Good to Myself (Toronto Series #10)

By Heather Wardell

Internet columnist Lydia Grange is on the brink of the promotion she's wanted for two years. As lead columnist of the Toronto Times' women's issue site, she'll have the fame she longs for, the money to fuel her shopping obsession, and all the free shoes she can wear. Only one obstacle remains: beating her coworkers (Sasha the perfect mother and Patricia the bargain-obsessed senior) in a competition. All three must be 'good to themselves' for four weeks and teach their readers to do the same, and at the end of the time their sexy boss Felix will pick the winner.

Lydia's certain she will be that winner, and not just because she knows Felix wants her on an unprofessional level. She's never anything but good to herself, so how could she not win? Fancy drinks with extra whipped cream, the cheesecake she adores, the exquisite but pricey purse she's been craving? With the help of her nice-guy buddy and coworker Percy, she'll just indulge herself even more and make sure her fans do the same. In a month both the job and her long-desired fling with Felix will be hers.

It'll be the easiest four weeks of her life.

Unless it turns out there's more to self-care than sex and shopping and sugar.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Heather Wardell
• Release date: Dec 10, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301782871

Heather Wardell

Want a free monthly story and updates about Heather's books? Copy bit.ly/HW-NL into your browser's address bar to sign up.Heather is a natural 1200 wpm speed reader and the author of twenty-two novels. She came to writing after careers as a software developer and elementary school computer teacher and can’t imagine ever leaving it. In her spare time, she reads, swims, walks, lifts weights, crochets, changes her hair colour, and plays drums and clarinet.Generally not all at once.

Book preview

Book Description

Internet columnist Lydia Grange is on the brink of the promotion she's wanted for two years. As lead columnist of the Toronto Times' women's issue site, she'll have the fame she longs for, the money to fuel her shopping obsession, and all the free shoes she can wear. Only one obstacle remains: beating her coworkers (Sasha the perfect mother and Patricia the bargain-obsessed senior) in a competition. All three must be 'good to themselves' for four weeks and teach their readers to do the same, and at the end of the time their sexy boss Felix will pick the winner.

Lydia's certain she will be that winner, and not just because she knows Felix wants her on an unprofessional level. She's never anything but good to herself, so how could she not win? Fancy drinks with extra whipped cream, the cheesecake she adores, the exquisite but pricey purse she's been craving? With the help of her nice-guy buddy and coworker Percy, she'll just indulge herself even more and make sure her fans do the same. In a month both the job and her long-desired fling with Felix will be hers.

It'll be the easiest four weeks of her life.

Unless it turns out there's more to self-care than sex and shopping and sugar.

Author's Note

Good to Myself is the tenth novel in my Toronto Collection. While the books can be read out of order, this one does include references to characters and situations from Go Small or Go Home and Stir Until Thoroughly Confused, so if you haven't read those ones yet you might want to pick them up first!

If you'd like to read all of the Toronto books, starting with my free novel Life, Love, and a Polar Bear Tattoo, the Also By Heather Wardell link in the Table of Contents will give you the information you need.

Whether you've read all my books or are just finding me now, thank you so much!

Heather

GOOD TO MYSELF

Chapter One

Like most people I generally found staff meetings boring at best, but the tension between me and my boss at the first meeting after Valentine's Day made me wish for the usual dullness. Every time I looked at him I relived the feel of his skillful mouth on mine, his hands on my back urging me closer, the hunger he sent through me... and the way I pulled away from him.

Felix clearly remembered that part too, since his sexy dark eyes skimmed past mine whenever his gaze swept the meeting. He'd clearly been shocked when I ended our kiss without immediately suggesting we turn the tiny conference room next to his office into a sex den, and I'd been shocked too. I'd wanted him for months, since last summer when we'd all gone swimming at Patricia's house and the sight of him dripping wet and nearly naked had done frightening things to me, but when I'd finally had the chance I hadn't gone after him. Maybe it was just too hard to get a relationship going in February in Canada. Nobody looks hot in a parka.

He did look hot now, though, with his dark hair as always perfectly professional but somehow still a little edgy and that tall sleek body dressed in a dark green dress shirt and black pants that hugged him like they'd loved him all their life.

I half-listened to him discussing our web site statistics for the previous week, studied his gorgeous body, and wondered what was wrong with me. A seriously sexy guy, certainly the sexiest who'd kissed me since Damien got married, had wanted me and I'd pushed him away. Was I getting the flu or something?

