Chapter9
Jeff was waiting for her to wake up from her nap after her long flight on Monday, with dinner ready and a barrage of questions. She couldn’t wait to tell him everything.
“So? How was New Zealand?” he asked, almost as excited as she was about it.
“It was like no place I’ve ever seen in the world. It was amazing. We stayed at a beach house instead of a hotel, to begin with. We walked on the beach each morning before we went anywhere, we had this amazingly talented chef who made our meals, and the food was so good! So fresh and delicious. The ocean there is varying shades of blue and turquoise and aquamarine. There are different colored beaches, like here, and we saw white and gold and black sand. It was just amazing. Really, truly, the trip of a lifetime. You’d love Auckland. Next time I go, I’m taking you,” she gushed as she told him all about it.
He listened and loved hearing about it, but when she stopped, he gave her a curious sidelong look and he pushed a little more. “Well, I’m glad to hear that the business and travel sides of it went so well, but I’m dying to know how the personal aspects of it went. Did anything come up between you two again?” he asked pointedly.
She felt her cheeks warm, and she looked down, biting at her lower lip.
“Ohhhhh! Look at that. It did come up again. So, spill. What happened?”
She grinned and looked up at him. “It was as perfect as I could ever dream it to be! First of all, he’s so unbelievable in bed. I mean, I told you that the first night that we were together was the best sex I’d ever had in my life, but it’s just gotten better and better since then, and we actually slept together.” She stopped and blinked. “I mean, as in sleeping, slept together. I didn’t even spend five minutes in the bedroom that was supposed to be mine. All of my time was with him in his room, in his bed, and I know what you’re going to say. I know that you think that sex and love and romance in the workplace is a really bad idea, and normally I would agree with you one hundred percent, but this was so different. It really feels like…” She trailed off, not wanting to say aloud what it actually, really felt like, but Jeffrey saw it in her eyes and on her face, and he heard it in her voice.
“Well then, I’m going to change what I said before,” he advised. “If things are going so well with Dane, perhaps you might think about more with him. Give it a real solid chance, and see where it goes.”
Nicole was shocked to hear Jeffrey say it. She was sure that he would never change his mind about how he felt about romance in the workplace, especially between an employer and his employee.
She shook her head. “No, I know it feels incredible, and I would love for you to be right about your change of heart, but I think you were right before. There should not be any kind of love or romance in the workplace. I mean, seriously, where are we going to go from here? He’s my boss. He has a partner who is also my boss. We really do need to try to keep it business, but that’s just growing more and more difficult.”
With a sigh, she looked down at the food on her plate. “I’ll admit, I kind of went overboard with him while we were in New Zealand, but it was like we weren’t even on earth anymore, like we had somehow left the planet and found ourselves in another world, a whole other world. It felt like there were no rules, there was no repercussion or consequence, but then we came back here, and I slept on it, and now I know that I went much further than I should have, and I had no business doing that. I should have kept my feet on the ground and my head out of the clouds.”
Jeffrey watched her and listened to her with a curious gaze. He was soaking in everything that she said, and he was giving back very little response as he processed it and made up his own mind about all that he saw and thought. “What about Paul?” he changed the subject slightly.
Nicole gave her head a little shake and raised one brow. “To be honest, I haven’t thought of him even once.”
“Well, that’s definitely one thing I agree completely with. Stick with that, honey. Stick. With. That.” He was adamant, but he didn’t push it any further.
When she went into work the next morning, there was a massive bouquet of red roses waiting for her, two dozen this time. She smiled, thinking that they must be from Dane, and telling herself that she was going to have to remind him that they were back in the real world again, and that in their real business world, there was really no room for hot sex and sweet kisses. There could be no romance between them, because the only thing that should be between them was business.
She slipped the card from the envelope and frowned. They were from Paul, and he was asking her out for a dinner date again, noting that he wanted more than just drinks with her next time. He wrote that he loved her, and he missed her, and she sighed heavily and put the card back in the envelope.
Midway through the morning, Dane walked into her office with pink cheeks and a big grin on his face. His eyes went straight to her, and he closed the door behind him. “You look so beautiful today,” he began as he crossed the room swiftly to reach her. “I can’t stop thinking about our time away. It was the best time I’ve ever had. I wish so much that we didn’t have to leave it.”
