by Kira Archer
“Wait, Fiji? What are you doing in Fiji?” Izzy asked.
“I don’t know! He woke up one morning and said let’s go to Fiji, so we went to Fiji. I don’t know why. He’s crazy. It doesn’t matter why we went; I just want to get out of here and go home.”
There was nothing but stunned silence on the other end of the phone. Then Izzy said, “Well, damn.”
Charley snorted. “That about sums it up.”
“What happened?”
Charley took a deep breath and let it out. “It was all going great. I thought we were having fun. And…well, I thought maybe it could be more. But I was feeling guilty over not telling him about my job, so I was going to tell him, but he got a call from his company, and they found out about me and told him before I could, and he got mad because I lied to him. But I was going to tell him, only he didn’t believe me, and then we got in whole fight, and I can’t blame him for hating me. Even though if I could trust that he wasn’t using me, he should be able to trust me. But you should have seen his face. I had to get out of there. I just want to go home, Iz, but I don’t have a ticket, and I don’t know how much one costs, but I doubt I have it in my account, and I don’t know what to do.”
“Hey, just breathe, okay?”
Charley took another deep breath and nodded her head, even though she knew Izzy couldn’t see her.
“Okay, don’t worry. I’ve got you covered. Tell me what airport you’re going to and give me fifteen minutes.”
Charley asked Lucas for the info and passed it along to Izzy. And God bless her cousin, but she really did get everything taken care of. By the time she got to the airport, Izzy had her set up with a first-class ticket on the first flight leaving the island. Which, as luck would have it, was soon enough that Charley had to go straight to the gate.
For a few ridiculous minutes, she held out hope Chris would storm the plane, say he was sorry, tell her he loved her, and they could work it out. But she wasn’t surprised when none of that happened. The doors closed, the plane taxied out, and she was on her way back home.
No Chris.
No job.
Almost certainly no career.
And no one to blame for it but herself.
Chapter Sixteen
It took all of three minutes for Chris to regret letting Charley walk out the door. It took longer to get a taxi out to the house to get him to the airport.
He had no idea what he was going to say to her. He was still pissed. He couldn’t believe she’d pull something like that. Though…she hadn’t been wrong. She was still doing the job she was hired for. True, she’d been fired from the company before she could finish the job, but like she said, he’d only hired that firm so he could get her. So, it shouldn’t make a difference. And it didn’t, really. Except for the fact that she hadn’t told him about it.
Though even that he could understand. It didn’t make a difference to him who she worked for. But it almost certainly would have made a difference to his board.
And now…he didn’t know what was going to happen. Everything was in turmoil. His board was freaking out. The insurance company was balking. And Charley…Charley wasn’t answering her phone.
The taxi pulled up to the airport, and Chris shoved some money at the driver and then got out, prepared to run. But his phone rang, and he stopped short, holding his breath until he saw that it wasn’t Charley, but Izzy.
He thought about ignoring it, but that wouldn’t stop Izzy from getting a hold of him if she was really determined.
He answered and put the phone to his ear. “I really can’t talk right now, Iz—”
“Good! Then you can just listen. What the hell were you thinking? All that mess with the job and the lie and everything else is all my fault. All of it. I talked her into that; she didn’t want to go along with it. And it really shouldn’t make that big a difference anyway. And now she’s sitting on the plane, crying her eyes out, and—”
“Wait,” he said, his heart twisting at the thought of her crying. “She’s already on the plane?”
“Yeah. It left ten minutes ago.”
Chris released a huge sigh, and the crack in his heart that started when he’d gotten that phone call opened wide.
“Why?” Izzy asked. “Where are you?”
He sat down on a bench beneath a palm tree and leaned his elbow on his knee, head hanging. “At the airport.”
“Good!”
He had to hold the phone away from his ear, she squealed so loud.
“Get your ass on the next plane and go get her!”
Part of him wanted to do exactly that. A very big part. But the rest…
“I don’t know, Izzy. Maybe it’s a sign.”
“A sign of what? You being a total and complete coward and letting the best thing that ever happened to you slip out of your life?”
“Wow, Iz, tell me how you really feel.”
“I’m not joking, Chris. If you don’t go after her, you’ll regret it.”
He sighed. “Maybe. But maybe it’s better if we let the whole thing go.”
“How can you say that?”
“Because. We haven’t known each other that long, and apparently everything we did have together was based on a lie.”
“That’s bullshit, and you know it. She didn’t lie to you, she just didn’t tell you the whole truth, and even that was my fault. She’s been wanting to tell you since the beginning, and I bet she probably would have soon even if you hadn’t found out.”
He didn’t tell her Charley had said she was going to tell him that morning. He didn’t want to give her any more ammo. Because if he wasn’t careful, she would talk him into going after Charley, and the more he thought about it, the more he thought it might be best to just go back to how life had been before her.
Even if that life now seemed like a pointless pit of loneliness.
“And it doesn’t matter how long you know someone,” Izzy said. “Look at Harrison and Nikki. They barely knew each other too when they first fell in love. When it’s the right person, it doesn’t take all that long. You’re just running scared.”
