Her Sexiest Mistake Read online

  “Aren’t you guys going to the movies this afternoon?” Mia asked her.

  “So?”

  “So I’ll give you one thousand dollars to wear something bright pink today.”

  Hope chewed on her wad of gum, then blew a big bubble.

  Pink.

  Pop.

  “Yeah. I was thinking something Chanel,” Mia said.

  For this, she got an eye roll.

  After she dropped Hope off at the teen center and got to work, the fun began. Layoffs had hit close to home. Half her creative team had to go. It didn’t help that Margot and Ted faced the same cuts, not when saying good-bye to Tami and Steven.

  That afternoon, the Anderson people started asking her about Ted, wanting to know if he could join her in handling their account. When Mia went to Dick about it, she realized the good-old-boy network had gone into effect when she hadn’t been paying attention, because he just said, “Do what you have to do to keep the Anderson people happy.”

  Afraid to say anything because she was seriously peeved, and when she was seriously peeved, her Southern accent buttered her every word, she simply bit her tongue and stalked out of the office, where she ran into Margot. Mia and Margot had never exactly been friends, but in this firm, where they were in the definite minority as far as women went, were in fact the only two females at this level, they had a silent agreement to stick together when needed.

  “Layoffs,” Margot said furiously. “Suck.”

  “Men suck.”

  Margot nodded, and in rare solidarity they smiled grimly at each other.

  Mia went back to her office, going over and over the Runner stuff, wishing Tess would show up so she could get her opinion, but Tess had gone to lunch two hours ago and hadn’t come back.

  Then, finally, Tess reappeared. She stuck her head in Mia’s office with an apologetic look on her face. “Sorry.”

  “Are you sick?”

  “No.” A flush worked its way up Tess’s throat.

  “I, um…”

  “Ah, hell.” She scrubbed her hands over her face. “Mike.”

  Tess sighed dreamily.

  Mia searched Tess’s face, found utter bliss, and let worry work its course. “It’s only been a few dates. You can’t engage your heart that quickly.”

  “It was engaged the first moment I laid eyes on him.”

  “Oh, Tess. Really?”

  “Really.” Tess’s eyes wandered to her plant. “Hey, you’ve got to water that thing.”

  “I’ve watered it. I’ve not watered it. Nothing makes it happy and it’s going to die to spite me. You’re changing the subject. Tell me about him. What does he what to do with himself?”

  “Well, he’s between careers at the moment, but he’s putting in time at the teen center every day for a while.”

  “Great.” Mia tossed her pen aside. “Damn it, you have too big a heart, you know this. You fall too hard, and then get hurt.”

  “No I don’t.”

  Mia ticked them off on her fingers. “Scott. Jon. Timothy—”

  “Okay, fine. I’ve fallen too hard, too fast before, but not this time.”

  “Ha. You’ve already slept with him, the hurt is just around the corner.”

  “Shows what you know.” Tess lifted her chin smugly. “I haven’t sleep with him. Yet.”

  Mia groaned. “How do you even communicate? You don’t know sign language.”

  “He reads lips, and that’s where I was today. I started a sign language class.” Another dreamy sigh escaped her. “Did I tell you? He’s been making cookie dough with me at night.”

  Tess had a small home business called Cookie Madness. She made cookie dough for extra cash, and she was amazing at it. She sold it by the pound, mostly to two small local bakeries, and in Mia’s opinion it was the best dough in the world. So many times she’d bugged Tess to get serious about the business, to let Mia market it, but Tess had resisted, enjoying the smallness of the company.

  “Mia.” Tess smiled at her doubt. “Stop thinking. Just be happy for me.”

  “If he hurts you, I hurt him.”

  “I’ll be sure to tell him. Now prepare yourself. I have wince-inducing news.”

  “God.” Mia pressed her fingers to her eyelids. “What now?”

  “King Dickface wants to see you in his office.”

  “Ted says the Anderson people asked for him specifically, and that you wouldn’t let him on board,” Dick said without preamble.

  “Ted also says he’s a human being, but I have my doubts.” Mia smiled.

  Dick did not. “Fix this,” he said and went back to his computer.

  Mia moved to the door thinking, if she could only figure out how to set her cell phone to stun…

  “Mia.”

  She turned back. “Yes?”

  “Ted wants to fire Tess. Says she came on to him.”

  Mia found it difficult to speak with her jaw locked tight, but she managed. “Ted has an ego problem. Trust me, Tess wouldn’t touch him with a ten-foot pole.”

  “We’re laying off at the lower tier this week, and I’m just looking for people to give me a reason to let them go, so you might want to make sure.”

  What she would like to make sure of was Ted’s slow, painful demise, but she merely nodded.

  “How’s it going with your niece? Is she in jail yet?”

  “She’s not a bad kid,” she heard herself say and left in tune to his low laugh.

  Mike showed up for work each day, a fact that quite frankly surprised Kevin. Mike even exhibited a glimmer of true interest: not just the happy-go-lucky, what-the-fuck Mike, but a man who wanted this job and who cared about making a living.

  Now if Kevin could get Cole to care about his grades, convince Beth not to sell the building, get Joe off his back, get Mia to open up…if, if, if.

  To suitably exhaust himself, he took a very long ride on the bike, after which he planned to fall into bed and not dream of Mia, or how if she knocked he hoped she was wearing that gauzy sundress again.

  No. Christ, what was wrong with him? He was not going to keep sleeping with her whenever she knocked.

  Yeah, but there was no sleeping involved, a little voice reminded him, while his body surged and said Oh, pretty please, one more time.

  He parked the bike on his dark street and, in spite of himself, looked up at Mia’s house. It was well lit, and from somewhere inside came the thudding beat of music. Not as loud as the previous week, which meant the two wildly opinionated, edgy, fierce females inside—so different and yet somehow so similar—had come to some sort of compromise.

  Interesting.

  Encouraging.

  It was possible he’d never met two more incredibly stubborn women. It’d been easy to let Hope inside his heart, and he was glad she’d gotten to stay as long as she had. He’d ordered the parts for her car in case she somehow pulled off the impossible and stayed even longer. There was just something about her tough exterior and soft, vulnerable inside that melted him. He understood her. Whatever her background, it hadn’t been easy, but she hadn’t allowed her spirit to be taken from her.

  He could identify with that.

  He identified with Mia, too, whether she liked it or not. Identified, and craved.

  She craved, too, or she wouldn’t keep showing up on his doorstep.

  From the top floor, probably her bedroom window, Mia appeared, looking blindly out into the night, her expression one of such sadness it pulled the air right out of his lungs.

  She wasn’t all tough, kick-ass, coldhearted woman, any more than Hope was—not that she’d admit it. He stood there trying to talk himself into walking away instead of knocking on her door, when he heard an odd noise.

  A different window, a different female standing in the window directly beneath Mia. Then the face vanished.

  The screen popped out. A leg appeared, and a pale face glanced back to make sure no one was watching her escape.

  Hope, on the move.

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