He paused, and bit into a piece of cheese.
‘Of course neither of us really knew the extent of the damage Landon had caused. But that’s beside the point. What I’m trying to tell you, Callie, is that I was always fairly sure of your brother’s character. Only one thing has gone against the opinion I had of him—your appointment.’
Callie wished she could stand up and give her restless legs something to do. But she didn’t think that would be wise, considering that she was on a boat with men who would probably think she was crazy if she did. Instead she pushed a hand through her hair, resisting the urge to pull at it.
‘You know, Blake, sometimes we do things for our family that go against what we believe in.’ She cautioned herself against the fury she felt behind her words, but it didn’t work. ‘I know your family wasn’t like that, but in mine we did things for one another. Helped each other. Supported each other.’
She rubbed her hands over her face and almost immediately her anger fizzled out.
‘I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.’
Blake’s face had blanched at her words, but he nodded. ‘It was.’
Callie bit her lip, and hated herself for lashing out. ‘It’s just that Connor saved my life with this job. No, he really did.’ Tears pricked at the backs of her eyes but she forced them back. ‘My parents’ deaths nearly destroyed me.’
There—she’d said it. The words she’d never really said aloud to anyone else. She was afraid to look up, to see the pity she knew would be in his eyes. She didn’t want that. It would remind her of how almost everyone had treated her after her parents had died. As if she was something to be pitied.
She looked up at him when she felt his hand gentle on hers, and there was no pity in his eyes. Just compassion. And she felt the coldness that had started to chill her bones thaw.
CHAPTER EIGHT
BLAKE KNEW HE shouldn’t have pushed, but he’d wanted to know. He’d needed to. Callie awakened desires in him that had been dormant since...well, since Julia. And even then, he hadn’t needed to know her this badly.
Ever since Callie had told him about her parents’ deaths Blake had wanted to ask her about it. He wanted to know how she’d handled it, who had been there to support her. The information he had gathered from Connor after she’d mentioned it and the little he had shared with Callie a few moments ago had only made him more curious. Especially since he knew that her specialist job wasn’t something that existed in any of the other hotels.
But now, seeing her anguish right in front of him, he felt like an absolute jerk.
‘I’m sorry you had go through that,’ he said, wishing there was something more he could say.
She slid her hand from beneath his and laid it on her lap. ‘I am, too.’ She attempted to smile, but her sadness undermined its effect.
‘Well, you don’t need to talk about it.’ He gestured to Rob, the man who had been serving them all night. ‘Could you bring some tea for Miss McKenzie, please?’ Rob nodded, and Blake turned his attention back to Callie. ‘I figure you could use something a little more soothing than champagne.’
‘Thanks.’ She smiled again, and this time it wasn’t quite as sad. And then she took a deep breath and said, ‘Blake, I...I want to tell you what happened when my parents died, okay? But only because I need you to understand why Connor did what he did. And then can we pretend this conversation never happened?’
She looked at him with such innocent hope that he nodded, even though he knew that pretending it had never happened would probably—well, never happen.
She angled her head, and didn’t meet his eyes as she spoke.
‘My parents were on their way home from a weekend away. It was their anniversary, and every year they celebrated by staying at the hotel where they’d had their wedding. They’d been married twenty years.’ She cleared her throat. ‘A drunk driver overtook when he wasn’t supposed to and crashed into them. They died instantly.’
She looked up at him.
‘I was nineteen. Old enough to survive.’
But still young enough to need them, he thought, but didn’t say it in case it interrupted her.
‘My parents meant the world to me. We were incredibly close, and losing them...it felt like I’d lost a piece of myself.’
He reached for her hand again when he saw she was fighting back tears.
‘I was incredibly depressed. I couldn’t go back to university. I shut my friends out. I shut Connor out. I just felt like I was in this dark room and I was flailing around, trying to find a light.’
She paused when Rob, the waiter, returned with a pot of tea, but barely waited until he’d left before she continued.
‘My friends couldn’t deal with the morbid person I had become. One by one, each of them disappeared. Until even my best friend—well, I thought she was—couldn’t do it any more.’
She lifted her eyes to his, and gave him a sad smile.
‘Death is one of those things that you can only truly understand when it affects you. Sure, people are there for you at the funeral, and sometimes a few weeks after. But when you realise that this is your life now—that you have to live without the family who were so integral to your existence—even those people fade away. Because how can they understand that the life you knew no longer exists when theirs is going on as normal? Connor struggled too, but he had his job. Something that gave him purpose. I think that’s probably around the time he started climbing the ladder at the Elegance. But when I didn’t go back to university I think an alarm went off for him and he realised how lost I was. So he pitched up at my house one morning and forced me to go to work with him.’
She smiled at the memory.
