CHAPTER SEVEN
Elle
I woke to my phone buzzing somewhere outside the bed, insistent and far away, and for a second, I couldn’t figure out where I was or why the mattress smelled so good.
Harrison was asleep beside me, one arm thrown over his eyes, not touching me, which felt strange after last night and also, somehow, exactly right. Like even unconscious he knew how to give a person room.
The buzzing kept going.
I slid out from under the blanket as carefully as I could manage, grabbing a flannel shirt from the chair near the door.
I realized I hadn’t had my phone out since I’d gotten here.
It was tucked in the side pocket of my purse.
Grabbing it, I padded barefoot into the kitchen before I answered it, glancing back down the dark hall once to make sure I hadn’t woken Harrison. I looked at the number and sighed.
“Hello, Mr. Cole.”
“Elle. I was starting to think you’d driven off the side of my grandson’s mountain.”
“Close. My car died instead. And there’s a blizzard, Mr. Cole. In September.”
“I heard. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” I leaned against the counter, pulling the shirt tighter around me. “He hasn’t given his approval yet.”
A pause on the line, longer than I expected. “But you’re still there.”
“I’m snowed in, not on vacation.”
“Mm.” He didn’t sound convinced, and I decided I didn’t have the energy at whatever hour this was to unpack why.
“Mr. Cole, I need to ask you something, and I need you to be honest with me.”
He hesitated. “What would you like to know?”
I took a deep breath and asked the question that I’d been afraid to ask for the last month. About the rumors that had been circling like sharks in the water. “Is the board trying to oust you?”
Another pause, this time longer. “I’m afraid so, dear.”
Everything fell into place. All the deals that he’d decided needed to be approved by his grandson. Delivered to the mountain by a different person every time.
“Did he finally ask? And did you tell him what you suspected?”
“He didn’t ask in so many words. And it’s not my place to tell him. It’s yours.” I couldn’t help the slight accusatory tone.
“I know, my dear. I was hoping. Well, I was hoping for a lot of things. The board,” he said finally, quiet in a way I’d never heard from him in a year of taking his calls and drafting his letters.
“They’re making a move I didn’t see coming until it was already halfway made.
I’ve been counting on Harrison’s sign-off to remind them this is still a family business.
Every time he’s said no, I’ve lost more ground with people who are looking for a reason to push me toward the door. ”
“You should have told him that from the beginning.”
“No,” he said, and something in his voice sharpened, more certain than anything else he’d said on the call.
“If Harrison knew what was riding on it, he’d be on a plane tonight, and he’d spend the rest of his life believing he only came back because I was drowning.
I won’t have that. I’d rather lose the company. ”
“It’s his company, too,” I reminded him gently.
“It’s not if he doesn’t want it anymore. Get home safe when the roads clear, Elle.”
He hung up before I could say anything else. I found Harrison awake when I went back to the bedroom, sitting up against the headboard.
“Everything okay?”
“No.” I sat on the edge of the bed, still wrapped in his shirt, and told him.
All of it. The board, the vote coming. And the reason he’d been sending projects up the mountain for Harrison’s approval.
He was quiet for a long moment, looking out of the window instead of at me.
Outside there was a hint of blue sky indicating the storm was probably over this time.
“He built that company out of nothing,” he said finally. “I always assumed he’d be fine no matter what happened to it. I never thought he’d need me to keep it.”
“He needs you now. Whether or not he’ll ever say it that plainly.”
“He doesn’t need me. He needs the name attached to a signature. That’s not the same thing.” Harrison swung his legs over the side of the bed, dragging a hand down his face, and for a second I thought that was the whole conversation — a fact stated, a door closed.
“That’s not fair, and you know it.”
“It’s the truth.” He stood, walked across the floor and took out a pair of sweatpants from his dresser.
He pulled them on with his back to me, which felt like its own kind of answer.
“I made my choice about that company ten years ago. It’s his.
It’s not mine anymore. I don’t want it to be mine anymore. ”
“So you don’t care that he’s about to lose it.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“No. But actions speak louder than words, Harrison.” I got up, suddenly very aware of how little either of us was actually wearing for a conversation like this.
