Immersed: Book 6 in The Ripple Effect Romance Series (A Ripple Effect Romance Novella)

by Jennifer Griffith

  She found a bench in the sculpture garden and sat down to enjoy her lunch, the iron statues twisting, pointing skyward.

  Today, things somehow felt new. An energy filled the air. Maybe it was the bees at the throats of the daffodils, but the buzz was undeniable. Her old life and thinking could melt away, like the mountain snow, flowing off in spring rivulets and leaving only new growth on her slopes.

  Plus, this taco tasted like heaven itself.

  “Lisette Pannebaker? Is that you?” A woman in a business suit walked up to her. Lisette squinted into the sun to see the face. “You took my class a few years ago. International business.”

  Lisette stood and wiped bits of taco shell off her lap. “Professor Bunting, right?” She shook the extended hand.

  “What are you up to now? I remember you from class. You were the only student I’ve ever had who really understood cultural differences inherent in business transactions. I never got to ask you how you were so adept at that.”

  An hour later, Lisette had Margie Bunting’s contact information and an invitation to come and do workshops on cultural awareness in the department, both for the staff and for the graduate students.

  With a lilt in her step, she started across campus. Her phone rang. “Hi, Mom.”

  “Why don’t we go to Malta for the summer?”

  “Malta!” Lisette choked a bit. “I guess we could talk about it.” It was fabulous to hear Mom thinking about the future instead of hiding from it. Lisette stepped along the sidewalk, following the strains of some orchestra.

  “Unless you’re engaged. You could be engaged.” Mom sounded so hopeful.

  “Mom, just this morning you got unengaged. Let’s just give ourselves a short rest between engagements.” Not that Lisette had a single prospect at this point. With Mom being so upbeat, she’d never dash that now. “But stranger things have happened.”

  Still following the music, Lisette told her mom how Dr. Bunting popped up out of nowhere in the sculpture garden and offered her a job.

  “Some stranger could show up and sweep me off my feet.” He’d never be quite like Erik Gunnarson, but that was okay. For so long she’d been fearful and scrambling for her mom’s safety and for the success of Immerse. Setting all that aside, she was ready to let go of all the worries and be loved and love someone now. At the very least Erik had helped her open up and believe in love. Plus, he (and his attorneys) had saved her mother from the evil clutches of Mort. So anything could happen.

  When she hung up, she looked around to see where the music had led her: the football stadium. Go Buffaloes. Thousands of spectators filled the stands. Graduates in robes blackened the field, and photos snapped from the stands. Ah, three years’ time. How much she’d changed and learned. And escaped. Mrs. Justin Fox? Whew. Close call.

  Lisette wandered into the stands to seat herself atop the bleachers and listen to the music. It really was a nice day. It’d be like an outdoor concert.

  A man’s voice came over the PA system, punctuated by laughter from the crowd. It seemed like it might be a good speech. She slid into one of the seats at the top to listen.

  “And so, in all seriousness, I want to tell you some of the lessons I’ve learned. Not just in business, but in life.”

  Good. Life lessons. It harmonized with the topic she’d rolled around in her mind all morning. Without binoculars she couldn’t see the speaker’s face, and besides, he had on the ridiculous mortar board obscuring it, but he held the audience rapt. Good for him—a far cry better than the droning economist who gave the keynote for her own graduation.

  “I’ve learned that the most important thing in life and in business is the relationships. We only have one life together on this earth, and whether we make it ‘big’ or just keep things small, the people with whom we associate make it worth the journey.”

  Lisette’s face flushed hot. She knew this voice, even without the affected accent he’d used when they first met. Looking around, she saw a printed program discarded on the concrete of the bleachers and snatched it up. Keynote Address: Erik Gunnarson, President and CEO of Gunnarson Dynamics, Entrepreneur of the Year, CU Boulder School of Business Graduate.

  He was here. Maybe she should just leave. He’d told her that lie, been a total pretender. But something glued her to her chair. She tugged at her cardigan and sat up straighter to listen.

