by Sian Ceinwen
Heather’s new apartment felt transient. It was on a month-by-month lease and came fully furnished. It felt like living in a hotel. If she was being honest with herself, nothing there was hers. It wasn’t home for her by any stretch of the imagination.
Harrison had moved in with Hayden, and Heather couldn’t be more grateful for this fact. She’d had more text conversations with Hayden than she could count; he kept her up to date with what Harrison was up to. Sometimes Heather wondered if this was good for her mental health. She’d been meaning to mention it to Zoe, actually.
“Hayden basically gives me a blow-by-blow account of what Harrison does every day. Is this healthy?”
“Did you ask him to do this?” Zoe raised her eyebrows.
“Well, not really. I mean, kind of. I just need to know that Harrison is okay, you know?”
Zoe wrote some more notes on her pad, “How would you feel if Hayden didn’t give you these updates?”
“I don’t know. Stressed, I guess. I’ve spent every day of the last decade knowing where Harrison is and what he’s doing. The idea of not knowing freaks me out.”
“But you told me that he went on that tour without you? Did he keep you constantly updated while he was away?” Zoe looked surprised.
“Well, no. Not then.” Heather pursed her lips.
“Okay, so what I’m hearing is that your need to know what Harrison is doing every day is a recent development?”
“Yeah…maybe since he got drugged and slept with someone else?” Heather shrugged with a wry grin.
“Maybe.” Zoe wrote more notes, “How are you feeling now that you’ve officially canceled the wedding?”
“Shit. I don’t even care about the money we lost on deposits, it just felt so final to make those calls, though,” Heather grabbed a tissue and wiped some tears away from her eyes.
“Did you consider having Harrison make the calls instead of you? Or have someone else do it for you?” Zoe looked at her with curiosity.
“I could never make Harrison do that; it would kill him. I don’t know, I never thought of asking someone else to do it. I guess it felt a bit like it was my punishment for calling off the wedding.”
“Hmmm, I see,” Zoe said and wrote some notes again, “do you feel that you should be punished for doing that?”
“Not really. I don’t know. I feel guilty that I couldn’t get past what happened for both of our sakes,” Heather sighed.
“What happened to Harrison was terrible, but your feelings are valid, Heather. You’re entitled to feel whatever you feel about it,” Zoe smiled at her, “you’re still working, right?”
“Yes, the one fucking thing in my life that is going right is Serenity. Even though I couldn’t give less fucks about it.”
“You’ve said this before, why do you not care about your business?”
“Because,” Heather gave her a forced smile, “nothing matters if I don’t have Harrison.”
“So, you put no value on having a successful business if your relationship isn’t successful as well?”
Ouch. That was a painful way to put it. Heather was ashamed of the way she no longer cared about Serenity. It made her feel awful that this thing that she had dreamed about for years and worked incredibly hard for meant so little to her now.
“It’s not quite like that,” Heather frowned and tried to find the right words to describe it, “I’ve never had to give a shit about having a successful relationship because I had it. What’s the saying? ‘You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone,’? Everything I’ve done, it’s been while secure in the knowledge that Harrison was there with me, by my side through thick and thin. No matter what happened, it was us against the world.”
“Okay, so now it’s you against the world, but you said that your friends have been very supportive?”
Heather smiled a genuine smile, “Yeah, they’ve all been great. So supportive. Sebastian even offered me a million dollars.”
“I’m sorry, he offered you what?!” Zoe’s eyebrows shot up so high that Heather thought they might fly off her face entirely.
“Hah!” She smirked. “I never thought I’d manage to surprise you with something.”
“I’ll admit, that is something that I haven’t had a client say before,” Zoe smiled at her, “was he serious?”
“Deadly. I was worried about money because all of the money we have is Harrison’s, and I haven’t been taking a salary from Serenity, which is the only work that I’ve done in years.”
“Did you take him up on this offer?”
“Of course not!” Heather was mildly offended.
“Were there strings attached to it?” Zoe asked her.
“No. What? Why would there be strings attached to that?” Heather frowned.
“Because it’s a million dollars, what did Sebastian want from you in return?” Zoe seemed confused.
“Nothing. For me to be happy and not stressed, I guess?” Heather shrugged. Zoe was writing rapidly in her notepad now, and Heather laughed, “Oh god, you’re about to tell me that my friendship with Seb is ‘wildly inappropriate,’ I can just feel it.”
“That’s interesting phrasing that you’ve used, do you think it’s wildly inappropriate?” Zoe tilted her head to the side, and Heather wondered if this was just a standard therapist move, since Brendan had done it several times, as well.
“No, but someone else said it to me, and it’s stuck in my mind since,” Heather laughed, Sebastian hadn’t really come up much in these sessions before now.
“I’m aware of the rumors about you two,” Zoe admitted, which surprised Heather since she was the consummate professional. She had never given a hint to any further insight into Heather’s life than what she had been told by Heather herself, “From our discussions, I understand that they are not true, of course, but I find it interesting that someone has said that to you.”
