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"Mackenzie, you are the luckiest goddamned guy in the world," Todd Herly said as he hefted his golf bag onto his shoulder.
Alec Mackenzie hid a smile. "I'm going to tell your wife you're cussing again."
"Go ahead," his friend snapped as they walked toward the Riviera Country Club's parking lot, their cleats clicking rhythmically on the concrete path. "When the kids aren't around, I can do whatever I want."
Alec laughed, shifting his own clubs higher on his shoulder. "Sure you can, buddy."
"Anyway, that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about how scoring the Santa Margarita contract makes you the luckiest man alive."
"Luck had nothing to do with it. I won this contract fair and square. I worked for this," he said, indicating the thick manila envelope in his hand, "which is more than I can say for you and your company which, as usual, threw together an inflated proposal that probably didn't even make it onto the client's radar."
Todd, the man who was both his best friend and his most ardent and talented professional rival, gasped in predictable outrage.
Alec just grinned. "Of course," he said. "When it came down to the wire, my charm, charisma and good looks probably helped clinch the deal."
"I doubt it," Todd shot back. "Although I'm sure that's what you used to get that tall, cool drink of water to hand over her phone number at the benefit Saturday night."
"Jealous?" Alec joked as they approached their cars.
"Hardly. Chelle would eat me alive if she even suspected that I'd looked twice at a woman that gorgeous."
"Chelle is that gorgeous," Alec said and he meant it. Todd and his wife were perfect for each other, a regular storybook romance. But Alec was a man who liked his freedom and he meant to keep it that way. Not that his bachelor status was in jeopardy, far from it. In fact, the woman he'd met the other night was going to be just the ticket for a few weeks of fun. She was beautiful, had legs up to here and...well, that pretty much made her ideal.
Alec slipped his prized clubs into the passenger seat of his convertible Ferrari Spider and turned to his oldest friend. "I better get going. I've got to get this," he said, tapping a teasing finger on the folder, "to the office."
Todd frowned as he slammed the trunk of the big Mercedes he'd recently bought because - as he'd sheepishly explained to Alec - it was the perfect sedan for his family of four. "I take it back, Mackenzie," Todd said. "You're not the luckiest man alive. You're the most competitive. You always have been."
Alec climbed into the fastest sports car on the market and slid the contract that named his firm the victor in a protracted battle for the most coveted architectural redesign project in southern California into the glove compartment. "Winning is what matters, Todd," he said as he fired up the engine and threw the car into reverse. "The only thing that matters."
Todd opened his mouth to protest but Alec just waved and sped away with The Eagles Greatest Hits pouring out of the stereo's speakers.
By the time the band had launched into the opening notes of "Desperado," Alec was halfway to his Santa Monica office. It doesn't get any better than this, he thought as he sped down a winding, tree-shaded patch of Sunset Boulevard and hummed along with the old tune. Breakfast at the country club with his best friend and a solid hour at the driving range would have been enough to make for a great morning. But the arrival of a messenger from the office bearing the news that his firm had won the project had been the best possible interruption.
He pulled into a parking space under his company's building and opened the glove compartment. Todd was right. Alec had a lucky streak in him a mile wide - and a competitive one a mile and a half wide. But this, he thought as he grabbed the contract, he deserved.
Alec wasn't shy about his abilities as an architect so he'd only been half-kidding when he'd told Todd that his talent had won the contract. He was, he thought as he stepped inside the waiting elevator and punched the button for the top floor, very good at what he did. And he and his team had put together an extremely competitive bid.
But now that the contract was in his hands, he realized that in spite of his confidence - some would say ego - he still couldn't quite believe it. Just off the southern California coast on the tiny island of Santa Margarita, seven historical but decaying mansions were going to be restored to their former glory and reopened as five-star bed & breakfasts. And he and his company were going to do the job.
"Mackenzie Architectural Revivals," he heard his receptionist say into the phone as she looked up and smiled. "How may I direct your call?"
He winked at her and headed for his office. Yessir, this was shaping up to be one hell of a day.
