Calling All the Shots (15 page)

Epilogue

I
t was January 2 and Jack and Willow were
in New York to film a wrap-up session ending the first season of
Sexy & Single.
It was hard to believe as he stood
in the green room munching on the exotic fruit that Kat had specifically brought
over to him that six couples were now together thanks to this show.

Conner waved at Jack as he entered the room. He wasn’t going to
be part of the taping but had come down today with Nichole because after they
were done Gail, Russell, Nichole, Conner, Willow and himself were heading to the
Bahamas for a week’s vacation.

“Jack, we haven’t had a chance to talk alone, but I wanted to
apologize for my part in the mess with you and Willow,” Conner said, coming over
to shake his hand.

“You have nothing to apologize for. I never held you
responsible in any way,” Jack said.

“I’m glad. I felt like an idiot afterward,” Conner said.

“Don’t. I needed to know what Willow had done,” Jack said.

“I’m glad there are no hard feelings,” Conner said. “I heard
through the grapevine you made an offer on a house in the Hamptons.”

“I did. But what grapevine? Contracts haven’t even been signed
yet,” Jack asked.

“Mother. She has her finger on all the gossip out there,”
Conner said with a laugh. Nichole came into the room, positively glowing in her
designer maternity dress. Her thick red hair hung in soft waves to her shoulders
and she smiled over at Conner with such love and tenderness that Jack had to
look away.

“Later,” Conner said, walking over to his wife and pulling her
into his arms to kiss her.

“Hello, everyone,” Fiona McCaw-Cannon said as she entered the
room at a very slow pace, leading Bella Ann by the hand. Alex was at the baby’s
side, holding her other little hand in his.

“Hello,” Jack said. “I see Bella Ann has grown.”

“Yes, and she can talk now,” Alex said, beaming down at his
stepdaughter like she was the most clever person he knew. Alex scooped the baby
up and turned to Jack. “Say hello to Jack.”

“Hello,” the little girl said. She waved over at him but in
that backward way that kids did so it looked like she was waving at herself.

Fiona laughed. “He’s such a proud papa.”

Alex snaked his arm around his wife and kissed her on the
cheek. “When a man is as lucky as I am he’s bound to brag about it.”

“Fair enough,” Fiona said.

“I guess it’s safe to say you are both happy with Matchmakers,
Inc.,” Conner said.

“Definitely. I have recommended your company to a number of my
friends,” Fiona said.

Next to enter the room were Rikki and Paul, the third couple to
be on the show. Rikki was a party planner who was even more of a control freak
than Willow, Jack thought. But quiet, mild-mannered corporate lawyer Paul had
found a way to tame her. Deidre and Peter entered and both of them gave him a
little wave before the soundman drew them away to be fitted with microphones.
They were headed to Peter’s home in Raleigh-Durham after the taping for a little
one-on-one time before the racing season started. Because Deidre worked from
home writing her advice columns, she planned to travel to all of the races with
Peter this year.

“Before we go in for the taping,” Peter said, coming over to
him, “I wanted to let you know that I asked Deidre to marry me on New Year’s Eve
and she said yes. We’ll be getting married next November after my racing season
ends.”

“Congratulations,” Jack said, shaking the other man’s hand.
“Willow and I are engaged as well. I asked her at Christmas.”

“Given that he had to work New Year’s,” Willow said, coming up
behind him, “that was his only option.”

Jack gave her a hug and she hugged him back. He had never
thought he could be as happy with another person as he was with Willow. Every
day together they’d grown more comfortable with their love and both of them were
relaxing their guard around each other.

“Gail and Russell are in the building and will be up here in a
minute. I need everyone to start making their way to the set so we can get in
position,” Willow said.

“Conner, there’s still time for you to change your mind and
join us,” Willow said

“No way. I’m still more comfortable being a recluse.”

“Yes, you are,” Nichole said, giving him a kiss.

The rest of the couples left the room to go to the set as
Russell and Gail entered. “Sorry we’re late. We just came from the adoption
agency....”

“Yes?” Nichole asked.

“They have a child for us. Two children, actually. A
three-year-old girl and her eighteen-month-old brother,” Russell said. “I hope
you don’t mind but that took precedence over getting here on time.”

“Congratulations,” Willow said as she and Nichole hugged
Gail.

Conner and Russell looked at Jack and he just shook his head.
“I’m not hugging you, dude, but I’m happy for you.”

“Thanks,” Russell said. “I wasn’t about to let you hug me,
mate.”

