Once Upon a Valentine
She’d written eight articles about Pax. She knew he’d grown up in the little town of Port Orchard across the sound, where he and his business partner had first started out building boats, that he now lived on the top floor of a luxury building in trendy Belltown, and that he had a well-known weakness for anything chocolate. “You never said you had a dog.”
“Would you have said yes the first time I asked you out if I had? Or the second time or the third?”
Her ex-fiancé, Bruce, had had a dog. He’d dumped her two days before their wedding.
“No.”
Pax watched her for a moment, then continued through the empty intersection. “And what about now?”
“I told you. This was a—”
“—mistake. Yeah. I remember. Why?”
She stifled a sigh. “Because!”
He raised an eyebrow. “Figured a journalist like you would be better in a war of words than that, sweetheart.”
“Even if I believed in relationships—which I do not—I wouldn’t be foolish enough to expect anything from you. And I don’t have time in my life to play around.” She was busy enough trying to keep her head above water between the Washtub and her gig with Cornelia.
His lips twisted. “You always have been hard on my ego.”
“Please.” She folded her arms across her chest. “Flirting is as second nature to you as breathing. Nothing I could say or do would dent your ego.”
“Why don’t you believe in relationships?”
She exhaled and looked out the side window again. Thankfully, her apartment was only a block away now. “Who in their right mind does? Just drop me at the top of the hill. If my street is icy, you won’t make it back up again because I’m pretty sure this little toy of yours isn’t sporting four-wheel drive.”
“I’ll have to let my parents know they’re not in their right minds.” His voice was mild. “Believing in relationships as they tend to do.”
“They’re the exception rather than the rule.”
“You’re what? Twenty-five? Twenty-six?”
“Twenty-eight.” And he was ten years her senior. His birthday had been in August, and Harvey’d had her camping outside the nightclub across from his apartment building with her camera to get photos of any gossip-worthy patrons coming in and out. He’d been practically gleeful when she’d shown him the ones of Pax and his dates. As in plural. He’d had three women clinging to him when he’d finally left the club in the wee hours of the morning. It’d been obvious they weren’t done celebrating when they’d crossed the street and headed inside his apartment building dragging a bobbing trio of “Happy Birthday” balloons behind them.
“That’s still too young to be so jaded,” he was saying.
She lifted her shoulder. “I learned early. Wait—” He’d turned onto her street and was creeping down the steep hill. “I said just let me off at the top!”
“And I ignored you.” The wheels crunched over the road, finally coming to a stop in front of her aging apartment building. He rested his wrist on top of the steering wheel and looked at her. “I do that whenever I hear nonsense.”
“Whenever you hear something you don’t want to hear, you mean.”
His lips twitched. “That, too.”
Her stomach swayed when his gaze dropped to her lips. She pressed them together and tried not to squirm in her seat. “Whether you want to hear it or not, we shouldn’t have, um, you know. Last night. That shouldn’t have happened.”
“Slept together? Got busy? Had sex?” His brown eyes were filled with devilish mirth. “Made love?”
She barely kept from clapping her hands over her ears. “We shouldn’t have had sex,” she managed sternly. “It doesn’t change anything.”
He reached out and twined a tangled lock of her hair around his finger. “Don’t be so sure about that, sweetheart.”
“I am sure.” She pulled her hair free, unsnapped her seat belt and shoved open the car door. Icy air swept in, overriding the car heater’s efforts, though it didn’t do diddly to douse the heat inside her. “Thanks for the ride home, Pax, but save yourself some time and look elsewhere for your next conquest. Lord knows there are plenty of women waiting to jump at the chance.” She grabbed her purse and leaped out of the car, shoving the door closed again before he could say anything else.
She hadn’t even begun picking her way across the icy sidewalk to the building entrance when she heard the whirr of the electric window going down behind her. “My parents are having a Christmas party on Christmas Eve. You should come with me. We can start off at my place with a drink.”
Exasperated, she looked back at him. “Pax—”
“I told you I ignored nonsense when I hear it. I’ll call you.” Then he gave her that trademark half-smile of his, rolled up the window with another whirr and drove back up the street that, by all rights, a car like that should have never been able to climb.
