All Fired Up (DreamMakers) (23 page)

She wasn’t sure if she should be pleased or upset.

To avoid the temptation to contact him immediately, she slipped the phone into her coat pocket, then clasped her hands in her lap and tilted her head back, closing her eyes. Just for a moment, because it had been a hell of a day.

The low rumble of the tires on pavement fell into a rhythm.

Smooth.

Steady.

Lynn jerked upright, catching herself nodding off to sleep. “Sorry about that.”

Instrumental music played softly in the background, not encouraging her to wake up very quickly. “No problem,” Phil said quietly.

She blinked hard, but nothing outside the window looked familiar. Whoa, maybe she
had
been asleep for a minute or two. “Why are we on the freeway?”

Phil cleared his throat. “I have a favor to ask.”

Her gut response was
hell no,
but before she could say anything, he spoke in that calm, reasonable tone of voice he used oh so often in board meetings.

“I’m up for a promotion.”

Nice for him, didn’t answer her question about where the hell they were. “What does that have to do with—” She spotted a highway sign, and swore. “Why are we heading toward Monterey?”

He continued as if she’d never interrupted him. “Jeffrey Bigelow is the executive director of Connect International. They’re the ones who own Bay City Press and a dozen other newspapers up and down the West Coast. If I get in on this position, I’ll be able to green-light the digital program you’ve written. Which, of course, means you will receive a raise, and quite possibly be put in charge of the entire division.”

As much as Lynn loved her job and was keen about her program, she was still trying to find the real answer she needed right now. “Why are we going to Monterey?”

Phil flashed her his most enchanting smile. “We’ve been invited to spend the weekend with Mr. Bigelow while he works out his final considerations.”

“I never got any invitation, and I never accepted an offer to go to Monterey on a moment’s notice.”

“It’s the career move of a lifetime,” Phil pointed out. “You’ve got to see that. No, you didn’t get the invitation, I did. So I took the initiative to make a decision that would be good for both of us in the long run. All we have to do is spend the weekend with the Bigelows, let them see what a fine, upstanding couple we are—”

“But we’re not a couple,” she interrupted. The longer he spoke, the more rapidly her heart beat.

“One weekend. Just for one weekend,” he begged. “I promise there will be no funny business, but Mr. Bigelow is known for being the most dedicated family man ever. There is no way he would approve this promotion unless he knew I was happily married, or on the way to being settled down with a fine woman.”

It was the craziest thing she’d ever heard. Lynn slipped her hand toward her pocket in the hopes of grabbing her phone on the sly. “You want me to pretend to be with you so you can get a job promotion, so you can put my program into place, and all of this based on a lie? Do you think everyone around us is stupid?”

So much for all his bullshit talk about honesty this morning.

“Of course I don’t think people are stupid. But Bigelow is retiring in six months, so as long as he puts me into position and nothing untoward happens in the next short while, I’m good. I mean,
we’re
good.”

This was unbelievable. “Phil, come on. This is a disaster waiting to happen. Everyone at work knows we broke up and that I’ve been seeing someone else.”

“Someone who lied to you.”

And everything became crystal clear.

Lynn held onto her temper by the thinnest of threads. “So you expect me to lie not only for this weekend, but potentially for the next six months.”

“The weekend is not a problem. I grabbed some things for you. They’re in a bag in the back. And after this weekend—”

“You grabbed some things for me… From my apartment? Did you go into my apartment?” The idea made her nauseous. “This is
beyond
unbelievable. Turn the van around right now and take me back. Drop me off anywhere, and I’ll get a taxi home. You do it now and this will end right here. I swear I will never mention it again.”

She slipped her hand into her pocket and felt around for a phone that wasn’t there.

Phil had one eye on the traffic in front of them, the other on the phone she was looking for. He held it in the air away from her. “I will give it back after the weekend.”

“Stop this stupidity. No. I will make my decision very clear now. I will not pretend to be your little woman.”

He sighed. “I thought you were smarter than this. I’m not asking for much.”