Conner just shook his head.

“Let’s go, you guys. Everyone wants to get this shoot done so
they can get back to their lives,” Kat said, coming in.

“We’re coming,” Willow said.

But when Jack started to follow them, she caught his hand and
pulled him to a stop. “Thank you.”

“For?”

“Being so stubborn and not letting me keep saying no to you,”
she said.

He pulled her into his arms and kissed her long and hard. “You
are very welcome. It seems once again I was right.”

“Right?”

“You can’t live without me,” he said.

“And you can’t live without me,” she said. “I guess that makes
us even.”

It didn’t feel even to him. Willow had given him something that
he’d never thought was missing in his life and he was so happy to have her as
his own.

* * * * *

Keep reading for an excerpt from
Up Close and
Personal
by Maureen Child!

We hope you enjoyed this Harlequin Desire story.

You can’t help it—you’re attracted to power! Harlequin Desire
stories feature heroes who have it all: wealth, status, incredible good
looks…everything but the right woman. Add some secrets, maybe a scandal, and
start turning pages!

Visit
Harlequin.com
to find your next great
read.

We like you—why not like us on Facebook:
Facebook.com/HarlequinBooks

Follow us on Twitter:
Twitter.com/HarlequinBooks

Read our blog for all the latest news on our authors and books:
HarlequinBlog.com

Subscribe to our newsletter for special offers, new releases,
and more!

Harlequin.com/newsletters

One

“L
aura, I know you’re in there!”

Ronan Connolly pounded on the brightly painted blue front door
a few more times, then paused to listen. Not a sound from inside the house,
though he knew too well that Laura was in there. Hell, he could practically
feel
her, standing just on the other side of the
damned door.

Bloody hardheaded woman. How had he ever thought that quality
attractive? Now that attractive hardheadedness had come back to bite him in the
ass.

Seconds ticked past and there was no sound from within, which
only irritated him further. He glanced at the sunshine-yellow Volkswagen parked
alongside the house—her car—then glared again at the still-closed front
door.

“You won’t convince me you’re not at home. Your bloody car is
parked in the street, Laura.”

Her voice came then, muffled but clear. “It’s a driveway in
America, Ronan. You’re not in Ireland, remember?”

“More’s the pity.” He scrubbed one hand across his face and
rolled his eyes in frustration. If they were in Ireland right now, he’d have
half the village of Dunley on his side and he’d bloody well get her to open the
damned door.

“I heard that,” she said. “And feel free to hop onto one of
your private planes and go back to Connolly-land anytime you feel like it!”

If only he could, Ronan thought. But he’d come to California to
open an American branch of his business and until Cosain was running as it
should, he was going nowhere at all.

At the moment though, he was tired, on edge and in no mood to
be dealing with more females. Especially one with a head as hard as Laura’s.

He had spent the past six weeks traveling across Europe acting
as bodyguard to a sixteen-year-old pop star whose singing was only slightly less
annoying than her attitude. Between the girl and her grasping mother, Ronan had
been more than ready for the job to end so he could get back to his life. Now
that he was back, he’d expected peace. Orderliness. Instead…

Grinding his teeth together, he took a long moment or two and
counted to ten. Then did it a second time. “Whatever the hell you want to call
it, Laura, your car is
here
and so’re you.”

“I might have been out,” she shouted. “Did you ever think of
that? I do have friends, you know.”

The Connolly temper lifted a couple notches inside him and
Ronan was forced to fight it back down.

“But you’re not out, are you?” he asked, entirely reasonably,
and he gave himself points for it. “You’re here, driving me to distraction and
making me shout at a bloody closed door like I’m the village idiot turned loose
on his own for the first time.”

“You don’t have to shout, I can hear you,” she said, her voice
carrying nicely through the door.

Laura Page lived on a tidy street in Huntington Beach,
California, in one of a dozen town houses built to look like a Cape Cod village.
When he’d first seen her place, he’d thought it charming. Now he glared at the
building as if it were to blame for his current situation.

A cool ocean breeze shot down the narrow street and rattled the
limbs of the nearly naked elm tree in Laura’s front yard. Roiling gray clouds
overhead promised a storm soon, and he hoped to hell he wasn’t still standing on
this bleeding porch when it hit.

“Your neighbors can hear me, too,” he pointed out with a brief
nod at the man clipping his hedge with enough vigor to whittle it into a
toothpick. “Why not open the door and we can talk this out. Together. In
private.”

“I’ve got nothing to say to you.”

