This Holiday Magic (21 page)

“My wife is…”

Keaton held up a hand. “Yes, I know,” he said. “My own Nancy has been gone for two years now. Breast cancer,” he added quietly. “I should have said ‘the wives and girlfriends.' Feel free to bring a date.”

A date?
To a corporate retreat where his every move would be eyeballed from every member of the Gang of Six? He ran through the women he knew who could fit the “corporate wife” bill even if only for a weekend. His aunt Henrietta topped the list, along with his cousins Sasha and Baden. Next to his wife, they were three of the classiest ladies he'd ever known.

Then Renee Armstrong came to mind. And he just as quickly discarded that thought. She was gorgeous, but from what he'd seen of her wardrobe so far, there wasn't a single thing in it that would be appropriate for a corporate retreat. Everything he'd seen her in was avant-garde. While Andrea used to complain about what she called the “twinset wives” of KMI, she at least could pull something conservative and expensive out of her closet to wear to company events. Old Man Myers would likely collapse if he got a glimpse of Renee in one of her miniskirts or those sexy-as-hell fishnet hose she wore.

“Oh, what a delight to see you again!”

The feminine exclamation drew both Trey's and Keaton's attention to the front of the dining room. Three women stood there, exchanging the air-kisses and hugs of well-to-do ladies who lunched. Two of them were in chic designer suits, and the third shrugged out of an elegant winter wrap.

Trey's gut tightened.

Renee Armstrong was standing there, looking and acting as if she'd just run into her best and longtime country-club girlfriends.

The three women were now seated. And Renee hadn't noticed him. Curiously, Trey found himself both relieved and annoyed that she hadn't.

“Fine-looking group of women,” Keaton said, observing Trey's reaction to the group. “Do you know them?”

Now wasn't the time to lie.

“One is my next-door neighbor,” he said without casting another glance back at the table where the trio sat. “The one in blue.”

“Hmm,” Keaton said, again his gaze lingering to admire the women.

The image of Renee was burned into Trey's brain. She had to have the most eclectic wardrobe of any woman he'd ever met. Whereas her stripper look put him in one frame of mind, everything about her this afternoon spoke of privilege, background and wealth.

Renee Armstrong was a chameleon…or one heck of an actress.

With force, he put his mind back on his own lunch meeting with Keaton.

“I have a question for you,” Trey said.

“Shoot.”

“You asked me to lunch long before you made the presentation. What would we have been talking about this afternoon had I been one of the folks who signed that agreement?”

Keaton grinned and then winked. “I'd have thought of something.”

* * *

Randall Keaton apparently had an eye for the ladies, the sort of eye that had the older man approaching the table where the trio sat when their lunch was complete.

Trey groaned. If Trey thought he'd escape the Magnolia Inn's dining room without Renee seeing him, he was sadly mistaken.

He didn't at all like mixing business with whatever the hell it was he had with Renee Armstrong.

Trey tried to make his way toward the lobby where their coats were waiting. But he wasn't to be so lucky. Keaton hailed him.

“Good afternoon, ladies,” the CEO said.

The three turned and looked up at him.

“I couldn't help but notice when the three of you came in,” he said.

Trey had to admire Keaton's style. For a man his age, the opening wasn't too bad. Trey wondered how Keaton was going to play this. It wouldn't take much to turn the moment into “creepy old man” territory.

“You look incredibly familiar to me,” Keaton said, addressing a stunning blonde woman that Trey pegged to be in her late fifties or early sixties. She had eyes so blue that they could be seen from where Trey stood a few feet away.

“That's because Nancy and I were on the Governor's Committee for the Arts, Randall,” the woman said. As if sensing that he might be floundering for a name, she offered hers. “Lovie Darling. I believe you knew my late husband, Dr. John Darling.”

Randall touched his head in an “of course!” gesture. “That's it,” he said. “What a delight to see you again, Lovie. My colleague and I were having lunch and I'm sure he wondered why I was so distracted. Other than the obvious,” he added, with his glance encompassing the other two women. “I was trying to place your face.”

When he said “colleague,” he motioned for Trey to come forward.

With a sigh, Trey walked closer to the group, even though he harbored doubts about where this conversation might lead.

“Let me introduce you,” Keaton said. “Lovie Darling, this is Trey Calloway, one of the executives with my company.”

