Monique’s
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Zach’s Rebound Girl
Back Cover Copy
Goodbye quiet geek ... hello hot TV personality.
Television property renovator Maddison de la Botella is popular, adored, and on the brink of snagging the opportunity to restore her ancestral home—if a ruthless developer doesn’t tear it down first! Her life has suddenly gone from smooth to bumpy, and it all starts the night she discovers her new neighbour ogling her in her hot tub is none other than Zachary Canady! Her once-upon-a-time best friend and heartbreaker.
He’s still way too gorgeous, still makes her heart flip—and still sees her as just a friend. Back in uni, Zach made sure she understood men wanted exciting women. And there was nothing exciting about Maddie. Now ten years on, here’s her chance to make him notice she’s a living, breathing, desirable woman—even if she almost cracks a tooth to prove it. But is it coincidence that as soon as Zach re-enters her life, she becomes curiously accident-prone?
Commercial property developer, Zach is about to close the business deal of his career until his past catches up with him, and he’s knocked sideways by the stunner next door. Suddenly he can’t decide what he’s protecting Maddie from—his white-hot desire, or the psychotic stalker out to harm her.
Television property renovator Maddison de la Botella is popular, adored, and on the brink of snagging the opportunity to restore her ancestral home—if a ruthless developer doesn’t tear it down first! Her life has suddenly gone from smooth to bumpy, and it all starts the night she discovers her new neighbour ogling her in her hot tub is none other than Zachary Canady! Her once-upon-a-time best friend and heartbreaker.
He’s still way too gorgeous, still makes her heart flip—and still sees her as just a friend. Back in uni, Zach made sure she understood men wanted exciting women. And there was nothing exciting about Maddie. Now ten years on, here’s her chance to make him notice she’s a living, breathing, desirable woman—even if she almost cracks a tooth to prove it. But is it coincidence that as soon as Zach re-enters her life, she becomes curiously accident-prone?
Commercial property developer, Zach is about to close the business deal of his career until his past catches up with him, and he’s knocked sideways by the stunner next door. Suddenly he can’t decide what he’s protecting Maddie from—his white-hot desire, or the psychotic stalker out to harm her.
Chapter One
© Monique DeVere 2014
Crystal Swan Publications
All Rights Reserved
Dear Diary, Zach’s back!
“Mmm ... oh, yeah. Right there. That’s it ... just there.”
Zach Canady came alive the instant he heard the purring female voice. You always hear the good stuff when no one knows you’re listening. That was the first lesson he ever learned.
His childhood nanny would beg to differ. She always warned, “Eavesdroppers never hear well of themselves”.
“Don’t stop.” Disappointment laced the sensual voice drifting from the house next door. His neighbour and her girlfriends were in her hot tub again—third time this week. If he’d known England was going to be this entertaining, he would’ve moved back years ago.
His buddy, Dane, swallowed a mouthful of lager. “What do you think they do in that big ol’ hot tub?”
Zach lifted his dewy can from the square hardwood patio table. He enjoyed rare nights like this when he got to kick back in his garden with his buddies after a hard day at work.
He opened his mouth to answer then closed it when the giggly female voices filtered over the fence again. What his neighbours had to say was far more entertaining.
“Do me while I do you.”
“No. I’m too relaxed. Let Cristi do you.”
“Come on, you know you want to.”
Keith, his other buddy, leaned close, setting his can on the table. “Dunno, but I’d really like to find out.”
Zach’s smile grew. All he had to do was go upstairs to his third bedroom and peek over the fence separating his property from the one next door. Even so, he wasn’t about to encourage his buddies to spy on his neighbour. As tempting as it was to have a look, he’d managed to refrain from spying on them since his move back to Surrey two weeks ago, and he wasn’t going to start now.
Whatever they were up to was no business of his.
“Get off me! I’m not rubbing your foot.” The scandalized female voice preceded a loud splash and raucous laughter.
A champagne cork popped, followed by a squeal and more giggles. “Here’s to Maddie’s new property and what’s shaping up to be the best property show on TV.”
Whooping and cheering followed.
Zach took a sip from his can. He knew a Maddie back in university. The Maddie he knew didn’t do hot tubs or giggle. Maddison de la Botella was a geek. And he had been her only friend.
This Maddie was a party-animal.
Dane waggled his thick blond brows. “I think we should wait ‘til they’re good and liquored up, then go over and introduce ourselves.”
“Hey, Mad, have you met your new neighbour yet?” one female voice asked.
“I think I caught a glimpse of him the other day,” said another. “He’s a cutie.”
Zach had to put up with elbows in the ribs as Dane and Keith grinned.
“Hel-lo,” Keith stage-whispered. “Looks like this could be fun. How big is that hot tub anyway?”
