by Nicole Helm
Kayla opened the door farther and ushered Dinah inside.
“Did that bastard hurt you?” Kayla demanded.
“Bastard? You mean Carter?”
Kayla nodded emphatically and Dinah smiled, because even with things not quite normal between them, Kayla was being protective.
“He’s been great,” Dinah assured her.
“Then why are you crying? You never cry. I assumed it had to be a guy.”
“Not exactly yes and not exactly . . .” It was then Dinah realized there were boxes everywhere. Dinah could only blink and stare at the evidence Kayla was . . . getting ready to move? “What’s going on?” Dinah demanded, pointing at a half-packed box.
“Let’s focus on you right now.”
“But you’re moving!”
“Not far, and it’s not important right now. What’s far more important is that you’re crying. What’s wrong?”
“I take it you didn’t hear your father’s screech of rage from ten blocks away?”
Kayla frowned. “Dad hasn’t spoken to me since I quit.”
“Carter and Simone and I presented our idea to the board, and they approved it. We’ll be working with Carter to create a completely local portion of the menu.”
Kayla smiled. “That’s great. Really. It’s a fantastic idea, and I hope it works out. But that doesn’t explain why you’re upset.”
“Grandmother summoned me into her office.”
“Oh.” Kayla let out a long breath and started moving boxes off the couch. “We need to sit for this.”
“How do you know?”
Kayla gave Dinah a nudge onto the couch before taking a seat next to her. “Grandmother never brings us into her office unless it’s bad. In fact, the only time she’s ever had me come in her office was when I quit.”
“How did that go? You haven’t talked to me. I didn’t . . .” Dinah hadn’t tried, which wasn’t like her either, but Kayla’s rejection of Gallagher’s felt like a personal rejection too.
Kayla looked away, but there was an odd smile on her face. “I needed a clean break from all things Gallagher, and I love you, Dinah, so much, but I knew you didn’t understand that. But it was good. I mean, does it suck that Dad won’t talk to me and Grandmother’s cutting me off? Sure. But I needed it. I need it. So I’m fine. You’re the one crying.”
“I hate that we fought.” Because she’d missed this. Missed her cousin and her friend.
“I do too, and I think I’m getting close to a place where . . . I just . . . I don’t want anything to do with Gallagher’s right now. Not Dad. Not Grandmother.”
“Not me.”
Kayla sighed. “I will gladly accept Dinah my friend and my cousin, but Dinah Gallagher, future director of operations, is not welcome in my life right now. I’m really sorry, but for once I have to do something that’s right for me.”
“But those things are all me! They interconnect and I can’t keep them separate. I tried with Carter, and even that didn’t work. I am Gallagher’s in my bones. I can’t be only your friend or only your cousin. I’m all of it.”
“It sounds like you need a break,” Kayla said gently.
“I do not need a break.” Dinah jumped to her feet, panic giving her the energy she’d been missing. “I’m not taking a break. Gallagher’s is everything to me.”
Kayla looked away. “I love you, but maybe you should go.”
Dinah felt the tears rushing back all over again, and she hated this. She hated being a whiny crybaby all of a sudden, but nothing was going right and everything felt hard.
“Before I go, will you just . . . let me just tell you this.” Her voice was wavering and the tears were threatening, but she had to talk to someone.
She knew how Carter would feel about it. It would hurt his feelings and he would get weird, and she couldn’t talk to him about it until she knew exactly what she wanted to do. Then she could convince him whatever she needed to do was the right thing. But she couldn’t do that until she knew what was right.
Kayla waited, sad blue eyes downcast, and Dinah had to swallow the lump in her throat.
“Grandmother told me she would suggest me to the board as director of operations instead of Craig, on one condition.”
Kayla’s soft expression changed immediately. “Let me guess: The condition was totally realistic and normal and not at all insane.”
“She said I can’t be in a personal relationship with Carter. That he’d never be the type of husband I’d need—to be her.”
