Knock, knock, knock.
Victoria groaned and rolled over, burying her face in her pillow. “Go away.”
Was her pillow . . . wet?
She pulled back and blinked down at the white pillowcase. Yep. Wet and streaked with mascara.
“Ah, fuck.” She’d cried in her sleep.
There was a noise at her front door again, but it wasn’t a knock this time. Instead, the very distinct sound of someone using a key to get into her apartment reached her in muffled clicks of gears.
Cassidy. They were supposed to meet this morning and head to the farmer’s market. But that had been before Victoria had changed those plans to lying around in bed all day eating ice cream, without telling Cassidy.
Once Cassidy saw her pillow, she would be relentless.
She heard the door open at last, and in a very mature move, stuffed her pillow beneath her bed. She jerked upright again and shoved her hair out of her eyes just in time to see Cassidy sail through the open bedroom door, holding two coffees.
Cassidy froze, blinked twice, and said, “Shit, your face.”
Victoria rolled her eyes. So much for hiding the evidence. “Good morning to you, too.”
Cassidy gestured toward her with one of the coffee cups. “No, seriously. What the hell happened to your face, because I’m guessing gang fight or . . . Wait.” She crossed the distance of the room in seconds. “Were you crying?”
And—just perfect—two more tears made treks through what was apparently epic makeup marks all over her face.
“Oh, honey.” Cassidy plopped down on the bed beside her, the coffee sloshing ominously in the cups, and leaned her shoulder against Victoria’s. “What happened?”
Victoria hiccupped. “Nothing.”
“Ah.” Cassidy shook her head and sighed. “So it wasn’t the gigolo who did something this time. It was you.”
“I said something really terrible, and he walked out, and now I’ll probably never see him again!” Victoria wailed.
“Okay.” The mattress jiggled as Cassidy turned to face her. “First things first: caffeinate.” She thrust one of the coffee cups Victoria’s way. “And then we have got to wash that face before we head to the farmer’s market.”
She took the coffee and sniffed. “I don’t want to go to the farmer’s market.”
“And I don’t fucking care. We’re going. Because it’s one thing to cry all night, but it’s another thing entirely to wear sweats for four weeks solid and gain ten pounds from Ben and Jerry’s, which, clearly, is where this is headed.” Cassidy nudged the coffee toward Victoria’s mouth, and she took an obliging sip, feeling the slightest bit more human as the brew made its way to her gut. “We’re going to talk this out and find a way for you to get your man, all while buying organic strawberries. This is the best plan ever. Embrace it.”
When Cassidy tugged her from the bed and toward the bathroom, Victoria followed, but she made sure to glare the whole way so Cassidy would know she protested.
Cassidy ignored her.
Thirty minutes later, carrying her second coffee of the morning, dressed in an actual cute outfit, and tearstain free, Victoria was beginning to see the wisdom of getting out of the house.
“So,” Cassidy said, trailing her fingers through several daisy blooms at the flower stand. “What happened?”
“Kip . . . ” Victoria swallowed. “Said he wanted to stay.”
Cassidy’s eyes brightened. “What? That’s great!”
She shook her head.
Cassidy’s smile crashed. “Oh, crap. What did you say to him?”
She sipped her coffee and took her time swallowing it.
“Victoria?”
She cleared her throat. “Let’s just say the important word was hooker.”
Cassidy gasped. “You twat!”
Victoria groaned. “I know.”
“I told you they like to be called gigolos.”
“Cassidy, that’s not the issue and you know it.”
“Well, what did he say when you apologized?”
Victoria took another leisurely sip of her coffee and started walking quickly to a stand of produce.
“Victoria Hastings!”
She stopped and spun to face her sister-in-law. “Okay, fine, I didn’t apologize. But that’s because I don’t apologize for saying things that are true, and one of us needed to be remembering it!”
“Tori, only massive dickholes think it’s okay to say something hurtful just because it’s ‘true.’” Cassidy jabbed her air quotes Victoria’s way as though they were weapons. “And I thought he was opening his own business. He’s not even in the profession anymore.”
“I’m paying him.”
“And judging him for it, too. It’s a twofer. He’s so lucky.”
Victoria’s coffee sloshed in her stomach. Judging him? “Well, that ugly word puts some perspective in the mix.”
“It’s not the only ugly word in the mix,” Cassidy mumbled. “I can’t believe you called him a hooker.”
“Just—” Victoria sighed. “Stop reminding me for one second?”
