Chapter 17
Alex
I tried calling Holly a few times throughout the week, but I didn’t press the issue the way I had over the weekend. Alicia had been out of the office for the entire week, and I didn’t see her at work at all. A part of me had wanted to ask my father where she was and if she was okay, but the last thing I needed was for her to hear that I had been asking about her and possibly take it the wrong way.
After seeing Holly’s friend Joana at the school on Monday, I actually felt a lot better and I was able to concentrate and focus on the matter at hand—finishing up the property deal that I had been working on. Thankfully, I was able to wrap the entire deal up by Friday, and by lunch on Friday afternoon, I actually had the deed to the new building in my hand.
Joana wasn’t hard to track down, either. I had planned to contact her on Friday so that I could meet up with her to see if she’d heard from Holly. But the funny thing was, she was the one who ended up tracking me down.
I was sitting at my desk on Friday afternoon, feeling quite accomplished when my business cell phone rang. The number that popped up on my LCD screen wasn’t one that I immediately recognized, but I gave my card out to lots of different people and businesses on a pretty regular basis, so there was really no telling who it could possibly be. I thought about letting the call go to my voicemail, but something in my gut told me to answer it.
“Westbrooke, here,” I answered in my most professional-sounding tone.
“Hello, is this Alex?” a bubbly, familiar-sounding female voice asked.
“Yes, it is,” I replied.
“Oh, okay, good! This is Joana.”
“Joana, hey, have you heard from Holly yet?” I asked.
“Um, actually, I was wondering if you had some time to meet with me after work today,” she replied.
“Uh, sure, that shouldn’t be a problem at all. Did you have a specific place and time in mind?”
“Well, I don’t really know where you ritzy, wealthy guys like to meet up at, so why don’t you just tell me a place and time, instead,” she stated somewhat pompously.
“I see. Well, I met Holly at the Lovehouse in Central Park. You know where that is, right?”
“Yep, I most certainly do,” she said proudly.
“Okay, can you be there around six?”
“I’ll be there.”
* * * * *
I was sitting on a stool at the main bar when the tall, slender redhead entered the Lovehouse restaurant. I raised my hand and waved at her, letting her know where I was. A smile appeared on her pretty, freckled face as she began making her way over to where I was seated.
“This place really is nice!” she said, glancing around the main floor of the eatery. Her eyes lit up with wonder and awe as she approached the empty bar stool beside me.
“Oh, yeah, it’s great. I come here all the time,” I said lightheartedly, pulling the stool out so that she could sit down comfortably. “Would you like something to drink?”
“Sure! I’ll take a glass of red wine, please,” she replied with an enthusiastic grin.
I noticed that her mood was pretty light and cheerful, and I took that as a sign that perhaps she’d spoken to Holly and maybe had some good news for me. Hopefully I hadn’t jumped the gun, of course. I waved the barmaid over, ordered our drinks and then turned my attention back to Joana.
“So—I tracked Holly down for you—you can thank me later,” she began, grinning from ear to ear. “She’s down at her mother’s house in her old hometown, trying to decide what she wants to do.”
“Okay,” I said. “Well, I have something to tell you that I think may just help her decide to stay. You do want her to stay, don’t you?”
“Of course, I do,” Joana said with wide eyes. “She’s my best friend! I don’t want her to move away.”
“Then, you’ll probably be happy about what I’m getting ready to tell you,” I replied with a huge, excited grin.
* * * * *
After talking with Joana, I felt a hundred times better about the whole situation. She told me that she’d finally talked to Holly earlier that day and had convinced her to come back up here and meet with her at a little bar and grill where the two of them often hung out together. They were supposed to meet up at ten tonight, so I assumed that Holly had probably left her mother’s house earlier in the day.
I found myself feeling more excited than I had in quite some time as I got ready for our rendezvous. I was hoping that Holly would at least give me an opportunity to explain myself before taking off this time. I was also hoping that having Joana there would make her more likely to stick around and at least hear me out instead of running away.
I put an extra handful of mousse in my hair as I slicked it back from my face and gave it one more comb-through before heading out to my car. Earlier, Joana had accompanied me to the “Joseph the Jeweler” jewelry store to help me pick out a diamond necklace that Holly would like. I was going to offer it to her as an apology gift. I had seen my dad do this numerous times for my mother, growing up, and it had almost always seemed to work on her. In all honesty, this was actually the first time I had ever bought a piece of jewelry this extravagant for any woman—except for my mother.
Joana had eyed a beautiful necklace with a diamond-filled cross pendant. She’d assured me that Holly would find it absolutely stunning and be completely unable to refuse it once she laid eyes on it.
“You better be right,” I told her teasingly as I paid the man behind the counter and placed the small silver box into the breast pocket of my suit jacket.
* * * * *
I arrived at Benny’s Bar and Grill at 9:45 p.m. I had told Joana to be there early so that we could hopefully catch Holly coming inside and surprise her. Joana was waiting at a table in the far-right corner when I got there.
Benny’s actually wasn’t a bad-looking place. It was a little bit smaller than most bars I was used to hanging out at, but it was far from just some ragged little hole-in-the-wall. The main bar was in the middle of the restaurant and there were booths and tables lined up on either side of it. It was somewhat crowded, but not so much so that you had to step on people’s feet in order to make your way to the bar.
“Hey, Alex,” Joana called out, waving her arm in the air. “Over here!”
I went over to where she was and joined her in the booth.
“So, what do you think of our humble little abode?” she asked with a grin.
“Not bad, actually. Not bad at all,” I replied, looking around.
“Holly’s gonna be here any minute,” she stated, glancing down at the time. “So, how do you wanna do this?”