If the Red Slipper Fits...

Okay, so Sarah couldn’t really promise that. Martin Griffin had already been in her apartment—him and his godawful ugly recliner—for over a year. After their mother had died, Martin had wandered around the empty, quiet family home for several months before Sarah finally convinced him to put it on the market. He wasn’t good at living on his own—he had spent far too many years on the police force and was more used to male camaraderie than to running a house. He forgot to eat dinner, forgot to transfer the wet clothes to the dryer, forgot to put the basket in the coffeepot. Sarah had stopped by twice a day, worried he’d hurt himself one of these days, and finally she’d just suggested he move in with her. Her father, for all his grumpiness, seemed to enjoy living at Sarah’s, and tried to help out in his own way. Not necessarily the way Sarah wanted, but she loved her father and had enjoyed him living with her.

Still, she wanted her independence. The freedom from worrying. She’d worried for years—about the house, about her father, about her sister and mostly about her mother—and the responsibilities weighed so heavily on her shoulders, she was surprised she wasn’t stooped over. It was Diana’s turn to be the responsible one. To take some of the burden from Sarah.

Except Diana didn’t want any responsibility and never had. Maybe Sarah had made a mistake in being so indulgent with her little sister.

The lipstick went back in her sister’s purse, replaced by a travel hairbrush and a hand mirror. “I’m in the middle of planning the Horticultural Society Charity Ball. It’s my first big job out of college, and it’s super important, Sarah. I don’t have time for this … distraction.”

Sarah didn’t mention that the “job” her sister spoke of was a volunteer position, given to her by her boyfriend’s mother, who chaired the Horticultural Society. Her sister had yet to find employment she could stick with longer than a few weeks.

“That distraction is your father.” Sarah shook her head. “I swear, we are not related.”

“Let him stay here. He likes you better anyway.”

Sarah glanced over at her sister, but Diana was immersed in sweeping her bangs into a soft C shape. “Diana, he loves us both equally.”

Diana snorted. “I have two dogs, Sarah. And I definitely like one better than the other.”

“We’re his children, not his pets. Family ties run much deeper than flea collars.”

Diana arched a brow. “But, Sarah,” and now her voice dropped into a whine, “you’re good at dealing with Dad. I don’t even get along with him.”

“What better way to build a relationship than by having him move in?” Sarah gave her sister a smile. A firm smile.

“I’d rather buy him tickets to the next Mets game.”

“Sorry, sis, but it’s your turn.” Sarah crossed her arms over her chest. “You might have trashed my career today, but I’m not letting you get out of this, too. At the end of this month we’ll get him moved over.” They’d had this same argument just thirty minutes ago—and look where it had ended up. With Diana picking up the thing closest to her and pitching it out the window.

Sarah refused to budge this time. For too long, she’d acquiesced at the cost of her own plans. The day she’d walked out of the office with the Frederick Ks impulsively shoved into her tote bag had been the day she’d decided she would stop being the responsible, dependable one. If she didn’t put her foot down now and demand that those around her change, then things might never move past where they’d been, and that wasn’t an option.

Except now she was too worried about finding that damned shoe to do anything but be responsible.

Diana sputtered out one last protest. “But—”

“No. It’s settled. I’m not having this discussion anymore. If I ever find that shoe—” And Sarah was beginning to despair of ever seeing it again, but she couldn’t think of that right now or she would go insane. “—I’ll be working nonstop at the magazine. This is my big break. Dad hates to be left alone, and you know how he gets if no one is here to be with him.”

“I can’t. I have—”

Sarah crossed to her sister. The sight of the shoe spiraling out the window came back to her mind, along with years of frustration. She met Diana’s gaze and held her ground. “You have family who needs you, Diana. That’s all there is to it.”

“You’re wrong about that,” Diana said, her voice low and quiet.

Was everything okay with Diana? The familiar worry, which she had felt for so many years, during which she’d been as much mother to Diana as sister, sprang to life in Sarah. Her confident, beautiful little sister rarely betrayed vulnerability or weakness. She had always been, as people said, a “handful,” a spitfire. And yet, a sense of melancholy seemed to be painted on Diana’s features. “Diana, are you all right?”

Sarah reached for her sister, but Diana rose, tucked the brush and mirror back into her purse, then headed for the door. “If Dad moved in with me, it would be a disaster. Please, Sarah. Let him stay with you. It’ll be easier all around.” For a second, Sarah considered relenting. To release Diana from a duty she didn’t want. Then her sister said the words that made Sarah solidify her resolve. “Face it, Sarah. You’re the one we all rely on. You’re the only responsible one in the family.”

“I don’t want to be,” Sarah said to her sister’s retreating form as Diana left the apartment. “Not anymore.”

