Sugar and Spice: A Karma Café Novella (8 page)

“That’s why you left?”  How was he supposed to have know that, given she hadn’t bothered to tell him.

Dedra’s chin lifted in challenge, but there was a little quiver along her jaw as she tried to keep her expression stoic and strong.  Why, knowing what he did, was that still so sweet?

“I don’t give a damn about you running out over that,” he snapped.  Ignoring the shock on her face—what?  She thought his legendary cool would extend to her stabbing him through the heart?—he strode to the window to glare at the Golden Gate.  “Do you really think I’m such an asshole that I’d expect you to have a physical relationship with me if you thought I was getting married?”

“No.  But it’s not like it’s a
marriage
marriage.  It’s a merger.  A business transaction.”  She said that like she’d been practicing those words over and over.

He hoped so.  He hoped she’d been worrying them and pondering and freaking about the damned things.  Paul’s fist hit the windowsill before he even realized he’d clenched it.

“It’s a legally binding contract with a woman who would be determined to make it as much a marriage as possible,” he pointed out.  He took a vicious sort of satisfaction when she winced and bit her lip.

“What’s the matter, Dedra?  You have a problem with that?”

“You need to do what’s best for the company,” she sidestepped.

“Always business,” he murmured.  “Always the right thing.”

That did it.  The temper he’d never realized she had snapped.  Dedra surged to her feet and slammed both fists on her hips.

“Would you prefer something else?  Maybe I should insist you throw away five generations of hard work, your family legacy and a small fortune?  And for what?  Sex?  You’ve never slept with a woman longer than three months, Paul.  So the potential of three months of sex is worth all of that?”

Her words slapped at him, both the angry tone and the truth in them.  Peter was the one labeled a playboy, but Paul knew his reputation wasn’t much better.  Still, Dedra had been the one to seduce him.  Not the other way around.

“I’d have preferred the truth,” he growled.

“And I gave you the truth.”  Her words were insistent, but there was a faint hint of guilt in her eyes.  As there should be, dammit.  “I said I wanted to see what it was like between us.”

“And what about lies by omission?”

“I didn’t...”

Her words trailed off and she closed her eyes.  Taking a deep breath through her nose, she met his gaze again and nodded.

“You did talk to Peter.  He told you I’d quit.”

“You quit your job and didn’t tell me.  You weren’t even going to say goodbye.  Just hop on the midnight flight and disappear.”  He spat the accusations at her, fury and pain overriding any concern he had about sounding like a pathetic loser who’d been ditched.  “After everything, you were just going to leave.”

Everything.  Years of working together, of being friends.  Of making him depend on her fabulous work, her beautiful smile and her sly sense of humor.  Even before she’d given him a peek into heaven, she’d planned to break his heart.

Guilt was razor-sharp, miserable and unyielding.  Dedra wanted to cry at the look on Paul’s face.  She wanted to run from the room and avoid the truth.  That she’d been too afraid of her feelings to stay.

“I didn’t think I could say goodbye,” she admitted.

“And yet, here you are.  So what changed?  You’d already staged a damned good exit scene.  I don’t think you can top sneaking out at midnight,” he said, the sarcasm cutting a little deeper because it was chilled.

“I couldn’t leave things the way they were.  I owe you too much, owe us too much, to run away like that.”

The look he gave her was pure skepticism.  Like he wanted to call bullshit on her claim, but was too much a gentleman to point out that she’d been fine running away before the lovely orgasms he’d provided.

She couldn’t blame him.

But she could try to explain why.  She owed it to him, to both of them—and those lovely orgasms—to be totally honest before she said goodbye.  

“My father’s company is teetering,” she told him, waiting for that to sink in.  His frown and shift of his shoulders told her he understood how hard hat would be for her.  The dual feelings of triumph that her stepmother failed, and despair at all her father’s years of work ruined.  “Ana and Dru are stepping down, and Wenda, my stepmother, is offering me sixty-percent of the company if I can save it.”

“So you’re going back to Chicago to save them?  Why?”

“I didn’t want to.  Oh, I felt like I should, that it’d be the right thing to do.  But I love my job here, love living in California.”

“So why go?”