Trey heard the gasp that was quickly covered with a little cough and then Renee's gaze met his.

He winked.

“Hello, Mrs. Darling. Renee. Ma'am,” he said, acknowledging the third woman at the table.

“You two know each other?” Lovie Darling asked.

Trey watched as Renee recovered, now offering him a professional smile rather than a flirtatious one in answer to his wink. “Next-door neighbors,” he said.

The third woman nudged Renee. “You didn't tell me…”

Whatever she was about to say was cut off by a little yelp and then a glare sent her way. Trey bit back a grin, sure a high heel had just come in contact with a shin under the table.

“We miss Nancy terribly,” Lovie Darling was saying. “She truly was a powerhouse fund-raiser and I counted her a dear friend.”

He missed whatever Keaton said in response because Renee was mouthing something his way. “What are you doing here?”

Then he remembered. They were supposed to have lunch. Had she gotten his text?

The look on her face, a mix of rage and hurt, said no. With the meeting at the office and then his lunch meeting with Keaton, he hadn't had time for a follow-up call or text message to her.

Did she think he'd stood her up?

“That sounds like a wonderful idea. Trey and I would love to join you,” Keaton boomed. “Wouldn't we, Calloway?”

Trey's head whipped back to his boss. “What was that?”

“It's a date, then,” Lovie said. “So to speak. Since Trey and Renee are neighbors, they could come together.”

“What?” Renee said.

“Where?” Trey asked.

But the two were ignored as Keaton nodded and then leaned low and pressed a kiss on Lovie Darling's cheek. “I look forward to seeing you this evening.”

Chapter 5

A
black-tie reception at the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh turned out to be what Renee had missed Randall Keaton and Lovie Darling discussing during lunch.

Renee wondered what kind of questions Keisha would have about her seeing Trey Calloway. She had deliberately focused on Keisha alone for the past couple of years. Yet, a few weeks after moving to Cedar Springs, here she was—again—going out with Trey and leaving Keisha in the care of one of her “uncles.” Peter Shepherd and Jeremy Knight, her best friends since college, had been pumping her for info about her mystery man, but so far, Renee had been tight-lipped. She needed to sort out her own feelings before she could declare them to anyone—including her best buds.

She'd caught Peter en route home to Raleigh from Fayetteville. He and Keisha had sped off in his Jaguar, headed out to see a movie and eat what would undoubtedly be a frightening amount of junk food and sweets.

Peter and Jeremy were her two best friends in the world and had been urging her for months to go out. They'd each even offered to set her up with friends. But then the thought of dating had held zero appeal to Renee. Her life was already too fractured without adding a relationship to the mix. But now that she'd met her sexy next-door neighbor, things were beginning to change. Even though Trey had not bothered to return her calls about lunch earlier, only to show up at the Magnolia Inn, where she had a meeting with the owner of the Return Engagements chain and a potential investor.

Had he not been at a lunch meeting of his own, she would have accused him of stalking her.

Renee still wasn't quite sure how she and Trey had been roped into attending this reception in Raleigh. Though she'd heard that Lovie Darling wasn't the typical wealthy country-club type and had a tendency toward matchmaking.

Was that what was going on?

She rejected the idea just as fast as it had popped into her head. She'd never met the woman, and from the introductions that had been made at lunch, Mrs. Darling didn't know Trey, either. Melody Evans, the consignment store's owner, saw the invitation for what it was—entrée into a new market of potential investors and franchisees. She'd pressed three of the most gorgeous cocktail dresses from the Cedar Springs store into Renee's hands and shooed her toward a dressing room.

“This can be our big break,” Melody had said, barely containing her enthusiasm.

The only good thing about the night, Renee thought, was that finding something to wear had been easy—and she wasn't going to be looking like a streetwalker. She giggled.

She tucked a stack of business cards from Return Engagements into her clutch bag and thought about the night ahead. This was a business meeting, nothing more.

If she kept telling herself that, maybe she might eventually believe it.

* * *

While Trey wondered if the new job at KMI Keaton had offered would mean spur-of-the-moment trips that would require a long-term and flexible babysitter for Kelly, he also thought about the best way to apologize to Renee.

