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“Garrett then, and please, call me Veronica. Congratulations on your daughter’s engagement. I’m thrilled to be part of the team making the event one to remember.”
Her lips are mesmerizing. Lush, and cherry red, and kissable. I haven’t thought of kissing a woman in years and yet here I am staring at Veronica’s smile like some hormone-filled sixteen-year-old, rather than a widowed single dad in his forties. I shake my head to clear the wayward thoughts and grab at the first thing that comes to mind.
“You’re beautiful, Veronica. Um, I mean your flowers. Your flowers are beautiful.”
Smooth Garrett, real smooth.
CHAPTER3
VERONICA
“Jingle Bell Rock”is blaring from the speakers at the White Glove Florist workshop and staging center six blocks from my brownstone in Brooklyn when I walk in sipping my nonfat eggnog latte. I stomp the slush off my boots and say a little prayer of thanks that I didn’t have to fight the never-ending snowfall across the East River into Manhattan.
The fast tempo of the song is nothing compared to the pace of my floral designers and assistants rushing to prepare the thousands of bouquets, wreaths, garlands, arches, centerpieces, corsages, place settings, cake decor, and tie backs we need for the many weddings, holiday parties, and events booked over the next few days.
A few curious looks are covertly slung in my direction as I claim an empty workstation to prep the items for Garrett’s daughter’s wedding. Two hours later, I’m wondering why I don’t get hands on more often. I’d forgotten how soothing cutting and preparing flowers and greens could be. How relaxing the cadence of creating the base, selecting the focal flowers, and adding the filler was. How satisfying creating something beautiful, one bit at a time, is.
And the way working with your hands allows your mind to wander. Like to a client meeting with a man who, rather than being a stuffy older billionaire financial type, was laid back with a heart-stopping lopsided grin in the prime of his life. A man who could easily be splashed on an ad four stories high on Fifth Avenue in the sexy ass-hugging Kiton jeans and navy cashmere sweater he was wearing. Not that I was looking.
After overcoming the awkwardness of that initial unexpected compliment, Garrett was gracious and self-deprecating. He assured Tierney and I at least five times that we were the experts and he trusted us completely with every last detail, which was music to my ears. A man who can relinquish complete control to a woman is a rare find indeed.
Maybe that’s why I’m taking care to place every bloom just so and hide every wire from sight, all the while thinking about the widower who lives all alone in a penthouse in the sky. The single dad whose interest pounded in my chest as keenly as if he’d professed it aloud.
But surely, I was hallucinating. Too bad I canceled that vacation because maybe I need it more than I thought. Or at least a good night’s sleep. I finish off the last of my now cold latte and pull myself together. What I need is to forget I ever met Garrett Hillstone and felt the heady weight of his gaze send a school-girl blush creeping up my skin.
I get back on task with a deep, focused breath, but the fragrant smell in the workshop—earthy pine, spicy cinnamon, a dash of clove, and bright citrus—sends me back to that first holiday season when I launched White Glove. The year I prepped every single arrangement myself in my seven hundred square foot studio in Queens and dreamed of a spot with space for a window display near Fifth Avenue.
My company is everything I want and need. My life is complete without a man. After all, I’ve been there, done that, and it’s not something I need to repeat. Especially with a single dad whose daughter can’t be more than five years younger than me. A Wall Street guy who has a towering artificial Christmas tree in the corner of his living room.
I’m trimming a stargazer amaryllis and humming along to “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” when Cassie, one of my lead designers, approaches. “Um, Veronica,” she says, shooting a look over my shoulder. “You have a guest.”
A guest? At the workshop? But before I can spin to see who it is, Garrett Hillstone sidles up to the vacant spot across the workbench and pins me with smoky gray eyes laced with flashes of silver that just might be doubling as delight. A dusting of snowflakes is melting away on the shoulders of his dark wool coat, which he shrugs off.
“Veronica, so nice to see you again. Need a hand?”
My stomach drops as if I’m riding a roller coaster that just looped. The frenetic pace around us slows to a crawl with this turn of events, but I can’t spare a thought for anyone but the man across the three-foot butcher block. “Garrett, how did you—” I stammer as Cassie slips away, leaving the two of us alone.
“I asked your staff at the Design Studio.”
I must look like a deer in the headlights because he adds, “On Forty-Eighth Street,” as if I don’t know the address of my company’s flagship location.
“And they just gave you the address here? No questions asked?” They know this location is strictly staff only.
He picks up a red bloom streaked with white and lifts it to his nose, his eyes never straying from my face. “I can be very persuasive.”
Damn, the potent combination of his words and low tone hit me square in the chest. And maybe a bit lower, too. “Is that so?”
“Yes.”
Are we still talking about what I think we’re talking about? “But why were you at the studio to begin with? You could have called directly, or even gotten a hold of me through Tierney.” I left my business card with him yesterday, I’m sure of it. The sear of his fingers as they brushed mine when I handed it over was still fresh in my mind.
“You mean besides stopping by to see if you had a fresh Christmas tree for my place?”
I still, and he rests a wool slacks covered hip against the counter and holds up his hands. “Yes, I noticed you didn’t seem keen on the fake one.”
“And you wanted to switch it out on December twenty-third because I gave it a side-eye?”
He places both hands flat on the counter and leans toward me. “And because I wanted to see you again.”
