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“It’s the neighborly thing to do.”
“Well, Mr. Matthews, last I checked, you weren’t feeling too neighborly toward me. If I remember right, you called me insane and shut your door in my face.”
“Not one of my finer moments.” Heck, he hadn’t had many of those at all. But today, Carter Matthews was turning over a new leaf.
Again.
She ran a hand through her hair, displacing the brunette tendrils. They settled around her neck with little flips at the ends. On another woman, he might have found that attractive.
Hell, who was he kidding? He did find it attractive, especially on Daphne Williams. With the way she had her hips parked to one side and her wide brown eyes giving him that perpetual look of frustration, he knew he got to her, too.
Granted, probably not in the same gut-stirring, fireigniting, hormone-lighting manner, but at least she wasn’t immune to his charms.
Daphne sighed. “Yesterday wasn’t one of my finer moments, either,” she said. “And I would appreciate the ride. Besides, you owe me.”
“I do at that,” he said, in a voice several octaves deeper than he’d intended. He cleared his throat, ridding it of the damnable frog inside, and pressed on the long metal handle of the glass door that led to the parking garage, holding it open for her to pass through.
And wondering if he’d just made a huge mistake.
When Daphne had agreed to ride with Carter Matthews, she hadn’t thought about the consequences of squeezing into his little red two-door sports car. It was a hardtop convertible, exactly what she’d expected from Indiana’s most notorious bachelor.
But what was worse about the Lexus was its size. The car had all the room of a takeout box and made her overwhelmingly more aware of what Kim had called his more attractive assets.
Okay, he was cute. Another woman might like the way his hair waved at the top, one lock falling down on his forehead from time to time. Another woman might like the deep dark blue of his eyes, the way they seemed to reflect everything he looked at, especially her own image, as if he were a human mirror.
And especially the way he set her off-kilter—the one feeling Daphne had done a darn good job of avoiding.
Until Carter Matthews came along.
“I know, the car’s a stereotype,” he said, reading her mind as he put the powerful vehicle into gear. A growl erupted from the engine, as if the Lexus wanted to show Daphne a little speed.
“It does scream bachelor,” she replied. “And from what the news has said about you, you’re the kind of guy who’s only capable of an intimate relationship with your steering wheel.”
He laughed at that. “Gloria does get a few good lines in her gossip column from time to time. The woman can turn a phrase, even if her observations are a bit…skewed.” Carter took a left on Prince Street, causing Daphne to sway a little toward his side. Her arm brushed against his, and she jerked it back. “Was the all-perfect, now-departed-from-your-life Jerry a car nut?”
Daphne laughed. “Definitely not. Jerry didn’t even like to drive. He preferred to let me be behind the wheel.”
“Whoa. What a man.”
Daphne let out a chuff. She refused to give Carter the satisfaction of knowing she was happy Jerry was out of her life. “You don’t have to drive the girl around to be a man.”
“Whatever happened to chivalry? Taking care of your woman and all that?” He braked for a stoplight, drumming his fingers on the top of the leather-wrapped steering wheel, clearly annoyed by the wait. His dark blue suit jacket strained against his shoulders.
“For your information, I don’t need anyone to take care of me. I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”
“Oh. You’re one of those women.”
“What do you mean, one of those women?”
“The kind who says she doesn’t need a man when all she really needs is to meet the right man.”
Daphne shook her head. “I should have expected a line like that out of someone like you.”
“I see my reputation has preceded me once again.” He tossed her a grin, then returned his attention to the road. “Just don’t believe everything you read.” A sliver of something vulnerable slipped in between his words, but disappeared just as quickly.
She must have imagined it, Daphne decided.
This was exactly why she’d slipped into that rut with Jerry. To avoid men who pushed her buttons, who drove her crazy. An unpredictable, frustrating man like Carter Matthews should come with a Do Not Disturb sign.
Especially when that lock of hair fell down across his forehead again and everything within her itched to brush it back. It had to be the car. Something about a convertible made her want to do crazy things.
Things that pulled her focus away from what was important—work, not relationships. Work provided the steady concrete base Daphne needed in her life. People might let her down, but her job never did.
The light changed to green. The sound of the accelerator giving the car more gas sounded suspiciously like Carter saying, “Uh-huh.”
“So, what do you do?” Daphne asked, not to get to know Carter better, but only to change the subject toward anything other than male driving habits and how they could be relationship portents.
“When I’m not starring in the pages of the paper?”
She nodded.