“Shut up.” Zach put his lager on the patio table and crept closer to the fence. “I’m trying to listen.”
Keith and Dane followed close behind. “If you can’t hear what’s going on next door without pressing your ear up against that fence, mate, you need hearing aids.”
Zach elbowed Dane as they crouched next to the fence. “Hush.” He pressed his ear closer.
“I did notice signs of life,” a husky female voice replied. “But I haven’t had time to do the welcome-to-the-neighbourhood thing.”
Shock slammed into Zach. He’d know that voice anywhere. His Maddie was in a hot tub only a few feet away, separated from him by a wooden fence. How was it he could find himself living so close to his once-upon-a-time best friend, and not even know it?
~*~
“MADDIE?”
The baritone voice had Maddie jumping to her feet. She spun around in the warm water so fast her champagne sloshed over the side of her flute glass.
The giggles stopped. The sound of hot tub bubbles faded. All sound, and scent of flowers mixed with chlorine, vanished as Maddie’s gaze landed on the face staring over her fence.
She raised her free hand to her chest, covering the spot where her heart did a funny triple-beat-miss-a-couple-beats-speed-up thing.
Zachary Canady was looking over her fence—Zach Canady whom she hadn’t seen in years—the secret love of her life.
“Zach?” She managed to husk past the flutter in her throat as her senses kicked back to life.
He grinned as if elated she remembered him. How could any woman ever forget Zach? Over six foot, he exuded such male appeal a woman would have to be dead not to respond to him. Not that he ever noticed she was a living, breathing woman.
He had a smile that was a cross between wickedly reckless and shamelessly sexy. It did its job well. One flash of those perfect white teeth, and a woman swooned for days.
Twilight had turned to night an hour ago, and though her garden was well-lit, Maddie couldn’t see him clearly. She hadn’t realized how shadowed that part of her garden was until now. It unnerved her a little to realise that if Zach hadn’t spoken he could have watched her, Lisa, Sasha, and Cristi in the hot tub completely unnoticed.
“How long have you been there?”
Two additional heads popped up on either side of Zach’s before he could answer. Three pairs of male hands clawed over the top of her fence.
“Hi, gorgeous. Since you know our mate here, why don’t we come over there and join you in that hot tub?” one of the heads asked.
She couldn’t be sure, but from the distance and lighting, he looked blond and wasn’t as tall as Zach, his nose in line with the top of the fence.
The other guy was slightly taller and handsome with golden brown skin. She could see he grinned the way a cheeky little boy might.
“Yeah, sounds like you’re having a lot of fun, and our friend here is upset ’cause he just broke up with his girlfriend. I think you girls can make him feel better,” Cheeky Grin said.
Maddie heard a dull thud, and Cheeky Grin grunted, “Ow!”
“I apologise for my friends,” Zach said in his warm-chocolate-on-a-cold-winter’s-night voice. “They just got out of the zoo. I’m taking them back tomorrow. They’re obviously not ready for civilisation yet.”
Maddie’s friends giggled.
“Come on over,” Cristi said, leaning around Maddie. “We have plenty of champagne, and our Maddie here is the quintessential rebound girl. If she can’t make you feel better, no one can.”
Maddie gasped. Just because her last three dates had been on the rebound from their relationships didn’t make her some sort of rebound girl.
“You’ve had enough to drink.” She plucked Cristi’s glass from her hand. Laughter filled the air, but when Maddie looked over at Zach, she found, like her, he wasn’t laughing.
How would they have reacted to each other if their friends weren’t here? Would the last fight they had still stand between them? Would he tell her why he took off to America so suddenly, if she asked?
Would she ask?
“Hey!” Cristi reached for the glass Maddie held out of reach. “I’m celebrating here. Don’t be a party pooper.”
Maddie handed back the glass. Never let anyone say she couldn’t party with the best. She’d vowed her last year at university she’d never let anyone—and definitely not her best friends—call her unexciting ever again.
Zach had told her that once. He’d been trying to make her feel better when she couldn’t understand why none of the boys seemed to want to date her.
She cringed at the memory of Zach throwing a casual arm around her shoulders, completely unaware of what it did to her female hormones as he said, ‘Guys like girls who are a little more...’ He’d searched for the right word and had humiliated her with, ‘Exciting’.
Well she’d show him and his buddies how exciting she could be. “No need to apologise.” Maddie held Zach’s gaze while a strange thrill rolled through her body, reminding her of that old sensation of awareness she’d experienced every time she saw him. Despite the poorly lit fence area, she knew his eyes were as blue as her hot tub. “You’re welcome to join us.”
Zach shook his head. “Maybe some other time, we wouldn’t want to crash your party.”
