by Lisa Suzanne
“We will figure it out. I know you want to own your own business, but I might be able to get you started and help you build your clientele. Or I could contract you on the side.”
She nodded. “Go on.”
“Third, family. There’s nothing I can do about your family being here, but you’ve already gotten close to my family. Can’t we just give this a try?”
She sighed again. “I don’t know, Trav. I’ve lived here my entire life. I’m not ready to just pick up and move to a new state.”
“But you’ll stay in a job you hate and have a long distance relationship with me?”
She looked down at the table, and with that small movement, my heart nearly stopped beating in my chest.
Something told me that if she didn’t come with me, that didn’t mean we’d be in a long-distance relationship.
Something told me it would be over for us.
And nothing scared me more than the thought of losing Lindsay. Not after how far we’d come.
CHAPTER 30
LINDSAY RHODES
I stared down at the table. I couldn’t meet his warm brown eyes staring at me with all of that hope and optimism when I knew in my heart that I could never leave San Diego. It wasn’t just because I had grown up here; no, I was tied to this place for some inexplicable reason. It was my family, and it was the beach and the sunshine and the ocean. It was the salt in the sea air and the memories from my childhood. It was the familiarity and comfort of home.
I knew I was confrontational. I knew I was jealous. I knew I was quick to jump to conclusions. But all of these attributes didn’t change the fact that the man I loved with my whole heart was threatening to tear me from the only constant in my life.
One of the things I really didn’t understand was why he couldn’t run the company from the San Diego office. He sprang this on me with no warning, and I was kind of pissed. He seemed to have all of the answers, but one thing he’d never be able to answer was my only question. How the hell could I ever leave?
He would be worth it; I knew that much. I was young, but I knew that he was potentially my forever. But how could I leave the only thing I’d ever known for that risk? And worse yet, how could I stay and try to have a relationship with someone who lived six hours away from me? I practically lived with Travis; we spent nearly every night at his apartment. I hadn’t seen Penny in two weeks. I had a space in his closet and two drawers in his bathroom. Dan had become one of my closest friends. Even Tracy had become a close friend, once I got past the jealousy of the fact that Travis’s fingers had been inside of her.
Okay, so maybe I wasn’t quite over that one yet.
My point is that I was in a relationship with a man who I loved, and I couldn’t imagine being apart from him.
I didn’t want to be apart from him.
But he was making me choose between him and the only life I’d ever known.
I loved him enough that I wouldn’t make him choose between me and his job. So I had to figure out whether I should listen to every instinct telling me to stay in San Diego or if I should head to Phoenix with the man I loved.
And as I stared at that spot on the table, I knew I could never leave San Diego just as much as I could never leave Travis.
I didn’t know why suddenly I had to choose, but I hated it. I hated every single part of it. My heart was screaming Travis, but my brain was screaming San Diego.
And, unfortunately, I was raised to follow my logic.
The threat of constantly worrying about Travis when he was six hours away would tear us apart. And knowing that the former love of Travis’s entire life was minutes away from him would be a constant threat to my unreasonable jealousy.
Especially after he’d confessed to me the fact that Julianne had tried to kiss him that night she’d slept over after the engagement party.
“I just… I don’t know.”
He stared at me for a long moment. I hated when he did that. I felt scrutinized, like I was under a microscope, which I was.
I deserved to feel that way.
“What are you saying?” he asked, a waver in his normally strong voice.
“Travis, I don’t think I could do a long distance relationship.” My voice was quiet but firm.
Fear flashed through his eyes, and suddenly I felt like a total bitch. I wasn’t giving him a choice and I wasn’t giving him any slack. I was basically telling him that he had to choose San Diego if he wanted to be with me. Maybe it wasn’t fair, but maybe it also wasn’t fair of him to ask me to leave San Diego in the first place.
He stared down at the table and sighed heavily. He finally looked up at me with determined eyes. “I don’t know what to say, but I will fight for us. I’m not going to give up.”
CHAPTER 31
JULIANNE BECKER
It was a little over two months after Nick signed Jack’s contract that Travis popped into town for a few days. The only reason I knew he was in town was because Nick had scheduled a meeting with him.
Oh to be a fly on the wall during that meeting.
A lot had transpired during those two months, not the least of which was the fact that I’d lost my job. My fiancé was wrapping things up at BKG as he finished out his last week after resigning. So while he went off to work each day, I stayed home and researched everything we needed to start our own business. We had gone back and forth on a title for our company, ultimately landing on the clean and simple NJM Marketing. Nick designed a logo and I read through the paperwork. Josh and Eric moved out, and we moved a new desk into the home office, facing it toward Nick’s desk so that we could work together.
I was putting Nick first for maybe the first time in our relationship together, and things between us were better than ever. I thought often of Lucy’s words to me that had seemed harsh at the time: “You blame Nick the moment things get complicated.”