‘I hated him for it, but he just told me to start shadowing the concierges. He did that every day for two months. And then one day I realised that I wasn’t walking around in a coma any more. I found myself asking questions and engaging with the guests. And that’s how the tours came about.’
Blake had known that it would be something like that. He hadn’t been lying when he’d told Callie he knew Connor pretty well, and the man he knew would have never given his sister a job just because he could. But the truth was he didn’t really care why Connor had done it. He was more interested in Callie, and in the events that had had her starting at the hotel. That now had her desperate to save it. All of a sudden, it made sense to him.
‘I wondered why you wanted to save the hotel so badly.’ He looked at her and wished he could do something about that wounded expression on her face. ‘I knew it was because of Connor. And, of course, your job. But now I understand that the reason behind it is because they saved you. Connor and your job helped you cope with your parents’ deaths.’
‘Yes,’ she said, surprise coating her features, ‘that’s exactly it.’
He drank the last of his whisky and put the glass down with a little bit of a bang. ‘I’m definitely glad I listened to you, then.’
She laughed—a husky sound because of the emotion she had told her story with. ‘I’m glad you listened, too. Or I might be out on the streets and not out on a boat.’
Blake grinned, and slowly began to realise that he believed what he’d said. He was glad he’d listened to Callie. If he hadn’t he would have had to let staff go and face another example of his own poor judgement. He would have had to tell his father what had happened and face his reaction. And all the hard work he had put into building his own legacy—not merely being a part of his father’s—would have been for nothing.
As he asked Rob to bring him coffee he realised that Callie’s ghosts weren’t the only ones that had been stirred that night.
* * *
‘What’s wrong?’ Callie asked, holding her breath at the expression on Blake’s face.
Emotions she couldn’t identify flashed through hi
s eyes, but then he shook his head and smiled at her.
‘Nothing. Just thinking that it’s been a tiring day.’
And it had been, she thought. Except that wasn’t what he was thinking. Maybe he was thinking of a way to fire her. Or to fire Connor. She had just admitted that Connor had given her a job—or rather an internship—to help her through her parents’ deaths. And even though Connor’s intentions might have been good, that didn’t matter in the real world. Professionalism mattered. Ethics.
She shouldn’t have told him any of it, she thought. She had just been trying to get him to see that she had earned her job. Why did the way it had started out matter? But at the same time she had told him about the worst part of her past. She had opened up to him. Her heart accelerated at the thought. She had done exactly what Connor had encouraged her to do so often. Except she’d done it with her boss. The man who had the power to kick her out of his hotel and make sure she never worked in the hospitality industry again.
She bit her lip and searched Blake’s face, hoping she would find the truth of what he was thinking somewhere. What she saw worried her even more.
‘Blake...look, I’m sorry if I overstepped. I probably shouldn’t have told you any of this.’
‘What?’ He looked up at her distractedly and whatever he saw must have alerted him to her paranoia. ‘Callie, no—I am so glad you told me. I understand.’
His face softened and something made her think that perhaps he wanted to say I understand you so much better now.
He laid a hand over hers. ‘Thank you for telling me. I know it wasn’t easy for you.’
‘It wasn’t.’ The heat from his hand slid through her entire body. ‘And if you’re not upset with me, that means you’re thinking about something that isn’t easy for you.’
He frowned up at her.
‘Come on, Blake. We’ve spent almost all our time together for the last two weeks. You don’t think I know when something’s bothering you?’
‘Look, it’s honestly nothing. I was just thinking that getting investors is probably the best solution for the hotel.’
‘And that upsets you?’
‘No.’ Rob placed coffee in front of him, and Blake waited until he was gone before continuing. ‘I was just so set on saving the legacy of the hotel that I would rather have retrenched staff whose livelihood was on the line—as you so nicely reminded me—than think about my father being disappointed in me—’
He stopped abruptly, and Callie realised he hadn’t meant to say that. But because he had, things began to fall into place for her. Snippets of their conversation on the day of their tour filled her mind. His relationship with his father. His mother leaving. The legacy. As she put them together she thought she knew what was bothering him.
‘There’s nothing wrong with wanting to make your father proud,’ she said gently.
He shook his head. ‘I don’t know where that came from.’
She smiled, wondering if he realised how much of a man he was being. ‘You were being honest with yourself.’
He angled his head, didn’t meet her eyes, and she realised he didn’t enjoy being honest with himself. Which, if she knew him well enough to guess, meant that he had halted any thoughts that would continue along those lines.
‘Blake, was your dad upset when your mom left?’
He looked up at her in surprise. ‘Of course he was. But I don’t see what that has to do with anything.’
Of course you don’t.
‘So they’d had a good relationship?’
‘I don’t know.’ He shrugged. ‘My dad always used to say they were partners—so, yeah, I guess so.’
