“Yes. And I would take home a pretty nice bonus, as well.” There appeared to be a fucking huge moth trapped behind my heart, because I came over all giddy. My palms began to sweat. “Enough that I would be…comfortable settling down. Putting money back for a child’s college fund. Or two.”
A slow smile spread across her face. “Two is good.”
“Yeah. How much do…” I frowned and sighed. I might have been having a heart attack. At least it was for the best possible reason. “Do you know how much weddings run these days?”
“Well, I mean, I guess it depends on where you’re having it. In the Bahamas, or…” She rocked her legs gently, bumping them against mine.
“I suppose we would have to take that into account, at the time.” I leaned up, and she met me halfway. It was difficult to kiss when we both couldn’t stop smiling. But it wasn’t as though I could promise her all of these things right now. I needed to be honest about that from the beginning. I pulled back. “I think we should be clear, though, on how long a separation this would be.”
She made a disappointed “tch” sound and sat up. “I was really hoping we wouldn’t have to talk about that, but you’re right. We need to be responsible.”
“It’s going to be over a year.”
“Over a year?” She looked as though she’d witnessed a train derailment. “When would you leave?”
“July. And I’ll likely stay there until they break ground in 2017.”
She didn’t say anything.
“I know. I can’t bear the thought of it myself,” I rushed to reassure her. “But as we said before, you could always come visit.”
You could come with me. I wouldn’t dare ask her. We’d been dating since August. Barely a full three months. You didn’t ask someone to relocate, to leave behind a job and an entire life at three months, no matter how secure things felt. It just wasn’t done. Maybe by the time I had to leave…
Has that ever mattered in your past? It “just wasn’t done” to have group sex, and fuck your coworkers, and let a woman you met at party move in with you after two weeks of near constant nudity. I’d done all those things. Then maybe it’s time to do something normal for a change.
“Yeah.” Penny’s voice went suddenly flat. Whatever burst of energy she’d had before seemed to be wearing off. She smiled a tired smile. “Pretty convenient honeymoon spot.”
“It could be.” I had a vision of us marrying on the beach at sunset, just the two of us and the officiant. Did there have to be witnesses? I would pay some passing tourist.
We were practically married in my head, and I hadn’t asked her input, at all.
If she asked, if she suggested it, I would take her with me, in a heartbeat. If not, I would live with heartache until we could be together again. With the commission I would get from this job, we would be beyond set for life. We would be able to ensure our family’s future. It would be selfish of me to take that away from us because I clung to her too tightly.
Her expression changed into one of pure despondency.
“Ah, what’s the matter, Doll?” Say the word. I silently urged her. Say the word.
“I’m just…really going to miss you.” She slid down in the bed.
Of course she wouldn’t suggest leaving with me. I would be coming back to a life happy to wait for me. Hers wouldn’t stay on hold.
I kissed the top of her head and pulled her close. I would cherish every moment our skin touched, from now until I had to get on the fucking plane. “I’m going to miss you, too. Believe me, if anything could tempt me away from this job, it would be you.”
The right thing was, as usual, the hardest thing. This separation would be the right thing. That didn’t stop me from praying that she would somehow bring up the possibility of staying with me, even long after she’d fallen asleep.
* * * *
The next day, my mind raced with the same mantra, over and over. You should have asked her, you stupid twat. I tapped the end of my pen against my desk, eyeing my phone. It would be so easy to call Penny and say, “Hey, come with me, Doll.” But it would also be grossly unfair. She would say yes, and I would irrevocably disorder her life.
I needed advice before I took a step like that.
I dialed the number to the church office and waited for Annie to pick up.
“St. Basil’s,” she answered in the perky lilt she adopted for callers who were not kin.
“Am I a madman if I ask Penny to move to the Bahamas with me?”
Annie’s cheerful tone immediately dropped. “What is all this?”
I should have mentioned the possible move before I brought Penny into it. She would let me have it. “I was offered a job. I would be going away for about a year and a half—”
I could practically hear her crossing herself.
I started defending myself before she could lay into me. “I know what you’re thinking. I do. I shouldn’t ask her to go with me, when we haven’t known each other that long, but under the circumstances—”
“You’re moving to the Bahamas for a year and half?” Annie was outraged, and rightly so. I was her closest family. She probably felt I was abandoning her. “I could care less what happens with your bit of tail—”
“Hey!” I snapped. “I didn’t call you so you could insult the woman I love. I called you for advice.”
“My advice? Why do you need that? You didn’t ask for it before you decided to relocate to another country,” she shot right back.
“You’d make a quick judgment call, too, if there were eight fucking figures on your firm’s dinner table.”
“Language! I am in a church!”
“You’re in an office in a church basement!” I blew out a slow breath and counted a quick ten, as Penny had done at the restaurant the night before. It didn’t help me, either. “I have to take this job. It’s the difference between Pratchett and Baker staying where we’re at, or becoming one of the highest paid firms in Manhattan.”
“Eight figures? Ah, but you’re taking the piss, now. Is this a joke?” she demanded. “If it is, it’s not funny.”
