Chapter 19
Declan
My gut was in knots as Emmi and Teddy pulled out of the driveway. That was not at all how I wanted Teddy to find out about his daughter and I. But I wasn’t worried about the business at all. Instead, all I could think about was how would Emmi and I be able to have a relationship if her father despised me?
For years I’d avoided thinking about relationships in any form, but for the rest of that day, it was all I could think about. Emmi wouldn’t stay with me if her father didn’t approve. Although she was clearly an adult and able to make her own decisions, she wouldn’t be able to handle the negative energy her father was giving off if he disapproved.
My trip back home aboard the private jet was depressing. I sat and read through the local papers and national news. Nothing seemed to keep my attention for long though as my thoughts continued to drift back to Emmi and what she and her father must have been talking about on their ride home. I could only imagine all the horrible things about me that Teddy was telling Emmi.
Teddy and I had been friends for many years. He was a guys guy, and we had shared stories over drinks about my dating life. Never could I have imagined that those stories would come back to bite me in the butt.
“Would you like a drink?” Marvin asked when the plane leveled off on our way home.
“No, just some ice water, thank you.”
Marvin clearly noticed that Emmi was not with me on the ride home, but he didn’t ask about her. He was a professional, and as such, Marvin knew that a man in my situation with a sad disposition, such as I had at that moment, probably wasn’t up for talking about why his woman had left him to fly home alone.
“We should have a less eventful flight home,” Marvin said as he handed me my ice water.
“Thank you.”
He was right; the flight home was absolutely uneventful, and I was able to get some sleep for a few hours. When we finally arrived back in Los Angeles, the warmth was a relief as I stepped off the plane to my waiting Jeep.
I loaded my luggage up myself and took off for home. I felt different than I had when I’d left for my trip. Life was different. I had this hole inside me that needed to be filled. I’d never felt such a hole before because I’d never opened up to let someone into my life as much as I had for Emmi. It hurt; there was no way around it.
The fear that Emmi might decide not to stay in contact with me was surprising to me. I wasn’t prepared for those kinds of emotions and instinctively reached out to Justin to see if he wanted to go to one of the clubs for some drinks that night.
“Hey, I’m back in town. You won’t believe how my trip to Breckenridge went. Are you up for a drink?”
“Sure, and some ladies, too,” he laughed.
“I’ve been in the snow for the last week. Let’s go to The Sand downtown,” I suggested.
“Sure, see you in an hour or so.”
I was sick of the cold, and I did like The Sand, but I was also hoping that I might run into Emmi and her friend Jessica while I was there. It was silly, maybe even a little juvenile, but I couldn’t help it.
As I got ready for a shower, I glanced at my phone to see if Emmi had called. She hadn’t and my stomach continued to turn as I put the phone back down in total disappointment. This wasn’t like me, the waiting around for a girl to call, or even caring at all if they called me. I was used to being the one who called them, who let them go, I wasn’t at all comfortable with the feelings I had stirring around inside of me at that moment.
After a quick Uber ride to the bar, I found Justin already at the bar with two young ladies. He’d done the leg work for us and had a blonde and brunette primed and waiting for me to flirt with.
“Hello there, everyone,” I said as I tried to put my best happy face on.
“Sarah, Cinnamon, this is my friend I was telling you about, Declan.”
“Hello ladies,” I said and reached out to shake each of their hands. “You both look lovely tonight.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Declan,” Cinnamon said as she pressed her chest toward me and seductively let her hand glide down her body.
If I wanted to take her home at that very moment, I probably could have. But taking this girl home was far from the top of my list of things to do that night. In fact, all I really wanted to do was get rid of the girls so I could talk with my friend in peace.
“It’s nice to meet you too, darling.”
“The girls were just telling me they are visiting from Georgia,” Justin said with a huge smile.
“Well, I hope you enjoy your visit to Los Angeles,” I said as I grabbed Justin and pulled him away from the girls. “We have some business to talk about. Enjoy your evening.”
“If you are not dying, I’m going to murder you,” Justin said seriously as I pulled him toward a booth in the corner of the room.