His assistant, Daisy Kincaid, wasn't at her desk when he walked by, but he only had to take one step into his office to see she'd already been there. Neatly arranged on his prized Frank Lloyd Wright desk were all of life's little essentials: a cup of hot coffee, a couple of his favorite Krispy Kremes, the day's Los Angeles Times and a stack of trade magazines.
He sat down, propped his feet up on the desk, put his head back and smiled, really smiled, for the first time in weeks.
"Did you get it?"
Alec looked up and saw Daisy leaning against the doorframe. She, too, wore a wide, delighted smile, and for a second, just one second, he saw something he'd never seen before. She looked almost...pretty.
The jacket of her tailored gray jacket was unbuttoned, showing a flash of soft, smoky colored T-shirt beneath, her dark brown eyes danced happily behind her wire-framed glasses, and curly strands of her chestnut hair had escaped her perpetual twist, suddenly making him feel like he wanted to pull out the pins one by one.
He shook his head to scatter the image. A trick of the light, he thought, or maybe just another sign that today was magical because during the three years she'd worked for him, he'd never once been tempted to use the word "pretty" to describe Daisy. Loyal, hardworking, efficient, smart, resourceful, responsible - those were the words he'd use. Nope, she wasn't pretty, but for what she did so well here at his company, she was exactly what he needed.
He swung his legs off the desk, sat up and motioned for her to enter. "Thanks for sending a messenger to the driving range with the contract, Daze. How did you know I'd be there?"
She gave him a look that had "Oh, please" written all over it and sat down in one of his guest chairs.
"Right," he said, chuckling.
She crossed her legs and her skirt rippled and flowed before it finally settled gently over her thighs. She leaned forward conspiratorially. "Okay," she said. "Tell me. How happy are you?"
"Unbelievably." Stop staring at her legs, he told himself. Stop staring.
"I know how you love winning," she said as she reached out and started compulsively straightening the knickknacks and pens and pads of paper on his desk. "But this one is important to you for other reasons, too, isn't it?"
"Yes, definitely," he said, then sidestepped her question by saying, "but I don't deserve all the credit. You put a lot of time in on this one, too."
She looked up from her organizing and her smile broadened. Daisy's smile radiated sheer niceness which was one of the many reasons his clients seemed to love her, as did every employee on the Mackenzie payroll. In fact, she'd been a boon to his growing business since the day she'd come into his office clutching the job posting from the university's career center.
When he'd first met Daisy, she'd been twenty-five years old and had been going to college part-time for several years. During the interview, they'd hit it off and he'd hired her on the spot. She'd been his first employee and she'd stuck with him the entire time he'd been building Mackenzie Architectural Revivals from a one man show to a thirty some-odd employee, seven-figure success story.
"It was a perfect case study for my senior business seminar," she reminded him as she sorted his pens into an antique silver loving cup he used as a holder.
As the pens rattled and clinked into place, he glanced at the jumble of sticky notes on his bulletin board. He sighed inwardly when he saw one that said, "Daisy's graduation, May 23." Two weeks ago. Dammit.
"Don't worry about it, Alec," she said as if reading his mind, which she did with spooky regularity. "In the end, I decided putting on a cap and gown and waltzing around with a bunch of twenty-somethings was silly. My dad and my brothers took me out to celebrate instead."
"Aren't you a twenty-something?"
She shrugged. "Chronologically."
"Well anyway, I think this," he said as he leaned back in his big leather chair and pushed the contract to the center of his desk with a show of reverence that made her laugh, "calls for a celebration, too. Will you phone the Ivy and make reservations for tonight? Say, eight o'clock?"
Daisy dropped a pen onto the desk and flushed three shades of crimson. While it was a fact that Daisy Kincaid blushed more often than anyone he knew, he couldn't begin to imagine why making a dinner reservation would bring on a bout of it. Since he couldn't cook anything more complex than toasted bread, she'd made reservations for him more times than he cared to admit.
The blush stain was still on her cheeks when she got up abruptly and asked, "The Ivy in Santa Monica or Beverly Hills?"
"Beverly Hills, if you think it's possible on such short notice," he answered and let her efficient manner chase away his concerns.
"No problem." Daisy stopped in the doorway as he picked up a pile of phone messages from his desk. "Oh, there's one in there from your mother. She called from Europe. No number but she said she'd try to call you later in the week."
