“So,” he said. “I have good news and bad news.”
She eyed him warily. “What’s the bad news?”
“New Horizons doesn’t want to finance your school.”
She had prepared herself for the possibility that the company would reject her. Venture capital firms financed revolutionary software, biotechnology, computer games—cutting-edge businesses. But she hadn’t expected the rejection to come so soon. She’d wanted to hang onto her hope for at least a few more days.
And she’d believed, however mistakenly, that Hank could perform a miracle. He seemed pretty miraculous to her—smart and affectionate and, as Cali had said that first night at the Faulk Street Tavern, hot.
Abbie wasn’t given to weeping over disappointments, but she still felt a few tears sting her eyes. Frustration, she told herself. Frustration that her school remained out of reach.
“So, the good news,” Hank continued. Abbie couldn’t imagine what good news might cheer her after having her dream stomped on once again, but she forced a smile and glanced up at him.
“I’ll loan you the money,” he said.
She froze, her arm jerking as Priscilla continued down the street, unaware that Abbie was no longer moving. “What do you mean?”
“I’ll loan you fifty thousand dollars. That should give you a good start—enough to sign a lease on the building, lay down those special floor tiles you mentioned, set up a grooming table or whatever, do a little advertising. Once you start getting clients and earning money with the school, you can pay me back. We’ll work out a repayment schedule you’ll feel comfortable with—”
Comfortable? He thought she could possibly be comfortable borrowing money from him? Rage billowed through her, icier than the wind. “No!”
He seemed to think she was yelling at Priscilla, not him. He glanced at the dog, who had circled back to Abbie and was peering up at her anxiously. She squatted down and gave the dog a little scratch behind the ears, and then, for good measure—because Priscilla was the only Patterson she felt affectionate toward at the moment—fed her a piece of Trainee-Tasties.
Reasonably sure she had her temper under control, she straightened and turned to face Hank. “I will not borrow money from you. I will not be in your debt.”
He seemed bewildered. “Why not?”
“Why not? Why not!” How could he fail to see that such an arrangement would undermine their relationship? She’d fallen in love with him, and he wanted her to be indebted to him?
Money ruined everything. Eric had been earning the money in their relationship, and he’d believed that gave him the right to make all the decisions. He’d accepted a job in Atlanta without discussing it with her first, because, after all, he was the breadwinner. She was just walking dogs for spare change.
A hobby, that one loan officer had called her school. He’d told her she should find a husband to support her.
The way Hank would be supporting her if she took his money. All right, so it would be a loan, not a gift, but still. “How does that work?” she asked, wondering if he could hear the hard edge of anger in her tone. “We’re making love and then you say, ‘By the way, your loan payment is due tomorrow’.”
“I wouldn’t say it while we were making love,” he said, offering a smile.
“I don’t want your money,” she snapped. “I’m not your charity.”
“This wouldn’t be charity,” he argued. “You’d have to pay me back. Well, you wouldn’t have to,” he added. “But if it made you happy, you could.”
“I could.” If it made her happy. If she wanted to write a check to him every month, to remind them both of who owed whom. Or she could skip paying him back, and then he’d own her. He’d be the boss, the overlord, the man who’d made her business possible—and she’d be even more indebted to him than if she was paying him back.
Neither option was bearable.
He seemed puzzled that she wasn’t jumping for joy over his so-called “good news.” Had he actually expected that by wielding his superior wealth, he could win her undying devotion? That being in such an unequal relationship would thrill her?
“I don’t want your damned money,” she said, pulling away from him and stalking down the street, not bothering to glance over her shoulder to see if he was following her.
How could she have fallen in love with him? She recalled his surprise when she’d handed him her business plan at the restaurant last week. He hadn’t expected her to be so professional. He’d probably thought, like the loan officer, that this was just some whimsical pastime for her. He’d thought he could buy her with a fifty thousand dollar loan.
He couldn’t. She would rather give up on her dream than be in an unequal relationship. She’d rather walk away from a man she loved than to let him think he owned her.
Taking Care of Business: Chapter 11
What the hell?
He’d expected her to say thank you. He was giving her the opportunity to start her business. How could she take his offer as an insult?
“Hey, come on!” he shouted, chasing after her. She halted where she stood and turned around, but she didn’t move toward him. Her feet planted on the sidewalk, she glowered at him, while Priscilla hovered by her ankles, growling. They were a team, allied against him.
Since Abbie wasn’t walking back to him, he walked to her. Priscilla’s growls grew louder and more ominous as he neared Abbie. Hoping Priscilla wouldn’t attack his feet with her teeth, he kept his gaze focused on Abbie. Her brows dipped, her eyes blazed, and her mouth was tense with fury.
“I made you an offer,” he said, struggling to keep his voice gentle. “If you don’t want it, just say no.”
“No,” she said. One single syllable, as hard as a bullet.
“You don’t want to be indebted to me. Fine. I heard you. That doesn’t mean you should throw away what we have.”
“What do we have, Hank?” Her voice was taut with fury. “You want to be the guy supporting the little lady with the hobby?”
“Of course not! I pitched your business to my partners. You think I would have done that if I thought it was a hobby?”