Felix finished his recital of how many times our pages had been viewed then flicked a fleeting glance at me before clearing his throat and saying, We can do better, and I think I know how we will. It's time to replace Cassandra. His eyes moved three times, landing first on Patricia then Sasha then me, and without looking away from me he said, For the next month, you three will be in competition with each other. The winner will take Cassandra's place as lead columnist.

He paused as if to let that sink in, but he didn't need to since we were all fully aware of what it meant. If I replaced Cassandra I'd have a daily column with featured placement on the home page of the whole Toronto Times newspaper's web site, not just our little women's issues section, plus syndication to newspapers world-wide. We all received the same pittance of a salary then were given bonuses based on our site traffic, and being lead columnist would increase my following enough that I'd earn thousands, maybe tens of thousands, more. The extra visibility would also open lots of other doors, including the possibility of doing as Cassandra had done last month and leaving to become a TV talk-show host.

Not to mention, I'd have first choice of the freebies sent to us for review. Felix had locked them all away when Cassandra left, and the thought of the mounds of clothes and makeup and shoes just out of my reach caused me physical pain.

But they wouldn't stay out of reach for long. I'd wanted Cassandra's job since the day I was hired two years ago, and it was finally about to happen. I wouldn't let anything get in my way. I cleared my throat. How does the competition work?

"Well, Carrie, Felix said, then waited with an evil glint in his eyes. A few months back one of our reporters had dubbed me Canada's Carrie Bradshaw", and Felix brought it up every chance he got.

I'd never told him I saw myself as more of a Samantha.

I stifled a sigh, knowing what was coming, and Patricia didn't disappoint him or surprise me. I keep telling you she's not even close to Carrie. She glanced under the table at my feet, then gave me a sweet smile with a whole grove of sour lemons behind it. Doesn't have the shoes, for one thing.

I smiled at Patricia, not wanting her to know her dig at my shoes had hit home. True, they had a weird texture, looking rather like they'd been covered with feathers and spray-painted black, but they had the four-inch heels I needed and at only eight bucks at the thrift shop I hadn't been able to turn them down. I'll get all the shoes I need for free when I have Cassandra's job.

Cassandra had bragged about not buying a single pair of shoes for herself in the four years she'd been lead columnist, and since we both had size eight feet that had stung me even more. After years of collecting fancy shoes for nothing, she could have been nice when I joined the site and let me have a pair or two. Or four.

If, you mean.

I let my smile widen, knowing Patricia would hate my confidence. Whatever you say.

Felix shook his head. Patricia, Lydia, quit it. Honestly, I'm going to have to spank you.

His eyes met mine and a shiver ran through me at the thought. So sexy. So annoying but so sexy.

Sasha said, Don't make me sick. So, what do we have to do?

Felix held my gaze for another split second, while my body replayed the effects of his kiss even though I didn't want it to because I knew he wanted it to, then he looked toward Patricia and said, You three have four weeks to be good to yourself.

Sasha jumped in her seat but he didn't pause long enough for her to speak if she'd been planning on it. And, more importantly, to teach your readers how to do the same. Of course, you'll all approach this differently because you have different audiences.

So true. I had the single women, the Sex and the City types who were the reason I'd picked up the Carrie nickname, both the young ones and those who like me were staring forty in the face and not sure they liked what they saw. Sasha, the stereotypically perfect wife of the perfect husband and perfect mother of the perfect little boy and girl, attracted struggling-to-be-perfect 'mommies' like a sexy guy attracted me, and Patricia and her pack of demanding seniors bonded over their expectations that the world would give them every last thing they wanted, preferably at a discount.

So how will you judge the results, since we'll all do it differently?

Felix smiled at Patricia. Kelvin and I have it worked out, don't worry.

The newspaper's big boss was well known to do exactly what Felix told him to do about our site, so basically Felix was saying he'd be picking the winner.

Surely he'd pick the one he'd kissed on Valentine's Day?

We'd both been working late, since his ex-wife didn't exactly want to spend the evening with him and I wasn't seeing anyone at the moment. Around eight, he came out of his office and fetched some vending-machine chocolate bars which he used to lure me into his little conference room for a break, where we sat and ate and flirted with increasing intensity until he leaned in and kissed me nearly senseless.

I pushed the memory away and tried to stay focused as Patricia said, What exactly do you want us to do?

Felix shook his head. That's up to you. The idea is that you are good to yourself every second of the day and that you share that with your readers, but beyond that I'm not going to give you any guidance. To take Cassandra's place you need to be self-motivated and creative and popular with the readers, so we want to see what you come up with on your own.