"Mmm-hmm. Thanks." He found the message, crushed it with one hand and chucked it in the trashcan. Then he continued to flip through the rest of the slips of pink paper, barely noticing when the door snicked softly closed behind her.
Alec had just finished his Krispy Kremes and the interesting parts of the Times when Daisy returned. She walked into his office carrying a bright sticky note in one hand and a fresh cup of coffee in the other. As she came toward him, he got distracted by her legs again, this time by the length of them below that flippy, flowered skirt. It disoriented him so much that it took him a few beats to realize his gaze was fixed somewhere in the neighborhood of her sexy knees.
Sexy knees? he thought as he blinked hard, then looked away. What the hell was wrong with him? That was twice in one morning. And this was Daisy, for crying out loud. It had to be the long, hard hours they'd been working together to get the bid and the preliminary plans done for Santa Margarita. His social life had definitely atrophied over the last few months and these bizarre thoughts about his assistant were unquestionably a sign that he needed to remedy that - and soon.
"Did you get some golf in this weekend?" he asked, grabbing the note and trying to get his thoughts back in order.
"Oh, I hacked around a bit with one of my brothers," she said with profound innocence as she set the steamy, fragrant coffee down on his desk and picked up the cup he'd already emptied.
"Uh-huh," he said. "Right." Daisy was no hacker. She was a scratch golfer - or so he'd learned when he'd asked her to fill in a foursome at Riviera a few weeks ago and she'd practically wiped the green with him.
As he stuck the note onto his bulletin board, he scanned it quickly. Ivy, 8 p.m., reservations for two, Mackenzie.
"Alec, I was thinking I could--"
"Oh, wait," he said as he turned to pull his PalmPilot off the syncing cradle. "Could you call Heather Garrett for me and make sure she can make it at eight?" He turned back to hand the PDA to Daisy. "I just met her on Saturday night and--"
One look at Daisy's face and whatever he'd been saying went right out of his mind. Her bright smile had wilted, her forehead had creased into a deep frown and this time she wasn't just flushed, she was bright red.
"Daisy?" he asked. "Are you okay?"
She hesitated, then took the Palm Pilot from his hand with the same enthusiasm one might normally display for a hissing cobra. "Of course." Her tone was flat, making the stormy glint in her dark eyes even more conspicuous. "Why?" she asked, and he was sure he heard a little quaver in her voice.
"You just look kind of..." He paused, studied her a minute. Daisy was never temperamental or cranky, so his concern was very real. "What were you going to say before?"
She stared at him, her expression blank.
"You said, 'I was thinking I could...?'" he prompted.
After a long, searching look that inexplicably made him feel like he'd just been dissected and slipped under a microscope, she straightened up to her full five and a half feet and gave him a thin, unfamiliar smile. "I was thinking I needed to talk to you about something. But it can wait. I have some things I need to do first."
And before he could say another word, she turned and left his office.
# # #
What Daisy had to do didn't take very long. She went to her desk, slipped into her chair, pulled out the keyboard and carefully typed the memo that she should have written a year ago when she'd first realized she had a terrible, terminal crush on her boss.
While the laser printer hummed quietly, she stared at the familiar objects on her desk like she'd never seen them before. There was a day planner, a Rolodex, dozens of photographs, a coffee cup with a handle shaped like a golf club, a candy dish full of fortunes she'd saved from lunches at the Chinese restaurant downstairs and a trophy Alec had given her when she'd co-captained the company's undefeated softball team with him.
She picked up the trophy and thought about all those evening practices, laughing with Alec and her co-workers, feeling a real sense of belonging and - if she were totally honest with herself - fantasizing that someday Alec would finally wake up, take her in his arms and declare his undying love for her. Right there on the diamond. In front of a crowd of corporate weekend warriors.
Ah, yes, she thought. Fantasies were lovely - at least until reality crashed in.
After lingering for another moment over both the trophy and her unrealized expectations, she set the prize back down on the desk with a noisy thunk. No sentimental baloney, she reminded herself as she put on her glasses, plucked the letter from the printer's tray and proofed it quickly. When she was satisfied, she slid the page into a waiting envelope and headed for Alec's office before she lost her nerve.