“You kidnapped me, you broke into my apartment and stole my clothes. You’ve taken my phone.” Lynn leaned forward in her seat and gave him the stare of doom. “Do not think for even one second that I will be reasonable about this. You take me to the Bigelows, and I will turn around and come home on my own power. You should have grabbed one of your other chickies from the office. I’m sure one of them would have been happy pretending to be the future Mrs. Shotelle without you having to watch your back.”

“None of them are you. Enough with your complaining. I truly didn’t want it to come to this, but it seems I have no choice. You
are
going to do this for me, and I’ll tell you why. If you don’t, I’ll make terrible things happen to your friend.”

Suz? He was threatening her best friend? As if.

“I hope you have a good life-insurance policy if you think you can get anywhere near her and survive. Not to mention her four brothers and mom and dad, who are all on the police force.”

They were still moving down the highway at a steady clip, Phil traveling in the high-speed carpool lane as the miles flashed by.

“Susanna? Oh hell no, I would not go within twenty feet of that woman without her first being restrained. I was talking about your boyfriend, Parker Wilson, and the rest of that deranged crew at their fairy-boy dating service.”

Now his threat made even less sense. “You’re scared to go near a woman, but you plan on taking on three ex-Rangers? You did tell me once you’ve already prepaid your funeral expenses, correct?”

“I’m not stupid, and I know my strengths and weaknesses. You will help me out this weekend, or I will contact certain business associates I have who will be more than happy to publish a full disclosure tell-all about how the owners of DreamMakers are using their company to stalk women, and how they abuse client confidentiality.”

What?
“I had already called off our relationship before—”

“I had a signed contract with the company that they violated,” Phil snapped. “I doubt DreamMakers can afford the negative publicity that will sweep in when people begin to doubt their discretion. And it doesn’t matter in the end if Parker
can
prove he did nothing wrong. Enough people will believe the rumors, and the lingering suspicions will be enough to destroy them.”

Lynn’s chest went tight. All she could picture was the look of pride Parker wore every time he talked about how much he enjoyed his job and how important DreamMakers had become in his life. Not to mention Dean, Jack, and Didi all relied on the company for their jobs as well.

Still, Phil had to be bluffing. He was not the type to want to be dragged into the media himself. “I don’t believe you’d do that.”

“You would regret your decision. Very quickly.” He waved her phone in the air. “I have an email written with all the details ready to send at the push of a button. Plus, I already sent a text message to your best friend and told her you were going on a retreat this weekend. Needed a little space to find yourself. Don’t try to contact me, I’ll see you on Monday, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.”

Lynn pinched the bridge of her nose in frustration. “You are not seriously blackmailing me just so you can get a job.”

“I’m forty-seven years old, and if I don’t get this position I’m going to be hung out to dry.” Phil shouted loud enough she jerked away in fear at the anger in his voice.

Also? “Forty-seven? You told me—”

“Lies, Lynn. I told you lies.” He stared straight ahead, both hands clenched around the steering wheel as he fumed. All signs of the calm and rather boring man she had known shifted into a tower of fury and unexpected danger. “The only reason I went out with you in the first place was because you’re the type of woman Mr. Bigelow would be impressed with, and now you. Will. Do. This.”

Lynn edged back on her seat out of his arm’s reach, just in case, cut to the core by his insults.

“Don’t think for an instant I won’t do what I have to. I have the contacts, and they
will
find a way to make this go viral in the worst possible manner,” Phil threatened again. “The paper already has pictures on file of the two of you together. I can see the memes circulating already.”

She cringed involuntarily. He was totally off his rocker. Like tipped-off-the-porch-and-into-the-fishpond off his rocker.

“Decide. Help me with this innocent ruse, or I send the email.” His tone of voice changed again as he regained his control. Firm and even, oh so reasonable. The Phil who took control in the office and made people snap to attention. “I promise I will never say a word to anyone regarding DreamMakers if you do this one thing for me. Please, Lynn.”

If it had only been about her, the decision would have been simple. She would have told Phil to take a flying leap. To stick his lying and conniving plot up his fine and pretentious butt. Only she simply couldn’t do it. The whole horrifying situation wasn’t hers to untangle.