“That’s a big nope. Someone has to. Might as well be me.” Cassidy put her hand on Victoria’s arm. They both stopped walking, and Victoria braced herself as she met Cassidy’s gaze. “And don’t pretend this has nothing to do with Jeremy.”
Victoria winced. Immediately, her throat clogged with more tears. “Please don’t,” she whispered. They couldn’t talk truth right now. She wouldn’t be able to handle it.
Cassidy narrowed her eyes, capturing Victoria’s gaze. “Kip is not Jeremy, honey. Hell, at the end, Jeremy was not Jeremy. You can’t keep expecting misery around every corner.”
The very same words she’d thought herself last night. Victoria shook her head. Stop. Now!
Cassidy sighed, a look of resignation entering her eyes. “Okay, we’ll table this for now.” She raised her eyebrows. “For now.”
Victoria bobbed her head. “Yes.”
Cassidy shook her head, and Victoria knew she was safe. The mood immediately lightened.
Cassidy nudged Victoria’s shoulder with her own, and they started walking again. “Look, Tori, you know I love you. That’s why I have to tell you these things. Kip?” Cassidy shrugged. “We don’t know if anyone loves him. If he has anyone to tell him when he messed up or when someone he cares about messed up. So, I kind of have to look out for him, too. Especially since he’s probably going to be my brother someday.”
“Whoa!” Victoria’s arm jerked and a splash of coffee scalded her forearm. “Ow! Son of a bitch! Why would you say that?”
“What, too soon?”
Victoria stalked toward the vegetable stand, shaking out her stinging arm along the way. Too soon. More apt than Cassidy knew. How could Cassidy talk about a new brother when she’d lost one? Because of Victoria no less!
She wasn’t looking where she was going and plowed right into someone.
She reflexively tightened her grip on her coffee cup, so she and the stranger were spared an additional scalding. She stumbled back a step and raised her head, an apology already on her lips.
But then she froze.
You! She just kept herself from spitting the word, but her mind sure screamed it loud and clear. Victoria had managed to run into Georgiana Masterson. “The Master.”
Tens of thousands of people in this city, and she’d bumped into the one she never enjoyed seeing. Figured.
As she watched recognition flash on The Master’s face, Victoria fought the desire to narrow her eyes at the woman.
The Master did not choose to fight that battle, apparently, because soon, the woman’s blue eyes were squinty and thoroughly disapproving.
Victoria’s chest panged. Those blue eyes. Even in someone as hateful as The Master, the blue eyes made her think of Kip. They were even the same shape.
Damn her!
She felt Cassidy come up behind her. “Who’s this?”
Before Victoria could even struggle over whether she should do the socially acceptable thing and introduce her nemesis to her sister, Masterson stepped closer. There was something menacing about it, and she found herself taking a step back, bumping into Cassidy in the process.
“I heard about your dinner last night,” Masterson said in a low voice.
Victoria tipped up her chin. “Don’t sweat it, Masterson. You can’t win them all.”
The Master smiled slowly and in a way that did not denote amusement. “You haven’t won anything, yet. How have you felt about your life choices lately, Hastings?” She tilted her head. “Anything untoward that you might come to regret?”
The hair on the back of Victoria’s neck stood on end.
“Seriously,” Cassidy said from over Victoria’s shoulder. “Who is this slag?”
“Mother?”
All three of their heads swiveled around toward that deep, male voice. A voice Victoria recognized at once.
Sure enough, Kip the Gigolo rounded the corner of the vegetable stand.
The sight of him shot straight to her heart, which started beating hard enough that it was actually painful. What is he doing here?
Cassidy asked the same question in a whisper, and Victoria momentarily jolted. How in the hell did Cassidy know Kip? But, then, she would, wouldn’t she? She’d hired Kip to start with. There would have been a picture at the very least.
Victoria hated her hope that Kip had sought her out to make up.
“Ah,” Kip said to The Master. “There you are, Mother.”
Thud. Victoria’s speeding heart abruptly stopped.
It was at precisely that moment—when there was no way in hell Victoria was disguising what she was feeling—that Kip seemed to see her for the first time.
He stuttered to a stop at Masterson’s side. In his hand was a burlap shopping bag filled to the brim with produce. Their gazes connected, and now with him standing side by side with Georgiana Masterson, she could see that the shape of their eyes was, in fact, identical.
Because The Master was her lover’s mother. The lover whom she had shared all of her secret advertising plans with. For the client over which his mother and she currently competed.
Oh, God, I’m going to be sick.
Victoria opened her mouth. To say what, she didn’t know, but Kip beat her to the punch.
