Chapter 14
Hannah
“T his is incredible,” I told Tanner honestly as I took a seat and fastened my seatbelt the following afternoon.
The cream leather seats and furniture were so luxurious it was ridiculous, but the bedroom, bathroom, and galley kitchen that I’d just toured were way over the top.
It made sense for Tanner to have the jet, and to be comfortable while he was traveling, but it was stunning to realize just how much outrageous wealth he actually had now.
Yes, he’d been wealthy by the end of our relationship, but he hadn’t spent much of that money, and they’d put a lot back into their business at the time to keep gobbling up more assets.
He’d still been busy trying to conquer the world.
“I don’t travel as much as I used to,” Tanner said as he took the seat next to mine. “But when I do travel, it’s nice to get to where I’m going feeling rested.”
“No more jet lag?” I asked.
Tanner had battled with jet lag from traveling internationally, so I knew exactly what he was talking about. He’d never slept well on a commercial plane, so he always drank a lot of coffee to compensate for his lack of sleep.
“Not anymore,” he said drily. “It’s hard not to sleep in a dark bedroom with a comfortable bed, and I eventually got used to switching time zones.”
“Are you still acquiring new companies?” I asked, genuinely interested in how much KTD had grown.
“Yes,” he affirmed. “But not like we did at the beginning. We have to have some personal interest in a company. We’re the parent company for a lot of very valuable businesses now. That keeps us busy, and at some point, you have to stop acquiring businesses and focus on and perfect the ones that are already huge producers. We’re picky about what we acquire these days. KTD is a mature holding company now. We don’t need to pick up every company available and make them into huge, moneymaking corporations. Life and work has changed for me, Hannah. I still work hard, but I’m not willing to sleep in my office anymore. Losing our father changed things for all of us. I think we realized that the only thing in our life was KTD. We all had a lot of regrets about not spending more time with my father while he was still with us. Granted, there was no way of knowing what would happen to him, but I think we all had to face the fact that none of us are going to live forever. Neither are our loved ones. It was time for us to step back and realize that we only have so much time, and we want to be able to say that we don’t have any regrets. Mom will never admit it, but she needed us after our father died, and we’re always going to be there for her.”
I reached out instinctively and took his hand. “I get that. I feel the same way about my own mother. She’d never admit that she needed me here, either, but I think that heart attack scared her. I know it scared the shit out of me. I guess it’s just hard to imagine you living a quieter life. You always needed more hours in the day for KTD.”
He squeezed my hand. “Actually, I didn’t. I just didn’t realize it back then. We didn’t need to build KTD at a breakneck pace like we did. I think success got to all of us, and we lost our minds. I don’t think any of us were prepared for that kind of success, and we got caught up in that. KTD could have become successful at a slower pace, but we were all too bullheaded to realize what we were sacrificing at the time.”
I was finally willing to admit that it seemed that Tanner had changed.
Just like me, he’d grown up while I was out of his life.
He’d actually left work a little early to pick me up today, and judging by his frequent appearances to take me places, he wasn’t obsessing over KTD.
He or one of his brothers stopped by the ranch to check on Millie every single day.
Honestly, it was a miracle that he was taking me to Helena for the weekend because he was visiting an old friend.
That wouldn’t have happened after his business had started to grow at a crazy pace.
He seemed…settled and at peace with who he was now.
He was comfortable with his outrageous wealth, and he didn’t seem like that money ruled his life.
Tanner drove a luxury SUV, and he had the perks of his wealth like this crazy, extravagant private jet, but he didn’t have as many toys as some billionaires.
The house I’d helped him plan was large with some features that most people couldn’t afford, but it wasn’t an opulent mansion dipped in gold.
Nobody that met Tanner in person would know that he was extraordinarily wealthy.
He was a nice guy who didn’t mind getting his hands dirty to help a neighbor who needed him.
Suddenly realizing that I still had a tight grip on Tanner’s hand, I immediately started to pull back, but he held on tighter, and I simply relaxed.
Even though I was starting to crave this kind of closeness with Tanner, it was still dangerous, but I decided to just trust my instincts.
“How long will you be tied up with the wedding tomorrow?” Tanner asked casually.
“All morning and afternoon,” I explained. “I can’t leave until the bride is ready to walk down the aisle, and I’m doing makeup and hair for her maid of honor and two bridesmaids. It’s an important family, and they’re paying me a fortune to be there. It was a referral from a wedding I did in Washington. I’m hoping it might get me more business here in Montana.”
“If you had contractors in Helena, you could be managing this wedding from Crystal Fork,” he said lightly. “Have you thought about my partnership offer at all?”
“You just said that you’re picky about acquisitions,” I teased.
