hand roller.” Spencer opened a drawer and removed a stainless steel roller. He turned, eyeing the candy molds. “That’s going to be grainy. See those sugar crystals? You should have wiped the excess sugar off the pot.”

  Luke frowned. His eyes burned with fatigue, but he wasn’t about to stop now. He dumped the candy into the trash and started again. As he measured sugar back into the pot, Spencer stopped beside him.

  “The pot needs to be clean and dry.” He took the pot from the stove and brought it to the sink. “Otherwise it’ll screw up the mixture.”

  After cleaning the pot, he set it back on the stove and showed Luke how to properly measure the ingredients. They were halfway done before Luke felt his brother’s gaze.

  “So what’s this about?” Spencer asked.

  Luke shrugged. “Just seeing what I can come up with.”

  They worked a while longer—with Spencer’s expert help, the candy poured easily into the molds, a perfect ruby-red unmarred by sugar crystals.

  “Evan and I are going up to the city next weekend,” Spencer said. “See a concert, get some dinner. You want to come?”

  “Thanks, but no. You should ask Dad.”

  “We did. He also said no.” Spencer’s mouth twisted wryly. “Then he told us to ask you.”

  Luke smiled faintly, even as unease simmered inside him.

  “Did he give you a lecture about me taking a vacation?” he asked.

  “Sure, but he knows none of us can convince you to do something you don’t want to do. He said you still have months of vacation time you haven’t taken.”

  Only a few weeks ago, Luke wouldn’t have known what to do with “months” of vacation time. But now…what if he could fill it with everything Polly?

  He tried to imagine it, and couldn’t. Even if he did go after her, there was a good chance she’d want nothing to do with him anymore. And then what? He’d come back and spend his days doing nothing?

  “I can’t take all that time off,” he said. “I have to handle the Alpine acquisition. Besides, who’d take over if I left?”

  “You asking me or yourself?”

  Luke looked at the candy. If he did take time off, he’d have to appoint an interim CEO to handle things in his absence. And there were very few people he trusted enough to deal with the business, much less close the acquisition…

  Wait a minute.

  He pulled the apron off, his heart suddenly kicking into gear. “Hey, is Evan still in his office?”

  “Far as I know. You should add rock candy to—”

  Before his brother could finish, Luke was halfway out the door. He hurried to the main building and took the stairs to Evan’s office. Evan was at his desk, his attention on his computer. He looked up, fr
owning as his gaze scanned over Luke’s wrinkled dress shirt, stained with food coloring, and his unshaven jaw.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” Evan asked.

  Luke stopped in front of the desk. “You still want a better position in Sugar Rush?”

  “Why else do you think I’ve been trying to prove myself for so long?”

  “You’ve never had to prove anything,” Luke said. “Everyone knows how good you are.”

  “I’ve always had to prove something.” Evan shut down the computer and pushed to his feet, tension lining his shoulders. “I’ve always had to work harder and be better just to get recognized for being competent. That’s why I was flattered when Crown Foods contacted me about their COO position. For once, someone was looking at what I’d done, what I could do, instead of what I have.”

  Shame nudged at Luke. He hadn’t given his brother the credit he’d deserved. But now he would do that and more, if he could finally relinquish control.

  For Polly, he could. He would. He’d do anything for her.

  “Look, I get why you gave the Fair Trade Foundation to Sam, okay?” Evan continued, old irritation rising to his eyes. “I know you were worried about the traveling. Fine. But don’t you tell me I shouldn’t take on the stress of a higher level position or that I don’t have the experience. And don’t you dare tell me I don’t love this company as much as you do just because I wasn’t the one who saved it.”

  Silence fell. Luke still couldn’t envision his life without Sugar Rush, but maybe he had the courage to let go so that he could find out. Polly had. She’d left Wild Child in the hands of her trusted friends in order to discover what her dream contained.

  He had a flashback to when he’d been eight years old and anxious about his upcoming tryout for Little League pitcher.

  “If I don’t pitch, what would I do?” he’d asked his father.

  “Whatever position you get, you play the best game you can,” his father replied. “That’s all you can ever do.”