Chapter Thirteen
“We are done.”
Daisy closed her laptop, struggling to swallow over the nerves cramping her stomach. Keeping water down was a challenge.
After three weeks of radio silence, she’d enlisted Poppy’s help to get Rose in the same room with her. Rose had taken an extended holiday right after walking out on Daisy and had returned a week ago. Before Rose could walk out of Poppy’s condo, Daisy had hugged her stiff sister and apologized for hurting her. She loved her and had a proposition for them, but they’d have to work together, and they didn’t have much time. She gave the sisters the rundown on what Zan had done. Poppy had clapped her hands and bounced on the spot. Rose had read the document Zan had given her, then smiled at Daisy.
A smile now split Rose’s face. “We’ve got this. For the first time not having lists and plans, but by throwing ideas out there, I think we do have this.”
She searched her sister’s face and clutched her desk, wanting Rose to be right, but the fate of the company rode on this deal. If their proposal tanked, they were sunk. “You think?”
“I know.”
After long hours talking, she and Rose had found their bond. It wasn’t as strong as it should be, but Daisy intended to change it.
Poppy walked into the room. “T minus one hour.”
Since Zan had gifted them this chance and they’d been invigorated by the opportunity to win the Levi bid. She’d been moved by Zan’s gesture, but couldn’t work out his angle. The man always had an angle. A lot of things she could forget, but she had a hard time forgiving deceit, and he’d smashed her personal and business life into a million pieces. Was he a changed man? She doubted six months ago that he’d give them a chance of winning the bid. But his words softly spoken, but with intent when he’d delivered them back their company, had ripped through her like a grenade splintering her soul into millions of shattered pieces.
A part of her would never get over him. Her Captain America, but it would take a lot to trust him, and deep down she didn’t know if she ever could. Her body had been right on board with playing naked Twister with him and had perked into life, but her heart held too many scars and was cautious. She knew she couldn’t survive having him in her life and losing him again. It sucked, but it was the truth.
Daisy flicked through their presentation hot off the press. A box had already been couriered over to The Ritz-Carlton for the meeting. They’d worked long hours and had come up with some different concepts. For the first time, Daisy had opened the idea up to the entire staff, from Dennis the cleaner to Benjamin from finance to Leslie from accounts. IT were enthusiastic, as were reservation staff who manned the front desks around the country to kitchen and bar staff at all the hotels. No lists, but going with the flow. It had been hard at first, but Daisy was proud of what they’d achieved.
Instead of sticking to the singles looking for love retreat, they’d included a retreat for couples who were falling out of love. They’d also added a retreat for grandparents and grandkids. Dennis had come up with that idea. His daughter worked sixteen hour days, and he wanted to spend some quality time with his grandson. Leslie had suggested a week retreat for couples who wanted to learn to cook. A different cuisine each night, or tailored to what the couples wanted. Maybe pastries or Italian, Indian, and Middle East had been discussed. The ideas had flown from the staff like honey. Murder mystery weekends from housekeeping in Detroit, adventure sports for couples from Honolulu and divorced couples looking for quality time with their children, from a lot of staff from around the country. Everything had been incorporated into the brochure.
Nerves like show ponies pranced in Daisy’s stomach.
“You look different. Better. Color suits you.” Rose squeezed her shoulder. She gave Rose a small smile.
Instead of wearing her usual black suit with a white shirt and flat pumps, Daisy had worn a purple pencil skirt with matching stilettoes, a pale sheer lilac shirt with a softer camisole underneath and a jacket that cinched her waist. She’d worn her hair down and had curled it this morning, so it hung in full bouncy waves down her back. A bit of mascara and bubblegum lip gloss over plum lipstick. Thanks to Zan she no longer hid her body. Yeah, she had curves and a bit of a belly, so what? She now felt feminine since Zan helped her see how beautiful she was.
