ÍSA TURNED THE SHOWER TO ICE-COLD after racing home from Nayna’s office, yelped after getting in; that had done nothing to quiet her libido or her racing heart, though it had successfully frozen her blood. Turning up the heat, she washed off the scent of sin and temptation and blue, blue eyes and lips that devoured her own. Afterward, she rubbed herself down with clinical precision in an effort to hide all evidence of her shower.

If her mother commented on it regardless, Ísa would tell Jacqueline that she’d been exercising. The best thing was, it wasn’t even a lie—she and the gardener had surely burned a few red-hot calories. And Jacqueline would be happy to hear of Ísa’s sudden enthusiasm for after-work sessions. She’d never understood how she’d birthed a child who was so much more into curling up with a cup of tea and falling into poetry than in going for a “head-clearing” run.

The one thing Jacqueline had never done was disparage Ísa for her size. “Curves can be useful,” she’d said more than once. “But you need strength and endurance to back it up.”

Ísa had taken the advice, but in ways she found interesting. Running, Jacqueline’s choice of exercise, didn’t qualify. Team sports would’ve been good if she’d had the coordination. Since she didn’t, she focused on things like aerobics classes where she and Nayna could hide out at the back, far from the sleek gym bunnies who could twist themselves into pretzels without breaking a sweat.

The regular back-line students often sent each other into hysterics. Last session, Nayna had ended up facing the opposite direction from the rest of the class. The session before that, Ísa had almost smacked another back-liner in the face with her outflung hand.

Too bad this evening wouldn’t be filled with laughter and camaraderie.

After pulling on a simple gray dress with a fitted bodice and full skirt, the outfit topped off with a thin but businesslike black belt, she twisted her hair up into a bun, then reached for her makeup.

With skin as pale as hers, powder was a moot point unless she wanted to imitate a Kabuki dancer. Ísa tended to stick with mascara and a touch of eyeshadow, maybe a slick of gloss on her lips. Anything more and she felt as if she resembled a clown. Like that orange-haired one associated with burgers and nuggets and fries.

Suzanne had enjoyed pointing out the resemblance.

“Ronald. Hey Ronald, how’s it going, Ronald?”

And now the poster girl for mean girls of high school was getting married and having a baby.

Realizing she’d forgotten to tell Nayna that infuriating piece of news, she quickly messaged her friend as she ran down to the car. She was on the road when a ping told her Nayna had replied, but she didn’t look at the message until she’d pulled into the parking lot of her mother’s base of operations in the glossy downtown district.

Her parking spot was an assigned one.

And it boasted a shiny gold-on-black sign: Ísalind Rain, Vice President.

Argh! That hadn’t been there the last time.

Getting out, she checked Nayna’s message:

Ísa grinned as she made her way through the front doors of Crafty Corners HQ and into a color-filled lobby that was a cheerful assault on the senses. Waving at the sole receptionist currently on duty at the main welcome desk, she ran up the steps rather than using the elevator.

The upstairs reception area was another pop of color, the sofas a mix of fresh orange, lime green, and sunburst yellow, the walls warm and creamy. Her mother’s junior assistant sat not at a traditional desk but behind a seat-height counter on which crafting and work supplies were stacked in neat groupings.

The slender brunette was currently involved in putting together an intricate jewelry box.

“How many of those have you made now, Ginny?”

“Oh, thank God it’s you, Ísa.” Ginny stopped pretending to be an industrious crafter and slumped back in her wheelchair. “I swear to God, if I have to glue one more set of tiny windows onto one more set of tiny doors, I’m going to start gluing the stupid doors to people’s heads.”

Ísa nodded in heartfelt sympathy. She’d worked several summers in the business and never again wanted to craft anything. Ever. But Crafty Corners thrived partially because people wanted to buy into the Craft Is Family motto. Any employee at their desk who might come into contact with the public was to always be involved in a craft project or to have a half-completed project within easy view. As if they were so in love with the company’s creations that they couldn’t stop themselves.

Poor Ginny had drawn the short straw here—the senior assistant, Annalisa, got to sit behind another door and had a much more sane working environment. Though, to be fair, Annalisa had done her time in the crafting salt mines for three years before she was promoted out of the front line.

The whole concept sounded idiotic, but Ísa had seen it work over and over again. Investors, reporters, all types of normally sensible people laughed and fell for the illusion, many even stopping long enough to help glue or paint a piece. Which was why the company Jacqueline Rain had created as a broke student was now a multimillion-dollar operation that exported worldwide and had seventeen thriving stores in New Zealand.

New Zealand wasn’t that big a country. Still less than five million people at last count. And yet… seventeen Crafty Corners stores. All flourishing. All with waiting lists for their highly reviewed “Crafting and Cookies” nights at which the newest and hottest crafting secrets were revealed.

Then there were the twenty-eight stores in neighboring Australia.

Ísa didn’t know how her mother did it.

“Is Jacqueline in her office?” she asked Ginny.

The other woman pointed toward the boardroom down the hall. “Already in there.”

