Love is in the Cards Read online

  Praise for K.L. Brady

  AWARDS & PRAISES FOR K.L. BRADY

  Winner — Next Generation Indie Book Award for Multicultural Fiction (2010)

  Winner — Next Generation Indie Book Award for Multicultural Fiction (2013)

  Winner — Next Generation Indie Book Award for Multicultural Fiction (2014)

  Publisher's Weekly calls K.L. Brady's work “comic and charming...”

  ***

  RT Book Reviews calls Brady's work “Hilarious!”... and says she “draws readers in immediately...and propels them straight through the drama, humor and the various twists and turns that will leave you exhausted but satisfied.”

  ***

  “12 Honeymoons had me laughing from the first page. Miki is a hoot, with a smart, sarcastic sense of humor and mouth that won’t quit (and gets her in trouble quite regularly).” – San Francisco Review of Books

  “I don’t know how KL Brady manages to write romance that is equal parts emotional tug and belly laugh. The plot twists keep coming…always with humor…until girl gets her guy and readers get the happily ever after. Fast-paced, this is such a fun holiday read.” – Amazon Reviewer

  “Cue the Mistletoe! Five Golden Rings is the perfect holiday read.”

  “K.L. Brady delivered again with Her Perfect Catch. This is a quick but fulfilling romance novel and combines two of my favorite things, football, and love.” ~ Good-reads Reviewer

  “Her perfect catch is the perfect read for the romantic at heart. Add sports and you have a recipe for the perfect love story.” – Goodreads reviewer

  “As always, K.L. Brady does not disappoint with her hilarity, her sensual moments, and tension. Her Perfect Catch is a perfect read.” ~Amazon Reviewer

  Her Perfect Catch and The Player’s Option

  “Great series can't wait for book 3. Very heartwarming shared a few tears. Loved the drama. Looking forward to reading book 3....”~Amazon Reviewer

  Love is in the Cards

  A Second Chance Romance

  K.L. Brady

  Love is in the Cards

  LadyLit Press

  11505 Cherry Tree Crossing Road #535

  Cheltenham, MD 20623

  Copyright © 2020 by K.L. Brady

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.

  Publisher’s Note:

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  October 2020

  First Edition

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Keep It Real Cards

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Keep It Real Cards

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Keep It Real Cards

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Keep It Real Cards

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Keep It Real Cards

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Keep It Real Cards

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Keep It Real Cards

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  About the Author

  Other Books by K.L. Brady

  Keep It Real Cards

  CONGRATULATIONS!

  You took a Risk. You’re Following Your Dream!

  Good Things Come to Those Who Wait…

  * * *

  Let's Keep It Real—Your new gig may give you freedom from the man, but the man pays biweekly and you’ve got bills.

  DON’T QUIT your day job!

  Prologue

  "Welcome, everybody. This is day one of Keep It Real Cards. We're standing on the leading edge of the greeting card industry, and here is where success lives."

  Bright smiles accompanied vigorous applause in the wide-open room. She'd hired a small team, ten of the best poets, graphic artists, and illustrators she could afford.

  "We're all here because we're committed to a single mission: delivering the hard truths, even when it hurts—especially when it hurts."

  Today, she'd leased a Capitol Hill loft for rent too cheap to pass up and gathered her newly recruited creative staff there. For future operations, Tessa longed for a location on the Georgetown waterfront—her dream location—but this would do for now.

  "This team, our sales mission, isn't for the faint of heart. The truth's often harder to tell than fiction," she said. "Did you join our team because you've bottled up sweet memories of drawing feel-good, warm and fuzzy cards in your onesie pajamas? And now you want to sell them to vulnerable consumers?" She paused and waited for responses. No one made an outward movement. "I've got news for you— you're in the wrong place."

  A burst of laughs and chuckles helped set her jittery nerves at ease.

  "Grab an Uber, go home, and submit your application to Signed & Sealed, GetEcards, or American Salutations. We don't do ooey-gooey sweetness here."

  She'd pinched her pennies until the eagles cried and sacrificed much of her liquid assets to give her life purpose after Cody Hart abandoned her. To afford her staff, she kept the budgets as tight as her best friend Mia's Spanx. Having joined the journey from day one, Mia had witnessed every second of pain and glory that brought her here.

  Now—three-hundred sixty-five days.

  She could finance operations for twelve months without earning a penny. If the company took off, she’d operate longer, but her deadline had been set.

  "The Keep It Real mission is simple: we use humor to communicate difficult messages that are hard to speak, but that we need to hear. Life is a series of lessons learned. And you can only become the best version of yourself if you listen and apply them. That's what our art will help people accomplish."

  Fail or flourish—her path could trail in either direction. In a year, she'd crawl back into her feelings or take this venture to new levels. Where would this path lead?