She blew out a shaky breath. “Darned shirt.”
Chapter Two
February
“She’s there.”
Pax looked up from the contract he was reading. His secretary, Ruth, was standing in the doorway to his office. “Excuse me?”
Ruth raised her eyebrows knowingly. “Shea Weatherby,” she said with exaggerated patience. “I just saw her head into Mrs. Hunt’s building next door. Don’t pretend you haven’t been waiting for her. You’d be over at the boat works if you weren’t.”
Pax’s fingers tightened around his pen, but he still looked down at the latest contract that Erik had landed as if he had all the time in the world. “Thanks for the heads up.”
Ruth let out a sound, half disbelief, half annoyance, and all Ruth. “Play hard to get if you want. It’s Valentine’s Day, so my mother is babysitting the kids and I’m leaving early to have dinner with my husband. I’ll come in tomorrow to finish up that schedule for the sailing camp this summer.”
He wasn’t worried about the schedule. He knew that she would cross every T and dot every I the same as she always did. “Just don’t go getting so romantic tonight you end up needing another maternity leave.”
Ruth laughed and walked away.
He waited until she closed things up for the day and locked the front door on her way out. Then he dropped his pen and turned away from the contract that he hadn’t been able to read a word of and shoved his hands through his hair.
It was like this nearly every Tuesday and Friday because those were the days that Shea went by Cornelia Hunt’s office to pick up or drop off her latest assignment. The fact that this Friday also happened to be Valentine’s Day was moot.
Also moot was trying to pretend that he wasn’t going to go next door and bum a cup of coffee off of them. Pretty damn pathetic that it was the only time he had a hope in hell of exchanging a few words with Shea Weatherby.
Sleeping with her during that ice storm before Christmas hadn’t changed a single thing where she was concerned. She still gave him the brush-off. It hadn’t changed a thing where he was concerned, either, except to cement even more firmly what he’d already known.
That he wanted her like crazy.
He had from the very first time she’d approached him with her notepad and pen, looked up at him with her enormous blue eyes and her long blond hair blowing around her shoulders in the breeze, and asked if he minded if she recorded their interview.
He’d looked into those eyes and felt the world stop. He’d thought that the heavens were really smiling on him when he’d learned that she’d be regularly doing some work for Cornelia Hunt next door. And then that his chances with her were looking up after that ice storm. He was a man used to getting what he went after and one night wasn’t enough.
But she had remained stubbornly resistant. She’d slept with him, yes. But she’d refused to see him again. Period.
He knew it wasn’t because she was uninterested.
So much of her was a mystery, but that wasn’t. It wasn’t arrogance or conceit that made him believe it, either. They’d been pussyfooting around their attraction for a good two and a half years, but the night of the ice storm, he’d hoped that they’d finally stopped playing.
He hadn’t even intended to do anything that night but keep her safe. The storm had stopped the city cold. Bridges and roads had been closed. Erik had been stuck out in Port Orchard and Pax had been at the office to take care of some paperwork. He’d seen Shea’s car parked in front of Cornelia’s building and so he’d waited around. Then, when the storm descended in earnest and her car hadn’t started...
Of course he’d given her shelter.
Only she’d kissed him. And given him hope.
After all this time of being shot down by her, she’d opened the door wide and he wasn’t the kind of man who ignored opportunities.
He shoved back from the desk, grabbed a coffee mug from the break room and went out the side door, crossing from the alleyway between his building and Cornelia’s to her front entrance. He went inside, passing by the discreet plaque affixed outside the door that said FGI.
He hadn’t known what the initials stood for until his partner had told him it stood for Fairy Godmothers, Inc. Erik had laughed wryly over it because he’d met his new fiancée through the business and it wasn’t a dating service at all, despite the sound of it.
As long as Erik was finally happy having fallen in love with Rory, Pax didn’t care if FGI was a dating service. But he knew Cornelia’s new business was about business—namely, helping give young women a start that they might not have otherwise been able to have.
It was one of the things Pax liked about the older woman. She cared about helping people. And she was surprisingly self-effacing and low-key for a woman who’d recently married one of the wealthiest men in the country, Harrison Hunt. He—and the computer company he’d founded, HuntCom—were household names.
