So that was why he’d been at Mesa, enrolling in business classes.
“But I got a call that afternoon. After I’d gotten my books. The CEO wanted to meet. Didn’t give me particulars so I didn’t know what to expect.”
I sat and listened, my food untouched. “What did they say? Was it what you were hoping for?”
He shook his head. “No. Not at all.”
My shoulders sagged a little. “Oh. Well, that sucks.”
A smile tugged at his lips and he couldn’t hold it back. It spread, lighting up his face. “It was more than what I expected.”
“What do you mean?”
He reached across the table and grabbed my hand. His fingers were warm and rough and I felt a little shock go through me.
“Fifty-thousand dollars, Emma.” His voice shook a little with excitement. “They gave me fifty-thousand dollars.”
My eyes widened in surprise. “Are you serious?”
He nodded.
“Wow,” I breathed. “That’s incredible.”
Fifty-thousand dollars wouldn’t do much in San Diego. But in Mexico? Helping the poorest of the poor? I knew just how far that money could go.
“It is,” he said. “And I have plans. Big plans. La Estancia, the place you were? They need a new well. I can do that. I can help them. This little village outside of Cabo? Their clinic has no windows. No screens. I can fix that.”
I nodded, feeling the excitement grow inside of me. “What about loans?” I asked. “Loans for the people who live there. Like what Kiva does?”
“Yes. Absolutely. I want to look into that, to see if we can set up some kind of loan system. There are models out there, models we can follow.”
“And school supplies,” I said. “You’ve helped build schools but now you could stock them. Make sure they’re well-equipped.”
“The sky’s the limit,” he said. “Because if we do good work with this, if we show what a difference this small amount of money can make, other companies might follow suit. This could be the beginning of something big.”
“Absolutely.” On impulse, I squeezed his hand. “I’m so happy for you!”
I was. I was brimming over with excitement. Dex had created something out of nothing, something with the sole purpose of going out and doing good in the world. He’d built it with his own hands—literally—and was getting a much-needed shot of financial support to grow that idea, to see just how much it would blossom.
“Me, too.” His smile stretched from ear to ear. “But, here’s the thing.”
I waited expectantly.
“I need help.”
I nodded my head. “Yeah. Absolutely. You’re going to have a lot of work going on.”
“That’s not the part I need help with,” he said. “I mean the business end of things. I have a mission statement, I have non-profit status. But I’m gonna need help with execution. Figuring out how to budget projects. Have someone help with applying for grants or donations from other philanthropists while I’m working on projects already going on.”
I knew what he was talking about. The money was the shot in the arm he needed, the exact thing he wanted. But it was operation full-force from here on out.
“You have friends willing to help, though, right?” I asked. I was sure he could find people to do the hard labor sort of stuff while he managed the organization.
“Yes.” He stared down at his plate for a minute. “But what if I said I wanted you?”
My mouth dropped open. “Me?”
He nodded.
“But you don’t even know me!”
“I know enough,” he said simply.
I said nothing, just stared at him, my eyes wide, my mouth hanging open.
“Look,” he said. “I know this is crazy. You barely know me.”
“And you barely know me,” I pointed out.
“True,” he admitted. “But I know enough. I know the important stuff. You just spent your entire summer living in a foreign country. Not on vacation, but with people. Not because you had to, but because you wanted to. You came back a changed person, right?”
Wordlessly, I nodded.
“And now you’re just sort of…lost. Don’t know what you should do.” He stared at me as he spoke and I couldn’t look away. “I know what that’s like. That was me. Less than a year ago, that was me.”
“What the hell do you think I can do?” I asked him. “I have zero skills. None.”
He shook his head, smiling. “It doesn’t matter.”
Maybe his drink had been straight rum. “How can it not matter?”
“Look, I don’t need someone who’s a business wizard or someone with mad accounting skills,” he said. “That stuff can be taught. Hell, if I can sign up for business classes and make sense of what I’m reading, anyone can. Trust me.”
“I’m not following.”
“What I need is someone like you.” His voice dropped and I had to lean across the table to hear him. “I need someone with passion. Someone who wants to be there. Someone who wants to help.”
“Are you…?” I swallowed. “Are you asking me to go to Mexico with you?”
Dex chuckled. “It sounds so sordid when you put it that way.”
I felt the heat rise in my cheeks. “No…”
He cut me off. “I need help. And I want someone who is as passionate as I am. Someone who’s lived there. Someone who wants to go back. And I think you do.”
I was quiet. Did I want to go back? Part of me screamed yes. I’d left a little piece of my heart in that country when I’d boarded the plane to come home. But I couldn’t just run away from real life. I had to figure out where I was heading—and not just with a career but with my now ex-boyfriend. Going with Dex would be the easy thing to do. I could take off for a few weeks and help out and it would be great. But then I’d have to come home. And the same questions would still be staring me in the face.
“I don’t know.”
He pressed his lips together, considering. “What don’t you know? If you want to go back?”
“Yes. I mean, no.” I shook my head, frustrated. “I have to figure out what I’m going to do with my life, Dex. I have two classes left. I just got a job. Going to Mexico feels like running away. I’ll come back and I’ll need to find a new job. Those classes will still be waiting to be taken.”
