Caroselli's Baby Chase (12 page)

“You showed acceptance when I walked into the conference room, and displayed confidence in me. In doing so, the team will be that much more likely to work well together. It was a nice thing to do.”

“I didn’t do it to be nice,” he said. Mostly he just did it to get laid. He wouldn’t seal the deal again by making her life hell.

“Whether you meant it or not, you were.”

“I’m still not convinced that just isn’t a big waste of time and money. Your methods—”

“Have never failed me before. Just ask my previous clients.”

“However,” he continued, “you’re here, and you’re obviously not leaving until the job is done, so there’s no good reason not to cooperate.” And after going over her plan today, he was slightly less skeptical than he’d been before. Not to mention that now that he really knew her, he couldn’t work up the will to disrespect her in front of his team. It just didn’t seem right.

“To be honest, it’s a bit annoying,” she said.

“What’s annoying?”

“Your niceness.”

“I could act like an ass if it would make you happy.”

“That’s the thing, I don’t think you know how to not be nice.”

“And that’s annoying?”

“A bit.”

There was no doubt about it, Carrie was in a class all by herself.

Ten

R
ob glanced over at Carrie, wearing a look that suggested she was just slightly left of center. Or maybe a little more than slightly.

“So, you prefer men who aren’t nice?” he said.

“I didn’t say that. I just said your niceness is annoying. It’s probably that I’m not used to it. I date a lot of jerks.”

“And you do this, why?”

She shrugged. “I just do. They’re the kind of man I naturally attract. It’s an inherited trait. With the exception of my biological father, my mom had lousy taste in men, and so did her mom.”

“Why do you think that is?”

“I’m sure the drinking hasn’t helped. Although my grandma has been sober since I was little.”

“And your mom?”

“She drinks every day. My real dad was killed in the Gulf War, which was when my mom started really drinking. As much as I love her, she was always very fragile. When she lost my dad, she just couldn’t handle it. We ended up moving in with my grandma because my mom couldn’t pull herself together. She would go to the bar after dinner, stay out until closing, sleep until I got home from school, then after dinner it was back to the bar. It was like that until she met my stepfather, Ben. He was older than her, with an ex-wife and two grown kids in Arizona.”

“And he was a jerk?” Rob asked.

“At first he was a godsend. He took care of my mom, and he paid attention to me. He took me to movies and out for ice cream and he would help me with my schoolwork. They were together for only a month when we moved in with him. That was when things started to change.”

“I’m assuming for the worse.”

“He was an alcoholic, too, but a functioning one. He only drank after work and on the weekends, but when he did drink, he drank a lot. And he was a mean drunk. I learned just how mean the first time I mouthed off to him.”

“What did he do?”

“Cracked me across the mouth.”

Rob glanced over at her. “He
hit
you?”

“It was backhanded, and only hard enough so that it stung. But as I’m sure you’ve noticed, I’m not the kind of person who keeps her opinions to herself, so it happened a lot.”

“Didn’t your mom stop him?”

“She tried once, but he got so mad that she never said anything again.”

“Did he hit her, too?”

“There was no need. She did whatever he asked, never argued. I guess in that respect she was the perfect wife.”

His grip seemed to tighten on the steering wheel. “Did you tell your grandmother?”

“No way. She was so relieved when Ben came along. She was sick a lot of the time and she didn’t have the energy or the patience to take care of my mom. She thought Ben was an angel sent down from heaven. I knew that if I told her what he was really like she would worry. I figured I could handle him on my own. And I did for the most part. My mouth did get me in trouble with my teachers occasionally, but I was an excellent student. It was my ticket out.”

“So you stayed there until you graduated?”

“Not quite. When I was sixteen he and I got into a huge fight. I came home three hours past curfew on a school night and he met me at the door.”

His brow furrowed, as if he were expecting something unpleasant. “And?”

“Words were exchanged, my mouth got away from me as usual, and I won’t deny that I said some pretty horrible things. Nothing that wasn’t true, though. He came unglued. He slapped me that time, his full palm against my cheek. It rattled my brain and split my lip and left a bruise the shape of his hand on my face.

