by Julie James
“So I shared with Addison the intel Sidney gave us about this charming, Mayberry-like small town you’re from,” Huxley said. “She was as shocked as Cade and I.”
On Saturday night, when they’d all been buzzed, Sidney had entertained the group with stories about Apple Canyon—even getting several oohs and ahhs when she’d produced photographic evidence of the actual key she’d been given at the bed-and-breakfast. Though his memory was a little fuzzy about a few things, Vaughn distinctly remembered how much they’d all laughed that night. And also how some warm, unfamiliar feeling had settled deep in his chest, seeing her getting along so well with his friends.
“I told Brooke the same story,” Cade said. “She suggested that the six of us get together for dinner some t—”
Vaughn held up his hand, cutting him off. “I think we all need to slow down. Sidney and I aren’t doing a couples dinner or whatever with you guys. For starters, we’re not a couple.”
Huxley looked surprised by this. “You two sure seemed pretty friendly on Saturday night.”
Vaughn shrugged. “I’m not saying I don’t like her. She’s great. We have a lot of fun together. But this is just a short-term deal between us—and believe me, if she were here right now, she would tell you the exact same thing.”
Having nothing else to say about that, he turned around to face his computer and got back to work.
• • •
TUESDAY MORNING, SIDNEY had just finished a conference call with the consulting firm, wrapping up a few last-minute details regarding the compensation package she planned to offer Karen if the interview went well, when her secretary buzzed her.
“Your father called while you were on the other line,” Darnell said.
Ah, good—Sidney had been waiting for him to call her back. She’d left him a message yesterday, saying that she’d like to drop by the house to go through her mother’s wedding dress and accessories, which her father had been keeping in the attic. She wanted to do something special for Isabelle’s “something old,” and thought that incorporating something their mother had worn on her wedding day would be perfect.
She quickly called him back on his cell phone, wanting to check this item off her to-do list before her interview with Karen.
“I’m afraid I’m not going to be much help,” her father said when he answered, immediately getting right down to it.
She knew her father was out of town, having taken a couple days off work to go golfing with some friends in Pebble Beach. Presumably, he’d misunderstood the nature of her request. “Oh, I don’t need you to go through the stuff. I just wanted to check when it would be convenient for me to come by the house. If I drop by tomorrow evening, will Jenny be around to let me in?”
“Sidney . . . I don’t have any of your mother’s wedding things.”
“Sure, you do.” When she was a kid, she had often sneaked up into the attic to play dress up in her mother’s wedding gown, veil, and shoes. “Her dress and everything else she wore is in the attic, in that old wardrobe we inherited from Grandma.”
“The wardrobe’s gone, along with everything inside. Back when Liza redecorated the house, she cleared everything out of the attic to make room for the furniture we were no longer using. I asked Jenny to check yesterday after you called and, well, it looks like your mother’s old stuff got lost in the shuffle.” Her father sounded contrite. “I’m sorry.”
Sidney stared out her office window, focusing on a tour boat gliding along the Chicago River as she processed this information.
Her mother’s wedding dress had gotten “lost in the shuffle” when Wife Number Three had gone on some stupid shabby-chic design overhaul, undoubtedly to scour the house of all signs of Wife Number Two. It was so exactly the kind of response she expected from her father, she didn’t know why she was surprised.
Yet still, she had to fight back the burning in her eyes. And something in her snapped. “Of course that’s what happened. Thanks, Dad.”
He paused, as if surprised by her comment. “It’s not my fault, Sidney. I didn’t even—”
Yeah, yeah. She cut off the excuses. “Don’t worry about it, Dad. I’ll come up with something else for Isabelle. I have to get going—I need to finish preparing for an interview.”
She said a quick good-bye, then stared at the phone after hanging up. Drawing on her three years of expensive New York therapy, she reminded herself that not everyone had a close relationship with their parents—and that she was okay with that.
Sure.
She took a deep breath, collecting herself and quelling her disappointment. Then she straightened up in her chair and returned to the task at hand.
• • •
BY THE TIME they got to the pasta course at Vivere, a contemporary Italian restaurant in the heart of downtown, Sidney felt confident that she’d found Vitamin Boutique’s new CEO.
“I have to admit, I was really excited to get Gabe’s call,” Karen said. “Ever since I heard that your firm bought Vitamin Boutique, I’ve been eager to see who you’d bring on board.”
Sidney eased back in her chair, curious about something. “Here’s my question: with the offer from PetSmart already in your pocket, what is it about this opportunity that has you interested enough to interview with us on such short notice?”
The fifty-two-year-old executive nodded at the question, looking polished and confident in her gray skirt suit. “The PetSmart position would be great, don’t get me wrong. But with Vitamin Boutique, I see a potential for expansion that’s just . . . exciting,” she said, speaking animatedly. “The company has a strong brand and loyal customer base here in the Midwest. To achieve the kind of growth your fund will want to see in five to seven years, you need someone who will lead the way in expanding and capitalizing on that base. I’m completely sold on your vision for the company, Sidney. I think Vitamin Boutique can be a nationwide retailer, and I’d be thrilled to be part of the team that makes that happen.”
