Chapter 15
Chapter
Fifteen
Karina
I changed the subject because if Kareem said he wouldn’t fire anyone else, I believe him. I knew the last few days had been stressful enough. I didn’t want to harp on something longer than we needed to.
Besides, Kareem’s platform was skyrocketing, and that needed to be celebrated. Oftentimes, business owners didn’t stop to acknowledge their wins because they were focused on the next. I didn’t want that to be the case here.
“Yeah, I guess so. That’s crazy to think about. That’s a lot of eyes on something that I created in my living room a few years ago.”
“And I am so proud of you, but you know we still have to do something about your personal page. Ray was right about personal branding. That’s the main reason I am here.
Yes, Rayla wants to highlight K&K Solutions and the possibility of such a lucrative deal, but you are the story, Kareem. I don’t want you to forget that.”
“Oh yeah? If personal branding is so important, why don’t you have social media? Couldn’t you benefit from the same thing you are trying to convince me to do, especially since you want to launch your own magazine? You could be growing before you start.”
I didn’t want to tell Kareem that I had plenty of faceless social media pages.
It wasn’t that I wanted to remain faceless, but because I’d used those same pages to keep up with him over the years.
What if I accidentally liked something that popped up under his suggestions? My cover would immediately be blown.
“Maybe you’re right,” I mumbled to keep from saying more.
“I know I am. After you graduated from high school and left, I searched for you online and couldn’t find anything. That’s not a good look because everyone has a page these days. Why don’t you? How come there’s no digital footprint on you?”
“I don’t need a digital footprint. I do not run a million-dollar tech company.”
“Well, let me ask you this. When you disappeared all those years ago, was it because you wanted to hide from me? Am I the reason you don’t have a presence online?”
How could I answer Kareem without hurting his feelings, because I was sure he didn’t really want to know the answer?
The truth was simple. Kareem was the reason I wanted to disappear.
He was, in fact, the reason I didn’t have an online presence.
Telling him that truth would only make him want to know the reason I left, and I wasn’t prepared for that.
I spent so many years trying to mold myself into the person I was today.
Revisiting my past felt like I would be going in the opposite direction of healing.
“I hope I’m not interrupting, but I need to borrow Karina for a minute.” Ray came in just in time to save me. “Do you mind coming to look over something for me?”
I looked at Ray, then back at Kareem. On one hand, I was happy to be getting out of this conversation. On the other hand, I knew it would come up again.
“Yeah, I’m sorry, Reem.”
“No problem. We can finish this later. I’m taking you out after we leave here. Pick you up around four?”
“Okay.”
It was, in fact, not okay. I knew Kareem would circle back to this conversation at some point because that was the kind of man he was.
He didn’t like leaving things unsettled, even when we were younger.
However, I assumed we would pick this up after I had time to sit with the question and come up with an answer that I thought would make sense to him.
I knew the one I had right now, the one that I had back then when I left, only made sense to me.
I couldn’t change our past. Kareem and I went to prom, had an amazing time, and the next day, I freaked out. I left my hometown as soon as I could and never looked back. Now, Kareem wanted to know why, and that was fair… Fair for him, at least.
I’d spent more time watching Bridgerton and its spinoff than I cared to admit, but it was something about Queen Charlotte that hooked me as soon as I saw her climbing that wall.
She was a girl trying to escape from the unknown.
She asked multiple people to tell her what type of man she was set to marry, and no one would give her a straight answer.
Running away was the logical choice if you were to ask me. If something scared you before you truly even knew what it was, running away was the safe choice. Who could blame a girl for being safe?
No one could blame her. That was what I told myself as I got dressed for yet another date with Kareem. It was what I was still telling myself as we drove to Kew Gardens.
Kew Gardens felt so familiar since I’d watched Charlotte basically break and mend her own heart at this very place. Being here felt like another dream come true, and I was in awe of how dedicated Kareem was to making this trip about us more than about him and his company.
I was never a girl who liked to take the shine or who needed it more than the person next to me, but Kareem was showing me that, although it wasn’t something I needed, he wanted to give it to me anyway. That meant a lot to me and made approaching the inevitable conversation even harder.
When we pulled up to Kew Gardens, it was just as beautiful as it looked in the show.
The small palace was set on acres of land and surrounded by beautiful gardens.
Inside, it was filled with restaurants made for sitting down and talking.
I could have gone the rest of my life without talking if it meant discussing something I thought I’d buried.
Kareem hadn’t told me exactly where we were eating. We had just stepped into the palace and were taking in the scenery. It was beautiful.
He decided on The Botanical. It offered afternoon tea with a view of the pond. The view was truly magical, so much so that I had almost forgotten about my fear of coming on this date.
Eating at Kew Gardens was like taking a page from a plant girl’s Pinterest board, and I was definitely a plant girl. Not only was my apartment decorated with beautiful plants from the moment you walked in, but the theme also carried throughout the rest of the house.
It was the middle of winter, so I wasn’t expecting to see as many people outside eating, but they were here.
Everyone was dressed in long coats and boots.
Some even had scarves wrapped around their necks.
I was looking forward to the tea, hoping it would help me warm up.
Kareem was also wearing a long trench coat, and he looked good.
It didn’t take long for them to seat us, and watching him pull out a chair for me made him look even better. Kareem was all man, and it was something about the European style he was rocking today that put the icing on top of an already sweet cake.
“London is the final stop before we head back to the States. You got anything you want to check off your bucket list while we’re here? Want to grab some beans and toast or something?”
“I’ll pass on that one. It could be fun to hit all the major tourist spots in London. It kind of feels like New York to me, so I would love to be fully immersed in all this city has to offer before we are actually off to New York. You know? So that I can compare the two.”
“That makes sense.”
I was happy that Kareem didn’t pick up the conversation where we had left off in his office. All the anxiety I had about coming here was for nothing because it actually didn’t come up at all. We took our time enjoying ourselves at Kew Gardens.
Kareem bought me the most beautiful flowers for one of the carts. I held on to them for dear life as we finished our tour. I held onto Kareem’s arms even tighter. It wasn’t even something I intended to do. Walking in such a beautiful place, arm in arm with him, just felt right.
It made me feel bad about us not being in this place together sooner. What Kareem and I had was always special. I didn’t need a 96-hour tour to remind me of that, but it sure was giving me a front-row seat on the trip down memory lane.