“You’ve said no to him three times this year.
Real no’s. Not I’m thinking about it no’s.
And now you know exactly what those no’s have cost him, and you’re standing there getting dressed like the next logical step is breakfast.”
“The next logical step is I call him and find out what he actually needs, instead of guessing.” His voice had an edge now, low and controlled in the way I was starting to recognize meant he was working hard to keep it that way. “That’s not nothing, Elle.”
“It’s not enough either.”
“You don’t get to tell me what’s enough when it comes to my own family.”
I walked over to him. I didn’t care that I was half-dressed and furious and probably not making the argument as clean as I wanted it.
“You built a whole life up here so nobody could need anything from you. That was the point. And now the one person who actually does need something reaches out to you and your first instinct is to get dressed and go on with your day.”
Something flashed across his face, fast and sharp. “That’s not what I’m doing.”
“Isn’t it?”
He didn’t answer that. He walked out of the bedroom instead, and I followed him down the hall into the kitchen, both of us barefoot on the cold floor, neither of us finished.
“You want to know what I think?” I said, to his back, as he braced both hands on the counter. “I think it’s easier to say the company isn’t yours any more than to admit you’re scared of what happens if you walk back into that building and find out you still care.”
He turned around fast enough that I actually stopped talking. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Then tell me I’m wrong.”
He didn’t. The silence went on just long enough to answer the question anyway.
I turned and walked into the bathroom and began dressing, not even bothering to close the door.
I groaned when I realized my bra and panties were laying on the hallway floor.
Instead of going to get them, I took off the flannel shirt and slipped on my dress, then my blazer.
My totally unsuitable shoes were in the corner where I’d left them.
Marching out of the bathroom, I picked up my purse from the coffee table. The document I’d come all the way up the mountain to be reviewed still lay there.
I wondered if he knew how simple he could have made helping his grandfather.
Ignoring it, and him, I started for the door.
I heard noise behind me but didn’t turn around.
“Here.” His voice had gone flat. “That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”
I turned around to find him holding out the document. I saw his big, bold signature written across the first page. “No.”
“No?”
“That’s what you told me, wasn’t it? No, you didn’t want to know about it. No, you didn’t want to help.”
And now, no, you didn’t want me.
That day, I would have taken the document and driven off this mountain thrilled. Now. Now my heart was breaking for so many reasons.
The worst one of all was that somehow, I’d fallen in love with Harrison Cole.
“Take it, Elle. That’s what he needs. He doesn’t need me.”
“Oh, you arrogant man. Of course he needs you.”
I need you, I whispered to myself, but didn’t let the words escape me.
“I have my own life now.”
“A lonely, cold sad one if you ask me.”
“Well, no one asked you.”
I wanted to stomp my foot in frustration. “He needs you, Harrison. The board’s going to oust him, and you know exactly how ruthless a board gets when it smells blood. You don’t need me to tell you that. You ran that company. You know how this ends if nobody stops it.”
I let the words, if you don’t stop it, hang in the air between us.
“It’s his company.” His jaw was tight enough I could see it working. “Not mine. Not anymore. And more importantly, I don’t want it.”
“I know that.”
“Then what exactly are we arguing about?”
“How do you not know what we’re arguing about?” I threw back at him, and I hated how much my voice shook. “How do you know you don’t want any of it — the company, people — when you’ve been up here for ten years being perfectly happy all by your arrogant self?”
“You already called me that. Several times.”
Another piece of my heart died. Because if that was true — if he really was fine, completely, entirely fine, alone on this mountain missing nothing — then last night hadn’t been what I’d let myself think it was. I had been a warm body to hold. Nothing more.
I took the folder out of his hand because despite everything, his grandfather still needed it.
“Congratulations,” I said. “You got exactly what you wanted.”
He just stood there, arms crossed. “What are you doing?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” I didn’t look at him. Couldn’t look at him. “I’m going back to my life so I don’t disrupt yours anymore. And I’m taking this,” I almost shouted as I took the coat I’d worn yesterday and struggled to put it on before opening the door and walking outside.