“I need to talk to you. It’s serious. Hugely serious.”
“Shit, it must be if you’re willing to give up on a girl named Cinnamon.”
“Teddy wants to pull out of all of our deals. All of them. He’s really pissed off, and it’s my fault, but it’s going to be so bad for me if he does.”
Justin looked utterly confused as he sat across from me with a blank look on his face. I couldn’t blame him though; Teddy wasn’t the type of guy to get angry, so it probably didn’t make much sense unless I explained what had happened.
“You slept with Emmi, didn’t you?” he asked out of the blue.
“What? Why would you ask that?”
“Because that’s the only thing in the world that I can think of that would make Teddy angry enough to threaten to cut off all business ties with you. Declan, how could you do it? You knew he was going to get pissed. There are a million other women in the world; geesh, man.”
“It’s not like that, Justin. We were stuck at the chalet in Breckenridge. It was a long week, we spent a lot of time together and really got to know each other. It’s different. I care about her.”
Justin sat there without saying a word as our waitress came and we ordered our drinks. The silence wasn’t uncomfortable with Justin; it was needed as I processed what I had done and if there was any possible way I was going to be able to save the partnership I had with Teddy.
“Well, the company is diversified enough that you could buy out some of his projects and he could buy out some of yours. If you two really wanted to go your separate ways, but I’d advise against it. Your names are tied together now. People look for his hotels because of you and your equipment because of him. Can’t you two work this out?”
“I really don’t know. He seemed pretty angry, and I’m sure he’s already got his lawyers working on ways to liquidate his portion of the company. The problem is, he doesn’t need me at all. He’s a billionaire. Teddy could literally retire today and be just fine. I’m the one that needs him. I’m the one who needs the new hotel business in order to keep our company afloat.”
“Why? I thought the equipment sales were going pretty well.”
“They are, but I’ve extended a lot of money in these hotel projects. I’ll be cash poor for sure if Teddy pulls out. I don’t know if we would be able to put out any new lines next year and that would be the death of us.”
“Declan, this is stupid. All this for a girl?”
I knew exactly what he was saying. I’d have said the exact same thing to him if he was the one who had kept the company and fallen for Teddy’s daughter. It wasn’t like me. None of this was what I was comfortable with, but I did have feelings for Emmi. I did want to date her and see where things led us. I wasn’t ready to give up on what was going on between us, and I also wasn’t willing to give up on my partnership with Teddy.
“I’m sorry, I know you’ve got a lot of your money invested in the company as well.”
“Yeah, Declan I’ve got everything in this company. I know you bought out my portion officially, but I’ve still got the loan for the company, and that’s a lot of cash. If you were to go bankrupt, that would ruin me.”
“I know.”
“So what are you going to do about it? You can’t just sit here and cry in your pina colada.”
“Actually, that’s exactly what I planned on doing tonight. Just sitting here and complaining about everything while I get drunk on fruity Caribbean drinks.”
The bar was the perfect place to be when you were depressed. The island music made it nearly impossible to feel bad for myself. It was upbeat and fun, exactly like the music I’d always heard while on my trips to the beaches of the Caribbean and Mexico.
We sat for awhile without talking, and I found myself looking over the crowd to see if Emmi and Jessica had happened to stop by. There were tons of people in the club and it was impossible to see them all from our table, but I definitely didn’t find Emmi in the crowd. I even checked my phone again to see if she had called, but she hadn’t.
“What’s Emmi say about all of this?” Justin asked after we had both finished our second drinks and started in on some appetizers.
“Nothing yet. She left Breckenridge with her father and said she’d call me tomorrow.”
“Wait, did Teddy actually catch you in bed with Emmi while you were in Breckenridge?” Justin said as he winced as if he was in actual pain.
“Yep.”
“Oh, God, Declan. Really?”
“Yeah. We were asleep in bed when he came into the chalet to get us. He’d been worried about us because we hadn’t called him, but the power was out and we were snowed in for days.”
“Then how’d he get to you?”