She shook her head, not in response to what he’d said but as an apparent commentary on his worth as a human being. “You can’t buy me, Hank. I’m not for sale.” With that, she turned and resumed walking—away from him.
He wasn’t going to chase her again. He had his pride—and the hope that she would cool off, realize she’d completely misinterpreted his gesture, and apologize. If she was heading east toward the ocean, he would head west, back to his car. He’d give her time and space to come to her senses. The one thing he wouldn’t give her was money.
♥ ♥ ♥
It wasn’t until late that night, a long, lonely night without Abbie in his arms, that he began to see things differently. Maybe because she wasn’t with him, maybe because her absence made him feel he was missing an essential piece of himself—whatever the reason, he began to understand why she’d reacted the way she did.
He’d thought she would be pleased. He’d thought she would throw her arms around him in joy. He’d thought he could loan her the money, and gradually forget about ever having her pay him back. They’d be partners—in her business, in their lives.
He thought she would be grateful.
Shit.
There was nothing wrong with gratitude in a relationship. A woman could be grateful that her partner ran an errand for her, or that he’d remembered her birthday, or that he’d folded a basket of laundry.
But gratitude over money was a whole different thing. Abbie had been so professional when she’d printed up her business plan, when she’d conferred with a real estate agent, when she’d learned about the licensing required for her business. And he’d been shamefully unprofessional when he’d thought he could wave his magic money wand and make it all happen for her.
He’d known he was crossing a line when he’d kissed her, when he’d pursued her, when he’d made love to her. He
hadn’t cared. He was crazy about her. So he’d acted a little crazy.
He was still crazy about her. And she was gone.
Was eleven p.m. too late to phone her? He punched in her number anyway. Two rings, and her voice mail picked up. “I’m sorry, okay?” he said. “I just thought I could make things easier for you. You don’t have to hate me for that.” He disconnected, then acknowledged that wasn’t the most contrite message he could have left. But if she was angry at him, well, he was angry at her, too. He was allowed to be angry. Maybe he’d overstepped, but she didn’t have to act as if he’d done something evil.
Ten minutes later, she still hadn’t returned his call, or even sent a text. Of course, she might already be asleep. She had to get up early to let Priscilla out for her first pee of the day.
Great. Abbie undoubtedly would avoid him tomorrow, but Priscilla would get to see her. First thing in the morning, Abbie would be by Priscilla’s side. Abbie loved Priscilla.
If she could read his mind, Abbie would tell him he was jealous of Priscilla. And damn it, he was.
♥ ♥ ♥
He didn’t hear from Abbie until lunchtime the next day. He was eating a sandwich at his desk while skimming a report one of the researchers had sent him about a bio-tech company developing a treatment for Alzheimer’s disease. Hank liked investing in bio-techs because they were so often pursuing life-saving therapies, but they frightened him a little, too. The path to launching a new drug was long and arduous, and so much could go wrong along the way. New Horizons would make a killing if a big pharmaceutical company bought the start-up, but it didn’t always work out. Some drugs just didn’t do what everyone hoped they would do.
Midway through the report, he heard his cell phone ding a text-message alert. He lowered his sandwich and lifted his phone.
According to my records, your mother will be home tomorrow. I will take Priscilla for her midday walk tomorrow and send you a bill.
No apology. No acceptance of his apology. Not a hint of anything personal.
Damn it. He’d apologized. The least she could do was forgive him.
Fine, then. She’d walk Priscilla and send him a bill. However pissed off she was, he hoped she wouldn’t sneak behind his back to inform his mother that she and not Hank had taken care of the snarling fur-ball with the pointy teeth. Maybe after he’d paid Abbie’s bill, they could go back to seeing each other, eating together, sleeping together. There would be no money exchanging hands between them once his mother was home.
But he was pretty pissed off, too. The apologies would have to go both ways before he’d want to sleep with her.
Like hell. He’d welcome Abbie back into his bed with or without apologies. He wanted her in his life, period.
He survived the rest of the day somehow, avoided driving to his mother’s house after work, and spent a dreary evening in his condo, reading medical articles about Alzheimer’s disease on his laptop while an inane show about men crafting long swords in their backyard workshops droned on his television. He checked his phone frequently, as if looking at it often enough might conjure a message from Abbie.
No messages.
After a fitful night of sleep, he woke to a gray morning. Flurries swirled to the ground as he drove into the city. He’d need his car today, because he would be leaving the office early to pick up his mother at the airport after her flight from Miami, where her cruise ship had docked.
Abbie did contact him in the early afternoon, sending him a bill for services rendered. He scrolled down the text, reading her neatly itemized bill and feeling rage bubble up inside him like hot lava rising in a volcano. He wouldn’t erupt—eruptions weren’t his style—but his anger burned at the utterly impersonal nature of her message.
And its precision. She had all the hours she’d spent caring for Priscilla itemized, every freaking minute accounted for. She didn’t charge him for the training treats she’d fed the dog, at least.
