The CEO Daddy Next Door (2 page)

Tabitha dismissed them with a flutter of her hands. “Mrs. White is right. Work it out.”

Marcus and Ashley filed out of the room as if they were two children who'd been sent to their rooms without a proper supper. Neither could claim a true victory, but at least Marcus had the upper hand. He was thankful for that. When the lift doors opened, he held them for Ashley.

“I need to make sure I have all of your phone numbers,” she said curtly. “Your office. The home number. In case there's a problem.”

He fished his cell phone from his pocket, choking back the words he wanted to say. There already was a problem. After their one date, he'd promised himself that he would stay as far away from her as possible. Ashley represented his most selfish tendencies, the part of him that craved a woman who was untamed and brimming with life, gorgeous and sexy and just a little bit crazy. His priority was finding a mother for Lila, and that meant a woman who was sensible and calm, and who acted in an entirely predictable way. He could learn to live with that, for Lila.

Ashley rested her enormous handbag on her knee and bent over it, rummaging through the contents. Marcus tried to avert his eyes, but he couldn't. They were drawn to her cleavage the way a man roaming a desert is drawn to cool water. His breath caught in his throat. Her skin was a delicate wash of peach and pink, curving, dipping and swelling. A lock of her golden-blond hair fell from her shoulders, draping across her gorgeous display. His eyes clamped shut. He couldn't take another minute. Ashley was the thorn in his side, however much she might resemble the rose that grew alongside it.

The elevator dinged, the doors slid open and they came face-to-face with the only person to improve his mood reliably—Lila.

Lila's nanny, Catherine, was pushing her in the stroller. “Mr. Chambers. I was about to take Lila out for a short walk before bed.” Catherine's wide eyes were glued to Ashley. “Ms. George. I loved last night's
Manhattan Matchmaker
.”

“Please, call me Ashley. And it was just a rerun, wasn't it?” Ashley stepped out into the hall.

Catherine seemed as if she might burst from excitement. She was so taken with Ashley and her show. It was all she and his housekeeper, Martha, seemed to talk about, which drove Marcus crazy. He could see why people might be beguiled by her, but the show itself was silly. A ruse. True love. Soul mates. Fiction.

“But I love that episode,” Catherine said. “It was the one with the doctor and the woman who owns the bakery. Only you could've put those two people together. They totally fell in love.”

Ashley smiled. “That's very sweet of you to say. Thank you.”

Marcus held the elevator while Catherine pushed the stroller onboard and turned it around. Marcus leaned down to press a kiss to Lila's forehead, inhaling the sweet scent that came from her wispy blond hair. He rubbed his thumb across her rosy cheek. The smile and gurgle she gave him were salve for his soul. Without question, she was the most precious thing in his life, and she deserved so much more than he could give her on his own. Precisely the reason to avoid Ashley and find Lila a mum. “You have fun, my darling. Daddy will read you a bedtime story when you come home.” He released the doors as Catherine waved goodbye.

“Your daughter is adorable. And very sweet. You know, that's only the second time I've seen her. I didn't even see her the night...” Ashley looked up at the ceiling for a moment. “You know. The night we went out. You've done a good job of keeping her from me.”

I do a good job of keeping Lila from everyone.
Protecting Lila was more than his charge. It was his strongest instinct. She'd been dealt a rotten hand in life, and it was his fault. He'd chosen the wrong woman for a wife and when things got bad, he'd convinced her that having a baby would make everything better. He was the reason Lila's mother wasn't there for her.

“I believe you were about to give me your other phone numbers,” he said, changing the subject.

“I'll send you a text right now.” Ashley punched away at the keyboard. “Then you'll have my info.”

Marcus's phone lit up with the other numbers. And a message.
I'm not evil. Just so you know.

“I never said you were evil, Ms. George.”

“Please don't call me Ms. George. We've been on a date. It will make life much easier if we can drop the formalities.”

“Very little in life is easy, but if that will placate you, I will call you Ashley.”

Ashley narrowed her stare. For a moment, it was as if she was peering down into his soul, and he didn't like that feeling at all. “You're grumpy before your time, Chambers. And I don't get it, because you weren't like that when I first met you. What exactly has made you such a curmudgeon?”