He tilted his head toward The Master. “Who is this?” he asked conversationally, smiling Victoria’s direction.
What is he—? Were they going to pretend they didn’t know each other? What the fuck was going on!
While social niceties had been a struggle for Victoria moments earlier, The Master did not suffer from the same conflict, apparently. “Kipling, this is a competitor of mine: Victoria Hastings. Hastings,” she said, waving a hand in Victoria’s direction and then back at Kipling fucking Masterson, “my son.”
“Oh, shit,” Cassidy mumbled. Victoria was pretty numb, but she was able to feel Cassidy’s hand on her arm nonetheless. “Nice to meet you both, but we have to go.”
Victoria tried to speak but ended up grunting instead.
With that, Cassidy began ushering her away. “Forget everything nice I said about him earlier. He is a hooker!”
“What just happened?”
“Well, sweetie, I think you just got the shaft, and not in the way you paid for.”
“Oh, God, his mother!” She jerked to a stop. “Cassidy, I told him everything!”
“Victoria!”
Kip? They turned, and, sure enough, there he was, streaking across the parking lot to get to her.
• • •
“Victoria!” he yelled again. Not that he needed to. She and the woman she was with had stopped the first time he’d shouted at them. They were both standing next to her silver Mercedes and glaring daggers his way.
The daggers gave him pause.
She had, just the night before, shown him exactly what she thought of him, and it wasn’t an opinion he was willing to accept from anyone, much less the woman he had considered a relationship with.
But the way she’d looked at him when he’d found out who his mother was—like she was utterly devastated—he couldn’t ignore that. His heart wouldn’t let him.
Why she cared who his mother was, he hadn’t a clue.
He stopped running while he was still several feet away, so that by the time he was approaching them, it was at a wary walk. “Victoria?”
Something within her seemed to snap. “How could you not tell me The Master is your mother?” she hissed.
Kip’s head drew back. “The Master?”
“Kip! You’ve seen every single advertising plan I have for The Ricchezza. Even if you didn’t tell Masterson what you’ve seen, at the very least, any decent person would have warned me he was related to my biggest competition before I gave away my biggest dream to him!”
Oh. Holy shit. Victoria was competing for The Ricchezza against his mother. No, they can’t be similar. The women had nothing in common! He wouldn’t be so stupid as to throw his heart at the feet of another heartless woman.
“Victoria, there’s something you need to know about my mother and me.” She has destroyed every shred of confidence I have. And you seem to be molding yourself in her footsteps. He shook his head, displacing the errant thought. “We don’t talk. I had no idea that she was who you were competing against for the account.”
Victoria snorted a laugh. “How much of what comes out of your mouth is a lie, Kipling?”
And that’s when he got angry. “Why would you care who I am? All I am to you is your hooker!” He shoved a hand through his hair and tried to calm down. “You know what? I’m tired of this. Do you know how I would have known you and my mother were out for the same client? If you would have fucking opened up to me. Even once. But every time shit got personal, you bailed.” He couldn’t deny it anymore. Not with such blatant evidence. The similarities between Victoria and his mother were glaring. Two days ago, he would have never thought Victoria was the type of person to climb over others in pursuit of success. Now?
“You know what?” she hissed, leaning in. “You and The Master can have those old, tired plans. I’ll spend every moment between now and Monday morning revamping everything, and by the time I present them against your mother in that boardroom, she won’t know what hit her.”
And, like an idiot, the first thing Kip wanted to say was, No, don’t change those plans! You worked so hard on them! Instead, he leaned back and completely detached himself. Yep. Just like my mother. “I guess you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do.” His tone was the same dead tone he used every time he talked with his family.
Her warm brown eyes hardened. “Yes, I do.”
Despite her revealing her true colors, Kip found himself regarding Victoria with pride. She was incredible. Resilient. Bitter. “Good-bye, Victoria. I wish you the best.” He meant it. The discovery felt groundbreaking. Freeing. Maybe he was ready to move on. From his mother. His family. Anyone—he met Victoria’s gaze—like them.
She didn’t say good-bye back. Instead, she spun on her heel, flopped into the driver’s seat, and slammed the door behind her.
The woman she was with shifted awkwardly from foot to foot for a moment before saying, “Well, this was fun.” She smiled sadly at Kip. “I’ll see you around, I guess.”
With that, she walked around to the passenger’s seat and got into the car.
“No, you won’t be seeing me around,” he whispered. I never have to see them again.
Oddly, the thought did not comfort him as he’d intended.