“Bastard,” I said. Maybe I was overtired, but I was really in sync with Darby’s rage toward her ex.
“Then my boys tried to tell me that I should sell the cottages. My father built these cottages. They said it was too much work for an old lady, and I was feeling old and achy in my heart and in my bones. I was this close to selling and moving in with my sister.” She held up her thumb and her index finger. “But then a young lass from the States came to stay for the summer, and she was a pole dancer. She took me to a studio in Killarney to try it, yeah, and I loved it.
“I started taking classes, and I was getting stronger and stronger, and I was feeling so sexy. Then my ex, he came sniffing around, wanting me back, and you know what I told him?”
I shook my head. I was grinning. How could I not?
Darby leaned close and said, “I told him to fuck off.” She threw back her head and laughed, and I laughed with her. “It was like unloading twelve stone of negativity just like that.” She snapped her fingers.
I glanced at the woman before me. Darby looked like she could open a can of whoop ass anytime she felt the need, which was all kinds of awesome. “Well, you look incredible.”
“Thank you, pet.” Darby handed me a key with the number five on it and said, “Anytime you want to try the pole, you let me know. First lesson’s free.”
My first thought was to give it a hard pass, but my second one was a solid maybe. The Chelsea who had been here seven years ago would have jumped at the chance to try something new, and I was trying to be more like her. I nodded. “I may just take you up on that, Darby.”
“Breakfast is served in the dining room from six in the morning until nine. I do the fry-up myself, and it’s a full Irish breakfast, with bacon and sausages, black and white puddings, and potatoes all cooked in butter, with soda bread on the side.” She gave me an assessing stare. “You don’t have any dietary issues, do you?”
“No, ma’am,” I said. “That sounds terrific.” It sure beat the plain yogurt and mango slices I’d had this morning.
“For the rest of your meals, you’re on your own, but the pub does a nice stew served in a Yorkshire pudding bowl, and I suppose their bangers and mash aren’t terrible either,” Darby said. Her praise was faint and grudging at best. I wondered if there was a rivalry of sorts there.
“I’ll be sure to try it,” I said. I didn’t mention that I’d been to Finn’s Hollow before and enjoyed the bangers and mash at the Top of the Hill. No need to go there. The reasons for coming back were too personal to share, so I opted to say nothing.
“Do you need help getting settled?” Darby asked. “There’s a peat block in your fireplace that’s all ready. You just need to strike the match.”
“No, I think I’ve got it,” I said. “Thank you.”
“I’m here if you need me,” Darby said. With that, she left me on the porch and went back to her class.
I took a moment to gather my scattered wits before I headed back out into the rain. I debated leaving my bag in the car, but the lure of clean clothes was too much to resist. The wind pulled the front door out of my hand, and it took an effort to shut it. The gusts were fierce, and the rain was going sideways as I lifted my suitcase out of the trunk. Thankfully, my clothes were already as soaked as they could possibly get, so there was that.
I dashed down the gravel walkway along the row of cottages. The tiny yellow houses had front porches just big enough for two chairs and a window box of flowers. The boxes were barren at the moment, but the chairs remained. I hurried up the two steps to the front door. I turned the knob, which thankfully wasn’t locked. With the rain pelting my back, I opened the door and stepped into what Annabelle would have described as the cutest little room.
The interior was done in green and cream. A table and two chairs were placed in front of the window that overlooked the tiny porch, the fireplace was set in the far wall, and a peat log was waiting, just as Darby had said. It was chilly, so I quickly lit the fire with the matches I found on the mantel, thrilled when the peat caught and filled the air with its earthy aroma.
As the fire warmed the room, I checked out the rest of the cottage. A door led into a modern bathroom with a tub-shower combination that made me want to weep—I was so desperate for a shower. There was a dresser with a small television on top of it and a very efficient kitchenette with a mini-refrigerator, a stove top, a sink, and a few cupboards. It was charming.
