Harlequin Superromance February 2014 - Bundle 1 of 2: His Forever Girl\Moonlight in Paris\Wife by Design (7 page)

But loyalty to family went both ways, didn't it?

Her father hadn't felt compelled to keep it all in the family...so why should she?

Self-doubt gathered inside Tess. What if everything she thought she'd been was a lie? What if she wasn't as good at designing floats or hustling krewes as she assumed she was? What if everyone else had pulled Tess's weight, winking at each other over the boss's daughter's incompetence? What if she sucked?

Tess glanced at the computer. Hell, she couldn't even write a resume. What was the difference between freelancing float designs and anchoring a desk at another company? Not much.

“Maybe it wouldn't hurt to drop by Upstart with a resume...if I can get the stupid thing finished,” Tess said, gulping the last of her coffee, wishing she didn't even have to think about resumes, family loyalty or the fact she forgot to grab her favorite water bottle out of the company fridge. She couldn't think past the hurt...and Gigi wasn't helping by planting the seeds of rebellion within her.

Gigi smiled, obviously pleased Tess considered her diabolical plan for revenge. Blood in the water excited her, made her hungry rather than faint. “Bold, ballsy and very Tess-like.”

“What?”

Gigi shrugged. “We're friends for a reason. You might smile and laugh more than I do, but we both have an innate need for justice, for righting wrong and bringing balance to the world. And we do what it takes.”

Is that what taking a job with another Mardi Gras float builder would be? Righting a wrong? Didn't feel that way, but Tess did want to prove everything she'd done as an executive in her father's company wasn't because she was an Ullo but rather because she was good at it. She trampled the self-doubt and thought about how satisfactory it would be to work for the company Graham had abandoned. There was something deliciously wicked about turning that screw...a sort of a flagrant “suck it, big boy.”

“You're right. I'm ballsy and I right wrongs. I should have a cape.”

Gigi laughed. “Get a green one. Matches your eyes.”

Tess rolled those green eyes. “Besides, a job is a job, and right now I need one. So I better get this resume finished so I can pound the pavement tomorrow. Hmm...never had to do that before. I'm liking the challenge of having to really earn my way. Is that crazy?”

“No. It's normal. There are very few people who have a job waiting on them when they graduate from college.” Gigi shoved her glass aside and rummaged through her purse. “Hurry and finish. I want to get to The Columns for happy hour. I need a date for a company party and I want to hit up the after business crowd before they go home to their Labradors.”

“Or wives.”

Gigi pulled a lipstick from her purse and made a face.

The last thing Tess wanted to do was go to a bar, even as nice as The Columns was. She wanted to go home, eat some comfort food, watch
Seinfeld
re-runs and sulk about the shit sandwich life had handed her. No, not life. Her father and, to a degree, Graham. Okay, in fairness, Graham had only hurt her feelings when he hadn't called like he said he would...and being awarded her job didn't help matters. But, hey, she was Gigi's wingman just like Gigi was for her. Maybe after an hour she could leave. “Fine, but I have to go by FedEx first. No more free copies for me.”

Gigi gave a humorless laugh. “Like the rest of us.”

“Whatever,” Tess said, wondering why her friend saw her as different merely because she'd worked for her family. Did that make her privileged? Lazy? Entitled? She had never thought so because she'd worked hard, but maybe the world thought her life had been too easy. And maybe it had been. Maybe being truly on her own would be good for her.

But her heart told her differently.

She'd loved who she was three days ago. Well, except for Graham's knock to her ego. But even that she'd gotten over. Mostly. Her life had been gravy...and now it was soured wine.

“Put on lip gloss and brush your hair. Don't forget you're available, too. Wouldn't hurt to find a little something-something to take your mind off tall, dark and deceitful.”

“My mind was never on him,” Tess lied.

Gigi gave her
that look,
the one that plowed through the bullshit. “You actually used the line ‘I found
the
one' after that night with Graham Naquin. He was on your mind.”

“I had forgotten about him until today.” She lied again because it was easier that way.

“Whatever you say, hunny bunny. He's a job stealer anyway.”

“Technically he didn't steal my job. According to Papa Dearest it was never mine to begin with.”

“So you say. Still, it's time to find someone who will make you feel better.”

A man instead of ice cream? It
would
be better for her thighs, although she didn't want a man at present. Better to stay home and get her shit together...but there was that whole loyalty thing.

