18. Declan

18

DECLAN

I leaned back in my high-back leather chair and looked out over Leicester Square in London, watching all the people below going about their day. As I stared down at the sea of colorful dots bustling from here to there, I wondered if any of them had someone they could not stop thinking about. Someone who consumed their thoughts. Someone who was on their mind morning, noon, and night.

It had been five months, one week, and two days since I woke up in that hotel room alone, and not one of those days had gone by that Carrie hadn’t crossed my mind. Hell, if I was honest, there might not have been an hour that had passed without a thought of her drifting through my head.

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw her face. Her eyes. Her hair. Her smile. The curve of her waist. The slope of her neck. I still smelled the sweet scent of her perfume, or lotion, or shampoo, or whatever it was that was uniquely her. I could still feel the way her body felt in my arms as I held her in bed. I could still hear the melodic sound of her voice.

Before I left for Japan, I’d looked up all the bookings at the hotel and hadn’t found one room registered under any Carrie, Caroline, Karina, Cassidy, Charlotte, Cari, Kari, Karie, Kerry, Carri, Karri, Kerrie, Kerri, Keri, Cerry, or Karrie. There’d been one Carol and a Catherine, but when I cross-referenced the I.D.s on file, they weren’t my Carrie.

If I really wanted to get in touch with the mystery woman who had haunted me for the past five months, all I had to do was reach out to Fatima. She would know how to find her. But something was stopping me from doing that. Maybe it was the obsessive way I thought about her or the way I’d been with her that night. Or maybe it was the fact that if I got someone else involved, it would become real. I wasn’t sure I was ready for that, or that I even wanted that. I had given in to the temptation of going onto Fatima’s social media accounts to search for Carrie, but that was just another dead end.

In the end, I decided it was for the best. At least, that’s what I was telling myself. My reaction to Carrie was too potent. She had a power over me that no one else had ever possessed. I’d had sex with her and not worn a condom. I’d wanted to confess that I loved her. If those weren’t two glaring red flags, I’m not sure what would be.

I turned back to the computer and saw that I had an unread email from Ashley. It was the daily progress report she sent me to keep me in the loop about the eco-friendly line she and Gran had been working on for Wolfe Clothing, which was launching in two weeks’ time.

Our daily correspondences were less than friendly. People often say the problem with texts and emails is that you can never really tell the intent of the sender because they can be misinterpreted. Ashley, however, managed to convey through her carefully crafted, sarcastic, passive-aggressive responses that my micromanagement was not appreciated. Unfortunately for her, I didn’t give a shit. She wasn’t qualified for the position my grandmother had given her. She had a degree in art and psychology. She was out of her depth being in charge of sourcing materials, budget, production, and distribution. Basically, any sort of project management was not in her wheelhouse. She thrived on the creative and marketing side of things, which was where I believed she belonged in the company.

To be fair, she’d done her best, given her background. She’d proven that she was bright and resourceful, but the ball had been dropped repeatedly. Things were overlooked and not handled properly, or at the very least, not up to my standards, which I had pointed out to her. Repeatedly. Once I got back home, I was going to insist that she step down as COO and be replaced by someone who was actually qualified. I had already instructed Hannah to put feelers out and had three candidates that I’d be deciding between.

I knew that my grandmother was going to fight me on it. She wouldn’t appreciate Ashley’s demotion, but the girl had been thrown into the deep end without a life jacket, and if I hadn’t been as involved as I was, she would have drowned and lost the company a significant amount of money, not to mention, our reputation would have been tainted. Deadlines would not have been met, and the line would not be launching on schedule or on budget.

My phone rang, and I looked down and saw it was my grandmother calling.

She also wasn’t a huge fan of my management style. Technically, she did answer to me, but she was my grandmother, so obviously, that wasn’t the case. The titles that we held at the company didn’t mean anything. Except I would put my foot down about keeping Ashley in the position she had no business holding in the first place.

“Hello, Gran. How are you?”

“Have you spoken to Serena?”

I was silent for a moment, sure that I must have heard her wrong. Why in the world would she be bringing up my ex? It had been over five months since I’d seen or spoken to her. Maybe this was about the condo. Serena’s deadline to move out was last week. Perhaps she’d needed an extension, which was ridiculous, but I’d deal with it.

“No. Why?”

“She came to see me.”

“When?”

“Yesterday.”

“Why?”

“I asked her to.”

“You asked Serena to come and see you?”

“Yes.”

“Why?” I repeated the question.

“I wanted to speak to her.”

I couldn’t tell if she was being deliberately obtuse or not.

“About what?”

“I wanted to know if she was open to working things out with you.”

Working things out with me? I was at a total loss for words. I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone.

Over the past few months, my grandmother seemed sharper than ever, but maybe her age was actually getting to her. Or perhaps the stress of working, combined with losing my grandfather and moving out to Firefly Island, was too much for her, and she was getting confused.

“And the good news is, she does,” my grandmother concluded.

Good news?

“I walked in on her in bed with someone else,” I reminded her.

“Things happen. No one is perfect. You can’t just throw things away when times get tough. Also, you’re not getting any younger.”

Things happen.

No one is perfect.

Throw things away when times get tough.

You’re not getting any younger.

This didn’t sound at all like my grandmother. Something was going on.

“You’ve never cared whether I was married or not. What is this sudden interest in my marital status?”

“Just promise me that you will keep an open mind with Serena.”

“Why are you suddenly pushing for this? Do you remember the conversation we had in my office when you asked me what I loved about her?”

