Taste for Trouble (5 page)

No,
she thought.
Kate’s
Dower House.
Kate’s
show.
Kate’s
vision. Not mine. None of it mine.

“I’ll...”
Her voice broke, and she cleared her throat. “I’ll start packing.”

“I
regret this, dear,” Kate said as she seated herself at the desk once more,
tucking her skirt properly under her thighs.

You
do not
, Bel thought. But, distasteful
chore dispatched, Kate had already returned her attention to the endless work
of being
Kate Every Day
. Bel walked silently out of the office.

Two
weeks later, her entire life squashed into the back of her catering van, Bel
drove away from the Dower House. She didn’t look in the rearview mirror. She
couldn’t bear to see it behind her. But it didn’t matter if she didn’t look. She
knew it by heart.

A
story and a half of pink Virginia brick personally stomped, shaped and fired by
Hunt House’s own masons over two hundred years ago, the Dower House was a
sturdy little white-shuttered island in a sea of hollyhocks, ivies, and
climbing tea roses. A weeping cherry tree shaded the porch and every year sent
the smell of spring wafting through Bel’s tiny, beloved kitchen, through the
heart of her house. The heart of her.

Looking
in the rearview mirror, watching it grow smaller until it disappeared would be
like having that heart torn out by tiny, torturous degrees. So she didn’t look.

She
focused instead on the pretty twist of macadam road unspooling across the lush
green countryside of northern Virginia. She drove as if it required every ounce
of her concentration, blanking out the sorrow and focusing instead on the loose
ends she couldn’t stop tugging.

Because
something wasn’t right. She knew it in her gut. There was more behind Kate’s
decision to let her go than a spectacularly failed wedding. But despite two
solid weeks of turning the problem around and around in her head, despite
gnawing at it from every possible angle, she couldn’t figure out what had
happened.

There
was hope, however. One person who knew more about the myriad plans, plots and
machinations in Kate’s head than Bel did. Her own personal Wizard and Bel was,
however reluctantly, on the yellow brick road. Which led, in this case, to the
heart of DC. To the man who’d plucked her and her cakes from obscurity and
plopped them on TV next to Kate Davis.

She
was going to Bob Beck. To her and Kate’s mutual agent. And possibly to yet
another firing. But maybe she’d get some answers before he let her go, too.

Bel
hesitated, her hand poised to knock on the frame of Bob’s open office door. With
his Italian loafers propped on a polished barge of a desk and a cell phone
glued to his ear, her agent looked more or less the same as he had for the past
five years. But something made her pause.

He’d
always been a square, craggy kind of handsome, but the silver at his temples
had taken over some serious real estate since she’d seen him last. His
shoulders were still total-eclipse broad and the crease in his shirt sleeve
could slice butter, but Bel had the oddest impression that he was somehow
wilted inside all that starch. Like lettuce left out of the crisper.

Then
he looked up and that faint weariness evaporated. He waved her in, then pointed
to his phone, rolled his eyes and made a
yak, yak, yak
motion with his
hand. “Uh huh. Yeah. I’ll take care of it.”

Bob ended
the call and tossed the phone onto his desk. “So, Bel. You haven’t been
answering my calls.”

“You’d
have only wanted to talk about the hideous death spiral of my career.” She
plunked a pretty pie box into the center of his desk. “I was depressed enough
without that conversation, thanks.”

Bob
lifted the corner of the lid with his pen, a solid gold Mont Blanc that had to
weigh two pounds. He sniffed at the pie. “Cherry?”

“Sour
cherry with an almond crust.”

“Nice.”

She
smiled. “This pie takes
nice
out back and steals its lunch money.”

“I
believe you.” He picked up the pie box and deposited it on the credenza behind
his desk. “So, you’re ready to talk about the hideous death spiral of your
career now?”

“Sort
of.” Bel sank into the watered silk chair across from him. “I want to know
what’s going on with Kate.”