‘Do you know why she left?’ Callie didn’t want to ask, but she knew that the answer would help her put the final piece into place. And help Blake to do the same.
‘Callie—’
‘Blake, please...’ she said, seeing the resistance in his eyes. ‘I want to understand.’
Especially because I still feel raw from telling you about my parents.
‘My father said she didn’t want us any more.’
He clenched his teeth, and Callie resisted the urge to loosen the fist his hand had curled into.
‘That she’d left us for someone else.’
She felt her heart break for the little boy who had heard those words. For the man who still suffered from them.
‘She disappointed him?’
He drew a ragged breath. ‘And me.’
‘And now you don’t want to disappoint him, or yourself, like she did?’
He didn’t answer at first, and then he looked at her. She saw his eyes clear slightly, and resisted the urge to smile at his expression.
‘I guess so.’
Now she did smile. ‘Should I ask the waiter to warm up your coffee?’
‘What?’ He was still staring at her in bemusement.
‘Your coffee.’ She gestured towards it. ‘It’s probably cold. Actually, so is my tea.’ She signalled to the man and asked him to bring them fresh beverages.
‘Callie, did you just psychoanalyse me?’
‘No,’ she said, putting on her most innocent expression. ‘I was merely pointing out why it’s important to you to make your father proud.’
He stared at her for a moment, and then shook his head with a smile. ‘I think you missed your calling in life. You would have had a field day with me when I got married.’
Callie felt her insides freeze. The smile she had on her lips faded and she thought time slowed.
‘What did you say?’
Blake was still smiling when he answered her. ‘I said you’ve missed your calling in life.’ And then he saw her face, and his eyes widened. ‘Callie—’
‘You’re married?’
‘No, I’m not. I got divorced a long time ago.’
‘Oh...okay,’ she said shakily, and wondered why she hadn’t thought about it.
He was, after all, an attractive, successful man in his thirties. It shouldn’t surprise her that he had been married. Though the divorce was a surprise, she thought, and thanked the waiter—why didn’t she know his name yet?—as he placed her tea in front of her.
She went through the motions of making a cup, and remembered the first time they’d met, when Blake had told her that he tried to stay away from women. She’d attributed it to a bad relationship. She’d known there was a mysterious woman. So why hadn’t she considered an ex-wife until just now?
‘So she was the piece of work we spoke about in that elevator?’
‘I don’t think we’ve ever spoken about that.’
‘Yeah, we have.’ She didn’t look up at him, just kept on staring intently at the milky colour of her tea. She hadn’t let it stand for long enough, she thought. ‘When you said that you don’t put moves on women, that you stay away from them, I told you that whoever had made you feel that way must have been a real piece of work.’ She lifted her eyes to his and asked, ‘Was she?’
His face hardened. ‘Callie, this isn’t any of your business.’
‘It isn’t.’ Suddenly the surprise that she’d experienced only a few moments ago morphed into anger. ‘But neither was my parents’ deaths yours.’
‘That isn’t the same thing. You told me about that because you wanted to explain why Connor hired you. And since he hired you into my company I had the right to know.’
She quickly realised that the reason she’d told him about her parents’ deaths, about how she’d coped and how Connor had saved her—the reason he had just provided—was a lie.
‘You and I both know that I wasn’t telling you because I work for you,’ she said in a measured voice. ‘But, since we’re talking about it, was what you told me about your parents any of my business?’
‘No, it wasn’t.’
His tone mirrored hers, but it was lined with the coldness she was beginning to recognise he used when he spoke to her as her boss.
‘And all of this—’ she gestured around her ‘—is what you do for someone you don’t want in your business?’
‘I was just saying thank you to an employee for a job well done.’
She stared at him, wondering if he really believed the nonsense that was coming out of his mouth. She gave him a moment to come to his senses, to salvage the progress they’d made, but he said nothing.
‘Well, in that case remind me to compare notes with Connor about employee rewards.’
She gathered her things and walked towards the man who had stood silently at the entrance of the boat since they arrived.
‘Would you please help me off this boat?’ she asked him, and realised that she didn’t know his name either.
He smiled kindly at her. ‘Of course, ma’am.’
Before she climbed the steep stairs up to the dock, she turned back to Blake. ‘She must have done something really awful to you, Blake, for you to push away something that could have...’ She faltered, but then said it anyway. ‘That could have been something. But don’t worry. The next time I see you we can pretend nothing that happened this evening actually happened. Just to ensure that we stay out of one another’s business.’
He didn’t move in his seat—in fact he hadn’t even turned while she’d been talking to him. She shut down all the hurt flooding through her and nodded at the man who was waiting to help her.
She murmured a thank you when she reached the top, and then she was walking as fast and as far from the boat—from Blake—as she could.
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