“Are you kidding me?” Blond Guy said, and two seconds later vaulted the fence.
Maddie stifled a gasp.
Female whistles and catcalls ensued from the other women. Blond Guy took a bow and strutted over to the hot tub’s gazebo.
“Very impressive, but—” Maddie pointed over to the fence near the end of her garden. “We have a gate.”
Blond Guy grinned. He was better looking than the few inches of head peeking over her fence had led her to believe.
“See, if I use the gate how would I get to show off my athletic skills?” He stretched out his right hand to Maddie. “Hi, I’m Dane Line.”
She clasped his hand as the secret gate in her fence opened and Zach and Cheeky Grin walked in. “I’m Maddison de la Botella. My friends call me Maddie.”
Dane kept a hold of her hand. “You’re Spanish?”
“My ancestry is.” She pulled back her hand when it seemed he was happy to hang onto it. “I was born here in England, as were four generations of my family.”
Zach and his other friend stepped into the extra-large Bellis gazebo to join them. “I didn’t know that gate was there. It’s hidden behind a bush on my side.”
She moved a finger back and forth to indicate Zach’s house and hers. “The people who used to live here were friends, and their children played together. They installed the gate as a safe way for the children to move between the two houses.”
“Can’t help showing off, can you, Line?” Cheeky Grin said as he slapped Dane on the back. “I hope you ladies don’t think my boy here is the only athletic one among us, ’cause we all have skills. Just some of us have skills that aren’t allowed to be shown in public.”
Zach grimaced and gave a low groan. “Why do I hang out with the two of you?”
“Hate to break it to you, mate, but we’re the only reason you pull.”
Maddie smiled at the thought that Zach would need anyone to help him pick up women. He was what his friends used to call a chick magnet. Women gravitated toward him with no encouragement at all, and he’d always been extremely accommodating.
“Ah yes, I remember now,” Zach said with that sexy smile that made her knees forget how to work. “Without me you two would have no friends.”
Maddie had to force her laughter past a tight throat. There used to be a time when she would have been friendless if it weren’t for him.
Zach lifted a straight masculine brow. “Aren’t you going to introduce your friends, Maddie?”
“Don’t mind us,” Sasha said. “We’re enjoying the show.”
Maddie pointed to each of the females forming a semi-circle beside her in the bubbling water. “This is Sasha, Cristi, and Lisa.”
As an only child, she’d found sisters in the three women. A close working relationship had progressed to deep friendship over the last five years.
Zach nodded a greeting as he pushed his hands into the front pockets of his perfect-fit jeans. “Zach, Keith, and—” He tipped his head in Dane’s direction. “You’ve met Dane.”
As Zach made the introductions, she became conscious that she was half-naked in a tiny white bikini, highlighted by the lights in her hot tub, and he didn’t even seem to notice. It appeared nothing had changed in the last ten years—he was still oblivious to her.
“So, tell me,” Dane said. “How many people can fit into this thing?”
“Seven.” Maddie glanced at Zach, surprised to see him scowling. Cool-life-of-the-party-Zach looked uncomfortable.
“Perfect,” Dane continued with a calculating grin and a waggle of his brows.
“You do realise, Dane...” Keith dipped a couple of fingers in the water to test it. “We aren’t dressed for hot tubbing, right?”
Dane dropped a hand around Keith’s shoulders. “There’s only one thing for it.” The two men exchanged schoolboy glances, then said in unison, “We’ll have to go ... commando.”
Maddie forced herself not to gasp and run for the sanctuary of her house. Please, please don’t let these men strip naked and jump into my hot tub.
Meanwhile, her so-called friends started cheering them on. “Yeah! Off, off, off...” The girls chanted as they smacked their palms against the edge of the hot tub for emphasis.
Maddie grew frantic. All she wanted was to continue their private party, celebrating the acquisition of a new house to restore for her property show. What had she started by inviting these men over to her garden? She really didn’t know them. When she thought about it, she didn’t even know Zach any longer. He was fundamentally a stranger.
She must be an idiot.
She tried to look nonchalant. After all, she was thirty-two and worked in an industry where people did that sort of thing all the time. All she had to do was play it cool. Zach or anyone else here didn’t have to know she was a complete prude.
She could almost hear his deep-timbered voice beside her ear, Maddie, sweetheart. Guys like girls who are a little more ... exciting.
She was fairly sure Dane and Keith were jokers. The type of guys who talk the talk, but hardly ever walk the walk. On that guess, she slipped back into the water, grateful when her bottom connected with the seating ledge and she didn’t slide right off—something she’d done more than once.
She tipped her glass against her mouth then licked the moisture from her lips with the slow glide of the tip of her tongue. She tried to look as man-hungry as she could. Her mother used to say, ‘Honey, the best way to get rid of a man is to chase him’.
