Chapter 11
Declan
I never thought I’d see this day—the day where I would be forced to choose between a woman and the betterment of my business. Who knew? And yet, that day had actually arrived, and I found myself in a position where I had to make a very difficult choice.
Emma had confided in me last week that Josh was her ex-fiancé. Just knowing that she’d almost married the man that I was considering endorsing had my head completely turned upside down. She had told me that she’d been engaged before, and that she’d had a lot of issues in that relationship—which, of course, had been one of the main reasons she hadn’t been looking for anything serious the night she met me. But now I was having feelings for her that I had never had for any other woman and I had really been wanting to make things between the two of us official. Most of all, however, I wanted to change her mind about moving back down south.
I wasn’t sure exactly how Emma felt about us just yet, though our last date had been wonderful—at least from my perspective. I felt that it was an amazing rendezvous and the more that I got to know Emma, the more I wanted to know about her. And the more time that I spent with her, the closer I wanted to get to her.
Emma was truly unlike any woman I had ever met before. She was pretty, intelligent, witty, and had a sense a humor. She was also very genuine and had a unique zest for life that made me feel so much younger whenever I was around her. Her personality was so bubbly and down-to-earth, and she appreciated each and every little thing I did for her, much unlike those stuck-up, spoiled, shallow types that I was used to meeting.
And I also knew that she had issues when it came to relationships. She had even told me that she had problems trusting men—especially after what had happened between her and Josh. Now that I knew everything she’d told me about her last relationship had actually happened with him, it had all become a lot more real to me and a hell of lot clearer.
I had a plan to prove to her that I really wanted a serious relationship. It may not be exactly an easy feat but it was definitely going to be the right thing to do.
Also, talking with Emma about our past relationships had brought up memories of my own painful past and the insecurities it caused—something I hadn’t liked to think about over the years. The only other woman I had ever loved had betrayed me many years ago, and I knew that had something to do with why I hadn’t been a serious relationship in nearly a decade.
I had a meeting with Josh the following week, and though I had already made my decision internally about whether to take him on as an endorsement client, I wasn’t completely ready to tell him about my decision yet. Even more importantly, I wasn’t quite ready to tell my father about it. I already knew how my father was going to react to this situation, and I was not looking forward to it, at all.
My father was not the kind of man who put family before the good of the company. He never had been and he probably never would be. Shit, I remembered more than one anniversary date he and my mother had planned together that he blew off for last-minute business meetings. I remembered numerous times where my mother would be crying but trying to play it off whenever he’d come home late after having blown off another one of their dates for a work client.
I remembered so clearly all the pain that my dad’s choices had clearly caused my mother and I did not want to cause Emma that kind of emotional pain—especially with her being the first woman I actually cared about more than myself and my own carnal desires.
I was pretty certain that Emma was feeling the same way about me that I was feeling toward her but she was just allowing way too many of her insecurities get in the way of her emotions. I might have been an alpha playboy in the past, but I certainly wasn’t a heartless fucking prick. I knew when a woman was having deeper feelings for me than she wanted to admit, and Emma definitely fell into that category.
She had actually opened up to me and had told me that she’d been having thoughts about changing her mind about leaving. But she’d already given the school her termination notice and they had already found another teacher to take her place.
Emma was a career-minded woman, as well, which was another thing I admired about her. She wasn’t happy if she wasn’t working. I knew that she wouldn’t be content with just sitting around the house and not feeling like she was being productive in some way.
For the very first time in my adult life, I was far more interested in a woman for who she was rather than merely how hot or sexy she looked who how good she was in bed—and for a man like me, that was saying a lot, quite a lot. I hadn’t had a serious relationship with any woman since I was back in my college years.
I decided to take her out someplace where we could talk. I wanted to make sure that my feelings were being reciprocated. I found Emma’s number in my contacts list and called her.
She answered almost immediately. “Hello, Declan! Hey, how’s it going?”