“I told him I was going to call the police. He knew he’d crossed the line, so he jumped in his car and took off. He was gone all night. The police showed up around 6:00 a.m. to let us know that he’d been in an accident. He hit a tree and died instantly. There was an open booze bottle in the car, so they assumed it was a DUI, but after the autopsy they discovered that he’d had a heart attack. And he had advanced cirrhosis. He would have been dead in a couple of years anyway.”

“How did your mom take it?”

“Surprisingly well. The half-million-dollar insurance payout helped. Plus he had another fifty thousand in investments. She sold the house, bought a condo close to the beach. As far as I know, she’s happy.”

He shot her another glance. “As far as you know?”

“As you can imagine, there’s a fair amount of resentment there on my part, and me being me, I have a tough time putting a filter on it, so when we do talk she walks away from it feeling guilty, which just makes her drink more. Which makes me feel bad. We’re both better off if we don’t talk often, and when we do, we keep the conversations short. It’s not an ideal situation, but it works for us.”

“I couldn’t imagine not talking to at least one of my parents every day,” Rob said, stopping at a red light. “But I guess that comes with being a part of a family business.”

“How long have you worked for Caroselli Chocolate?”

“Since birth practically. But I wasn’t officially hired until I was thirteen and I started working part-time in one of the stores. When I graduated from college I moved to the main office.”

“What did you do then?”

“I started out in the mail room, then worked my way up to the marketing department.”

That surprised her. “You had a marketing degree and they started you in the
mail room?
”

“Everyone in the family pays their dues. There’s no special treatment and it’s very competitive. That includes salary. I could leave the company and go to a marketing firm and almost double my salary. I make most of my money in profit sharing.”

“Is there anyone in your family who doesn’t work for Caroselli Chocolate?”

Rob pulled down her street. “Tony’s sister Christine is mostly a stay-at-home mom. Same thing with Nick’s sister Jessica, but they both help out in the stores when they’re short-staffed, or around the chocolate holidays.”

“Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween, Easter and Valentine’s Day,” she said.

“Very good.”

She smiled smugly. “I do my homework. You would be stunned by how much I know about the chocolate industry.”

Rob swung the SUV into the driveway, and right away Carrie noticed that something was off. It took several seconds to realize what it was.

“The light is on in the living room.”

Rob peered through the windshield to the front of the condo. “So it is. Do you keep it on a timer?”

“No. And it wasn’t on when I left this morning.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure.” First she couldn’t close a door, now she was incapable of remembering if she left a light on? Or was she reading way too much into every little thing he said, trying to make him into a bad guy even if he really wasn’t? And if so, what did that mean?

Nothing very good, she was pretty sure about that.

She pulled the garage door opener out of her purse. “I planned to go in through the garage, so I left the kitchen light on.”

“Maybe the ghost turned it on,” he said, and she shot him a scathing look. He shrugged. “Or maybe not.”

“I know you think you’re funny, but you’re not.”

Opening doors was one thing, but lights that turned themselves on? It was more likely a burglar than anything supernatural…which was even worse now that she thought about it.

She hit the button for the garage door opener, thinking that whoever it was, if they heard it, would come flying out the front door.

No one did. Still, she was uneasy about just waltzing inside. What if someone was in there waiting for her? Someone too stupid to shut off the light that would alert her to his presence. Just because he was stupid didn’t mean he wasn’t dangerous.

“You look worried,” Rob said.

“Wouldn’t you be?”

“Not if I had a poltergeist living in my basement.”

She didn’t justify that one with a verbal response, but her eye roll said it all.

“You want me to come inside with you just in case?”

She hesitated. The last thing she wanted was Rob, with his sexy stubble, smoldering eyes and ripped muscles, coming into her house and oozing sex appeal all over the place. Sure, he’d been a perfect gentleman all day, but what if he suddenly decided that the platonic arrangement wasn’t working for him and he made a move on her?

