Prima Donna (19 page)

From the corner of her eye, she thought she saw the driver smile, but when she turned to look, he was once again straight-faced.

“I have list of possibles.” Griffin tipped his head a little and flashed his megawatt smile, but it had little effect on her. “But you’re my first pick. Just say yes and I’ll have my manager set everything up.”

It was Griffin Carr—she should be jumping at this chance. And yet…

“I’m flattered, Griffin, really, but there are things I need to consider first.”

“Like what? Like if you remembered to get cheese on those sandwiches?” He flashed the smile again, but it wasn’t quite as appealing as it had been before.

Regan stared at her hand, still wrapped around the door handle, sighed, then looked back at him. “When do you need an answer?”

“I’ve come a long way to see you, Regan, and I’d rather expected to have your answer already.”

Her only response was to raise her brow and wait.

“Fine,” he said after a few seconds. “I’ve made arrangements to stay the night here in town, but I’m leaving first thing in the morning, so I’d like to know before I go. Why don’t we meet for a drink after you’re done running all over Hell’s half acre? I promise you won’t be disappointed in what I have to offer.”

Maya would die if she knew Regan hadn’t snapped up the offer already. After all, it was Griffin freakin’ Carr!

“Okay,” she exhaled slowly as she pulled out her phone. “Give me your number and I’ll text you when I’m done and we’ll meet at my place. I can’t promise you I’ll say yes, but I’ll listen to what you have to say and if you email me the info you have, I’ll look it over this afternoon. Fair enough?”

“Fair enough.” They exchanged information and then he was gone, leaving her on the sidewalk with her hands full of sandwiches and a brain clouded in doubt. Did that really just happen?

It took her another minute before she jerked open the front door and walked inside. Was this really something she could consider? Could she leave the town and everyone she loved to go travel the world with some hotshot actor? Could she leave her mother?

Regan hustled through the office and dropped the sandwiches on the doctors’ desks, barely acknowledging their thanks before ducking out of their offices.

Unwrapping the sandwich as she walked, Julia followed her right back to her desk.

“You okay?”

“Yeah.” Regan slipped off her coat and shrugged. “Why?”

“You seem…I don’t know…distracted.”

“Just have a lot on my mind,” she said, trying to wave it away with a brush of her hand. She couldn’t very well tell Julia about what just happened. Not yet, anyway.

“Like what?” Julia took a huge bite of her sandwich and tried to hide her full mouth behind her hand. “Can I help?”

“Thanks, but it’s fine.” With a barely there smile, she nodded toward the opening door. “Your next appointment is here.”

“Ack.” Julia scrambled to swallow what was left in her mouth, rewrapped the rest of her sandwich, and did one of those
do-I-have-anyth
ing-in-my-teeth
smiles at Regan before turning to greet the large-bellied woman.

“Still hanging in there, hey, Carina?”

“Ugh.” Carina pressed her hand against her back and rolled her eyes. “I’ll give you a million dollars and my right kidney to get this kid out of me right now.”

“Tempting,” she said, laughing as she led her overdue patient down the hall. “But the Medical Board has issues with things like that.”

“You said you wanted to be around when I make a mistake, well, this could be it, sweetheart.”

Han Solo,
The Empire Strikes Back

“We’ll be on location in New Orleans for a couple weeks, then home to L.A. for six days before we head to Chicago, St. Louis, and then Glasgow.”

Regan stared down at the list she’d printed out earlier, but all she saw was a giant blur of numbers: flight numbers, dates, salary, and benefits.

“So while you’re home in L.A.,” she said slowly, trying to force her brain to get a grip on what he was offering, “I’d come back here.”

“There’ll be times you can, yes, but I’ll need you in L.A., too, for when the studios send me out on junkets and openings. Actually, it’d work better for me if you were there most of the time.” For a second there, he almost looked sheepish, vulnerable, uncertain. “Can’t go out looking like I just fell off the turnip truck, can I?”

Regan pushed up from the couch slowly and made her way to the kitchen, where she refilled her wineglass. Griffin remained in the living room, lounging in the chair, his wineglass dangling from his fingers as though this type of thing was an everyday occurrence to him, and maybe it was.

But it wasn’t to Regan.

“I’d have to move to L.A.?”

“You make it sound like a bad thing.” His soft laughter should have calmed her a little, yet it didn’t. “I’m not saying you’d have to give up this…
apartment
…but I doubt you’d be here often enough to make the rent worth your while. And if you come to L.A. you can stay in the guest house at the back of my property free of charge. There’s a pool, tennis court, gym…”

Regan downed half her glass then refilled it again before making her way back to the living room.

“I don’t understand what your hesitation is.” His tone wasn’t annoyed, it was more like confused. “When we met last fall, you gave me the impression styling is what you wanted to do more than anything, so here I am, offering you what you want and you’re balking at it.”

“I know, I’m sorry.” She set her glass on the table and sighed. “It’s an amazing opportunity, and if things were different, my bags would already be packed.”

“What things?” he asked. “And please don’t tell me this has anything to do with a man, because I promise you, a couple weeks working with us, you’ll forget every reason you had to stay here, even if it’s the love of your life.”