Tess shooed Gigi away. “Go fix your makeup or something. I can't think while you're nipping at me. I need to put the finishing touches on this resume before I can go out with you.”

Gigi huffed, but did as suggested, flouncing away, sliding a smile at a cute guy in a Brooks Brothers suit and pink tie. Tess refocused on her resume, wishing it looked a little fuller. But she was who she was.

And who was that?

She'd thought she knew. She'd been beloved daughter, tolerated sister, good friend and devoted VP of operations in the family company...but now?

Tess felt like she'd been dropped into a maze. Every turn presented a barrier. No job. No man. Anger at her father...and Graham. Self-doubt. She'd never had such barriers that required her to backtrack or climb over hurdles to reach her goal.

But Tess knew something about herself—she may have lived a charmed life, but she wasn't going to lie down and flop about, bemoaning her state. She'd find a new job even if it meant going to the competition. Nothing wrong with a modern woman taking control of her life, leaving conventions behind.

And maybe she'd even get a new man...or not.

All she did know was that Graham needed to be a memory, and Frank Ullo needed to learn his daughter wasn't a doormat.

Plugging the flash drive into the computer, Tess downloaded her resume and renewed her determination to prove to the world she could kick ass and take names.

Tess Ullo was a fighter.

CHAPTER SEVEN

G
RAHAM
PULLED
UP
to the curb in front of the house in which he'd once lived. Looked the same. Felt different.

The Orleans brick with the intentional plaster smears and the beige stucco had once seemed so modern, so very much “them.” But now it looked pretty much like what it was—a new townhouse in a decent area of Metairie, crowded in like the others. Pansies lined the sidewalk. Graham only knew they were pansies because he'd planted the same flowers in that spot years ago. He wondered if Josh planted them now.

The door opened and Emily flew outside, dark pigtails flying, smile as wide as sunshine.

“Daddy!” she screamed, her sneakers slapping against the sidewalk.

Graham scooped her up, squeezing tight. Two chubby arms curled around him. “Hey, pumpkin. Jeez, you've grown a foot since I last saw you.”

Emily tilted her head and grinned, one tooth missing. “I've been taking vitamins.”

“Oh? That's the reason?” He gave his daughter one last squeeze and lifted his head to see Monique approaching. “Hey.”

She gave him a cool smile...as always. “Hey. As you can see she's beyond ready for dinner with Daddy Graham.”

Daddy Graham?

“Yeah,” Emily said, waving a five-dollar bill. “Daddy Josh gave me some money for the arcade. I'm gonna play skee ball.”

“Daddy Josh?”

Monique brushed manicured fingernails across an imaginary horizon. “That's what Em calls Josh. Easier that way.”

“Really?” Graham said, eyeing his former fiancée, wondering whether this new term had come from ease or a vindictive way to twist a fork in Graham. Monique enjoyed creating drama. It's what made her brilliant as an artist...and nearly impossible for Graham to live with.

She lifted a shoulder and gave him a half smile. “For Emily.”

“What's wrong?” Emily asked, her forehead crinkling as she glanced at him. Her brown eyes looked worried even as her rounded cheeks were flushed with excitement.

“Nothing, sweetheart,” Graham said, giving Monique the “we'll talk about this later” look. “Let's get going.”

“I don't have to sit in a booster anymore,” Emily said, eyeing the sedan Ullo had delivered to him that morning. “I'm big now.”

Emily had grown in the past four months. She'd always been such a tiny girl with brown velvet hair and fluffy fairy skirts. As a mature seven-year-old, she wore a T-shirt with silvery looking stuff on it and trendy teenager-looking jeans. Her sneakers had sequins on them, and the hair bow was noticeably absent. A small glittery purse hung at her side.

But he had no idea if she needed a booster seat or not—another mark against him as a father. He'd never thought to check that kind of stuff. Monique had always handed him the car seat or the diaper bag or the medicine. He didn't even know the pediatrician's name anymore.

This was why he'd had to come back to New Orleans.

This was why he'd had to ignore the ignoble feeling within him when he'd found out about Tess yesterday and make himself indispensable to Frank Ullo and his company.

“So you're the new Frank Ullo, huh? Never even crossed my mind something like this could happen,” Monique said, eyeing the Toyota Avalon before lifting her gaze to him. “Highly ironic you're working for my competition. It's almost Machiavellian.”

“It wasn't intentional,” he said, opening the rear door. Emily climbed in, looking around the leather interior, poking at buttons. “I told you as much when we talked last month. It's a perfect opportunity for me, doing something I'm good at. It puts me back in New Orleans. Back in Emily's life as her father. Her only father.”

