She couldn’t respond. She couldn’t actually form any words. Instead, she turned and hit the button on the elevator that would take her up to her company. Her office. This thing that she’d built that would never love her the way Max Harper did.
It would also never hurt her the way he did.
One month later
ELEANOR SAT AT the table wondering why she’d agreed to lunch. It seemed a simple enough thing. A few weeks after she’d filed for divorce from Max, Daniel had called her. They’d had a casual conversation. How was she doing? How was the expansion going?
Was she still with Max?
No, I...we...decided divorce was the only option.
Then he’d said they should get lunch sometime. Catch up. Lunch had sounded infinitely less threatening than dinner, so she agreed.
Two weeks after that he’d called to make it an official date.
Now she was sitting at the table alone, thinking it had been a mistake, while he was in the men’s room.
What if Max walked in? What if he saw her on a date with Daniel? Would Max recognize Daniel from the engagement party? Would Max wonder if Daniel was the real reason she had pushed for the divorce?
That couldn’t be good, she thought. Being on a date with one man, while obsessively wondering what her soon-to-be ex-husband would think.
It had been a month, and there still wasn’t a day when she didn’t have doubts about what she’d done. Of course, there also wasn’t a day when she didn’t think she’d made the smartest decision she could.
The one that protected her heart.
If it was so protected, why did she feel like shit most days?
A question she didn’t think she had a good answer to.
Daniel came back and sat, resettling the napkin on his lap. “So, have you decided what you want?”
“The cobb salad looks good,” she said, still going over the menu as if it were the most fascinating book she’d ever read. Looking at it was easier than looking at Daniel.
“Eleanor,” Daniel said smoothly. “It’s very good to see you again.”
She lifted her head and smiled. “You, too.”
“And your family? How are they? Still in the throes of the wedding planning?”
Yes, Eleanor thought. The wedding was safe territory. “It’s still a battle between my mother and my sister. My mother winning most of them. They’ve moved from the band and the flowers to the wedding dress. I’m supposed to head down in a few weeks to be the deciding vote between what they have picked out.”
“Shouldn’t that be Allie’s vote by herself?”
“It should,” Eleanor said. “The worst part about it is that it seems all Mike and Allie do anymore is fight about the wedding. He wants her to stand up to our mother. She wants him to be more supportive. This should be an exciting and fun time for them, but it’s...well it’s not.”
“That’s a shame.”
“Yes,” Eleanor agreed.
“However, if they do manage to pull this off, it sounds like you’ll still need a date. I’m more than happy to put my name in the ring.”
For some reason her heart froze at his words. It was like she had to tell it to start beating again. To start breathing again. The wedding was months away. If she brought Daniel as her date, that meant they would have been dating for almost nine months.
That would mean a relationship. She wasn’t ready for a relationship. She’d barely been ready for one when she thought Max was dead.
“Daniel...”
“I rushed that,” he said even as he winced.
“You’ve been very kind and very patient—”
“Patient and kind,” he interrupted. “Two things a man never wants to hear himself described as when vying for the affections of a woman.”
“There is nothing wrong with being kind,” Eleanor grumbled.
“No, but it seems as if women prefer the type of man who takes action. Which of course, I thought I was doing by inviting you to lunch. Maybe you needed more time to get over your not-so-dead husband.”
Eleanor fidgeted with the silverware on the table, lining it up more evenly.
“I’m sorry, Daniel. I thought... I don’t know. I thought this would be a way to move on, but I guess I’m not ready.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “No, it wouldn’t seem that you are. Not if the idea of going to a wedding with me is enough to rob you of breath. You know, many women think I’m a charming fellow.”
Eleanor smiled, because she knew he was trying to lighten the mood. “I have no doubt.”
“But it appears that our romantic future is not to be. I can’t tell you there isn’t a ping of regret, but I do understand.”
“Thank you.”
“Then we should probably move off the topic of our relationship and move on to another topic entirely.”
Eleanor couldn’t imagine what he meant. She was actually hoping he would ask for the check, pay for their two iced teas and call it for what it was. A horrible third date.
“What topic would that be?”
“Your company, of course.”
“Oh. Well. Things are going really well. As you know I’m a little overexposed with the expansion, but so far we’ve seen pretty good growth.”
“Yes. I know. I’ve been following it. But I think it’s time to look beyond your capabilities and think bigger.”
“My capabilities have gotten me where I am today,” she said, trying not to be defensive. Obviously, Daniel had more success in the world of business. He’d made a fortune investing in companies at just the right time. She wasn’t dismissing any of that. She’d just chosen to grow on her own rather than give up what she considered was hers and hers alone.
“Oh, yes. I know. Please don’t think I’m diminishing what you’ve done. But I’ve told you together we can do more.”
“Together?”
“Professionally, of course. I’m not going to tell you I hadn’t hoped we could mix business with pleasure. But now that pleasure seems to be off the table, I think it’s time we focused more on the business.”