I hung up my coat and quickly stripped down to my skin, taking a long hot shower to slough off the grit of every mile I’d traveled. It felt heavenly. The heat from the shower and the fire was so lovely and relaxing that my jet lag reared up and walloped me. I let out a jaw-cracking yawn as I pulled on my favorite pajamas—a set Annabelle had given to me as a gag gift for my birthday—which made me look like a dairy cow, as they were white with big black spots all over them, with a pouch in the front that looked like udders. The joke was on Annabelle since I loved these soft, warm flannel jammies. Deciding a power nap wasn’t out of order, I climbed into the crisp white sheets, pulled up the heavy blanket and quilt, and fell into a deep slumber of the sort enjoyed only by drunks and babies.
* * *
• • • •
WHEN I AWOKE, it took me a moment to remember where I was and what I was doing. Ireland. Colin. I was stalking—er, tracking down—my old boyfriend. That’s right. I snuggled under my blanket, thinking about our first meeting.
I could see Colin striding down the hillside of the O’Brien farm, looking as rugged and ruddy as the terrain around him. The sun would shine on his auburn hair, highlighting strands of gold and copper. He’d see me waiting, the breeze tousling my loose hair and the hem of my long skirt.
Wait, had I packed a skirt? I knew I had my little black dress, but that wasn’t the same. No, I was sure I didn’t have a skirt. Shoot. Scratch that—I pictured myself in jeans and a sweater. He’d see me and stumble to a halt. We’d stare at each other for a heartbeat, no more, before we recognized each other as our one true love, and then we’d race into each other’s arms, and he’d hold me close and kiss me—
My phone went off, interrupting my daydream just when I was getting to the good part. Damn it. I picked it up and noticed there were several text messages, all from Aidan, sent while I was showering, in addition to another from Jason. I got a weird feeling in my belly. This could not be good.
chapter six
I SLID MY thumb across the screen and answered him.
“What’s on fire, Aidan?” I asked. “You never text me, and you’ve texted me six times and now you’re calling. Is something wrong?”
“Hey, world traveler,” Aidan said. He sounded chipper, but was it a little forced? I couldn’t tell. “How goes the trip?”
I thought about Darby and her pole. “Um . . . interesting, very interesting. But you haven’t answered my question. What’s going on?” I sat on the edge of my bed and pushed my hair out of my eyes.
“Nothing,” Aidan said. “I just wanted to touch base with you before you talked to anyone else.”
I went still. My heart started to pound. Had something happened to someone at work? Was that why Jason had been texting me? Had something happened to someone on my team? “Is everyone okay?”
“Everyone is fine,” Aidan said. “It’s just—”
“Just?” I prompted. I felt a knot twist in my stomach. I knew I shouldn’t care this much. I was technically on leave, but still. I tried to keep my voice normal when I asked, “Is everything all right with the Severin Robotics account?”
“I’m glad you asked,” Aidan said. “Hey, let’s switch over to video mode. I much prefer to see people when I talk to them.”
I glanced down in dismay. I had no makeup on, my hair looked like a home for wayward critters, and I was still in my cow pajamas. I quickly pinched my cheeks, finger combed my hair, and grabbed the blue chenille th
row off the end of the bed and threw it around my shoulders like a shawl. I made sure I was backlit and the lighting was dim before I hit the button to accept Aidan’s video call.
“There she is!” Aidan’s big bearded face grinned at me.
Despite my annoyance at having to be on video, I grinned back at him. Although our personalities were very different, Aidan really was one of my favorite people. I could tell he was sitting in his office, with the lettuce tower behind him and the Boston skyline just visible through the window beyond that. I felt a pang of homesickness that I immediately squashed.
“Hi, Aidan,” I said. “So, what’s happening?”
“Nothing, really. Can’t a boss just check on one of his favorite people?” he asked.
His gaze skidded away from the screen. Uh-oh. I sat up straighter. “Aidan, what did you want to tell me before I talked to anyone else?”
“I’ve made a decision about the Severin Robotics account,” he said. “I know we talked about having Julia step in, but in light of the magnitude of the major gift, I think we need someone a little more seasoned.”
