Forget charity. Forget pretending that what had happened was over.
It wouldn’t be. Not until he slept with the woman who’d made a fool of him, one last time.
CHAPTER SIX
WHEN SHE WAS SIX, Tally stopped believing in Santa Claus.
Her grandmother had taken her to the mall the week before. She’d been terrified of the man with the white beard and the booming laugh, but after a lot of coaxing, she’d sat in his lap and whispered that all she wanted for Christmas was a Pretty Patty doll.
Christmas Eve, she crept out of bed and saw her grandmother putting the doll under the tree.
Even then, she’d understood Grandma had to count every penny. That she’d loved Tally enough to buy the doll meant more than if Santa had brought it.
Now, twenty-two years later, she was close to believing in Santa again.
How else to explain the call from a decorator she’d worked with in Manhattan? He’d been in too much of a hurry to offer details but the bottom line was that he knew someone who knew someone who knew someone who was familiar with her work.
That person had recommended her for the commission of a lifetime.
“The guy’s richer than Midas,” Aston trilled. “Seems he just bought out some old-line firm and the digs don’t suit him, so he’s moving the whole kit and caboodle to that new building on 57th and Mad. You know the one? Baby, this is one plum job! A huge budget, free creative rein…Pull this off, your name will blaze in neon!”
A couple of weeks back, Tally would have been flattered but she’d have turned down the offer. She’d have had no choice, not with a shop to open in Vermont. Now it seemed as if Dante’s vicious act of revenge might turn out to be a godsend.
“He wants to meet with you first, of course. See if the synergy’s right.”
For an assignment like this, she’d do whatever it took to make the synergy right.
She splurged on a haircut, had her black suit cleaned and pressed, charged a new coat which she hated to do but appearance was everything in New York. If things went well, she’d be able to pay for it. If not, she was so broke that the credit card company would have to wait the next hundred years for their money.
She even tried to go back to thinking of herself as Taylor Sommers instead of Tally. Her given name had been the one she’d always used in the city. It suited the image she’d needed, that of a cool sophisticate.
The woman Dante had always assumed her to be. The one she knew he’d wanted her to be.
And yet, today, after leaving Samantha with Sheryl, riding the train into Manhattan, now standing across from the glass tower where she was to meet the Mystery Mogul, she felt more like Tally than Taylor.
Taylor wouldn’t have butterflies swarming in her stomach.
Tally did.
She was nervous. Hell, she was terrified about meeting the man who held her future in his hands.
He had no name. Not yet.
“You know how these big shots are,” Aston said. “Some of them won’t make a move unless a camera’s pointed at them, but some guard their privacy like lions protecting a kill. This guy’s like that. He wants to stay nameless until the deal is struck.”
The Mystery Mogul was meeting her in his new offices. Tally looked up, counting the floors even though she’d already done it twice, head tilted back like an out-of-towner.
The butterflies fluttered their wings again.
She wanted this job more than she’d ever wanted anything. Aston’s description of it was almost too good to be true.
Her fee would be—well, enormous. More than she’d earn in five years in Shelby. She’d be able to give Sam everything. New toys, clothes, the best possible nanny to care for her while Tally was at work.
Best of all, she could deal with the loan payments she owed the bank—the payments she owed Dante. So much for his plans to destroy her.
She wouldn’t even have to tackle the toughest thing about living in New York. The Mystery Mogul, it turned out, owned an apartment building with a two-bedroom, two-bath vacancy.
“Well, of course he does,” Aston had said.