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Lola exhaled. Contrary to what Cole believed, she had taken his warning seriously, and she had really, really tried not to intervene, knowing the last thing she needed was more trouble.
She’d white-knuckled the armrests as the jerk behind them blatantly disregarded the flight attendant’s repeated requests to put his feet on the floor where they belonged. “It’s none of your business.” Lola remembered muttering the words under her breath almost like a mantra.
However, when her senior-citizen seatmate’s polite pleas were met with the oaf behind them laughing and wiggling his toes, impulse took over. She’d jumped from her seat and shoved the offending feet off the elderly man’s chair, earning the grandfather’s heartfelt gratitude and the applause of everyone in the first-class cabin.
Unfortunately, the moment the lout had caught sight of her famous face he’d immediately yelped in pain and crumpled into the fetal position.
The upshot: they were both escorted off the plane. Lola was flanked by security, while the rude passenger, who claimed she’d beaten him senseless, was hauled away in a wheelchair, his contrived moans and groans echoing in the air.
“Your behavior was unacceptable,” Cole said.
“But they got the story all wrong,” Lola said. By the time airport security got to the truth and released her with an apology, the strangers taking videos on their cell phones were long gone. “I was simply helping a fellow passenger.”
Tia shook her head. Lola saw her father stifle a yawn with his fist, and her brother-in-law took a surreptitious glance at his watch.
“You also helped yourself right out of representing Espresso,” Cole said.
“Under the circumstances, any of you would have reacted the exact same way,” Lola countered. “Only no one else would be painted as a volatile diva or have to stand here pleading for their job.” Nor would they have to dodge tabloid television reporters trying to goad them into saying or doing something stupid.
Cole rubbed a hand over his close-cropped hair. He met her gaze, and for a moment, Lola thought she’d actually gotten through to him.
“My decision stands,” he said finally.
“B-but—”
“The subject is closed.”
“So where does this leave me?” Years of practice kept her posture ramrod straight, but Lola couldn’t control the telltale quiver in her voice as she looked around the table. “Or did you all go behind my back and vote me out of this family, too?”
“Of course not, baby girl.” Her father’s face, which like Cole’s had been uncharacteristically hard, softened with his tone.
“You know better,” Tia said.
Lola raised a brow. “Do I?”
Cole cleared his throat, loudly. “We discussed this earlier,” he said, his words aimed at Tia and their father. “Lola’s not a child anymore. She’s a twenty-five-year-old woman.” He continued as if she wasn’t standing right in front of them. “And these situations, incidents, or whatever you want to call the messes her impulsiveness constantly gets her into, are bad for business.”
Realization dawned as Lola studied her siblings, who had both married over the past year and a half, and their spouses.
“Oh, now I see where this is going.” Maybe she hadn’t been booted from the family yet, Lola thought, but they were definitely ganging up on her. She pointed at her sister and brother-in-law. “First, there’s you two, who are so in sync you finish each other’s sentences.” Then she turned to her brother and Sage. “Next we have the two of you, who are so much alike, it’s downright scary.”
Cole huffed out an impatient sigh. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
“It appears I’m the odd man out, in this family as well as this company.”
Her brother frowned. “Look, we have a lot of Espresso business to cover, including our plans for the building, dealing with competition from Force Cosmetics and future ad campaigns for Freddy,” he said. “So either have a seat and put that marketing degree you earned online to work, or stop holding us up with this ridiculousness.”
“R-ridiculousness?” she stammered.
Ignoring her protests, Cole signaled his secretary who announced the next item on the meeting agenda.
A discussion about the future of Espresso’s aging building ensued. Meanwhile, Lola stood frozen, dazed from the callousness of her so-called loved ones. They’d actually pulled the plug on her career, she thought. A career that had already been on life support.
The New York City–based talent agency Lola had hired to field offers outside of Espresso hadn’t taken her calls since the amateur videos of the airplane incident became social-media fodder. Not that they had presented her with a job she’d actually consider.
Lola wasn’t sure how long she’d been standing there when the sound of Cole calling her name yanked her out of her own head.
“Well, are you going to just pose like a mannequin, or help us strategize next year’s ad campaigns for your replacement?” he asked.
She blinked. After leading their family’s underhanded coup, her brother had the unmitigated gall to expect her help. There was no way in hell she’d take him up on his offer. She opened her mouth to tell him so.
Don’t be hasty.
A warning from her inner voice, the same one that tried so hard to keep her impulsiveness and tendency to say exactly what was on her mind from getting her into trouble, made Lola hesitate.
You may not like it, but it’s the best offer you’ve had in months.
