“To be totally clear. If you want a plan? You are now,” he said with a final thrust. “My plan.”
She rode the aftershocks of their lovemaking. He didn’t withdraw.
Still joined, he kissed her.
“I mean it,” he continued. “You’re my plan. Your smile is my goal. Whatever I need to do to make it happen, I’m going to do it.”
Well…huh. On that note, she couldn’t smile,because she pressed her lips against his instead.
Chapter Nineteen
“The only thing that my mother has ever said consistently is, ‘Nobody fucks with my kids.’” — Carla, Pennsylvania, USA
Rachel
The past week,her mind had been a muddle of lust-filled moments with Travis and spending time swimming at the lake—with and without her kids.
Travis made her feel everything, the water brought peace, and the slow pace of summer at Twin Lakes lulled her into a false sense of serenity.
Because then…Rachel missed another deadline.
Well, sort of. She’d missedadeadline that the client had last-minute emailed her about. The deadline had been of the tight variety and, generally, this was not an issue due to the attentiveness Rachel prided herself in providing with her service.
The first deadline she missed happened because she’d taken a Travis nap. That one hadn’t been a huge deal.
This one she’d missed because she was doing…other things with Travis. It was a massive deal.
“I’m so sorry,” Rachel gushed into the phone, really glad this wasn’t a video call because she felt like a total wreck, and she was pretty sure her cheeks were flushing. That weird red rash thing was probably going on around her neck—the one that seemed to show up only when she was really and truly flustered. “I’m not sure what happened,” she said, deflated.
“This is really unlike you,” Cassie said on the other end of the line. She seemed more than a little distracted,given the way she covered and uncovered her mouthpiece. Other conversations were happening simultaneously, Rachel could tell. Everyone on that end of the line was rushing,trying to figure out how to fix the error of the orders arriving with the wrong coupon code.
“Are you sure everything’s okay?” Cassie asked. “I’m worried about you.”
Ugh. That was even worse than making the mistake in the first place. Now the rash around her neck itched. “I’m fine. Really, this is just a onetime thing.”
Call-waiting chimed and Rachel glanced at the screen to ensure she hadn’t messed anything else up for another client that morning.
It was Kaiya.
She’d call her back later.
Rachel declined the call and turned her entire focus back to Cassie. “It absolutely will not happen again.”
It wouldn’t, because Rachel responded to all client emails within hours and handled everything that came up immediately. She wouldn’t slip again. This was the kind of service her clients had become accustomed to receiving. The kind of service she’d become accustomed to giving. She considered herself something of a concierge when it came to her company, that’s why she had threeselectclients instead of filling her schedule with multiple smaller clients like she’d done when she first started out.
Cassie’s change request for the coupon code had a time stamp of three a.m. that morning, and Rachel had been getting handled by Travis at that time. Then she’d had breakfast with her kids. Thus the advertisement didn’t get switched out before seven, as Cassie had requested.
Which meant, the previous version of the ad ran with the old coupon code.
Rachel’s lungs had gotten a little heavier and the air in the room denser when she’d checked her email and realized that, while she was eating a strawberry toaster tart with her kids and her ex-in-laws, the timeline had come and gone.
The old ad ran, Cassie’s request had fallen by the wayside, and the strawberry toaster tart turned sour against Rachel’s tongue.
To be fair, thiswasthe first screwup of this magnitude. Rachel kept lists of her lists to ensure that nothing fell into cracks. There were no cracks when it came to her company.
Travis emerged from the shower wearing only a towel. She pressed her finger to her lips and mouthed,Client.
He nodded and went to pull on boxers and a pair of jeans, which was a shame.