I glanced at the peppermint white chocolate mocha in front of me on the table. I was always good to myself, always giving me exactly what I wanted. This would be a cinch. And then I'd win Cassandra’s spot, and most likely a night with Felix into the bargain.

The same confusion I'd been feeling all weekend filled me again, but now the 'good to myself' thing complicated it further. I had wanted Felix. I'd wanted him before I kissed him, and wanted him more during and after. He was a startlingly good kisser, filling my body with heat and hunger and the edgy almost-scared sense of excitement, the desire to run and stay at the same time, that I always felt with guys. It had been unusually strong with him, though, and I had no doubt that sex with him would have been incredible.

And I could have had it. But instead I'd pulled back, panting from his kiss, and told him I wouldn't mess around with my boss. He'd stared at me, stunned, and I'd stared back the same way, then his office phone had rung and I'd made a break for it rather than coming to my senses and stripping him naked.

Why had I not given myself what I'd wanted for so long and what would have felt so good? Why hadn't I been good to myself?

I didn't know, but this didn't seem the right time to figure it out since the other two were still peppering Felix with questions and I should be listening so they wouldn't get information I didn't have.

He didn't give any information, though, despite their best efforts, and while I waited for him to say something useful I noticed an absence.

Percy wasn't there.

Today should have been his first day of work as our site designer, and I felt sick at the thought that I might have put myself on the line to recommend my old school friend only to have him bail out of the job. He was brilliant, but scattered, and he'd run away from so many jobs and opportunities before. But he'd promised me via email that he'd be here. Maybe Felix had told him not to bother coming to the staff meeting on his first day.

Felix, is Percy coming in later? I said when Sasha and Patricia momentarily paused.

He turned to me and shook his head. Disappointment and annoyance filled me, but before they could take root he went on. Not until Wednesday. He called Friday night, he said, giving me a significant look which told me that had been the phone call I'd used to escape the conference room, and unfortunately his mother died unexpectedly on Thursday. Heart attack.

Oh, dear, Sasha breathed, and I bit my lip. I'd met his mother a few times and she'd been a lovely woman, sweet and kind and thoroughly devoted to her only child without smothering him. Poor Percy, who'd been less than a success with her support, would be lost without her.

The funeral was yesterday, apparently, but he has a few arrangements to take care of before he can come in.

If I'd known I'd have gone to the funeral, but since I hadn't seen Percy for more than five years he'd probably felt weird about inviting me.

So how will I revise my web site until then? We haven't had a site designer for three weeks now. This is unacceptable.

Sasha and I stared at Patricia in shock and I couldn't help saying, Your sympathy is so touching.

What? I didn't know her. And I need help with my site.

That was for damn sure. Patricia was one of those annoying people who aggressively refused to learn anything about computers, which was why we'd lost our previous site designer. After a two-hour session of trying to teach Patricia how to add a picture to an existing page, the poor guy had stormed into Felix's office and quit on the spot. I hoped Percy would be tougher but I wasn't counting on it. I'd have to make sure he helped me before Patricia made him flee.

Wednesday, Felix said firmly. In the meantime, I suggest you go figure out what 'good to yourself' means to you and how you're going to live it for the next four weeks.

Chapter Two

Patricia's painfully slow typing and the way she muttered under her breath as she tried to work out her plan made me crazy. Sasha put on headphones and seemed to be able to stand it, but I decided to go work at Starbucks. No Patricia and lots of yummy ways to be good to myself.

I stuffed my tiny laptop and phone into my cavernous basic black purse, and as I waited for the elevator I gave the purse a disapproving look. So boring. It was fine, perfectly functional, just like all my other purses, but just like them it wasn't what I wanted.

What I wanted was the gorgeous baby blue purse at my favorite consignment shop. It had been there for the last six months, and so at least a few times a week I'd stood and studied it and wished it was mine. So unique, so soft and feminine, so lovely to pet with its suede fabric and plush trim... I wanted it with ferocious intensity.

So far, I'd resisted, because of its price. Our salaries were pretty low, but livable if you were frugal. Which I was not.

Thankfully I didn't have to find money for rent since I'd made the uncharacteristically financially savvy move of using the inheritance my grandmother left me four years ago to buy my tiny but adorable house in Toronto, so I was able to keep body and soul together and Paddington in dog food on my crummy salary, but two hundred bucks for a purse was out of my price range no matter how I tried to convince myself it wasn't.

The elevator eventually arrived to whisk my dull black bag and I down the eight floors to the lobby, and I was soon heading down Yonge Street toward my favorite Starbucks. I'd stopped there on the way to work for the mocha I'd devoured in the staff meeting, so I'd get another drink and with any luck I'd also get my favorite table and feel ready to work well.