What wasn’t low-key, though, was the interior of the building she’d bought several months ago. It had been in a constant state of renovation ever since, but it was clear that the place wasn’t going to be your ordinary office building. Now, the entryway was complete with a marble floor with inlaid medallions in the center, spurring a sense of guilt whenever he crossed it wearing his work boots. The space looked more like it needed to be hosting art exhibits.
Not that there was a lack of art in the space. Paintings were hung above the split, curving staircase that led to the upper landing where scaffolding was clearly visible. Pax was no expert on art, but he figured the impressionist paintings were likely originals given Harrison Hunt’s insistence that his new wife have nothing but the best.
“Good afternoon, Pax!” An attractive woman wearing glasses was descending the one side of the staircase that wasn’t cordoned off with heavy, milky white plastic. “Come for some coffee, did you?”
He lifted the mug in his hand in answer. “Hey, Phil.” Then he gestured at the plethora of red roses that were sitting in vases on every available surface, including some of the stairs. “This going to be part of the regular décor for FGI or just a comment on it being Valentine’s Day?”
Felicity Granger laughed lightly and plucked a rose from one of the staircase bouquets as she finished descending. She deftly broke off most of the stem, then reached out and tucked the tightly furled flower through a buttonhole near his collar. “Valentine’s Day, of course.” She looked around at the overwhelming floral display. “Mr. Hunt’s doing, naturally.” She smiled. “Cornelia tossed up her hands when they were delivered. I guess she figures if she can’t control her husband’s grandiose interference with the renovations here, she’s not going to be able to stop him from buying out half of the floral shops in Seattle.” Phil walked with Pax back to the fancy little break room that was better equipped than most kitchens. “I put on a fresh pot to brew when Shea arrived.” She gave Pax a sideways look. “I figured you wouldn’t be far behind.”
He grabbed the pot and dumped some in his mug. “I just came for the java.”
Phil nudged up her glasses and shrugged. “Twice a week now for how long? Month? Month and a half? When you have three minutes or so alone with her if you’re lucky? How’s that approach working for you?”
His neck felt hot. He was thirty-eight damn years old. Had been voted most eligible bachelor in Seattle three different times. Even before he and Erik hit the big time a decade ago after designing a sloop for one of Harrison’s sons, J.T., Pax had never had problems finding a date. But he couldn’t seem to get a particular short, curvy blonde to take him seriously at all. “FGI isn’t supposed to be a dating service,” he muttered. If it was, maybe he should consider hiring them to improve his chances.
Phil just laughed again. “Shea’s upstairs in Cornelia’s office but I’m pretty sure they’re nearly finished,” she said as she headed out of the break room. “In case you decide you want to try a more direct approach.”
Pax had visited the offices at the top of the stairs only once when Cornelia had given him a tour of the ongoing renovations. He damn sure wasn’t going to go up there now to hunt down Shea. Instead, he leaned back against the granite-topped counter and leisurely sipped his coffee.
It really was a helluva cup of coffee. And he knew Shea wasn’t likely to leave the place without first filling up the travel mug that she always had with her.
He knew the second she was heading down the staircase, not just because he could hear her voice as she spoke with Cornelia, but because his nerves twitched the way they always did whenever she was in the vicinity.
“Good afternoon, Pax,” Cornelia greeted when she walked into the small room, her softly lined face looking amused. “What a surprise to see you.”
Shea snorted softly. But instead of reaching for the coffeepot, she moved past Pax without looking at him and filled her travel mug with water from the dispenser sitting next to a built-in gas range. “Hardly a surprise when he seems to spend more time here than he does at his own office. Nearly every time I come by, he’s here.”
Pax saw the way Cornelia pressed her lips together and looked away, trying not to laugh.
Fortunately, Shea didn’t notice.
Her honey-gold hair was loose, streaming nearly to her waist. Her short jacket was the same chocolate color as his dog, Hooch. She often wore jeans and boots, but today she was wearing flat-heeled loafers, brown tights and a pleated orange skirt that ended just above her shapely knees.
When she straightened, he quickly looked up from her legs, and her wide eyes collided with his.