Sidney smiled, liking Karen’s enthusiasm. They got down to brass tacks and outlined the terms of the compensation package she and the consultants had come up with. As expected, there were a few minor points that needed to be negotiated, but by the time dessert had arrived, they’d reached a deal.
“Welcome aboard,” Sidney said as she shook her new CEO’s hand.
They left the restaurant and began walking back to her office, which was only a few blocks away. It was a gorgeous summer afternoon, the type of day when Chicagoans flocked outside and enjoyed living in such a vibrant, charismatic city. Having been focused on the business side of things all morning, she and Karen chatted amiably about more personal topics.
“It’s actually a perfect time for me to move,” Karen said. “My youngest—my son—just went off to college, so my husband and I are officially empty nesters.” They stopped at a street corner and waited for the light to change. “Do you have children?”
“No,” Sidney said, ignoring the ticking sound coming from her biological clock. “Where does your son go to school?”
As Karen answered, Sidney noticed that a man waiting with them at the street corner—tall and attractive with sandy-blond hair, probably in his early thirties—was looking over at her. He seemed familiar, but she couldn’t quite place him.
He smiled. “Sidney, right?” He stepped around the people between them and held out his hand. “Tyler Roland. We met briefly a few months ago, at Morton’s. You were having lunch with Michael Hannigan, and I stopped by the table to say hello.”
Now she remembered. “That’s right. That was the day I flew in for my interview. Good memory,” she said, impressed that he’d recalled her name.
He gestured. “So you’re obviously here in Chicago. I take it that means your interview with Michael’s firm went well? And . . . if it didn’t, I’m going to feel real awkward for having just asked that question.”
&
nbsp; She laughed. “You’re safe. I’m a director there now. Speaking of which,” she turned, to make the introductions. “Karen Wetzel, Tyler Roland.”
Karen and Tyler exchanged hellos. The light turned and the three of them crossed the street.
“So if I remember correctly, you and Michael are family friends?” Sidney asked him.
He nodded. “Our parents have known each other for years. Plus, he and I play squash together—even though he’s terrible.”
“Really?”
He grinned. “No. But tell him I said it, anyway. He’s so competitive—it’ll drive him nuts.”
They slowed down after reaching the corner. “I’m heading this way. Off to court,” Tyler said, pointing south. “You?”
Sidney pointed north. “This way.”
“Well, then, it was really nice running into you again. Sidney . . . ?” Tyler cocked his head questioningly.
“Sinclair.”
“Sidney Sinclair. I like that.” He held her gaze for a moment, then said good-bye to her and Karen.
“He seems nice,” Karen said, as they walked in the opposite direction.
Sidney nodded. “Yes, he does.”
• • •
THURSDAY MORNING, SIDNEY heard a knock at her office door. She looked over and saw Michael standing in the doorway, holding a newspaper.
“I see we made the Journal this morning,” he said, stepping inside and taking a seat at her desk. There’d been an article discussing the installation of Karen Wetzel as the new CEO of Vitamin Boutique, in which they’d described the firm’s acquisition of the company to be “a deal to watch.”
“I think Karen’s going to be a great fit,” Sidney said. They talked shop for a while, and she shared with Michael the next steps she planned to take with Vitamin Boutique, as well as a new company she was eying as a potential acquisition.
“I know I speak for the entire investment committee when I say how impressed we’ve been with your leadership and direction of this fund. Of course, I’ve been taking full credit for this as the person who recruited you,” Michael joked.
Sidney chuckled. “I bet you have.”
Michael tapped the arms of the chair with his hands. “There’s another reason I dropped by this morning. Apparently you ran into my friend Tyler the other day?”
In the flurry of hiring Karen, Sidney had completely forgotten about that. “Oh, yes. He wanted me to tell you that you’re terrible at squash.”
“That’s interesting, considering I just wiped the floor with him yesterday.” Michael pulled something out of the pocket of his suit jacket. “When we were leaving the gym, he asked me to give you this.”
He handed her a business card.
“I guess you made something of an impression on him. He said he wanted to give you his card the other day, but he sensed you might be in the middle of a business lunch and didn’t think it was appropriate.” Before she could say anything, Michael held up his hand. “Look, I don’t know if you’re single, and, frankly, I don’t need to know. Call him, e-mail him, or don’t. I’m just a messenger here—the rest is up to you.”
Michael stood up to head out, but paused in the doorway. “He also said I’m supposed to tell you that he’s a good guy.” He held up his hands. “That’s it. I swear, I’m out of this now.”
Sidney liked working with Michael, and respected his opinion quite a bit. “And what do you say? Is he a good guy?”
Michael gave her a slight smile, as if to say that this was self-evident. “I wouldn’t have given you the card if he wasn’t.”
Sidney stared down at the card after he left. She flipped it over and saw that Tyler had written her a message.
Maybe next time we can meet for more than two minutes?
Well, this was . . . unexpected. A quick Google search showed that he was a partner at Kendall & Jameson, a successful boutique labor and employment law firm. Which meant she could check off that box already: he was settled in his career. But beyond that, this Tyler guy came with a “recommended” label; he’d been referred by someone she trusted.