“I promise you, I am not taking the piss. I’m serious as the heart attack that took Mum.” It was the only thing I could swear on that she would believe.
“You stand to make a lot of money from this yourself, don’t you?”
Ah, now would come the which-is-more-important game. “I do. Several million dollars.”
She gasped. At least, I hoped it was a gasp, and that I hadn’t killed her.
“So, do you see now why I’d be considering this?” Though my sister prized family above all things, there was no chance she would begrudge me an extended vacation worth millions.
“But why take this girl?” Annie asked, her tone decidedly uncomfortable. “She’s so much younger than you are, and now she’s got you running off to the tropics—”
“It’s not her that has me running off to the tropics. It’s bags and bags of cash. She’s not even going with me that I know of. I just wanted your advice on whether or not I should ask.”
“Listen to yourself. You’re considering moving to another country with a woman you haven’t even introduced to us.”
“I tried to introduce you. You told me you’d be at church, and instead you traipsed off to D.C.,” I reminded her tersely. “And Gena moved in with me long before you deigned to meet her.”
“And that worked out wonderfully for you, didn’t it?”
“Fuck you, Annie!” I hit end call and dropped my phone the desk so hard I worried I might have damaged it.
I loved my sister, and I knew better than to take her, or any member of my family, for granted. The guilt set in immediately. What if she got into a car accident and died on the way home? What if that was the last thing I ever said to her?
The guilt was mutual, because the phone rang again in only seconds. “I’m sorry,” Annie said the moment the call connected, and her apology overlapped mine.
“No, Ian. I’m not being
fair. I shouldn’t throw your divorce in your face that way.”
“You shouldn’t throw it in my face at all. I’ve made mistakes. I know I have. But I want this to be different.” With an exhale of frustration, I scooped up the pen on my blotter and twisted it open and closed, over and over.
“I want it to be different, as well. I don’t like to see you in pain. And I don’t have anything against this girl. But I don’t trust this situation.”
“Because you’ve never met Penny.” I wouldn’t let that go. “I want to bring her on Thursday.”
“To Thanksgiving?” Annie’s voice rose in surprise.
“Is she not welcome?” I drummed the end of my pen on the blotter.
“Of course she’s welcome. But doesn’t she have family?”
I tried to imagine what Thanksgiving dinner with the Parkers would be like. All of the passive aggressive digs, all of the harsh judgment and barely concealed animosity Penny would be forced to endure. My rage at her parents renewed. “I met her parents. You should hear how they speak to her. Believe me, you wouldn’t want her to go to them, either.”
“Well, that’s sad to hear. If she doesn’t have plans with them, then surely she can come here.” Annie was a sucker for a no-family story.
There was a rapping on my door, and I looked up to see Burt signaling me through the glass wall.
“I have to go. But I really am sorry I cursed at you,” I reiterated. “I love you.”
“I love you, too. We’ll talk on Thursday.”
I waved Burt in as I finished up the call.
“Is that your lady?” Burt asked with a grin, gesturing to the phone.
I sighed and set the phone down, the time far more gently. “Nah, my bossy older sister.”
“How did dinner go?” If Burt hadn’t cut right to the chase, I would have thought he’d taken ill.
“Very well.” All morning, I’d drawn out the suspense. I’d responded to his very early morning email with, We’ll talk about it at the office. Once we were at the office, our separate responsibilities had kept him from cornering me. I’d been taking a sick pleasure in tormenting him, but the fun was over, now. I couldn’t drag it out any longer. “Eight figures.”
“Excuse me?” Burt’s face lit up like Christmas. “Say that one more time.”
“Eight figures for the firm. I’d be taking a team down, and we’d be gone for about eighteen months.”
“Do you want my recommendations?” he asked without missing a blink.
“Ah…” I supposed I also had been putting off telling him, because once I’d spoken the words, it all became real. Real and unavoidable.
“If you’d like me to stay more hands-off—”
“No, no, it’s not that, at all. Of course I’m going to need your input. I’m going to need the whole firm. The scale of this thing…” Even I couldn’t wrap my head around it. “I’m just a bit overwhelmed, now. It hasn’t even been twenty-four hours, and I’m looking at upending my entire life.”
“For eighteen months,” Burt said evenly. “Eighteen months in a tropical paradise.”
“It’ll be more of a mud pit full of heavy equipment. But that’s not what concerns me.”
Yes, it was. It was my whole concern. I didn’t want to leave Penny here, not when we were happy together and talking about our future. I didn’t want to delay that future by eighteen months. A lot could happen in that time. I could fade from her memory. She could meet someone else, someone younger, in better shape both physically and emotionally. Someone who would prioritize his time with her and not run off to the Bahamas, expecting her to wait for him.
“And what are your concerns?” Burt put his hands in his pockets, pushing his unbuttoned jacket back.
“My main concern is tanking the whole project and destroying our firm. But I do have some personal worries, as well,” I admitted.
“Because of this girl you’re seeing?” Burt smiled the tense smile of a man who’s seen an enormous pile of money and would say anything to keep it from being taken away.