“Because I couldn’t stay.”  She bit her lip, then with a shaky breath put it all on the line.  “Their offer was an easy out.  A way to prove myself and have a good excuse to leave.”

“Why didn’t you talk to me?”

She winced at the hurt in his tone.  He was right.  She knew everything about his life, all the good and the bad.  But she hid her own from him.

“I almost did.  But, well, I couldn’t.  Then things started getting crazy with the Bittle negotiations.  Once I saw the direction it was heading, well, I just couldn’t watch any longer.  I don’t like how she manipulates you, or how things change when she’s in the office.  Call it jealousy,” she suggested, laughing to try and make the desperate truth sound more like a joke.  “But I just couldn’t work for you if you were married to her.”

“And you couldn’t tell me this?”

“What?  Give you an ultimatum?  Her or me?  The answer you felt was best to stop the board’s takeover, or my feelings?  How is that fair?  How could I do that?”

“Aren’t you doing it anyway?  You just didn’t give me any actual choice in the matter.”

Angry, Dedra almost snapped.  Then she realized he was right.

“I hadn’t thought of it that way,” she admitted, lifting both palms with a shrug.  “I’m so used to doing things to make your life easier, to making decisions in order to streamline your workload, I guess I didn’t think twice about doing it in this case.”

“And now that things have changed?  Are you still leaving?”

Nerves jumped like frayed electrical wires, making her insides frazzle and her stomach twist.  She wanted to tell him no. That she’d called her stepmother and told her she wasn’t talking the job.  That she didn’t want to run to the past, but wished with all her heart to embrace the present.

She wanted to admit that it’d felt damned good to go after what she wanted the other night, and just as good to realize how much she loved where she was at in life.  And that she wanted to stay here.  In San Francisco.  Working at Chastains.  And sleeping with Paul.

It felt so good, she was here to fight for it.

Except fighting for it was currently making her stomach feel woozy.

“So what are you doing about the Bittle account?” she asked instead.

“I told you, Peter’s negotiating with her.  He’s who she gets to work with now.”

“She will only work with you.”

“She doesn’t get to choose anymore.  She wants this deal as much as we do.  But now she has to make it with my brother instead of me.  To most women, one Chastain is the same as the other.  Sylvia is no different.”

Dedra shrugged.  That wasn’t news.  She’d said for years that most of the women he dealt with, especially Sylvia, were idiots.

“So, what?” she scoffed.  “Peter’s marrying Ms. Bittle?” “He’s putting that on the table.  I doubt she’ll take it, though.  Peter’s hardly marriage material.  But the negotiations don’t name specifics, and we hadn’t gotten as far as bringing in the legal department, so there’s nothing she can do about it.  She’ll probably want a deeper cut of the profits, maybe a year or so longer contract.  He’ll figure it out.”

Dedra shook her head at the potential disaster Paul was so blithely dismissing.  What had she done?  She should have kept her skirt on, her shoes sensible and her fantasies to herself.

“Why are you doing this?  No matter what Peter pulls off, it won’t be as good of a deal.  It might not be enough to impress the board and keep them from voting against you.”  

As much as she wanted to hear he’d done it for her, for them, she hoped just as hard that wasn’t the case.  As gallant as it might sound for him to care for her so much he’d throw away everything he’d worked for, everything his family had worked toward for generations, she didn’t want to carry that kind of emotional baggage.

“Why?”  Paul shoved his hands in his pockets and gave her a long look.  The same look he used when he was sizing up an opponent, gauging what tack to take to win the ensuing argument.

Then he shrugged and dropped to the furry pink chair.  “I couldn’t go through with it.  Because you’re right.  I have no problem being judged by the board on my performance on the job, but I’m tired of them trying to run my private life.”

“You’ve said that before,” Dedra pointed out quietly as she sat opposite him on the furless couch.  “Ever since you took over, you’ve railed against their interference.”

“I know.  But my answer to their interference was stupid.  Instead of telling them to butt out, I tried to manipulate them.  I made my personal life a game and let them choose the moves.”  Frowning, he gave her a look that melted her heart and made her knees tremble.  “Then I realized what was at stake in the game.  What I’d be giving up if I won.”

Dedra wet her lips, but couldn’t find any words.