“N-no,” she half chuckled, wishing she could believe what Griffin said, yet doubting it all at the same time. “That’s not it.”

“Then what? Your friends?” He sat back in the chair and crossed his long legs. “Skype, email, text messages…need I go on?”

She’d miss them if she left, no question, but that wasn’t the sticking point. “My mother’s not well.”

“Oh.” He pursed his lips for a moment. “I’m sorry. Is it terminal?”

“No, nothing like that,” she said. “It’s just…she’s in an extended-care home, and I’m the only family she has.”

“No problem. Flights go in and out of Vancouver all day. If something happens, I can have you back here in…what…well, depending on where we are…forty-eight hours, tops.”

Forty-eight hours.

She’d be back to doing what she loved full time, making double what she made running her own salon, she’d get to travel, and she wouldn’t have to work sixteen-hour days anymore. What more could she want?

“I’m sorry, Griffin.” Regan blew out a long, slow breath and forced herself to look up at him. “I can’t believe I’m doing this, but…she’s my mother; she needs me.”

Griffin sat very still for a long moment, disappointment etched in his deep frown. “Is there anything I can say or do to change your mind?”

It was all too tempting to say yes, that he could donate a few of his millions to mental health research, but she held her tongue.

“I don’t think so, but you have to know I’m incredibly flattered you offered this to me.”

Griffin cleared his throat slowly, set his glass on the table, and leaned forward so his forearms rested on his thighs, a small smile playing across his lips.

“It’s not often people tell me no, Regan.”

“Yeah, I figured as much,” she chuckled. “But you said you had a list of other stylists you can call and I’m sure the next person will—”

“I lied. I thought it might persuade you to take the job if you thought others were lined up for it.”

“Oh. Oops. So what will you do?”

Griffin rolled his blue eyes so dramatically, Regan could only laugh. “I guess I’ll have to make do with the studio stylist.”

Regan gasped in mock horror. “Oh, you poor thing.”

“You have no idea.” After a moment, he pushed to his feet. “If you change your mind, you’ll let me know? And I mean that; I don’t care if it’s next week or next year, the job’s yours whenever you want it.”

“That’s, um…” She blinked over her surprise and blew out a soft whistle. “Thank you.”

“I like to surround myself with the best people in the business, Regan, and I hope that will include you one day.” He shrugged and pulled open the door. “You have my number.”

Regan watched the elevator doors close behind him, then retreated into her apartment where she downed the rest of her wine in one gulp. Griffin’s offer was…amazing. And crazy. And a huge opportunity.

But she was the only family her mother had, and the thought of being halfway around the world if her mother needed her…

No way.

“Do you have the addresses?” Most of Maya’s hair had long since escaped the clip at the back of her head, yet as crazy busy as she was, she was happy as Regan had ever seen her as she set another long box of roses on Regan’s passenger seat.

“Yup, I’m good.”

“Okay. I really appreciate this, Reg. Don’t forget to give me your fuel bill and I’ll pay you back.”

“Forget it,” Regan laughed. “I haven’t had this much fun on Valentine’s Day since…ever! Who knew it could be so much fun?”

She climbed behind the wheel and started off on her next round of deliveries. What a great job—it was no wonder Maya loved it so much. Who didn’t love getting flowers? Okay, there’d been one woman who told Regan the guy who sent the roses could shove them up his own ass, thorns and all, and there’d been the crazy Jack Russell mix that tried to eat Regan’s shoe, but other than that, it had been a great afternoon.

Back at the flower shop, Maya loaded the last of the deliveries into her own car, then held out a cellophane-wrapped coral-colored rose backed by a thin strip of soft green fern and two sprigs of eucalyptus.

“For you.”

“Aww, thanks Maya, but you didn’t have to do that. This was fun.”

“It’s not from me.” Her blue eyes sparkled as she tipped her head toward the card tucked between the rose and the fern. “When I got in this morning, an envelope had been slipped under the door with a fifty-dollar bill and a request for that colored rose to be delivered to you with the sealed-up note I tucked in with the fern there.”

“But who would—”

“You tell me. I didn’t recognize the handwriting and the card’s sealed up.” Maya tipped her head and smirked. “But the color of the rose says something all on its own.”

“What?”

“Google it. I gotta go.”

Regan didn’t blink until Maya’s car disappeared around the corner, and even then she didn’t touch the note until she was in her car with the heat blasting. Who would be sending her a rose on Valentine’s Day?

It wasn’t the first time a guy had ever given her flowers, but those times had always been bouquets. This was different. A single rose was personal.

It was intimate.

With careful fingers, she tugged at the seal of the envelope until it gave way, then reached in to pull out the note.

“What the—”

Two pieces of thick red paper, cut into hearts and held together with tight even stitches fell into her palm, snapping Girlie Regan to attention.

Those weren’t just stitches. They were
sutures
. And even though there was no name on it anywhere, Regan only had to read what was written in the middle of the heart to know who it was from.

Are you related to Yoda? ’Cause yodalicious
.

The smile started way down at her toes and built momentum until it burst across her mouth. Before she could overthink it, she pulled out her phone, Googled pictures of Yoda, and attached one to a text.