She had dark circles under eyes as if she were short of sleep, but she was still the sexiest woman he’d ever seen. “No coffee today?”
“Not today.” Her lashes dropped and she looked toward Cornelia. “I’ll get that background report to you right away.”
Cornelia smiled, her expression under control again. “I appreciate you putting a rush on this one. Phil found her for us, and we’re just waiting on your report to pair her with a mentor.” Her gaze took in Pax. “If she turns out to be our next client, I have an ideal match in mind. My son-in-law Gabe is in construction and one of his partners has been looking for a new challenge. I think her business plan might be right up his alley.”
Shea nodded, her eyes still avoiding Pax’s. She patted the oversized purse hanging from her shoulder and he guessed she probably had an email or a letter regarding Cornelia’s latest project inside. “I’ll get on it tonight.”
“Oh, don’t do that,” Cornelia tsked. “It’s Valentine’s Day. You should be out enjoying the evening. Your research can wait until morning.”
“I don’t have any plans.” Shea didn’t seem upset at that fact, either. “I’ll leave Valentine’s Day for the people who believe in all that—” she waved her hand slightly “—stuff.”
“Like my so-subtle Harrison?” Cornelia smiled. “He’s taken Valentine’s Day to a new level, as we all can see. The man has no sense of moderation.” She patted Shea’s shoulder and turned toward the doorway. “Take one of the bouquets on your way out,” she invited. “You, too, Pax. You can give it to Ruth or something.” She sailed out of the break room.
Shea’s gaze flicked up to his, then away again. She moistened her lips. Looked as if she were going to say something, only to shake her head once and tuck her hair behind her ear. “Enjoy the coffee,” she muttered and followed Cornelia out of the room.
Pax grimaced, left the coffee mug on the granite counter and went after her. “Shea. Wait.”
She stopped, spinning on her heel in the center of the marble foyer. “Pax, don’t. Please. I don’t have the energy right now.”
“Energy for what? I just wanted to say Happy Valentine’s Day.”
Her lips twisted. “Right.” She reached out and touched the rose Phil had stuck in his shirt. “Never figured you for the type who’d get excited over a Hallmark holiday.”
He wondered what she’d have to say when she got home and saw the delivery he’d arranged for her. “Valentine’s Day predates greeting card companies. What’s got you so tired? Your editor over at the Tub putting you on more stories or something?”
“Always plenty of silly stories and gossip.” Her foot edged toward the doorway as if she couldn’t wait to escape. “I’ve just been busy.”
“Are you seeing someone?”
There was no mistaking her surprise. “No!” Her gaze darted toward the empty staircase. “No,” she said more calmly. “I’ve told you before. I’m not interested in dating anyone.”
Pax didn’t particularly care if they were overheard by Cornelia or one of her employees. It wasn’t like it’d be news to them that he was pursuing Shea. “So I shouldn’t take it personally that you’ve been avoiding me even more than usual.”
She looked pained. “I’m not...avoiding you.”
He had ample evidence otherwise, but debating with her was pointless. “I know you decided somewhere along the way that I’m a player. That I’m not really serious where you—or anyone else—are concerned. But I’m still curious why you’re so opposed to—”
“—sexual hookups?” She looked around the foyer that was literally coming up roses. “Please don’t say romance.”
“I was going to say relationships,” he corrected blandly.
“We have a relationship—journalist and frequent subject.” She looked ready to say more, but all she did was rock on her heels a few times and tuck her hands inside the pockets of her short jacket. He couldn’t see any evidence that she wore a blouse beneath it, which had him fondly recalling the lacy bra she’d worn the night of the ice storm.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she whispered.
He closed his eyes. Her image still filled his head right along with her soft, slightly powdery scent. “Relationships with anyone outside of your work,” he clarified.
She was silent for so long, he wasn’t sure she was going to answer. “Because there’s no point,” she finally said. “They never work out.”
He opened his eyes, studying her for a moment. Wondering. And suddenly wanting more things than he wanted to admit. “You remind me of Erik.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “Your partner?” She stretched her arm above her head until it was straight. “About this tall. Dark hair. Gray eyes. Male. I remind you of him?”
