Construction Beauty Queen (14 page)

Matt looked around for someone to hand off the spatula to. Connor had disappeared, but it didn’t matter. The once-perfect burgers had charred beyond recognition. He pushed the meat to the edge of the coals and left it there.

“Yes, they are. I found them.” Stephanie pulled on the toes of the shoes as hard as Jenny pulled on her end.

“Girls, what are you fighting about?” Veronica asked, reaching the children before Matt could.

“These are
your
shoes. She’s trying to take them,” Jenny said, her face screwed up in an adorable tough-girl stance.

“They
were
my shoes,” Veronica agreed with Jenny. She looked at Stephanie. “But I didn’t take very good care of them, did I?”

Stephanie met her gaze and shook her head.

“If you had shoes like those, would you take good care of them?”

She nodded solemnly.

Matt stood still, not wanting to interrupt when she was handling the situation so well on her own.

“Then here’s the deal.” Veronica crouched in front of both girls. “You can have my shoes. I think they’ll be great for playing dress-up. I bet you and Jenny could play with them together.” She put her arm around Jenny, and his niece reluctantly released the footwear. “You know what else you girls need?”

Matt knew what he needed. He needed Veronica to put her arm around him and look at him with that same serious intensity. On second thought, he wouldn’t be able to control his needs if she did.

“An awesome bracelet to go with the shoes.” Veronica continued talking to the girls as she slid two thin silver bangles off her arm and handed one to each girl.

Stephanie accepted hers warily. “Do I have to give it back?”

“Definitely not. If you can take care of the shoes and bracelet better than I did, then they deserve to be with you forever.”

The girl smiled at Veronica for the first time. “Thank you. Jenny and I are going to be the fanciest ladies ever.” She clutched her new shoes to her chest and grabbed Jenny’s hand. Their matching bracelets rattled as they ran off together.

Matt closed the distance as Veronica straightened, rubbing her knees where the soft ground had left damp imprints. “Why did you do that?” he asked.

“Let’s see, because I have fifty other pairs of black shoes, because I prefer gold to silver, because I’m bribing the kid so her great-aunt will consider selling me that awesome farmhouse just outside of town, because I get off on flaunting my wealth. I’m sure you could come up with a laundry list of reasons.”

She’d pegged him. He was guilty. She’d been proving him wrong and destroying his misconceptions from the beginning. Everyone else at this picnic had reversed their opinions of her. Although he was beginning to understand what Veronica wasn’t, he still didn’t know who she was. How could he comprehend what he could offer her if he couldn’t figure out her motivation? “Why, Veronica?”

She shrugged, rippling her oversized shirt with her shoulders. He could too easily envision her climbing out of his bed and wearing one of his shirts as she padded around his house. “Because wearing those shoes made Stephanie happy.”

“And your goal is to make people happy?”

“It certainly beats making them unhappy.” She stepped toward him and lifted her hands to his shoulders. “What can I do to win you over?”

Matt looked her up and down. He couldn’t admit that she already had. The more she focused her gaze on him and touched him, the deeper he was drawn in. “Another kiss would probably do the trick. But I’d settle for you coming to work on Monday wearing that T-shirt.”

Chapter Nine

Veronica didn’t kiss Matt, and she didn’t make any foolish, flirty promises about what she’d be wearing come Monday morning. Not that she hadn’t been tempted to do both.

The picnic was winding down. Her mother had long since left to prepare for the dinner party in the city, and Ron had disappeared about the same time.

Before Veronica could move forward with Matt, she needed to call Paige and tell her to cancel the application to the Help the Less Fortunate foundation. She finally felt that Kortville had enough local passion to make the food pantry and community closet come to fruition without outside help. And that meant she was free to cut her final ties to Trevor.

“Veronica, thank you so much for your dedication to the community needs center,” Agatha said. “I now have faith that we’re going to get it off the ground regardless of what Ron decides to do with his money. This is a lifelong dream of Wilbur’s, and we never could have done it without the financial support from the Help the Less Fortunate foundation.”

She nearly choked. “They contacted you?”

“Someone by the name of Mr. Cunningham the Fourth. He said they’d give us everything we asked for. I don’t even know what we asked for.”

All the progress and contacts and possibilities Veronica had seen coming to light today slipped through her fingers. She’d made her decision to scrounge and improvise, instead of taking Trevor’s money. Except he had gone ahead and held up his end of the deal. Everything would be taken care of. She looked at Matt heading to his pickup with Jenny. Everything except what she wanted.

She forced a smile for Agatha. “I’m glad I can do something that makes a difference.”

“Honey, you’ve made a huge difference. We are so proud to have you call Kortville home.” Agatha wrapped her arms around Veronica and hugged her hard.

Veronica’s stomach clenched. This was her town, and she couldn’t let it down. As Agatha walked away, she opened her phone and dialed. “Paige, where’s that car you promised me?”

“You read my mind.” She laughed. “We’re in a limousine, entering the edge of town.”

Her one hope that logistics would make the journey to Chicago impossible tonight was dashed. “We?” If she had to do this, she at least hoped to have the four-hour drive to mentally prepare herself.

