“I’m here.”

“I know. Thanks. But I’m all right. I called her a cab. It’ll be here in another couple minutes. Don’t let her in.”

“All right. I’m here,” she repeated. “Whatever you need.”

“Parker? She’s never going to change, so I have to. I didn’t know it would be so painful. I thought it would feel good, good and satisfying. Maybe with a little triumphant thrown in. But it doesn’t. It feels awful.”

“You wouldn’t be you if it didn’t hurt. You did the right thing, if that helps. The right thing for you. And Linda will bounce. You know she will.”

“I want to be mad.” Weary and weepy, Mac pressed her face into her updrawn knees. “It’s so much easier when I’m mad at her. Why does this break my heart?”

“She’s your mother. Nothing changes that. You’re miserable when you let her use you, too.”

“This is worse. But you’ve got a point.”

“The cab’s here. She’s going.”

“Okay.” Mac closed her eyes again. “I’m all right. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“Call if you need me before.”

“I will. Thanks.”

SHE COULDN’T WORK UP THE ENTHUSIASM FOR BUBBLES AND candles and wine, but took the hot bath. She put on her oldest flannel pants, a soft comfort. She no longer wanted sleep and thought drudgery might be an answer. She’d clean her bedroom, organize her closet, her dresser, scrub the bathroom for good measure.

It was way past time for household chores and it would keep her busy for hours. Possibly days. Best of all, it was a cleansing, she decided, a symbolic act to go along with her stand with Linda.

Out with the old, in with the new. And everything fresh and ordered when the task was done. Her new life order.

She opened her closet, puffed out her cheeks, expelled a balloon of air. The only way to approach it, she decided, was the way they did it on the improvement shows on TV. Haul it out, sort, toss.

Maybe she could just burn everything and start over. Burning bridges seemed to be her current theme anyway. Squaring her shoulders, she grabbed an armload, tossed it on the bed. By the third load she asked herself why she needed so many clothes. It was a sickness, that’s what it was. No one person needed fifteen white shirts.

Fifty percent, she decided. That would be her goal. To purge out fifty percent of her wardrobe. And she’d buy those nice padded hangers. Color coordinated. And the clear, stackable shoe boxes. Like Parker.

When the contents of her closet lay heaped on her bed, on her sofa, she stood a little wild-eyed. Shouldn’t she have bought the hangers, the boxes first? And one of those closet organizer kits. Drawer dividers. Now all she had was a big, terrible mess and no place to sleep.

“Why, why in God’s name can I run a business,

be a business, and not be able to cope with my own life? This is your life, Mackensie Elliot. Big heaps of stuff you don’t know what to do with.”

She would fix it. Change it. Deal with it. God, she’d kicked her own mother out of the house, surely she could deal with clothes and shoes and handbags. She’d cut down on the clutter in her life, in her head. Minimalize, she decided.

She’d go Zen.

Her home, her life, her damn closet would be a place of peace and tranquility. In clear plastic shoe boxes.

Starting now. Today was a new day, a new start, and a new, tougher, smarter, more formidable Mackensie Elliot. She went downstairs for a box of Hefty bags with a gleam in her eye.

The knock on the door struck her with such profound relief she actually shuddered. Parker, she thought. Thank God. What she needed now were the superpowers of Organizer Girl.

Eyes crazed, hair sticking up in spikes, she wrenched open the door. “Parker—oh. Oh. Of course. Perfect.”

“You wouldn’t answer your phone. I know you’re upset,” Carter continued. “If you’d just let me come in, just for a few minutes, to explain.”

“Sure.” She threw up her hands. “Why not. It just caps it off. Let’s have a drink.”

“I don’t want a drink.”

“Right. Driving.” She waved her hands in the air as she stomped toward the kitchen. “I’m not driving.” She slapped a bottle of wine on the counter, got out a corkscrew. “What? No date tonight?”

“Mackensie.”

Somehow, she thought as she attacked the cork, he managed to make her name an apology, and a mild scold. The guy had skills.

“I know how it might have looked. Probably looked. How it looked.” He stepped to the other side of the counter. “But it wasn’t. Corrine . . . Let me do that,” he said as she struggled with the cork.

She simply shot a finger at him.

“She just dropped by. Came over.”

“Let me tell you something.” She braced the bottle between her knees, raging as she yanked on the corkscrew. “Just because we had a fight, just because I felt I needed to set some reasonable boundaries, doesn’t mean you get to entertain your mysterious, sexy ex five minutes later.”

