working on the line and pull them out when a special order came in and then—”
“I appreciate your idea,” Wes said, tapping his fingers against the gray leather blotter on his desk. “I want my people to feel free to speak up. But you’re new here, Mike, and you need to learn that at TTG, we do things a little differently. Here, the customer is always number one. We design toys and the delivery system to facilitate the people who buy our toys. So if that means we have a separate crew waiting for the special orders to come in, then that’s what we do. We’re the best. That’s what breeds success.”
“Right.” Mike nodded, swallowed hard and nodded again. “Absolutely. Sorry.”
“No problem.” Wes waved the apology away. He’d either learn from this and pick up on the way things were done at TTG, or the kid would leave and find a job somewhere else.
But damn, when did he start thinking of guys in their twenties as kids? When did Wes get ancient? He squashed that thought immediately. Hell, at thirty-four, he wasn’t old. He was just busy. Running his company ate up every moment of every damn day. He was so busy, his social life was a joke. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d been with a woman. But that would come. Eventually. Right now, TTG demanded and deserved his full concentration.
Of course, his brain whispered, it hadn’t always been that way. There’d been one woman—
Wes cut all thoughts of her off at the pass. That was done. Over. He hadn’t been interested in long-term and she’d all but had marriage and children tattooed across her forehead. He’d had to end it and he wasn’t sorry. Most of the time.
Having a relationship with one of his employees hadn’t been a particularly smart move on his part. And sure, there’d been gossip and even resentment from some of his staff. But Wes hadn’t been able to resist Belle. What the two of them had shared was like nothing he’d ever known. For a time, Wes had been willing to put up with whispers at work for the pleasure of being with Belle.
But it was over. The past.
“We’ve got the accessories covered, I think,” Donna said. “When the special orders come in, we’ll be able to turn them around in a flash.”
“Good to hear. And if you don’t have it?” Wes asked.
“We’ll get it.” Donna nodded sharply. “No problem on this, boss. It’s going to work as smoothly as you expect it to. And it’s going to be the biggest doll to hit the market since the vegetable patch babies back in the ’80s.”
“That’s what I want to hear.” Wes stood up, shoved both hands into his pockets and said, “That’s all for now. Keep me in the loop.”
Tony laughed. “Boss, everybody runs everything by you.”
One corner of Wes’s mouth quirked. “Yeah. Just the way I like it. Okay, back to work.”
He watched them go, then told his assistant, Robin, to get him some fresh coffee. He’d need it once he started going through business emails. Inevitably, there were problems to walk through with suppliers, manufacturers, bankers and everyone else who either had a piece—or wanted one—of the Texas Toy Goods pie. But instead of taking a seat behind his desk, he walked across the wide office to the corner windows. The view of Houston was familiar, impressive. High-rises, glass walls reflecting sunlight that could blind a man. Thick white clouds sailing across a sky so blue it hurt the eyes.
He liked the city fine, but it wasn’t somewhere he wanted to spend too much time. At least twice a week, he made the drive in from Royal, Texas, and his home office, to oversee accounts personally and on-site. He believed in having his employees used to seeing him there. People tended to get complacent when there was an absentee boss in the picture. But if he had a choice, he’d pick Royal over Houston.
His hometown had less traffic, less noise and the best burgers in Texas at the Royal Diner. Not to mention the fact that the memories in Royal were easier to live with than the ones centered here, in his office. Just being here, he remembered late-night work sessions with the woman he refused to think about. All-night sessions that had become a blistering-hot affair that had crashed and burned the minute she whispered those three deadly words—I love you. Even after all this time, that moment infuriated him. And despite—maybe because of—how it ended, that one woman stayed in his mind, always at the edges of his thoughts.
“What is it with women?” he asked the empty room. “Everything was going fine and then she just had to ruin it.”
Of course, a boss/employee relationship wasn’t going to work for the long haul anyway, and he’d known that going in. And even with the way things had ended, he couldn’t completely regret any of it. What bothered him was that even now, five years later, thoughts of Belle kept cropping up as if his mind just couldn’t let go.
A brisk knock on the door had him shaking his head and pushing thoughts of her to the back of his mind, where, hopefully, they would stay. “Come in.”
Robin entered, carrying a tray with a single cup, a thermal carafe of coffee and a plate of cookies. He smiled. “What would I do without you?”
“Starve to death, probably,” she said. Robin was in her forties, happily married and the proud mother of four. She loved her job, was damn good at it and kept him apprised of everything going on down here when he was in Royal. If she ever threatened to quit, Wes was prepared to offer her whatever she needed to stay.
“You scared the kid today.”
Snorting a laugh as he remembered the look of sheer panic on Mike’s face, Wes sat down at his desk and poured the first of what would be several cups of coffee. “He’ll survive.”
“Yeah, he will. A little fear’s good. Builds character.”
One eyebrow lifted as Wes laughed. “Your kids must be terrified of you.”
“Me?” she asked. “Nope. I raise them tougher than that.”
Wes chuckled.
“Harry called. He’s headed into that meeting in New York. Said he’d call when he had it wrapped up.”
Harry Baker, his vice president, was currently doing all the traveling around the country, arranging for the expedited shipping the new doll line would require. “That’s good. Thanks.”
After she left, Wes sipped at his coffee, took a cookie, had a bite, then scrolled to his email account. Idly, he scanned the forty latest messages, deleting the crap. He scanned the subject lines ruthlessly, until he spotted Your secret is out.
“What the hell?” Even while a part of his mind was thinking virus or an ad for timeshares in Belize, he clicked on the message and read it. Everything in him went cold and still. The cookie turned to ash in his mouth and he drank the coffee only to wash it down.
Look where your dallying has gotten you, the email read.
Check your Twitter account. Your new handle is Deadbeatdad. So you want to be the face of a new toy empire? Family friendly? Think again.
It was signed, Maverick.
“Who the hell is Maverick and what the hell is he talking about?” There was an attachment with the email, and even though Wes had a bad feeling about all of this, he opened it. The photograph