Rose, always stunning, was smoking it in a bright yellow dress, red heels, and a red cardigan. Poppy, in an emerald dress, mouthwatering heels, and her red hair piled loosely around her face could grace magazine covers.
“We are ready to go and slay,” Daisy said.
“We are like ‘go, go Power Rangers.’ Let’s show those arrogant Gillards what the Carter girls are made of.” Rose coated her lips in watermelon lip gloss.
Daisy let out a long breath. She was under no illusion that whatever the Gillards brought to the table would be as dynamic as what they’d put together, possibly more so. Daisy and her team had worked their butts off, working until three in the morning. She’d been touched that all the staff had stayed back on their own dime helping any way they could. Dennis did midnight coffee runs. Leslie kept them fed with mouthwatering pastries she made herself, but this wasn’t a walk up start, and they’d win the bid.
The L.A. staff filed into the boardroom as requested, the rest of the hotel staff who were available from around the country were hooked up via video conference. Daisy looked at the people who’d worked long hours with them. This was family. She stood tall.
“Thank you, everyone. I’m proud of what we’ve achieved in a short space of time. You’ve sacrificed family time, and for that, I’m truly grateful. We wouldn’t be here today without you. Whatever the outcome, thank you. From now on, any idea you have that you think can help improve the company, if we have a company, at the end of the day, my door is always open.”
She wiped a tear hovering at the corner of her eye and glanced around at the heads held high, the eyes being dried.
She knew Zan would be there today, and she’d be lying if her stomach and heart didn’t twist at coming face-to-face with him. The Carters were presenting first followed by the Gillards.
“Let’s get this show on the road.” Daisy grabbed her bag.
Applause and calls of “good luck” and “we’ve got this” filled the room.
The trip to downtown L.A. in the rented limo didn’t take long. Daisy went over the presentation in her head for the millionth time. Rose had her earbuds in, which meant she was distracting herself and nervous. Poppy silently mouthed her presentation.
The driver stopped in front of The Ritz-Carlton, the door opened, and Daisy stepped out into sunshine, followed by her sisters.
“Shit.” Daisy turned at a man’s voice. Brayden Gillard, with his scarred face that gave him a brutal but vulnerable look, stared at Poppy who paled.
“Nice shoes.” Tristan flat out grinned at Rose, whose eyes narrowed.
“Daisy.”
She braced and turned. A foot away from her stood Zan, his delicious scent wafting over her, transporting her back to the night in the hut, where they’d eaten Skittles and they’d been Zan and Daisy, not CEOs. He looked devastating in a charcoal suit, snowy white shirt opened showing a column of tanned throat and neck. Women walked past, flicked their hair, and pushed out their chests.
“You look beautiful, but you always do.” Zan moved into her space, a glint in his always gorgeous eyes. “Left hand on blue, right foot on green.” He picked up a long curl of her hair.
She tilted her head. “You’re that confident?”
“Always confident, baby. Remember, I don’t lose.”
She tilted her head, elephants tumbling in her stomach. “And when you do, you’ll honor your promise, and we’ll only be business associates.”
The laughter died in his eyes. “If that’s what you want, I’ll honor it. I’m not throwing myself at a woman who doesn’t want me. I do have pride.”
“Thank you.” She nodded.
He shrugged. “But I don’t think we’ll lose. I need you in my life, so I will hold you to dinner and Twister.”
She shook her head. “You are all kinds of arrogant.”
He smiled, and like a switchblade, it sliced straight through to her heart. “I am, and I don’t apologize for it. It got me where I am today.”
“Yes, it did,” she whispered, turned, and walked toward her sisters. Her head held high.
“You okay?” Poppy, still pale, asked.
“Yeah, I’m good.” She squeezed her sister’s hand.
“That brother with the shoe fetish is one strange man. Hot, but strange.” Rose stared at Tristan.
“Stay away, Rose. They’ve burned two of us, don’t let it be three.” Poppy glanced over to where Brayden stood in a huddle with his two brothers.