“I disagree,” I said. “Julia is more than ready for this. She’s been with me every step of the way in the planning and execution. Who else could—”
I froze. A feeling of dread began to swirl in my belly. I held my phone up to my face, trying to get a good look at Aidan’s expression. Sure enough, there was guilt in those eyes. I could only imagine what he was making of my crazy face staring back at him. He had to see how upset I was.
“You didn’t,” I said.
“Didn’t what?” he asked.
“You didn’t give the Severin Robotics campaign to Knightley.”
Aidan didn’t answer, which was all the answer I needed. I jumped to my feet. The throw fell off my shoulders as I began to pace. I dropped the arm holding my phone, which meant Aidan was getting a fantastic look at the lovely hardwood floor of my cottage. I didn’t care. I needed a minute to regroup.
Months and weeks of work flew through my mind. The meetings, the proposals, the bending over backward to get through Severin’s people to get directly to him, which I still hadn’t managed, all to convince him to consider offering a major gift of $10 million to the American Cancer Coalition. I had killed myself for this ask.
I held my phone up and glared at Aidan, who seemed to be meditating while I processed the bomb he’d just dropped on me.
“How could you?” I asked. Aidan opened his mouth to speak, but I didn’t give him a chance. “He isn’t qualified,” I said. “He doesn’t have the skill set. You could have put anyone in this role, but you chose him. Is this some white-male-privilege thing?”
“Chelsea, you know me better than that,” Aidan said. His tone was reproving, and I knew it was deserved. Aidan had an incredibly diverse staff, and he promoted on merit, which was why putting Jason in charge of the Severin account made no sense to me. He simply didn’t have the chops, in my not-so-humble opinion.
“You’re right,” I said. “I apologize. I just don’t understand why him.”
“Quite frankly, because Jason is the only other person I have on the same pay grade as you. Besides, he has a knack for making people work together who normally can’t,” Aidan said. “This is a huge ask we’re going for, and it’s going to take a wide variety of talent to accomplish it all, and Jason can manage people in a way that Julia can’t. She’s too tentative. I need a leader, and you and Jason are the best I’ve got, and you’re gone.”
“I disagree. This ask needs someone who is extremely detail and task oriented,” I argued. “That’s not Jason. He’s more of an idea guy.”
“Chels—” Aidan tried to interrupt me.
“No, I’m serious,” I said. “He’s a total Tom Sawyer. I have it on good authority that he gets Liz from Accounting to spreadsheet the numbers for him, because math is hard. And Nicole in Marketing adds the graphics so it’s pretty, and his assistant slash henchman, Blake, writes it up and puts the whole thing together for him. All Knightley does is put his name on it and present it with panache.”
“Chels—” Aidan tried again.
“Aidan, I can assure you that sort of overgrown-frat-boy-slacker approach is not going to work with Severin,” I said. “The man is a certified genius, and while Knightley can use his good looks and charm on most people and get results, Severin is going to see right through the handsome façade and—”
“Chelsea!” Aidan interrupted. “Enough.”
He looked pained, and I felt my stomach drop. Uh-oh.
“He’s there with you, isn’t he?” I asked.
Aidan reached forward and spun his computer monitor so that it faced the visitor side of his desk. Jason grinned at me and gave me a little finger wave.
“Tom Sawyer, huh?” he asked. He tipped his head to the side and drawled, “And here I always thought I was more of a Huckleberry.”
“Turn me back to Aidan, please,” I said. I refused to apologize, even though my face was hot and I was completely mortified. At least he’d mentioned only the insults and not the—
“What’s that? Were you calling me handsome again? Or was it charming?” Jason cupped his ear. “I couldn’t make it out through those gritted teeth.” He took a moment to study me. “Dayum, Martin, you look rough.” He squinted. “Are those . . .” He pressed his lips together. It didn’t work. Like a dam bursting, a laugh boomed out of him. “Seriously? Cow pajamas? I mean, you’ve always had the sex appeal of yesterday’s leftovers, but this is a sad state of affairs even for you.”
