by Karen Booth
“I have to go talk to him. Right?”
“Yes. You have to confront him and take your chance to tell him to his face he’s a jerk,” Mindy said. “Otherwise you’ll always regret it.”
The thought of saying that to Daniel made it feel like her heart might crumble to dust. “So that’s it, then.”
Sophie patted her hand. “It’ll be okay. I promise. You have Mindy and me. We’re here for you. Even if it’s the middle of the night and you need us to bring you ice cream.”
“Or something stronger,” Mindy added. “And Sophie’s right. We have to stick together or we won’t succeed. I don’t think any of us has any interest in failing.”
“So you don’t blame me for this?” Emma asked.
Mindy stood and reached for Emma’s hand to help her up. “We’ve all made mistakes that hurt Eden’s. Especially me. We just need to know that Daniel Stone is done. No more trusting him. We know you like him, but that ship has sailed.”
Emma walked to her office, numb. Seeing her desk and her office window brought to the forefront the memory of the pop-up night and all that had happened between them here. It had been more than passionate abandon. Daniel had seemed like he had such an incurable weakness for her. It had been an intoxicating thought. For the woman who’d worried whether she could be the kind who could turn Daniel Stone’s head, she’d proved she not only could be, but that she was. And that had all happened after he knew the truth of her past. He didn’t care that she’d come from nothing. He cared about the Emma of here and now.
Or so she had been foolish enough to think. She’d thought they could set aside business and bad blood between families. She should have been smart enough to realize those were the two things that drove Daniel and her the most. There was no compromise to be made, however badly she’d wanted to think there was.
She glanced at her phone and for an instant considered calling Daniel to tell him she was coming over. But no, he didn’t deserve a heads-up. He deserved to be blindsided. Just as he’d done to her. She sent her driver a text, shut off her phone and rushed downstairs to go home.
* * *
Daniel stared at the television in disbelief. He would have missed this nightmare if a friend hadn’t sent him a text congratulating him on signing the lease for Stone’s New York. His mother. She just couldn’t wait. She simply couldn’t trust him. He watched as reporters caught up to her outside his family’s London home. He cringed at her first answer, but the second truly made him want to retch. He’d had his fun? It was never going to last?
He had to get Emma on the phone right away, but he also needed to speak to his mother and get her to shut up and stop talking to the press. Every time she opened her mouth, she made it so much worse for him. As soon as Emma found out, she’d think the absolute worst of him. He sent her a text to buy himself ten or fifteen minutes.
I have some news I want you to hear from me. Can I come by your office?
He waited but got no response from Emma. His stomach rolled with the uncertainty. Did she already know? He didn’t have time to worry further.
His mother answered the call without so much as a hello. “I guess you’ve seen the news.”
Daniel wanted to scream. “What in bloody hell are you doing? You announce the lease before it’s signed? You go to Nora Bradford behind my back?”
“You gave me no choice. You were never going to sign Nora. You were trying to curry favor with that woman you’re seeing.”
“Emma, Mother. Her name is Emma. And you don’t know that to be true.” Except that it was true. Emma was precisely the reason he’d tried to get out of enticing Nora Bradford to leave Eden’s for Stone’s. “This is a big problem for me. You’ve put me in a terrible situation. I can’t talk about it now. I need to speak to Emma before she finds out what you did. But you and I need to have a conversation about my role in the company. I won’t have you undermining me like this.”
“We can talk about it on Monday after the lease is signed. How about dinner?”
“What?”
“I was thinking I should pop over for this momentous occasion.”
“No. I do not need your supervision. I have everything in hand.”
“So you don’t want to see me?”
Daniel grumbled over the phone. How she loved to lay on the maternal guilt. “I’m only saying that you don’t need to make the trip. It seems silly.”
“Okay, well, I’ll be there, silly or not. I want to see you and the new store. I know you’re upset, but you’ll see that this was everything we needed to do. You’ll meet another woman. There are always more women.”
Not like Emma. Daniel heard a knock at his door. The dogs ran right over and started barking. “I have to go.” He ended the call and tossed his phone onto the table, rushing for the door. “Enough. Sit,” he said to the dogs, which immediately piped down and followed instructions. Even Jolly.
Daniel opened the door. The sight of Emma nearly mowed him over. She was breathtaking beautiful, but there were ragged edges to her now. She knew what had happened. He could see it on her face. He felt the disappointment radiating off her. “Please. Come in. I tried to reach you.”
“You did?” The dogs were begging for her attention, and Emma crouched down to pet them all.
“I sent you a text.”
“I didn’t get it. I turned off my phone after I saw the atrocity on TV. What in the hell happened, Daniel? Have you been lying to me this whole time?” She stood and smoothed her hair back, a deep crease forming between her eyes.
“No. Of course not. The Nora Bradford thing was my mother’s doing.”
“But did you know she was pursuing her?”
He couldn’t lie. He couldn’t hide anything else from her. “I did.”
Her shoulders dropped in disappointment. “How long? How long have you known?”
