Something to Talk About (Plum Orchard #2)
Dakota Cassidy
One
“Hellooo,” Emmaline Amos growled comically slow into her cell phone. “This is Mistress Taboo. Are you worrrthy?” The infamous line her best friend Dixie Davis had perfected during her three-month stint as a phonesex operator bounced off the walls in the offices of Call Girls Inc., sounding ridiculous coming from her lips.
As a follow-up, Em looked in her best friend Dixie’s direction, and attempted to mimic her famous sultry gaze. Or what their group of mutual friends had all officially dubbed the “Dixie Smolder.”
The smolder was a combination pack—one part come-hither glance, one part dreamy half wink of her eyes. When Dixie did it, all the men fell at her feet in a big pile of redneck limbs and puddles of drool.
When Em tried it on for size like she had tonight during girls’ night out—it was as though she’d invented the unsexy.
From behind her reception desk, Nella Carter, Call Girls’ new operator in charge of assigning calls, began to giggle until she had to hold her stomach and cover her mouth.
When she caught her breath, she pointed at Dixie. “You,” she snorted, “were Mistress Taboo, boss? I still get calls for her. Seriously, you?”
Dixie rolled her eyes at the mention of her former phonesex operator nom de plume. “Em’s had too much wine. I absolutely never, ever sounded or looked like that,” she protested, sipping her glass of wine with a giggle, knowing full well she had.
Em reached for the bottle of wine between them on Nella’s desk and nodded her head, the giddy buzz in her brain making her mouth work overtime. “You did, too. You sounded just like that, all sexified and naughty.”
“Then we can all thank heaven Mistress Taboo is officially retired from phonesex operatin’ and instead became the owner of Call Girls, ’cuz that was plain painful to my ears.” Dixie mocked a shudder.
Em poured herself another glass of wine, the fluid sloshing in time with her liquid-filled stomach. “Do not deny the win that encompasses Mistress Taboo, Dixie Davis. Just look what that very naughty name, and winning this crazy phonesex contest Landon thought up for you and Caine, got you.”
Nella adjusted her headset, her hazel eyes wide with surprise. “You won Call Girls? In a contest?”
Em slapped her hand on the desk. “You bet she did. Not only did she win a multimillion-dollar phonesex company, but she won a house the size of Atlanta, with that camel you pass by every day in the backyard, no less. She got Sanjeev, the personal assistant from heaven above. The whole shebang, lock, stock and flyswatters posing as floggers. To boot, she also found her way back to the arms of your other boss, Caine Donovan, a man so divine, angels weep with longin’ for him.” She waved a wobbly hand around the lush guesthouse office where Call Girls was headquartered and grinned. “And she talked me into running it all as general manager. This wasn’t just a win, it was an epic win.”
Dixie grinned. “Who better to keep us all in line when Cat and Flynn ran off and got married and are now preparin’ for their first child than you, Em? If you could keep me and Caine on the righteous path, you could keep Satan himself honest.”
Nella gave her lush surroundings a fresh eye. “So Call Girls Inc. belonged to Landon Wells, right? The one everybody’s either callin’ richer than God or crazier than a bedbug?”
“Uh-huh. Rest his soul. And now it belongs to Dixie here.” Even two months later, Em still hadn’t quite digested the situation.
Nella frowned. “I don’t get it. How do you win a phonesex company?”
“You have the most amazing best friend ever, who even on his deathbed, knew what was good for you. Landon was both Dixie’s and Caine’s best friend. Dixie and Caine were engaged ten years ago, but they had a fallin’-out to beat the likes of World War Three, broke up and left town.”
Dixie shook her head of red curls with a giggle. “Your general manager exaggerates. It was not like World War Three.”
But Em disagreed. “Hah! Lest you forget the fire and rain... Anyway, Landon, in all his wisdom and hilarious sense of humor, knew they belonged together. So when Dixie and Caine came back for his funeral, he left this very company to them in his will—with one stipulation. They had to become phonesex operators and work the phones. Whoever collected the most calls at the end of two months won the company.”
Nella suddenly grinned. “So that’s what all the talk about the Phonesex Hunger Games is? I hear the rumblin’s in town all the time about you and Caine and how you two got back together. I ignored the bad and focused on how romantic it was under such a crazy set of circumstances.”