“I appreciate your deft use of the English language, but I hardly think this is an appropriate topic of conversation.”

He turned for his door, but Ashley's hand on his arm stopped him. It was as if he was wearing no jacket at all. The warmth of her touch cut right through the wool. He looked down at her slender fingers curved around his biceps.

“You can't hide from things. You definitely can't hide from me. I'm a very perceptive person. That's why I have the job I do. I see things in people they don't see in themselves.”

He turned his sights to her face, fighting the sensations coursing through his body. Warmth. Attraction. A deep, desperate desire to weave his fingers through her hair, cup the back of her head and claim the kiss he'd deprived himself of the night they went on their date. The look in her wide brown eyes was one of the most sincere he'd ever seen. It would've been so easy to give in to the way she made him feel at that instant. But he owed Lila too much. “Good night, Ms. George.”

She shook her head and patted him on the shoulder. “It's Ashley, Chambers. You'll get it eventually.”

Two

A
shley had given Marcus a slew of top-secret nicknames—Tower of London for his stature, the Earl of Handsome for obvious reasons and the British Pain-in-the-Butt, reserved for moments like last night. She had very few problems figuring out most people. Marcus was another case. Why did he dislike her so much? After her scolding at the HOA meeting, she'd spent much of the night trying to sort it out. She'd devoted most of the ride to her office that morning to thinking about it, too. The man had it all. So why be so unhappy? Why be so closed off?

A knock came at Ashley's office door. Grace from network publicity poked her head inside, her wavy auburn hair in a messy bun that only someone truly self-assured could pull off.

“You ready for me?” She didn't wait for an answer, breezing into Ashley's office in a tailored gray suit and heels. The benefit of having accepted the office space the network had offered was that meetings were a simple matter of strolling down the hall. The downside was being under their thumb.

Ashley nodded, untangling herself from confusing thoughts about Marcus. “Yes. Of course.” She collected a stack of papers on her desk, turned to a clean page on a legal pad and picked up a pen. It was time to get to work. There were several final details to discuss for the
Manhattan Matchmaker
premiere party.

“So? Do I dare ask what happened with your building board meeting last night?” Grace took a chair opposite Ashley's desk, resting her laptop on her knees. Grace had been a champion of Ashley's show from the very beginning, and they'd become good friends over the three years they'd worked together.

“They decided that one more complaint from the Tower of London and I have to hire a new contractor.”

Grace winced. “Ouch. Harsh.”

“Tell me about it.” The uneasy feeling in her stomach returned. Marcus had too much control over the one thing in her life that was strictly hers. “Bottom line? He hates me. That's pretty clear by now, and I can't get past the idea that it's about more than the mess in the hall.”

“I can't fathom anyone hating you, Ash. It sounds to me like he's just an uptight guy. He shook your hand after a date. Who does that?”

“Don't remind me.” Yet another piece of evidence supporting her supposition. Marcus simply disliked her. “Let's just get to work. I have a million things to do before the party Thursday night. The people over at Peter Richie are going to strangle me if I don't show up for my final dress fitting this afternoon.”

Grace shook her head in dismay. “Ash. Peter Richie is one of the hottest designers on the planet, he's giving you a dress for your party and you still haven't shown up for your final fitting? It's two days away.”

“I know. I'm terrible.” The truth was that she'd been avoiding it. Peter had been gracious and generous, but she was keenly aware that the Manhattan Matchmaker had been afforded the luxury, not the real Ashley George. A designer making a couture gown for her? Ludicrous. The real Ashley had grown up with dresses her mother had made.

Grace opened up her laptop. “If you haven't dealt with your dress, I don't even want to guess the status of you finding a date.”

Ashley's lips twisted into a tight bunch. She'd been hoping the network would forget they'd made the request for her to find a date for the premiere party. “They're still insisting on this?”

“Yes. The premiere is a network function to publicize your show. And don't forget they still haven't given you an answer on the new show you pitched to them. You do not want to be anything less than a woman who says yes.”

“They're just fixated on this because of those stupid gossip website photos.”

“The image of you buying ice cream and a candy bar on a Saturday night did not help your image. And that affects the ratings.”

“That was three weeks ago and I had the world's worst PMS. It has nothing to do with not having a boyfriend.” Although if she'd had a boyfriend, she could have sent him out for the ice cream. “I hate the fact that anyone cares about this.”

