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Miles found himself nodding and thinking that she was smart as well as beautiful, and judging by how protective she was of Celebrations, Inc.’s client base, she was obviously passionate about her work.
Who could argue with passion? Maybe he wouldn’t argue, but he could test her a bit.
“That makes sense, but the challenge we face is balancing the need to create interesting TV and remain true to your clients. Surely they realize what they’re signing up for when they agree to be part of the show?”
He held her gaze as he had when he’d glanced up and caught her looking at him across the room before they met. Only this time her eyes flashed in a way that kept his gaze from dropping down to her lips.
“Our clients do understand what they’re getting themselves into,” she said. “Believe me, the show has added an entirely new element to my job. Not only do Pepper and I have to publicize the company and book our events, but it’s our duty to make sure clients know precisely what they’re getting themselves into when they agree to be on the show. We could never ruin a special event all in the name of making a scene that would be interesting for television.”
“And have we filmed you in that capacity?” Miles asked. “In the client-relations arena?”
The question, which he’d delivered in all sincerity, seemed to take her by surprise. She crossed her arms over her chest.
“Well, no…. Not directly, I suppose,” she said as if the possibility hadn’t occurred to her before now. “I’m support staff, and I’m perfectly fine to remain in the background doing my job.”
He loved her accent, but he refrained from asking her what part of the U.K. she was from. That seemed too personal—
“Do you know about the cookbook idea Sydney came up with?” asked Pepper, pulling Miles out of his reverie. “It’s called Single Ladies. It’s all about single-serving recipes. That might be a fun reason to bring her into the spotlight.”
Sydney shot Pepper a scathing look and shook her head.
“Well, really, it’s a collaborative effort,” Sydney said. “A.J. and Caroline are reconfiguring the recipes and Pepper and I are writing them up and putting everything together in publishable form. It would be nice if we could feature the cookbook on the show, but it’s not simply about me.”
That wasn’t something that would spike the ratings, but it was fresh and different. An idea he could run with for a start. “How close are you to publication?”
“We have publisher interest,” Sydney offered. “But we’re still developing new recipes—even if they don’t make it into this edition. I foresee a Single Ladies empire.”
“Is that so?” Miles asked.
“Absolutely,” Sydney insisted. “A Single Ladies empire could only help the show. Don’t you agree? It will speak to a segment of the population we’re trying to attract as our audience.”
“Absolutely,” Miles said. “We could do something with that.”
“As long as you don’t solely attribute it to me,” she warned. “This is a four-way partnership.”
He nodded rather than pointing out that the current split of airtime wasn’t at all equitable with her mostly in the background. Now wasn’t the time to drive home that point. Not in front of everyone. He would use much more subtle means to accomplish that goal.
“But I do have an idea I’d like to share,” she said. “If you will permit me to do so?”
“Of course,” Miles answered. When she talked it gave him a valid excuse to stare at her unabashedly, at her wide-set green eyes and the way her full lips formed a perfect cupid’s bow.
“Perhaps it would be a good idea if Celebrations, Inc. and Catering to Dallas could do something where we give back to the community. That’s always a win-win situation. The community benefits and we get good press.”
“Did you have something special in mind?”
“Actually, I do.” Sydney looked at her friends. “The girls and I have already tossed around this idea. So Pepper, A.J., Caroline, feel free to jump in at any time.”
“You’re doing a great job,” said A.J. “Run with it.”
“We were talking about giving away wedding catering services to a bride and groom. Perhaps we could film the selection process—choose a handful of finalists and narrow it down to one lucky couple. Maybe we could even get the public involved by allowing them to vote on the winners.”
“That sounds like a great idea,” Miles said. It was a slight departure from what they’d been doing, but it still remained true to the feel of the show. Plus, anytime there was a contest, it always drummed up new viewers. “Good ideas, everyone. I’d love to hear more about it now, but we’re already behind schedule. So we need to get back to work. But, Sydney, let’s you and I schedule some time to iron out the details. Sound good?”
Miles certainly hadn’t turned out to be the monster her friends had portrayed him to be earlier that day, Sydney thought as she drank the last sip of her wine.
Given that Catering to Dallas’s twenty-six member cast and crew had gathered at Murphy’s Pub to welcome Miles to the team, it was proof that no one harbored resentment or other issues from the morning.
Since Sydney hadn’t seen exactly what had transpired and liked him well enough to go out on a Monday night to toast his arrival on the show, the only conclusion she could come to was that this morning had probably just been a misunderstanding…possibly perpetuated by the not-so-minor detail that no one had known where to locate her in the midst of the director-change storm.
Looking back on it from this vantage point, it probably hadn’t been the wisest move to leave the country without telling anyone where she was going.
Oh, well, what was done was done. There was no need to fret over it now. And there was no need to tell anyone about the job interview just yet. Not unless she made it to the next level of the process.
