All I Want...

Just another grudge to hold against the inimitable—thank God—Aimee Wellington.

SETH WELLINGTON SAT sprawled in his favorite black leather chair, set near the giant living room window of his South Boston condo, whose view of the harbor reminded him daily there was more to the world than gray four-walled corporate boardrooms. A timely thought. He grimaced at the computer screen on his laptop, which showed the blog fellow board member Mary Stevens had sent him the link to. This Krista Marlow woman had a serious grudge against his stepsister, Aimee. He’d seen Sweatshock the previous week, and while Aimee would never be Renée Zellweger, neither was she as bad as this sarcastic, clearly unhappy person made her out to be.

Bad timing. As the interim CEO of Wellington Department Stores while his father recovered from a stroke, he’d spent his tenure trying to convince the board of directors to update the stores’ stodgy image. The trouble with inheriting a dinosaur—er, dynasty—that stretched back into the late nineteenth century was that, like the dinosaurs who went extinct rather than adapt, some members of the board seemed to want everything to stay the same as when Seth’s ancestor Oscar Wellington opened the first store near Copley Square in 1889.

Seth and Mary were the newest and, at thirty-six and thirty-nine respectively, by far the youngest board members. Over the last year-plus they’d fought long and hard for the changes, territory won, territory lost, two steps forward, one back. Finally their efforts would pay off, God willing, with the official reopening of the stores, December twenty-first. Of course he would rather have launched the new image before the most profitable time of the year, but the board had been a bigger problem than he’d anticipated and the contractors hadn’t shared his sense of urgency.

Aimee had been Seth’s choice for the stores’ new spokesperson. She’d done a great job in the hip, upbeat musical commercials that would begin airing in sync with the reopening. Given that Aimee was Aimee, her duties representing the stores publicly could be a dicier prospect. But she was family, the all-important connection so vital to Seth’s dad; she sported the Wellington name via Seth’s father’s remarriage. And her performing experience made her a natural in front of the cameras, where she’d get most of her exposure—literally, given her skimpy outfits. Aimee could bridge the gap between older loyal customers and new ones the stores hadn’t been attracting in large enough numbers no matter how up-to-date they kept their merchandise.

But Krista Marlow was making Aimee look more like a joke than Aimee did herself. The board members were not amused. They felt Krista’s potential for damage was minimal when her war had been waged locally, focusing on Aimee’s notorious shopping exploits and her enthusiastic if misguided obsession with performing and self-promotion. But with media attention surrounding the reopening and with commercials scheduled to air throughout New England, the board feared Krista’s biased opinions would reach a much wider audience and make a mockery of the new image they’d been against from the beginning.

Could Krista really do the stores any damage? In his view, most likely not. Ironically her rants might even help. No publicity was bad publicity, as the cliché went. But he had to admit, Krista’s vitriol rankled. Had to admit he took it personally, not only being Aimee’s stepbrother but also having invested so much of his life into the Wellington stores. Given that he hadn’t exactly volunteered for this CEO job, he’d be damned if his sweat and sacrifice led to failure of any kind.

His cell rang. He put the laptop aside, dug the phone out warily from his pocket, then relaxed and smiled at the number on the display. Mary. He’d been dodging board member calls for the last hour, not in the mood for more concerns now that they’d undoubtedly read Marlow’s latest attack on his stepsister. Tedious bunch. Ms. Marlow must be stopped before she ruins the Wellington name, blah, blah, blah.

Any wonder he’d rather be out experiencing the real world as he was meant to? After he’d graduated from business school, what was supposed to be a month-long traveling vacation had turned into two months, then six, then over a year, until his father’s poor health brought Seth back to the company he’d worked for since he was old enough to alphabetize.

Family was family, yes. Though at times family life felt more like being incarcerated at Alcatraz.

“Hi, Mary.”

“Did you get the link I sent you? I’ve gotten three calls already from board members squawking something fierce.”

“I got it.” He kept his voice from sounding too weary. “Looks like Ms. Marlow didn’t enjoy the show.”

“Ya think? If I hear ‘This could have serious consequences’ one more time, I’m going to book a ticket to Jamaica and drink rum until it’s all over. Want to come?”

He grinned. His affair with Mary had burned hot and briefly; instant attraction had been indulged, waned, and they’d settled into a fairly comfortable friendship. Occasionally they still got together, but they’d been successful keeping their personal lives off the company gossip sheet. She was the kind of woman he liked. Smart, sexy, discreet and, best of all, not clingy. She never took their relationship to be anything but what it was.

“Sounds like paradise right about now. How often have we reassured them the risk is minimal?”

“Too many times.”

He grabbed the back of his neck and tried to massage a dent in the knotted muscles, gazing out at the black expanse of ocean with longing. Jumping for people was the part of this job he hated most. “As much as I don’t want to get involved, with everything else we have to do, maybe it wouldn’t hurt to be seen taking steps, so these fine gentlemen can put a sock in it.”

And maybe they had the smallest point. He’d just as soon people didn’t keep tabs on the stores only to see if Aimee made an idiot of herself, which, given Aimee, was always a distinct possibility, though he’d decided she was worth the risk. But if people came to associate the stores with someone they didn’t respect, Seth would have to concede the Wellington image could suffer—and the board’s opinion of him would certainly tank. Yes, he wanted out of the CEO job, but he wanted out because his father was well enough to take over the company again, not because he’d run it into the ground.

“So you’re going to take her on?”

He sighed. “I’ll think of something. The bare minimum that will satisfy the board.”

“Ooooh.” Mary laughed, deep and sexy. “Should I scan the headlines tomorrow for news of Ms. Marlow dredged out of the Charles River wearing designer cement shoes?”