It was Parker’s.

Lynn hoped she knew what he’d tell her—that no matter what happened, DreamMakers would be fine. But she…

She wasn’t brave enough to hurt him.

Pretending to go along with Phil was the only solution she had right now. She wouldn’t let herself be put in physical danger, but until she found a phone and talked to Parker, her hands were tied. “Fine, I’ll do it.”

He seemed suspicious at her abrupt change of mind. “Really?”

“I don’t like it, not at all. But I get how if you’re getting on in years—”
holy shit, he was twenty years older than her?
“—it’s important to have a job that will sustain you into your final years of wage earning.”

Oh my God, she sounded like some financial planning guru on a late-night show.

But whatever it took to keep Phil from doing something incredibly stupid, Lynn had to take the chance. Somewhere at their destination she would find a phone and get ahold of Parker. There had to be a way out of this.

She just didn’t know how.

Chapter Fifteen

“Where is she?”

Parker’s head jerked up as Suz burst into the office without warning. He set his beer bottle on the desktop and shot from his chair as Lynn’s best friend advanced on him like a lioness.

“What are you talking about?” he said gruffly.

“Lynn.” Suz crossed her arms. “I went to pick her up for our dinner date and she wasn’t at her apartment, so I went to the restaurant and she wasn’t there either. I was just leaving when she sent me a text about going away for the weekend, but it sounds like pure and total bullshit.”

Parker frowned.

Suz’s desperation grew clearer. “I even stopped by your place after the restaurant—I thought she might have stood me up in order to screw around with her man. But you weren’t home.”

A thread of worry wound around his chest. “I’ve been here all evening. I didn’t feel like…”

Like going home and moping, he didn’t finish. But it was true—the thought of being alone in his apartment without Lynn had been pure torture. He supposed he could have gone to the banquet hall where Didi and the boys were overseeing an engagement party the company had planned, but he hadn’t wanted to bum out the guests. He’d been wandering around like a dead man ever since Lynn had left his office earlier. It had taken all his willpower not to call or text her, but he’d promised to give her space, and he was forcing himself to respect that.

Now, with Lynn’s best friend alternating between glaring and biting her lip in concern, he found himself reaching for his phone.

“If you’re calling her, I already tried,” Suz told him. “She didn’t answer.”

Parker went ahead and dialed anyway, but Lynn’s phone kicked over to voice mail after the first ring, doing it again when he called two more times. He shot over a quick text asking where she was, then glanced at Suz.

Her golden blonde hair was arranged in a messy twist held in place by two ornamental chopsticks, and her wraparound sweater dress molded to her curves like a second skin. “You were supposed to have dinner with her tonight?”

Suz nodded. Her teeth sank into her lower lip again. “This isn’t like her, Parker.”

“No, it isn’t.”

Suddenly those eyes sharpened again, her tone of voice becoming hard. “What the hell did you do?”

He swallowed. “She didn’t tell you?”

“She didn’t sound too happy with you when we spoke at work, but she didn’t dish out any details. We were going to talk about it tonight.” Her jaw tensed. “How about you fill me in now?”

Parker hesitated, gulping again as a lump of shame filled his throat. After a beat, he opened his mouth and told Suz everything. When he finished, her expression had gone from vaguely angry to downright livid.

“Fucking hell! How could you be so stupid?” Hands balled into fists, Suz took a menacing step forward. “I should kick your ass, Parker!”

He stifled a sigh. “And I deserve it, but can we save the ass-kicking until
after
we find Lynn?”

His worry was growing swiftly, forming a tight knot in his gut. Lynn was the most responsible person he’d ever met. No way would she cancel a dinner appointment without giving a good reason. And to not answer her phone or text back? She might avoid
him
, but she wouldn’t shut out her best friend.

“Can I see the text she sent you?” he asked.

Without a word, Suz reached into her purse and grabbed her phone.

He studied the screen, the knot in his stomach turning into a massive ball of alarm.