“Since before I met you. I was sent to talk to her that night at Empire State. But we hardly knew each other then, and I knew you were tied to Eden’s. I couldn’t say anything. Plus, it was just an idea then.” He reached for her, but she turned away. The disappointment that registered in his body was so deep it went down to the soles of his feet.
“An idea to hurt Eden’s.”
“Yes. My mother’s idea, mind you. Not mine.”
“Does it really matter? The net effect is the same. This is a huge hit for our store. Sophie and Mindy are so upset.”
“Please tell me they aren’t angry with you. I’ll talk to them if you need me to. I’ll tell them you knew nothing about it.”
“Actually, they’re being nothing but supportive. They resisted the temptation to remind me that they’d told me exactly what you were going to do. They told me you would ultimately betray me and I didn’t believe them. That’s how stupid I am.”
Daniel ran his hands through his hair. “I didn’t betray you, Emma. I swear I didn’t know about actually signing Nora Bradford, and my plan was to tell you about the lease this weekend during our trip.”
“So you were planning to sweep me off my feet with your private plane and your getaway, just so you could tell me that I’d better prepare myself for the fight of my life? How did you think that was going to go over, exactly? Did you think I was going to congratulate you? Be excited?”
He drew in a deep breath. He’d really done a horrible job of thinking this through. “I guess I hoped you might handle it like every other conflicted moment we’ve had together. I hoped that you’d decide that you liked me more than you hated my business.”
“This is more than your business. It’s your family, too. You stand by them, and I have no choice but to do the same with mine.”
He refused to believe that this had to be an impasse. They had to find some way through this. “So you’d rather be loyal to Sophie and Mindy than me? Even after everything the Eden family has done to you? For your
entire life?”
“What choice do I have? These are ties that I don’t want broken. They’re ties I’ve wanted my entire life. Plus, you cannot preach to me about family loyalty. I know that comes first for you. Even after your mother has treated you terribly. Even after your brother betrayed you. You cling to the Stone name exactly like I’m clinging to my own.”
“I don’t want to cling to my name if it means I’m going to lose you.”
“I heard what your mother said about me. Do you think there’s ever any coming back from that? If I’m going to be with a man, I need his family to accept me. To welcome me. I’ve spent my entire life feeling lost. Searching for the place where I would belong. I’m not going back to that. We would never overcome it.”
“What are you saying, Emma?” He held his breath. It would mean moving forward, and he didn’t want to do that without her. He didn’t just sense that his heart was about to break, he felt it.
Tears were streaming down her face. “I’m saying that there’s no future for us, Daniel. And if there’s no future, we’re done. I can’t merely have fun with you. I can’t sleep with you and pretend like it doesn’t mean something. Aside from maybe that first night at Empire State, I don’t think we were ever only having fun. There has always been a serious undercurrent between us.”
“That’s part of what I loved so much. We fell into sync. So quickly.”
“And that’s what makes this ridiculously hard.” She looked down at her hands as she wrung them together. When she looked back up at him with those warm brown eyes he adored, he knew she was about to deliver a crushing blow. “Because the truth is that I love you. I know it sounds silly, but it’s the truth. I’ve had those words waiting on my lips many times and I never had the nerve to say them.”
Everything in his body went impossibly still. “So you’re saying them now?”
“I don’t want to regret this any more than I already do. Our cards should all be out on the table. Let’s leave nothing unsaid.”
Daniel swallowed back the emotion of the moment. He dreaded telling her his true feelings, only because he knew she no longer cared to return them.
“Goodbye, Daniel. I really do wish you the best.” She kissed him on the cheek and reached for the door. “But you should know that my sisters and I are committed to kicking your family’s ass.”
Twelve
After a weekend without Emma, Daniel’s greatest fear was that the emptiness would be permanent this time. At least it was familiar. He’d felt exactly like this after William died and Bea left. His father had given himself over to the despair, while his mother defied it, tightening her chokehold on the family business and Daniel. Meanwhile, loneliness, guilt and doubt brewed a toxic cocktail in Daniel’s head.
He hadn’t been doing that much better when he arrived in New York, but at least he had a charge to distract him—opening Stone’s New York. This morning, he’d get back on course and sign the lease. The trouble was, his heart didn’t want to go there. His heart was too hung up on Emma.
He rolled over in bed and that made the dogs stir. He waited for a growl from Jolly, but it never came. Instead, she crept toward him until her nose nudged his hand for a pet. He pulled her nearer and ruffled her ears. This one remaining piece of his brother’s life was so special to him, but it had taken Emma to bring them closer. That was what she did—she made everything and everyone around her better.
She’d helped him see the joy and beauty around him, perhaps because she’d spent so much of her life going without. She’d shaken him awake, turned him from a man who ignored a stranger’s conversation in the elevator to someone who could face things he’d been avoiding for years, like the press. She showed him that the world wasn’t a dismal place. It could be so beautiful, especially with her in it.
His chest ached just thinking about her. Although his longing was so much more than physical, it manifested itself as pain. Chronic agony. Whoever said that love hurts had been absolutely right. He’d thought he’d loved Bea, but he hadn’t. Not like this. What he had with Emma was once-in-a-lifetime. Irreplaceable. If he had any chance at all of living a happy life, he had to get her back. But he didn’t see how that was possible. Not with their families standing between them.