“Well, those rumors are a part of it. He has me in his phone as ‘My Lover,’ and his nickname for me is ‘lover’ now, as well. It’s just a joke, though.” Heather shrugged again.
Zoe was writing once more; she looked up and met Heather’s eyes, “And he offered to give you a million dollars?”
Heather wrinkled her nose, now that she was saying it out loud, she could see how it would seem strange, “Yes, but that’s nothing to Seb, and it doesn’t matter because I didn’t take the money, anyway.”
“How does Harrison feel about your friendship with Sebastian?” Zoe asked her, then amended, “Before you split up, of course.”
Heather shook her head and laughed, “You’re not going to believe me, but he was fine with it. He was fine with it before we split up, he was fine with it while we were splitting up, and even now, he’s still fine with it. Nothing’s changed between Sebastian and me during that time; my friendship with him is separate from my relationship with Harrison. One of those is sexual, one is platonic, and I can tell you now that I did not spend ten years being celibate!”
“Okay, we might circle around to this again in the future,” Zoe warned her.
Heather rolled her eyes but laughed again, knowing that she did not have Zoe convinced that her friendship with Sebastian was not sexual, and she hadn’t even told her half the shit they said and did.
“What did you do, financially, if you didn’t take Sebastian up on his very generous offer?”
“Harrison and I talked about it; he’s still suffering from major guilt, so he took exactly half of his available cash and put it in a bank account in my name.”
“I see,” Zoe was writing again, “how did that make you feel?”
Heather sighed, “Like shit. I didn’t want it. It’s a stupid amount of money, so I haven’t touched it. I opened a second new account in my own name and started drawing a salary from Serenity, instead.”
There were very few things of value that Heather had taken away from her relationship with Harrison. She took all of her clothing, of
course, but anything that was a joint item had been left behind. She’d taken her Tesla as well; it was about the only valuable thing that she’d kept other than jewelry.
“So, we’ve somehow managed to circle back to your business. Do you see how it’s valuable to you right now, then?” Zoe looked at her with curiosity.
“You’re right. I do care about it, and it is important, at the very least, because part of my goal with it was always to give people a job who needed one. I just never imagined that I’d be one of the people who needed a job!” Heather smiled.
At the end of her session, Heather thanked Zoe and headed out to the waiting room where Callum met her and hovered behind her while she paid for her session. She confirmed her booking for the next week, and they made their way down to the black SUV.
“Where are we off to, Miss York?”
“Back to the office, Cal. Thanks!”
He drove her to Serenity’s office. They’d had to scale up production again, now that they were officially producing clothing on a larger scale to meet the demand of the stores that were stocking her.
Heather’s office was near the back of the building, and she stopped in on the production floor to have a look at the designs that were being hand-sewn by the women there before she made her way to her office.
Her hour with Zoe had given her a lot to think about. Serenity did mean more to her than she realized. Heather had been sinking so far down into the darkness of Harrison not being in her life anymore, that she had lost sight of what was important. She had worked really hard on her company—she employed other women, gave them a livelihood.
It was unfair of her to have neglected it the way she had been. She vowed to herself to make more of an effort with the company. In the meantime, she would pay everyone a bonus this week, and a bigger one for the women who had been with her from the beginning and had stepped up in her mental absence.
Serenity was doing well, and if it took her longer to pay back Harrison, it would just have to take a bit longer. If he decided to call in the debt at any point, she would have to pay him back from the money he’d given her. In her mind, it was his money, anyway, and she had sworn to herself that she wouldn’t touch it.
Her wedding dress sat in the corner of her office. It was hanging on a mannequin, covered over with a sheet so it couldn’t be seen. This wasn’t to keep it a secret; it was because it hurt heather too much to look at it. Every now and again, she would lift the sheet and just stare at the dress. Heather sighed, and even though she knew it wasn’t healthy, she sent a message to hayden.
How is he today?
She pulled out a fresh drawing book and, for the first time in two months, started to sketch some ideas for new designs. At first, they were clunky and forced, but soon she got into a rhythm, and it wasn’t until she heard someone cough at the doorway to her office two hours later that she realized how much time had passed.
“Hi, Gabriel. This is a nice surprise!” She smiled at him, got up from her desk, and walked over to him for a hug.
“Hey, Heather. Sorry, I didn’t want to bother you at work, but I wanted your advice about something, and now that I’m here, I’m thinking this was a bad idea,” he looked incredibly nervous; it was very sweet.
“Well, now you’ve got my curiosity piqued!” she laughed as she led him over to a sofa at the side of her office, and they sat down. “What on earth could Mr. Gabriel Knight want my advice on that warrants a visit to my office?”
“It’s about Ariana…” he trailed off.
“Gabriel, if you’re going to break up with her, I will slap you.” Heather was horrified at the thought. They’d only just gotten back together.
“No, no, pretty much the opposite. I wanted your advice on how…” he trailed off again, paused, then tried another attempt at telling her what he was trying to say, “…as soon as I saw you, I knew it wasn’t fair to ask you.”