“I don’t think it will come to that.”

“Mmm, I hope not. I’d hate to lose you to jail time.”

He chuckled. “No chance of that. Thanks for letting me know about the blog, Mary.”

“You’re welcome. Call anytime you want to talk.” She used the husky tone that said “talk” wasn’t on her mind.

“I will. Good night.” He hung up, aware she’d been about to say more, feeling a twinge of guilt. But if he gave her an inch now, she’d grab for…seven. And he wasn’t in the mood for that kind of fun. Every ounce of his energy and concentration was necessary to make sure the revamping of the stores wasn’t going to be a colossal, extremely expensive and humiliating failure.

He swallowed the last tepid sip of after-dinner coffee and stood, bringing his favorite mug—one his mom bought him when he took her to Graceland, before she’d gotten too sick to travel—into his kitchen. He washed and dried it carefully and put it next to the coffeemaker, already sporting a new filter for the next morning’s brew. A quick wipe-down of the counters, and he filled a big glass with filtered water from his stainless refrigerator’s door dispenser.

After that, a check of the downstairs rooms to make sure they were tidy and locked up tight, then he went upstairs to his second-floor loft in the condo he’d bought even though he wouldn’t be staying long.

He strode into his bedroom, undressed and retrieved the top paperback from a neat stack under his night table. The latest Harlan Coben thriller. He needed some distraction, somewhere to go that was under control, precise, unpolluted by the wandering vagaries of real human existence.

Ten minutes later he gave up the pretense at reading. Even page-turning excitement couldn’t distract him from his growing irritation.

He turned off his light and drew up the blankets. Lay, hands folded behind his head, staring at the dotted stripes of light on his ceiling from the punched holes and chinks in his blinds. He didn’t have time for worrying about one woman’s opinion.

And yet something about Krista Marlow’s disrespect toward Aimee bordered on illogical. Something about it was too…personal. Yeah, she was funny as hell, spirited and right-on in a lot of what she said. After her first post about Aimee, he’d started checking in occasionally and had been interested by most of what she had to say.

Then a couple of months ago, after Aimee’s joke of a self-produced CD came out, around the time she landed the part in Sweatshock, the attacks on Aimee became more frequent and more cutting.

He frowned and shifted between the sheets. Admittedly he was curious.

Tomorrow he’d try to find out more about Marlow, something reassuring to report to the board. Maybe tell them he’d ask her to ease up. Worth a try. With Wellington Stores’ grand reopening on the horizon, he needed the board one hundred percent behind him. Even a small glitch was more of a glitch than he wanted.

Because the sooner he could turn the company around, the sooner he could hand the running of it back to his father, and leave again.

LUCY MARLOW SLIPPED out of the bed she shared with Link in their beautiful Cambridge condo and tiptoed out of the room. Three in the morning and she hadn’t even managed to close her eyes. Insomnia wasn’t new to her, but lately she’d been bursting into tears for no apparent reason, and she couldn’t stay in bed and cry. Link would waken, he’d want to know what was wrong. And how often could she say “nothing” or “I don’t know” without him rolling his eyes as men had been rolling their eyes at those answers for centuries, maybe millennia?

She went into their living room, chilly with the heat turned down at night, and curled up on the window seat, looking out at the parked cars on Garden Street. This time of year was always tough, when the calendar said ho ho ho, merry merry, happy happy, and somehow her mood and stress levels never quite made it there. Gifts to buy for Link, for Mom and Dad, for Krista, for Link’s relatives, her relatives, friends, coworkers. She made it harder on herself, she knew that, and Link was always telling her as if he thought she didn’t. Having to find the perfect presents, having to decorate the house, having to make cookies and volunteer and organize the office party…

An old Volkswagen van putted by, like the relic her parents had when she was very young. That seemed to be enough to trigger the insane tears that were her all-too-regular visitors these days.

Was this simple unhappiness? She didn’t feel unhappy, necessarily. She had a lovely home in a beautiful city. She was engaged to a man she loved, though he didn’t seem to be in any hurry to get married or buy her a ring.

They weren’t ready for children, Link said, and what difference did a piece of paper make in how they felt about each other?

Logically? Intellectually? No difference.

But emotionally…

Well, women were the emotional ones, weren’t they. He’d marry her if she insisted, she knew that. But she couldn’t bring herself to insist. She didn’t ever want to be standing up at an altar without being one hundred percent sure the man next to her would rather be there than anywhere else in the world. Marriage should be entered into gladly and with light hearts.

These days her heart was about as light as a brick.

The beautiful, sad tears turned to fairly unattractive sobs she fought hard to keep as silent as possible. Link slept like a rock, but you never knew.

Everything else about her life was going fine. She had a nice job as an administrative assistant in a law firm downtown. She’d chosen the work deliberately, to keep her mind and energies fresh for performing, though these days she’d made friends with her limitations there. Lucy’s natural reserve was her enemy on stage—people like Aimee would always get ahead. While Krista would cheerfully disembowel the poor woman, Lucy understood the casting decision.

In retrospect, she’d taken the audition more to please Krista than herself anyway. Krista had enough ambition to spare for everyone. Lucy was a creature of habit, of routine. Unlike her sister, she wasn’t comfortable or happy constantly searching for new heights to scale.

What was really important to her? Family, friends and Link. Not in that order of course. She had a close family, a lot of friends locally. The people in the law firm were wonderful and kind. Her boss, Alexis, was fair and pleasant. One of the lawyers, Josh, had even been flirting with her lately, and that was harmless fun.