The Cinderella Deal - Jennifer Crusie [28]
That thought was a killer, and Daisy shoved Linc firmly out of her mind, telling herself that the last thing she needed in her life was another disapproving male, but as the summer wore on, it got harder and harder to paint, and she began to hate her apartment, feeling as if she were trapped in it with the corpse of her old life. Sometimes then, in the middle of the night, Linc would creep back into her thoughts, and she’d think, He wasn’t disapproving when he had his arms around me. And then she’d kick herself and try to forget him again.
In September, Linc went to Crawford’s office for an early morning meeting to discuss the curriculum committee he had been assigned to, but the first thing Crawford said when Linc was sitting across from him was “When’s Daisy coming? Chickie’s driving me crazy, asking every day. What’s the hold up?”
Linc took a deep breath and dropped the bomb. “She’s not coming, sir. We had some problems over the summer, and we’ve decided it’s best to just go our separate ways.” It sounded lame and rehearsed, so he tried to look miserable, as if he missed Daisy dreadfully. When he thought about her, it wasn’t that hard. Those imaginary conversations were taking their toll.
“What?” Crawford leaned across his desk, glowering.
“It was just one of those things, sir.” Linc shrugged. “She wasn’t ready to get married. I lost her.”
Crawford thumped the desk. “Well, get her back, boy. A woman like that is one in a million.” Crawford leaned away and hooked his thumbs in his vest. “You bring her back and marry her here. Chickie wants to do the wedding in our backyard.” Crawford got a faraway smile on his face. It was ugly. “Daisy loved the gazebo, you know.”
This was bad. Chickie was obviously not the only one fantasizing about Daisy. “Yes, sir, she did, but I don’t think—”
Crawford shot him another slashing glare. “You sure don’t, boy, or you’d never have let her go. Now, you get out of here this afternoon. You want to fly? I’ll have Millie make your reservations. One going out and two coming back.” He pressed down on the intercom button. “Millie!”
“Uh,” Linc began, and Crawford glowered at him again and told his secretary to make plane reservations. He kept on glowering through the next ten minutes of Linc’s increasingly frantic explanations as to why bringing Daisy back was impractical, implausible, and impossible, until his secretary interrupted them with the ticket information.
“One out and two back, Dayton International at eleven,” she said, handing a memo with the ticket numbers to Linc. “Have a nice flight.”
Crawford glared at him. “Go.”
Booker found Linc standing in the hall, trying to figure out what to do next. “You look like a man who needs a drink.” Booker took his arm. “Come on.”
Linc opened his mouth to argue and then realized that Booker hadn’t said three words to him all summer. If he was offering a drink now, there was an agenda involved, so he shut up and followed the little man to his office.
Booker waved him to a chair and took a bottle from his bottom drawer. “How about Scotch.”
“Yeah. Sure.” Linc sank into the chair. “And a syringe.”
“Straight into the vein, is it?” Booker chuckled. “Well, I can’t say as I blame you. You’ve really got yourself in a mess.” He pulled two glasses out of the same drawer and kicked it shut with his shin.
Linc stopped thinking about how miserable he was. “How’d you know? I just got out of Crawford’s office.”
Booker pursed his lips and looked up at the ceiling. “Let me guess. You told him your engagement has been broken off, and he’s now sending you back to get—what’s her name—Rosie.”
“Daisy.”
“Daisy.” Booker nodded and poured. “Only you can’t, because you were never engaged to her in the first place.” He held out one of the glasses to Linc as he sat down in his desk chair.
Linc blinked once at him and took the glass from him. “How long have you known about Daisy?”
“Since the first interview.” Booker drank some Scotch, savoring it. “I asked you if you were married, and you said no, and Crawford had a heart attack, and I watched your fianc