Monique narrowed her dark eyes. “Feels like you're punishing me. Upstart was yours, too, at one time, and you're making this personal when it's not. You'll take food from the mouth of your child, merely so you can look good.”

“You really believe everything is about you, don't you, Monique?” The dislike he had for Monique would forever overshadow the passion they'd shared. She always held a piece of herself back, setting barriers she protected with a crushing disregard for others. She was a faucet, hot or cold, but never both together.

Her gaze was frosty...but wasn't it always now? “Tell yourself that, Graham, but anyone can see the writing on the wall.”

“This isn't revenge, Monique. It's about a job. Not allegiance. In case you didn't get the memo, I need this...and I can't return to Upstart, now can I?”

Her bitter laugh was answer enough.

“Exactly.” He closed the door and faced his ex. Monique didn't step back as he crowded her slightly. No, not Monique. Small, delicate with dark arched eyebrows, a bowed mouth and wavy hair, Monique was a fiery ballbuster. Even as Graham despised her for what she'd done to him, he admired her ability to stand her ground...all five feet one inch of it. “This isn't war, so don't don the armor.”

“I'll do whatever I wish to do, Graham.”

“Of course you will, but I'm asking, for all of our sakes, don't make this personal. There is plenty of business for both Ullo and Upstart.”

“You didn't used to feel that way,” she murmured, an almost savage look in her eye. “You hated Frank Ullo. You hated that he controlled the market and squashed smaller businesses trying to take a piece of the pie. That's changed now because he signs your paycheck?”

“Upstart is no longer in the position it once was. Frank Ullo isn't, either. You know that.” He wanted to get out of there before he and Monique started shrieking at each other on the street. Dealing with her had become more and more contentious in the past two months...ever since she learned he intended to come home to New Orleans. Monique liked having control and the agreement they had over Emily would change.

Josh walked out wearing a pair of dark jeans and a weirdly patterned shirt with a hot pink tab collar. Tall, lanky with a soul patch on his chin, Graham's former best friend had a wicked sense of humor, a badass restored Harley and a shitty sense of loyalty to a friendship started back at Jesuit. He'd been too weak to resist Monique...probably still was.

“Hey, Monique, we gotta jet,” he called, not even meeting Graham's gaze.

Irritation flashed in Monique's eyes. “We'll go when I'm ready, Josh.”

Emily knocked against the window, pressing her button nose against the glass smudging it. Graham smiled and nodded, dangling the keys.

“We're going to head out, Monique. Text me when you're through with your fundraiser and I'll bring Emily back. I'm guessing it won't be too late since it's a school night?” Graham started around the front of the car.

“I'm not finished talking about this, Graham,” Monique said, smoothing the lines of a dress that was too short, but still looked incredible on her. Monique's beauty had never been in question. Even as slight as the woman was, her essence screamed “lush” and “sensual.” It was her heart he questioned. As determined as she was to create an empire she could control, she had one fatal flaw—her ego. Often Monique valued her own worth above the truth. This inability to see the writing on the wall was the main reason Graham didn't fight for Upstart. Well, that and the fact Monique and Josh had started sneaking around sleeping together.

“Well, I'm finished discussing this. Everything will work better if you shut down whatever you're working up inside yourself about me running Frank Ullo. I'm not competing with you. I'm trying to take care of Emily.”

“You could have done that with another company. You could have done that from Houston.”

“But I didn't want to,” he said, before sliding into the car. “Don't forget to text me.”

Shutting the door, he shut out the dissonance Monique always created in his life, and instead focused his attention on the only reason he'd done Monique and Josh a favor tonight—the bouncing, wonderful Emily. “Ready to roll, squirt?”

“Can we go to the pet store and see the kitties?” she asked, ignoring his question.

Graham pulled away from the curb, unable to resist glancing at Monique who stared angrily after them. He wished he didn't get satisfaction in needling her. He'd have to be very careful to keep the fragile peace between them for his daughter's sake. Wouldn't be easy because Monique had never been easygoing or amiable to anyone's opinion but her own. Once he'd teased her, calling her his little general, but now that moniker wasn't teasing. “Fasten your seatbelt, Em,” he said, slowing and pulling to the curb.

“I want a kitty, but mommy says ‘absolutely no.'” Emily clicked her belt into place, and though the child looked big enough for the seat, Graham made a mental note to check the laws regarding child safety and cars.