Lola recalled the proposed gigs the talent agency had called with, and cringed. But how could she even consider her family’s offer after the way they’d all treated her this morning, not to mention the humiliation of being replaced by a drag queen?
Swallow your pride and take the job!
“We’re all eager to hear your thoughts,” her sister said encouragingly.
Gulping, Lola tried to swallow the lump of indignation stuck in her throat. “I—I...” she began.
It just wouldn’t go down.
“Well?” Cole asked. “Surely, as Espresso’s former model you have something useful to say.”
Glaring at her brother, Lola silently told her inner voice to take a hike, along with any notions of kowtowing to the very people who had just given her the boot. “All I have to tell y’all is where to shove the idea of me helping you screw me over.”
“Lola—” her brother began, but this time she was the one to interrupt.
“I’ll give you a hint.” She looked pointedly at the chairs under their behinds. “You’re sitting on it.”
Without stopping to think about her actions or the consequences of them, she hefted her pink leather tote off the table and walked toward the open conference room door. Lola paused in the doorway and glanced over her shoulder.
“Firing me was a huge mistake,” she said. “I’ll try to remember we’re family when you all come crawling for me to save this company and your asses.”
Pulling the sunglasses perched on her head down to cover her eyes, Lola strutted down the hallway toward the bank of elevators, reveling in the stupefied expressions on their faces.
She jabbed the down button and flipped her hair over her shoulder, noting the frayed ends. Espresso wasn’t the only cosmetic company in the world, she told herself. Once word got out she was available, there would be plenty of offers from rival brands.
“Wait!” A male voice rang out as she boarded the elevator.
Humph. It didn’t take them long to realize they’d screwed up in letting her go. Lola pressed her lips together to stifle a grin. Triumphant, she spun around, only to see not a member of her family, but one of the building’s maintenance crew carrying a ladder.
“Thanks for holding the elevator, Miss Gray.”
Remembering the employee was a newlywed, Lola inquired about his wife on the ride down to the lobby. Making small talk kept her mind off the fact that the sense of satisfaction she’d gleaned from her parting shot at her family had diminished. So had her confidence she’d ever be offered another job as good as the one she’d just lost.
In reality, with the exception of some runway work during New York and European Fashion Weeks, there was only one segment of the market vying for her face. At her age, a very unappealing market.
The elevator pinged.
“See you around, Miss Gray,” the coverall-clad worker said.
Putting one foot in front of the other, Lola walked in the direction of the building’s exit with her head held high, as her insides began to cave over the morning’s events.
She stopped short when she spotted through the lobby windows a man she’d recognized. He was standing in front of the parking garage across the street. The slimeball was a cameraman for the reality show Celebrity Pranks, and he appeared to be in deep conversation with a guy dressed in a clown costume.
Lola bit back a curse. That stupid show had been out to trip her up since the airplane incident. She’d first seen the cameraman lurking outside a boutique in Atlanta three days ago, only that time his partner had been dressed in a gorilla costume. Fortunately, another shopper had come in and mentioned a Celebrity Pranks SUV parked around the corner.
It would serve them right if she marched across the street, snatched the big red nose off that clown and stuck it...
“Oh, no, you don’t,” Lola muttered, this time allowing the voice of common sense to overrule her impulse.
Unemployed or not, the last thing she needed was to be caught on video getting in that clown’s painted face. The footage would fuel the reality show’s ratings better than any stupid prank they had up their sleeve to make a fool out of her.
Lola continued to watch them through the lobby’s floor-to-ceiling windows, debating whether to have Espresso’s building security escort her to her car in the parking garage. Maybe she should just tuck her hair under the baseball cap in her bag and try to slip past them unnoticed.
Her phone buzzed, and she shrugged the massive designer tote off her shoulder. Rifling through it, Lola unearthed a curling iron, packets of protein-shake mix, a plastic blender bottle and the remote control for her television that had somehow made its way into the black hole of a bag. The ringing had stopped by the time she’d retrieved the phone, nearly nicking her fingers on a pair of scissors she’d used to cut crochet braids from her hair a few weeks ago.
Lola swiped the screen with her thumb. Her tote weighed down the crook of her arm like a bowling-ball bag. She listened to the message, gave the phone a quizzical glance and then frowned.
Her agent, Jill, had said it was urgent she return the call, but not much else.
“Lola, honey.” Jill bubbled enthusiastically through the phone moments later. That saccharine-sweet voice laced with faux cheer could mean only one thing, Lola thought. She stifled a grunt. Here we go. Another offer to advertise something aimed at the AARP crowd.
“You won’t believe who just called. They want you to—” Jill started.