“There are a lot of reasons people get married, dear. Don’t be na?ve.”

This was ridiculous. I didn’t want to hear any more of her riddles or platitudes.

“Gran, just tell me what’s going on.”

“When are you coming home?”

She knew exactly when I was coming home. We’d discussed it at least a dozen times. I was going to be there for the online launch of the new line. Originally, the plan had been for Gran to come into the offices in Atlanta to do the launch from there with the entire team, but since she and Ashley had worked out of the house in Firefly, she wanted to celebrate there. So, I was flying to Atlanta and then directly to Firefly.

“In two weeks,” I told her what she already knew.

“We’ll talk about it then.”

“Talk about what?”

The call disconnected, and l stared at the screen. Something was wrong. Was she ill? Was that why she wanted to see me settled so badly? Was it so she could see me get married?

My thumb hovered over her name to call her back when there was a knock on my hotel door. I hadn’t ordered room service. The staff may have sent something up, though. They often did when I was visiting the hotels.

I opened the door expecting to see a cart with a steak; instead, I came face to face with Serena, wearing a trench coat, heels, and a tote bag. She’d shown up on my doorstep in this attire when we’d been together and not had anything underneath. I hoped that wasn’t her plan tonight.

Instead of waiting for me to invite her in, she pushed past me into the room. I was so shell-shocked to see her that I allowed it to happen.

“What are you doing here?” I asked as she set her bag down, walked over to the minibar, and poured herself a whiskey.

She downed the contents, then set the glass on the bar and turned around with an earnest expression on her face.

“Estelle called me.”

“I don’t know what is going on with my grandmother, but I’m not interested in reconciling,” I stated bluntly.

Her expression softened as she took a step toward me, closing the distance between us, and lifted her chin up so her eyes met mine. Her lips curled in a smile, and she tilted her head to the side coyly. “Aren’t you happy to see me?”

“No,” I answered honestly.

Serena lifted her hand and placed it on my chest. “Maybe we weren’t perfect, but we had something. And I know how you are. I know how particular you are about feeling comfortable with new people. You feel comfortable with me. Be honest, you haven’t been with anyone since we’ve broken up, have you?”

Serena may not have known the full extent of my conditions, but she knew I didn’t have casual sex. She knew it took a while for me to be attracted to someone. Honestly, I think that’s one of the reasons she was so attracted to me in the first place. I was one of the only men in the world who didn’t fall all over themselves to be with her or try to fuck her the first night they met her.

“Yes. I have.”

She tsked at me as if I was being silly. “No, you haven’t.”

“Yes. I have.”

I saw the moment she realized that I was telling the truth and the flash of pain in her eyes, indicating that it did hurt her. If she’d known that it happened the night after we broke up or that I hadn’t stopped thinking about the woman since and hadn’t given her another thought, it would really have stung.

She sucked in a sharp breath. “You really have?”

“Yes.” I removed her hand from my chest. “I’m sorry you came all the way here. And I’m sorry that my grandmother gave you false hope, but I am not getting back together with you.”

I walked to the hotel room door and opened it.

“Declan, it didn’t mean anything.” She started to remove the belt of her trench coat. “Let’s just try and?—”

“Serena, don’t do this. It’s beneath you.”

The one thing about being with someone for so long was that you learned what their buttons were. Her ego was the size of the Grand Canyon but as fragile as a glass Christmas ornament. I knew what would get her to leave my room.

Her back straightened as the look in her eyes changed from sweet to furious. If looks could kill, I’d be on life support. As she marched past me, she seethed, “You will regret this.”

“No, I won’t. But you already do.” I shut the door and, for a brief moment, wondered if I should have let her down a little easier.

The problem with people like Serena or my brother was that if you showed them any sort of kindness or empathy, they saw it as weakness and tried to exploit it.

After getting hospitalized the day before I left to go to Japan, Derek went to rehab, but he was able to talk his way out for an early release. While he was still in the rehab facility, Harry, my grandfather’s lawyer, got his DUI and reckless driving charges reduced and was able to get him community service as long as he passed the drug tests. Not only did he falsify his documents by hiring someone else to show up as him to do his community service, but it was also discovered he cheated on the mandatory drug test. Now he was now in trouble with the law again and had charges pending.

I sat back down behind the desk and tried to call my grandmother back. There was no answer. I left her a message, but I knew she probably wasn’t going to talk to me until I was home. Once she set her mind to something, there was no changing it.

When I started to work again, the first thing I did was open Ashley's email. As I read through the report, I made a few corrections and sent it back, knowing that there was a good chance I would be receiving a snarky response.

For some reason, I’d actually begun to look forward to her replies. No one ever spoke to me the way she did—not in business or my personal life. It was clear she was not impressed by me or my position in the company. At first, it had bothered me, but over the months, I’d started to find it oddly refreshing.

She was funny, and I never knew what she was going to say. Whenever I thought her response was going to be one thing, she surprised me and said something else. Nine times out of ten, her replies were not-so-thinly-veiled insults disguised as follow-ups starting with: ‘to summarize’ or ‘circling back’ or ‘if I’m hearing you correctly,’ then she’d put her Ashley sarcastic, passive- aggressive spin on whatever slight that masterfully walked the tightrope between professionalism and insubordination. It was actually quite impressive.

In her new position, I would not be collaborating with her on a daily basis, and I had to admit I was going to miss our email battles. Even though, reading between the lines, most of hers were calling me an egotistical, arrogant asshole. For some reason I couldn’t explain, I was going to miss them.