  “When I started out, I had some fears—mostly that no one would take me seriously. Sure, by the time I entered school here, I already had an international business thriving on two continents, but I refused to give up on what I really wanted. And, graduates, I believe you should hone in your desire and never give up. Let me tell you a story.”

  Stories in speeches. Wise move. His voice liquefied over her. Whether he’d deceived her or not, he had that incredible voice.

  “As a student here at CU, I melted into the background, so much that the woman I pined for didn’t know my name or that I existed.”

  An audible gasp rose from among the women of the assembly. Lisette could almost decipher the disbelieving rumblings: A man who looked like that? Unnoticed? Yeah, right.

  “I’d made a name for myself in business abroad, but I didn’t trust myself everywhere yet and didn’t dare speak up for myself. It was here on this very field, where I listened to a keynote speaker in a graduation similar to this, that I made a decision: I wasn’t going to let fear dictate what relationships I would or wouldn’t have. That very day I found her, took her by the hand and asked her to dinner.”

  This elicited an “aw” from the women. Lisette snickered. He had the female attendees eating out of his hand.

  “She said no.” He laughed a little at himself.

  Another gasp. How cute that he asked a girl out at graduation and she said no. Sad for him, but also pretty unbelievable, considering. Of course, she did recall the things Jerkface said about Erik’s school days, that he’d been a complete dork no one took seriously. It gelled with what Erik’s speech said today.

  “I realized these things sometimes take a little more preparation.” He shuffled his papers. “Building the relationship. I had to do that first. And it took effort, nurturing, building, and time—actually about three years’ time before I asked her out again.”

  Lisette sat in her chair, blinking. Erik’s personal story. The three years’ time. The girl he’d asked to dinner right after graduation. A vague memory of that graduation day came floating back to her. She’d been so distraught about Jerkface dumping her, and about Mom’s insistence she come work for Pannebaker, she hardly noticed when that foreign student nearly pushed her down the stairs then asked her to dinner. She’d said no, of course. Under the circumstances, she was in no state to be anybody’s good date.

  But it was Erik.

  Lisette’s heart shifted into high gear. He’d been there. She remembered that moment. He nearly killed her, but saved her life.

  “Which was hard—changing into someone she’d notice, taking that long time—because I’m an adrenaline junkie and love speed.” A big projected image of Erik on skis glowed up on the screen behind him. There was his lime green ski parka, blurring down a mountain.

  A voice from the audience floated up. “How did it turn out?” It was a female voice. “Tell us you’re still single, Erik!” Nervous laughter followed at the etiquette breach.

  He didn’t respond. Lisette’s heart leapt, above and beyond the racing speed it had already achieved. Her hand lifted to her neck, her other hand to her cheek that blazed. Maybe he’d been serious about her all those years.

  “What I want to tell all of you is to never give up. I know I haven’t.” He shuffled his papers. “Thank you and best of luck to you all.”

  No platitudes, no quoting Gandhi or Mother Theresa, just a personal story and a short bit of encouragement. Good speech. The graduates filed in one by one for their diplomas while Lisette sat stunned, her heart in her mouth. He still cared. He’d come for her—had prepared himself to see her again and h
ad been nervous about it. This English immersion thing, it was actually, as she’d feared, a scheme to meet her, to pick up on her. But she didn’t fear that anymore. In fact, it was sweet. He was so sweet.

  Oh, how could she have pushed him away?

  She had to catch Erik Gunnarson before he went away, tell him he was right—she didn’t want to give up.

  She needed a breath mint.

  The concrete steps of the stadium loomed long and dangerous—like a black diamond run. And she didn’t have on skis, she wore heels. There was no way she could get to the field against the flow of exiting graduates and families and reach him in time, not on the field.

  Then she remembered.

  A few minutes later, she came panting into the parking lot, and within a second, she caught sight of Erik’s car. It was the only one of its kind, and it glowed, almost amongst its lesser companions. Fast as she could stride in these ridiculous shoes, she made a beeline for the car.