“No.” Lola cut her off. Usually, she would have heard the agent out and then politely declined, but after getting shafted by her family in the company boardroom and being stalked by that silly tabloid show already today she was in no mood.
“But you haven’t even heard what the job is...”
Rolling her eyes, Lola tapped her foot against the lobby floor. She had a pretty good idea. Espresso’s senior-citizen image clung to her, and no one seemed to care that she was only in her twenties.
“Look, I thought I already made this clear. I’m not interested in being the face of a denture adhesive, walk-in bathtubs or doing commercials where I’m snuggled up to some old dude with an idiotic grin on my face because he popped a pill to get a hard-on.”
“I promise, this one is different. It’s a fantastic opportunity and absolutely perfect for you,” Jill insisted.
Lola grunted again. “Yeah, I’ve heard that before.”
“Please. Just hear me out.”
Lola shrugged. At this point, she had nothing to lose by listening. She leaned against the wall near the windows and faced the lobby’s interior. “Fine, go ahead.”
The agent filled her in on the details, and Lola broke out in a huge grin. If she played her cards right, this wouldn’t be just a job, but the opportunity of a lifetime.
She ended the call and dropped the phone into her pit of a bag.
“Boo-yah!” Pumping a fist in the air, she whispered the words she wanted to scream loudly enough for her family to hear on the tenth floor.
“I’m back!”
Nothing could bring her down now, Lola thought. Not even the sight of the maintenance worker from the elevator removing the giant poster of her that had hung from the lobby’s rafters for years, and replacing it with one of a man wearing a blond wig and lipstick.
Chapter 2 (#ulink_8385a692-fca4-5dfc-9335-2d9b3e7b11aa)
Police Chief Dylan Cooper hadn’t seen faces this unimpressed with what he had to say since dealing with his ex-wife.
“I hauled ten bad guys to jail last night,” someone yelled from the back of the room. “Didn’t even have to call for backup.”
“Is that all?” A snort accompanied the shouted question. “I made over fifty arrests this week, including Big Moe, from the top of the most-wanted list.”
Murmurs of approval echoed off the walls at the capture of the elusive Big Moe. They fueled the fervent bragging, each person who chimed in boasting bigger arrest statistics than the last.
“What about you, Chief? How many bad guys you take off the streets this week?”
Dylan had hauled the Henderson brothers to the county jail after they’d started a brawl at the sports bar to avoid making good on a wager. His efforts had earned him a sucker punch to the jaw from one of the lumberjack-sized brothers, while he’d been busy subduing the other two.
However, those arrests had been two weeks ago.
The metallic gleam of the badge pinned to his uniform caught Dylan’s eye as he glanced at the worn carpet. He raised his head slightly to meet the dozens of expectant faces awaiting his reply.
“None,” he said finally.
A chorus of gasps erupted, quickly followed by muffled giggles.
“However,” Dylan interjected over the din, “I run a small-town police department, not a video game controller.” He eyed the classroom of fourth and fifth grade Cooper’s Place Elementary School students gathered for his day-in-the-life career talk. “So those arrests you all made playing Cop Crackdown don’t count.”
“Not even nabbing Big Moe?” the boy in the back of the room asked.
Dylan took a moment to think it over. A few of his cop buddies back at his old precinct in Chicago played the popular video game, but none had managed to beat the last level and capture the slippery Big Moe.
Dylan stroked the shadow of beard clinging to his chin. “Well, maybe...”
“Dylan Cooper.” The sound of his name, spoken in an admonishing tone he rarely heard, grabbed his attention. He turned from the students seated crossed-legged on the floor to their teacher standing in a corner of the classroom with her arms folded over her chest.
“Yes, Mrs. Bartlett.” Dylan’s deep voice automatically adopted the singsong quality it had decades ago when she’d been his fifth-grade teacher.
She peered at him over the frames of cat-eye glasses that had slid past the bridge of her nose. Her lips were pursed into a frown, deepening the wrinkles around her mouth. Time had transformed the teacher’s once dark hair to salt and pepper. However, her expression was the same she’d worn the day a garter snake he’d encountered on the way to school had escaped his backpack and slithered onto her desk.
“These students are in my classroom on this sunny July day because they spent the school year trying to apprehend Big Moe instead of doing their homework.” She paused and gave the open window a pointed glance. As if on cue, the happy shrieks of children at the small town’s playground floated in on the mild breeze.
Dylan exhaled, shoving aside a twinge of empathy for the kids’ plight. It didn’t matter that he’d once missed a summer of Little League baseball sitting in this same classroom, with the same teacher. He was the adult now as well as an authority figure.
“No,” he said finally. “Nabbing Big Moe doesn’t count as a real arrest.”