She was about to test that theory.
She gave Zach and his mates what she hoped was a feline smile that said, Boys; I’m going to eat you alive and still have room for more.
“Well, boys?” she said in her sexiest bedroom voice. “We’re waiting.”
Right on cue Lisa, Sasha and Cristi joined in, chanting again. “Come on, boys. Take. It. Off. Off, off, off!”
Zach extracted his hands from his pockets and ran them through his hair. He blew out a breath.
Keith and Dane turned wide-eyes toward each other.
“Um...did you hear that, Keith?”
“What was that, Dane?” The two men backed out from under the hot tub’s gazebo. “Yes, I hear it now. Your mobile.”
“I’m expecting a very important call.” Keith patted his pockets, evidently searching for said phone.
Maddie was both relieved and tickled to see how fast the two men back peddled. Tripping over themselves to make a hasty exit.
But the shock on Zach’s face was priceless.
~*~
THIS WAS not the Maddie Zach knew. His Maddie was sweet and pure and made him want to protect her.
The Maddie who luxuriated in a bubbling hot tub only inches from him, had need surging through him. She was tanned, lively, and altogether too desirable. And she made him ache to devour her in all the ways a man could enjoy a woman.
He stuffed his hands into his jean’s front pockets to stop himself from reaching for her, disliking the fact that five minutes in Maddie’s company turned him into a basic, primal male.
In fact, he hated it a lot.
She was not the kind of woman he ever thought he’d look at and think elegant, sexy. Back when he knew her in uni, he’d nicknamed her ragdoll since she never took much effort in her appearance.
So why was he standing like a moron just inside the hot tub’s gazebo with his hands in his pockets as he gawked at her? He cleared his throat of any potential trace of huskiness that would give away his X-rated thoughts. Deliberately sealed his expression and tightened his jaw against the febrile need vibrating through him.
“Great to see you again, Mad.” He turned and followed Keith and Dane as they headed toward his back garden.
“Same here, Zach.” Maddie’s voice was barely above a murmur and carried a pensive note.
His pace may have been unhurried, but every cell in Zach’s body leapt with an intense excitement as her husky voice stroked his senses. He didn’t want to feel like this about his ex-best friend.
Like this taster? You can purchase ZACH'S REBOUND GIRL from all Amazon outlets. For your convenience, here are the two main Amazon links: AmazonUS ~ AmazonUK
You Don’t Get Joe!
Back Cover Copy
A lot can happen in six
days!
There’s no secret that New York columnist Robyn (Robbie) Dare hates Valentine’s Day. So when her editor assigns her the task of writing a column about V-Day, she advises her readers to skip it. Dubbed The Valentine Hater, at least one person is out for blood, leaving Robbie little choice but to beat a hasty retreat back to her family in the UK. It wouldn’t be so bad, if heartthrob Joe Langford wasn’t right on hand to welcome her back. She used to have a thing for Joe. So did her sister. Five years ago, Robyn pretended to choose her career and walked away, but she always regretted her decision.
There was a time when Joe longed to rectify the mistake he made when he let the woman he loved walk out of his life. Now she’s back and bringing a heap of trouble with her. Good thing Joe likes trouble. He isn’t sure how this mess will turn out, but one thing Joe knows for sure, skipping Valentine’s Day just might be the best thing Robbie ever did!
There’s no secret that New York columnist Robyn (Robbie) Dare hates Valentine’s Day. So when her editor assigns her the task of writing a column about V-Day, she advises her readers to skip it. Dubbed The Valentine Hater, at least one person is out for blood, leaving Robbie little choice but to beat a hasty retreat back to her family in the UK. It wouldn’t be so bad, if heartthrob Joe Langford wasn’t right on hand to welcome her back. She used to have a thing for Joe. So did her sister. Five years ago, Robyn pretended to choose her career and walked away, but she always regretted her decision.
There was a time when Joe longed to rectify the mistake he made when he let the woman he loved walk out of his life. Now she’s back and bringing a heap of trouble with her. Good thing Joe likes trouble. He isn’t sure how this mess will turn out, but one thing Joe knows for sure, skipping Valentine’s Day just might be the best thing Robbie ever did!
Chapter One
© Monique DeVere 2014
Crystal Swan Publications
All Rights Reserved
Six days ‘til Valentine’s Day
...Three hundred and sixty-five—sometimes sixty-six—days of any given year to find love, and the whole world zeros in on one commercial day. In every city, six short days from now, love-starved hopefuls will pin their collective expectations on the flimsy fantasy that Valentine’s will be the day Mr Right comes along. Or, if you’ve fooled yourself into thinking he’s already arrived, you’ll be waiting with bated breath for him to whisk you off to some romantic restaurant. Ply you with fine wine and rich food, then drop to one knee in the middle of the restaurant filled with other misguided hopefuls, and propose. Let me assure you, ladies, Mr Right doesn’t exist! Like this ridiculous holiday, he’s a fallacy. A myth created by overzealous romantics, and deluded naïvetés.