“It wasn’t a business proposition or a proposed offer from KTD,” he said huskily. “You wouldn’t be partnering with KTD. You’d be partnering with me. It was a personal offer.”
I leaned my head back against the comfy headrest and let out a long breath. I felt like I should be honest with him. “Give me some time, Tanner. I want to build my reputation here in Montana. This business could fail miserably. Do I want to go back to having a successful business? Yes, of course I do, but I’ve had the experience of being successful before. Part of that satisfaction was knowing my partners and I had done it on our own.”
How could I possibly partner with Tanner anyway?
Every time I looked at him, I wanted to rip his clothes off and explore that hard body of his in the most carnal ways possible.
As hard as I’d tried, I couldn’t seem to shake the desire to be a lot more intimate with him.
I liked this new Tanner a lot, but I wasn’t sure I could be his friend and business partner.
“What if I just give you an interest free business loan that you can pay back whenever you can afford it?” he questioned.
“I’d think you were crazy,” I said wryly. “You’re a business genius. You of all people know that would be a horrible deal for you.”
I finally pulled my hand from his, and I felt that loss of contact almost instantly.
He took my hand back and rested our joined hands on the big arm rest between us. “This isn’t about business or making a profit,” he said in a graveled voice. “I want you to be happy. Believe it or not, I still care about you, Hannah. I can’t just turn that off because we aren’t together as a couple anymore.”
God, I still cared about him, too. Probably more than I should. But I couldn’t just take his money. “If I did decide to take you up on your offer, we’d have to work out better terms for you. This would be a huge risk on your part. And I’m not ready to take that risk quite yet. I’m not even established here yet.”
“The offer is always going to be open, Hannah,” he said. “Take your time.”
I let out a sigh of relief that he’d backed down and given me some space.
One thing I could say about Tanner is that he knew me.
I think he sensed that I wasn’t ready, and he wasn’t going to push me any harder yet.
I relaxed as the jet started down the runway, and I knew we were about to approach takeoff.
I loved to fly, and this was an experience I was going to enjoy.
I hadn’t gotten the opportunity to travel much in the past, but it had always been my dream to see more of the world. Especially the places that really intrigued me.
I closed my eyes as the jet started accelerating down the runway.
“Still dreaming about visiting Australia?” Tanner asked as we went airborne.
I opened my eyes and looked out the window as we climbed. “Yes,” I confessed. “I haven’t gotten there yet.”
Australia was the first on my list of places I wanted to go, and Tanner knew it. I’d been talking about it from the day we’d met.
We’d been planning that destination for our honeymoon because he’d never been, and he’d wanted to go there, too.
“Someday, I’m going to make good on my promise to take you there. I haven’t been there, either.”
I turned my head to look at him in surprise. “You’ve never had to travel there?”
He shook his head. “It wouldn’t have been the same without you there. Devon and Kaleb have been there on business, but I stayed behind and held down the fort at the headquarters.”
I almost melted as our eyes met, and I saw a flash of regret in those gorgeous eyes before he could shutter it.
He’d actually avoided going to Australia? Because it had been our dream vacation?
“You made that promise a long time ago,” I said softly.
“I guess I never forgot that I promised to take you there on our honeymoon,” he grumbled. “I couldn’t muster up much enthusiasm about seeing The Great Barrier Reef with my brothers.”
“I can’t just go with you to Australia.”
He grinned. “Of course you can. I have a private jet. It would actually be quite easy to arrange.”
He was insane, but there was something sweet about the fact that he wanted to fulfill an old promise to me.
“I’ll get there someday,” I said. “There’s no reason for you to feel like you have to make good on a promise you made a long time ago, but thank you for offering.”
“We will go there together at some point in the future, Hannah. But I can be a patient man when I want something badly enough.”
I would have laughed if he hadn’t sounded so serious.
Tanner Remington was not usually a patient guy.
“If that’s true,” I replied. “Then you really have changed.”
“Maybe I’ve learned that some things are worth the wait,” he mused.
He didn’t explain that comment further, and I didn’t feel like I could ask him exactly what he meant.
However, I was pretty sure that he was biding his time, waiting for…something.
If he was waiting for me to tell him that I was willing to go on what should have been a very romantic honeymoon trip for the two us, he was going to be waiting forever.
At one time, that had been one of my dreams, but going with Tanner to Australia as a friend would be more like a nightmare for me.
It would be an excruciatingly painful experience for me.
I was finally beginning to realize that I’d never quite gotten over Tanner Remington.
It was a bad situation for me to be in because I knew we could never recapture the intimacy we’d once had between the two of us.
Yet, I still wanted to be near him. I wanted to know this intriguing man that had apparently changed profoundly since our last year or so together.
I’d put myself in this dilemma by agreeing to spend time with him.
The question was, what in the hell was I going to do now?