“Do you really want to be Grandmother?” Kayla said it with such disgust, as if Grandmother wasn’t everything Dinah had wanted to be and was afraid she couldn’t live up to.
“Oh my God,” Kayla breathed, her eyes going wide. “You do want to be her!”
“She’s amazing. She’s strong and everyone listens to her and . . . no one questions her.” No one abandoned her or pushed her aside. She was power, and Dinah had always wanted that kind of... certainty of her place in the world.
“There are a lot of amazing things about Grandmother, I will give you that, but she’s also incredibly cruel and unfeeling. Is that who you really want to be?”
“You say that like I have a choice.”
“Of course you do! We have a choice. We’ve always had a choice, Dinah. You choose to think Gallagher’s is your heart and soul.”
“No, I don’t. It’s how I was born.” She believed that. She had to believe that. If she thought she had a choice, if she deserted like Kayla and her father, what did that make her? She knew exactly what.
A failure. Alone. No one.
“Bullshit. It’s easy, is what it is. It’s safe. You know, I thought I was the coward in this relationship, but now I’m not so sure.”
Dinah wanted to stand up for herself. She wanted to argue or say nasty things back, but it hurt so damn much, and she was already so raw. “Why are you being so mean to me lately?”
“Because I love you and I see this pattern in the things you do. Things get hard and you hyper-focus on the wrong thing. You’re in such incredible denial about yourself and your worth, and I’m tired of pretending like I don’t see it, to spare your feelings.”
“Denial? My worth? Come on, Kayla, I—”
“You haven’t dealt with anything that happened in the past year. Not your father, not how it affects you as a person, not just at Gallagher’s. Things have changed. It’s time you changed with them. If you want to be Grandmother, be Grandmother. Break up with Carter. Run Gallagher’s. Turn into an old woman who everyone is afraid of, and no one loves.”
“I’m going to go.”
“Oh, no. I gave you a chance, but you asked. You will hear me out. You can choose to lose everything about you that makes me love you—your warmth and your honesty and your humor and your caring.” Kayla stood up, standing in front of her, looking as fierce as Dinah had ever seen her.
“I never understood, Dinah, because you’re not like them. You care so much about people—not just that goddamn waste of space. You care about the people who make up that business, and if you want to get to the point where you don’t anymore, the point where all you see are dollar signs and reputation, and whatever it is they see, then go ahead. You can do all that, you can choose all that, but I don’t think that’s what you really want. If it was what you really wanted, you’d have already got after it. You’d have broken up with Carter without a second thought.”
“It isn’t that easy.”
“No, it’s life. It isn’t easy, but it is something you have to do. Just like leaving is something I have to do. We’re at the point where we have to choose for ourselves, but it is a choice.”
“I’m in love with him,” she said, wishing the words back the minute they escaped, raw and confused.
That stopped Kayla in her tracks though. “You’re in love with . . . Carter Trask?”
“I don’t want to be. I shouldn’t be.” She started pacing between Kayla’s mountains of boxes. “But I can’t
seem to get rid of that feeling. I can’t fight it. All of these feelings are there, and I am in love with him.”
“Have you told him?”
Dinah shook her head. “No. I wasn’t sure of it, and then Grandmother dropped this bomb, but love is just like the business thing. There has to be a compromise.”
“Eventually people run out of compromises, Dinah. Trust me. I certainly ran out of mine. Tell him. Show him. Don’t let Grandmother take this from you.”
“If I choose him, I lose everything that was always supposed to be mine.” She forced the words out past the fear, past maybe some of that denial Kayla was accusing her of having. But how could she lose what she’d always wanted, give it up for something that had come out of the blue? That could end, and hurt her?
“Yours? Maybe our lives aren’t ending up like we planned, but maybe there is a new, different path we’re supposed to take.”