Daisy checked her watch, drew a breath. “It’s time.”
An hour and a half later, Daisy followed by Rose and Poppy piled back into the limo, A smile stretched Daisy’s cheeks. The meeting had only been scheduled to go for an hour, but an enthusiastic Levi and his team had been entranced with the additional resort ideas. Levi had always kept his resorts for couples finding love, but with the divorce rate climbing couples wanting to reconnect had touched a nerve. The reason the resorts were being sold was the split between him and his wife and the carving up of assets. He’d also been taken by the grandparent spending time with their grandkids, so had the board who murmured their excitement at the other ideas tossed around. The financial plan had been met with approval. Everything appeared solid.
“That couldn’t have gone better.” Rose’s dark eyes sparkled.
“I don’t think it could.” Daisy rubbed her hands down her skirt. The presentation had gone like a dream. Now they had to sit it out for the next couple of days while Levi went through theirs and the Gillard proposal.
She’d caught a glance of Zan as they had exited the elevator. He’d nodded once to her, for once nothing in those mesmerizing eyes.
The next day Daisy sat in her office, after another restless night’s sleep. It wasn’t lost on her that without Zan’s arms around her she barely slept, but did her normal execution and ended up twisted in sheets, unable to move or sometimes breath.
The photo of her dad with his arms around his girls and wife caught her eye. Every Christmas he’d bring out the story of how he’d almost given up on a bewitching dark-haired beauty who’d caught his eye across a crowded bar. The sisters had all rolled their eyes, but Daisy had always been enthralled by their love story. Her dad was about to give up, then she gifted him a smile and said she liked a man with patience and perseverance.
As if on cue, Zan walked into her mind, smiled that devastating smile of his, and her heart did the complicated thing whenever she thought about the man who made her come alive, and also had the ability to plunge a dagger into her heart without a backward glance.
Her phone pinged. She read what seemed like a perfect match. Wanted to settle down, looking for a woman who wasn’t into bullshit and loved cats.
Nothing. She felt nothing for the dark-haired stranger who should have her heart going at least a tiny bit of a pitter-patter. Look at him her logical side of her brain yelled. Nah. The physical side chimed in. Swipe the other way.
Something had been nagging her. The thought of that perfect white fence now suffocating. Maybe she should travel. She hadn’t completely conquered her fear of flying, but the trip to Fiji had taught her that sometimes things were out of your control, and if you weren’t spur-of-the-moment on occasion, the world was a dreary place, and Fiji had been beautiful. She’d Googled Paris, Tahiti, Australia, and Mauritius. Maybe it was time to see the world instead of staying inside her safe bubble.
Rose walked into her office with an enormous bunch of flowers. “Irises and jasmine. Your favorite.” Her sister put the large display on her desk. Daisy plucked the card from the middle. Clovista, whatever the outcome I’ll honor your wish.
Her heart stuttered that he’d remembered her favorite flowers.
Rose read over her shoulder. “Who’s Clovista?” She checked the envelope. “Right address.” She threw Daisy a sideways look.
Daisy pressed her lips together, a hitch in her throat.
Damn.
Before she had time to process what was going down in her heart, Poppy flew through the door clutching an envelope.
“It’s from Levi.” Poppy flung the envelope on her desk as if it contained a bomb and not the fate of their company.
Pretty fitting analogy of my relationship with Zan.
This was it. Yes or no, it all came down to this. With trembling fingers, she unzipped the cardboard zipper, pulled out a single piece of paper, read it, and dropped it on the desk before slumping into her chair.
Hours later, Daisy stared out at the happy folk on the Wheel at the Santa Monica pier.
She’d won. She had everything she wanted, but inside her organs worked because they were programmed to, but there was an overwhelming sense of loss in her heart and a heaviness in her body she couldn’t shake.
“You don’t look like a woman who won the biggest contract of her career.”
Rose walked in and sat on the edge of her desk.