Do yourselves a favour, and take my advice.
Skip Valentine’s.
It’s a waste of a day!
“Robbie, what were you thinking when you wrote this column?” Her best friend, Cyndi, brandished the magazine under Robyn Dare’s nose.
She empathised with Cyndi’s reaction. Understood why she would be so annoyed. Not only had Robyn dissed Valentine’s. She also managed to get herself—and Cyndi by association—ostracized by everyone she met, and quite a few people she already knew.
Even the gentle Italian grandmother who owned Café Crysta, a popular coffeehouse on the Upper West Side, who usually served her and Cyndi their mocha choco lattes and fresh-from-the-oven chocolate croissants, got more than a little snippy with her today.
Robyn pulled out a chair from under a corner table beside one of the floor-to-ceiling French windows and sat.
“That it’s about time someone made a stand.”
Robyn’s column usually focused on eateries and the food they served. She was a sort of food critic with an eye on which celebs were eating where. So the whole Valentine’s thing was a step out of her usual subject matter.
Cyndi’s gaze skated around the café. She lowered her voice as she sat on the chair opposite Robyn’s.
“Against Valentine’s Day? People expect certain things from your column. Like whether the latest pop star ordered salad or the calorie-laden special. Or if they shared dessert with their date and what they were up to.”
“I maintain what I said. We should all skip Valentine’s.” Even to her, she sounded callous. Robyn ignored a pang of remorse as she shrugged out of her coat. She’d made a promise to herself: toughen up, or accept herself as a push-over forever. She pulled off her cable-knit peaked cap and turned her attention to the snow-covered walkway outside the New York coffeehouse. Café Crysta was known for its creative coffees, and vast selection of fresh-baked pastries and desserts. It was also a hangout for writers, actors and artists, which was how Robyn came to find it three years ago. Since then, she and Cyndi had come here for coffee every day.
“You do know they’ve dubbed you The Valentine Hater, right?”
“Where has originality gone?”
“You have to fix this. Write another column about how much you love Valentine’s or something.”
“I hate Valentine’s, Cyndi. You know that.”
“Shhh! Keep your voice down. You want more people to scowl at us?”
Robyn glanced around them. Seemed to her people would have better things to do than spend their lunchtime throwing eye-daggers at a complete stranger.
“They aren’t scowling at you. They’re scowling at me.”
“But I’m with you. They must think I hate Valentine’s too. Just because Danny broke your heart on V-Day two years ago, doesn’t make it a hateful day. Some people love February fourteenth. Okay, maybe it’s the only day some people make an effort, but at least they do make one.”
At the mention of Danny’s name, Robyn’s chest clogged. She’d talked herself into falling for Danny. He was nice—compatible—and that was what she was looking for in a relationship. She’d done the whole passion thing once before—never again.
However, Danny wasn’t responsible for her antipathy toward Valentine’s. Before Danny came along, she’d been in love with a man she thought was the most amazing male of the species—a man her sister had also been in love with. In the end, Robyn had stepped aside, admitted defeat in the sibling competition for Joe Langford, and let her sister win. She’d jetted from England to New York to accept the job offer as columnist to a New York gossip rag. Not that she intended to remain a columnist for much longer. At twenty-seven, Robyn held her dream of writing a Sitcom close to her heart. And one day she would find the time to get started on that dream. For now, she had New York, Cyndi, and her job, which was usually more fun.
Since her column in Dish This started the mess, Robyn would take Cyndi’s advice and fix it.
She stood.
“What are you doing?” Cyndi’s frantic whisper and arm tugging caught her attention.
“You asked me to fix it. That’s what I’m doing.”
“How?”
“Excuse me?” Robyn didn’t need to raise her voice. From the moment she and Cyndi took their seats, the place fell silent apart from the soft, soothing jazz that filtered from hidden speakers. She had a ready audience, so she cleared her throat and proceeded. “Some of you might recognise me as the columnist Robyn Dare—”
“Booooo.”
She didn’t expect to be well received anyway.
“I think some of my readers have missed the point I was making, and it’s this: why do people need a special day to prove their love? Is love an emotion we save in a shoebox until the fourteenth of February so we can pull it out, dust it off and roll it out for one day? The only day we are supposed to buy flowers and cards? Purchase candy in heart-shaped boxes and tell someone we love them? You know it’s all hype, right?