“It won’t be running away.”
“Besides, I don’t think I can afford it.” I knew I couldn’t. And I was absolutely certain my parents wouldn’t help finance this trip. They wanted me home. In school. Working. Figuring out just what the hell I was going to do with my life.
He raised his eyebrows. “Afford it?”
“Airfare. A place to live. Food.” I sighed. “I would love to help. I really would. And maybe I can. Maybe over the holidays. You know, save a little and come down and help out for a week or two.” I really wanted to.
He laughed. “Stop. You’re totally misunderstanding.”
“What?”
“I want to hire you. I want you to work for me.”
“What?” I repeated.
He fingered the hoop in his ear. “You know. A job. Like, with a salary and stuff.”
I stared at him. I hadn’t expected that at all. My heart raced a little. A job. Dex wanted to pay me to go and live in Mexico and help people.
“You’re serious?”
“One-hundred percent serious. It won’t be much,” he cautioned. “But we both know you don’t need much to live on in Mexico.”
I nodded. Rosa and Eduardo managed on a couple of dollars a day. Granted, they barely managed. But I could help change that. I could be the one who helped them find a way to swing the odds in their favor. For good.
“But…”
“Stop saying but,” he said, grinning. “Just tell me if it’s something you want to do. That you’ll consider. That’s all I need to know. We don’t have to work out the details now.”
I let my gaze drift from him to the bank of
windows that separated us from the outdoor patio. It was almost deserted. A couple of tables were occupied, people nursing drinks and chatting. I shifted my eyes to the ocean, to the waves rolling in and breaking at the shoreline. It was the same ocean, the same water that hugged the coast of Mexico. I thought about Rosa and Eduardo and their gaggle of kids. I thought about the other families I’d met in their tiny little village, the handful of shanties grouped in a half-circle in the clearing carved out of the wilderness. I thought about what they had and what they lacked. And I thought about how much I could do if I were there as more than a visitor. If I was there to help.
It would mean saying goodbye to my family. To Sage. It would mean having to explain myself and I knew it wouldn’t go over well with my parents. They didn’t want me in Mexico. They wanted me here.
But I also knew that this was something I wanted to do. This could be the something—the one thing—I’d been searching for. And I didn’t want to lose that chance.
I took a deep breath. “I want to do it.”
NINETEEN
Dex walked with me back to my car.
“You don’t have to,” I told him. We’d spent another hour at the restaurant, talking and letting the rum work its way out of our systems.
“I know,” he said. “I want to.”
The night had cooled off and I was grateful for the sweater I had. I folded my arms and rubbed at my shoulders.
“Cold?” he asked.
“I’m alright.”
I was pretty sure it was just nervous excitement. For the first time in forever, I felt excited. Driven. Like I had a purpose. I knew I wouldn’t sleep when I got home. I was a bundle of nerves—knowing I’d have to tell my parents, for sure, but also because I had so many ideas running rampant. I’d shared some more with Dex and he’d pulled out his phone, typing notes as we talked. He was just as excited as I was.
We crossed Mission, passing the Denny’s restaurant on the corner. The entryway was crammed with teenagers and I smiled. I’d spent a fair number of nights squashed into one of the booths there, sharing plates of french fries and drinking glass after glass of diet Coke.
A block later and we were standing in front of my car. I hunted through my purse, trying to locate my keys. I found them and held them in my hand and turned to Dex.
“Thanks for dinner,” I said.
He grinned. “Thanks for agreeing to meet with me.”
“I’m glad I did.” And I was. I was glad that I hadn’t gone to Sage’s and glad that I hadn’t responded to any of Grant’s messages.
He shoved his hands in his pockets. “So…”
“So,” I said. “So, I’ll give you a call tomorrow? We can do a little more planning?”
He looked at me and smiled. “Yeah. Absolutely.”
I nodded. “OK.
Dex opened his mouth to say something, then closed it. He took his hands out of his pockets, crossed his arms, then shoved them back in his pockets again.
“Is everything OK?” I asked.
“I…” He faltered for a minute, his gaze darting from me to the ground and then back to me. “I just…I had a good time with you. Yesterday morning. Tonight. You’re easy to be with. To talk to.”
I nodded. I felt exactly the same way.
“And, I gotta admit,” he said. “When I started talking to you at Mesa the other day? It wasn’t because of your bracelet.”
“No?”
He shook his head. “No.”
“Then why?”
“Because I thought you were cute.”
My pulse quickened.
“I don’t want to make things awkward,” he said, a small smile on his lips. “But it would feel more awkward if I didn’t acknowledge it. Especially if we’re going to be working together.”
“OK.”
“And I’m not asking for anything,” he said quickly. “I just…I just wanted you to know.”
Maybe there was a little rum still in my system. Or maybe I was reacting to what I’d overheard about Grant. Or maybe I was just acting on my own attraction to him.
I leaned close, stood on my tiptoes and pressed my lips to his. His mouth was warm and soft and a heat that had been missing for far too long coursed through me as he molded his lips to mine. His arms snaked around my waist and I pressed myself against him.
