The Gift of Love (22 page)

“This letter was commissioned by our first official Seattle client and it’s for ...” She paused, looked around the room and then, as if surprised, said, “Isabella Rodriquez.”

Bella jumped when she heard her name. “For me? From whom?”

Summer grinned at her. “Why don’t you open it in the privacy of your new office and find out while I get the cake organized. When you’ve read it, we’ll cut your cake and sing ‘Happy Birthday.’” She turned to the people standing around in front of her and said, “How about a little help getting the cake out to the reception area?”

Curious about what was in the envelope, Bella closed herself off in her new office and opened it. As soon as she saw the first line of the letter, every sense came alive. She knew exactly who had written it.

She couldn’t stop crying as she read the letter. She knew Summer’s fingerprints were all over it, but still she knew how the system worked. The sentence structure may have been Summer’s, but the sentiments were Taylor’s. He did love her. She was sure of it. And he was sorry. He’d gone so far out of his comfort zone to prove it, he’d hired the very company he swore once to hate.

There was a soft knock, and Summer opened the door.

“So, you ready to meet your letter writer and have him join us for birthday cake?”

“How long have you been plotting with him?”

“He called the day you confronted him in his office, worried about you. We went from there. Do you mind?”

She laughed. “I’d be a poor manager for you if I minded taking on a new client, wouldn’t I?”

“Yes, I’d say that was true.” Summer perched on the desk and took Bella’s hands. “I’m convinced he means every word in the letter.”

“Yeah, I am, too.” She stood. “So, what’s this third shot he talked about?”

“Go out on the front porch and see.”

What she found when she got there was Taylor, looking a bit embarrassed, holding a huge bouquet of balloons and drawing the attention of everyone who walked into or past the building.

She stopped outside the front door to appreciate the sight. It was hard not to laugh out loud at the picture of her perfectly serious Viking god looking like all he needed was a monkey and a barrel organ to become a cartoon character. An organ grinder dressed in an expensive-looking suit and silk tie, perhaps, but an organ grinder nonetheless.

“Happy birthday,” he said.

“Thank you. And thank you for the letter. It was lovely.”

He looked up at the balloon bouquet. “This is for you, too.”

“Yes, I can see all the ‘happy birthdays’ written on the balloons. You look cute holding it.”

“If holding a stupid balloon bouquet in public is what it takes to make you give me another chance, I was willing to do it.”

She took the remaining steps across the porch to reach him. Circling his waist with her arms, she said, “No one has ever gone this far to try to impress me.”

He held her with his unencumbered arm and kissed her hair. “Because no one has ever loved you the way I do.” He nudged her forehead with his chin so she would look up at him. “Can you forgive me?”

“How can I not with everything you’ve done to make up with me?” She rose on her tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek. “Not to mention, I love you. Of course I forgive you.”

“You don’t know how much I needed to hear you say those words. I love you, too.” He looked up at the balloons he was holding. “There’s one more thing I need from you.”

“What’s that?”

“Help. Please. I have no idea what to do with a balloon bouquet. Do you?”

“How about you let them float to the roof of the porch so you can put both your arms around me and kiss me?”

“Now, that I can do.” And he did.

(From
Ringing in Love
by Peggy Bird)

“Damn it, Melody,” Catherine Bennett said as she slammed into the dolly loaded with banker’s boxes her assistant was supposed to be pulling. “You can’t stop like that. This thing has no brake lights to warn me.” As she steadied the pile of teetering boxes, she followed Melody’s gaze to see what had distracted her. She should have known. A man. Dominic Russo, to be precise. And he was definitely a distraction. Mister Dark and Dangerous. Man candy. A professional bachelor with a reputation for notching his bedpost with a new name every few weeks. Name a cliché describing a sexy male, and he fit it. Hell, he owned it.

He also owned one of the most successful public relations firms in Philadelphia and was Catherine’s biggest competitor.

“Damn is right,” Melody said. “Hot damn.”

Catherine bent and rubbed the shin that had borne the brunt of the collision. “You might want to add an ‘ouch’ in there.”

Melody whipped around as quickly as she’d stopped. “Oops. Sorry, Catherine. Are you okay? Didn’t mean to hurt you. I was just admiring the scenery.” She returned her attention to the man who was now almost at the elevator bank. “Look at those shoulders! And the way he moves. I bet he’s a great dancer—and you know what
that
means. He is definitely sex on legs. Wonder who he is?”

“Your encyclopedic knowledge of Philadelphia gossip is failing you. The ‘scenery,’ as you put it, is Dominic Russo. The Russo Group has offices on the fifteenth floor.”

“Of course! Shoulda looked at his face instead of his ass.” Melody started toward the elevator again. “If you’d told me my days in our new office building would be brightened by sightings of the sexiest man in the city, I’d have been happier about moving here.”

“I’d have used it, believe me, if I’d known it would have stopped you from complaining about all the work it took to move the office.”

“You know how much I hate change and loved the old building.” Melody looked across the lobby again. “Although the old building never offered us something like that to look at. On the other hand, now that we’re in the same building as our competition, we’ll always have to be careful what we say when we’re …”

The service elevator door began to close, and Catherine interrupted Melody’s latest reservations about the new office arrangements to yell, “Hold the elevator!” to her staffer Tom.

But before Tom could hit the “door open” button, Dominic Russo made a graceful move to his left and grabbed the door.

