Mandy Makes Her Mark (7 page)

Unforgettable. The word played in Mandy's mind as she walked the path to Palmetto Manor, the resort's historic main building that housed the restaurant and bar as well as reception. What had Mandy ever done that was unforgettable? It seemed to her that most of her accomplishments had been anything but. Not just being the third-best oboe player in high school, but all her bit parts in drama club, sitting on the bench on the JV softball team, and her string of unexciting marketing jobs after college. Forgettable, all of it. Mandy was a forgettable woman who dated forgettable men and wore forgettable clothes and watched forgettable television and –

The restaurant's side door opened just as Mandy was reaching for the handle and a couple came out, laughing and holding hands, oblivious to her staggering out of the way. The door had scraped her bare toes, and she jumped around in pain as the couple strolled down the moonlit path. She wasn't just unforgettable, she was unnoticeable. Maybe she would simply fade into the background of the Lark photos, just a jewel toned blur behind the dazzling Sylvie and Tad.

“May I help you?” the silver-haired bartender murmured from across a cozy room, where he was polishing a crystal goblet. Too late Mandy realized that she'd wandered into the bar instead of the restaurant.

“Oh – I'm sorry, my mistake. I was hoping to order some food to take back to my room.”

“You can do that here, if you like,” the bartender said kindly. “You're welcome to look over a menu and wait here for your meal to be prepared. Or I can have it delivered to your bungalow. Though to be honest, it's a slow night, and I could use the company.”

He gave her an encouraging smile. It was true; there were only a few other customers in the bar, couples tucked into romantic banquettes or seated at cozy tables. Mandy hesitated. If the bartender remembered the scene they had made the prior evening, he was too polite to mention it.

“If I recall, you didn't care for the scotch,” he said encouragingly. “But maybe you'd like another Dr. Pepper.”

“White wine,” Mandy said, making a snap decision. “Fill ‘er up.”

“Long day?” He asked, pouring straw-gold wine into a pretty crystal glass and pushing it across the bar to her.

“You could say that. I worked all day.”

“Ah. Most people come to Cupid Island to relax. Perhaps you could stay a few days after your work is done, and enjoy yourself. They're forecasting nothing but blue skies.”

Mandy laughed shortly. “I'm from L.A. Despite the fact that it rained all week, sunshine isn't generally what I'm lacking.”

“Well, what is, then? What's missing in your life, Miss Leif?”

Mandy gaped. “How do you know my name?”

A man slid into the barstool next to hers. Tad – holding a white box tied with string, which he set down on the bar. “The usual, Edward.”

The bartender nodded and got back to work. Mandy tried to conceal her frustration. After all, she'd come here hoping to get her food and get back to her bungalow with as little interaction as possible.

“Hello, Tad,” she sighed bleakly as Edward slid a glass of Dr. Pepper in front of Tad and left to take care of his other customers. “You're looking…the same.”

It was true: he looked every bit as burnished and chiseled and alluring as he had when Deirdre wrapped the final shots of the day. Instead of a tuxedo he was wearing jeans and a fitted gray T-shirt, but the elegant, aloof confidence he projected was undiminished.

“And you're looking…” Tad paused, and sipped at his drink while looking her up and down, taking his time finding his words.

Mandy blushed, wishing she'd taken the time for at least a bit of lip gloss and a few minutes with a blow dryer. As well as pants that stayed up with something other than elastic. “I just got out of the shower,” she said defensively.

“Ah,” Tad said. Mandy hoped that whatever adjective he had chosen to describe her would remain blessedly unvoiced. “Hungry,” he added. “You look hungry, and I have a doggy bag. The fried chicken is amazing. How about it?”

Mandy blinked. “You had
fried chicken
for dinner?”

“Yeah, and potato salad and these amazing corn biscuits and–”

“How do you
do
that?”

Tad blinked, his feathery long lashes casting shadows on his enviable cheekbones. “Do what?”

She was about to launch into a tirade about how unfair it was that the women in the agency subsisted on broth and grapefruits while Tad apparently ate like a longshoreman, when he reached out and touched the corner of her mouth, lightly, his fingertip tracing along her lower lip. Shivers of sensation thrummed through her traitorous body, which apparently hadn't gotten the memo that last night was a terrible idea.