  Sure enough, not sixty seconds later, Erik arrived, cap and gown tossed over his arm. Under the formal robes, he’d worn his old Henley and jeans. Oh, he was gorgeous.

  “Hi. Um, Erik? I’m really sorry I didn’t take your calls.”

  His head popped up from where he messed with his keychain. “Lisette?” He gulped visibly. “You were there today? How—?”

  “Before I answer anything, I have to know—did you ask me to dinner on graduation day?”

  He just nodded. She marched around the car and punched him in the arm.

  “Why didn’t you tell me? This should have been our first conversation in English.”

  “Ow.” He rubbed his bicep then set down his robe to take her by both shoulders. “You don’t know how many times I tried to tell you. But, there comes a point when too much time has passed in a relationship to bring up things like that. It wasn’t convenient at first, then it only got worse.”

  “But you said you needed English skills.”

  “I did. I needed the refresher you gave me so I could seriously do business here in the States. I needed to brush up on my idioms, my business terms. A lot of them I hadn’t used since college.” He walked her around and opened the passenger door. She slid inside without thinking. He stood beside her and said, “Besides, I didn’t want my building contractor to, how you say, ‘work me over’ as he put up my facility in Aspen. Or anybody else with any of my other investments.”

  “Oh, just can that ‘how you say’ junk, pal.” She pulled the door shut, and he went around to the driver’s side.

  “Yeah, I felt like an idiot doing that at first, so I kind of let it drop after a while.” He turned on the engine and pulled out of the lot, onto the road. They beat most of the traffic out of the lot.

  “Right. After the ‘I want to mall you’ bit.”

  “Geez. I have to apologize. You have no idea how nervous I was.”

  “Nervous?” That never crossed her mind, that he could be nervous.

  “Well, after that weird little disaster at the McDonalds—”

  “With the nudist robbers whose car you moved—but I thought you were driving away and leaving me with the naked killers.”

  “You did? Oh, I’m so sorry. Well, when you still wouldn’t let me buy you dinner that night, not even at McDonalds, I had to do something, and I didn’t know what. I had to make a bold move.” Erik made a bold move in his driving, flipping a U-turn onto the parkway and opening up the throttle. Lisette’s body pulled down in the seat with the force.

  “A bold move like ring shopping? On a first date? Always a bold move.”

  “You considered it a date?” He quirked an eyebrow at her.

  Lisette’s mouth fell open to protest, but before she could think of a good excuse, he continued.

  “Look. I wanted to say I was sorry all along. I wanted you to know that I’d deliberately looked you up, found that you had this amazing business that was tailor-made to give me, me, the perfect chance to spend day after day with you, in your personal company, without even seeming like a complete fanboy—which I’d been for two full years during grad school, by the way. I had to take it, even if it took me a while to actually sign up for the immersion.” He tore past other cars, weaving in and out. He was going to get a ticket. He took a curve too fast. Old habits die hard, even after snow bank disasters. Not that their night in the snow bank had been all bad.

  “Why did it take so long?”

  “Promise you won’t laugh?” He slowed a little and looked her in the eyes. She promised. “I didn’t want you to see me before I’d worked out, gotten a good haircut, amped up my wardrobe a bit.”

  “Wait. Waaaait. You. You got a makeover.”

  His eye twinkled, and he sped up again. That twinkle sent a spark through her system. “Which is why I had to laugh so hard—on the inside—that you’d had one yourself.”

  So he’d known! They passed trees and the end of the houses and came out into the fields and farms. Everything opened up.

  “I mean, it only took about two seconds to recognize you, and another two seconds to realize exactly why you’d have to dial down your amazingness in the job you were in.” The sun went behind a cloud then came right out again. The afternoon sparkled. “I can only imagine how many old fogies thought their language immersion fees gave them the right to hit on pretty, young you before I hired you.”

  “You have no idea.”

  Erik swung the car off to the right, pulling out to the edge a broad field. Daisies and buttercups and daffodils splashed over the whole meadow, which had a solitary spreading oak standing in the middle. He stopped the engine and came around for her. He grabbed a blanket out of the back. “Have you eaten?”