She sighed and stood up. “I loved it too, but it was just a single shot, Dane. We’re at work. You’re my boss. We can’t continue to let incredible sex or any kind of romance alter our situation here. We have to be responsible. We have to remember that there’s a lot more at stake here than just a man and a woman with an unbelievable attraction to one another. So please… let’s not talk about our time in New Zealand again, and let’s just focus on work and nothing else. I’m sorry, but we both know that that’s for the best.”
He stopped short of reaching for her and stood there in silence for a long moment. It was then that he saw the massive bouquet of red roses behind her desk. “Where did those come from?” he asked with a thin voice, edging on being sharp.
Looking back at them, she winced slightly, though she knew that he didn’t see her do it. “Those…” she said with regret and dismay, “are from Paul.”
Dane’s head snapped back to her, and his eyes grew wide. “Paul? You mean your ex boyfriend Paul?” His tone was growing intense.
Nicole nodded. “Yes.”
With a poorly hidden scowl on his face, he drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly as he slid his hands into his pants suit pockets. “What’s going on between you and Paul?” he asked directly.
She shook her head. “Nothing! Nothing is going on with Paul. He’s just determined that he’s going to win me back, and he’s not, and he just doesn’t seem to want to take no for an answer. So, he sent me flowers again to try to romance me and change my mind about him.”
“Is it working?” Dane asked, eyeing her curiously.
Nicole looked at him seriously. “No. It’s not working, and it’s never going to work. I don’t want him back. Also, this is not a conversation that we should be discussing. Paul isn’t any of your business; he is part of my personal life.”
She knew that it was a risky comment, but it was the truth. Dane’s mouth fell open, and he balked at her. “Not my business? You’re my lover! Any other man who tries to edge in on that is absolutely my business! I know that things are complicated between us, but I still have every right to know!”
Searching for some kind of reasonable response, Nicole opened her mouth and then closed it again, because there was nothing that she could say. It was clear to her then that things were already getting far too out of hand with Dane. They could not expand their relationship beyond one of strictly business.
Dane pulled his hand from his pocket and raked it through his hair, sighing in frustration before he turned and walked out of her office, closing the door behind him firmly. She sank back down into her chair and buried her head in her hands, wondering what in the world she had ever been thinking letting her intimacy with him go beyond that very first night.
Three days of silence passed between them and she didn’t even see him in passing in the office. Nicole knew that she was going to have to do something to fix what was wrong between them. More than anything, and besides missing a man who was indeed her lover, she was missing her friend, for they had become friends, good friends, and she hadn’t made many new friends on the island. She felt that she was missing out on him, and she didn’t like that feeling one bit.
Taking the initiative, she went upstairs to Dane’s office and did what he so often did to her; she walked right in without knocking. He was looking a file while sitting at his desk, and he was more than a little surprised to see her walking toward him.
“Nicole!” he breathed her name as if the sight of her had hit him with an impact and taken his very breath away. “Is something wrong? Are you all right?” he asked worriedly, getting up from his chair and going toward her.
“Yes, everything is fine, why?” she asked in confusion, wondering why he thought that it wasn’t.
He blinked and looked around him a moment in puzzlement. “Well, you never come up here. You’ve never even been in my office before.”
She realized then that she hadn’t, and she looked around. “Huh. You’re right. I haven’t ever been in here before.”
Waiting a moment and getting nothing, he took a step toward her. “So, what is it that you’re doing in here now? How can I help you?”
Her mission came back to her mind, and she looked up at him, forcing herself to keep a bit of a distance from him. “I came up to ask you to come on a business lunch with me,” she stated as evenly as she could.
“A business lunch?” he asked with a momentary note of hope in his voice, but then as he looked at her, it faded, as if he was realizing that her version of a business lunch probably would be a real business lunch, and not a take-out order of pulled pork on a beautiful beach.
“Yes. I was wondering if you were busy today, and I thought that if you weren’t, we’d go together.” She felt butterflies practically breakdancing all over inside of her, as her nerves tingled, and her breath grew short. She promised herself that she could handle it, that she could arrange a friendly encounter with him to set a tone of friendship between them, one without any romance in it at all. She didn’t want to lose him, and she didn’t want it to be so cold between them when there had been so much more depth and brilliance to them before. She needed something in the middle.
“Okay, yeah. I guess I can come to lunch with you today,” he agreed thoughtfully, eyeing her closely to try to read between her blinding lines, and to try to figure out what was really going on.