Time would tell.
In the meantime, there was a welcome party going on and she fully intended to enjoy it. Especially when Miles came back from the bar with a fresh beer and a glass of white wine, which he placed in front of Sydney. He planted himself in the seat beside her and took a long draw of the beer. When they’d first arrived a couple of hours ago, he’d been sitting at the opposite end of the table with Aiden and some of the other crew members. She’d been talking to the girls. Every once in a while she would glance up and catch him looking at her. The first couple of times she’d looked away. Then she’d decided to join him in his game, cocking a brow, raising her glass to him. If she hadn’t known better she might have thought he was flirting with her.
And now he was bringing her wine.
“Thank you,” she said.
He nodded and touched his beer bottle to her glass.
“Good to see that this is still a pretty happening place for a Monday night,” he said, glancing around the bar. Sydney followed his gaze, trying to see Murphy’s through his eyes and then remembering he grew up in Celebration. It was probably more familiar to him than it was to her.
“Did you come here a lot before you moved away?”
The corner of his mouth quirked up into a half smile. “Well, not as much as I would’ve liked to since I was underage.”
Murphy’s was one of Celebration’s best-loved spots. It was a casual place where anyone could drop in for a drink or a respectable offering of pub food.
A long wooden bar, staffed by bartenders who had been there since the beginning of time and could mix any drink known to mankind, ran the length of one wall. People were dancing to songs from the sixties, seventies and eighties that drifted from the jukebox in the corner. A couple of pool tables occupied the left side of the room. They always seemed to be in use. Booths and tables filled in the rest of the room.
Sydney spied Aiden shooting pool with Caroline’s husband, Drew, who was the editor-in-chief of the Dallas Journal of Business and Development. For a split second, she wondered if she should go over and see if Aiden was pitching Drew a story about Miles’s arrival. Public relations and dealing with the media was her area of expertise, after all. However, she was off the clock and a little looser from the wine. Even though his arrival would make a good news story—Hometown Boy Who’s Done Well Comes Back to Work on Locally Filmed Show—Aiden could handle it…or it could wait until tomorrow.
She turned her eyes on Miles.
Maybe it was the combination of the wine and exhaustion, but she suddenly felt very relaxed sitting there. Miles had just sat down and she didn’t want to be rude getting up to talk to the press, especially when the press in question was her good friend’s husband. “Did you leave for college right after high school graduation?”
He shook his head. “I joined the army right after I left Celebration.”
“You were in the service?” Sydney asked. The e-encyclopedia hadn’t mentioned that.
He nodded as he took another long draw of his beer.
“How did you go from soldier to scary filmmaker?” The place was noisy and she leaned in a little closer to hear what he had to say.
“I’ve always loved film,” he said. “I even shot when I was on active duty, but then I was injured.”
She thought she’d noticed him walking with a subtle limp. “So, you’re a war hero?”
“That’s stretching it a bit,” he said. “I wouldn’t go that far.”
He didn’t strike her as the type to fake modesty. “What do you mean?”
Everyone else had either gotten up to dance or shoot pool or was engrossed in conversation within their own huddles. The music was so loud, they were sort of in their own little world. It was nice…and intimate.
“It’s a long story,” he said.
“I have all night.”
“Do you?” he asked.
That was a loaded question, and there was something in the inflection of his voice that she could’ve taken all sorts of different ways if she’d wanted to.
Instead, she smiled at him and said, “Relatively speaking.”
“I’ll make a deal with you,” he said. “You tell me where you were this weekend and I’ll tell you about how I was injured.”
As the jukebox switched to a mournful country tune, a guy singing something about wasted days and nights, those who were dancing moved close together and swayed to the rhythm. “Why do my whereabouts on my free time matter?”
“I’m just curious,” he said. “But technically, you were MIA on my watch. Even if it was only a few hours.” The corner of his mouth quirked up in an unexpected touché, and the raw sexual energy that danced between them made her want to reach out and touch him.
“If you don’t want to talk about it, I respect that.” His voice was low and husky and when she looked at him, she thought, bedroom eyes.
She had to look away, or risk getting caught in the magnetic net of this chemistry. Temptation plus wine equaled a whole slew of ways she could get in trouble. Not to mention, she hadn’t even told the girls about her trip to St. Michel.
“So you consider Texas home?” she answered.
Miles shrugged. “I was born and raised here. I haven’t been back in a long time.”
“Do you still have family here?”
“I do. Most of them live here. The Mercers are a big, rowdy brood.”
“Are you close?”
She watched him as he stared at his beer bottle, picking at the edges of the label. “My mom and I are close. She’s really the glue that holds the family together. And my siblings and I stay in touch as much as we can. I’ve got three brothers and two sisters and some of them are married with kids. Everyone is just so darn busy these days. You know? It’s hard for most people to get away—even if it’s just for a long weekend. Maybe they should take lessons from you since you seem to be so good about juggling a career and flying off to parts unknown.”