But as she reached for the doorknob, she paused for a second to gaze at her murky image reflected in the thick, opaque green glass that made up Alec's door. She acknowledged her familiar faults - not tall, not blonde, not beautiful - but consoled herself that she had, as her salary had grown in the last few years, made something of an effort to buy more fashionable professional clothes and had even exchanged her quick haircuts at the local QuickieCuts for a quarterly visit to an actual stylist.
She tugged at the hem of her short skirt and felt like an idiot for trying to dress to impress this morning. Maybe she was a late bloomer or maybe growing up with just her father and three older brothers for role models had kept her from acquiring the requisite skills in cosmetics, fashion and flirting know-how. Whatever the cause, though, it still added up to the same thing: she was never going to snag the man she longed for.
Up until today, she'd kept telling herself that it was just a matter of time. All she had to do was keep bringing him his Krispy Kremes, booking his travel plans, making his dinner reservations and picking up his dry cleaning. In her naiveté, she'd actually thought that if she kept doing all those things, he would eventually realize that he couldn't live without her, both professionally and personally. But that was before this morning, before Alec had given her one final nudge out of the nest and she'd fallen from her fantasies to the cold, hard, unforgiving earth.
She sighed, smoothed her crisp, tailored suit jacket and gauzy skirt, straightened her glasses and told herself again that all that foolishness was over and done with. Then she turned the knob and marched confidently into Alec's beautiful, richly decorated office.
He didn't look up as she entered and even though his dark head of wavy hair was tipped down, Daisy could imagine the concentration in his deep, indigo eyes. She noticed the way his black shirt hugged his strong shoulders as he scribbled notes on a quadrille pad. The well-developed arms she'd spent much too much time gawking at over the last couple of years flexed and tightened with the movement.
The sharp edge of the envelope dug into her palm as she clutched the letter. So what if he was a looker? She absolutely, positively, wasn't going to let that sway her now. She'd been hiding out behind this sweet, agreeable, I'll-wait-forever-for-you-to-notice-me façade far too long. It was time to be who she really was, so she put one hand on the sleek leather chair that faced his desk and cleared her throat firmly.
Alec looked up, stretched lazily and poured on that heart-melting smile of his, all white teeth and hot charm and oozing charisma. "Hey, Daze."
Normally that smile could make her stomach tighten and her heart go pitter-pat, but not anymore. Even a crush as stubborn as the one she had on Alec couldn't survive her humiliation when she'd realized he wasn't asking her to go to dinner to celebrate a job well done. It wasn't his fault, really, but she'd known at that very moment that she had to get the hell away from him. It was her only hope.
Without a word, she handed him the envelope and his chair squeaked in protest as he reached out for it. "What's this?"
She squeezed the chair back so hard the smooth leather creaked beneath her grip. "My letter of resignation."
His smile shrank a little and one dark eyebrow shot up. "Now say, 'April Fools'."
In spite of her resolve to be strong, nervous waves kicked up in her stomach. "This isn't a joke, Alec."
Long, quiet seconds ticked by, one after another, but the silence was by no means calm. In fact, she started to imagine they were two gunfighters, each waiting for the other to twitch.
A moment later, he caved. With a sigh, he unfolded his six foot plus frame and stood, looming over both his desk and her. "Aren't you happy here?"
A headache flowered behind her eyes and she wondered idly if there might be an oxygen shortage in the room. "That's irrelevant," she said, and the flatness of her own voice shocked her.
A muscle twitched at his jaw, his eyes darkened and narrowed. "Is it something I've done?"
Try something you haven't done, you dope, she wanted to shout, but said, simply, "No."
Alec used his fingers like a comb, dragging them through his incessantly messy, longish dark hair, but one disobedient wave of it fell back over one eye immediately. She stared at it, wishing - not for the first time - that it was her right and privilege to push it back into place.
"Well, I won't accept it." To punctuate his claim, he crumpled up the envelope and shot it into the trash can across the room.