“I talked Trevor into coming with me. Where are you right now?”

She gave Paige directions to the park and waited by her defunct car for the limousine to show up.

It pulled around the corner just as Matt got back out of his truck and walked toward her. “I can give you a ride to your trailer if you need.”

“Thanks, but I’ve got one.” She willed him to leave quickly. Seeing her jump into the back of a limo would reaffirm every spoiled thought he’d had about her since they’d met.

The limo pulled to a stop. The back door opened, and Trevor himself stepped out, wearing a starched suit and blinking in the sunlight. His eyes widened in horror as he focused on her. “Get in before anyone sees you looking like that.”

Hello to you, too
, Veronica thought. “What’s wrong with how I look?”

“You look like a teenager who just rolled out of bed.”

The T-shirt she’d pulled on over her dress had helped the townspeople see her as one of them and had made Matt look at her with the same gleam that Barney’s dog had when he was eyeing the unattended plate of burgers earlier. “It’s an unintimidating look. People here seemed to like it.”

Trevor adjusted his earpiece, no doubt tuning in to a phone conversation only he could hear. He glanced back into the limo. “Paige, are you taking notes on the Myers offer?”

“Yes, sir,” was the faint reply from inside. With both of them consumed by their earpiece conversation, Veronica would essentially be alone with her thoughts after all.

Trevor held the door and motioned for her to climb in. “I hope you have a change of clothes and some shoes for tonight. We’re already running late.”

“What are you doing?” Matt asked, his voice low.

She hazarded a glance at him. His jaw was clenched, and his gaze was lethal. It was sweet that he was so protective of her. “Trevor, this is Matt Shaw, my boss at Kortville Construction. Matt, this is Trevor Cunningham the Fourth.”

Trevor held out his hand and added, “Veronica’s fiancé.”

…

Matt looked from the hand to the prick it was attached to and then to Veronica. She looked surprised as well as guilty. Apparently, she thought she could play him and assume he’d never find out the truth.

And he had been played. She’d kept up the sham of construction work with such dedication that he’d believed she was doing it for the career she’d claimed she wanted to start. Then she’d shuddered and melted with such conviction in his arms that he’d believed her attraction to him was genuine, that the other guy had never touched her, that she was thinking of no one but Matt.

He squeezed the guy’s soft, cold hand. It was immature, but he didn’t care. In fact, he hoped he broke a few fingers. Matt felt like the clichéd all-brawn, no-brains lowlife who someone else’s fiancé had been slumming with.

“I assume you’ll have her back for work by seven a.m. sharp on Monday,” Matt said, although he had no such delusions. No wonder she hadn’t kissed him or promised to wear her sexy shirt to work on Monday.

“I hope not to have her back here at all,” Trevor said, confirming his expectations as well as his fears.

“Stop it, you two. One way or another, I will return,” Veronica said with a cheerful smile.

“I won’t hold my breath.” Matt reluctantly released the jerk’s hand.

“I don’t know why you’d want to,” Trevor told her, tentatively flexing his fingers.

Veronica gave him a light push on the back, nudging him into the limousine. Then she looked back at Matt. “It’s not what you think.”

“Are you going to marry that puffed-up guy with the dorky thing sticking out of his ear?”
Please say no.

“We’ll talk about it when I come back.” Veronica slid into the limousine and closed the door.

She didn’t say no.

She wouldn’t return. For the second time in three years, Matt watched a woman drive away from him back to her sophisticated city life.
Fool me twice…

…

“I think he broke my knuckles,” Trevor moaned.

Veronica’s instinct was to defend Matt, but she had no plausible explanation for his behavior, other than he was extremely angry with her and took it out on the guy who had stepped in the middle before she’d had a chance to set Matt straight.

“Let me see.” Paige inspected his hand and bent each finger. Then she dug a highball glass out of a cabinet and filled it with ice. “Hold this. It’ll make your hand feel better.”

“It’d feel better if you topped the ice with whiskey,” Trevor said.

Paige rolled her eyes. “Don’t be a baby. You’ll be fine.”

Veronica sat on the seat watching them, feeling like a fifth wheel. Of course. Why hadn’t she seen this before? Trevor might be a typical clueless man, but it was obvious to her that Paige was more than a dedicated personal assistant. She was completely in love with her boss. What woman wanted to see the man she was in love with marry another woman?

“Before you get drunk, we need to talk about why you need this merger so badly,” Veronica said. As tempting as it was to liquor him up and work out the points he would have objected to, she wasn’t going to build the foundation of her life on deceit and trickery. It might be too late to convince Matt of her pure intentions, but she wasn’t trying to fool or take advantage of anyone.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Trevor said. “I make what your dad needs.”

“So, you sell it to him and make a profit off those sales. You don’t give up the potential sales you could have made to his competitors.”

“The merger makes sense,” Trevor argued. “His office building is on the verge of demolition, and I have the space.”

“Yeah, you have a gorgeous office building. Those marble floors and fancy chandeliers don’t come cheap, do they?” She thought of Matt’s simple—some would argue shabby—office. It was functional and, like Matt, didn’t pretend to be something it wasn’t.