He'd been married long enough to know when an apology was in order, and this was definitely one of those occasions. When he checked his phone after he and Keaton arrived back at the KMI offices, he saw the partially written and unsent text message that he'd started to Renee before his earlier meeting. There were also two voice mails from her. One asked if he would call her and the second, about twenty minutes after the first, was a message saying a business meeting had unexpectedly come up and that she would need a rain check for their lunch date. She had managed to at least communicate via a message while he hadn't. In his defense, there was a lot going on at the office that morning, he thought. But deep down he knew that was hardly an excuse.

Trey considered the options: flowers, candy, a little teddy bear. He knew virtually nothing about Renee and had no idea how she would respond to any of those gestures. When he'd been in the doghouse with Andrea, calla lilies and white-chocolate truffles from Godiva had gone a long way toward repairing whatever boneheaded thing he'd done or said. This thing with Renee—whatever it was or might become—was too new to know how any of that could or would be received.

But he would find out tonight.

* * *

When her front doorbell rang, Renee paused to consider the sound. She recognized it as the doorbell, but couldn't think of a single person who would be visiting. Both Jeremy and Peter used the kitchen door, just as she and Keisha did. Tightening the top on the tube of mascara, she dropped it in the makeup bag open on her sink and headed downstairs.

Her shoes, handbag and coat were already waiting for her to slip on and pick up.

In her stocking-covered feet, she went to the front door and opened it to find Trey Calloway standing outside.

He wore a black overcoat and held a pair of leather gloves in one hand. Behind him, a light snow was starting to fall, just a few flakes, the forecasters had predicted. The effect of the handsome man in the early evening with the snow flurries behind him took her breath away.

“Oh!”

“Good evening, Renee.”

She stood frozen for a moment, not sure what to do, then regained her senses. “Come in,” she said, backing away and inviting him with a wave of her hand. “I'm ready. I just thought…” Her voice trailed off as she glanced back toward the kitchen and the back door she'd expected him to knock on. “Never mind. Let me just put on my shoes.”

“You look great,” he said.

“Uh, thank you.”

Renee didn't know what had come over her. One look at Trey and the power of speech fled while her libido kicked into overdrive.
Tall, dark and drop-dead gorgeous
summed him up. The description might be a cliché, but he fit every category.

She'd seen him on Sunday mornings and knew that under that coat would be a suit of impeccable tailoring and style. And all she really wanted to do was see him out of it. Right now.

When she turned to reach for her clutch, his hand reached for hers.

“Renee, I want to apologize about this afternoon. Our lunch date. I started a text to tell you a meeting had come up with the CEO of the company, but I got distracted. I didn't even get your messages until after I saw you at the Magnolia Inn.”

She gazed up to meet his eyes. He clearly had a free pass on standing her up, yet took the high road and owned up to it.

Another of the defenses she'd erected around her heart came crashing down, and she didn't know how to respond—to either him or the heat that suddenly pooled in her midsection.

“It—it's all right,” she said. “Let me, uh, let me get my shoes.”

She fled to the sofa and sat on the edge to tie the ankle-strap heels on her feet. When she stood and reached for her coat, Trey was already holding it out for her.

* * *

“So, it looks like we're having that lunch date for dinner,” Trey said as she settled into his truck.

“Imagine my surprise at hearing your name at the Magnolia Inn,” she said.

“Not half as surprised as I was to see you walking in looking like you'd just walked off the runway at Paris Fashion Week.”

She smiled. “Thank you. I still cannot believe you thought I was a call girl.”

“I'm sorry,” Trey said. His pained expression told her he meant it.

Renee studied him. He could have added an excuse to the apology, an explanation designed to flatter or further take the sting out of the insult by turning it into flirting—or foreplay. But Trey Calloway apparently wasn't that type of man. He was nothing at all like the guys she used to date. For starters, he was employed.

It then dawned on Renee that she didn't know exactly what Trey did in that home office of his. They couldn't head to Raleigh in silence, so she broached the subject.

“So, what type of work keeps you sequestered in the house most of the day?”

“Consulting,” he said. “I work for a firm that tells other companies how to successfully run their businesses. And I have a side gig.”

Renee grinned. “A gigolo?”

She expected him to laugh at the jab. He instead reached for her hand and clasped it in his. Warmth suffused her.

She would have fanned herself had she had possession of her faculties. His touch seemed to short-circuit her brain…and her body.

