No Peeking...

Her pulse rocketed. A business trip with Dominick? “I…I can’t think…I mean, I don’t think—”

“I’ll double your hourly fees for the duration of the trip.”

Her eyebrows rose, along with visions of making an extra mortgage payment. “Wh-when were you planning to go?”

“I’m flying down tomorrow, returning on the twenty-sixth.”

“Oh, I couldn’t go,” Violet said, exhaling in near relief. “This is the busiest time of the year for my business.”

“Can’t your assistant take over?”

“No.” Violet knew she’d spend the few days before Christmas traveling all over the city wrapping gifts for people who realized they didn’t have time to do it themselves. “Besides, I’m spending Christmas Eve with my parents.”

“Oh.” He sounded disappointed—and a little surprised that she had other plans. “Well, what if I got you back Christmas Eve morning?”

“I…still don’t think that would be possible, sir. I have…commitments. I’m sure you can find someone else to assist you.”

“But I want you, Vee. You agreed to help me with this research.”

“Whatever I could find on the Internet or over the phone,” she reminded him.

“If money is the issue—”

“It isn’t,” she interrupted, looking for a way out, or at least a way to postpone the conversation. “Maybe after the first of the year…”

“That won’t work for me,” he said. “I’m leaving for Brazil in early January, and since another company is interested in buying Sunpiper, I need to move fast. If you’re worried about the sleeping arrangements, we would, of course, have separate rooms.”

Her midsection tightened at the mere mention of beds, proof of just how untenable it would be to travel with Dominick Burns when her mind insisted on spinning fantasies about him. “I’m afraid my answer is still no.”

“Okay,” he said with a sigh. “I’m heartbroken. We would’ve had a blast, Vee.”

“Thanks for the invitation,” she murmured. “Goodbye.” She hung up the handset, tingling all over. I’m heartbroken. We would’ve had a blast.

Apparently he wasn’t planning to spend the holidays with his family. He’d be in Miami, partying with half-naked women in the sun and surf. Violet knew he wouldn’t have any trouble finding someone else to go in her place to “help” him. In fact, if the rumors were to be believed, Dominick didn’t mind being helped by more than one woman at a time.

Lillian appeared at the door again. “Everything okay?”

“Fine,” Violet snapped, reaching for her calendar and a diversion. Feeling contrite, she forced a calming note into her voice. “Did anything materialize from the calls you returned yesterday?”

“One didn’t go anywhere, but the other two customers are supposed to stop by this afternoon to drop off gifts to be wrapped. I noticed all the paper and ribbon in the workroom,” she said, gesturing to the room behind her desk. “I have the price lists and I used to wrap gifts at Macy’s. I can take care of the packages and deliver them, too, if you want.”

Violet jotted notes, then stood and shrugged into her coat, already calculating how she could make it back in time to greet the customers herself. “I have to make a few pickups and deliveries this morning, as well as go by Ms. Kingsbury’s, and have lunch with my mother. But I should be back before two.”

“Is there anything I can do while you’re gone?” Lillian looked hopeful.

“No,” Violet said abruptly, then realized she was letting the tossed letter and the call with Dominick make her cranky. Neither situation was Lillian’s fault. She manufactured a smile as she swept through the door. “Just hold down the fort until I get back.”

“What if I happen to find the pink envelope you lost?”

Violet whirled around and leveled her gaze at the woman. “Burn it.”

4

JUGGLING HER COFFEE, her purse, the box of holiday decorations and the gifts, Violet unlocked her car door, her chest clicking with renewed annoyance at herself. She shouldn’t have opened the letter to begin with—it was causing her to get even more out of sorts than she usually did when she thought about Dominick. At least now that the letter was on its way to a landfill, she’d be able to forget the silly words she’d written back when she had been under the delusion that sex played a major role in a person’s life.

That might be true for other people. But since college, she’d come to the conclusion that she just wasn’t a sexual person, not like Nan, who made flirting look easy. Anytime a man talked to Violet, her practical mind skipped ahead to the inevitable disaster the relationship would become and her tongue would tie in knots. She didn’t stand a chance against the swarm of pretty, playful Southern girls that Atlanta had to offer up.

But she had her business, she reminded herself as she stopped to pick up and deliver dry cleaning at four different locations, selected twenty-five perfect poinsettias for a corporate holiday party and picked up six needlepoint stockings customized with the names of a client’s grandchildren.

Besides, she thought wryly while shopping for gourmet items on Ms. Kingsbury’s grocery list, she had more luck with the four-legged male types anyway. On impulse, Violet picked up a bag of treats for Winslow. Maybe if the dog ate more, he wouldn’t be so picky about where and when he did his business.

When she arrived at the gaily decorated brick home, the dog was waiting for her at the door with his leash in his mouth.

“He’s been sitting there all morning,” Ms. Kingsbury said. “I tried to take him out several times, but he wouldn’t go.”