Grace began tapping away at her laptop. “And not just a little. You know it's the most popular topic on the
Manhattan Matchmaker
message boards. Your fans want to see you happy. They want to know that the woman who finds true love for everyone else can find it for herself. And the last time I checked, Ash, you live on this kind of attention.”

Actually, Ashley didn't live on that kind of attention. She existed on it. She made money because of it. After she'd watched her parents struggle for years, working tirelessly and never getting ahead, it was nice to know she'd broken that particular family tradition.

Ashley sucked in a deep breath. “You're going to have to set me up with someone or call a male escort service. I have no prospects.”

“No way. Word will get out if I try to arrange something. I can just see it in the papers.” With a dramatic sweep of both hands, Grace made a nightmare materialize. “The Manhattan Matchmaker Can't Find Her Own Match.”

“Hey. That's not fair. You know I'm intentionally taking a break from men.”

“And my grandmother would say that you fall off the horse, you need to get right back on it.”

“Yeah, well, my saddle is out of commission. I haven't even been on a real date since James broke up with me.”

Grace's eyes flickered in a way that made Ashley squirm. “That's not true. The Tower of London? You've been on a date with him.”

It felt as though Ashley's heart had seized up in her chest. “No. That was not a date. It was a disaster.”

“He asked you out. That counts as a date.” Grace scooted forward in her seat, her eyes brimming with entirely too much excitement. “Just think. If you get him to come to the party, it'll be that much harder for him to complain about your apartment.”

“What about ‘familiarity breeds contempt'?”

“Now you're just making excuses. What's his real name again? Marcus...” She glanced down at her computer and began typing.

“Chambers,” Ashley grumbled. How exactly was this going to work? Oh, wait. It wouldn't. Marcus would say no, and that would make every hallway encounter excruciatingly miserable.

“Here he is.” Grace nodded as she looked at her laptop screen, her eyes scanning back and forth. “Chambers Gin...famous British family...divorce.” She looked up. “Divorce?”

“Yes. I told you that. Remember? He has a baby. Lila. I don't really know much other than his wife came from a prestigious family, too, and whatever happened between the two of them, she took off six weeks after the baby was born.” Ashley rubbed her forehead. “It's all online if you read enough.”

“I take it you've read it all.”

“Pretty much. What can I say? I was curious. A ridiculously hot guy moves in across the hall, a girl Googles him.”

“His wife leaves him and the baby six weeks after she's born? Whatever broke them up had to have been bad.”

“Or it'd been brewing for a long time. The reason for the divorce was listed as ‘irretrievable breakdown.' I guess that's what they call irreconcilable differences in the UK.”

“Yeah, but a mother leaving her child?”

“I know. It's awful.”

Grace returned her vision to the screen. “Financial markets... Cambridge University...”

“Will you just give this up? He's never going to agree to go with me to that party, anyway.”

“Shush. I'm reading. Rowing team...yada yada yada. Oh. My. God.” She clamped her hand over her mouth. Her eyes were as big as hubcaps when she looked up at Ashley.

She found it.

“He's in a calendar. Britain's most eligible bachelors.”

“Oh yeah. That. Sorta funny, isn't it? I mean, Mr. November? I'd give him crap about it if I wasn't trying to keep him calm.”

“So you've seen the pictures?”

She shrugged it off, pretending to busy herself with her pen and pad. “It's not like I bought one of the calendars.” Of course she hadn't. It was sold out.

“I can't believe you didn't tell me about this. We just hit the mother lode. This is perfect. You invite the hot British gin maker and I get to write the world's most amazing press release. This might end up being the pinnacle of my career.”

“Oh please. It's a calendar to raise money for a children's hospital. They do it every year. I doubt it's a big deal.”

“Uh, the picture of him with no shirt? I can guarantee people will care about that. A lot of people.”

Grace got up from her chair, set her computer on Ashley's desk and flipped it around. They were both confronted with one of Britain's most eligible bachelors and his splendid physique. “You told me he was handsome, but you really undersold it. Look at his abs. And those shoulders.”