“You’re damn right I am! And maybe that means something. The instinct to run isn’t always wrong, you know.”
Izzy sighed, her frustration palpable, even over the phone. “Well, it’s wrong this time.”
Chris scrubbed another hand over his face. “Even if I were to forget everything else, all this lie stuff, all the issues with the job and whether or not I can ever trust her again, I still don’t think it’ll work.”
“And why is that?” she asked, her voice full of skepticism.
“We’re two different people, Izzy. I like to live life to the fullest. Seize the day and make every moment count.”
“Yeah, you’re a giant walking cliché, got it. What’s that got to do with anything?”
“The woman assesses risk for a living, Iz, which makes someone who was probably cautious to begin with almost certifiably careful. I’m actually amazed I got her to do half the things she did.”
“Right. But you did. And from what I heard, she enjoyed every minute. So maybe you aren’t so different after all.”
“Really? Can you see me spending my life with someone who is so overly cautious about everything that she won’t even use a public restroom without completely disinfecting it first? She has a bottle of Lysol in her purse, Izzy. And I spent my last birthday eating bugs in a Taiwanese street market.”
“That’s not necessarily a bad thing, Chris. You could stand to tone it down a bit, and it sounds like you’re already getting her to come out of her little safety bubble and try new things. You have no idea how long I’ve tried that.”
“What is her deal?”
Izzy was quiet for a second. “You should probably ask her.”
He snorted. “You think she’ll tell me?”
“I don’t know. She doesn’t like talking about it.”
“Right. And I guarantee she’ll be less likely to tell me about
it now.”
Izzy sighed. “Her brother was injured in a car wreck in high school. Charley was driving. She blames herself for what happened to him.”
“Is he okay?”
“Mostly,” Izzy said. “But he lost an ear and has short-term memory problems. He went from a straight-A student to flunking all his classes. They got him help so he was able to turn things around and graduate, but he still has bad panic attacks. Charley sort of took it on herself to help him out as much as she can. She’s always looking for anything in any given situation he’s in that might trigger a panic attack so she can head it off.”
Chris flinched like someone had punched him in the gut at the thought of Charley having to carry that around her whole life. So much about her made sense now. But that didn’t make his feelings about them better. If anything, it made things worse.
“So, she has her reasons for how she is.”
“I get that, Izzy, I really do. And I have my reasons for how I am. But that’s the problem. Neither one of us are going to change, for good reason. So, how can our lives possibly mesh?”
“Chris…”
“It’s okay, Iz.” He blew out a long breath. “Just let it go. We’re probably better off. Trying to force this will only end up in both of us being hurt worse.”
Izzy was quiet for so long that Chris thought she might have hung up. Finally, she sighed. “Do what you gotta do. But for what it’s worth, I think you’re wrong. You’re focusing on the bad stuff, on what went wrong. Maybe you should think about what went right. There must’ve been something there between you two. I guess you need to figure out if that’s worth fighting for or not.”
“Yeah. Maybe.”
“We’re all headed back to New York in the morning. You coming to the poker game Thursday?”
The last thing he wanted was to spend the evening surrounded by his friends and their spouses. It was hard enough to take when he hadn’t just watched the potential love of his life run out the door.
“I don’t know. I’ll let you know.”
“All right. Try not to do anything too stupid in the meantime.”
He laughed. “You know me.”
She snorted. “Yeah, I do. That’s why I said it.”
“Bye, Iz. Thanks.”
“Yeah, anytime. And Chris…think about what I said.”
She hung up before he could say anything else.
She didn’t have to worry. He was pretty sure every moment of the last several weeks was going to play out a million times in his head.
He flagged down a taxi and had it take him back to the house. It held no appeal for him now without Charley. Nothing did.
He sat down on the bed and repeated to himself all the reasons he should stay away from her. But he couldn’t stop thinking about all the rest. The flash of her smile when she caught sight of him. The little wrinkle of concern she’d get when he was about to do something stupid. The sheer utter beauty of her when she lay in his arms.
Her lie could cause him a world of troubles. Then again, had she gone through with her analysis, he might have had to step down from his position anyway. And the thought of that… The thought of that was like a weight being lifted from his shoulders.
Suddenly, nothing else seemed to matter much except Charley. His business, hers, their differences, none of it mattered.
Only she did. He was going to have to figure out a way to convince her of that, which might be hard since he wasn’t totally convinced of it himself.
But he had to try.
Chapter Seventeen
Charley turned side to side, checking herself out in Izzy’s mirror while Cass sat on the bed watching.
They’d dressed her for the upcoming board meeting, and with the smart power suit hugging her curves, she thought she might almost be able to make it through with some semblance of dignity.
When she’d gotten a call from Chris’s assistant asking her to come present her finalized assessment report to the board, she’d thought she’d heard wrong. Surely, they should be calling to fire her. Hell, she wouldn’t have been surprised if they’d pressed charges. Instead, they seemed to be giving her a shot to salvage her career.