And suppose there was a deranged psycho in her house waiting to chop her into little pieces and feed her to his pet python? Or make a coat out of her flesh? Which was worse? Death and mutilation or really good sex she shouldn’t be having?

Wow, that was a tough one.

“Would you mind?” she asked. “Just in case.”

“If I minded I wouldn’t have asked. Although if there really was someone in there, hearing the garage door opening probably would have scared them off.”

“I’m not sure that’s a chance I’m willing to take.”

“Let’s go.” He shut off the engine and they both got out. “Let me go in first,” he said as they walked through the garage. To do otherwise would sort of defeat the purpose of asking him in, but she followed close behind him, stopping just shy of clinging to the back of his black wool coat. So close that when he stopped just before the door, she nearly ran into him.

“Key?” he said, holding out his hand.

“Oh, right.” She dug through her purse and pulled it out. She grabbed her phone, too, just in case she had to make a quick call to 9-1-1.

He unlocked the door and pushed it open. The kitchen light was on, just as she had left it, and of course the basement door was open. She followed Rob inside, closing it as she walked past. For all the good it would do. The next time she walked back here it would probably be open again.

As they stepped into the kitchen, the first thing she noticed was the open, half-empty bottle of wine on the counter.

“Did you leave that there?” he asked.

“Why yes, I always have a glass of wine with my breakfast.”

He was the one giving the look this time.

“When I left this morning it was in the refrigerator.”

He pulled off one leather glove and touched the bottle. “It’s still cold.”

Who would break into her house and drink a glass of wine?

“I don’t suppose you’ve started smoking,” he said.

“No, why?”

He pointed to the kitchen table, where a pack of cigarettes and an old, beat-up silver Zippo lighter lay. She hadn’t seen that particular lighter in something like eight years. She gave a sigh of relief to know that they weren’t in any imminent danger. At least he wasn’t. But Carrie had the feeling she was in for the lecture of her life.

“Alice!” Carrie shouted. “Get in here.”

* * *

Alice?

Rob looked over at Carrie. Who the hell was Alice?

Before he could ask, a woman appeared in the kitchen doorway. She was nearly as tall as Rob and thin to the point of being gaunt. Silky, pin-straight, jet-black hair framed a face that was as long and thin as the rest of her. She was more striking than beautiful, the kind of woman who would stand out in a crowd.

Dynamic.

“Rob, this is my best friend, Alice,” Carrie said. He recalled her mentioning a friend of that name when they were at the diner. He didn’t realize that she lived in Chicago.

“Rob?” Alice said, looking him up and down, her crimson lips curling into a slightly lopsided, wry smile. “As in Rob Caroselli, aka Mr. New Year’s Eve?”

“The one and only,” he said, noticing, as she stepped over to offer him a delicate yet long-fingered hand to shake, she seemed to be walking with a slight limp. She wore black leggings and a long black tunic top. Even her shoes, well-worn ballet flats, were black.

“What are you doing here?” Carrie asked her.

“I haven’t been able to reach you in days and assumed you were up to something, which—” she looked pointedly at Rob “—clearly you are.”

“He just gave me a ride home. I haven’t had a chance to lease a car yet.”

Skepticism narrowed Alice’s eyes, which were slightly turned up in the corners and an unearthly shade of violet. “Does he always walk you inside?”

“We thought someone had broken in! And by the way, how
did
you get in?”

“How long have we known each other?” Alice said. “You always keep a spare near the front door. It was just a matter of finding it.”

Rob looked at Carrie. “You keep a spare key by the
front door?
”

She shook her head and said, “Not now, please.”

Alice folded her long, skinny arms under her nearly nonexistent breasts. “You
promised
.”

Promised what? Rob wondered.

“I see you’re smoking again,” Carrie shot back.

Nice deflection.

“I got
dumped,
” Alice said. “What’s your excuse?”

Whatever Alice was referring to, it would seem that Carrie had no excuse. Or she couldn’t think of one just then.

“That’s what I thought,” Alice said. “You clearly need supervision.”