“You had a bit of something stuck there,” Tad murmured. “Come out to the rose garden with me. There's a bench. I saved you a drumstick.”

“I can't eat a drumstick. And you shouldn't either.”

“Deirdre gave me tomorrow off. She said she has all she needs from me, it's just you and Sylvie.”

He tossed a few bills on the bar and grabbed their drinks, the white box tucked under his arm.

“I can't—I'm not—”

“Rose garden. Moonlight. Me,” Tad said gently but firmly, taking her arm and helping her up from the barstool.

“A splendid idea.” Edward had materialized near them, wiping at the bar with a crisp white towel. “The David Austens are spectacular this year. And the fragrance, well, it really is extraordinary. Not to be missed.”

Was it her imagination, or had the bartender winked at her? Mandy tried to sputter her objections, but Tad had already escorted her halfway to the door. She hurried to keep up with him as they exited out into the breezy night. The air had cooled, and strings of tiny lights lit the palm trees lining the walkway to the rose garden.

“Give me back my drink,” Mandy said.

“As soon as we sit down,” Tad said mildly, leading her to a curved bench piled with cushions. He sat near the middle, forcing her to choose which side to sit uncomfortably close to him. Instead she put her hands on her hips and glared. Stalking off in the other direction was her best next move, but the aroma of fried chicken was rising tantalizingly from the box.

Besides, this was becoming a matter of principle. Tad was back in character, his expression somewhere between bored and contemptuous. What was he thinking – that she'd come running for a repeat of last night? Hadn't he found a more suitable waitress or maid or hotel guest yet, someone beautiful and uncomplicated and appropriately impressed by him?

“Last night was—it was a mistake.”

“Really?” His smile slid toward amusement. “I've been thinking about it a lot, actually. All day. There was that one dress you had on—that dark blue one with the short skirt—“

“Don't.”

It came out more harshly than Mandy intended, and Tad's smile slipped a little. When he spoke again, the slick edge was missing from his voice. “Don't what?” he asked quietly.

“Don't waste your moves on me. Don't try so hard. Don't—seduce me.” Mandy blushed furiously, grateful for the dim lighting. “I know you're getting over Luna. Rebounding. Marking time. Whatever. I just don't want to be part of it.”

“That's what you think, Amanda? Really?”

Mandy just nodded dumbly, struck speechless by his use of her name again. Her real name. And also by the way he was looking at her, the usual hollowness in his gaze replaced by something entirely different: sadness, and longing, and regret.

“So last night…when you said my name, when you held me afterward, when you wrapped yourself around me in your sleep—that was all what…one mistake after another?”

His words had taken on a bitterness that cut through Mandy, despite her steeling herself for this conversation. She hadn't expected it to go well. She just hadn't expected it to go like this.

“It didn't mean anything,” she said uncertainly. “We were just…two people in the same place at the same time. You know. I'm sure you're used to these casual, um, encounters, and maybe it's even healthy, now that you're going through a breakup, to get over her and everything—” Mandy couldn't even bear to say her sister's name—“but I don't generally, um. Well, hardly ever, actually. At least, not like this.”

“'This' being…”

So he was going to force her to say it. “Casual,” she tried, clearing her throat over the knot that seemed to have formed. “Meaningless.”

“That's what it was for you?”

He sounded hurt. Tad Eckholm, who'd twice graced the cover of
Men's Health
and had caused a minor traffic mishap when he stepped in front of a group of tourists from Missouri, had hurt feelings.

He'd probably never heard ‘no' before, Mandy realized. Well, it was about time! Most people had to accept rejection as one of the thousands of minor indignities of life – along with a few wrinkles and extra pounds, along with being ignored by clerks and snubbed by waiters. But Tad never had to go through these things. Luna was the same way. They were like exotic mythical creatures, unfamiliar with the ways of mere mortals.

“Yes,” Mandy said crisply, sitting up straighter and pulling her leg away from Tad's to make sure they didn't accidentally touch. “Meaningless.”

“Meaningless,” Tad echoed, not taking his eyes off her. “A word I've thought a lot over the last year.”