“I wasn’t. She isn’t. Damn it,” he growled, and reached down to grab the bottle from her just as she managed to release the cork.

Her fist caught him square on the chin. The force knocked him back a full step.

“Feel better now?”

“I didn’t mean . . . Your face got in the way.” Setting the wine on the counter, she pressed her hand to her mouth to muffle the sudden laughter she feared might reach toward hysteria. “Oh God, it just gets more ridiculous.”

“Can we sit down?”

She shook her head, walked to the window. “I don’t sit down when I’m worked up. I don’t have calm, reasonable discussions.”

“So you think the second part is news to me? You left. You just ran off without giving me the chance to explain the situation.”

“Here’s one level. You’re a free agent. We didn’t agree, or even discuss, exclusivity.”

“I assumed it was understood. We’re sleeping together. Whatever the boundaries you may want, I’m with you. Only you. I expect the same. If that makes me traditional and priggish, it can’t be helped.”

She turned back to him. “Priggish. Not a term you hear every day. And it doesn’t, Carter. It doesn’t make you priggish. It makes you decent. I’m trying to tell you that, on one level, I had absolutely no right to be upset. But that level is mostly bullshit. The other level is we had a disagreement, and when I came over to try to work it out with you, you were with her.”

“I wasn’t with her. She was there.”

“She was there. You were pouring her wine. You gave her my wine.”

“I didn’t give her your wine.”

“Well, that’s something.”

“I didn’t give her any wine. There was no wine involved. I told her she had to go. I made her cry.” Remembering, he rubbed the back of his neck. “I sent her away in tears, and you wouldn’t answer your phone. If you’d only waited, if you’d come in, given me a chance—”

“You made polite introductions.”

He stopped, frowned at her. “I . . . yes.”

“I nearly beat you to death with the damn bottle of wine for that. Oh, hello, Mac, this is the woman I lived with for nearly a damn year who I’m so careful to tell you as little as possible about. And she’s standing there with her cleavage and perfect hair purring to you about pouring her a nice glass of the wine the idiot brought over.”

“I—”

“Not to mention the fact that we’d already met just a couple hours before in the shoe department at Nordstrom.”

“Who? What? When?”

“Your mutual friend what’s-her-name already made the introductions while she and your ex were in

my shoe department during

my shoe therapy session.”

Even the thought of it had Mac hitting the red zone. “And her with her damn red peep-toe pumps and single sarcastically lifted eyebrow as she checks

me out. And smirks.” She jabbed a finger at him. “

Smirks with her perfectly sculpted lips. But I let it go, screw her and her attitude. I was going to buy my fabulous blue boots, and the adorable silver slingbacks, a really good bottle of wine to take to your place—after I stopped by the MAC counter for a new eyeliner, and got buffed up a little because I wanted to look good when I went to see you. Especially after I got a load of her. Then there was this great DKNY jacket, and cashmere was on sale. Which is why I’m going Zen. Well, that’s partially because of the tow truck and emotional turmoil, but that’s the root of it.”

Shell-shocked, Carter let out a long breath. “I’ve changed my mind. Could I have a glass of wine?”

“And I don’t know how you could think for one minute that I’d stick around,” she continued as she reached for a wineglass. “What? You expect me to go head-to-head with her. Have a slugfest?”

“No, that was Bob.”

“If you’d had possession of the single brain men seem to pass around among them, you’d have introduced me to her—as the woman you’re involved with. Not like I was just some delivery girl.”

“You’re absolutely right. I mishandled it. My only excuse is I was completely out of my depth. Everything was confused and inexplicable, and I’d burned the grilled cheese sandwich.”

“You made her a

sandwich?”

“No. No. I made myself a sandwich. Or I was making one when she came over, and I forgot I had the pan on the stove because she . . .” As it occurred to him mentioning what happened between Corrine’s arrival and the burned sandwich wasn’t a particularly good idea, he took a long drink of wine. “Interrupted. In any case, do I understand you ran into Corrine and Stephanie Gorden while you were shopping?”

“That’s what I said.”

“Somewhere in there,” he mumbled. “I see. That certainly explains . . .” Boggy ground again, he realized. “Can I just say, bottom line, I didn’t want her there. I wanted you. I want you. I’m in love with you.”