I lucked in on the table, but out on the work attitude.

Good to yourself. There were probably as many ways to approach that concept as there were people doing the approaching, and I had to make sure my readers liked my approach.

With one hand wrapped around a peppermint-and-vanilla latte's warm cup and the other drumming absently on the table beside my keyboard, I struggled with the puzzle. How could I turn something intensely personal into a web site for thousands of readers?

Maybe it wasn't really that personal. Were there certain things that would be universally considered good or bad? Could my readers possibly all see it the same way? That would be far easier for me.

I logged into our site and began writing a post.

Good morning, lovelies! I hope you all had a great sexy weekend. New project here and I need your help.

I leaned back in my chair. Nice start. Now what?

For the next four weeks we're going to explore what it means to be good to yourself. I figure there are lots of different areas of life where we could stand to be good, so how's about you tell me your top three? I have my own ideas, of course, but I don't want to influence yours so you go first!

I didn't have a single idea, but I knew that my readers liked me to appear strong and confident. They saw me as a role model, someone they could aspire to be, and they wanted me to stay that way, so I made sure I always presented myself with that in mind. I had to. My career depended on it.

I posted my words on the site then skimmed through emails from readers complimenting me on recent posts or asking me to cover an issue that particularly affected them, as always deleting them all unanswered. Responding took far more time than I wanted to spend, and it got repetitive saying the same things over and over. Besides, I'd learned early on that being too responsive led to an even greater flood of emails. It was a vicious circle, which would be even more vicious once I won the competition and had an even bigger audience sending messages to me. Even now, though, it was far more efficient to talk to everyone through the site than to a single person through email.

Inbox emptied, I pulled up a fresh document and typed 'Good to Yourself' at the top.

Then I stared at the words.

Felix sidled into my mind, that hungry-sexy light shining in his eyes as he looked at me, but I tried to shoo him out. I needed to focus.

He wouldn't leave me alone, though, so I bought a cookie to pamper myself and flood my system with sugar instead of hormones. Pleased I'd thought of a way to be good to myself, I nibbled away though I wasn't remotely hungry as I tried to guess what categories my readers would suggest.

In the two years I'd been with the site, I'd basically gone with whatever the readers wanted to discuss, although always with a 'single-girl' vibe. Shopping suggestions, fashion tips, diet advice... I did all the fluffy stuff, and also covered career issues and romantic dilemmas.

Would I basically handle the same things for these four weeks, only with a clear 'good to myself' bent?

Would sleeping with Felix be good to me? It would feel good, no doubt.

I sighed and took another bite of my cookie. What I'd never told my readers was how tired I was of the whole dating thing. They knew I'd never had a serious relationship and they ate up my reports of the weird and wonderful (mostly weird) guys I got involved with. But they didn't know how many there had been. I hadn't felt able to reveal that, too afraid some of them would judge me and my site traffic would go down.

Really, though, there was no justification for judgment. I was thirty-nine now, so I'd been dating for twenty-three years. A lot of men under the bridge, as my friend Larissa put it. I'd had years where I was only with Damien and years where I played the field like a top football star, but on average I'd been with four guys a year. Multiply four guys by twenty-three years...

I knew all their names, first names anyhow, and when I added a new name to the written list I kept safely stored in an old shoe box in the back of my closet I could skim through the list and remember every guy.

Sometimes I thought I should feel ashamed of the number, but I never had. Every one of those guys had changed me in some way, made me who I was.

And Damien, on and off for twenty-two of those twenty-three years, had changed and shaped me more than I could ever have expected.

*****

I sat staring at the over-sized diamond in Catherine's engagement ring and wondering what kind of ring Damien would have bought me. If he'd wanted to marry me. He'd sworn he wasn't the marrying kind, and like a fool I'd believed him. What ring had he bought for the woman he married instead of me?

Are you listening?

I raised my head to meet my sister's eyes, the same dark brown as mine but aggressively makeup-less because she insisted makeup was nothing but a way to make women feel they weren't good enough naturally. Not really. Are you saying something worth hearing?

She gave an annoyed and annoying sigh and pushed her long dark hair over her shoulder. I don't know why I bother. You're never going to help out.

Stung, I flipped my own brown hair over my shoulder to imitate her and said, "I don't know why I bother. You know I visited them last week. More recently than you, I think."

Because you wanted a meal you didn't have to microwave yourself, not to help them.

