Every Road to You Read online

  Tia and her top-notch staff had cut, colored, made up, manicured and massaged years off the senior citizen’s outdated appearance. The upshot: Carol Harris was now one smoking-hot woman of a certain age. But it appeared the dramatic change might have done her friend more harm than good.

  “So I gather he’s not happy with his granny’s new look,” Max observed.

  “Apparently, there have been some side effects, and Carol’s gone wild.”

  Max sat in the chair in front of her desk. “If she’s happy, your job is done.”

  “Normally, I’d agree, but he wants me to talk to her, and I told him I would.”

  Max grunted.

  “I take it you don’t approve.”

  “Considering the way he stormed through here, you should have let me use one of my old wrestling moves on him before tossing him out the door,” he said.

  Tia regarded her assistant, a former pro wrestler and longtime friend, with a frown.

  “All three of us couldn’t be hotheads.” She leveled him with a look to emphasize her point.

  Max nodded. “Point taken,” he said. “Want me to ask Carol to meet you here at the spa’s café for lunch or book you a table somewhere else?”

  “Neither,” Tia said.

  Ethan Wright’s problems would have to take a backseat for now. She had her own family to deal with this morning and a problem she needed to readdress today.

  “In fact, clear my afternoon schedule. I’m headed downtown to the Espresso building to talk to my father.”

  “Does that mean your conversation with Cole went well, despite the interruption?” Max sounded hopeful.

  Tia shook her head. Her stepbrother had sequestered himself on his boat somewhere off the coast of Italy. She doubted he’d heard more than a word or two she’d said over the crackling line of the static-ridden call, let alone her desperate request.

  And even if they had been able to talk, Tia thought, she wasn’t the family member who needed to reach out to her brother and convince him to return to Nashville and their family business.

  “It doesn’t appear Cole is an option for Espresso right now,” Tia told Max. “All I can do is try to reason with my dad.” Again, she silently added.

  “You’ll want to take a look at this first.” Max left her office briefly and returned with a familiar document from Espresso’s accounting department.

  “Another authorization form?” Tia asked.

  Max nodded. “Malcolm Doyle faxed it over while you were with Mr. Wright.”

  Tia looked over the form giving her permission, as president of the company’s spa division, to redirect more profits from Espresso’s ten sanctuary day spas into the floundering cosmetics side of the company.

  Damn, Tia thought as she snatched a pen from her desk and signed her name. At this rate, she’d never be able to expand from the Southeast to spots she’d been eyeing in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.

  “So how long do think you can continue propping up the cosmetics division?” Max asked.

  Tia pushed out a weary sigh. “This is the last time.”

  Her father’s steadfast refusal to allow major changes at Espresso Cosmetics so it could stay relevant in a changing marketplace was contributing to the brand’s slow death.

  “Whatever you say.” Max reached for the signed form, but Tia held on to it.

  “I mean it, Max. In fact, I’m delivering this one to my father personally, so he’ll know I’m serious.”

  Tia knew very well that Max had heard it all before. Still, he never judged her. Instead, he gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “Good luck with that.”

  “Thanks,” Tia said as she rolled her eyes. “I’ll need it.”

  An hour later, Tia rode the glass elevator to the top floor of the eleven-story building her late mother had constructed in 1984 to house what back then was a rapidly expanding makeup empire. While other cosmetics companies had located their headquarters in the fashion capital of New York City, her mother had insisted Espresso remain in Nashville. The decision provided jobs for their hometown as well as allowed them to draw on the brilliant young talent graduating with degrees from Fisk and Tennessee State universities.

  Unfortunately, now nearly half the offices in Espresso Cosmetics corporate headquarters stood empty, victims of the recession, increasing competition and the company’s failure to keep up with the times.

  The elevator pinged and the doors parted at the top floor.

  “He’s got to listen to me this time,” Tia muttered as she stepped off the car.