“I don’t know if this is a good idea,” I murmured when I was finally able to tear my mouth away from his. I hadn’t been kissed so thoroughly in months. Years.
“It probably isn’t,” he whispered back. “But I’ve been torn between wanting to kiss you and talk to you since the day we first met.” His hands pressed into my back. “I knew talking to you would be amazing. And I was pretty sure kissing you would be, too.”
I took a step back and he dropped his hands, shoved them back into his pockets.
“So now what?” I asked.
“Technically, I’m your boss,” he said, grimacing. “I’m not sure how the human resources department will feel about this.”
My heart sank.
“But fortunately, I’m the human resources department, too,” he said, a slow smile creeping across his face. “I just checked. We’re good.”
I laughed and shook my head.
His smile disappeared quickly, though. “But I’m serious. I don’t want you thinking I offered you a job just so I could kiss you. I didn’t. I really want to work with you.”
I didn’t say anything, but I liked hearing that.
“But I’ll fire you if I have to,” he said, stepping close to me again. “Because I really like kissing you.” He leaned forward and kissed me softly.
I pulled away after a moment, my heart beating out of control. “I think we can find a way to work it out.”
He smiled, his lips brushing against mine. “Good. You’re officially hired.”
And then he kissed me again.
TWENTY
There was a car parked outside of my house when I got home. A pristine white BMW, engine turned off, the driver’s side window rolled halfway down. Grant was opening the door before I had a chance to kill the engine.
“Emma.”
I stepped out of the car, my purse in one hand, my keys in the other. “What?”
“I’ve been trying to reach you all night.”
“I wasn’t available.” I stalked past him but he reached a hand out and grabbed my forearm, stopping me.
“I have nothing to say to you,” I snapped.
“Fair enough,” he said, his expression pained. “But I have something to say to you. Will you at least listen? Five minutes. That’s all I’m asking for.”
I glared at him. “Three. You get three.”
He sighed.
I stared pointedly at his watch. “Time’s ticking.”
“I made a mistake,” he said, his words coming out in a rush. “A party. I was drunk. And I know that’s not an excuse. But I missed you. You were thousands of miles away. I couldn’t talk to you, couldn’t contact you.”
“And couldn’t have sex with me, either. Which is why you hooked up with someone else.”
He winced. “I made a mistake,” he repeated.
“Twice. At least according to Jamie. You’re a smart guy, Grant. You usually don’t make the same mistake twice.”
“I slept with her once,” he said. “The other time, she came on to me. And I told her no. Because of you.”
“But you didn’t tell me, “ I said. “And that doesn’t sound exactly right, based on what I heard. But either way, you didn’t come clean. And you didn’t want me working at the hotel because you knew I’d find out. That’s why you didn’t turn in my application, isn’t it?”
He paled a little.
“You know what?” I asked, my voice rising a little. “I’m glad you did it. I’m glad you slept with her. Glad you lied about turning in the application. And glad I was able to find everything out.”
“You are?”
I nodded emphatically. “Yep. Becau
se it helped me realize a ton of things. One, you really are an asshole. Sage was right all along.”
His eyebrows pinched together and he started to say something but I cut him off.
“And two? If I hadn’t found out, I wouldn’t have broken up with you. Obviously. Which means I wouldn’t have gone to dinner with a guy tonight.”
“What?”
“And I wouldn’t have spent four hours talking to this amazing person, realizing how much I have in common with him. I wouldn’t have had a conversation that completely altered the course of my life. I wouldn’t have let myself see just how hot he was and how into me he was. And I definitely wouldn’t have kissed him when I said goodbye.”
A muscle twitched in Grant’s jaw.
“So, thanks,” I said. “Thanks for everything.”
I pushed past him. My heart was hammering out of control and my cheeks were flushed, but not from anger. Well, maybe a little bit of anger. I was still pissed off at him for cheating on me. But, more than anything, I was excited. Ecstatic.
“Emma, come on…” Grant said.
“No, I’m serious, Grant,” I said, turning to face him. “Thank you.”
And I was. I’d been coasting along, too afraid to break away from what was comfortable. But what had been comfortable wasn’t right for me. I’d known that, but I hadn’t been able to break away from it. Hearing that conversation in the hotel, that had been the catalyst for me. That was the push I’d needed to get my life into the gear I wanted it to be in.
I wouldn’t let it happen again. I’d keep my eye on what I wanted, whether it was Dex or Mexico or who knew what. But I wouldn’t coast again. I wouldn’t take the safe route. I’d take the route that interested me, even if I didn’t know what I’d find. I wouldn’t let myself down again.
I would keep that promise to myself.
THE END
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Many thanks to Pam at Proofed Prose and David at Painted Motion Designs for their expertise in editing and cover design. Thanks to the fabulous Miller kids who came back from the Philippines solely to play with mine so I could find time to finish this book. And to my own kids, for recognizing when Mommy was in the writing cave. And Minecraft. Thank you, thank you to the makers of Minecraft.
Promise Me (The Me Novellas) Page 9