Eleanor straightened in her seat. “I thought I made myself clear. I’m not interested in your investment capital. Not at the cost of one quarter ownership of my company.”
“Oh, that’s fine. I’m actually not interested in one quarter anymore. Actually I would like half.”
“Half! In what universe would I give you half my company?”
Daniel pulled the napkin from his lap and set it on the table. He took a sip of his iced tea, then pulled from his wallet some bills which would more than cover the check and the tip.
“I should have been more forthcoming about what this lunch was about. While dating would have been enjoyable, my ultimate goal has always been your company. You are uniquely primed right now, with my intervention of course, to take your business from being a nice local operation to something global. When I find these little gems, I tend to be very aggressive. Not patient at all, you see.”
No, Eleanor didn’t see. The Daniel she thought she knew had been reasonable and, yes, kind and patient. This man was...ruthless.
“Well, it’s mine,” she said stupidly. “You can’t have it unless I give it to you.”
“That’s true. But you’re exposed now with your contractors. A man with means could make things...well, we’ll say difficult for you. I don’t want to do that, Eleanor. I want to help you. You have to see that.”
Eleanor stood. “I think I see plenty. Thank you for making yourself crystal clear.”
Daniel stood, as well, shaking his head. “Please, Eleanor. Don’t be upset with me. This is what I do. This is how small ideas become big ideas. I want to do this with you together.”
“And it doesn’t mean anything to you that I don’t?”
He bowed his head as if he was genu
inely upset. “I’m sorry. I can’t let an opportunity like this slip by. You’re good, but you’re just not ready for the big leagues.”
Eleanor gritted her teeth. “And if we had dated? If we’d been dating all this time? If there wasn’t the ghost of Max Harper in the way? What then?”
“Well, I would have hoped, by now, that we would be mutually...satisfying each other. But make no mistake, Eleanor. I would still have taken half your company.”
It was then Eleanor knew she had to leave because she feared she was going to become violently sick.
Chapter Fifteen
SELENA HANDED ELEANOR a washcloth. It was blissfully cool and felt wonderful when she rolled it up and put it on the back of her neck.
“I thought I was nauseous as a reaction to what Daniel was doing but I must be coming down with the flu.”
“Hmm,” Selena muttered.
The two women were in their own bathroom adjacent to their offices. A bathroom that was just for their private use. A place where either of them could escape to if they needed five minutes away from the eyes of the rest of the employees on the floor.
Eleanor had purposely designed the loft with this in mind. She figured if she ever found out the business was failing and had to tell Selena, who had been with her from the beginning, she wanted to do it in private.
After two years she hadn’t thought that was a concern anymore. Eleanor had gotten back from lunch, given her employee a quick rundown, then told Selena to meet her in the bathroom. Before Selena got there, Eleanor promptly lost the contents of her stomach.
She thought back to the last time she’d been sick. When she’d seen Max again for the first time. Apparently her stomach had issues with major emotional shifts in her life.
She’d come out of the stall to find Selena holding the cool washcloth.
There was a bench seat, and Selena took her hand and led her to it. Right before Eleanor’s legs gave out.
Bent over, her elbows on her knees, the next thing she knew Selena was pressing a cold glass of water in her hands.
“Slow sips,” Selena said as if Eleanor were capable of anything else. Then she sat down on the bench seat and started to rub Eleanor’s back.
“Now tell me again what Daniel said.”
“I told you. He wants to buy half the company. Take us global. Which maybe is good. Maybe I’m being too narrow-minded. Maybe that would be a good thing for everyone. More jobs, better pay—”
“Stop,” Selena said. “Stop thinking about that right now. If you don’t want to sell him half your company, he can’t make you. It’s privately owned. It’s not like he can buy up your shares and push you out.”
Eleanor tried to think through what he actually threatened. “He said he could make things difficult with our subcontractors. Which he could. We’re overextended, and, while we’re growing, it’s going to take us a few years to pay back all of our loans. What if we lose our packing service, or our delivery service? Heck, what if he just finds a way to take our idea and do it without us, but on a bigger level that would crush us? Hey, Uber, it’s me, Lyft, calling. Watch your back.”
Eleanor took another sip of water.
“Right now it’s just threats. He didn’t say specifically what he was going to do. This was just his opening salvo.”
Eleanor nodded. “Good point. He probably wanted to see how I would react.”
“Then it’s a good thing you saved the vomiting for later.” Selena nudged her shoulder.
“Selena, this is not funny. This is my company. It’s the only thing that’s given me any focus for the past two and half years. I don’t want to share it. I don’t want someone else to make it bigger. I want to be the person who does that. I mean, if I’m not running Head to Toe, then who am I?”
Selena took the glass from her hand, mostly because it was shaking so much the water was splashing out.