“Great. I’ll see you at noon.” She grinned at him and then turned and left, telling herself over and over again like a mantra that they could be real friends, really great friends, and it would work.
At noon, he appeared at Tia’s desk and waited for her, and she came out ready to go. She drove them in her convertible, and they headed north out of the city, shooting along the highway straight up the middle of the island.
“I haven’t seen the car that we got for you. Is this the car? Did we get a convertible for you?” he asked with a delighted smile on his face as he looked it over on the inside.
“Yes, you did, and thank you! I love it. I really love it. It’s the perfect car for this island!” She grinned at him, and he laughed softly. She was happy. It felt right. It felt like her plan might work, and things might fall right into place just as they should. The two of them could be good friends, and things would be ideal. She could live with being good friends with her boss, but not lovers. It was much too complicated being lovers, and good friends was going to be a workable, acceptable substitute for both of them.
“So, where are we going?” he asked, looking over at her with dark sunglasses over his warm brown eyes.
She winked at him. “We’re going on an adventure. We’re going to see if we can find some rainbow eucalyptus.”
“Some what?” he asked her in confusion, leaning closer as if he was sure that he hadn’t heard her correctly.
“Rainbow eucalyptus. Auntie, that is my neighbor, was telling me about them the other day. I thought you might like to see them too.” She gave him a sweet smile, and he reached up and pulled his sunglasses off.
“Auntie? Like, island Auntie, not relative Auntie?” he asked, giving her a sort of intense look. She nodded.
“Yeah, she isn’t a relative. She’s my neighbor. She told me to call her Auntie. Why? What’s wrong with that?” she asked, feeling a little defensive of it.
He frowned and shook his head. “I’ve been here for six months, and not a single woman here has allowed me to call her Auntie. Six months! You’ve been here thirty seconds, and you already have an Auntie telling you all the secrets of the island.” He turned his eyes back to the road ahead with a dejected look on his face.
She laughed out loud at him and reached her hand over to pat his shoulder. “I’ll introduce you to her, and then she will be your Auntie too. I can share. Don’t you fret.”
He laughed then and looked back at her. “You’re a good woman, Nicole. A very good woman.” His voice had a kind of serious tone, although he covered it with a smile and dash of humor.
They reached the Dole plantation a short while later, and she parked in the parking lot. They were able to find several rainbow eucalyptus trees right away; it was almost as if Dole had paved their parking lot right through a grove of them, leaving a handful of them to keep growing after the pavement dried.
“What in the world am I looking at?” Dane asked in total astonishment as they stood before one of the biggest trees, running their bare hands over the cool and moist feeling bark. The bark of the trees around them was mostly orange and green, and when they peeled some of the dried husk off of the outside of the tree, they found more brightly colored bark beneath it, also in oranges and greens.
“I guess this is a rainbow eucalyptus. She said they’re really rare, and that they’re very special trees.” She leaned her head back and looked up into the branches of the towering lord before her.
“I’ve never seen anything like it. This is amazing.” Dane stated incredulously as he too looked far up into it.
When they’d seen a few of them and taken a few pictures together with them, he looked toward the plantation. “Did I just hear a train whistle?” he asked in surprise.
“Yeah, I think you did. I looked this plantation up on the web and I guess there’s a train that runs through it, a gift shop, a restaurant, and a few other fun things, but the best thing about this place, and one of the biggest reasons that it’s really on the map, aside from pineapples of course, is their hedge maze.” She looked over at him with a smile.
His eyebrows rose. “A hedge maze? Like, a wander around through tall hedges in a maze and try to get lost and then try to find your way again kind of maze?”
She nodded. “Yes. The website said it’s the biggest in the world, or one of them. It’s got a lot of other things in it, but the big thing is it’s got a hedge in the shape of a pineapple inside of it.”
His eyes grew wide and he grinned at her with high hopes. “Can we please give it a try? Come on… come with me. I’d love to do it!”
She didn’t need asking twice. She nodded quickly, and they hurried off to the ticket booth and then to the opening gate of the maze. Minutes later, they were walking through it, down some long corridors, then down shorter corridors, around strange corners, and then into dead ends.
They walked all over it, and after half an hour, they finally stopped. She turned to look at him and gave him a helpless look. “I think we’re good and truly lost.”