He glanced at the clock. The signing had been moved to ten o’clock by the property manager, so he had only a little more than two hours. His mother was due to land at the private airstrip at JFK in an hour. Charlotte would be on hand to sign the paperwork. He’d worked to reach this milestone. He’d wanted it. But he couldn’t help but think that his name on that dotted line would be like signing the final death decree of his romance with Emma. She would never take him back then. Perhaps it was best to get it over with. He had to pick himself up and move forward. Somehow.
He slogged through his normal morning routine of tea and walking the dogs. He didn’t stop by the newsstand. He was done with that. He couldn’t stomach the thought of showing up and seeing Emma splashed across the front page. No matter what they said about her, good or bad, it would hurt like hell. He followed it up with a shower, but skipped the shave. His mother despised his five o’clock shadow. If he had to be unhappy, she might as well be, too.
He dreaded having to take her to task at dinner this evening, but it had to be done. It wasn’t merely to make his professional life better. She needed help. He was certain she still hadn’t truly mourned William’s death. He needed to help her see that it was time to stop. And take a breath. At the very least, she needed to loosen the reins and give him full autonomy in New York. And once he returned to London, they needed to devise her exit plan from the company. If she wasn’t willing to do that, he wasn’t sure what he’d do. Quitting would mean walking away from his family. He didn’t have that in him, however miserable he was.
Daniel’s driver met him in the parking garage and got him to the store in record time. He looked out the window for a glimpse of their new building, but as they approached, he saw that his worst nightmare was waiting for him—the press. Photographers. All of them waiting outside.
“Is there another entrance?” he asked.
“Aside from the loading dock, I don’t think so. It’s probably not open, anyway, since the building is empty.”
Daniel pressed his lips together. He’d do this. He’d live. “Okay. Thanks. I’ve got my door.” He jumped out and straightened his suit coat. “Morning,” he said, marching forward while people shoved cameras in his face and shouted questions at him. He didn’t stop, didn’t want to look, and certainly didn’t want to listen. They were asking about Emma and it nearly killed him.
He rushed through the glass doors into the grand and empty space. Charlotte was waiting for him, along with the representative from the property company.
“Hello, Charlotte,” Daniel said. “Thanks for taking care of this.”
“My pleasure.” She shook his hand and introduced him to the landlord. “Everything look good?” she asked Daniel.
He turned and surveyed the sprawling main floor. It was just as amazing as he’d remembered it, Carrara marble everywhere—floors, arches and pillars. Vintage art deco chandeliers hung from the twenty-foot ceilings. There were very few spaces like this in New York anymore. He was lucky to have found it, but he didn’t feel that way. “Yes. Let’s hope my mother agrees.”
“It looks as though she’s just arrived,” Charlotte said, nodding toward the entrance.
Daniel turned and watched as his mother climbed out of her stretch limo. She was wearing a pale blue Chanel suit, black pumps and oversize sunglasses. Her light brown hair was in a perfect bob, not a strand out of place. She immediately walked up to the members of the press who had gathered, took off her sunglasses and began regaling them with some sort of tale. He had no idea what she was saying, but they were laughing while they snapped their pictures. The next thing he knew, she was waving them all in.
“In we go, everyone. Take as many pictures as you like. Of course, it’ll look quite different once my son and I have gotten our hands on it.” She made her way over to Daniel. “Hello, darling. How are you?” They kissed on both cheeks. “You look skinny.”
Of course he did. He’d been too distracted by Emma to ever think about food, and since losing her, he’d had no appetite. “Nice to see you.”
She tapped her sunglasses against her chin as she looked high and low, getting her first full view of the new store. “The space is wonderful. I love it.”
Daniel was relieved about that much. He’d gotten this one thing right.
One of the photographers stepped toward them. “Mr. Stone. Ms. Stone. Can you turn around for some pictures?”
“Why didn’t you tell me you were inviting the media?” he asked out of the side of his mouth. “Shouldn’t we wait for those favors when the store actually opens?”
“Because all publicity is good and you’re a hot property right now.” She spoke through her perfect smile as they posed.
“No I’m not. And I don’t like the idea of being paraded around.”
“Daniel? Is it over between you and Emma Stewart?” one of the reporters asked.
His heart sank at the mere mention of her name. “I’m not discussing that today.”
The photographers finished taking pictures of them and returned their attention to the store. In one corner, a camera crew was setting up.
“Smart of you not to answer the question,” his mother said. “I think it’s probably best if we ignore the question of the Eden girl and pretend like it never happened.”
“Daniel? Are we ready to sign?” Charlotte asked.
“Yes. Indeed,” his mother answered. She strolled over to the small table where the paperwork was set out.
Daniel didn’t move. His feet simply wouldn’t go. He didn’t want to ignore anything about Emma. He didn’t want to pretend like it had never happened. He’d been happy with her and he wasn’t willing to let go of that.
