Parker got to her feet, slowly. “If you have a problem with the way I’m managing the business, we’ll discuss it. But I have a group coming in about fifty minutes for a tour. I have an hour free today at two, so we can take this up then. In the meantime, I think Laurel had an excellent idea. There’s the door.”

Flushed from the cold, Emma rushed in. “I wouldn’t be late, but I dropped a whole—” She stared when Mac shoved by her, and kept going. “What’s wrong with Mac? What happened?”

“Mac had her bitch on.” Temper smoldering in her eyes, Laurel picked up her coffee. “We didn’t want to play.”

“Well, did you ask her why?”

“She was too busy slapping us around for that.”

“Oh, for God’s sake. I’m going after her.”

“Don’t.” Temper iced in her eyes, Parker shook her head. “Just don’t. She’ll only put her foot up your ass for your trouble. I’ve got potential clients coming this morning, and we have current ones who need attention. We’ll work around her for now.”

“Parker, when one of us has a problem, we all have a problem. Not just in the business.”

“I know that, Emma.” Parker pressed her fingers to her temple. “Even if she’d listen right now, which she wouldn’t, we don’t have time.”

“Besides if we all went ’splody every time one of us had a lousy date, this room would be full of our bloody body parts.”

“Mac and Carter?” Emma shook her head at Laurel. “I don’t see how that could be it. My mother talked to his last night and called me after to try to pump me. As far as I know, everything went fine when they went out.”

“What else?” Laurel demanded. “What makes a woman bitchier than a man? And okay, maybe occasionally each other. But . . .” She trailed off, closed her eyes. “Her mother. God, we’re idiots. Nothing crawls up Mac’s butt like her mother.”

“I thought her mother was in Florida.”

“Do you think distance is any deterrent to the force that is Linda Elliot?” Laurel asked Parker. “Maybe that’s it. That’s probably it, or part of it. But it’s still no reason to rip at us the way she did.”

“We’ll deal with it. We will. But we’ve got three events lined up, and we need to go over the details.”

Emma opened her mouth again, then swallowed the words when she saw Parker flip a Tums off the roll she took out of her pocket. No point, she thought, in having two friends upset. “Actually, I wanted to talk to you about the urns for Friday.”

“Great.” Parker sat back down. “Let’s get started.”

SHE KNEW WHEN SHE’D ACTED THE BITCH. SHE DIDN’T NEED A diagram, or to be offered muffins like she was a two-year-old who needed a cookie.

And she didn’t need her friends showing her the door. She knew exactly where it was.

She knew how to do her job. She was

doing her job right this minute, wasn’t she? Mac cut the first mat for the photos she hadn’t had the heart or the energy to mount the night before. In a few hours, she’d have a completed custom package and a very satisfied client. Because she knew what the hell she was doing without explaining every damn step of the process to her business partners.

Did she need to know why Emmaline selected eucalyptus over asparagus fern as filler in an arrangement?

No, she did not.

Did she need to know Laurel’s secret ingredient for butter-cream frosting?

Right back with the no.

Did she need to discuss Parker’s latest entry in her Crack-Berry?

Dear God, no.

So why the hell did anyone care what filter she planned to use or which camera bodies she’d decided to strap on?

They did theirs, she did hers, and everybody was happy.

She pulled her weight. She put in the time, the effort, the hours the same as the rest. She . . .

She cut the damn mat wrong.

Disgusted, Mac tossed the ruined board across the room. She grabbed another, checked and rechecked her measurements. But when she lifted her mat knife, her hand shook.

With considerable care, she set it down, then took two steps back.

Yes, she knew when she’d acted the bitch, she thought. And she knew when she had to get a grip on herself. As in right now. She knew, too, she admitted with a sigh, when she owed two of the people she loved most in the world an apology.

Even if they had been snotty—and they damn well had—she’d been snotty first.

She checked the time and sighed. She couldn’t do it now. Couldn’t get this weight off, not when Parker was currently escorting clients through the house.

We’re full service. We can tailor every detail to reflect your needs, and your vision of the day. Here’s our crazy bitch of a photographer who’ll be documenting that day for you in pictures.

Wouldn’t that be perfect?

She stepped into the powder room to splash cold water on her face. They were her friends, she reminded herself. They had to forgive her. That was the rule.

Steadier, she went back into her studio.