He laughed shortly. That would be a first indeed, he told
himself. A more opinionated woman he had never met. In the beginning, he’d liked
that about her. Too often, he was surrounded by smiling, vacuous women who
agreed with everything he said and laughed at the lamest of jokes just to
ingratiate themselves with him.

But not Laura.

No, from the first, she had been stubborn and argumentative and
unimpressed with his wealth or celebrity. He had to admit, he had enjoyed
verbally sparring with her. He admired a quick mind and a sharp tongue. He’d
admired her even more once he’d gotten her into his bed.

He glanced down at the dozen red roses he held clutched in his
right hand and called himself a damned fool for thinking this woman would be
swayed by pretty flowers and a smooth speech. Hell, she hadn’t even
seen
the flowers yet. And at this rate, she never
would.

Huffing out an impatient breath, he lowered his voice a bit.
“You know why I’m here. Let’s get it done and have it over then.”

There was a moment’s pause, as if she were thinking about what
he’d said. Then she spoke up again. “You can’t have him.”

“What?”

“You heard me,” she called back and Ronan narrowed his gaze
fiercely on the door as if he could see through the panel to the woman
beyond.

“Aye, I heard you. Though I don’t believe it. I’ve come for
what’s mine, and I’m not leaving until I have it.”

“
Yours?
You’ve been gone two
months, Ronan. What makes you think anything is still
yours
?”

Tossing the roses to the ground, Ronan set his hands on either
side of the door and leaned in. “Laura, I’ve been on a bloody plane for ten
hours, listening to a teenage girl list the reasons she is to be adored. I’ve
had her mother bitching about everything from the type of bottled water on the
jet to the fluffiness of her pillow. I’m a man on the edge, love. All I’ve
thought of for these last weeks is getting back to my house on the cliffs and
seeing my damned
dog
. I’m not leaving without
him.”

The door was yanked open suddenly and there she stood. Five
feet nine inches of curvy blonde with a pair of blue eyes as clear and lovely as
a summer sky. Even in her worn jeans and button-down white shirt, she took his
damned breath away, and he resented that fact down to his bones.

She kept one hand on the door and the other braced against the
doorjamb as if she’d be enough to keep him out if he decided he wanted in.

Ronan glanced down and saw
his
dog
leaning into her with slavish adoration. He scowled at the animal he called
Beast, and the dog paid him no attention whatsoever. “A few weeks gone and
you’ve dismissed me?” he asked the dog in a withering tone. “What kind of
loyalty is that from man’s best friend?”

The dog whined and leaned even more heavily into Laura’s side
until she staggered a little under his weight.

“A ‘best friend’ wouldn’t have abandoned him,” Laura said.

“He wasn’t put out into a jungle forced to hunt for his own
food,” Ronan countered. “My cousin Sean—”

“Left him with me when he went back to Ireland. You can see now
that Beast is fine. He’s happy here. With me.”

“That may be,” Ronan told her after sparing his traitorous
hound another hard glare. “But he’s not yours, is he?”

“He’s in my house. That makes him mine.”

“He’s only
in
your house because
Sean asked you to look out for him until I got back.”

And for that, Ronan owed his cousin a punch in the face. Called
back to Ireland unexpectedly, Sean had asked Laura to watch Beast in order to
save the animal a monthlong stay in a kennel. Which Ronan hadn’t found out about
until it was too late to change anything. Yes, it had been the right choice for
the dog. But for Ronan?

He hadn’t seen Laura since he ended their affair two months
ago. Though he couldn’t exactly claim to have shut her out of his mind. Hell, he
had taken the bodyguard job for the teenage singer himself, rather than handing
it to one of his employees, only so that he could get a little distance from the
woman standing so temptingly close to him at the moment. Distance hadn’t helped.
He’d thought of her. Dreamed of her, and awakened nearly every morning with his
body tight and ready for her.

Even now, the lush, slightly floral scent of her reached out to
him as if to tease every sense memory he had of touching her, tasting her, being
inside her…

“Ronan,” she said in a patient tone that interrupted his
musings, “we both know Beast is better off with me. You’re not exactly a good
dog parent—”

“I’m not his father, I’m his bloody owner,” Ronan
countered.

She ignored him. “Soon enough you’ll be going back to Ireland
and—”

“Taking Beast with me,” he finished for her.

In truth, he hadn’t really considered what he would do with
Beast when his time in America was over. But right now, the decision seemed an
easy one. Even fighting the quarantine laws to get the dog home to Ireland would
seem like a vacation after dealing with Laura Page.