“Got a lot on my mind.” Daisy tried for a smile, but her heart wasn’t in it.
“Does this lot on your mind have blond hair, green eyes, and a smile that could stop traffic?”
Daisy fiddled with the edge of her jacket. “Yes.”
“What’s the wish he’s going to honor?”
“To stay as business associates only and never come near me again.” Damn, her voice had hitched on the last word.
Rose took her cold hand. “Is that what you want?”
Daisy paused. “I don’t know. Part of me wants to trust that he’ll never hurt me like he did. And I can’t risk losing you.”
“Business is brutal, Dais. Dad taught us that.” Rose squeezed her hand harder. “I understand on a business level what they did, and if Dad were alive, he’d have done the same thing. I think lines blurred on both sides. It started out as a business deal for him, but the way he looks at you, it became personal. To you this business is personal. You’ve both been coming at it from different angles that’s all, but what I see is two people in love. Besides, you’ll always have me in your life. I was hurt you didn’t tell me, but I’m not standing in the way of love.”
She swallowed over a tightening throat. “Thank you. I never wanted to hurt you.” She sighed. “Zan and I both want different things in life. He’s told me so many times, he’s not into relationships, and I am looking to settle down one day.”
“Seems to me you’ve been in a relationship. Cut him some slack on the settling down thing. Maybe it’s something he needs to grow into. Maybe there’s a compromise there. I never thought you’d vacation on your own in Fiji.” She smiled. “No one can see into the future, but if you don’t give this a chance, will you regret it?” Her voice dropped. “Or you could be like Mom, run from the problem you can’t or don’t want to deal with, which will never go away. Are you going to stand and fight when there are no guarantees of success, or walk away?”
Zan had called her on running away instead of talking stuff out. Is that what she was doing? Was she doing what her mom had done and run away?
“When did you become so wise?” Daisy smiled through tears at her sister.
“I have an amazing older sister by twelve minutes.”
Stay and fight for a man who broke her but made her feel alive, or keep searching for a safe man who lived in black and white.
She ignored the ping of her texts. One word flashed on her screen. She stared at the glass for the longest time before sliding her finger across.
…
“I can’t believe we lost.”
Tristan paced around the Gillard boardroom like a Kentucky Derby horse, practically snorting. “How the fuck did this happen?” He stopped. Zan still picked over the stack of papers Levi had couriered over.
He had to admire Daisy and her team, because they’d done an excellent presentation. Money hadn’t been the problem. The expansion of the resorts to include lovers falling out of love and a grandparent retreat, along with the cooking weekend and other ideas were genius. They’d been outsmarted. They’d been the ones who hadn’t come up with innovative ideas, instead of sticking to what had worked in the past, whereby Daisy and her team had dazzled with an array of different proposals. He silently saluted her in business, but damn if this didn’t cut straight through his heart.
“They had a better plan.” Zan handed Tristan the papers, who took them muttering that he now wouldn’t work with the shoe woman.
Brayden smiled like he’d won the jackpot.
“Want to share?” Zan asked, trying to keep the black mood from hovering on his horizon threatening to blow. Daisy had been adamant about them being business associates only.
“With all this shit behind us, I’m making a clear play for Poppy. She’s the best thing I let in and out of my life.”
“Dude, I think she said it pretty clearly that she was done with you,” Tristan chimed in, concern on his face.
“Before all this shit we had a good thing going. I believe she wouldn’t sell me out, but at the time I was too pissed and gutted that the one woman I cared about had played me.” Brayden paused. “She didn’t see this.” His hand went over the scarred side of his face. “We started to go out instead of sitting at home. I’m not throwing a pity party, but it burns when women recoil. I threw away a kind, open, angel of a woman and I want her back.”
“Jesus, Bray, you should write poetry.”
Zan’s mind flew to St. Maarten when he’d finished the Byron poem Daisy had started.
“Yeah, well, she said she never wanted to see me again, but I’m going to do whatever it takes.”