Matt’s workmanship spoke for itself. His mere presence took her breath away.

“What’s your point?” Trevor snapped.

“I think you need to restructure your lease agreement or break it entirely. Not merge with my father. Not marry me.” Veronica held her breath. She was taking a big risk, and she’d gone about it backward. She hadn’t insured he wouldn’t take back the promised funding for the food pantry and community closet before she’d plunged in.

Trevor glared at Paige. “I thought you made a deal with her.”

“Wait,” Veronica said. “Hear me out first. I have something better to offer than marriage and a merger blessing. I can run some figures and analyze your lease situation to get your business back on track and your profitability up to par. If you think the analysis is worth more than a toss in the recycling bin, Help the Less Fortunate cuts the check for the Kortville community needs center as promised.”

Trevor frowned.

“You have nothing to lose,” Paige pointed out. “If her advice is crap, you don’t have to pay anything, unless she changes her mind and agrees to marry you again.”

Veronica knew her advice wasn’t crap, but she still hadn’t gotten anyone to take her seriously and believe that what she had to say was worth anything. And that meant she hadn’t secured a darn thing for the needy citizens of Kortville, might very well have destroyed Matt’s trust in her for nothing, and could be strong-armed into marrying someone she barely tolerated.

Veronica stood just inside the doorway at the charity dinner, wishing she were peddling sushi with Pauline or in a booth at the diner with Matt and Jenny. No one had noticed her yet. Maybe she could still escape.

“Thank goodness you made it. Paige promised you would, but I was getting worried,” Mother said, her panic contained to the brighter than usual hue of her blue eyes. “Come over to our table and distract your father. He’s getting all worked up that Trevor isn’t paying attention to the needs of his company, and if it’s this bad now, how much worse is it going to be after the merger?”

“He has a point,” Veronica murmured.

“Exactly. That’s why he needs you to make sure that Trevor continues to have a reason to care.”

Right. Veronica wished she was on top of a roof and could take her frustration out on pulling shingles, but like her mother, she kept her emotions bottled inside as she crossed the room. She started to sit in the reserved space and then stared, dumbfounded. Across the table, Ron was leaning his chair back on two legs as he laughed and joked with a society matron at the next table. “What’s he doing here?”

“I invited him,” Mother said. “I thought he should see what my life is like before he constantly judges it. So far, he’s ignored your father, but he seems to be enjoying himself.”

That was one word for it. If he leaned any farther back, his chair was going to tip over, and he’d find himself flat on his back. Even more disturbing, the normally prim and proper president of the women’s social club, who pursed her lips in disapproval whenever Veronica used her dessert spoon to stir her coffee, laughed boisterously at Ron’s jokes. She eyed Ron’s precarious balance with such glee, Veronica was afraid she might purposely fall over on top of him.

Veronica looked away from the pairing that was sure to be the talk of the town for weeks and strolled around the table, kissing her father on the cheek. “Hello, Dad.”

“Running off to join a construction company is the craziest stunt I’ve ever heard a kid pulling. Your mother and I have been so worried about you,” he said gruffly.

“You didn’t have any reason to be. I was taking care of myself.” Even though she’d managed to put construction work in the same league as joining the circus. She took a deep breath. “I hear you’re having some concerns about the merger.”

“Nothing that nailing down a wedding date won’t cure,” Dad replied glibly.

“Actually, I disagree. Your business concerns are well founded, and you should take them to heart. I’m going to do some analysis for Trevor and show him how he can restructure his business to avoid the merger altogether and make his company more profitable and stronger on its own. I’d be happy to do the same for you.”

“Don’t you worry about that. I have my business under control.”

She bit down on her exasperation. He didn’t have it under control, and she didn’t appreciate being patted on the head and told to go plan a wedding. She surveyed the room one more time, wishing she were back in the Laundromat brainstorming ways to help the community with Becca.

Trevor stood by a window, covering his earpiece with one hand while gulping a drink with the other. Paige was just outside the entrance, clearly wishing she were at his side. Veronica did a quick survey of their table. Other than Ron, Mother hadn’t planned any extra place settings.

“Excuse me, Dad. I’m needed somewhere else right now.” Veronica left the table and wove her way out the door to Paige. “I need a favor.”

“What’s that?” she asked, crossing her arms over her chest.

Veronica understood her wariness. She wouldn’t want to go from being the personal assistant of the man she loved to working for him
and
his fiancée. “I need you to take my place at dinner, so I can go back to Trevor’s office and crunch those numbers he needed.”

“Why would you want to do that?”

For so many reasons; she hardly knew where to start. Her best bet to get Paige on her side was to lay all her cards on the table. “Because these dinners drive me crazy, and marrying someone I don’t love just to make other people happy makes me even crazier. I can get both Dad’s and Trevor’s businesses to run better if they give up this merger plan. Please help me, Paige.”

She smiled. “I’m in. And…will you be pissed if I make a move on the man you don’t love and don’t want to marry?”

“I will thank you from the bottom of my heart if you steal him away from me,” Veronica promised. “If you can convince him to honor what Help the Less Fortunate has already offered to Kortville, I’ll even take you wedding dress shopping.”