She had been right, and while it was difficult to hear, once I stopped blaming Nick and started blaming myself, our relationship moved forward instead of backward.
So even though I’d been fired from my job at BKG, the first job I was ever fired from, I was keeping plenty busy trying to launch a new business in addition to planning a wedding that was just over five months away. The major details were hammered out, thankfully, and we knew where and when we were tying the knot, at least.
We’d decided on the Phoenician. That place represented a new start for Nick and me. It represented a time when we’d both decided that our future was more important to us than the events that had shadowed our past. We were moving forward, and we couldn’t think of a better venue to celebrate our lifetime commitment to one another than a place that held such special meaning to us both.
Deep down, I held the blackness of anxiety in my heart. I was scared that Nick was never going to get over the fact that I’d had that one night with Travis. Maybe because it was so much more than one night. We had a history together that Nick could never take away. While he never needed to compete with that history, it was still something that he couldn’t change. And I knew that the perfectionist in my fiancé was itching to erase the past so that we could move forward. But we couldn’t undo what had been done, just like Nick couldn’t undo the lifelong friendship that Travis and I had.
I did what Nick had requested of me. I had cut off all contact with Travis. While we’d certainly had our ups and downs over the years, Travis had always been there for me. He always knew how to make me smile when I was hurting. He knew how to be serious when I needed a shoulder to cry on. People who have been friends for that long can just read each other, and Travis had the uncanny ability to just know what I needed. Nick was becoming that person for me, too, but it was different with Nick. On some level, we were still getting to know each other; but Travis was the one person in this world who knew me the best.
The more I thought about that, though, the more I realized that maybe we didn’t know each other as well as I had thought. He’d kept his true feelings for me hidden, locked
away in secret, for the better part of our friendship. It seemed as though everyone around us knew about his feelings for me, and I was oblivious to them. What kind of friendship was that? Had it all been a huge lie?
Those conflicting thoughts plagued me through my promise to my fiancé that I would cut off contact with my best friend. I couldn’t talk to Trav to answer the questions I held, but it was better for my future marriage to keep my distance from him.
I had just finished planning a huge surprise for Nick’s upcoming birthday and was lost in bridal paperwork at my desk when Nick walked in after his meeting with Travis. I was reviewing contracts for two different florists, trying to decide which one to sign, when I heard a deep sigh from the doorway.
“How was your meeting?” I asked, afraid to look up and see the expression on his face. Based on the deep sigh from the doorway, I assumed he’d either be completely frustrated, irritable, or angry.
“It went better than I expected, actually.”
“Oh?” I asked, finally looking up at him. A smile tugged at his lips.
“I have something to tell you.” He walked further into the office, perching on the end of my desk. He was still in his suit from work, and he looked utterly delicious. I still couldn’t get over the fact that this sexy man was all mine.
“Does this have something to do with your meeting?” I asked, leaning back in my chair and stretching my back that was stiff from poring over paperwork for the past two hours.
“It has everything to do with my meeting.”
“Oh?”
“Travis proposed to Lindsay.”
My heart faltered for a moment. I did my best to mask the emotion that shot through me at his words because it wasn’t fair for the man I was marrying to see the first feeling I had at his words as it flashed across my features.
But that first feeling I had was most definitely not a positive one.
I wanted to be happy for Travis, but knowing that he had moved on so completely and totally from me, that he was happy while I was missing him so much, just plain hurt.
I knew it shouldn’t hurt. I’d found my own happiness with Nick. I was the one who had moved on first. I had made my choice, and it was Nick.
So why did pain stab me in my heart? Why did my stomach suddenly feel nauseous? Why did my head suddenly hurt?
I cleared my throat. “And she accepted?”
Nick nodded. “Are you okay?”
I looked down at the desk, feeling tears brimming in my eyes that I didn’t want to shed in front of Nick. I needed to cry this one out on my own. I looked up at the ceiling, trying to ward off the tears, but it didn’t work.
The tears that were threatening suddenly spilled down my cheeks.
Nick stood and came over to me, kneeling on the ground beside my chair. He brushed away my tears as they started falling harder.
“I know this is hard for you, baby. It’s hard for me, too.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t even know why I’m crying,” I managed through my tears.
“Don’t be sorry.”
“But I don’t want you to see me like this.” My voice was whiney and foreign to my ears as I spoke through tears that were starting to fall harder.
“I’m marrying you, Julianne. I chose you and you chose me. We’re partners in life and in business. Forever. Don’t ever hide what you’re feeling from me. We need to be honest with each other, and if this is hurting you, I’m here to make it better.”
The tears morphed into full-blown sobs at his words. I was well aware that I didn’t deserve Nick. I’d done some pretty stupid things in our time together, yet he loved me, accepted me, understood me. He still wanted to marry me even after all of that.
He pulled me up out of my chair and held me while I got out the emotions that I’d been harboring for awhile. Once I started to calm down a little, he pulled back and motioned for me to sit back down.