“I own TweedleDee Toys.” He let out a heavy sigh and slowed as they approached orange signs denoting an ongoing construction project, flicking a glance at his watch as he did. She noticed the interior of his car was as neat as his apartment had been. Not a speck of dust or so much as a lone French fry littered any of the surfaces. New car smell hung sweet and heavy in the air. “Or at least I do today. The way things have been going, I might not tomorrow.”
She shouldn’t ask. She shouldn’t care. But the little part of her that always did her job did care. And felt that surge of need to help.
This time, it was a masochistic urge, she thought as Carter circumvented some roadwork by zipping down Central and back up Washington to Third. It had to have been the lines in his face, the ones that seemed to say he’d been having a hell of a last few weeks. “What do you mean, you might not have the company anymore soon?”
“I think you’ve had enough bad news for a couple days. I won’t burden you with mine.” He turned and grinned again, this time a softer, easier, more friendly smile.
In some countries it might even be considered cute.
The masochistic urge to help him multiplied tenfold. Okay, he had a nice smile. Too bad he was an arrogant jerk who drove women away and ruined other people’s love lives.
They ran into the same construction again at the end of Third Street. She saw him check his watch a second time, clearly not happy with the delay.
They sat there, idling in stopped traffic. She glanced at Carter and softened. Maybe her heart was bleeding a little this morning. Maybe she was overtired, or underfed. Either way, she sat there and began to think a guy with a smile like that couldn’t be all bad. Could he?
“I’m a corporate creativity coach,” she said. From all that she’d read about Carter Matthews in the local papers, he was new to the CEO thing and could likely use a little help.
Okay, maybe a lot.
“Are you the one who made toilet paper fun?”
She laughed. “That’s probably not the best job on my résumé—”
“But it is the cleanest.” He gave her a teasing grin. “What a small world. Your company has been on my To Do list for weeks. I even looked it up on the Internet, which is why you looked so familiar last night. Your firm came highly recommended by my brother.”
Heat rose in her cheeks at the unexpected praise. “Thanks. We’ve had some nice success in the last couple of years.”
He gestured toward the stopped cars in front of them. “If I had to be stuck in traffic with anyone, I’m glad it’s you. Creativity is the one thing my company—and my employees—seem to be lacking.”
“But you’re a toy company. Isn’t fun supposed to be part of your company motto?”
He inched the car forward. “You might want to tell my staff that, considering our latest creation was Cemetery Kitty. ‘Come watch her roll over and play dead.’”
“Oh, my.” Daphne put a hand over her mouth, holding back a laugh. “That’s bad. That’s really bad.”
“I can practically hear the whoosh of my corporate profits going down the white porcelain river ride.”
“What you need is a little creativity boost for your team.”
“What I need is a miracle,” he muttered, and once again the shade in his eyes drew back enough for her to see he was worried.
Another wave of sympathy ran through Daphne. She understood what that was like. In the early days at Creativity Masters, she had faced those uphill battles alone because she hadn’t been able to afford help. She’d had to prove she could make a living at something as “silly” as creativity. And she had, in spades.
A construction worker in an orange vest waved them forward. Carter, following the cars before him, wove his way between the bright neon cones and warning signs. The Lexus bumped a little over the rough road, jostling Daphne closer to Carter, then away.
A charge of awareness raced through her body. Fast, hard and very, very hot. The paper had proclaimed Carter the sexiest man in Indiana last year.
From where she sat, Daphne thought the reporter could have easily added a few states to that title. Maybe a whole continent.
Daphne drew in a breath, calming the charge of attraction. Playboys like him came with charisma included. She’d be smart to remember that.
They were nearly at the end of the trip. Daphne could easily keep her mouth shut now and let Carter go on his way. He had, after all, been at the root of the demise of her creativity center funding.
But something about the tense set of his shoulders, the lines in his forehead and the genuine worry in his eyes when he talked about his company tugged at her heartstrings.
He pulled up in front of the building that housed her office and parked the car. On the first floor, the bright green awning of Frankie’s Delicatessen had already been unfurled for the day. The scent of Frankie’s famous pot roast baking in preparation for the day’s orders of roast beef sandwiches drifted through the car windows. “Here we are.”
Daphne reached for the door handle. “Thanks.”
“Wait,” Carter said, reaching for her, his touch warm on her arm. He pivoted in his seat, his dark blue eyes studying hers. His tie, she noticed, was as neatly done as the rest of him. Not a Windsor out of place. “I’d like to hire you. As a way to make up for the whole basket thing, and—” he gave her the grin that the paper had once said should have been trademarked “—you can pull off the miracle I seem to have missed.”