“Good, thanks. How have you been, lovely?”
“Not too bad. It’s nice to hear from you,” she replied.
“It’s good to hear your voice, as well. I was wondering, are you available sometime this week? There’s something I’d like to talk to you about.”
“Um, sure. How about tomorrow night?” she suggested. “Around seven?”
“Works for me,” I told her. “I’ll send a car at seven.”
* * * * *
The following night, I sent a car to her house and we met up at Central Park.
“You look beautiful,” I told her as she climbed out of the backseat of the BMW I had sent to pick her up.
“Thanks,” she said, looking up at me with those doe-like eyes of hers.
“You wanna go for a walk?” I asked.
“Sure.” She smiled and allowed me to take her hand as we stepped onto one of the paved trails.
“So, I wanted to talk to you about something that’s been on my mind,” I said.
“What’s up?” she asked.
“I’ve been thinking about us, and everything we’ve been doing over the past few weeks. I wanted to know how you felt about us,” I explained. “And I also wanted to tell you that I’m not going to sign a contract with Josh Davis.”
“Oh,” she replied, seemingly at a loss for words.
I figured that either my question or my statement must have taken her somewhat by surprise.
“I, uh, I’m not sure what you want me to say,” she said as she looked at the ground as we walked. It was like she was refusing to look me in the eye.
“I don’t want you to say anything. I just want to know how you feel—about me—about us, in general,” I elaborated.
“Oh,” she said again, growing quiet as we walked through Central Park hand in hand.
“Oh?” I repeated, looking directly over at her.
“I guess I haven’t really given it a lot of thought,” she said softly. I knew she was holding back how she really felt. The truth was evident in her eyes—those beautiful brown eyes…
“Well, even if you’re not ready to admit how you feel, Emma, I wanted to take this opportunity to let you know that I am having very strong feelings for you. I haven’t felt this way about a woman in quite a long time. I’m falling in love with you,” I confessed, stopping to look deep into her eyes as I let the words flow freely.
She paused for a moment, looking as if she was in shock, and then looked back into my eyes. “You know, after everything that went down with my ex, I just thought that true love wasn’t meant for me, you know? I mean, to be honest, I have a lot of insecurities that I don’t like to talk about and that I try to keep hidden deep down inside. But when I’m with you, Declan, I feel like true love is actually possible. You make me feel like you could very well be the man I’ve been waiting for,” she confessed.
“Believe it or not, Emma, I can relate,” I told her softly. “I’ve never said this to any other woman, but I feel like you should know, especially if we’re considering taking things to the next level.”
Though I hated to admit it, as I thought back about my college years, a young lady by the name of Summer Rawlings popped into my head. Summer just happened to be the first and the last young woman I’d had a serious relationship with.
I said, “I was in my senior year of high school, and Summer and I had gotten very close over the past several months. She was older than I was by three months, and her birthday was coming up. I was head over heels for this girl; she was definitely my very first love. We had both gotten accepted to the same college and were planning to get married after we graduated with our degrees. I was going for business management, of course, and she was taking up law. She wanted to be a business lawyer and eventually start her own law firm.
“I had planned on making her my wife and personal business lawyer, and she knew that my family had the money to help her start her own law firm—especially if we got married. Well, everything seemed to be going according to plan. I graduated with my business degree and she eventually graduated from law school. I helped her study for her bar exam and she passed it with flying colors. I proposed to her after we graduated.”
Emma nodded while she listened.
Encouraged, I continued, “While planning our extravagant wedding, because I had wanted to give her the wedding of her dreams, she took me with her to show me the building she wanted to purchase to start her law firm. It was a nice little red brick building with three floors and offices on each floor. I asked her why she needed such a big building if she just wanted to have one law office inside of it.”
Emma watched me intently as I continued my story—a story I had never shared with another woman before. For some reason, though, I felt comfortable sharing it with her. It felt—natural.