Ashley shook her head, wishing she could erase the image of Marcus's incredible torso, the one lovingly embossed on her brain.
Is it stuffy in here?
“You're making a big deal out of nothing. That photo is probably airbrushed like crazy.” With the computer on her desk, it was impossible to avoid shirtless, sweaty Marcus, standing on shore next to the River Thames after a rowing race, smiling no less. “And I mean, he might
look
hot, but ignore that. He can be insufferable if he wants to be.”

“I could put up with a whole lot of insufferable for a guy with abs like that.” Grace returned to her seat, thankfully removing the influence of the pictures. “The network is going to be over the moon when I tell them you're bringing one of Britain's most eligible bachelors to the premiere party.”

“Hold on a second. I haven't even asked him. Were you not listening earlier? He hates me. Hates. Me.”

Grace didn't react to Ashley's words, instead looking at her laptop screen. “It says here that he's responsible for the US launch of a whole new brand of gin for his family's distillery. That's not an inexpensive proposition. We can help him with that. Every entrepreneur loves free publicity.”

And at what cost? Ashley's pride, that's what. The matchmaker truly couldn't find her own match. After her heart
and
her pride were destroyed by James, her avoidance of men was intentional, but temporary. At no point had it meant that she wasn't still hoping Mr. Right would turn up. Now she had to resort to bribing Mr. Not-Right-At-All, just to appease the network and save face.

“So, what are you waiting for? Call him. I'll wait until you're done before I start writing the press release.”

It'd been high school since Ashley had asked out a guy, and that hadn't gone well. Suddenly her hands were clammy. She certainly wasn't afraid of Marcus. But she
was
afraid he'd say no.

* * *

“I don't need to tell you the gravity of the situation.” Marcus's father's voice was unusually cold. It was the tinny overseas connection on speakerphone, Marcus hoped. He couldn't stand the thought of his normally cheerful dad being so gravely unhappy. “If we can't get this endeavor of yours off the ground, the ramifications will be great. It's not just the loss of expected growth. It's the money we've put into it, as well. It has to work.”

Yes, it does.
Marcus looked across the conference table at his sister, Joanna, the head of marketing for Chambers Gin. The worry was so plain on her face it broke his heart. “We'll turn a corner,” Marcus said. “By the time we host the media night at the new distillery, we'll be on our way.”

“I don't want you to think I don't trust you or your vision, Marcus. I absolutely do,” his father continued. “It's just that the entire family's livelihood is on the line. I don't want to get in so far over our heads that we're all left with nothing. That's not the legacy I hoped to leave behind, and it's definitely not the future I want for my children or my grandchild.”

“I'll make it work, Dad. I don't want you to worry about it.”
Leave the worrying to me.

A pregnant pause filled the room. “Okay, son. I trust you. I've got some calls to return, but I'll speak with you and JoJo on Friday, right?”

“Yes. Friday. Speak to you then.”

“Bye, Dad.” Joanna pressed the end button on the phone in the center of the conference table. “He's so stressed. I don't think I've ever heard him so stressed.”

Marcus tapped his pen on the all-too-thin stack of orders for the US gin, Chambers No. 9. “It's not like we can blame him. We aren't even close on our projections.” Marcus ran his hand through his hair and turned to stare out the office window overlooking the New York City skyline. And to think he'd been so sure they could capture the imagination of US consumers. They'd come nowhere close. He had the expertise to revive the family business, and he'd dip into his personal financial accounts if needed, but his resources did have their limits. That meant the clock was ticking. Chambers No. 9 needed a big boost, as quickly as possible.

When his father had swallowed his pride and admitted he needed help saving Chambers Gin, Marcus had let his adoration for his father and his deep devotion for his family lead the way. Leaving a highly successful and lucrative job as a European securities trader behind, he'd accepted this new challenge, no questions asked. He'd insisted only that his father trust him on this one point—they had to expand into the massive US market, and that meant launching a new artisan gin. Chambers No. 9. Cocktail culture had become big business, and there was a niche to be filled with carefully crafted spirits. Bold expansion was the only way. Go big or go home, as the Americans loved to say.

“We're just off to a slow start,” he said, steeling himself. They would get out of this, and he would lead the way. He wouldn't let anyone down. “Distribution is getting better every day, and we're making inroads. It's just going to take longer than we'd hoped. People don't change their drinking habits overnight.”