Heather realized what he wanted to ask her with a mixture of horror and delight. He wanted her input on how to propose to Ariana. She’d given him advice like this in the past, back when he’d first wanted to tell Ariana that he was in love with her. She was reminded of what she’d said to Zoe this morning.
“I’ve never had to give a shit about having a successful relationship because I had it.”
When she’d helped him to plan out his elaborate ‘I love you,’ she’d had the luxury of being in a secure place with Harrison. She had reveled in helping Gabriel to do it, so pleased that he got to be happy like she had been for so many years. At the same time, she was still happy for them now. They had been through the wringer; they deserved every moment of happiness that they could get.
“You want to ask her to marry you,” Heather said with a small smile.
“Yeah, I do. I wanted your help with planning how to do it, but, as I said, it’s not fair to ask you. I’m sorry, Heather.”
It felt like someone was physically taking a knife to her heart with how much it hurt. She could imagine Harrison back when he had been planning to propose to herself the day of his party. How sweet and nervous he must have been about it, even though there had never been any doubt about what her answer would be.
So many things had changed in the last nine months. If she could go back to that day, would she still say yes? Of course, she would. There was only one night in her life that she would change if she could. Now that she thought about it, would Serenity be as successful as it was now if she hadn’t done Saturday Night Live?
It was hard to say because, at the end of the day, she had done it. Harrison had gone off to California for that charity event, and Heather had gone to New York for SNL, and everything had changed. She’d certainly experienced a great deal of exposure after doing Saturday Night Live, just not necessarily for the right reason.
Nothing of her situation had a bearing on what Gabriel was asking of her, though. That was why she gave him a kind smile and said, “Don’t be silly, darling, of course I’ll help you. What were you thinking?”
“I’m not sure,” he gave her a wry smile, “it has to be perfect, though. I thought about skywriting and hot air balloons and big, grand gestures, but Ari would hate all of those things.”
“Thank god you came to me if that’s the best you’ve managed!” Heather laughed.
“I know, right,” he laughed as well, but stopped quickly, “I also have an appointment with a jeweler in two hours’ time, but I completely get it if you don’t want to come with me.”
Heather rubbed her ring finger, right where her engagement ring should be sitting. She did this a lot, almost as much as she used to play with the ring itself. It was a constant reminder to her of the broken connection between herself and Harrison.
“I’ll see how I feel when it’s time for you to leave,” she smiled at him, “I won’t promise anything, but I love you two, and I’m honored that you’re even asking me.”
Gabriel gave her a grin, seeming relieved, “So, I thought about maybe taking her away somewhere to do it. She’s got next weekend off work, and I told her that I was planning a romantic weekend away for the two of us.”
“If I know anything about Ariana, I know that she isn’t like you and me, Gabriel. She won’t want a spectacle,” she smirked at him, “so no skywriting!”
“I could write her a song…” he considered.
“Meh.” She rolled her eyes dramatically.
“There are plenty of women who would die to have a Cruise Control song written about them, you know!”
“Yeah, and you wrote an entire fucking album about Ariana, already. She’s in the strange position where you writing a song about her isn’t something special.” Heather poked her tongue out at him.
“Oh, I’d forgotten that.”
Heather burst out laughing, “You’re useless, Gabriel Knight! Okay, so you’re going to take her away somewhere. Any idea where, yet?”
“I don’t know. Paris, maybe?” He looked thoughtful.
“Oh. My. God.” Heather gasped, and her mouth dropped open as the answer was illuminated to her, as clear as day.
“What’s wrong with Paris?” he asked, obviously confused by her reaction.
“What’s wrong with Paris is that it’s not Washington, DC,” Heather told him.
“Washington isn’t roma—” his mouth dropped open as well, to match her surprise, “—it’s fucking perfect, Heather.”
“Do you think that you could get the same room?” Heather asked him, “You need to get the same room.”
It was in Washington, DC, that Gabriel had first told Ariana that he loved her. He’d written a song about her, the first one he wrote for Heart Wide Open, and performed it at a concert that night. Afterward, Heather had kept Ariana distracted while he went up to their room so he could meet her there.
They’d worked with the hotel staff to set up the room. Everything was covered with red rose petals and lit candles. From the door to the suite had been a path of white rose petals that led to the bedroom, which was set up in the same way. On the bed had been the words ‘I LOVE YOU’ spelled out with white rose petals.
Gabriel had sent her pictures when he got there, and it had looked amazing. They had both been ecstatic with the end result of their planning, and of course, Ariana had completely and utterly loved it.
“Room 1403. I’ll never forget it. Best night of my life,” he had a massive grin on his face, “oh god, if we can pull this off, it’s going to be incredible.”
Heather felt a rush of excitement; she was pleased that he’d come to her for this. A part of her was sad, but also thrilled to get to plan this surprise for her friend. They set to work, calling the hotel from her office at once to see if the room was available. It wasn’t, but Gabriel offered to pay the difference for the people who were booked into it to stay in the penthouse, instead.