“She told me that she wanted to start her own law office on one floor and rent out the other two floors to other businesses. To me, a young, ambitious businessman who was also totally and completely in love with her, it sounded like a reasonable plan. She could live off the money she was charging to rent the other floors out until she built up her law firm and had a steady flow of clients coming in and out.”
Emma listened silently, watching me with those brown eyes as I spoke. She took my hand.
“Well, to my surprise,” I said with a bitter laugh, “it turned out that as soon as I’d invested my parents’ hard-earned money into purchasing that building, and the building was completely paid for, and the deed was in her name, she broke things off with me. A month before our wedding. She told me that I had been distant and she no longer felt close to me. She accused me of cheating on her and said some bullshit that her friends had seen me with other women. I still remember that day as if it had just happened last week. She wouldn’t even look me in my face as she spoke.”
Emma gave my hand a squeeze and we looked into each other’s eyes. I felt closer to her at that moment than I had ever felt before.
“It was mainly because she was lying to my fucking face,” I said. “Not even a month after the wedding was supposed to have taken place, she had some guy named David Markovich renting out the second floor of the building that my family’s money had paid for. I may have been head over heels in love but I certainly wasn’t fucking stupid idiot. Even the blindest, dumbest fool could have two and two together in that particular situation.”
Emma looked at me lovingly and placed a hand on my shoulder. “Thank you for sharing that with me,” she said tenderly.
We shared a sweet, intimate kiss right there in the middle of Central Park.
* * * * *
I’d had to wait until I was twenty-five before I could collect the $500,000 savings bond that my parents had put back for me for after I’d completed college and was ready to start out on my own.
The worst part about the entire situation was that I honestly had never even suspected the conniving, underhanded move that Summer had made. I had been completely blinded by my love and adoration for her, and I had developed an unconditional trust in her. So, after having been played for a fucking fool like that, I had made a vow to never let my feelings get involved in any relationship I ever had with any other woman after her.
After that shit that went down with Summer, I’d also made a promise to myself that I’d never let my guard down again. And so, for the next decade, all my relationships, if you’d even want to call them that, had been merely superficial, lust-driven flings.
I would meet a gorgeous, sexy woman and immediately put on the irresistible Erikson charm. But those flings never lasted more than a few weeks or so—a few months at the most. I would either become bored with the woman, or I would meet someone else and give my current “friend-with-benefits” that same lame break-up speech that I gave the rest of them.
But I had always been up front and honest with each and every one of my flings. I never led any of them on or made them think that things were more serious than they actually were. I made it a point to always tell them right away that I was not looking for anything serious, and that I was just looking to have a little bit of no-strings-attached fun. Believe it or not, most of the time, those women were absolutely fine with it. They would literally tell me that they weren’t looking for anything serious, either—and that they just wanted to have some fun while they were in between serious relationships or focusing on their career or schooling.
Anyway, on my thirty-fifth birthday, my parents approached me and came right out and asked how much more time I was planning to waste in frivolous, meaningless flings before I found a woman with some character, depth, and trustworthiness. Basically, someone who I could settle down with and officially make a permanent part of the family business. Apparently, they had grown tired and impatient with me as far as far as my bachelor playboy lifestyle was concerned.
Now, at first, my initial attitude toward their seemingly new viewpoint regarding my carefree, unattached personal lifestyle was a somewhat rebellious one. I originally became a little bit upset about the fact that they seemed to be, out of the fucking blue, totally against my lifestyle—after nearly a goddamned decade of them never having shit to say about it. At first, I didn’t quite understand what their problem was and I’d acted out in a rebellious manner.
But, finally, my father sat me down and explained to me that eventually I was going to need to carry on our company’s legacy and that meant settling down with a woman of depth and character—a woman I could completely and thoroughly trust—and getting married and continuing the Erikson name and company legacy.
Before I met Emma, I’d never really understood exactly what my parents had meant. But ever since meeting her, I had become convinced that she and I could have something amazing. We could have something I never got a chance to have before.