“Apparently the roads had been cleared the day before, and we had been, um, too busy to notice.”
Justin laughed at the picture I was painting for him. No matter what was going on with the business, we were friends, and he had heard many of my stories over the years. Justin always took joy in the stories that ended with me getting in some sort of trouble.
“Wow, this has got to be the best story ever. Did he hit you?”
“No! We were naked in bed though, and he stormed out of the chalet with Emmi.”
“While she was naked?”
“No,” I laughed. “We got dressed and went downstairs. He yelled about me being a liar and a few other things and then asked her to come with him. I told her to go. I thought it might be easier for her to talk to him and work things out.”
“Man, Declan, I don’t know how you’ll get out of this. But seriously, I think you and Teddy need each other to keep the hotels running. He’s not interested in retiring. You should talk to him, try and smooth things over. Tell him you’ll stay away from Emmi and maybe the two of you can just go back to how things used to be?”
The idea of purposely staying away from Emmi was outrageous. I couldn’t even respond right away as I ran through what that would do to me. I’d finally found a woman that I was willing to have a real relationship with and I was supposed to give her up because her father disapproved of the relationship? No, there was no way I could do that.
“I don’t know,” I managed to mutter.
My head was spinning with the idea, and the alcohol was doing a really good job as well. I wasn’t diversified in my investments, that was one hundred percent true. If my company went under, I didn’t have many other investments that could keep me wealthy. I’d bet my entire livelihood on my company, and I did need to make sure I was making wise decisions when it came to my business dealings.
“What don’t you know? You need Teddy. You’ll need to go to him and suck it up. Tell him whatever he needs to hear so things can get back to usual.”
“You know the funny thing?” I asked.
“What?”
“I’m not going to have an assistant when I show up for work tomorrow, and that’s going to make everything worse. Shit, I really need her around.”
“Hire a temp or something. You’ll figure it out. What you need is to make nice with Teddy and fix what’s going on here. He’s a reasonable man; he’ll see that it’s best for both of you if you stick together.”
“Or, he will cut his losses, sell off everything, and retire to some tropical location with the money he’s got already.”
“Okay, Declan, that’s a real possibility. But I don’t know; Teddy has worked so hard for his company his entire life, I just don’t see him being willing to throw it all away and sell it off.”
“I guess we will just see how the day turns out tomorrow,” I said as I ordered another round of drinks by raising my hand as the waitress walked by. “Tomorrow is going to be one hell of a day.”
***
My chest was tight with anxiety when I showed up to the office the next morning. I’d stayed out way too late with Justin and drank more than I should have as well. None of it was helping me feel in control of my day as I pulled up my calendar and tried to figure out what had to be done.
“Rosa,” I called as she walked by. “I’ve got some sketches for you.”
“Oh yes, Emmi sent them to me already. I love the ideas, and I’m having my team work on freshening them up.”
“Okay, great. That sounds perfect.”
As she walked toward her office, the phone rang at Emmi’s desk. I didn’t know how to answer it from my office, so I ran out to her phone and picked it up.
“Hello,” I said.
“Hello, who is this?” a man’s voice said.
“This is Declan McMillan,” I answered, as it dawned on me how unprofessional I must have sounded when originally answering the phone.
“Oh, hey, Declan, this is Morgan. I got some interesting papers from Teddy’s lawyers, and I think we should talk about this.”
“Crap, what did he send?”
“Are you two splitting the company up? I’d highly advise against it. There’s a huge downside for you if he pulls all his money out of your projects.”
“Morgan, I don’t think I have much of a say in this. Teddy is making his own decisions on this one.”
“I’ll come over tomorrow so we can talk about this. But be forewarned, if he’s pulling his money out, I’m not sure you’ll be able to keep running. We can talk about it more tomorrow though. Does noon work for you?”
“Yes, that will work.”
I swallowed hard at the realization that Teddy had indeed gone through with his plans. Not only had he gone through with his plans, but he had paperwork filed and sent to my attorney in less than twenty-four hours; Teddy was serious, and that scared me to death.