  “A taco.”

  “Good, because I don’t have any food with me.”

  They walked shoulder to shoulder across the grass, Lisette’s heels sinking with each step.

  “You should kick those off.” He eyed the pumps.

  “But my feet will get wet.”

  Before she could protest, he’d swept her up in his arms and cradled her as he strode toward the shade of the large tree.

  “One thing still gets me,” she said as she nuzzled her face toward his neck. Maybe he wouldn’t notice how much she wanted to be close to him. “What are you doing with that thing you call ‘the facility?’ It’s too nice to be a factory or an office.”

  “Oh, that.” He placed her lightly on the ground and spread the blanket. Lisette sat on it, careful about her skirt, and slid her toes back into her shoes. He reclined next to her. “Um, yeah. I dubbed it ‘the facility’ just to make it seem less ostentatious, but actually, uh, it’s a house.”

  A house? For about seventy people?

  “Whose house?”

  “At first I built it for my mom. But even though I spent the last year trying to convince her she’d love Aspen, that the climate isn’t too different from home, and that she’d make new friends so fast her head would spin, she didn’t bite.”

  “Oh, that’s too bad. It’s so beautiful.”

  “Right? I knew she liked that style of house. Who wouldn’t?”

  “Right?” Lisette sounded like his little parrot. She had to stop that.

  “But I realized she has a life in her village, people who need her. My sister and her husband are there. They decided to adopt. My mother will want to be there for the grandbaby.” He plucked a flower and twirled it before handing it to Lisette. He plucked another and tucked it behind her ear. She blushed at his touch.

  “I’ve never met anyone like you, Lisette.”

  “And I’m glad you finally get to meet the real me.”

  “I did. The first day I hired you. You were still yourself.” He shrugged. “I think maybe I could even see that better because of your, uh—”

  “I’m calling it a make-under.” Sitting here beside him—as herself—a lightness filled her, and a warmth, an energy. Erik.

  “I’ll admit that those years when I saw you from afar during grad school, I had thi
s image of what you’d be like all built up in my mind. You were a diamond. But now that I know you, your personality is different. Even better. You’re the emerald.”

  “With flaws. Every emerald has them.”

  “That’s what you said. It was the first time I stopped and let myself look at the real you, not the one I’d imagined before we got to know each other. Before McDonalds and the nudist robbers. Before your delusions about grizzly bears. Before I saw your magnificent skiing ability. You stink at skiing.”

  She had no argument there.

  “Erik, just so we’re clear—you’re saying you’d take a flawed gem?”

  “If it’s you.”

  She wanted to kiss him so much right now, but she didn’t dare.

  “I wonder if your mom will like me,” Erik said. “You said she’s stormy? And not the petrel kind? She might not like foreign men.”

  “No, she loves foreign men. She’ll adore you, especially now that you freed her from old Mort. In fact, she’d probably try to adopt you if we somehow don’t end up together.”

  “Oh, we’re going to end up together.” He nodded and gave her that roguish grin.

  Her breath caught. She stopped twirling the piece of grass. “We are?”

  “Oh, yeah. You don’t think I went to all this trouble to let you get away? You’re going to stay in Colorado. You’re going to be my wife and live in my house and be my emerald and my sapphire too.”

  “I am?”

  “You are.”

  He dug in his trousers pocket and pulled out a box. “I know you like emeralds.” It wasn’t any ordinary box. It was black. It was covered in velvet. “And I shouldn’t be so impetuous, but I waited a long, long time for you, and I’m not letting you get away. No excuses about my being a client, nothing.”

  There were no excuses left.

  “I swore to carry this around with me every second I spent in Colorado, on the divinely arranged chance I might see you. I bought it the day we shopped, and maybe it’s not an emerald, but it’s traditional. And it’s forever.”

  He popped open the lid. There sat the diamond she’d tried on in the store on their first date. Er, her first day getting malled.