If Hank and Abbie hadn’t become lovers, she might have accepted his loan. If their relationship had never extended beyond a tidy document like this bill, with her labor tallied and multiplied by her hourly rate, he could have made her dream come true. But if they hadn’t become lovers, he wouldn’t have wanted to. He wasn’t in the business of making women’s dreams come true; he was in the business of funding start-ups. The only woman whose dream he wanted to make come true had refused to let him do that.
Still seething, he left the office around three and navigated the streets of downtown Boston to the airport. He waited in the cell phone lot until his mother phoned to say her plane had landed, then drove to the terminal to pick her up.
She looked terrific. He got out of the car to lift her huge wheeled suitcase, as well as a carton she was carrying which appeared to contain several bottles of rum, into the trunk, then gave her a hug. While not deeply tanned, she lacked the winter pallor she’d had when she’d departed on her Caribbean adventure. Her eyes glowed; her smile glowed even brighter. “Lord, it’s cold!” she complained as she settled in the passenger seat. “A few days away from Boston, and I forgot all about winter!”
“Wanna hop a plane back to Florida?” he asked as he started the car.
“Yes,” she said, then corrected herself. “No. It’s good to be home.”
“You miss Priscilla,” he guessed.
That she didn’t immediately agree surprised him. “I do,” she said hesitantly, then added, “I need to ask a big favor of you, Hank.”
The last time she’d asked a big favor of him, he’d wound up taking care of Priscilla, and then hiring Abbie to take care of Priscilla, and then falling in love. He was a good son, but he didn’t want to risk agreeing to another favor like that one. “What?” he asked cautiously.
“Well…” His mother leaned back in the contoured seat and grinned. “I met someone on the cruise.”
“That was the idea,” Hank said, relieved that her favor apparently had nothing to do with Priscilla.
“He’s a lovely man, Hank. I don’t know what will come of it—shipboard romance, some kind of cliché, right? But he and I really hit it off. He’s widowed like me, a cardiologist from Peabody, of all places.”
Peabody was just a couple of towns away from Brogan’s Point. “So you can see if the romance survives once you’re off the ship,” he said, sharing his mother’s smile.
“We intend to. We wound up on the same flight home. His daughter was picking him up, and he wanted to introduce me to her, but of course I wanted to see you. We’ll arrange a time when we can all get together. I’ll host a dinner.”
If the favor was to have dinner with his mother and her new boyfriend, Hank would have no problem agreeing to it.
“Here’s the thing,” she continued. “He’s deathly allergic to dogs.”
“Oh.” That could be a problem.
“And of course, you know Priscilla is important to me. I can’t just give her away. But Richard is…well, he could be important to me, too. We really hit it off.”
She’d said they’d really hit it off twice. It must be true.
“So you should see him in Peabody instead of Brogan’s Point.”
“Actually, what I was thinking was, you could take Priscilla, I could still visit her, but she wouldn’t be in the house, shedding hair and dander. I want Richard to be comfortable in my home. I don’t want him wheezing and weeping. But I still would like Priscilla in my life. You live only a couple of miles away, so I could visit her.”
This favor was ten times worse than the last favor his mother had asked of him. A hundred times worse. “Mom. You know Priscilla and I don’t get along.”
“But you’ve been taking care of her all this time,” his mother argued. “I’m sure you’ve bonded.”
Wrong. He’d bonded with Abbie, not Priscilla.
His mother looked so hopeful. So happy. She hadn’t been this happy since the day his father had been diagnosed with cancer. Could he deprive her of the chance to start enjoying life again?
Could he tolerate living with that yippy, snippy dog?
“Maybe Lillian could take Priscilla,” he suggested.
“Your sister lives in Chicago. If she took Priscilla, I’d hardly ever get to see her. Please, Hank.” She sent him an imploring gaze. “Just give it a try. Deep down inside, Priscilla is sweet.”
“Right.” As sweet as a hungry shark smelling blood in the water. “How long would I have to have her?”
“I guess that would depend on how things go with Richard and me.”
Would it be nasty for Hank to wish his mother’s new romance ended as soon as possible?
He glanced her way and saw the joy radiating from her, the excitement of being alive and in love. He’d felt that joy with Abbie. Just because his romance had fallen apart didn’t mean he should wish the same pain and disappointment on his mother.
What the hell. His life right now sucked, anyway. Living with Priscilla wouldn’t make it any worse than it already was.
“Sure,” he said. “Priscilla can live with me. But I’m not going to put any bows in her hair.”
He didn’t think his mother’s smile could have grown any brighter, but it did. Outside his car, the sky remained gray and snowflakes drifted through the air like grains of salt. But inside the car, all was warmth and light. His mother was in love.
And Hank, who was apparently a lousy boyfriend, was a good son.
Taking Care of Business: Chapter 12
Hank’s check arrived Friday morning. Friday afternoon, he phoned.
Abbie saw his name appear on her phone screen and debated whether to answer or let his call land in her voice mail. He was probably phoning only to find out whether she’d received her payment—a legitimate excuse to call, she supposed. It would be easy enough for her to answer and assure him that she’d received her payment, but the thought of confirming that their relationship was limited to a business arrangement made her heart ache.
Cupid to the Rescue: A Tail-Wagging Valentine's Day Anthology Page 25