“Okay, now let’s talk about that problem. Which I think is the real reason you are in here having a mental meltdown. You’ve dealt with shipping delays, poor product quality, losing employees, firing employees, space problems, technical problems. All of it. And through all of that I have never once seen you lose your cool until today. You know what you haven’t dealt with very well. Your dead husband coming back to life.”
Eleanor groaned. “Please, Selena. I cannot think about him right now.”
“Yes. You don’t think about him. You don’t talk about him. But don’t think I haven’t come into this bathroom and heard you sniffing like you were trying to stop yourself from crying. And don’t think you not talking about him to me, your closest friend, hasn’t been the loudest thing you’ve never said. I was here that day, remember?”
The day Harry came to tell her about Max.
Selena shook her head, seemingly lost in the memory of that day. “I don’t think I have ever seen somebody so distraught. I remember thinking, and don’t be angry with me, well, there goes that job. Because I had never seen a woman, who took a hit like that, get back up on her feet. There was no way I thought that you could deal with the grief you were dealing with and make this company a success. But you proved me wrong. You got up on your feet and you plowed ahead, and I thought, in some ways, it was kind of sad.”
“Sad?” Eleanor questioned. “Shouldn’t it have been uplifting?”
“Maybe. If you had found a way to be happier. But the work didn’t make you happy, Eleanor. It just made you determined. You’ve been that way every day since—like you have something to prove. To your mother, to Max’s memory, to everyone out there on that floor, I think. And you did it. Only now Daniel issues some vague threats about taking what’s yours, and you’re in here hiding like your world is about to come apart.”
Eleanor wished she could say that was a slight exaggeration, but it was how she felt. Like she was a house made out of straw and the big bad wolf was coming to blow her down. She nearly trembled at the idea of how vulnerable she felt right now. A feeling she absolutely detested.
“You know what I think?” Selena asked.
“I know you’re going to tell me whether I want to hear it or not.”
Selena smiled, but it was the kind of smile someone gave a friend when that friend clearly could not see the thing right in front of her face.
“I think you loved Max Harper with everything you had, and when he disappointed you, that crushed you. But that wasn’t the thing that took away your happy. Him dying changed you. Changed how you thought about your life. Now he’s not dead, and I don’t think it’s caught up with you yet.”
“What?”
“When you left him, did you think he’d come for you?”
Slowly Eleanor nodded.
“Hmm. And what did you think was going to happen when he did? Did you think you were going to throw divorce papers in his face, and it was going to be over? Or did you think you two were going to have a knock-down, drag-out fight? And that he was finally going to have to see the marriage from your point of view? It’s just me. Your friend sitting with you in the ladies’ room. It’s more sacred than a confessional. You can tell me the truth.”
Eleanor bent over and dropped her face into her hands. “I thought...I thought we would fix it. Because I couldn’t imagine my life without Max Harper as my husband.”
“Which is why you didn’t push the divorce back then.”
“I was trying to get a company off the ground,” Eleanor explained. “I was a little busy.”
“You were trying to build something so that when he came back he was going take a look at it, and think how impressive you were. Then he didn’t come back, and Head to Toe became your shrine to Max Harper.”
Eleanor shrugged. “Maybe.”
“My point in all of this... Max did come back. He came back for you, Eleanor. He was just a little late in getting here. So instead of shutting him out, instead
of hiding from him, instead of pushing him away, instead of losing your shit over some asshole making threats at you, why don’t you go deal with what’s really bothering you? Go have that knock-down, drag-out fight you thought you were going to have two and half years ago.”
Eleanor let out a whoosh of breath. She couldn’t deny it. Deep down, she really had thought Max would come for her. If she believed him, he’d already made the decision to do that when he got on the boat again.
“It’s too late. I hurt him too much by not even trying.”
Selena stood. “A man thinks of nothing but getting back to his wife for two years, and you think in one month he’s forgotten her and moved on?”
Eleanor rolled her eyes. Obviously Max hadn’t forgotten her. But wanting to open himself up for another chance when she’d already shot him down pretty hard? Was that even possible?
“Are you ready to hear something else?”
“No,” Eleanor grumbled. “Yes.”
“This is not the first time in the last few weeks where I’ve seen you turn green in front of me. This just happened to be the first time you couldn’t control it.”
“I said it might be the flu.”
“Hmm.”
Eleanor looked up at her friend. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Selena shrugged. “Maybe nothing, but I’ve been sharing an office and a bathroom with you for more than two years, and, like women do, we’re usually on the same cycle. I’ve had my period this month. Have you?”
Eleanor didn’t have to think about it. She shook her head tightly.
“That’s what I thought. I’m wondering, then, if maybe there isn’t something else you’re not telling me.”
Eleanor sat there knowing there was no point in denying it. She knew what happened at the cabin. She knew she hadn’t had her period. These sudden bouts of nausea were happening more frequently, but other than that, she felt fine. No fever or aches to indicate the flu.
She looked up at her best friend and said the words she hadn’t let herself even think. Because it was too surreal that this could be happening.
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