  "As I warn you about the difficulties that lie ahead, I'd like to see a show of hands. Anyone in here seen The Wiz?"

  All hands went up, a few reluctantly.

  "Do you remember Evilene, the wicked witch? She sang 'Don't Nobody Bring Me No Bad News?’"

  All heads nodded.

  "Keep It Real exists for people like her. By all accounts, she was clinging to power by a thin thread but living a content existence. When the flying monkeys arrived with the truth, she wanted no part of it. They tried to warn her, told her danger was afoot. She heard the warning...but did she listen?"

  Tessa privately concluded one vital fact: Cody's cowardliness had led her to her destiny.

  "Evilene didn't encourage her minions to keep it real. No. The question is why a lie is easier to handle?"

  Tessa well understood, better than anyone, how much easier it was to embrace denial than reality. Her bitterness toward Cody had phased fr
om an over-boil to a low simmer, at least in her estimation. She’d kept her distance from him to keep the heat down. Now, she was on her own.

  Everyone craned their necks around and then back at her.

  "The illusion of power and control. If anything went wrong, she could blame fate or the universe, everyone and everything except herself. I'll bet she hit the pile of crap and thought, 'I'd rather have a V8 and the truth than this."

  A round of chuckles filled the silence.

  "At Keep It Real, we don't allow friends, or our customers, to plummet to the pile of crap. We gift the truth. Someone did me this favor once. I can't lie. It hurt like nothing before, but it made me wiser, a little more cautious, discerning, independent, and a lot shrewder. We're all here today because of it."

  Tessa smiled and clasped her hands as in a prayer.

  "Truth is not a curse; it's a gift, one we will deliver to our consumers, one card at a time."

  Without Cody's brutal delivery, would she have found the motivation, drive, and grit to make her dream come true?

  Tessa would never know.

  Chapter One

  Tessa

  * * *

  The swirling rust- and gold-colored leaves mirrored Tessa’s uneasiness as she entered the newly renovated Keep It Real offices. Her suites sat on the campus of Sweet Media, her father’s publishing company that owned Ebony Books, the nationwide chain where she sold her greeting cards.

  What a difference the passing of time made.

  Five years ago, almost to the day, she wore uncombed hair that was kinked to Rastaman proportions and a bougie yoga outfit as she hoisted her butt into an upside-down headstand. Tears and snot had rolled over her forehead as she mourned her ex-boyfriend, Cody Hart. He didn’t die—unfortunately. No, he dished her a serving of heartbreak with a cold callousness she’d not experience since Signed & Sealed rejected her greeting card ideas.

  Today, she celebrated her manifested dream, but still hoped for one last blessing to take her business over the top.

  The wall clock read a quarter of nine, signaling she had only fifteen minutes before her first meeting of the day. She passed through the lobby of her swanky creative studios and stopped at the receptionist's desk; the cheery space buzzed with innovative energy and incessant phone rings.

  "Keep It Real Cards, where we always keep it one-hundred," Mabel said, at last ending the irritating ringing. The executive assistant, with her schoolmarm hair porn boobs, was a defector from Hart Enterprises, her ex’s company. If Confucius had been a motherly black woman who didn't answer phones (well), Tessa's version would present herself in the form of this gem who’d become the knower-of-all-things-that-must-be-known.

  "Ms. Sweet is scheduled to attend a meeting as we speak." After a few seconds, she ended the exchange with her trademarked quip. "No, I'm sorry, I don't take messages. You should call back in two hours. You’re welcome.” To hear Mabel tell it, she was born to welcome guests to Keep It Real. In Tessa’s estimation, it was the only skill she hadn't quite honed.

  Tessa waved a hello and flittered into her contemporary-styled executive suite. She stopped, inhaled, and held a cleansing breath, a ritual she repeated to slow down, stay in the moment, and burn off nervous energy before reaching her desk. The brief reprieve gave her time to recognize her success and the challenges she faced, as the latter were many.

  Through her office’s glass walls, only partially frosted, she surveyed her kingdom before lifting the quarterly sales report. One glance at the trend lines caused her stomach to lurch. She'd clung to a sliver of hope that she'd see enough evidence to relay some positive, reassuring news at the huddle up with Mia before the creative meeting. One glance at the crappy update killed that thought.

  Moments later, Mia entered lugging the weekly mailbags, mostly feedback from consumers. One bag overflowed with letters; the second mini-sack, much smaller, left Tessa believing for improvement. They letters had grown from short-stacks to wide loads over the past five years; they’d also changed in tenor.

  She supposed she preferred hate mail over the alternative. Five years ago, instead of mailbags, Mia carried a double wine-tote containing Pinot over her shoulder; the spoils of her Trader Joe’s excursion were designed to help Tessa nurse her broken heart.