“This is crazy, right?” she turned around to ask the girls.
Izzy shrugged. “Maybe they pulled their heads out of their asses and realized you were the best there was so who you worked for didn’t make any difference.”
Charley rolled her eyes. “Right, I’m sure that’s exactly what happened.”
Cass laughed. “All that matters is that you look totally fabulous.”
Charley turned back to the mirror. She hoped so, because it would suck even harder if she looked bad while she got her ass handed to her.
“Come on, ladies!” Izzy said, standing and waving her hand toward the door. “We’ve got a meeting to crash.”
Cass laughed and shook her head as Izzy sashayed her way out of the room. Then she turned back to Charley, who still hadn’t moved.
“What’s up?”
Charley bit her lip, feeling a little awkward talking about Chris to Cass. She was his ex after all, though she didn’t seem remotely bothered by the fact that he and Charley had some weird thing going on.
“Do you think he’ll be there?” she finally asked.
Cass gave her a knowing and sympathetic smile. “I’d imagine so.”
Charley took a deep breath and nodded then pressed a hand to her somersaulting stomach. Cass came over and gave Charley’s shoulders a light squeeze.
“Look, whatever else Chris is, he’s a good guy. Even if he was mad enough to chew knives, he’d still be polite and respectful at the very least.”
Charley nodded again. She knew that theoretically, but it felt better to hear someone else say it.
“Besides,” Cass said, dropping her hands and reaching over to grab her sweater from the bed. “I don’t think he’s all that mad anymore. If he ever was. I don’t think you have to worry about anything. Just go in there and give your report.”
Charley opened her mouth to ask Cass how she knew that Chris wasn’t angry, but Izzy called out to them from the front room that the car was there.
“Ready?” Cass asked.
“As I’ll ever be, I guess,” Charley said, taking another deep breath.
She followed the other women to the elevator outside their penthouse and then to the car, trying not to fidget on the way to Chris’s building.
“Are you going to recommend him?” Izzy asked.
Charley played with the edges of her that held the completed file on one Christopher Alexander Lachlan. “I’m not sure yet.”
Izzy raised an eyebrow at that, and Charley sighed.
“Going strictly by the numbers, no, I shouldn’t recommend him.”
“But,” Cass said.
“But…there’s more to him than numbers.”
Izzy flashed a megawatt grin at her.
“But,” Charley said again. “That doesn’t mean the numbers are wrong. If he wasn’t…who he is…then I wouldn’t be recommending him today. There are certain aspects of his life that are a little too risky for the insurance company. And they are who I’m technically working for.”
“But if you don’t recommend him…” Izzy said, and Charley nodded.
“If I don’t, he has to step down.” She groaned and put her face in her hands. “But if I do recommend him just because I care about him, then I’m proving all those people who would accuse me of trading sex for good scores right. Or whatever else they might say. And let’s face it, very little stays secret in this world anymore. Someone is going to find out at some point, and if I do less than my best and give in because I don’t want to hurt him, then I’m screwing myself in the long run.”
Cass leaned over and rubbed her shoulder. “You do what you feel is right, Charley. Chris wouldn’t want you to do anything less.”
“Even if it means he loses his company?”
“Even that,” Cass said, her voice so certain Ch
arley almost believed her.
The car pulled up to the building, and Charley took another deep breath, trying to calm the nerves having a rave inside her stomach. Cass opened the door and climbed out then stood waiting for Charley and Izzy.
“All right, let’s do this,” Charley muttered to herself. She straightened her spine, stuck her chin out, and marched into Lachlan Enterprises with her head held high. She knew what she had to do. The courage to do it might be lacking, but she’d fake it until she felt it. What other choice did she have?
The elevator doors dinged, and she marched into the office with Cass and Izzy in tow then stopped short. All of Chris’s friends were sitting in the reception area. And all looked up almost in unison and gave her wide grins.
“Okay, no offense, guys, but that’s a little creepy,” she said.
Izzy laughed and jerked her chin toward the glass-enclosed conference room. “Go get ’em.”
Charley swallowed and smoothed her hand down the front of her suit. Chris sat at the head of the long table, his eyes on her as she made her way across the office and to the conference room. She didn’t pause outside like she wished she could but pushed the door open and entered. The table full of mostly older white men glanced at her, like a giant single-celled organism with multiple eyes.
“Have a seat,” Chris said, gesturing to the other end of the table.
She released a silent sigh of relief that she wouldn’t have to sit right next to him while she delivered her report.
Charley pulled out her files and went through everything, meticulously listing every number, explaining every graph, and going over in minute detail every aspect of her report and final decision. Which was…
“While I believe that with certain lifestyle modifications, Mr. Lachlan would be an excellent candidate for coverage, I cannot at this time give him my recommendation.”
There was an instant surge of voices, all muttering and talking together. They were surprised. Hadn’t expected her to not recommend him. To be honest, she was a little surprised herself. She’d wanted to give him her recommendation. Badly. But to do so would have gone against everything she hoped she was, and in the end, she couldn’t do it.