Shea was short, blonde and beautifully female. “Until Erik met Rory in December, he was pretty jaded about relationships. Earned it from a bad marriage. You have one of those in your past, too?”
She didn’t look away from him, but it seemed like a curtain dropped down inside her eyes, hiding her thoughts. “Never been married,” she said evenly.
But there had been someone. Or something. He’d bet on it. “I’ve never been married, either.”
“I’ve interviewed you eight times. The subject has been covered to death.”
He grinned, wanting to lighten the tension in her expression. “So. You’ve been counting.”
She rolled her eyes, though he noticed the twitch of her lips. Which she swiftly controlled, naturally, being the jaded, tough nut that she claimed to be. Then she exhaled. “Pax, I—” She broke off when the front door opened and Belle St. John, one of Cornelia’s newer employees, came in, pushing a cart with several bulging bags of mail on it.
Pax had seen the sight more than once now, so he was no longer surprised by the quantity of mail sent to FGI’s post office box.
“Crazy, isn’t it,” Shea murmured while Belle rolled the cart through the arching doorway beneath the split staircases and into the conference room. “I wrote one article back in October where Joanna Spinelli called Cornelia her fairy godmother for helping finance her break into fashion designing. And out of the clear blue sky, people thinking they deserved a handout began coming out of the woodwork asking her for money. And not just for starting up legitimate businesses, either.”
Pax had read every one of Shea’s articles in The Seattle Washtub since they’d met, even the ones that were nothing more than who was doing what around town, and he remembered exactly the article in question. “Cornelia hadn’t even started up FGI at that point, had she?”
Shea shook her head and her hair slid over her shoulders, making his fingers tingle. He knew exactly how silky her hair was. How it felt sliding through his fingers. Draping over his chest.
She was still talking, thankfully oblivious to his thoughts. “Joanna’s a friend of one of her daughters. The article in the Tub went viral, though, and the next thing we knew, we were getting tons of mail for Cornelia at the paper.” She shrugged. “And the amount of emails that poured in for her was even higher. The volume actually knocked out our computer server for nearly a week. The response was just as heavy over at HuntCom, too.”
“Doubt the computers over there failed,” he said dryly. The international juggernaut was computers.
“Right?” She gave him a dry look. “Anyway, Cornelia was already thinking that she wanted to help more people the way she’d helped Joanna, and all that public response sealed the deal.”
“FGI was born.”
“Pretty much.” She looked around at the lavish foyer. “Helps when you’re married to a man who gives you sixty million or so as a wedding gift that you can invest right out of the gate. Cornelia’s already helped nearly three hundred women start their own small businesses. Everything from yarn shops to B&Bs to law firms.” She hitched her purse up on her shoulder. “It’s pretty impressive, actually.” Belle had reappeared again sans cart and Shea waited until she’d gone back upstairs. “Of course, Cornelia and the others have to read through a lot of ridiculous requests before they find a valid one.”
“Others being the fairy godmothers,” he added. “It wasn’t just a term of Joanna’s. That’s what they call themselves, isn’t it? And the women they select for their projects are called Cindys.” Erik and Rory had told him that.
She made a reluctant sound. “Cornelia values the anonymity of the women she helps even more than she values her own. So, yes. They’re...Cindys. As in Cinderella project.”
“But you’ve never called them that. Not in anything you’ve written about Cornelia’s business, anyway.”
“Because the terms are silly!” Her voice rose again and she jumped guiltily when a voice spoke her name from above them. They both looked up to see Phil standing at the top of the stairs.
“I’m glad you’re still inside.” Phil held up a colorful, woven key chain. “You forgot your keys again.”
Shea grimaced and met the other woman halfway up the stairs. “Thanks. Wouldn’t have gotten very far without them. Think I need to wear them around my neck or something.” She skipped back down the stairs and headed straight for the door. “See you all later,” she called out to nobody in particular before seeming to bolt out the door.
“Another successful effort, I see,” Phil told Pax after the door softly closed. “Have you ever thought about just asking Shea out?”
Pax exhaled. Before they’d slept together, he’d asked Shea out dozens of times and she’d always refused. Usually with a laugh that said she didn’t take him seriously at all. He folded his arms over the fancy, curving banister. “And what are you doing tonight, Phil?”