Bob’s
brows inched up over granite colored eyes and he leaned back until his leather
chair creaked. “Your groom ran off with your assistant on live TV, Bel. Your
wedding—not to mention the
Kate Every Day
season premiere, usually a
testament to good taste and high-brow entertainment—went down in melodramatic
flames. And you want to talk about Kate?”

Bel
bore up under the weighty truth of that one. “Yes,” she said. “I can’t do
anything about my wedding. I clearly misjudged Ford. Annie, too. And in a
highly public manner. That was my mistake. A bad one.” She fought to keep the
sick humiliation in her stomach from seeping into her voice. “One that
reflected as badly on Kate as it did on me. She’s perfectly within her rights
to fire me over it. I won’t argue. Not with that.” She leaned forward. “But I
do have a problem with the fact that she was relieved about it.”

Bob
frowned. “She told you that?”

“Of
course not. But I’m not blind, Bob. You and I both know that Kate can
be...subtle. What she says isn’t nearly as important as what she means, and
I’ve gotten pretty good at reading her. Maybe not as good as you are, but darn
good. And I’m telling you, firing me was a big, fat relief to her. I could see
it in her eyes. The woman wanted me gone and my rather spectacular failure made
her day.”

“That
doesn’t make sense, Bel. She sank three years into you. She made retirement
plans around you. You were the golden child. Why on earth would she be happy
about losing that kind of investment?”

“You
tell me.”

“How
am I supposed to know?”

“Because
you know everything.” She gave him a smile, big and bright. “You’re the Great
and Powerful Bob.”

“And
as such, I’m not in the habit of overlooking problems that cost me money.” His
gaze went hard. “I invested in you, too, Bel. I saw something in you that Kate
saw as well or she would never have taken you on in the first place. So don’t
sit there and tell me this isn’t your fault. That you’re the victim of some
vast conspiracy or something.”

Bel’s
shoulders had crept up to her ears as if to protect her from the ugly truth,
and she forced them back down. “I didn’t say it wasn’t my fault. I just pointed
out that maybe there’s more than
my fault
going on here.” Bob’s brows headed
farther north and Bel shoved her fists into her elbows. “Listen, maybe we
haven’t been together as long as you and Kate, but you’re my agent, too. You
know me. I do the work, Bob. I do it well and I do it right. And when there’s
blame to be laid, I don’t run whining to my agent. I take my fair share.”

He
sighed. “I know you do, Bel. That’s why I haven’t signed or sent the Dear Jane
letter on my desk with your name on it.”

She’d
known that letter was a possibility. Of course she had. That was why she’d
ducked his phone calls for the last two weeks, wasn’t it? But her lungs went scorched
and useless all the same. “You were going to void my contract?”

His
shrewd gaze shifted to hers. “I didn’t say that.”

“So
you believe me?”

“I
didn’t say that either.”

Bel took
a firmer grip on her courage. “What did you say, then? If you don’t mind my
asking.”

Bob
smiled his sharky smile. How had she ever imagined he was wilted? “I have a
proposition for you, Belinda. One that might bring Kate around, save your
career and iron out a little problem of mine, all at the same time.”

She considered
him narrowly. “I already gave you a pie.”

“Resurrecting
your career is worth considerably more than a pie, Bel. Even one of yours.”

“I
think you’re undervaluing my baking, but okay.” She leaned forward. “What do
you need?”

“A
nanny.”

She
frowned. “For what? Your imaginary children?”

“No,
for a multimillionaire with maturity issues.”

Bel considered
this. “What kind of maturity issues?”

“All
of them.” He steepled his hands and watched her over his fingertips. “Just
listen, okay? I have this client. Magnificent athlete. Like poetry in human
form. On the field, he’s a goddamn shrine to timing and instinct. But his
personal life is a disaster. He drinks, he fights, and if he’s ever had a date
he didn’t pick up in a strip club I’ve never met her.”

“He
sounds charming.”