She let her machine take her calls and gave her current task all her concentration. When she’d finished she decided the client would never know the package had been created by a bitch in the throes of a massive attack of self-pity. Once everything was loaded in her car, Mac drove to the main house.

True, they had to forgive her, but first she had to ask. That was another rule.

Out of habit, she went in the back. When she stepped into the kitchen, she saw Laurel working at the prep counter. With a hand steady and precise as a surgeon’s, she monogrammed heart-shaped chocolate.

Knowing better than to interrupt, Mac held her silence.

“I can hear you breathing,” Laurel said after a moment. “Go away.”

“I just came in to eat some crow. I’ll be quick.”

“Make that very. I’ve got another five hundred of these to finish.”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry for acting that way, for saying those things. Things I didn’t mean in the first place. I’m sorry for walking out on the meeting.”

“Okay.” Laurel laid down her brush and turned. “Now, the question would be why.”

Mac started to speak, found her throat snapped shut. The sudden barrier had her eyes filling. She could only shake her head as tears spilled over.

“Okay, okay.” Laurel crossed over, folded Mac into a hug. “It’s going to be all right. Come on. Sit down.”

“You have five hundred chocolate hearts to monogram.”

“It’s probably more like four hundred and ninety-five at this point.”

“Oh, God, Laurel, I’m so stupid!”

“Yeah, you are.”

Quickly, efficiently, Laurel had Mac sitting at the counter with a box of tissues and a small plate of as yet unadorned chocolate hearts.

“I can’t take your candy.”

“It tastes a lot better than crow, and I’ve got plenty.”

Sniffling, Mac took one. “You make the best.”

“Godiva should tremble in its boots. What happened, honey? Was it your mother? Light went on,” she added when Mac didn’t speak. “Right after you did the outraged stalk.”

“Why can’t I suck it up, Laurel?”

“Because she knows every button to push when it comes to you. And no matter how much you suck up, she’s got more.”

It was, Mac had to admit, the heart of the target. “It’s never going to change.”

“She’s never going to change.”

“Meaning that’s on me.” Mac took another bite of chocolate. “I know it. I do. I said no. I said no, and I meant no, and I would’ve kept saying it even if Del hadn’t taken the phone and hung up on her.”

In the act of getting down a glass, Laurel glanced back. “Del was there?”

“Yeah, he came by to tease me about Carter—which is a whole other area of what the hell am I doing—and she called from Florida wanting another couple thousand so she could stay another week and finish her recovery.”

“I’ll give Del credit for hanging up on her, but he should’ve come back here to tell us.”

“I asked him not to.”

“So what?” Laurel demanded. “If he had any sense, he’d have done what you needed not what you asked. Then you wouldn’t have wallowed all night and woken up the bitch.”

She set a glass of ice water beside the chocolate. “Drink that. You’re probably dehydrated. How many times did she call after Del left you alone?”

“It’s not his fault. Twice. I didn’t answer.” Mac heaved a sigh. “I’m really sorry I took it out on you.”

“What are friends for?”

“Let’s hope Parker sees it that way. Can I take these up, to sort of sweeten the deal?”

Laurel chose two white chocolate hearts from her supply. “She’s no match for the white chocolate, and you might need the edge. Me, you just pissed off. Easy to get over it. You hurt her feelings.”

“Oh, God.”

“I figure it’s better you know that going in. She’s pissed, too, but it’s the hurt feelings you’ll need to get down to.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

Knowing Parker, and she did, Mac went directly to the conference room. The

incident had occurred there, so Parker-logic dictated its follow-up would take place in the same venue.

As she’d expected, Parker sat at the table working with her Crack—her BlackBerry. The fire had calmed to a cozy simmer, and the coffee had been replaced with the bottle of water Parker was rarely without. Her laptop sat open and beside it rested a tidy stack of files and printouts.

Parker was never anything but

prepared.

As Mac came in, Parker set the BlackBerry aside. Her face was cool and blank. Her business-to-attend-to face, Mac knew.

“Don’t say anything. Please. I come bearing chocolate and every possible variety of apology. You can have as many of them as you want—the chocolate and the apologies. My behavior was ass-hatty in the extreme. Everything I said was from the box of stupid I brought in with me. Since I can’t take it back, you have to forgive me. You don’t have a choice.”