Sparks Fly

One more time.” Angelina deliberately enunciated each word. “And this time, you need to guarantee me two uninterrupted hours.”
    Will’s phone beeped in his ear. It was his CFO. “Angelina, I need to get this call. Could I call you back?”
    “No.”
    Will had almost switched over the call when he realized what she’d said. “No?”
    “No,” she repeated. “And I need your agreement to not answer the phone at any point during our next consultation.”
    The call went through to voice mail.
    It had been a long time since anyone had challenged Will. But instead of being irritated, he felt a grudging respect for how she stood her ground. “Could you come back tomorrow afternoon?”
    “I’m booked solid until next Thursday.”
    “Great,” he replied without checking his schedule. He’d simply rearrange anything in his way.
    He did own the company, after all. Time to use some of the perks that came with the title.

    * * *
    Angelina hung up the phone and stretched out her neck, rubbing it with her hands. Will Scott gave her a serious headache.
    Unfortunately, he gave her something else, too, something hot and steamy in a region of her body not used to much action.
    Immediately her phone rang again. “Daddy!” Angelina’s face lit up. “I’m so glad you called!”
    “I have some big news for you.”
    “You’re not sick, are you?”
    “No.” Her father laughed off her concern. “I met someone. Her name is Louise.”
    Angelina relaxed back into her chair. “Oh Daddy, that’s wonderful!”
    “And we got engaged this morning.”
    She almost dropped the phone. “You what?” But as shocked as she was, she wanted to sound supportive. “I’m so happy for you.”
    “No one will ever replace your mother ...” His voice trailed off.
    Wanting to voice what was in her heart, Angelina said, “Mom has been gone for twenty-five years. You deserve love and happiness. You always have.” Striving for an excited tone, she said, “Tell me how it all happened.”
    “Do you remember the last time you came home for a visit, when I asked you for some advice?
    I did everything you said. I put two pink roses in the vase in the living room, I put up paintings of happy couples, and I got rid of everything from underneath my bed. The next day I met Louise at the local garden show.”
    As her father continued to talk about his new love, for the first time Angelina really did feel like a Feng Shui Cupid.
    A cupid with an arrow for everyone but herself.
    After hanging up the phone, she couldn’t stop herself from thinking about the fact that she not only hadn’t been on a date in over a year, but she sure as heck had never found anything even close to the true love her father had been describing.
    “Have I been spending too much time working on my clients’ love lives and not enough on my own?” she asked herself.
    Blinking hard, she tried to think about whether she’d been hiding behind her business.
    Painful memories came at her, instead.
    His name was Bryce, and they’d met the summer she turned twenty-one, while she was helping out with her father’s housecleaning business in her hometown of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. She was sure she’d met “the one” and freely gave him her heart and body. But in the end, she was just a plaything for a beautiful rich boy: He thought sex with the cleaning staff went hand in hand with having an inflated bank account.
    She’d learned a powerful lesson that summer. Rich people were fine to work with as clients, but she would never again make the mistake of trusting one with her heart.
    She rubbed her temples with her index fingers as she thought about the handful of men she’d dated in the past five years. They all worked hard and were attractive, but they had bored her senseless.
    And now she was fighting her attraction to a totally unsuitable man, a man who would no doubt stomp her heart to pieces were she foolish enough to give it to him.

CHAPTER THREE
    The following Thursday, Angelina was halfway up the path to Will’s front door when he came around the side yard and called out her name. He saw surprise flash across her pretty face a split second before she tripped on the edge of a brick that was sticking up a half-inch too high.
    Will flew across the lawn as quickly as he could and caught her, glad for the excuse to find out what it felt like to hold her.
    It felt good.
    Really good.
    Angelina pulled away to stand on her own two feet. “Thanks for catching me.