“Who needs permission to celebrate love? If you love someone, doesn’t that make it Valentine’s Day every day? I’m not saying you shouldn’t fall in love. I’m simply saying you shouldn’t let society, florists, or gift and card shops dictate which day you make an effort for your loved one. And why do so many people hinge their hopes on February fourteenth? Why not the sixth of January? Or April first? Wait ... that’s April Fools.” Robyn glanced at Cyndi, who had pulled her wool hat down until it covered her face.
“You need to ask yourselves,” Robyn continued. “Are you angry at me for what I wrote, or are you disappointed in yourselves for letting retailers brainwash you into thinking you should go all out for one day and make it special, when the other three hundred odd days you ignore your so-called loved ones—?”
“Boooooooo.”
She gave up. Clearly, she wasn’t going to get through to this crowd.
“Cyndi, I tried.” She threw her hands in a gesture of defeat and was about to sit when a projectile in the form of a gourmet cupcake flew across the room. She saw it a second before it bounced off her forehead. Then more food—along with a number of irate suggestions—started flying at her like panties at a Tom Jones concert.
Cyndi screamed, leaped from her chair and out of harm’s way.
Stunned shock kept Robyn seated while several food items splat into her. It took a moment for the haze to clear from her brain enough for Robyn to grasp that people—a bunch of strangers—where pelting her with food.
“Robbie, move it!”
The shrieked command jack-knifed Robyn into action. She grabbed her belongings and raced after Cyndi to the exit.
“I can’t believe you enraged people enough to make them throw their food at you.” Cyndi glanced at her as they wrestled their way into their coats while they put a speedy distance between them and Café Crysta.
“I can’t believe, in this economic climate, people would waste food like that. I think that will be the topic of my next column.”
“Robyn...”
...Three hundred and sixty-five—sometimes sixty-six—days of any given year to find love, and the whole world zeros in on one commercial day. In every city, six short days from now, love-starved hopefuls will pin their collective expectations on the flimsy fantasy that Valentine’s will be the day Mr Right comes along. Or, if you’ve fooled yourself into thinking he’s already arrived, you’ll be waiting with bated breath for him to whisk you off to some romantic restaurant. Ply you with fine wine and rich food, then drop to one knee in the middle of the restaurant filled with other misguided hopefuls, and propose. Let me assure you, ladies, Mr Right doesn’t exist! Like this ridiculous holiday, he’s a fallacy. A myth created by overzealous romantics, and deluded naïvetés.
Do yourselves a favour, and take my advice.
Skip Valentine’s.
It’s a waste of a day!
“Robbie, what were you thinking when you wrote this column?” Her best friend, Cyndi, brandished the magazine under Robyn Dare’s nose.
She empathised with Cyndi’s reaction. Understood why she would be so annoyed. Not only had Robyn dissed Valentine’s. She also managed to get herself—and Cyndi by association—ostracized by everyone she met, and quite a few people she already knew.
Even the gentle Italian grandmother who owned Café Crysta, a popular coffeehouse on the Upper West Side, who usually served her and Cyndi their mocha choco lattes and fresh-from-the-oven chocolate croissants, got more than a little snippy with her today.
Robyn pulled out a chair from under a corner table beside one of the floor-to-ceiling French windows and sat.
“That it’s about time someone made a stand.”
Robyn’s column usually focused on eateries and the food they served. She was a sort of food critic with an eye on which celebs were eating where. So the whole Valentine’s thing was a step out of her usual subject matter.
Cyndi’s gaze skated around the café. She lowered her voice as she sat on the chair opposite Robyn’s.
“Against Valentine’s Day? People expect certain things from your column. Like whether the latest pop star ordered salad or the calorie-laden special. Or if they shared dessert with their date and what they were up to.”
“I maintain what I said. We should all skip Valentine’s.” Even to her, she sounded callous. Robyn ignored a pang of remorse as she shrugged out of her coat. She’d made a promise to herself: toughen up, or accept herself as a push-over forever. She pulled off her cable-knit peaked cap and turned her attention to the snow-covered walkway outside the New York coffeehouse. Café Crysta was known for its creative coffees, and vast selection of fresh-baked pastries and desserts. It was also a hangout for writers, actors and artists, which was how Robyn came to find it three years ago. Since then, she and Cyndi had come here for coffee every day.
“You do know they’ve dubbed you The Valentine Hater, right?”
“Where has originality gone?”
“You have to fix this. Write another column about how much you love Valentine’s or something.”
“I hate Valentine’s, Cyndi. You know that.”
“Shhh! Keep your voice down. You want more people to scowl at us?”
Robyn glanced around them. Seemed to her people would have better things to do than spend their lunchtime throwing eye-daggers at a complete stranger.
“They aren’t scowling at you. They’re scowling at me.”