“What are you talking about?” Mandy asked, knowing she should just get up and walk away, having delivered what was probably the best parting shot she was going to manage. But she could feel the warmth of Tad's skin even without touching him, and she caught occasional whiffs of soap and spice and salt, a good manly smell that had been imprinted on her indelibly last night and which provoked a scandalous response in her body.

Tad sighed, but didn't look away. “Do you know what I've always wanted to be, Amanda? A screenwriter. Since I was ten years old, when I wrote my first script.”

It was the last thing she expected him to say. “You wanted to
write
?” she asked in astonishment.

“Yeah.” Tad laughed bitterly. “I know. Crazy, right? I came to LA without any idea how hard it is to get work, and I started modeling to pay the bills—but only after I got a few dozen rejections. Apparently I suck at it.”

“You…wait. You write movies?” Mandy struggled to make sense of what she was hearing. It was true that Tad was occasionally compared to a young Brad Pitt. And he had the body to pull off any superhero role. “What, like action flicks?”

“Hardly.” Finally, Tad broke his gaze, staring down at his hands. “I'm more the Sundance Festival kind of guy. Wish I was, anyway.”

“Did…did Luna know?”

More bitter laughter. “Yeah. She knew.”

“She never said anything.”

“I'm sure she didn't think it was worth mentioning. Not since all I ever heard back was ‘Not for us' or ‘No thanks.' You may have noticed that your sister doesn't tolerate failure.”

Mandy thought back to all the nights when Luna went out on the town solo, breezily claiming that Tad didn't feel like coming along. “All this time, you've been writing?”

“Yeah,” Tad said, suddenly sounding tired. “Two or three scripts a year, on average. Close to twenty rejections each, by the time I make the rounds. Not much reason to keep going.”

“So you quit.” Now it was starting to make sense finally. Tad had given up. Was maybe getting ready to spiral downward.

“No,” Tad said sharply. “I'll
never
quit. It's in my blood.”

“But why didn't you ever say something?”

He grabbed her hand so fast she didn't have time to pull away – and then he squeezed, hard. “Because of you.”

“
Me
?”

“Because of what you always say. ‘Skills pay the bills.' You showed up here and built the agency from nothing. You made it clear that you wouldn't settle for anything less than top talent. How was I supposed to tell you I'd been rejected for the tenth time? The hundredth?”

Mandy gawped at him. “But…why would you
care
? You're a sought-after male model—”

“But I didn't want you to see that when you looked at me,” Tad said. He relaxed his grip on her, sliding his fingers along the sensitive skin under her arm. “I wanted you to see…me. The real me. But not until I succeeded at something.”

Something warm and dangerous was uncoiling inside Mandy. Tad had noticed her, all those months and years when he pretended indifference. Tad had wanted her. “But…what about Luna?”

Tad shrugged impatiently, as if she'd asked about a fly buzzing about his elbow. “Would it surprise you to know that we never actually slept together?”

“
What
?”

“There wasn't any chemistry. After our first few dates, we didn't even bother to try.”

“But then—why did you keep seeing each other?”

Another shrug. “We met each other's needs. We didn't fight. She didn't want to get below the surface and neither did I. She needed someone to be seen with, and I guess I got used to playing the part. I don't know, I guess I thought maybe it would get better over time. But I don't think we've had a single meaningful conversation in the last two years. In the end, I just got tired of pretending.” His voice grew hoarse. “And I got tired of wanting you so badly I could barely stand to come to work.”

“You?” Mandy shivered, despite the warmth of the evening. “You wanted…me?”

“Like the sun wants to shine,” Tad said. “Like a fish wants water. I just didn't have the guts to tell you. Until now.”

“I never knew,” Mandy said. She felt her resolve weakening. “Someone like me…doesn't end up with someone like you.”

“You're
wrong
,” Tad said. “I've watched you, shutting yourself in your office over lunch, reading your library books. You look so sexy in reading glasses, by the way. I know you save the ribbons from bakery boxes. I hear you talking to the cleaning lady about her grandchildren and I know you've memorized all their names and ages. You ask for extra lemon in your tea, you have pictures of Alaska on your screensaver, and you try really hard to come up with unique gift ideas for Luna's birthday even though she forgot yours.”