“This, between us—” He gestured.  “It’s not a game.  What I feel for you, and realizing how easy it is to lose, isn’t something I’m willing to play with.  I won’t risk us on a business deal, or the whims of the board.”

“What do you feel for me?” she asked, needing to hear the words.  Needing to know for sure.  Gratitude and friendship and great sex were all well and good.  But what she felt was so much bigger than that.

He took a deep breath, then got to his feet, pulling her up along with him.  Standing there, her hands in his, he stared into her eyes.  He opened his mouth to speak.

Dedra’s heart skipped.  Her pulse raced.

He winced, then instead of saying anything, leaned close and kissed her.

It was a fairytale kiss.  Sweet and sexy, filled with passion and promise.  His lips were gentle, coaxing.  She sank into the delight, forgetting all about the question.

He slowly, almost reluctantly, pulled back.

His eyes still locked on hers, he lifted one hand, then the other and brushed soft kisses over her knuckles.

“I’m in love with you,” he said, his words a whisper.  “I’m in awe of you.  I’m blown away at how you make me feel.  Like I can do anything, as long as you’re by my side.”

Who knew reality was even better than the fantasy?

Dedra sighed, her heart so full it hurt.  She slid one of her hands from his to cup his cheek and press a whisper of a kiss against his full lower lip.

“I guess you’ve probably guessed, but I love you too,” she said with a tremulous smile.

“I was hoping.”

This time his kiss was pure passion.  Hot, wild, intense.  A promise of what was to come.

“It’s like magic,” he said when he released her lips.

With a tiny wince, Dedra thought back to the truffles.  Nah.  Anja might be a little out there, but there was no such thing as witches or magic.  Not in real life.

“It is,” she agreed, wrapping her arms around his neck.  “It’s like its own, special kind of magic.”

Epilogue

“W
hat do you mean, he’s moved out?”  Natalia slammed the flour bin on the counter and glared at Anja.  “He paid through the end of next week.  He said there was some big reason he needed to keep a low profile.”

“I guess his reason changed,” Anja replied with a shrug, keeping her eyes on the swirls of icing she was adding to the pecan cinnamon rolls instead of meeting her mother’s eyes.

“Or were changed.”

That was the problem with having a mother with almost magical intuition.  She was really hard to fool.

“Leave the girl be,” Odette chimed in, lifting a bowl of chopped vegetables to pour into boiling broth.  The tiny woman stirred the huge pot of soup with a wooden spoon, looking like the witch Dedra had accused them of being.

“She did something to ruin this.”  Glaring, Natalia pounded a mound of dough with a little more force than necessary.  “I’ll find out, you know.  You can’t hide anything from me, Anja.”

“What’s to find out?  Mr. Chastain fixed the problems he was having with his company, and in his personal life, and moved back to his own home.”

“What problems with his personal life?”

Anja’s hand froze on the icing bag.  She held her breath, inwardly cringing.  If she admitted she’d helped Dedra and Paul get together, even though they were meant to be, her mother would have a fit over Anja wriggling off her matchmaking hook.

“His brother Peter came by to pick up the things Paul had left behind and mentioned something about Paul and his assistant.  I guess they have a thing going on,” she said, looking up from the rolls to offer her most innocent look.

From the expression on her Natalia’s face, it wasn’t innocent enough.  Not surprising, since that was one virtue Anja had never had much of.  Still, there wasn’t much her mother could do but grumble and get back to baking.

“Mrs. Karmanski?”

All three women turned.  Tia, the new waitress grimaced, then added, “Sorry, I mean, Natalia?  There’s a problem with the cash register.  It’s sticking.”

“We really need to replace that,” Natalia muttered.  Then, with a frustrated look at her daughter, she gave the waitress a stiff smile and gestured that she precede her out of the kitchen.

Anja’s triumph faded a little under the weight of guilt.  Things really did suck, financially.  And her mother was carrying the weight of that.  Still, trying to force her daughter’s hand in marriage on the first wealthy guy she could find wasn’t the answer.

At least, not the answer Anja was willing to accept.

“You know she won’t quit,” Odette murmured, adding handfuls of chopped herbs to her concoction.

“What do you mean?”