True Love, Inc.. Jackie Braun

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СКАЧАТЬ need to see them.” He inclined his head, smiled mockingly. “If you’re as good as you say you are, Miss Daniels, I’d be a fool not to trust your expert judgment. Besides, this way you can’t claim afterward that I only picked women I knew wouldn’t suit me.”

      “Oh, I’m good,” she assured him, and had to quash the urge to blush when one of his eyebrows inched up in unmistakable male speculation. It didn’t seem to matter that she knew he was deliberately baiting her.

      “Of course, I’ll have to do a more thorough screening than usual, which means taking up more of your time,” she said as sweetly as possible. “I’ll need to know everything about you, Mr. Foley, your likes, dislikes—all the telling little quirks and habits that often come through in my clients’ videos. So, when do we start?”

      A muscle jumped in his jaw as he pulled his hands from his pockets and settled them on his hips. He glanced away, and she thought he might be ready to renege on the hasty bargain they’d struck. But then his gaze drifted back to hers and his lips twitched with a smirk.

      “When you buy that ad in the Record-Eagle, I want it to be in color. It’ll attract more attention that way—and it will be more expensive.”

      She fought the urge to roll her eyes. Such a reaction would be neither professional nor, as her mother would point out if present, ladylike. Still, she made a mental note to write in Cameron Foley’s file that the man could be insufferable when he thought he was on the winning side of an argument.

      “Fine, but it won’t come to that.” An idea occurred to her then. “I have a little stipulation of my own.”

      “And that is?”

      “The second date, you’ll bring roses—a dozen, long-stemmed and red. And you’ll take her to the Trillium,” Maddie added, naming one of the area’s nicest and priciest restaurants. “You do own a suit, I hope, because you’ll have to wear one.”

      She pretended not to hear him mutter something obscene about neckties.

      “So, when do we get started?” she asked again.

      “Thursday is the best I can do, say noon, and you’ll have to come to me.” He nodded toward the wrinkled paper on her desk. “You know where I live.”

      He walked to the door and opened it, but hesitated at the threshold. Turning, he smiled, losing all semblance of the outraged man whose grief had propelled him to stomp into her office fifteen minutes earlier, demanding an explanation, expecting an apology. But, if possible, his calm demeanor and that devilishly sexy grin on his face made Maddie even more determined.

      “I’m going to win,” he said with conviction.

      “Yes, Mr. Foley, you are.” She allowed herself a moment to enjoy his startled expression, before adding, “Just not the way you think.”

      It was dark when Maddie arrived at her apartment, the converted upstairs of a souvenir shop in Traverse City’s quaint downtown. The shop had long since closed for the day, but several nearby restaurants and bars were open, so the streets were cluttered with tourists—“fudgies” as the locals liked to call them. The term was both derogatory and affectionate. The area’s economy—including its fudge shops—largely depended on downstaters, but no one particularly cared for the staggering crush of humanity that invaded the northern Michigan town almost as soon as the ice melted on the bay.

      Maddie had no view of Lake Michigan’s lovely aqua water from her tiny living room window, and a closet might have been more spacious than the place’s only bedroom. It was a definite step down from the comfortable house she’d grown up in, and a huge tumble from the large Grosse Pointe estate she’d last called home. Its main selling points were cheap rent and a central location. She could walk to work—a definite plus since she didn’t care to drive even though she had a car, and the exercise was good physical therapy.

      She toed off her flats, leaving them on the mat by the front door. A lamp burned cheerfully in her living room thanks to a timer, but other than that the place was dark and quiet. Lonely quiet, which was why she preferred to work late. No reason to rush home to an empty apartment. An empty life.

      As she crossed the room to draw the blinds, she glanced hopefully at the answering machine. No messages. She picked up the phone, dialed the familiar number and waited. Her mother answered on the fourth ring, the South thick in Eliza Daniels’s honeyed tone.

      “Hello, Mother. It’s Maddie.”

      “Why, Madison, this is a surprise. It’s rather late. Your father and I were just getting ready for bed. How are you, dear?”

      “I’m fine.” The polite response slipped effortlessly from Maddie’s lips. She shook her head, tried again with the truth. “Actually, Mother, I’m not fine. In fact, I’m having a really bad day.”

      On the other end of the line, Eliza made an appropriately sympathetic sound. “I’m sorry to hear that you’re under the weather. Is it your...infirmity that’s giving you trouble?”

      If it hadn’t so perfectly summed up the awkwardness of their relationship, Maddie might have chuckled at the discreet euphemism and the way her mother’s tone grew hushed whenever she used it.

      “I am a bit sore today, but that’s not what’s bothering me. Do...do you know what today is?”

      “Today? Hmm. I’m afraid not.”

      For some reason—call it blind hope—Maddie had expected her mother, of all people, to know, to remember.

      “Today should have been Michael’s birthday.”

      “Michael’s birthday?”

      “If he’d been born on his due date, he would have turned one...today.”

      Maddie had spent her lunch hour beside his small gravesite—a gravesite only she had ever visited. Silence greeted her stifled sob, and she kicked herself mentally for seeking comfort and commiseration where neither had been forthcoming in the past.

      “A good night’s sleep is what you need, dear. You’ll feel better in the morning.”

      “My baby will still be dead in the morning. No amount of sleep is going to change that. Why can’t we ever talk about what happened, Mother?” she be-seeched.

      Eliza Daniels considered an emotional outburst as gauche as wearing white shoes after Labor Day. It simply was not done. She went on as if Maddie had not spoken. “Do you have any of those pills left that the doctor prescribed after the accident? Perhaps you should take one.”

      Ah, yes, as far as her mother was concerned, there was nothing a little Valium couldn’t fix. Maddie shook her head in sad acceptance. Arguing would be pointless. “Yes, perhaps I’ll do that. I should have thought of it myself. Thank you, Mother.”

      Relief evident in her tone, Eliza replied, “You’re welcome, dear. Sleep well.”

      “I’m sure I will. Give Daddy my love.”

      Maddie hung up, feeling even more fatigued. Her limp was more pronounced as she trudged down the short hall to the bathroom and turned on the tub’s faucet. She wouldn’t resort to a tranquilizer, but a nice long soak might ease the aching pain in her knee and hip. She added a capful of СКАЧАТЬ