Perhaps she’d just been handed her first real lead in the search for Mr. Right.
Twenty-six
WITH FRIDAY CAME the end of a long workweek for Vaughn.
He and Huxley had picked up a new assignment, after receiving a tip from a Chicago nightclub owner who claimed that the head of the city code compliance department had demanded from him a cash payoff in exchange for not enforcing a large fine for what the club owner insisted was a bogus code violation. As part of the investigation, the plan was that an undercover agent would pose as the club’s manager, and together he and the owner would make the payoff to the head inspector. Unfortunately, Vaughn was already working undercover in the Pritchett investigation, and since agents worked hard not to be involved in multiple UC roles at the same time, they had decided that Huxley would pose as the nightclub’s manager—the younger agent’s first time taking on a speaking undercover role after a botched attempt three years ago that had been stymied by a poorly timed case of the stomach flu.
To put it mildly, Huxley was stoked.
The investigation had gotten a little more intense this afternoon, when two different code inspectors had showed up at the nightclub to “remind” the owner of his (bogus) violation and also to reiterate that they had the authority to shut down his club at any time. That had put everything on fast-forward, and Vaughn had spent the rest of his day assisting Huxley in pulling together his undercover legend and getting everything set up with the tech team and the backup squad so that they could meet with the city inspector tomorrow for the payoff.
After that, he and Huxley had met Cade for their workout. With the triathlon only three weeks away, their workouts had intensified—today they’d swum for thirty minutes, had run for forty-five, and then had lifted weights for an hour. Vaughn had walked out of the FBI gym tired and ready to call it a night.
Admittedly, he’d been feeling a little off all week. He couldn’t quite put his finger on what was bothering him, he just felt . . . irritated. Unsettled. He looked forward to an evening alone, so he could shake off whatever his problem was, reset, and get back on his game.
But when he was driving home, he received a text message that changed all that.
One word from Sidney.
HELP.
• • •
SIDNEY OPENED HER front door and found six-foot-one, nearly two hundred pounds of pissed-off FBI agent glaring at her.
“Never, ever do that again,” Vaughn said.
“Okay, okay. I told you—I’m sleep-deprived. I wasn’t thinking. Sheesh,” And, point of fact, she’d already apologized after his first lecture.
Yes, she’d screwed up. She’d texted Vaughn Help, and then had heard her teakettle whistling on the stove. She’d left her phone in the bedroom and had headed downstairs into the kitchen—admittedly, in hindsight this was absentminded, but, hello, she was operating on about an hour’s worth of sleep here—and by the time she’d sliced her fresh lemon for the tea, then had noticed her wilting flowers outside and had gone out to water them, and then had returned upstairs, she’d discovered that her text message had caused a bit of a hullabaloo with Vaughn, who had been trying to reach her.
“I’d already called in your number to the command room, so I could track you down by your cell phone,” he said, stepping inside her house.
“Is that even legal?”
He glared again.
Sidney smiled sweetly. “What I meant to say was, thank you, Agent Roberts. I’m so appreciative of your concern for my well-being.”
Vaughn stepped closer, putting one hand on the small of her back as he stared down into her eyes. “Just don’t scare me like that again, Sinclair. Understood?”
Something about the seriousness on his face—such an uncharacteristic loo
k for him—put a warm feeling in her stomach. “Understood,” she said, her voice suddenly husky.
Then there it was, a loud double beep at the top of the stairs, right outside her bedroom.
She rested her forehead against Vaughn’s chest and groaned. “Please. Just make it stop.”
Her upstairs smoke alarm had started chirping last night around midnight, going off about every ten minutes. She assumed that it needed a new battery, so she’d thrown on a pair of jeans and had walked to a 24-hour convenience store a few blocks away. She’d bought a couple of 9V batteries, then had come home and pulled out her handy-dandy stepladder. The problem was, she couldn’t get the damn casing off. Granted, she didn’t have the best grip, because the ceilings in her turn-of-the-century brownstone were high and she’d had to stand on her tiptoes, but the stupid thing wouldn’t budge. Then it had stopped around five A.M., apparently just to mock her, and she’d gone off to work thinking maybe she was in the clear. But nope—the beep-beep had started up again this evening, after she’d changed out of her work clothes and had just been getting ready to settle in with her parents’ wedding albums and a nice cup of chamomile tea.
In her hour of need, she’d texted Vaughn.
“You know, those cases pretty much just pop right off,” he told her.
Yes, thank you, she was aware that this was supposed to be how things worked. She’d been up at two A.M. last night, Googling the problem and watching umpteen videos with stupid smiling men on stepladders who’d explained how to change the battery on a smoke detector. But none of the stupid smiling men—not a one—had said what to do in the apparently unlikely event that the case did not, in fact, “just pop right off.”
“It’s stuck,” she said.
“Did you turn it the correct way?” he asked. “A good way to remember is—”
“—if you ‘righty-tighty, lefty-loosey’ me right now, Roberts, I swear I will bite you again. The thing is stuck.”
Grinning, he chucked her under the chin. “All right. I’ll check it out.”