“Do you want to call for help?” he asked, indicating the get out of jail or the maze free rescue flag they had.
She shook her head. “No way! I’m not giving up.”
“Me either.” He shook his head and put the flag back down low. A crack of thunder overhead made them look up, and just as they did, both of their faces felt small sprinkles of rain, which swiftly became big droplets of rain.
“Oh no!” Nicole cried out. She was wearing a white blouse, and she knew that in no time at all, it would be totally soaked through. Worse than that, though, was the fact that she didn’t have an umbrella.
“Wait! I remember a tree over in a corner not far from here. It was a dead end. I remember telling myself not to go for the tree, but now I think it’s our best bet.” He grabbed her hand in his, and she ran behind him as they tried to work their way back through some of the maze. Just a few minutes later, he found it, and they ducked beneath its thick branches.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea to stand under a tree during a lightning storm,” she said worriedly, looking up.
He peered up into the sky too. “I haven’t seen any lightning. I think it’s just heavy rain now.” He couldn’t have been righter. The rain drops were bigger than any they had seen on the island before, and they weren’t going anywhere.
“I think we’re well and truly trapped!” she half laughed as she looked up at him. He was staring at her.
With one hand he brushed his fingers over her face and her hair, pushing the water off of her skin, though it did no good at all. Then, he moved his thumb over her lower lip and slipped his other hand behind her head, holding her as he bent forward to kiss her.
She tried to pull away at first, but his hands were firm on her, and she got nowhere. After a few brief moments, she didn’t want to pull away. He was warm and strong, and his scent and taste drew her in. She could not hold back her hunger to taste him and hold him. She kissed him in return, and she heard him moan softly as the rain washed straight down over both of them.
Dane didn’t lift his mouth from hers for a long while, and when he did, the haunted look was strong in his eyes. “Nicole… I know you keep saying that you don’t want anything to happen between us, no more romance, no more sex or intimacy, that you only want a business relationship with me, but I just don’t think I can do that.”
“What? Why not?” she asked worriedly, hoping that he could somehow manage to find some self-control around her.
He gave his head a shake and gazed into her eyes, holding his hands on either side of her face. “Because I’m falling in love with you. I tried to talk myself out of it. I tried to stop it. There’s no stopping it, and there’s no denying it. I’m falling in love with you, and I don’t want to try to stop it anymore. I want it. I want to fall madly, totally in love with you, and I want you to fall in love with me too. I want to share all the passion I have for you, all of this overwhelming emotion, with you, all of the time. It’s too much for me to feel it all on my own. It’s yours. It’s ours. Please…” he trailed off and closed his eyes, leaning his forehead against hers.
Her heart felt as if it was going to break. “Dane. I… I don’t know what to say,” she spoke quietly.
“Don’t say anything,” he replied quietly, but then he looked at her sharply again. “There’s also this business with Paul! I don’t like it. I don’t like it one bit that he’s coming after you, and he’s so set on winning you back and making you his again. I don’t want that to happen. I’m so afraid that you’re going to choose him over me, and then you’ll leave the company and go back to San Francisco with him! I can’t lose you, Nicole; I just got you, and I never want to lose you.”
She clenched her teeth for a moment in frustration and then shook her head. “No! It can’t happen this way. It can’t go like this! Dane, I’m not getting back together with Paul, no matter what he tries, and I’m not going to be with you! Not romantically. We can’t do that! We have the business to think of! We have our work relationship to think of! We just… we can’t! No matter what it feels like, it’s just not going to work out for us like that!”
She wished that there was some way that she could make him understand, make him see clearly just what she was talking about, but he was too wrapped up in her. He was, as he had just admitted to her, falling in love with her, and she knew that he wouldn’t be able to stop it, and she could see that he didn’t want to stop it. “Just business for us, okay?” she asked in a pleading tone.
He shook his head as he gazed at her face. “I can’t! I can’t do that. I can’t promise you that! I want you too much!”
The rain somehow grew stronger, pouring down on them both in rivulets as they had to raise their voices to speak above the pelting of the drops against all of the leaves and the ground around them.
“Look, I want you too, but I’m so afraid that it would be the wrong choice! I can’t make another mistake like that, especially not now, not at this new job. I’m just getting my new life in order! I can’t risk a heartbreak with my boss! You can’t risk losing me and me leaving the company over an affair! Why can’t you see that? Dane… there’s just nothing more to it. We have to stop!” she pleaded with him, and he could finally see that she meant it.