A cold fist of frustration curled up inside her as she watched her carefully crafted resignation rebound off the credenza and sink gracefully for three points. Now that she was finished with the frantic pace of part-time school and a full-time job, she had more time than ever to contemplate the yawning stretch of futility that would be her life if she stayed here. Unless she made a change, she knew it would be more of the same - she would watch from the sidelines, powerless and lonely as he dated one bimbo after another and remained blissfully unaware of her as anything other than his loyal, hardworking assistant.
"I was actually just thinking that we'd have to change some things now that you're finished with school," he said, his voice low and relaxing and sure. "And this is as good a time as any to discuss it. Whatever it is you want, I'm sure we can work it out."
"You don't understand, Alec," she said, keeping her tone firm with substantial effort. "If you'd read that-" She jerked her head in the direction of the trash can. "You'd know that I'm giving two weeks notice. But I am leaving. I'm taking another job, one that is more in line with my career goals."
Since she hadn't actually taken another job, she experienced a tiny flash of guilt. Lies weren't her normal style, but she knew it was better this way. It would be a clean break and, more importantly, she wouldn't have to suffer the humiliation of telling him the real reason she was leaving.
As Alec stared at her, his eyes registered something that on anyone else she'd guess was hurt. Then he moved to the window and looked out over the short, featureless buildings to the ocean. He stood with his back to her, his hands on his hips, and his breathing was the only sound she could hear. He stayed there a moment, only a moment, but whatever it was that he saw beyond the glass triggered a change in his demeanor that shook her.
Because when he turned back to her, his blue eyes were icy, his mouth was drawn into a thin line. "It won't be necessary to give notice," he said, his voice as frosty as his gaze. "You can leave now."
She wouldn't have thought it was possible for her heart to sink further but it did, right down to the soles of her new summer sandals. Heat flooded her cheeks and the anxiety in her stomach revved up to a riot but she managed to keep the flood of emotion out of her voice when she said, "I should at least finish out the day."
No particular expression lit his face as he said, "That won't be necessary."
Daisy bit her bottom lip to keep it from trembling. Dammit, this wasn't how it was supposed to end. Her heartbeat began to pound in her ears, but not so loudly that she couldn't hear the voice of some nameless, faceless coach from her sports-filled youth advise her with Obi-Wan-like wisdom, Don't show weakness. Don't let 'em see how you really feel.
A new resolve began to fill her, giving her strength. She stuck out her chin, put on a smile and threw out a hand for Alec to shake. "All right, then. I guess this is goodbye."
Alec's eyes were slightly glazed as he looked down at her outstretched hand. It was only after a long, long moment that he finally took it in his. His palm and fingers were rough and surprisingly work-worn, and the mere touch of them sent a ripple of warmth through her that shocked her so completely, she yanked her hand away as if it had been burned.
His eyes lit briefly with blue fire as he looked down at her, then they seemed to just...flicker out. Without another word, he turned away from her again.
She ran a hand down the front of her skirt absently and stole one last look at his familiar profile before forcing herself to walk out the door.
Now I know I've made the right decision, Daisy thought as she quickly threw as many things as she could into her tote and bee-lined for the elevator, rounding the cubicles that stood between her and escape like she was running the final few yards of a marathon. He was bound to break her heart someday. Today was as good a day as any.
Once in the lobby, she hit the button to call the elevator before casting a quick glance at Nikki, receptionist and in-house gossip queen, who was holding the phone aloft and watching Daisy like she was going to be tested on the event later.
Daisy almost groaned out loud. During the last year, she'd often fantasized about ending her working relationship with Alec, but in her fantasies that ending had looked far more like an afternoon wedding by the sea than a cold, angry confrontation in his office.
When she entered the elevator, she pasted on a game smile for the receptionist.
"Are you coming back today?" Nikki asked, her dark eyes taking in Daisy's flushed skin and overflowing tote.
"No, definitely not," Daisy said, feeling a momentary flash of guilt at her evasion. While she and Nikki weren't particularly close, Daisy had made many friends at Mackenzie. She could only hope they wouldn't be worried about her when they found out she'd left without saying goodbye.
Thankfully, the elevator doors closed before Nikki could ask any more questions. And then Daisy Kincaid was left not only without a job, but without something she needed far more: the ever-present optimism that had made her think everything she wished for would come to her eventually if only she didn't give up.
Read Chapter One of Tangled Sheets, Tangled Lies
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