“Yeah. We’ve been talking about the future, when we would like to start a family, that sort of thing. I’m getting old, Burt. I’d like to see my children grow up.” I rarely got this personal with my business partner. During my initial separation from Gena, he’d expressed his sympathies, but we weren’t friends. We owned a business together. He wasn’t going to see my rejection of a job this large as reasonable, even if I told him I only had six months to live. He would find a way to prop up my corpse at the building site.
“So, you bring her down for a visit, ride horses on the beach at sunset, take her back to your place and get her pregnant,” he said, as though it were perfectly reasonable for him to be planning out the conception of my future child.
“Come on, Burt.” There was a warning in my tone.
“I’m sorry to be vulgar. I just can’t believe you would even consider the possibility of turning this offer down.”
“I’m not considering turning it down. I’m just not happy that I can’t.” And that was the crux of the problem. I had a choice in the matter, but it was already decided, by my inability to walk away from an obligation.
Jesus Christ, it was like my divorce, all over again. The only difference was that I stood to make money from this.
“Don’t worry. I’m not going to ruin this,” I promised him. “I just need more than a full day to get my head around it and plan what I’m going to do. Rushing the planning is just going to destroy us in the long term.”
“You’re right,” he agreed. He was probably so relieved I wasn’t turning down the job that he would agree with anything I said, at the moment.
His phone chimed in his pocket, and he fished it out. His eyebrows rose as he read the screen. “I have to take this.”
He answered the call on his way out the door. I tilted back in my chair, my gaze fixed on the ceiling. Six months ago, this job would have been a dream.
First things first, though. I needed to invite Penny to Thanksgiving. Receiving personal calls at work bothered the hell out of me, but I knew she didn’t mind, so I brought up her number on my phone.
“Hello?”
The sound of her voice washed away some of my tension. “You’re American.”
“You noticed.” I heard the smile in her voice. “Hi, Ian.”
“Hello, Doll.” I chuckled. I was trying to get better at starting a phone conversation “normally”, as Penny would describe it, but every time it was a struggle. “Do you know who else is American?”
“You are, even though you rarely admit it.”
“How dare you?” I said, with no real offense behind it. “I was going to say, my sister’s husband is American. And since I assume you’re not going to spend Thanksgiving with your lovely parents—”
She snorted in response.
“Maybe you’d like to come to Thanksgiving dinner at her house, with me?”
There was a brief pause. “I’d love to. But…”
“But?”
She sighed. “Your sister doesn’t want to meet me. That was kind of obvious when she ran away to D.C. to avoid me.”
“She didn’t run away.” She’d just neglected to tell me that the week I’d chosen to bring Penny with me to church, she would be out of the city. “And even if she did, this time, she couldn’t. Because I know where she lives, and that woman would never abandon a turkey.” I tried to laugh, so it wouldn’t sound like I was begging. “Look, I don’t want to pressure you—”
“No, it’s fine.”
I wasn’t looking for fine, though. Fine led to…situations.
“I’m sorry,” Penny began, again. “I don’t know why I’m being a bitch about this.”
“It’s because you’re nervous.” I realized that I’d just agreed to her assessment, so I picked up the pace of my words in the hope that she wouldn’t notice. “You know that it’s important to me that the two of you get along. But I swear, Penny, I am not going to kick you
out of my life if you’re not my sister’s favorite person.”
“Why do you assume it’s going to go down that way instead of the other way around?” Her defensive tone made me suspect that perhaps she had noticed my accidental agreement to her bitch comment, but it was far too late to explain it away now.
“Because I know my sister, and I know that of the two of you, you’re the one who’s going into this wanting to get along.”
“And your sister, she’s not going to want to get along?” Penny countered.
I considered carefully. “She’s going to be cautious. I won’t mince words about that.”
“That sounds kind of mince-y to me.”
“I believe that my sister will like you. And she’ll want to like you, as well. But she’ll stay guarded.” Annie was judgmental, and once rendered, a judgment was usually final. But, at the end of the day, she just wanted me to be happy. “When she sees how much I love you, and how important you are to me, she’ll back off.”
“If I don’t get along…” Her voice trailed off, and she started her sentence over. “If I don’t get along with your family, our relationship isn’t doomed?”
“Did I get along with your parents?” I countered. She hadn’t dropped me for speaking to her parents the way I had. They didn’t seem as close as I was to my family, but they were family, all the same. “You’ll get along just fine. If you don’t, we’ll live with it. But Annie doesn’t decide my personal relationships for me.”
“Okay,” Penny agreed, with some reluctance. “Is there anything I should bring?”
“No, don’t. Annie will think you doubted that she could handle all the food, and she’ll take it as an insult,” I warned. “I’ll get a really nice wine, and we can bring that.”
“We?” Penny giggled. “I like the sound of showing up places as a couple and only needing to bring one dish to pass.”
“That’s one of the benefits of serious, long-term relationships,” I informed her. “That and health insurance.”
“Do you need my health insurance?” She laughed.
“It’s probably better than mine.” Knowing Sophie and her radically liberal politics, she probably paid for her employees’ prescriptions herself.
First Time: Ian's Story (First Time (Ian) Book 1) Page 24