  Still, there was no finessing the cold, hard facts laid out to her by Malcolm Doyle, Espresso’s head bean counter. Sales from Espresso Cosmetics’s spring collection—Parisian Getaway—had been dismal. Not only had it failed to bring new customers to their department-store counters, they were rapidly losing their loyal ones to other brands.

  Bottom line, women of color had more options, and they were no longer choosing what they considered their grandmothers’ makeup.

  “Morning, Loretta,” Tia greeted the woman who’d been her mother’s secretary ever since she could remember and now worked for her father.

  Like Loretta Walker, hardly anything had changed in the presidential suite since the death of Tia’s mother and company founder, Selina Sinclair Gray, seven years prior. Worn carpeting had been replaced with identical carpets, and walls had been repainted the ivory shade her mother had loved.

  But the decor wasn’t the problem.

  Tia exchanged a few moments of small talk with Loretta revolving around the weather and the woman’s granddaughter, who would start medical school at Meharry Medical College when the fall term began next month.

  “He’s not in there, sweetheart,” Loretta said as Tia headed toward her father’s office. “He’s waiting for you in your mom’s old office.”

  Tia raised a curious brow, but Loretta merely shrugged in response.

  Victor Gray was standing in the middle of what was once her mother’s inner sanctum staring at his wife’s portrait when Tia entered the office. The unseeing portrait smiled down at them. Although it was a wonderful likeness, Tia thought it failed to capture the exquisiteness of the icon who had dedicated her life to beauty for every shade of woman from sand to sable.

  Her father released a heavy sigh, and Tia touched his arm.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to talk in your office?”

  He shook a graying head. “Here’s fine. In fact, I can’t think of a better place to begin making plans to celebrate the thirty-fifth anniversary of Espresso Cosmetics,” he said. “Next year will be on us before you know it.”

  They’d be lucky if the business was still in operation next year. Tia opened her mouth to tell him so, but hesitated at the ever-present sadness on his lined face, making him look older than his sixty years. As a rebellious teenager, she had relished ripping into her parents, but now she reached for softer words.

  Her father continued, “I’ll get input from your sister, of course,” he said. “And see if your brother can be bothered to celebrate his mother’s legacy. However, I wanted to talk to you first and get the ball rolling.”

  “Dad, Malcolm Doyle came to see me last week,” Tia said in an attempt to head him off with some facts before he started talk of celebrations. Expensive celebrations.

  Immediately, a frown joined the grooves on her father’s wrinkled face at the mention of the company’s head accountant. He turned away from his late wife’s portrait and ran his hand along the smooth wood of the desk she used to sit behind.

  Tia pushed on. “Espresso can’t continue like this. The cosmetics division is bleeding red ink. Malcolm says—”

  “I’ve already heard what Doyle had to say,” her father barked. “I’m the CEO of this company. He had no right to wo
rry you.”

  But she was worried.

  The sanctuary day spas, which Tia herself had founded as an offshoot of the makeup brand, were now practically supporting it.

  “Back to the anniversary celebration,” her father continued.

  “Don’t you see?” Tia interrupted. “If we don’t make some hard decisions, Espresso Cosmetics won’t exist next year.”

  He brushed off her concern with the wave of his hand, as if the motion would sweep away their financial problems. “All we need is one hit to get us back on track. The summer campaign will be in stores this week,” he said. “Calypso Moods is going to bring customers back to our counters.”

  No. It wouldn’t, Tia thought.

  Truth was, there was nothing exciting about the Calypso Moods collection. It was simply a rehash of her mother’s favorite hot-pink and orange lipsticks and blushes with new island-inspired names.

  Espresso’s product-research-and-development team had stopped bringing new ideas to her father’s desk knowing they’d be soundly rejected. So they gave him what he wanted, Selina Sinclair Gray–approved products with different names.