“Feel better?” I asked. “Does insulting me help you deal with my accurate assessment of your capabilities?”
“Accurate?” His eyes went wide and then narrowed. “Just because I know how to delegate and you don’t doesn’t mean I don’t work just as hard as you do. I’m just better with my time management.”
“When Friday happy hour is your most important meeting of the week, I guess you have to be.”
“Don’t judge me just because I have a life and you don’t,” he said. “You should try it sometime. It might get the stick out of your—”
“Jason! Chelsea!” Aidan interrupted. “That’s enough.”
The monitor spun, and I was looking at Aidan again. For a guy who maintained a positive Zen at all times, he looked a bit wild eyed and red faced. I would have felt badly about it, but Knightley, really? On my campaign? I refused to feel guilty for calling Knightley out, and when the idiot screwed it all up, I wasn’t going to feel bad then either. No, I wouldn’t feel bad; I’d be furious.
“All right.” Aidan pinched the bridge of his nose. “I understand that you two don’t see eye to eye all of the time, but the thing to remember is that we’re all on the same team and this is the biggest corporate gift we’ve ever gone after. Ten million. It could set a precedent, and I do not want to lose it because you two can’t buck up and work together.”
I huffed out a pent-up breath, and I heard what sounded to be the same coming from Knightley in the background. Aidan sighed.
“Listen, I am asking you two, as professionals, to put your personal feelings aside until the Severin Robotics campaign is a go. I’d step in and do it myself, but I just can’t right now.”
There was something in his tone. I felt the hair on the back of my neck prickle. Aidan was never one to back down from anything. He’d managed corporate gifts and campaigns for years, pulling millions from seemingly unreachable corporations. This wasn’t like him.
“What is it, Aidan?” I asked. “You can tell me and it will go no further—you know that.”
“Same here,” Jason agreed.
The computer monitor swiveled again, and I now had a view of both Aidan and Jason. I glanced at Jason and noted he was wearing a charcoal-gray shirt today, making his eyes a stormy shade of gray. Whatever. He wasn’t looking at me, however, but frowning at A
idan with a quiet intensity that made me even more nervous.
“I’m going to hold you both to that. The truth is . . . I’ve been diagnosed with stage-two lung cancer—damn cigarettes of my youth—and I just don’t know how things are going to roll out for me for the next few months. So I’m asking you two to take this on together—for me.”
There was a beat of silence as we absorbed the news. Shock rendered me speechless, and I imagined it did the same to Jason. He recovered first.
“You can count on me,” he said. “I’ll do whatever it takes.”
I stared at my mentor’s face on the tiny screen of my phone. Aidan had lung cancer. Stage two. That meant it had traveled to either his chest cavity or his lymph nodes. Not good. But only stage two. That was better than three or four, right? Still treatable, still beatable.
“Breathe, Chelsea,” Aidan said.
I exhaled a breath I hadn’t even known I’d been holding.
“How long have you known?” I asked. I supposed it didn’t really matter, but if he’d told me that day in his office, the day I’d tried to quit, I likely wouldn’t have left. Had he known that?
“A few weeks,” he said. So he had known, and he’d still let me go. “And yes, the irony of working for the ACC and getting diagnosed with cancer is not lost on me.”
I studied his face. Did he look thinner? Yes, he did. How had I not noticed? The beard. It was hard to get a sense of his health behind all that hair.
“Can I count on you, Chelsea?” he asked. “Will you continue to work in an advisory capacity with Jason on the ask?”
“Of course,” I said. “I’m available whenever you need me.”
“Thank you.” Aidan let out an undisguised sigh of relief. He grinned at me through the phone and then at Jason. “And hey, who knows, maybe you two will learn to enjoy working together.”
I glanced at Jason. The look of doubt on his face mirrored mine. Oh, we’d do this for Aidan and it’d be amazing, because I would make damn sure it was, but there was no way either of us was going to enjoy it.
Paris Is Always a Good Idea Page 7