“I really am sorry,” he said as his thumb drew an abstract pattern on the back of her left hand. She found herself mesmerized by the caress. Whether he was conscious of the effect it was having on her, she had no idea.

His hands were neither soft nor calloused. They were the competent and strong hands of a man who was comfortable with himself. Idly, she wondered what her own hand told him about her—other than she was overdue for a fill-in on gel nails.

When his gaze dipped to her mouth for a moment, Renee knew he was thinking the same wanton thoughts that dominated her own mind.

“Renee…” His voice held the sexy timbre of tangled sheets and sweat-sleeked bodies.

“Eyes on the road, buddy.”

He chuckled, but complied, putting both hands back on the steering wheel. “You're something of a distraction.”

“Flattery might get you…everywhere,” she said. “But not while you're driving. So what's your real side gig?” she asked.

“Image and brand consulting,” he said.

Now things made sense to Renee. He wasn't just a brother who looked good. He specifically worked at it. She winced inwardly at her Sunday-morning outfit for the Return Engagements sales meeting. She really couldn't blame him. After all, he'd been Mr. Buttoned-Down with a young daughter who also always looked as if she were headed to a photo shoot for an upscale kids' clothing catalog.

She and Keisha probably came off as completely and utterly tasteless. Renee suddenly found herself uncomfortably and acutely aware of how Keisha must have been feeling lately—like the proverbial square peg in a round hole.

“What are you thinking about?” Trey said.

Renee forced her thoughts back to the man sitting next to her in the big SUV that, at the moment, seemed to have shrunk to a compact car. “What makes you think something's on my mind?” she asked rather than answering his too-perceptive question.

“You were looking a thousand miles away in some vacation spot.”

She smiled at that image.

“Nothing quite that deep,” she assured him. “To be honest, I was thinking about Keisha for a moment, and then wondering and picturing what it might be like to have your type of job, you know, shaping people into new images of themselves.”

He gave her a curious look. “You do that already.”

When she lifted an arched brow, he expanded on his thought. “You work in retail, selling clothing and accessories, too, I presume, mostly to women who would like a new look or at least a refreshed one.”

Renee mulled over what Trey had said for a moment and then nodded. “All right,” she conceded. “I can see that. But the scale isn't the same.”

Trey shrugged. “That's a falsity that's foisted on people, among others, by marketing brand agents.”

Her face must have registered her confusion, because he immediately continued. “Think about the millions of dollars that companies pour into marketing campaigns, for, oh, let's just say women's makeup or bottled water.”

“Bottled water is a rip-off,” Renee interjected.

“Yet there are millions of people who buy into the pitch that a bottle with a label on it and a refreshing name or photo is going to be nutritionally better and more refreshing than a glass of tap water.”

“All taps are not created equally,” she laughed.

“True,” he said. “But in the case of bottled water, consumers buy into the pitch that the clear liquid coming out of that nonbiodegradable plastic bottle from the ooh-la-la spring is better or cooler than that glass of filtered tap water.”

Renee had an eight-year-old, so she was used to conversations that went careening off, turning into odd tangents. “So what does that have to do with me selling used clothes and your consulting work?”

“It's all the same.”

“That's not possible,” Renee said.

“Yes, it is. With the makeover, be it a corporate one like one of my clients or a fashion makeover like the ones you're responsible for, there is change. Typically for the client's better.”

Renee nodded, understanding the analogy. But she silently regarded him.

“What?” Trey asked.

“You're a most unusual man, Trey Calloway,” she said without thinking. “A moment ago, I thought you were ready to jump my bones. Now you're giving me a lesson on, what, economics and marketing?”

He smiled and his eyes took on a hooded bedroom quality again. Just that fast, her sexy next-door neighbor was back. “I'm used to juggling several things at once, like the fact that I want you, but we're just getting to know each other.”

* * *

The reception was an opportunity to mix and mingle with the movers and shakers. Despite the distraction of Trey, who was constantly introduced as alternately her partner or her husband, she worked the room as a capable and engaging representative for Return Engagements. She collected more business cards than she had to give out and counted the evening as a success.

Since her mind was on Trey's parting words as they approached the museum, it was a wonder she could focus on Return Engagements at all throughout the evening.

She couldn't deny there was an attraction sizzling between them. But was it the long-term type or the flash-and-burn type? And more important, did she even care about the difference?