Caleb Lewis propped the shoe on the top shelf of the credenza behind his desk, then sat back in his chair and stared at the slender red stiletto he’d found that morning. Size 7, sleek in all its crimson curves and sporting a racy T-strap design. The thing had literally dropped from the sky, practically into his hands. What were the chances?

It had to be a fake. Couldn’t be the supersecret, big hush-hush prototype for Frederick K’s much-anticipated shoe line. Ever since he’d opened his doors, women had been buying every dress, blouse and skirt that the hotshot rising Boston designer made. They’d stood in line for hours just for a chance to buy a cocktail dress. Nearly come to blows over the launch of his cashmere sweaters last fall.

Frederick K was the hot shiny new toy in the fashion industry, and LL Designs had been trying to play catch-up ever since. Caleb had taken over his mother’s company a little more than a year ago, when LL Designs was at its height of popularity. And immediately after he’d seen Frederick K come on the scene and steal away their business, one design at a time, like a mouse nibbling at a piece of cheese.

In that time, the stakes had risen. Hit by a hard economy, a decrease in couture spending, and the additional competition, Caleb had been trying to resurrect the business for months. But he lacked his mother’s eye for women’s designs, and everything the rest of the designers had come up with lacked that LL Designs spark. Caleb couldn’t say what was missing, only that the products just weren’t the same.

Hell, nothing had been the same since he’d taken over for his mother, stepping into a position he had no business filling. At the time, the options had been almost nil. Lenora had been here one day, then fighting for her life the next. Without the company founder at the helm, the employees had gone into a panic. The only option was to fill the CEO position with someone who cared as much about the company as Lenora. It was supposed to be a temporary fix until he could afford to hire a CEO.

It hadn’t been long before Caleb realized how much he cared about the company wasn’t enough to offset his lack of experience. Nor did it help the company run effectively and profitably. He should have been smart and hired a new head designer, at the very least. But as the company funds dwindled, the dollars for any additional staff disappeared. At the time, Caleb had thought he could handle it.

After all, this was just dresses and blouses. How hard could it be?

Apparently plenty hard, and not at all the kind of thing a former marketing director could do. He knew all about how to sell the product to the consumer—the problem he had was creating a product consumers actually liked.

This spring’s fashion shows were the make-or-break-it opportunity for LL Designs. Either get the public’s attention this year or close the doors of the decades-old fashion house. And admit that he had singlehandedly run his mother’s life’s work into the ground. If she knew what had happened to her company … well, it was a blessing that she didn’t.

Way to go, Caleb. Want to blow up a small village while you’re at it?

“That isn’t …” His assistant Martha Nessbaum stopped by his desk, and put a hand over her mouth. He hadn’t even heard the older woman come in—that alone showed how distracted he’d become in the last few weeks. Caleb Lewis, who had always been on top of the smallest detail in his former career, was clearly losing his focus. “Is it?”

“Maybe,” Caleb said. “It sure fits the leaked description.”

“Can I touch it?”

“Martha, it’s a shoe, not the Hope diamond.”

Martha shot him a you-don’t-get-it look. “This isn’t just a shoe, Caleb, it’s … sex on a heel.”

Caleb chuckled. He hadn’t expected his sixtyish, lion-at-the-door assistant to say that. “Women and shoes. Once researchers figure out how to cure cancer and how Stonehenge was built, I’m sure they’ll get right to work on that mystery.”

“How did you get hold of it?”

“Someone lost it.”

“What do you mean someone lost it? Who would do that?” Martha’s gaze narrowed. “You didn’t break into the Frederick K factory and steal it, did you?”

He laughed. “No. I’m not that desperate.”

Yet. How long until he was? LL Designs employed four hundred people. Four hundred people who counted on him to pay their mortgages, send their kids to college, put food on their tables. It wasn’t just the thought of destroying Lenora Lewis’s legacy that ate him up at night—

It was the thought of all those people standing in the unemployment line. Because of him.

For the thousandth time he wondered what insanity had made him think he could handle running this company. Hell, he could barely handle his own life. He’d made enough mistakes to fill a cruise ship. Maybe if he had—

No, he wasn’t going to think about that. Water under the bridge—water that still churned in his gut with regrets.

Martha reached out and picked up the slender crimson heel. She cradled it in her palm as gently as a newborn kitten, and, he swore, nearly breathed in the scent of the leather. “It’s beautiful. Absolutely—” She gasped, then turned the right side toward him and pointed at a slight scuff mark. “Oh, my God. What happened here?”

“An unfortunate meeting with concrete.” The damage looked as if it could be buffed out, but either way, it didn’t matter to Caleb. He wasn’t photographing the shoe, or selling it or wearing it. Just using it for his own purposes.