  “Even if every item of the collection sells out, it won’t be enough to put the cosmetics division in the black,” Tia said. “The cosmetics division is in survival mode here, Dad, and we have to make some hard decisions, all of us.”

  Her father leaned against her mother’s desk and crossed his arms. “Don’t go there, Tia,” he warned.

  “If we keep siphoning money from the spas to prop up the cosmetics brand, eventually it will drag them down, too.” Tia swallowed hard. She removed the signed authorization form from her tote bag and placed it on her mother’s old desk. “This is the last time, Dad.”

  “Who are you to tell me how the money this company makes is spent?” Victor Gray’s voice trembled with rage. “Your mother put me in place to succeed her as CEO. It’s what she wanted.”

  “I have plenty of say in how the spas’ profits are disbursed.” Tia pressed on, first reminding him of what he already well knew. “The spas didn’t exist when Mom was alive. I launched them with money from my trust fund, so there can be no monetary transfers without both our signatures,” she reiterated. “And I won’t authorize another dime until we all sit down in one room, you, me, Lola and, yes, even Cole, and figure out Espresso’s future.”

  Tia stood strong in the face of her father’s glare. He hadn’t flinched at her words, but he’d heard them all before. So she wasn’t surprised when he dismissed them as a bluff.

  “Like I told you the last time you brought this up, I will make any decisions regarding the future of Espresso Cosmetics, and I expect you to continue to help in any way you can, including financially,” he said. “As far as your brother goes, he’s welcome to come back to the company and this family anytime, as long as he understands I’m the CEO.”

  “Dad, be reasonable. We can’t go on this way,” Tia pleaded. “Nobody knows this company or the industry better than Cole. He practically grew up in this building. If we’re going to turn this thing around, we will need his help.”

  “But your mother thought he was too young to run Espresso. That’s why she—”

  “Mom’s dead,” Tia blurted out, cutting him off. “She’s been gone for seven years now, and if we want to save her legacy, we have to stop thinking about what she would have done and do what’s best.”

  Her father jerked as if she’d slapped him.

  And while Tia regretted the way she’d delivered them, the words needed to be said.

  “Get out!” Victor shouted.

  His roar shook the floor beneath her feet, but Tia stood rooted to the spot.

  “Get out,” he repeated, this time louder. “I want you out of my wife’s office, out of this building and out of my sight.”

  Pushing down her hurt, Tia remained. “Cole may have let you drive him away, but I’m not going anywhere. You, me, Lola, Cole—we all need to have a say in how this business is run.”

  “If you won’t go, then I will.” Her father walked past her out of her mother’s office. The next sound Tia heard was the door to his own office slamming shut.

  Chapter 2

  Ethan stared down at his cleared desktop, marveling at the rarely seen wooden surface usually hidden by stacks of paperwork.

  Nearly all the items on his vacation-prep list had been completed. Clients briefed, contracts read and no scheduled court appearances for the next two weeks. Even his grandma problem had been tentatively resolved with his visit to Espresso Sanctuary’s offices that morning.

  Visions of Tia Gray came to mind, those shapely legs dominating most of them, and Ethan quickly shoved the illicit images aside. He should be focused on wrapping up his afternoon schedule, not imagining a particular pair of legs wrapped around his waist.

  Especially when those legs were attached to a woman who had caused nothing but trouble.

  He looked down at his open diary and saw that one last appointment remained.

  Afterward, he’d follow up with his grandmother and make sure Ms. Gray had indeed done as he’d instructed. Then tomorrow morning he’d set off for Hawaii and his first vacation in years.

  Again, his mind drifted to Tia.

  Ethan exhaled. Maybe it was a mistake for him to go solo on the trip planned a year ago when he was still part of a couple. That had to be the only reason for his reoccurring thoughts of the woman he’d met today.

  He needed to get laid. Soon.

  A knock sounded at Ethan’s open office door and the glazed-over expression in the secretary’s eyes indicated his next appointment had arrived.