He stayed silent and raised the white flag on the pole up above the line of the hedge. He was surrendering. He was giving up.
She felt hot tears stinging her eyes, and she was grateful for the pouring rain that hid her tears from him. She turned away from him, and a short while later, an employee came and got them and took them out of the maze.
Glad that she had put the top up on her car, though it was to keep falling leaves from the eucalyptus trees out of it, they climbed in and were quiet all the way back to Honolulu, where it was sunny and dry, without a raindrop in sight.
He walked her to her office, and they both stopped short when they saw Paul sitting there in the waiting area. Dane frowned sharply at him and then turned to Nicole. He thanked her for the business lunch, and she nodded, but when he reached his hands and arms out to her, she turned away from him. He dropped his arms and went back to the elevator.
Paul was up and out of his chair in seconds with a dark look on his face. “Who was that guy?” He asked aggressively, shooting a nasty look at the elevator.
“That was my boss, Dane. Remember?” she said dryly, barely looking at Paul as she took her shoes off and wondered about going home to change her clothes, which were still stuck to her body.
“What were you doing outside of the office with him? You’re both soaking wet!” He was bitter about it, and she knew that his jealousy was strong.
Anger flushed through her, and she turned on her heel and faced him, planting her fists on her hips. “First of all, it was a business lunch, and second, it’s none of your damn business what I do or with whom I do it!”
He saw that he had gone too far, and he sighed, his shoulders shrinking down out of their defensive form. “Okay, I’m sorry, you’re right… I should trust you. But listen… come with me, huh? I need to talk with you. Just… just take a fast walk with me. Please.”
Nicole looked around the office and then down at her wet clothes. She realized that walking through the warm breezes and sunshine outside might actually dry her off a bit. “Okay, fine. Let’s go.” She sighed as she picked up her purse and walked with him to the elevator. She told Tia that she would be back soon, and they left.
Together they strolled away from the building and toward the beach a block away. The sun felt good on her body, warming her and drying her off, as well as drying her clothes a bit at a time.
When they reached the beach, Paul stopped and turned to face her. “Look, I know I’ve done a lot wrong, and I really, really screwed up when I let you go, but I am here to fix that, and I mean it. I want to be with you. I love you. I want to live with you and spend the rest of my life with you, and after talking about all of that with you, I just don’t think that you understand how serious I am. So, I’m going to prove to you just how serious I am about winning you back. You mean everything to me, baby. Give me another chance. I swear to you that I will never let you down again.”
With that, he dropped to one knee before her and reached into his pocket, pulling out a box. Her heart stopped in her chest as reality crashed over her like a tidal wave. He opened the box, and she saw a diamond ring inside of it.
“Marry me, Nicole. Marry me, be my wife, and make me the happiest man in the whole world,” he pleaded, gazing up at her.
Tears stung her eyes, and it felt to her as if the air that had frozen in her lungs had suddenly caught on fire. She was in no way prepared for what he had asked her, and as she stood there looking down at him, she knew that her one-word answer was going to crush him and break his heart, truly devastate him. She hated that she was going to have to say it, but there was no way around it.
Holding her hand to her mouth, she wiped at the tears in her eyes and took the box from him, looking at the ring for a long moment and wondering what her life with him could be like if she could find a way to say yes to him.
Breathing in deeply, she pursed her lips together and looked up, trying to find the kindest words she could. What she found was another man, standing thirty feet away from her, wearing a soaking wet business suit and an expression of absolute pain and heartbreak on his face. It was Dane.
She realized that he must have followed them from the office, and he had seen Paul’s proposal to her. Dane turned and walked away swiftly, and she tried to call out to him, but he was gone, disappearing into a crowd of tourists.
Paul looked around and frowned, and then grabbed her hand, looking up at her anxiously. “Nicole! Please!”
Nicole pulled him to his feet and shook her head slowly. “I can’t marry you, Paul. I am not the right woman for you. You need someone who will adore you, and that is never going to be me.”
“I am not going to give up on you, Nicole,” he promised her. “I’m not!”
“Go back to San Francisco, Paul!” she pleaded with him as she pushed the box with the ring back in his hand. Then, she turned and ran after Dane.