Bad, that one was, but thank you I must.

With him on shift at St. Mark’s, she knew it’d be a while before he got her message, but that didn’t stop her from smiling all the way to Jayne’s, where Duke met her at the door with a slow wag of his tail and a long mournful howl.

“Hey, buddy.” Regan crouched down so she could scratch behind his long soft ears. “Just you and me for the next couple days, eh?”

The old basset hound snorted softly and waddled back over to his pillow by the fireplace.

“Right then,” she muttered. “Better get things ready for tomorrow.”

First things first, she rummaged through the kitchen until she found a vase for her rose, which she then set in the middle of the coffee table in the living room and stood staring down at it for a long moment. Why would he do this? Was it supposed to mean something or was it just one of his things? But he didn’t have things, or at least that’s what he’d said when he gave her the helmet.

No. She wouldn’t overthink it; she’d just take it as a sweet gesture and leave it at that. She’d just turned down Griffin’s offer so she could be near her mom, and to be able to do that, she needed the job at the clinic. And to keep that job, she needed to slap a lid on the crazy way everything inside her trembled at the mere thought of him.

It’d be a hell of a lot easier to do if he wasn’t so sweet. Or funny. Or so freakin’ good-looking.

“Seriously,” she muttered. “Get a grip!”

Right. Okay. With a deep breath, she collected her supplies and carried them out to the garage where Nick and Jayne had set up a makeshift salon. A padded chair sat in the middle, two sawhorses and a half sheet of plywood made up a work table, complete with coffeemaker and mugs, and four rolled extension cords were piled neatly on the floor.

Where most people had a sink in their utility room, Nick had one plumbed into his garage, and in true Nick fashion, it was significantly cleaner than some of the kitchen sinks Regan had used lately.

It was a perfect arrangement, with plenty of room, heat, and easy access to the powder room. And with all the preliminary work done, it only took Regan a few minutes to unload her supplies and organize them for the morning.

Yup, this was going to be so much better than trying to work in Andrea’s cramped kitchen.

It was still early, and with Ellie and Maya working late, there was nothing more for Regan to do. A smart person would have gone to bed, but she was too wound up to sleep. Julia said she didn’t have plans for tonight, so Regan snapped up her phone and punched in her number, all the while running her finger over Carter’s note, mesmerized by the sharp edges of the sutures.

“Hey, Julia, it’s Regan…no, everything’s fine…I just…are you okay? You sound winded…You sure?…Okay, well, I was going to watch
Return of the Jedi
and thought—”

A muffled grunt sounded from Julia’s end of the line; a
masculine
muffled grunt.

“Oh,” Regan laughed. “I’m so sorry…no…you, uh, carry on, and I’ll, uh, yeah…I’ll talk to you later.”

She ended the call and stood staring down at the phone, mouth hanging open. So Julia had a guy with her.
Who?
And why hadn’t she said anything?

Still smirking, Regan grabbed a blanket, put her movie in, and plopped down on the couch to watch. Jayne had made up the spare room for her, but in Regan’s mind, it wasn’t a spare room, it was Carter’s room, and even though he didn’t stay there anymore, there was no doubt in her mind the room would be full of him.

Ergo the couch would do just fine.

She didn’t actually see much of the movie, but spent most of the night staring at her rose as Girlie Regan and Rational Regan battled for the last word on how good or bad it was that he’d sent it.

The Rebel fleet had just started its final assault on the Death Star when her phone buzzed an incoming text, but even before she read it, Girlie Regan threw both fists in the air and danced a little jig.

Welcome you are. Keep it between us, maybe we should keep. Hmmm.

No
hmmm
about it, Regan mused. They were playing with fire and while Girlie Regan was loving every second of it, Rational Regan knew it could only end one way: bad. But that didn’t stop her from leaving the rose right where it was, so it was the last thing she saw before she fell asleep and it was the first thing she saw when she woke up the next morning.

As tempting as it was to stay right there staring at it all day, she didn’t have time, not with the first bridesmaid scheduled for eight thirty. Or, as it turned out, the entire group of women who showed up at eight fifteen.

The maid of honor, Jean, smiled wide as she breezed through the door.

“I thought it would be fun if we were all here together for Andrea,” she explained. “You don’t mind, do you?”

“Uh…no?” What was she supposed to say? It was Andrea’s wedding day for crying out loud; if she wanted her whole bridal party there, she should have it, so while Andrea’s mom, Linnea, set out a box of muffins and a carafe of coffee laced with Irish cream, Regan dashed around, dragging out more chairs so everyone had a place to sit. The garage, which seemed spacious enough last night, seemed less so now, but the women were all in high spirits, and that was the important thing.

One by one, Regan worked her way through the three bridesmaids while Andrea and her mom fielded calls from the caterer, the pianist, one from Maya, and a couple from an apparently very anxious groom.

When they weren’t sitting in Regan’s chair, the women did each other’s makeup and nails. They took a short break to enjoy the lunch Linnea had brought in, then Regan got right back to work. The only hair more important than the bride’s was the mother of the bride’s, and unfortunately, both women had the same long, kinky hair that was tricky to tame.