Largely true, but I wouldn't admit it. I listened to two hours of their various excuses for why they couldn't move, ranging from 'I don't want to pack' to 'your mother wouldn't like decorating a new place' to 'your father would hate a condo', and I didn't strangle even one of them. That's worth a little roast beef.

But you didn't change their minds.

I leaned back in my chair and stared at her. You've been on them about it for three years, since Mom broke her hip. What makes you think I could do it when you can't?

They can't stay there any more, she said, not answering my question since we both knew there was no answer. All those stairs? Not to mention the gardens and the lawn.

I almost pointed out that 'gardens' was a strong word for the little bed of flowers in front of our childhood home and the even smaller vegetable patch in back, both currently buried under a good foot of snow, but my older sister always wanted to make things seem grander than they were and I didn't feel like beating my head against the brick wall of her need to be superior. And the snow shoveling.

At least they finally agreed to pay someone for that. But they really need to be in a condo so they don't have to do any of that work.

My mother's broken hip had frightened me, and when I looked at my parents I now saw old people, people in their seventies, instead of just my parents, so I did agree that they should move. But as always when Catherine brought it up during the monthly lunch she insisted we have 'so we wouldn't drift apart' I felt myself filling with an irrational but no-less-real rage. It's up to them, isn't it? They're grownups, after all.

She took a breath to respond and my red-hot anger faded to a dead gray coal in an instant as fatigue smothered its energy. I couldn't rehash this yet again. Catherine, please. Yes, they should move. They aren't. Can we drop it just this once? How are the kids?

She wavered, obviously not thrilled I'd get the last word, but she let me change the subject. They're good. Jefferson's hockey team is going to Calgary next month for a tournament and Marshall is upgrading them all to first class flights with his travel miles from work.

Cool. Is Wash going too?

She narrowed her eyes and I corrected myself. Washington, sorry. I just think Wash suits him.

Given the embarrassment and mocking she and I had faced when our respective English classes studied Pride and Prejudice and learned that Catherine and Lydia had been silly and flirtatious and eager to engage in a little disgraceful behavior with soldiers, I'd never been able to understand why my Canadian sister had named her boys after American presidents. At least our names had made sense, since our mother adored Jane Austen's most famous novel, but Catherine and Marshall's name choices had never seemed to fit their two skinny goofy little boys.

Well, his name is Washington, so call him that. And yes, he's going. He's hoping someone on Jefferson's team gets hurt and won't be able to play, and no amount of telling him he's two years too young to fill in on a ten-year-olds' team makes any difference. Do you know what else he said? He...

I nodded and smiled and let Catherine ramble on and thought again about Damien. We'd connected for the first time the day we learned my namesake was a promiscuous lightweight. I knew him before, of course, and thought he was hot with his messy brown hair and the brooding expression in his dark eyes, but when he caught up to me after class and murmured, I bet that other Lydia wasn't anywhere near as sexy as you, I was lost.

We flirted and joked and teased each other for the next week or two, then gave each other our first kiss behind the bleachers during a basketball game. First kiss, and later first fooling around then first sex, and though we'd never had more of a commitment than want to get naked Saturday night? I'd somehow always thought someday we would--

Feel naughty?

I jumped and looked up at the waitress, who was holding a tray of tempting desserts.

Catherine shook her head. I can't risk gaining any more weight. I'm huge already.

If someone took me by the feet and head and stretched me a good five inches, I'd be as tall as Catherine but probably still bigger around than my gym-obsessed sister. At my current five feet five, I was far rounder. The last guy I'd been with, nearly three months ago, had called my body 'lush'. I'd quite liked that, although he'd probably only said it so I'd sleep with him. It was better than how I imagined my body: as a tube of bread dough, currently held in some semblance of control but liable to explode everywhere with no notice.

I didn't need a dessert. I frankly didn't even feel hungry enough to eat one. But as Catherine's huge rang through my head I reached out and took a strawberry cheesecake from the waitress's tray.

Good girl, she said, smiling at me. Treat yourself.

Yes, that was what I was doing. A little treat. Being good to myself. Just what Felix had ordered. My readers would love it too.

Catherine pointedly ordered a black coffee for herself, and I worked my way steadily through the cheesecake.

How is it?

I swallowed. Fine. The strawberry topping was pretty good, but the cheesecake itself was a disappointment. Almost completely flavorless and also denser than I liked, it was certainly nothing like the slices I regularly bought from Jack's Restaurant, which were so delicious they ought to be illegal. But it was cheesecake and I would persevere.

With about four bites to go, I felt the dessert hit the bottom of my stomach like a strawberry-flavored brick. I hadn't been hungry before, and now I was stuffed.

I eyed the remains. What would