“I refuse to take any path that takes me away from Gallagher’s,” Dinah said harshly, feeling harsh but certain. She’d always been certain. This had always been her. How could that change? “Gallagher’s is my heart and soul. I can’t let that go.”
“Then you need to leave,” Kayla said, shaking her head. “Because you’re not here to actually listen to what I have to say.”
Dinah could see the tears in Kayla’s eyes, hear the hurt in her voice. It matched Dinah’s own. “I don’t know when hating Gallagher’s happened, or why it means you can’t be my best friend anymore.”
“I don’t know either. But if you’re willing to put a building over love, then I don’t really want to be your friend.”
“That’s not what I’m doing,” Dinah said, tears spilling over again, her heart cracking into pieces no matter how hard she tried to hold it together.
“Isn’t it?”
Dinah had never been so confused or lost in her entire life. She never in her wildest dreams would have thought her friendship with Kayla would end, would change. But she didn’t know how to bridge this gap.
“I guess I’ll see you around then,” Dinah muttered, heading for the door.
“Yeah,” Kayla replied.
And that was it. Walking out of Kayla’s apartment, it felt like . . . like a million things had felt in the past year, and she had to shove it down, shove it away, because if she let it, it would win. Demolish her.
It wasn’t denial, it was survival.
Instead of heading for Carter and his Front Yard Farm, where she’d been spending all of her non-Gallagher’s time lately, she headed home.
Like so many things in her life, no one could fix this for her, but she’d be damned if she wouldn’t find a way to fix it herself. Kayla was wrong. She had to be.
* * *
Carter had never been one for poking his nose in other people’s business, especially the business of women he was sleeping with. He’d typically had plenty of his own issues to focus on. Why take on someone else’s?
Dinah was different, because of course she was. She had been different from the start.
That didn’t mean he particularly liked sitting in front of her apartment door like some lovelorn idiot. Or that he had any damn clue what he’d say to her when she showed up.
“Suck it up, Trask,” he muttered. He’d partnered with Gallagher’s, of all damn places, because of Dinah. The least he could do was see the whole . . . relationship aspect through.
Something had happened with her grandmother today, and the supportive boyfriend type person needed to stand up and support and comfort.
Shit, what had he gotten himself into?
“Carter?”
He turned to Dinah, who was walking down the hallway to her apartment. “Hey.”
“Hey.” She paused before slowly taking steps toward him. “I . . .” She let out a breath and he thought she was maybe trying to smile, but it was mostly just a grimace.
“We don’t have to talk about things,” he said, hoping to put her somewhat at ease.
She blinked and looked down as she approached her door. “I’m not really up for sex either.”
He squeezed his eyes shut, feeling like an idiot. “That’s not what I meant. No. I just . . .” He watched as she unlocked her door, looking as fragile as he’d ever seen her. Maybe he hadn’t known her for that long, but he knew this wasn’t like her.
“I just wanted to be, like, supportive or whatever.”
She pushed her door open and looked at him quizzically. “Supportive?”
“You’re going through something, and you don’t want to talk about it yet, but I didn’t . . . You didn’t say you wanted to be alone, so . . . Am I fucking this all up?”
“No.” She stepped inside, then pulled him in behind her. “You’re being very sweet after a day when people have been . . . not, and I don’t know how to . . .” She shut the door behind him and flicked the deadbolt. Then she leaned against the door and took a deep, shuddery breath.
“I just wanted to . . . You know, when you care about someone you want to give them what they need when they’re struggling.”
“I don’t know what I need.”
“How about we start with this.” He pulled her into his arms, gathering her close and hoping to offer some kind of comfort. Not words, not sex, just . . . that thing he and his sisters had done after Mom had died. You rallied around, you held on, you gave what you could and hoped it was some measure of comfort.
The way she relaxed into him, exhaling deeply, wrapping her arms around him and burrowing in, he liked to think he’d given her just that.
She nuzzled closer. “You care about me?” she asked, her voice muffled in his shoulder.