Taking a deep, calming breath, Ísa squared her shoulders and prepared to face the Dragon, but she still wasn’t prepared for the impact her mother had on her when she opened the door. With dark auburn hair that she wore in a chignon and pale skin that she’d passed on to Ísa—though where Ísa was ghost pale, Jacqueline had a rich cream tone to her skin that made you want to stroke it—Jacqueline Rain was one of the most beautiful people Ísa had ever met.

Add in willowy height and flawless bone structure, and Jacqueline would be stunning even at eighty.

“Ísa.” Jacqueline raised her cheek.

Dutifully giving her mother a peck, Ísa took the seat next to her around the glossy wood of the conference table. “What’s with the vice president tag on the parking spot?”

“I thought you’d like to taste the future you could have.” Jacqueline took off her Tiffany-blue cat’s-eye reading glasses. “I fail to see why you prefer dealing with snotty teenagers all day when you could be working in one of the top businesses in the country.”

“I don’t want to do crafts all day, Mother.”

“Ísa, you know that’s just window dressing with the frontline staff. Stop being deliberately obtuse.”

Unfortunately, her mother was right; the family-friendly, crafty atmosphere was just for public consumption. Behind the scenes, Crafty Corners was a cutthroat business. And Jacqueline was the head cutter of throats.

“Why am I here?” she said. “You know I always vote with you.” It wasn’t that Ísa didn’t have her own views, but Jacqueline was brilliant. She knew exactly what she was doing, and voting against her out of spite wasn’t an act of which Ísa was capable. “Also, you have the controlling share. So why do we have to go through the song and dance?”

“Because the other shareholders like to know what’s happening with their money,” Jacqueline said. “Since those shares make you a millionaire, I’d think you’d pay a little more attention.”

Ísa wanted to bang her head against the table; at this rate, she should just get a helmet and be done with it. The only reason she hadn’t tried to sell back her shares—because of course, contractually, she couldn’t sell them to anyone else without first giving Jacqueline the option—was that the instant Ísa defected from the company, Jacqueline would cut her off.

Ísa had zero fucks to give on that score. But if she couldn’t get to Jacqueline, or if Jacqueline stopped taking her arguments into account, then she couldn’t speak for Catie and Harlow. And neither her half sister nor her stepbrother would stand a chance without Ísa working on their behalf. Oh, Jacqueline wouldn’t cut off the money Catie, in particular, needed, but… the two would get forgotten.

Ísa knew how much that hurt.

She would not permit Jacqueline to do that to another child.

That didn’t mean she was ready to sit back and be rolled over by the Jacqueline Rain train. “You know I’m not suitable to be your heir,” she said. “I have no business experience except for the summers I worked for you.”

“You’re downplaying your abilities.” Leaning back in her chair, Jacqueline pinned Ísa to the spot with the striking green of her gaze. “You absorb everything and you understand all of it.”

Bad luck for Ísa, but Jacqueline was, once again, right.

It was like Ísa had absorbed the information in the womb while her mother was wheeling and dealing and cut-throating.

Leaning back in her chair while trying futilely not to grit her teeth, she picked up the agenda for this meeting. She was halfway through it when her mother said, “What have you done to yourself?” Her well-manicured fingernails brushed the side of Ísa’s neck. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think that was stubble burn.”

Ísa’s fingers jerked up to her throat without her conscious volition.

How could she have missed that?

Because you don’t make a habit of jumping hot, half-naked gardeners, that’s why, Devil Ísa answered. Pity.

Thank God eagle-eyed Jacqueline had already returned to her work, dismissing the possibility that Ísa would turn up to a board meeting with stubble burn on her neck. Not that Ísa could blame her mother on that point.

Hard as it was to admit, Cody had done a number on her self-confidence. He’d been the first boy she’d ever trusted not just with her heart but with her body, and he’d made her feel horrible about it. She’d risen from the humiliation on a wave of fury and fierce determination, but it had still taken her two years to step back into the dating pool.

She’d met a couple of nice men, but no one who’d shaken her world.

Still, as Manuel, Beau, Carl, et al. could testify, Ísa was no longer a dating shrinking violet. The online-dating maneuver might succeed in driving her mad, but no one would ever be able to accuse her of not trying hard enough. And it’d all be worth it if she found him, found the one man for whom she’d be more important than meetings or negotiations or “time-critical” emails.

The one man for whom she’d be a priority.

Ísa had never been that for anyone.

I’m married to my business. She’s also my very demanding mistress. Doesn’t tolerate other women for long periods.

She sighed inwardly. It looked like she couldn’t even jump the right hot gardener. No, she had to accost one who was devoted to his business—it was like she had radar tuned to the kind of people who’d ignore adult Ísa as her parents had ignored child Ísa. Just as well she’d never see him again. The way her body had ignited for him, she didn’t trust herself anywhere near his vicinity.

Not when he was unsuitable, blue-eyed trouble.

Her toes curled inside her heels. Her lower body clenched. And her breasts, they seemed to well inside the cups of her bra.

And Devil Ísa whispered, Nothing says you have to marry him, you idiot. Don’t you want to look back and have some wicked stories with which to scandalize your grandchildren?