Jaw tight, he looked deeply into those calm blue eyes and
wondered if she was as unaffected by him as she seemed. Had she forgotten him so
quickly? Gotten over him so completely? A lowering thought for a man to
consider.

Brushing aside what had once been between them, he said, “Beast
is mine, and I always intended to take him home to Ireland with me when I go.
Nothing’s changed.”

“Sure it has,” she said, taking a step toward him, dislodging
the dog so that he nearly toppled over. “You have a dog back home, right?”

“Aye. Deirdre.”

“And it’s been how long since you’ve seen her?”

“That’s nothing to do with this.”

“It’s
everything
to do with it,”
she countered, folding her arms beneath her breasts. “A dog needs more than a
visit every couple of months. A dog needs love. Companionship. Someone he can
count on. Someone who will
be
there.”

Frowning, Ronan looked hard at her. This was the reason he had
stepped back from their relationship in the first place. The woman had hearth
and home and forever practically stenciled on her forehead. She was a woman who
wanted and
deserved
to be loved. He just wasn’t the
man to give that to her. So he’d ended their affair before things got even more
complicated than they had been already.

“Are you talking about Beast now, Laura, or yourself?”

She gaped at him. “Your ego knows no bounds, does it? Do you
really think I’ve been sitting here moping? Missing you?”

Actually, yes. He did. And the more fired up she got, the more
he knew she was no more over him than he was her.

“This isn’t about us, Ronan. It’s about Beast, and you can’t
have him. You don’t
deserve
him.”

Before he could counter, she slammed the door in his face and
Ronan heard the lock snap into place. Stunned, he stared at the closed door for
a long minute. He could hardly believe it. No one shut a door in Ronan
Connolly’s face, for pity’s sake.

He heard her inside, cooing to Beast, assuring him that he was
safe from bullies and that was nearly enough to have Ronan pounding on her door
again. But he thought better of it. Let her believe she’d won this battle. It
would make her complacent and that much easier to get around later.

Still furious, he turned sharply, stomped on the fallen roses
and left.

But he’d be back. Connollys didn’t know how to quit.

* * *

“It’s all right, sweetie,” Laura said to Beast as she
scrubbed the top of his head and scratched behind his ears. “The mean man is
gone.”

Laura was trembling by the time she heard Ronan’s sports car
fire up and zoom off. Oh, not from the argument. She had known that
confrontation was coming for weeks. But actually seeing him again had been much
harder than she’d thought it would be.

Looking up into those dark blue eyes of his, she’d watched them
flash with temper and had been just as stirred as when she’d seen them darken
with passion or glitter with a cool, businesslike gleam.

Tall, broad-shouldered, with chestnut hair that showed just a
hint of red in the sunlight, he wore business suits and jeans with the same
casual air that made him both intimidating and irresistible. And apparently two
months apart hadn’t dimmed her reaction to him at all.

From the moment he had first walked into her real estate office
several months ago, Laura had known that she was in trouble. Oh, she and her
sister had sold homes to unspeakably rich people before, but there had never
been the slightest temptation to fit herself into their world. With Ronan, it
had been different from the start.

Everything in her still wanted him, even though her mind knew
better. He’d been out of her life for two months and that was as it should be.
After all, she had known going into that mind-dazzling affair that it couldn’t
last. He was rich; she wasn’t. He was Ferrari and she was Volkswagen. He lived
in Ireland. And she’d be staying in California.

She sighed a little, then looked down at the dog each of them
wanted. Beast was big, at least a hundred pounds and his black hair was full and
shaggy, clumps of it usually falling across his eyes. No one knew what mixture
of breeds he might be, but privately, Laura had often thought a pony must have
been involved somewhere in his lineage.

Now, Beast looked up at her as if sympathizing with the
situation, and Laura smiled.

“Sure,” she whispered, still stroking Beast’s head, “I knew
Ronan would be trouble from the first. But a gorgeous, successful man with an
Irish accent that makes my bones melt? How was I supposed to fight that?”

The dog gave her one long swiping kiss and she laughed. In his
own way, Beast was as charming as his master—just another reason she wouldn’t
give him up. Then she stood and walked to the kitchen, hearing Beast’s claws
clatter on the floorboards behind her.

“Well,” her sister, Georgia, spoke up from the kitchen table.
“That was dignified.”

Laura poured herself a cup of coffee, then carried it across
the room to take the chair opposite her sister. “I wasn’t going for
dignified.”