I took in a shuddering breath, and he sat on the desk in front of me.
“Feel better?” he asked.
“Not really,” I smiled sadly, wiping my eyes one last time. “I think it’s more that he wasn’t the one who told me. You know?”
Nick pressed his lips together. “I know. But to some degree, that’s my fault.”
“Your fault? Why?”
“Because I asked you to cut off contact with him, and I know that he was just respecting that.”
“Did he tell you that?”
“Not in so many words.”
“Will you tell me how the conversation went?”
“Are you sure you want to know?”
“I have been imagining every single thing that the two of you could have said to each other since you told me you were meeting with him.”
Nick nodded. “I went to the Miller offices and we went into a conference room because Travis doesn’t have an office there yet. We shook hands, I asked him how he was, and he just kind of blurted it out.”
“What did he say?”
“He said he was fantastic and that he asked Lindsay to marry him.”
“What did you say?”
“Honestly, Julianne, I felt relieved, and I’m sure it showed. It told me that this waffling would finally be over.”
“Waffling?”
“I can’t go through life worrying that at any moment you might leave me for another man. I love you, baby, and I’m willing to fight tooth and nail for you, but I can’t compete with the history you share when we are just starting our history together.”
“We’re starting our future together,” I corrected him. “And it’s not a competition. I’m not waffling. I can’t wait to be your wife.”
“I can’t wait for that, either.”
“What else did you two talk about?”
“We talked mostly about how this is going to work once I’m done at BKG. And I’ll be honest, baby. We talked a lot about you.”
“About me?”
He nodded. “Can I tell you something that might sting a little?”
I nodded, bracing myself.
“After that meeting, I am more secure that you and I won’t be disturbed by him anymore. He has moved on, and I know that it hurts for you to hear that, but he’s happy. He’s getting married and he’s starting a new position. And I need to apologize to you.”
“For what?”
“For asking you not to talk to someone who was a huge part of your life for so long. You wouldn’t have ever gotten together with him if I hadn’t done what I did, and that’s a consequence that I need to live with. I won’t be the man who dictates who you can or can’t see.”
“I know you’re trying to be kind, but that sounds really condescending, Nick.”
He looked genuinely confused. “What does?”
“The fact that you had this sudden realization today of all days.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean it’s a little strange to me that you had this epiphany that you’re not going to dictate who I can be friends with on the exact same day that you found out he’s getting married. The timing is a little coincidental.”
“I’m not going to pretend like it’s a coincidence. But the result’s the same either way. He’s going to be back in our lives when we’re working side by side with him on a daily basis, and the sooner I become okay with that, the easier this whole transition is going to be.”
It wasn’t the first time I thought that Jack had done it all on purpose. He wanted Travis and me to be friends again. When families went back as long as ours did, it was difficult on everyone when two members of those families were estranged. And part of me wondered whether Jack had always planned to put Travis in charge of his company or if he decided it when he saw that it would be one way to mend a broken friendship. Jack Miller didn’t seem like the type of businessman to make decisions based on emotions like that, but I knew how much he loved his children.
I wanted to be mad, but Nick had a point. “So what did you say about me?”
“I a
sked him point blank if he was going to be okay working with you every day.”
“And?”
“He said he would be. And I believed him. We talked about his vision for rebranding, and we talked about your role in that. We set up another meeting for tomorrow, but we want you to be there this time.”
I nodded. “Okay. Did you talk about telling me his news?”
“Yes. I told him that I was going to tell you.”
“Is it okay with you if I call him?”
“You do whatever you need to do, baby. I’m going to go downstairs and get some work done. Let’s eat dinner in an hour.”
“Okay.”
He turned to go.
“Nick?”
He turned back around toward me. “Yeah?”
“I love you.”
He smiled. “I love you, too, Julianne.”
I smiled back and blew him a kiss, and he caught it and held it against his heart before he left the room.
I picked up my phone, which had been sitting on the desk next to me, and pulled up Trav’s contact information. I stared at it for a moment before pressing it.
I glanced at the picture of Nick and me on my desk. It was one of the first pictures we had taken together, and that poor photo had been through a lot in its rather short life span. I remembered waking up the morning after Travis and I had slept together and seeing Nick and me so happy in that picture. I remembered needing to put it away because Nick had shattered my heart, and then I remembered pulling it back out when he came back to me.
My heart had been mended, but there were still tiny cracks in it. It was still healing. I knew that Nick was my forever and that I was his. I knew now that we would always be honest with one another. But it was Travis who’d been there for me when my world was falling apart, and that was something that I never forgot. Sure, he took advantage of the situation when he revealed his feelings to me after I told him about the break-up with Nick, but he did it because he felt confident that I would feel the same way. He somehow thought that his confession would be the thing to mend my heart. How could he have known that he would never have been able to mend it when Nick was the only one who could?
