and the woman would move on, not willing to waste another day in the quest for the perfect husband.
If his father was in love with Roxanne Perry and she wasn’t in love with him, then Kit would be the one to pick up the pieces. He pressed his intercom button, buzzing the secretary that he and his father shared. “Linda, will you call the receptionist and ask her to send Roxanne Perry up to my office as soon as she arrives? And then I’d like to send her some flowers. A big bouquet. Really big.”
“Roses?” Linda asked.
“No. Spring flowers. Tulips, daffodils, those really nice-smelling ones.”
“Hyacinths?”
“Yeah. Real colorful. Cheerful flowers. Not…serious flowers.” He could imagine the smile on his secretary’s face. “You know what I mean.”
“No frowning or depressive flowers. Got it,” she said.
Kit stood up and paced the width of his office, trying to decide how to approach Roxanne. After last night, he had a serious conflict of interest. He’d kissed his father’s girlfriend. Now was the time to remain objective, to separate his feelings from his father’s feelings. Sure, he liked Roxanne, but he wasn’t in love with her. If he had to give her up to protect his father, then that was a sacrifice he was prepared to make.
The phone rang and Kit leaned over the desk to snatch it up. “Kit Lawrence.”
“Mr. Lawrence, Mrs. Perry arrived a few moments ago. I’ve sent her to your office.”
“Thanks, Melanie.”
Kit stood, nervously fiddling with his tie. A minute later, Roxanne appeared at his door, her coat thrown over her arm.
“Hi,” she murmured.
Kit’s breath caught and he wondered why she looked more beautiful every time he saw her. Was she doing something different with her hair or her makeup? Or was the anticipation of seeing her again simply causing him to imagine it? “Come in,” he said.
She glanced around, as if stepping into his office was dangerous. She was right. If he closed the door behind her, there wouldn’t be much to keep him from sweeping her into his arms and kissing her again. But before he did that, he had to get a few things clear between them. “I wanted to talk to you about my father.”
Roxanne smiled. “Oh, don’t worry. He apologized for last night. He also sent roses.” She sent him a shy smile. “And I wanted to thank you for the swimming and the pizza. We had a lot of fun.”
Her gaze met his and Kit knew she was thinking about the kiss they’d shared. He wondered how she’d react if he stepped out from behind his desk and repeated the experience. Would she melt into his arms or would she push him away? But kissing Roxanne would not solve the problems standing between them. “Please, sit down.”
She did as she was told, folding her hands on her lap and watching him expectantly.
“What are your intentions regarding my father?” he blurted out.
“My intentions?”
Kit paused, trying to frame his words as delicately as he could. “Though he won’t admit his feelings to me, I think it’s time you made your feelings clear to him. I don’t want to see him hurt. I want to know what it would take for you to walk away.”
She frowned. “I don’t understand. Walk away from what? I’m not in love with your father! He’s a nice man and he’s been very kind to me. How many times do I have to say that?”
“Don’t say it to me. Say it to my father.”
“He’s never given any indication that he has serious feelings for me. As far as I can tell, he’s still in love with your mother.”
Kit drew a deep breath, knowing that he should end the conversation. But he couldn’t help but push it. He needed to know how she really felt, and not just for his father’s sake but for his own. “I know how difficult things are for you now, financially. And this job that he’s offered you does have a small salary. I’d like to help you out if you’d agree to walk away before you hurt him.”
“Wait.” Roxanne stood up. “I don’t need to listen to any more of this. Your father offered me a chance. And I’m going to take it.”
“My father owns thirty-three percent of my company. If you think I’m going to let you-”
“Don’t even say it,” she warned, holding out her finger to silence him. “If you really cared about your father, then you’d want him to be happy. And if he had the good fortune to find happiness with me or any other woman, then you should be jumping for joy. Because real happiness…real love…is very hard to find.”
She turned on her heel and strode out of his office, slamming the door behind her. He stared after her, suddenly wondering what had possessed him to take such a tack with her. Maybe his first instinct had been right-to let his father’s infatuation run its course. But he didn’t want to watch his father fall more deeply under her spell. And he didn’t want to learn that Roxanne Perry was the kind of woman to take advantage of a vulnerable man. But even worse, he didn’t want to believe that she’d choose his father over him.
He punched at his intercom button and when Linda answered, he schooled his voice into relative calm. “Cancel those flowers,” he said. Hell, he didn’t care whether Roxanne Perry kidnapped his father and turned him into a sixty-year-old sex slave. From now on, he was staying out of it!
“AND THAT’S OUR SHOW FOR TODAY. Join us next Tuesday when we’ll be talking about the perils of dating for a single mom. This is Carl Lawrence, for Roxanne Perry. Thanks for listening to
Carl flipped a switch and turned to face Roxanne. “Great show. I enjoyed our conversation about discipline. I didn’t realize how different things were in a single parent household. No good cop, bad cop.”
“Carl, I need to talk to you about something,” Roxanne murmured.
“And I need to talk to you. Let’s go to my office.”
Roxanne followed him out of the studio and when they reached his office right next door to Kit’s, he closed the door behind her. She nervously took a seat across the desk from him and tried to put order to her thoughts. She needed to tell him how she felt. Though she respected him and cared about him, there was no romantic spark. He was old enough to be her father.
“Carl, before we talk about next week’s show, I need to clear the air.”
“You can clear the air after you look at this,” Carl said. He slid a sheaf of papers across the desk and she picked them up.
“What is this?”
“It’s a contract. I’m offering you a permanent job here at the station. Twenty-five thousand a year with benefits. I know it’s not a lot, but there’s a clause in there that allows you to renegotiate after six months if the ratings increase the way I think they will.”
She stared at the paper, the words a blur. “A job? You’re offering me a real job?”
“Radio is a strange gig,” he said. “Either you’re good at it or you’re not. You’re a natural, Roxy. People listen to you. You’re compassionate and outspoken and funny and that’s a rare combination.”
“But I don’t have any professional training.”
“I didn’t either. Before I got into radio, I was selling used cars. I came into the studio to do some commercial work for my boss and they liked my voice. I did more voice-overs and they offered me a job reading the news. That’s how I got my start.”
“I don’t know what to say,” she murmured, clutching the contract in her hands as if it might suddenly disappear. She thought finding a job would be difficult, that she’d have to suffer months of rejection before someone would hire her. And now, he was handing her a career on a silver platter.
“Say yes,” Carl urged. “It would be a great job for you. You’d need to be here from about nine until three on Tuesdays and Thursdays and that’s it. You can do research for the show from home. We’ll get you a computer with Internet access. You know how to use a computer, don’t you?”
“Sure. I used to help my ex-husband with his research when he was just starting up his law practice.”
“We’ll go over the show in the morning before we go on the air. And then we’ll spend an hour afterwards brainstorming for the next week. We should-”
“Why are you doing this?” Roxanne interrupted.
“I told you,” Carl said. “Because you’re good.”
“There isn’t another reason?”