Violet handed over the woman’s credit card from her “returns” shopping trip and set the bag of groceries on a table. “I’ll see what I can do. Is it okay if I give him a treat?”

“Whatever you like, dear. Sometimes I feel as if Winslow is more your dog than mine.”

After clicking the leash onto his collar, Violet retrieved a doggie treat from her pocket and let the popeyed Pekingese gobble it out of her hand. “Are you going to be a good boy today?”

He barked enthusiastically. Maybe she should take treats in her pocket the next time she went to a bar with Nan, Violet mused. On the short walk to the park, she called her friend to say goodbye before Nan left town.

“Nan Wellington.”

Violet could hear the clicking of a keyboard in the background. Nan was a staff writer for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “Are you busy?”

“Just counting the hours until I leave for Aruba,” Nan sang. “I wish you were going with me, but I know how much you’re looking forward to having Christmas with your folks.”

“Yes, I am.”

“You sound kind of down.”

“Don’t mind me, I’m just in a funk.”

“You’re never in a funk. What’s wrong?”

“Dominick Burns asked me to go with him to Miami over Christmas.”

The clicking stopped. “Are you kidding me?”

“He needed my help, of course. Strictly business.”

“Violet, tell me you said yes.”

“I can’t go, Nan. I’m swamped with clients, and I’m spending Christmas Eve with my folks, remember?”

“Oh, right. Well, can’t you come back early?”

“He offered. But that doesn’t help me take care of all the business I still have between now and then.”

“How many times do I have to tell you that’s what your new assistant is for!”

“I just don’t feel comfortable letting someone else take over.”

“Violet, I know you like to think that you have a special bond with your clients. But all they really want is to have things done for them, right?”

“Right,” Violet admitted.

“So you wouldn’t have hired this woman if she wasn’t qualified. Let her help you.”

“It’s not that simple,” Violet said. “I’ve been trying to delegate things to her, but because I’m not used to working with someone, there’s already been a mishap.”

“What kind of mishap?”

“I think she threw away a letter.”

“So call the sender and have them resend it. Mistakes happen, sweetie.”

“This was a personal letter. A handwritten letter.”

“From whom?” Nan asked, her voice brimming with curiosity.

“From…me. It was a letter I wrote to myself when I was in college.”

“Sounds cool. Did you find it in a yearbook or something?”

“No, the instructor sent it. The assignment was to write down your…thoughts. She promised to track us down and send the letter back to us ten years later.”

“To see how much things have changed?” Nan asked.

“Or not,” Violet murmured, realizing that for the first time, she was conceding she still entertained some of the fantasies she’d written about.

“What class was it for?”

Violet hesitated, then wet her lips. “Sex for Beginners.”

“Come again?”

“The class was called Sexual Psyche, but everyone referred to it as Sex for Beginners.”

“So that’s what goes on in those all-girls schools,” Nan teased.

“It was just one class,” Violet said, tingling with embarrassment.

“So what was in the letter? Your sexual experiences? Your fantasies?”

Violet didn’t respond.

“Oh, my God. You wrote down your sexual fantasies! What were they?”

“Never mind,” Violet said, exasperated. “It was a silly assignment.”

“I think it’s fascinating. In fact, it would make a great story for the paper.”

“No, it wouldn’t.” Violet was in a near panic at the thought of being exposed.

Nan sighed. “Okay. So the letter went into the incinerator by mistake?”

“Looks that way.”

“Did you at least get to read it?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“And…like I said, it was a silly assignment. I only brought it up as an example of why having an assistant isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

“You need to give her a chance. You’re never going to grow your company unless you hire people to work for you and delegate stuff to them.”

“I know. And when things slow down after the first of the year…I’ll think about it. I do hate the idea of passing up business. I could’ve earned a lot of extra money on this assignment.”

Nan’s wistful sigh breezed over the line. “But I guess it’s just as well that you didn’t take Dominick Burns up on his offer.”

Violet frowned. “Why?”

“Well, he is a notorious playboy. He’d probably get you down to Miami and try to have his way with you.”

Violet swallowed hard. “Do you think so?” she managed to say, her voice squeaking.

“Oh, sure. You’d probably have spent the entire time fighting off his advances.”

“Yeah, that would’ve been…awful.” Violet glanced down at Winslow, who had planted himself on the sidewalk, whining. “I guess I’d better go. Duty calls. Have a great time in Aruba.”

“I will,” Nan said. “Give your parents my best. I’ll call you when I get back in town.”

Violet said goodbye and disconnected the call, then went through the steps of cajoling Winslow to do his thing. When he was finished, she carried him back to the house to save time. He practically purred in her arms.

“He did great,” she said, handing him over to Patricia. “Merry Christmas, Ms. Kingsbury. Enjoy your time in Birmingham with your son and your grandchildren.”

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