Heated Moments. Phyllis Bourne

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СКАЧАТЬ me to call it as I see it, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.” She addressed her father, and then scanned the room.

      “I put my best face forward for years, while this company churned out one stale collection after another, earning the reputation as old-lady makeup,” Lola argued. She was the one the public associated with Espresso’s senior-citizen image. Not her in-laws, her father or her siblings. “Now that we’re finally making a comeback with fresh colors and exciting new products, you want to kick me to the curb, for a man in a wig.”

      Zeroing in on her brother, Lola jabbed a gel-manicured fingertip in his direction. “If that’s not a load of crap, then you tell me what is!”

      Cole raised a brow. “Since you never have a problem saying exactly what’s on your mind, I’ll return the favor.” His eyes narrowed as he leaned back in the black leather executive chair. “Let’s start with this sudden concern for your job. Where was it last year when Tia had to personally escort you to the airport so you could make a flight to a location shoot?”

      He fired off another question before Lola could answer the first one. “Do you know how much it cost Espresso to appease that prima donna photographer you kept waiting?”

      She knew before she opened her mouth to explain that he wouldn’t understand. Her sister certainly hadn’t. “My very best friend’s fiancé had just called off their engagement, a week before their wedding. Britt was hysterical. How could I walk away when she needed me most?”

      “Easy,” Cole said. He appeared as unmoved as Tia had been at the time. “You hand her a box of tissues and head for the door.”

      Lola closed her eyes briefly and wondered how she could be from the same family as her coldhearted older siblings. Then she remembered, when it came to Espresso, their late mother and company founder, Selina Sinclair Gray, could be downright brutal.

      Cole wasn’t finished. “Then, following that hotel incident where you were kicked out after throwing a wild party and trashing their suite, I specifically cautioned you to stay out of trouble, but instead of heeding my warning you made news again. What was it this time?” He turned to his secretary, who was all too eager to supply him with an answer. “That’s right, last week an airplane en route to Nashville from Los Angeles had to make a pit stop in Denver, so you could be hauled off it for allegedly assaulting a fellow passenger.”

      “B-but—” Lola began.

      Again, her brother barely let her utter a word in her own defense. “Do you know how embarrassing it was for Espresso to have its top representative escorted off an airplane by security? Cell-phone videos of it went viral. You’re still all over the internet, dragging our company down with you.”

      His secretary held up her tablet computer. “Lola’s airline fiasco is currently trending higher on social media than those reality-show sisters with the big behinds,” she said.

      Lola rolled her eyes. So much for hoping the hubbub would die down. The wisecracks about her on celebrity gossip websites and YouTube snippets replayed in her head. Even worse, tabloid television shows had run different cell-phone videos of the same incident every night since it happened, adding horrid titles such as Espresso Diva’s Mile High Tantrum and Pretty Ugly: Lola Attacks Man over Smelly Feet.

      Of course, there had been no video footage of the uncouth passenger in the row behind her resting his bare feet atop the seat—and the head—of the elderly gentleman sitting beside her.

      Lola exhaled. Contrary to what Cole believed, she had taken his warning seriously, and she had really, really tried not to intervene, knowing the last thing she needed was more trouble.

      She’d white-knuckled the armrests as the jerk behind them blatantly disregarded the flight attendant’s repeated requests to put his feet on the floor where they belonged. “It’s none of your business.” Lola remembered muttering the words under her breath almost like a mantra.

      However, when her senior-citizen seatmate’s polite pleas were met with the oaf behind them laughing and wiggling his toes, impulse took over. She’d jumped from her seat and shoved the offending feet off the elderly man’s chair, earning the grandfather’s heartfelt gratitude and the applause of everyone in the first-class cabin.

      Unfortunately, the moment the lout had caught sight of her famous face he’d immediately yelped in pain and crumpled into the fetal position.

      The upshot: they were both escorted off the plane. Lola was flanked by security, while the rude passenger, who claimed she’d beaten him senseless, was hauled away in a wheelchair, his contrived moans and groans echoing in the air.

      “Your behavior was unacceptable,” Cole said.

      “But they got the story all wrong,” Lola said. By the time airport security got to the truth and released her with an apology, the strangers taking videos on their cell phones were long gone. “I was simply helping a fellow passenger.”

      Tia shook her head. Lola saw her father stifle a yawn with his fist, and her brother-in-law took a surreptitious glance at his watch.

      “You also helped yourself right out of representing Espresso,” Cole said.

      “Under the circumstances, any of you would have reacted the exact same way,” Lola countered. “Only no one else would be painted as a volatile diva or have to stand here pleading for their job.” Nor would they have to dodge tabloid television reporters trying to goad them into saying or doing something stupid.

      Cole rubbed a hand over his close-cropped hair. He met her gaze, and for a moment, Lola thought she’d actually gotten through to him.

      “My decision stands,” he said finally.

      “B-but—”

      “The subject is closed.”

      “So where does this leave me?” Years of practice kept her posture ramrod straight, but Lola couldn’t control the telltale quiver in her voice as she looked around the table. “Or did you all go behind my back and vote me out of this family, too?”

      “Of course not, baby girl.” Her father’s face, which like Cole’s had been uncharacteristically hard, softened with his tone.

      “You know better,” Tia said.

      Lola raised a brow. “Do I?”

      Cole cleared his throat, loudly. “We discussed this earlier,” he said, his words aimed at Tia and their father. “Lola’s not a child anymore. She’s a twenty-five-year-old woman.” He continued as if she wasn’t standing right in front of them. “And these situations, incidents, or whatever you want to call the messes her impulsiveness constantly gets her into, are bad for business.”

      Realization dawned as Lola studied her siblings, who had both married over the past year and a half, and their spouses.

      “Oh, now I see where this is going.” Maybe she hadn’t been booted from the family yet, Lola thought, but they were definitely ganging up on her. She pointed at her sister and brother-in-law. “First, there’s you two, who are so in sync you finish each other’s sentences.” Then she turned to her brother and Sage. “Next we have the two of you, who are so much alike, it’s downright scary.”

      Cole huffed out an impatient sigh. “What’s that got to do with СКАЧАТЬ