“But I’m with you. They must think I hate Valentine’s too. Just because Danny broke your heart on V-Day two years ago, doesn’t make it a hateful day. Some people love February fourteenth. Okay, maybe it’s the only day some people make an effort, but at least they do make one.”
At the mention of Danny’s name, Robyn’s chest clogged. She’d talked herself into falling for Danny. He was nice—compatible—and that was what she was looking for in a relationship. She’d done the whole passion thing once before—never again.
However, Danny wasn’t responsible for her antipathy toward Valentine’s. Before Danny came along, she’d been in love with a man she thought was the most amazing male of the species—a man her sister had also been in love with. In the end, Robyn had stepped aside, admitted defeat in the sibling competition for Joe Langford, and let her sister win. She’d jetted from England to New York to accept the job offer as columnist to a New York gossip rag. Not that she intended to remain a columnist for much longer. At twenty-seven, Robyn held her dream of writing a Sitcom close to her heart. And one day she would find the time to get started on that dream. For now, she had New York, Cyndi, and her job, which was usually more fun.
Since her column in Dish This started the mess, Robyn would take Cyndi’s advice and fix it.
She stood.
“What are you doing?” Cyndi’s frantic whisper and arm tugging caught her attention.
“You asked me to fix it. That’s what I’m doing.”
“How?”
“Excuse me?” Robyn didn’t need to raise her voice. From the moment she and Cyndi took their seats, the place fell silent apart from the soft, soothing jazz that filtered from hidden speakers. She had a ready audience, so she cleared her throat and proceeded. “Some of you might recognise me as the columnist Robyn Dare—”
“Booooo.”
She didn’t expect to be well received anyway.
“I think some of my readers have missed the point I was making, and it’s this: why do people need a special day to prove their love? Is love an emotion we save in a shoebox until the fourteenth of February so we can pull it out, dust it off and roll it out for one day? The only day we are supposed to buy flowers and cards? Purchase candy in heart-shaped boxes and tell someone we love them? You know it’s all hype, right?
“Who needs permission to celebrate love? If you love someone, doesn’t that make it Valentine’s Day every day? I’m not saying you shouldn’t fall in love. I’m simply saying you shouldn’t let society, florists, or gift and card shops dictate which day you make an effort for your loved one. And why do so many people hinge their hopes on February fourteenth? Why not the sixth of January? Or April first? Wait ... that’s April Fools.” Robyn glanced at Cyndi, who had pulled her wool hat down until it covered her face.
“You need to ask yourselves,” Robyn continued. “Are you angry at me for what I wrote, or are you disappointed in yourselves for letting retailers brainwash you into thinking you should go all out for one day and make it special, when the other three hundred odd days you ignore your so-called loved ones—?”
“Boooooooo.”
She gave up. Clearly, she wasn’t going to get through to this crowd.
“Cyndi, I tried.” She threw her hands in a gesture of defeat and was about to sit when a projectile in the form of a gourmet cupcake flew across the room. She saw it a second before it bounced off her forehead. Then more food—along with a number of irate suggestions—started flying at her like panties at a Tom Jones concert.
Cyndi screamed, leaped from her chair and out of harm’s way.
Stunned shock kept Robyn seated while several food items splat into her. It took a moment for the haze to clear from her brain enough for Robyn to grasp that people—a bunch of strangers—where pelting her with food.
“Robbie, move it!”
The shrieked command jack-knifed Robyn into action. She grabbed her belongings and raced after Cyndi to the exit.
“I can’t believe you enraged people enough to make them throw their food at you.” Cyndi glanced at her as they wrestled their way into their coats while they put a speedy distance between them and Café Crysta.
“I can’t believe, in this economic climate, people would waste food like that. I think that will be the topic of my next column.”
“Robyn...”
~*~
CLEANING THE FOOD debris off her face was easy enough. Her hair, not so much. And her clothes ... she didn’t even bother. Robyn sat on the sofa in the ladies’ room, pulled off her boot and tipped it upside down. Cake crumbs fell onto the white tiled floor. She grimaced, pulled the boot back on, then reached for her other boot, and tipped that out too.
Cyndi hadn’t come off as badly, having had the good sense to get out of the way. Possibly a good thing too, since she didn’t have time to change before her afternoon audition.
Surrounded by the low hum of journalists at work, Robyn strolled through the open-planned office ofDish This like a woman covered in expensive diamonds rather than bits of food. She held her head high. This wasn’t the first occasion her column had stirred up annoyance—generally from the celebs Dish Thisfollowed—but it was the first time the public had been so incensed, they’d retaliated with flying food.
The Manhattan office buzzed with its usual electric charge, for which Robyn was grateful. Everyone was too busy to notice her state.