“Well, pets are a big commitment, Emily,” Graham said, pulling out and winding his way toward Veterans Avenue so he could take Emily to dinner and the arcade.

“I'm old enough. I can pour out its food, get it water and take care of it when it's scared.”

“What about poop? You think you can scoop out a litter box? What about the vet? Pets cost money.”

“I have some money. Grandy Pete gave me ten dollars last week for dusting his room and brushing Pumpkin, his big ol' cat.”

Grandy Pete was Monique's irascible grandfather. Graham couldn't imagine the older man caring for a cat much less a little girl—the man had spent much of his life on the bayou, shucking oysters and shrimping. He now lived in an apartment behind a convent in the Lower Garden District, a place between Upstart headquarters and Monique's digs in Metairie. Graham had helped him find the place and move in, something that had proven easy since the eighty-year-old man had exactly two trunks of clothing, a guitar and a memory foam pillow. Colorful only halfway described Pete. “It will take more than ten dollars, Em. But we'll talk to Mom about the possibility of a pet.”

“I can keep Muffin at your house,” she said, brown eyes peeping over the gray leather seat.

“Muffin? Oh, no. I see your game here, missy.” He laughed, deciding it felt good. The past few days had been tense, and he needed the lightness his daughter gave him. “And sit back in your seat.”

“Please,” she wheedled, sinking back as instructed. “She can keep you company when I'm not there.”

“I don't need company.”
At least not that of a cat.

“Yeah, you do. You need a kitty.”

“Wrong.”

Emily crossed her arms and gave him a look that was all her mother. “I knew you'd say no. Just like Mommy.”

Something inside him moved. He wished it hadn't. He wished he didn't have such guilt where Emily was concerned, but he'd missed so much in moving to Houston and going to work for NASA. At the time it had felt best for all concerned—best for him, certainly—but he'd left the raising of his daughter to Monique, being Daddy only in the summers and on a rare holiday. “How about a truce?”

“What's that?”

“It means you walk my way, and I'll walk yours. We'll meet in the middle.”

Emily made a face. “We're in the car.”

“It's a metaphor.”

“Huh?”

He laughed. “Never mind. I have an idea. There used to be a place by a supermarket that sold fish. How about an aquarium for your room at my townhouse? Do you like fish?”

“Not as much as kitties,” she said.

“We'll start with fish and see how you do then we'll work up to something fluffy with claws.”

“Like Nemo?”

Turning off busy Veteran's Highway into the parking lot housing a specialty aquarium store, Graham decided an aquarium was something he could handle. Not sure how much company fish would be, but he needed things to fill up space in his near-empty apartment. And maybe he could find an actual person one day, too. He'd wanted to move forward in his life, and that meant not spending his nights alone.

Tess's face popped into his thoughts making him feel both guilty and lustful at the same time—a hard to accomplish feat but Graham obviously had that particular talent.

He should have called. But what would that have changed? Might have made it worse instead of better when he'd discovered who she was...when she'd discovered who he was and for what job he'd interviewed.

Too late to worry about it.

Fate had handed him his cards and he could play only what was in hand.

“I want three fish,” Emily said, unfastening her belt as soon as he shifted the car into Park.

“Let's get four,” he said.

“Cool,” his daughter said, bouncing on the backseat, reminding him the present was where he dwelled. No time for past mistakes—over Tess, Monique or his failure as a father—to haunt him.

He had fish to buy.

* * *

F
RANK
U
LLO
WATCHED
his wife as she rolled out the pasta, hands moving deftly as they'd done many times before, knowing the right texture, careful not to add too much oil or too much flour. Making perfection as she did each Sunday.

“I love to watch you make the cannoli,” he said, sliding slowly toward her, mindful of the dressing on his side. The stint placement hadn't been bad, but he was still tired and tender. Wrapping an arm around her waist, he laid his head on her shoulder.

Maggie's deep sigh seeped into him much like the sadness that had permeated their life over the past two months. It had all started with the jaundice and stomach pain. Frank had thought it was an ulcer, but the medicine his internist prescribed hadn't touched it. It was then he'd contacted a headhunter. Somehow he'd known the prognosis wasn't good. He'd known he needed help. Not an easy thing for a man like him.

“You never watched me make cannoli before,” she said, her hands never ceasing as she rolled the edges between her fingers and thumb, but she tilted her head so it rested upon his.