  “I don’t believe it.” His young but normally unflappable secretary gushed, her voice an awestruck whisper. “Wangs is actually sitting in my office.”

  She clasped her hands together. “Wangs!” she squealed, as if Ethan hadn’t heard her the first time.

  Ethan’s enthusiasm over the hip-hop superstar’s visit didn’t match that of his secretary’s. In fact, it had taken a pleading call from the young man, whose legal name was Jeffrey Ritchie, to persuade Ethan to even see him at all.

  “Send Mr. Ritchie in,” Ethan said, refusing to use the ridiculous moniker. The kid’s mother had saddled him with it in childhood after his favorite food, chicken wings, and the twenty-three-year-old now used it professionally.

  Ethan glanced at his watch, planning to give his former client a few moments of his time before sending him on his way. He’d tried to bestow Jeffrey with the benefit of his expertise a few years ago, and the kid had told him where he could stick it.

  Seconds later, Jeffrey crossed the threshold looking totally different than the young man who’d sat in his office three years earlier.

  The discount-store wardrobe had been replaced with clothes bearing the labels of the hottest urban designers, and he’d exchanged his beat-up sneakers for a pair of pristine ones named for a basketball legend. Ethan guessed Jeffrey had paid more for the platinum medallion spelling out WANGS in diamonds that adorned his neck than most people would pay for their cars.

  Yet, the biggest difference wasn’t in Jeffrey’s appearance but his demeanor. The cocky swagger was notably absent, and he now possessed the weariness of a much older man, a man weighed down by burdens.

  Financial burdens, Ethan surmised. Five minutes into their conversation, the younger man confirmed it.

  “You pleaded with me not to sign that contract,” Jeffrey said, shaking his head.

  “No attorney would have advised you to put your signature on it,” Ethan said. “The document was no more than an indentured-servant agreement.”

  Jeffrey snorted. It was a hollow, jaded sound unexpected in someone his age. “At the time, you called it a slave contract,” he said. “But I didn’t want to hear what you were saying. All I wa
nted was to be a superstar.”

  Stardom was one of the two things the multiplatinum artist had gotten out of the deal, Ethan thought. The other was a hard lesson in record-company math. From what Ethan remembered, the deal had been structured in a way that would keep Wangs perpetually in debt to Bat Tower Records.

  “All the limos, the parties, the liquor, I thought they were celebrity perks. Hell, I didn’t know I was paying for them. Right down to the last drops of thousand-dollar bottles of champagne.”

  Ethan leaned back in his office chair and listened, not bothering with the pointless I told you so perched on the tip of his tongue.

  Three years ago, the young man now sitting in front of him filled with regrets had tied his hands. Jeffrey had refused to let him attempt to negotiate more favorable terms out of fear the record company would balk and take the deal off the table.

  Ethan had doubted it, and even if Bat Tower Records had reneged, Jeffrey would have been better off.

  Unfortunately, he hadn’t been able to convince his client back then. Jeffrey had stormed out of his office full of attitude, blustering he wasn’t taking or paying for Ethan’s bullshit advice.

  Ethan figured the next time he’d see Jeffrey would be as another broke artist featured on VH-1’s Behind the Music.

  “When I got that first big check from the record company, I thought it was the first of many,” Jeffrey said.

  Ethan sighed. “I told you it would be an advance against future royalties.”

  “Yeah, I heard you, but like I told you, I wasn’t listening. I burned through it on crap like this.” He flicked a hand toward the diamond-encrusted platinum chain. “Now the jeweler who sold it to me for thousands of dollars will only give me a couple hundred bucks for it.”

  Jeffrey dropped his head into his hands, his bony elbows propped on his knees.

  Ethan cleared his throat. He knew where this conversation was headed, and he wanted no part of it. He was done with Jeffrey Ritchie.

  “So what’s the bottom line?” Ethan resisted the urge to glance at his watch. “Why are you here?”