He ran his fingers through the strands of her hair, rubbing up and down her spine with his other hand. He liked this, probably more than he should. That she’d lean on him, that she’d ask for something from him. That she’d trust him enough for both.
“Yeah.” He cared. Hell, he was probably in love with her, and now wouldn’t be such a bad time to say it. Maybe. Or maybe it was the worst time and he was an idiot. “Dinah, I . . .”
“I care about you too, you know. I wouldn’t be here . . . It wouldn’t even be a question.”
He pulled her away gently, wanting to see what was going on in her expression so he could maybe read this. “What wouldn’t be a question?”
Her eyes widened and she looked a little panicked, and he wished she would be honest with him. Just open, so he could get it.
But maybe if he wanted her to be honest with him, it had to start with him. It wasn’t honest to hold her and offer words of care without telling her the whole thing. The whole, big, scary-as-fuck thing.
“It’s . . . it’s more than care, Dinah.”
She sucked in a breath and held it there. It was funny that now the panic left her expression, and she was only looking at him in a wide-eyed silence she didn’t even breathe through.
Considering she just kept holding her breath, he figured he’d better force himself to say it. Just blurt it out and deal with the fallout, because he wasn’t a coward. He faced his shit head-on. “I’m in love with you. Which I would not have believed possible in a million years that day you tried to pick my unripened squash.”
She let out a breath, eyes still wide but watery now too. “That sounds so dirty,” she whispered.
He laughed, though he didn’t know how he managed it when his heart was pounding and his gut was twisting into a hundred tiny but heavy and painful knots. “I’d make an even dirtier squash joke, but I’m not sure I have it in me right now.”
She stepped closer then, though they were already close. This was like a step into him, her palms resting on his shoulders, her breasts brushing his chest, her legs stepping into the sturdy shelter of his.
Her dark hazel eyes searched his face for something, though he didn’t know what. There were so many things she was searching for, determined to find and achieve. It scared the daylights out of him that love might be the last thing she wanted, that it�
�d never be enough for her.
But she curled her fingers into his shirt, and she looked right at him. “I love you too, though I’ll also have to agree on the not-having-a-clue part. It snuck up on me and grabbed ahold of me and I don’t know how to shake it off.”
He pressed his fingers into her shoulders, a reassuring squeeze. “I don’t think you have to when we’re in mutual agreement on the subject.”
Her mouth curved, but Carter didn’t think it constituted as a smile. She was probably scared, or maybe nervous. Maybe, like him, she’d never given so much to a relationship before. Even being quite certain of his feelings for her didn’t make the feelings easy, or magically let him know what to do or say.
“What does it mean?” she asked, her hands curling into his shirt even tighter. “To all the other things in our life? All those other important things. I don’t know how to make room for . . . love. Another person, other hopes or dreams. I’ve only ever had my own.”
“I don’t know either. I’ve never made room before.” Hell, he wasn’t sure he’d ever been this honest before. Not so plainly and with someone he wasn’t related to, that was for sure. “I don’t think it’s easy, but I think you’re just supposed to keep working at it until it fits or gels or something.”
She chewed on her lip for a few seconds, and he had to admit this wasn’t exactly how he’d pictured a declaration of love. He’d assumed confessions of that nature usually got sealed with a kiss, sex, anything but staring at each other, floundering already.
“I need you to do me the biggest favor,” Dinah said, though her voice was barely louder than a whisper. But she was earnest, fierce. “I need you to hear me out, listen to my whole story without . . . walking away.”
“That sounds bad.”
“It isn’t good, but we can figure it out.” He recognized the look on her face, the determined glint in her eye. Recognized the way she made a decision and then held on to it with everything she had in her.
He loved that about her, that fierceness and dedication and certainty, but it also concerned him, because he wasn’t always so sure that fierceness was certainty. Sometimes it seemed she went after things simply because she had it in her head that it was the only way—not because it was actually the only way.