“Hey, Robyn.” TJ, a fellow columnist, strode out of his cubical as she passed. “What happened to you?”
“Food fight.” More like food assault, but who would argue?
“Who won?”
“Not the food.”
TJ chuckled and continued on his way.
“Robyn, a minute.” Matt, her editor, poked his greying head out of his corner office and beckoned her to him.
All she wanted to do was to cut the day short, go home, get out of the sticky, uggy white blouse and black skirt, take a long steaming shower, then hide beneath her covers until Valentine’s Day was a distant memory. She straightened her shoulders, fixed on her all-is-cool-on-the-home-front smile, and changed direction into Matt’s office.
“Is something wrong?” She closed the door behind her.
Matt’s stare drifted over her from beneath frowning brows. “I think I should be the one asking that. What happened to your clothes?”
“Oh, you know.” She fanned a dismissive hand. “Nothing.”
She wasn’t about to tell him a group of strangers decided to miss lunch in favour of pelting her with it.
“Sit.” Matt indicated the chair in front of his desk. Although he didn’t push the subject, he didn’t look all that convinced by her assurance. “It seems you’ve angered so many people that at least one of them would like to kill you.”
Or throw cake at her.
“Why would you say that?”
“These.” Matt snagged a printed email from atop a stack of paper on the corner of his desk. “This one came in a few minutes ago.” He handed it to her. “Read it.”
“The Valentine Hater must die.” Okay, that was a little unnerving. “I’m sure they don’t mean it. People get passionate about stuff, and don’t like it when other people rag on their passions. I’m sure it’s nothing.”
“There are others.” Matt hefted the stack of print-offs. “This whole pile of mail is hate mail, and it’s all for you, Robyn.”
“And these people wonder why I think Valentine’s is a wasted day. Where is the love for one’s fellow man?”
“Not in this heap, that’s for sure.” He placed the stack in front of her. “Normally, I might shrug this off, but not even I anticipated how violently people would react to your column. I feel responsible, and I would hate myself if anything happened to you because of that piece.” He scratched his head. “I’m giving you time off. I recommend you visit your mum in England until this thing blows over.”
Pushing aside all pretend blasé, she sprang forward. “You’re running me out of town?”
“Come on, Robyn, you know that isn’t so.” He scratched his head again, frowned. “You haven’t taken any time off in a couple of years. You are well overdue a vacation. Just pack and go see your mum. I bet she must be anxious to see you.”
She was, but that wasn’t the point.
“I have a weekly column to write, I can’t just take off to the UK right now.”
“You don’t need to be here to get your column in.” Matt leaned back in his chair. “Email it to me.”
“But I do need to be here to have my finger on the pulse. I can’t write a New York column about celebs and places to eat in New York while I hang out in my mother’s café in the Lake District.”
“I’m not asking you, Robyn.” He sat forward, braced his arms on the desk, and gave her his flinty-eyed glare. “It’s not a request, it’s an order.”
Since he put it that way. She crossed her arms beneath her breasts.
“When do you suggest I leave?”
“ASAP.”
What? “As in, As Soon As Possible?”
The phone on Matt’s desk rang. “Look at it this way. You get to skip Valentine’s Day.” He snatched up the receiver, put it to his ear. “Hello?...hi, Grace.”
Robyn waited for Matt to finish the call with his wife.
She had to make him understand there was no reason for her to go back to England just because one reader didn’t like her column.
It wasn’t that she didn’t want to see her family. She loved her mum and her sister, Wren. She just didn’t want to be around her mum anywhere near Valentine’s Day. If Matt thought that by leaving for England, she got to miss V-Day, he was wrong. Her mum was close to being the biggest romantic alive, and it would take all of two seconds after Robyn arrived for her mother to start hunting for Mr Right on her daughter’s behalf.
Then there was Joe, whom she hadn’t seen in five years. Did he still live in the Lake District? Or had he moved to London with Wren? She knew they hadn’t married yet. They would have invited her to the wedding, or Mum would have told her about her sister’s wedding plans.
She wished now she hadn’t made it clear to her mum that she didn’t want to know about Joe and Wren. Yes, of course, she loved hearing how well her big sister was doing, but she tended to cut calls with her mum short the moment they deviated into painful territory. That of how Joe and Wren were getting on with their lives together.
“What?” Matt jerked forward, scratched his head like he suddenly found an ant nest in his hair. “Lice?”
That explained why Matt had been scratching his head all day. Time to make a hasty exit.
Matt was free to suggest she leave and go back to the UK all he wanted. She wasn’t leaving New York, not when the alternative involved possibly seeing Joe Langford again.
Like this taster? You can purchase You Don't Get Joe! from all Amazon outlets. For your convenience, here are the two main Amazon links: AmazonUS ~ AmazonUK