He had a mischievous glint in his brown eyes. For a moment, the way he was looking at her made her breath catch under her breastbone.
“Okay, it’s obvious you’re not going to let this go, are you?” she said. “So if you must know, I had a job interview. But please keep it between you and me. There’s no sense in getting everyone all excited about it if I don’t get the job.”
She had no idea why she was confiding in him. She’d simply drawn in a breath and the words had spilled out of her mouth before she could contain them, but she’d already spilled the beans. So now she had to live with it.
“Your secret is safe with me,” he said.
“You’re not going to tell? Or even blackmail me?”
“Blackmail’s a great idea,” he teased. “Yes, I’m glad you brought it up because I can definitely use it to my advantage.”
“You do realize there are laws that prevent that type of harassment?”
“Of course. I was thinking more along the lines of trying to find some way to entice you to stay.”
She was leaning in again. Or maybe he was the one who’d moved closer. But there was definitely something going on here. Even though every fiber of good sense in her being told her fooling around with the boss wasn’t a good idea, her libido was wanting no part of playing the good girl.
Chapter Three
Several cars were parked in the suburban cul-de-sac of Miles’s parents’ neighborhood. He stopped the car at the first break in the line of vehicles and parallel parked along the curb. He sat there looking at his childhood home for a moment before he killed the engine.
The last time Miles had come home, the visit had been a disaster.
He drummed his fingers on the dashboard, wondering if this was a mistake. Maybe he should’ve met them out somewhere, on neutral territory.
But no, he was doing this for his mom. For that reason, he reminded himself that this time things would be different. Even if he had to bite a hole in his tongue. Lightly, he closed his teeth around the tip of his tongue as if giving censure a practice drill.
His mom was the peacemaker of the family and deserved better than the scene that had unfolded between Miles and his father the last time Miles had come home for a visit. Five years ago.
He and his dad hadn’t spoken since. Even if Miles couldn’t go back and change what happened on that day, he could take the high road and move forward.
For his mother’s sake.
He unlatched his seat belt and let himself out of the car. The sturdy brick, two-story Colonial, which was surrounded by trees, sat atop a small hill and seemed to be looking down on him as he made his way up the paver-lined driveway. It wasn’t the most fashionable house, especially not compared to some of the homes in Hollywood he’d visited, but it was a family home, warm and inviting, well-kept with a lived-in patina. He had to hand it to his old man. The guy would make sure his yard was manicured if he had to crawl around on all fours to get it done.
Window boxes sported bright red geraniums. There were two white wicker rockers on the front porch that looked as if they’d recently received a fresh coat of paint. A closer look revealed that the seat cushions were fraying, but the paint made the chairs look nice and inviting, even if they weren’t brand new. That was his mom’s handiwork. So was the sunflower wreath on the front door. All these little touches made a person feel welcome and wanted.
If that didn’t sum up the difference in his folks: his dad tended to the practical matters like the lawn, weeding and edging, while his mom added the nice touches that made this middle-class house a home.
When he’d talked to his mom to tell her he’d be back in town, she’d assured him his father would be heartbroken if Miles stayed away.
“Mom, Dad and I haven’t spoken in five years. What makes you so sure he’s so eager to see me now?”
“You just leave everything to me, honey. I’ll deal with your father and he will welcome you as warmly as if nothing ever happened. Trust me.”
That was another thing about his mom: when she got her mind wrapped around something—especially if it had to do with her family—nothing stood in her way. She was a woman of her word. So when she said, “Trust me,” she left no alternative.
As he climbed the brick steps toward the red front door, a calico cat he didn’t recognize sprinted past him, making him do a stutter step so he didn’t step on it. The animal stopped under one of the rockers, eyeing him warily.
“Don’t believe a word he told you about me,” Miles murmured. “It takes two to box.”
Actually, his father had never laid a hand on him in anger. His words had always been his most powerful weapon. It was his military background that made him that way. Miles Mercer III was an army man through and through. He did everything by the book—well, his own interpretation of the book—and expected everyone to conform and follow suit.
Few were brazen enough to dispute him, because when you did, well…you paid the price. In Miles’s case the price was exorbitant: excommunication.
For a moment, he stood there watching the cat watch him, realizing he wasn’t sure if he should knock or walk in. This had been his home for the first eighteen years of his life. At twenty-nine, he’d still spent more time under this roof than anywhere else. But things were different now. As his father had so aptly pointed out the last time Miles had walked out this door—the last time they spoke—this was no longer his home.
He pulled back his hand and landed three sharp raps with his knuckles. In less than ten seconds the door swung open and his mother’s squeal of delight pierced the air.