“How do you know you love her?” Zan asked.
“She’s in my head the whole time. When I’m not with her, she’s all I think about. I close my eyes and see her smile. I want to wake up next to her for the next eighty years,” he murmured.
Zan’s closed his eyes at his brother’s words.
He was one dumb fuck.
All the things he’d felt, and he’d never put it down to love. Jesus, he did love Daisy, wanted her in his life for the next hundred years.
“I’ll see you later.” Brayden walked out the door.
“If you’re all like this over the Carter women, maybe I should throw my hat into the ring and try the feisty one.” He paused. “Hey, Bray, wait up. Can you find out what size shoe Rose wears?”
Zan pulled out his phone.
Hours later, Zan tried to watch a game on TV. His phone lay silent beside him.
Nothing.
Not a goddamn thing.
He eyed the half bottle of Johnnie Blue but knew getting shit-faced would only make him forget for the night before Daisy would roll into his mind on a technicolor replay the next morning, except he’d have an exploding head and a stomach filled with acid.
He’d made a phone call to the local shelter. Tomorrow he was going to pick out a cat. He missed Virgil. Coming home to a cat that wanted to see him would take away some of the isolation.
Enough of this. Time to hit the gym.
He stood as the doorbell rang. He decided to ignore it. He couldn’t handle someone trying to sell him their brand of God, and he didn’t need another subscription of a magazine he’d never read. Last time had been Quilting for Beginners from a schoolkid.
Tomorrow, he’d try something else, because he wasn’t giving up.
The doorbell rang again.
Zan stood and pushed his phone into his jeans. It had better be good. He thumped down the stairs and threw open the door and froze. Standing in front of him carrying a rectangle box and an overnight bag stood Daisy.
“I had to go to two Targets and a Wal-Mart to get Twister. They are apparently in high demand.”
He blinked down at her. Was this his mind playing a cruel trick on him? He inhaled her familiar scent and braced.
“I got your texts.”
She pulled out her phone.
Complicated, arrogant asshole into green skittles, peanut butter for breakfast, seeks stubborn, red-skittle eater who loves cats, rules, and long walks along the beach, who wants to be all in.
She shook her head. “Not sure about the beach. Too cheesy.”
She pressed something on her phone and his dinged. He swiped and read.
Possibly stubborn, former writer of lists who loves peanut butter for breakfast, vintage Zeppelin T-shirts, and lingerie seeks man who makes her feel alive, gives outrageous orgasms, and who doesn’t have a crystal ball and can’t see the future but she isn’t running from the problem that is the complication of them, but right into the thick of it.
He pulled her into his arms, resting his chin on her head, his heart doing crazy things in his chest. “I never knew what love was until you weren’t in my life. God, but I love you.”
“You didn’t give up on us?” She nestled deeper into his chest.
“Give up on the woman put on the planet for me? Never.”
“I love you, Zan. I don’t know what the future brings, but I want it with you, Virgil, and me.”
He gazed down at the woman who owned him. “Virgil’s getting a brother or a sister tomorrow.” He now grinned down at her. “Looks like we’ve got ourselves a family. Well, shit, I’ll get some white fence posts tomorrow.”
“Let’s take this as it goes.”
“Baby, I’m all in. This is how it goes.”
He tilted her chin and kissed her. Her body melted against his. He swallowed her moan, and she swallowed his.
“Do you want to see Mauritius, Paris in Spring, and New Zealand in winter?”
“Yeah, baby, I do.” Breathless, he pulled away. “Let’s see about delivering you some outrageous orgasms. Left hand on blue, right foot on green.” He pulled her into his living room. “Get naked, woman.”
She swatted his shoulder. “So bossy, Clovis.” The T-shirt was off, as were her jeans. He stared at the underwear. His body on fire, his cock about to explode when she peeled off her underwear and bent over, giving him the best view in the world. She positioned her hands and feet.
“Your move.”