“Oh,
it gets better. He also has a pair of moronic brothers, one of whom acts as his
manager, the other as his webmaster. Now if even one of these boys had the
judgment God gave a billy goat we might be all right. Unfortunately...”

Bel’s
stomach tightened with alarm. This set-up was starting to sound ominously
familiar. “Unfortunately?”

Bob
shook his head. “These boys make billy goats look like academics. Throw in
unlimited funds and—” Bob filled in the blank with a weary chuff of laughter. “Bottom
line? My boy’s one thin hair from being blackballed from every team in the
league. Kid needs a babysitter.” He fixed Bel with sharp eyes. “He’s
earned
one and he’s going to get one.”

“What
makes you think a grown man would agree to that kind of supervision?” she asked
calmly even as suspicion sank sharp claws into her. Because, come on, what were
the chances? Badly behaved athletes and their hangers-on were a dime a dozen. Surely
Bob’s billy goats weren’t the same idiots who’d ruined her wedding and thereby
her career. They couldn’t be. Could they?

“Because
the people paying him all that money to wear their shoes, drink their soda and
hawk their jeans are even richer than he is. And people don’t get that kind of
money leaving anything to chance.”

“Okay.”
She grabbed her logic with both hands and forced herself to focus. To listen. A
hell of a lot could be riding on these next few minutes and she didn’t want to
miss anything because she was needlessly—probably—panicking. “Which means...?”

“Which
means that the contract he’s working under contains what you might call a
modified morals clause.”

“A
morals clause?” She blinked. “As in
you’d better not be a gay Communist or
you’ll never work in this town again
?”

“Not
quite. More like
get your stupid ass red-carded out of one more match and
I’m issuing you a goddamn nanny
.” He smiled. “I believe they call them life
coaches these days.”

“Ah.”
Bel digested this. “Fascinating. But how exactly is my playing Mary Poppins to
a badly behaved athlete going to pull my career out of the toilet?”

Bob’s
smile went sharky again and Bel braced herself.

“How
do you feel about doing it all to Kate’s specifications?”

Bel
stared. “For
Kate Every Day
?”

“No.
But, damn, wouldn’t that be a great segment? Mary Poppins for Millionaires.
Entourage
meets
Nanny 911
. The disgraced domestic diva proving her mettle by
whipping an over-funded frat house and its skeevy inhabitants into shape.” Bob
gave a wistful sigh and Bel tried not to look horrified. “But it’s not going to
happen so don’t worry about it.”

“Kate
said no?” Relief sprinkled through Bel like rain on a dusty street.

“Of
course she did.” Bob curled his lip. “Something about decorum or dignity or some
such nonsense. But she’s agreed to give you another chance. Privately.”

“She
has?”

“She’s
a reasonable woman, Bel. She doesn’t want to throw away what you’ve built
together any more than you do.”

Bel
let that go without argument. Now wasn’t the time to quibble over details. “What
do I have to do?”

“Prove
yourself.”

“How?”

“By
fixing my client under Kate’s supervision.”

Bel tried
to think over the mad spiral of hope in her chest and the clanging alarm bells in
her head. “What does that mean?”

“It
means that each week for the next four weeks, Kate will assign you a new social
grace to teach our boy. At the end of each week, she’ll evaluate his
performance and yours. Brutally. You pass and you get your job back in time for
the
Kate Every Day
Christmas Special.”

Bel
studied him. “And if I fail?”

Bob
gave his cell phone a spin on the glossy surface of his desk and watched her
from under thick brows. “I sign the Dear Jane letter on my desk.”

Bel
swallowed but her throat stayed tight and dry. “This mystery athlete,” she said
finally. “Does he have a name?” Like she even needed to ask.

He
stopped the spinning phone. “James Blake.”

Bel
closed her eyes. “Of course.” A prickly wave of rage rolled over her at the
memory of that slow, no-worries smile under a raggedy ball cap. Of those easy
words and that thoughtless mouth. Of the way he’d offered her a
beer
as
if it was an even exchange for blowing her career to kingdom come.