“You mean you want me to rescue your company while you sit by and watch?”
“Hell no,” Carter chuckled. “I’ll be on the golf course. Just send me the bill.”
She let out a gust of frustration. “I don’t think so.” The door opened beneath her touch and a muttered, “Typical.”
He’d blown it. He’d been Carter Matthews, the guy with the smile and the woman on his arm, not Carter Matthews, serious business owner in serious trouble. “Daphne, listen—”
She pivoted back. “Thanks for the ride. Why don’t we just call it even? You can go back to your fun and games and I’ll go back to my life.”
“I wouldn’t have asked you if I didn’t need the help,” he said, but he was sure by the look in her eyes that she was going to refuse him again.
“Uh-huh. Okay, then tell me. What’s the current situation?” Daphne asked, hands on her hips. “How’s production going? What’s your profit margin? Your return customer ratio?”
“I’m not as familiar with production and…all that,” he said. “I, ah, don’t spend every day at the office.”
She arched a brow. “How often are you in the office?”
Carter let out a little cough. “Twice a week.” He paused. “In the mornings.”
“Where are you when you aren’t at work?”
“Networking,” he said.
She looked at him, read his face as easily as a newspaper, then let out a snort. “You’re golfing, aren’t you?”
“Hey, I make very valuable business connections on the fairway.”
“No wonder your company is failing, Mr. Matthews. To get a good pulse on your company, you really need to be there.”
“I am…planning to,” Carter added after a second. “Starting today.”
“I can’t help you.” She threw up her hands. “I work with CEOs every day who are committed to turning their companies around. I don’t want to work with someone who is just playing CEO.”
“Is that how you see me?” he asked. “The stupid playboy who can’t handle anything more complicated than taking down a woman’s phone number?”
“Of course not. You can also handle a sports car. There’s two great skills in life.”
Her sarcasm ran through him like a knife. She, like most everyone else in his life, saw Carter as nothing more than his reputation.
Yet, he knew, just based on what he’d heard about Daphne, that she could help him turn around TweedleDee Toys. But as he took in Daphne Williams’s heart-shaped face, he wondered if she might be a bit of a complication. Too pretty by half and far too distracting.
Regardless of how she looked or how she might distract him, TweedleDee Toys needed her expertise. Carter might not be toy-smart, but he was savvy enough to know when he needed to call in the cavalry.
“Despite what you think of me, will you help me?” he asked.
“No, Mr. Matthews, I won’t. Not until you stop looking at running a business as one big beach volleyball game.” With that, the car door slammed shut and she was gone.
Carter sat back against the leather seat and sighed. What had Uncle Harry been thinking? Why would his uncle, who had set the playboy precedent in the Matthews family, name Carter as the heir of TweedleDee Toys, one of Harry’s many companies—or hobbies since he rarely did much more than dabble in something once he owned it—in his will?
Harry must have thought it would be the ultimate ha-ha on the Matthews family. Give the company to the one with the smallest sense of humor and see it tank. That was one to chuckle about at the next Thanksgiving dinner.
Despite his wealthy and crazy uncle’s predictions, Carter wanted to see TweedleDee Toys succeed. Damn it all, he didn’t just want it to succeed, he wanted it to corner twenty-five percent of the three-to-six-year-old market and thirty-percent of the preteens. They were lofty goals, but at the time he’d been full of fire and arrogance.
Nevertheless, he’d done his homework, putting those rusty college skills into practice. He’d arranged his goal sheets, set a chart of profit projections and sales quotas. The rest should have happened by now. But it hadn’t.
Because as failure had become a bigger part of his day than success, he’d abandoned those lofty goals and starry-eyed ideas to play golf, unable to witness the company’s demise.
Well, Carter wasn’t going to sit by any longer. And maybe, if he could prove Daphne Williams wrong, then there was hope to turn the tide with all the other naysayers.
Reilly, Daphne’s assistant, looked up from his desk when she walked in, his observant eyes studying her—and missing nothing. “You’re looking awfully pensive this morning. And a tad ticked off.”
“Who, me?” She affected a blank look.
“Yes, you.” He crossed his arms over his bright purple shirt and maroon tie, a color combo that belied Reilly’s fiftyish age. In a steady relationship with Elton, his “significant man” for more than twenty-five years, Reilly often acted more like a mother hen than an assistant. A nosy mother hen, Daphne amended, as Reilly’s light green eyes narrowed to study her. “You also look…different. Did you meet someone? A new client? A nice guy?”