  "Please tell me those aren't filled with hate mail...this time. I liked it better when you brought me wine."

  Mia dropped them where she stood and didn't crack even a half-smile; Tessa's glimmer dissipated. “I brought you wine because your doormat says to bring you Pinot Grigio or leave,” she said with a laugh. “You’ve come a long way from the hippo butts under your eyes, and smelling like Pepper dragged your dead carcass through the house.”

  Pepper was her sweet black cat. He’d never eat her...she didn’t think.

  “So, what’s the verdict?”

  "Let me put it this way, if negative feedback represented one of these sacks, it'd be the really really big one," Mia said. She slumped back into a guest seat, crossed her legs, and caught her breath. "Check this out. While in the mailroom, I read a letter from a woman who received one of Keep It Real's ‘better-not-bitter’ divorce cards. She wishes death on you, your unborn children...and your children's kids, uncles, aunts, and first, second, and third cousins. Basically, your whole family."

  Tessa groaned and lifted the report from her desk. "That would explain these sales numbers. Flatter than French pancakes. What happened? Last year, we did so well."

  Mia tightened her lips. "Hmm. Yes, we did. Well, perhaps not so much last year as the one before the one before. We've done exceptionally well with a certain demographic, a niche group of consumers. If we put a label on those types of people, we'd call them witches and sons of, except we’d use the letter ‘b.’ That's the upside. The downside is that some of our messaging, a significant portion, in fact, fails to resonate with kind, considerate, decent, tactful people."

  It’s clear Mia claimed truth-when-it-hurts as her superpower.

  Tessa let out a long sigh, and her shoulders slumped. "We always understood our brand wouldn't align with everyone's values, right? Some people will never understand what we're doing here."

  "Do you know what we’re doing here?" Mia asked. "Any more?"

  Tessa steamrolled over Mia's question. "What I need to do is inject some fat into these numbers—or we'll all be looking for jobs sooner than later."

  There were two truths Tessa had to face: she used to have a winning formula, and her can’t-miss approach was no longer netting new customers. Instead of facing her problems head-on, she may have drifted into Evilene territory—no bad news. Speak, hear, and see no truth. This strategy, two years strong, had faltered and correlated with the sales slump…along with one other occurrence.

  "It'll take a smidge more than a fat injection to make a turnaround in this market,” Mia said. “We're on the verge of needing a defibrillator, intensive care, and some life support. Did you ever review the research I prepared for you? The sad, sad focus group results?"

  "Not really," Tessa's lips pursed. "My schedule's been insane. You know."

  Mia's brutal honesty remained core to the engine that kept Keep It Real running. At this moment, however, Tessa wished Mia would keep the hard facts to herself.

  "I'm just keeping it real. That's what we do around here, isn't it?"

  "Unfortunately, I may revise the mission statement. I need you to infuse me with false optimism."

  Mia laughed. “Don’t you remember what you told us on day one? Friends don’t let friends plummet into a pile of crap. We gift the truth. No optimism that isn’t backed by numbers."

  "The more I think about solutions, the more I think a refresh with a new line is the answer to our trouble. Something sticky. Something viral," Tessa said. "We've got to get it off the ground—and soon."

  "Respectfully, I’d recommend we develop the right concept. We've got one idea on the table, but—Straight Talk? That thought is all wrong. You'd know that if you looked at t
he numbers and focus group results."

  "Fine, where are they?" Tessa said before glancing at her watch. Truth be told, she didn't want to review them. She’d had enough facts and reality for a lifetime. "Shoot! I can't right this second. Saved by the bell. We're meeting with the writing team."

  "Don't fret. In three minutes, our team will flood us with fresh and original ideas,” Mia said with every ounce of sarcasm she could muster.

  Tessa expelled a woeful sigh. "Keep It Real can't fail, Mia." She clenched her eyes shut, and her head fell back against her chair. "Too many people count on me, on this thing of ours. And we're so close. One more year in the black, only one more, and I'll have enough cash to buy Keep It Real outright from my dad. But I dunno. I’m always chasing. No matter how close I come to the things I want, I'll never catch them. Everything stays in view, but just out of reach."

  "We'll come up with something. We'll pull through. I've got faith that a turnaround is coming, but I strongly recommend we leave the Straight Talk idea where it is—unseen."

  After fumbling for words, Mia offered an understanding nod and mimed a violin serenade. "No one is more sympathetic to your plight than I am, but c'mon, Sis. You've successfully run an award-winning business for five years. I have no doubt you’ll win over new customers...as soon as you learn to stay in your own lane and abandon your hyper-focus on one-upping Hart Cards."