“Thanks,” Catherine said as she and Melody pushed the dolly into the elevator.

“Happy to help. Moving’s hard enough without having to wait endlessly for elevators.” He smiled and the temperature in the lobby spiked. “You’re Catherine Bennett, aren’t you? I’m Dominic Russo.”

“Of course. We’ve actually met …”

He nodded. “After you spoke at the business roundtable about your firm’s approach to socially responsible marketing and business practices. You had so many people trying to talk to you that day, I didn’t know if you’d remember me. I enjoyed your presentation. When you get settled, maybe you’d consider repeating it to my staff. I don’t imagine I did it justice when I tried to relay the information.”

Not remember meeting him? Was he kidding? He was impossible to forget.

If the rumors were to be believed, most of the women in the city would agree. Interesting, because he wasn’t handsome in a classic, young god kind of way. His jawline was a bit too strong and his nose a bit too aquiline for the perfect image of the divine. The bits of silver beginning to show in his thick, dark hair and the lines around his eyes and mouth put him out of the age range of most Hollywood hotties.

But all that was unimportant compared to the devastating smile currently aimed at Catherine and the deep, dark, espresso brown eyes that seemed to say he knew everything worth knowing about a woman merely by looking at her. Any woman he turned that look on would have her knees melted in two seconds flat with the rest of her quickly following.

And then there was the body Melody had drooled over. Not to mention the wrapping it came in. Even in Philly’s humid summer heat Mister Sex on Legs looked cool and unruffled. The dark suit he wore fit as if he had grown it like skin, not had it tailored. The accompanying white shirt was crisp and unwrinkled, the dark gold and black paisley print tie in a perfect knot, the matching pocket square precisely placed.

Catherine, on the other hand, was both ruffled and wrinkled. Her long hair was mostly pulled back into a messy ponytail; her jeans and T-shirt were rumpled and dusty. There were, she was sure, tracks of perspiration running down her neck and arms from helping to load the dolly with the boxes of client records she didn’t trust to the movers. To top it off, she must reek; she hadn’t showered yet today.

Naturally, Dominic Russo not only looked good, he smelled good. Like a gingerbread man.

Right. The hot guy smells like Christmas cookies. Nice, Catherine. Not some sensuous fragrance. A kid’s holiday treat. You’re really out of practice, aren’t you?

She would prefer to think she was relying on food imagery because she’d skipped breakfast, but in truth she
was
out of practice. Unless he was a client, staff member, or sub-consultant, she hadn’t thought about, dated, or otherwise paid attention to any man, sexy or otherwise, for a long time. With a business to grow and a teenaged son to raise, she didn’t have time for a social life. At least, that’s what she told her family and friends. What she admitted only to herself was she hadn’t recovered from having her ex-husband leave her for another woman. She wasn’t about to take the chance of having her ego battered again by a man who would use her for what he wanted then move on to the next female who crossed his path.

Although even at her best, she would have known better than to waste her time thinking about Dominic Russo in any capacity except as someone who did the same thing she did for a living. He was like the statues of perfectly formed men in the art museum. She might like looking at them, but they were blind to women like her, used to lots of attention, and off limits to the masses. He wasn’t for amateurs.

Come to think of it, though, he
was
paying attention to her at the moment, waiting for a response to his request. Which was what she should be thinking about instead of mentally concocting some weird thought mixture of art museums, marble statues, and Christmas cookies. If she didn’t say something soon, he was going to think she was an idiot.

Finally she got out, “I’d be happy to talk to your staff. But you’re right; it’ll have to be after we get ourselves settled.”

“Not to worry. We’ll be here when you’re ready.” As he let go of the door, he flashed another of his heat-inducing smiles, which Catherine was sure could not only melt knees but also the hooks on a bra. Lord, even her perfectly straight copywriter Tom was blushing from its high wattage. And Melody was speechless, for the first time in all the years Catherine had known her.

Oh, for heaven’s sake
, she wanted to say to her staff as the elevator began to rise to the tenth floor.
We don’t have time for this. We have an office to get set up and clients to attend to.

• • •

Dominic hadn’t been in his office more than fifteen minutes when Edie Martin, his creative director, stormed in.

“What were you thinking, Dominic, letting The Bennett Group lease space in our building? Do you really think it’s wise to have that group of newbie pretenders eavesdropping in the elevator every day when they’re the biggest threat to our business?”

“It’s Bennett and Associates, Edie. If you’re going to complain about them, at least get the name right. And I’d hardly call them ‘newbie pretenders.’ They’re one of the up and coming PR firms in the city. Everyone in the industry is talking about their approach as cutting edge.”

“Why are you letting them in our building where they can spy on us and steal our clients?”

“It’s not ‘our’ building. It’s my building.” He took the papers she’d been waving around as she spoke. “Catherine Bennett’s firm has all the qualifications to be a good tenant, and I’ve had a hard time filling the space the engineering firm left when it moved. Besides, we already have several other threats to our business, as you describe them, in the building and we’ve been fine.”

“But the other communications firms aren’t—
she’s
the one—
they’re
the people who’ve been getting too much of the work we should have gotten.”

“We have more than enough clients to keep us busy. And we’re on track to have the most profitable year in a decade. I’m not worried Bennett and Associates will listen in on our plans through the HVAC system and we’ll go under.” He could see she was not responding to his attempts to make light of her concerns. “Why don’t you think of it another way—now we have all our strongest competitors in one place so
we
can watch
them
.”