Chapter 4
chapter
four
Izabel
“You’re not backing out from that date,” I heard Cindy say through my phone speaker. She was now my PA after I had been promoted to project manager.
Throwing myself into my job helped me through the grief, but I wouldn’t have made it without Cindy, especially when I lost my baby a mere four months after Drake’s death.
Pain dug into my chest.
Tears sprung to my eyes.
Would there ever come a time when their loss wouldn’t hurt?
That was why I’d finally agreed to go on an actual date and not one that was work-related.
Maybe falling in love with someone else was the answer.
Counseling sessions, group therapy, and the passage of time had dulled the ache, but there were still days of crippling pain.
“I’m not backing out. Kyle’s great.” He was the new architect at the firm and had been my date at the company gala last week.
I hadn’t experienced belly flutters the way I had with Drake, but I had accepted that my husband was the love of my life.
My soul mate. But like my grief counselor said, the heart had room to love more than one person, and it didn’t mean I was replacing Drake.
There was no replacing Drake.
But I had to move on somehow. Because this gaping emptiness? It had gone on for too long and I was barely existing outside my job.
A light sigh of relief whooshed at the other end of the line. “Good. I don’t know why you couldn’t find a match on RightSpark.”
It had been Cindy who opened an account for me on the online dating website saying she’d had much success there.
“Online dating doesn’t work for everyone. Just because it worked for you, it doesn’t mean it’d work for me. And, for the love of God, don’t go opening accounts for me on all these websites.”
A hearty laugh came over the phone. “I just hate to see a beautiful woman like you remain single for the rest of your life. I’m sure your husband would’ve wanted you to find someone else and be happy.”
I wasn’t sure that was a true statement. Drake was over-the-top possessive. I imagined even in death he wouldn’t be willing for another man to have me. The corners of my lips tipped into a small smile.
“Didn’t you meet Drake in school?” Cindy asked suddenly.
“I was in my last year of grad school,” I replied. “I was the nerdy girl my classmates dragged to a bar. At twenty-six, I’d never had a serious boyfriend.”
“I can’t believe that.”
“I had a scholarship at an Ivy League university and I wasn’t going to mess that up by getting distracted.”
“And then Drake swept you off your feet,” Cindy gushed.
I laughed. “You could say that.” Contrary to what people believed, SEALs were a low-key bunch when they were out in public.
I wasn’t even aware of their group at the noisy honky-tonk bar and hadn’t known that Drake had already singled me out from all the women in the establishment.
He startled me when I exited the ladies’ room and was about to attack him with pepper spray.
He disarmed me easily and somehow managed to charm me enough to leave the bar with him.
We ended up talking for hours in his pickup and had breakfast at a diner at two in the morning.
He was in the area because one of his buddies was from Ithaca and was getting married.
“He gave me the best six years of my life.” My voice cracked.
“Shit, honey, the last thing I want to do is set you back,” Cindy said.
“I’m okay.” And I was determined to move on, dammit .
“Have you heard from Marcus?” she asked.
I winced at the mention of Drake’s former commander.
If there was someone whose loss was beyond catastrophic, it was Marcus Harrelson.
To have lost his entire team and his family within days had proven too much for him to bear.
He’d drowned his sorrows in a bottle and gotten addicted to painkillers.
He got kicked out of the Teams. I’d visited him every few weeks after he’d come back from rehab.
“Yes. A couple of days ago.”
“Does he look better?”
“Yes. I think this time rehab will stick. He seems more focused at work.” I had gotten Marcus a job with the firm’s security department.
With Marcus’s background and the circumstances of his past, our boss was willing to overlook his one transgression of showing up drunk at work. But rehab had been a part of the deal.
“I feel so bad for him,” Cindy mumbled. My assistant had a soft spot for Marcus. “I wish Veteran’s Affairs would devote more budget to mental health.”
“Good luck with that,” I muttered. I wasn’t much into politics but had heard enough from Drake about every slash in budget for military veterans.
“Maybe I should make him a casserole this weekend,” she said.
“Cindy,” I warned. “Leave the man alone. He’s fine.”
“Well, I’ll let you go so you can get ready.”
When our call ended, my anticipation for the date soured a little. I had an hour and a half before Kyle picked me up at seven. I had time to psyche myself back into looking forward to dinner instead of dreading it.
I found my happiness nine years ago. Drake pursued me relentlessly between deployments.
We video chatted often when he was down range.
He’d scheduled deliveries of flowers and chocolates when he wasn’t around so I’d always think of him.
And when he returned, he tried as much as possible to see me, flying up to New York from Virginia Beach, even when it was simply to hang around my apartment while I studied for my finals.
Within eight months of knowing each other, we got married.
I moved to Virginia Beach and interned with Stockman and Bose Builders and had stayed in the area since.
Three months before that fated mission, Drake mentioned building a house.
He had a sizable inheritance from his grandmother’s side.
He had no close family to take care of since his parents died when he was young.
He was quitting the SEALs and had contacts in the private security business who were offering good money at more than triple his salary as a SEAL.
As if in a trance, I walked over to my home office and pulled out the bottom drawer of the stacking flat-file cabinet.
I gently lifted the sheets of vellum paper.
The beautiful two-story house I’d lovingly drawn was smeared in several places.
I didn’t care if more tears fell and splattered the ink on the design to the point of ruin.
This house would never be built.
“You’re so beautiful tonight.”
I lifted the wineglass and sipped, uncertain how to respond to Kyle’s compliment except, “Thank you.” What he didn’t know was I spent fifteen minutes with a cold compress to my swollen eyes after my bout of ugly crying.
“Do I make you uncomfortable?” Kyle asked gently.
“I haven’t been on a date for years. Ah…it’s a bit awkward.”
“Fair enough.” His blue eyes crinkled at the corners. “I hope you’re enjoying your dinner at least.”
We were at a French restaurant. He’d asked me about my favorite food.
Honestly, it would be Drake’s grilled steaks—his MadDog special—but that was hardly an appropriate answer, so I answered the next best thing…
anything cooked with a lot of butter. I wasn’t picky.
I’d known what it was like to go without, having almost become homeless in my teens when my mother could not work because of an injury.
“Oh, yes.” To prove my point, I forked a delicate morsel of buttered fish into my mouth. The track of Kyle’s eyes from my plate to my mouth almost made me choke, especially when I saw them spark with desire.
Drake often teased me about how just the sight of my bow-shaped lips made him hard.
I mentally berated myself for thinking of my dead husband while on a date with another man. Feeling rebellious at my inability to move on, I shot Kyle a sultry gaze. “Do you want to try my dish?”
Startled, color rushed up his cheeks. He was really handsome in that all-American golden-boy way. As opposed to Drake’s dark hair and rugged build, Kyle had a lean runner’s frame. And…there I went comparing the two again.
“Sure,” Kyle replied and shot me a goofy grin.
I cringed at the sound of my nervous giggle, but forced myself to dutifully lift a piece of fish and sweetly offered it to him to try. I inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly as I relaxed into conversation and our meal. It helped that we could talk about architectural trends and our projects.
“Congratulations on convincing the board to offer our services for free to the Solace affordable-housing project,” Kyle said.
“It wasn’t my accomplishment alone. My team helped, and so did the Solace Foundation.”
“Yes, but you spearheaded the program. You should be proud of what you’ve done.”
“It’s the right thing to do,” I said. “When my mother broke her wrist and couldn’t work at the salon, we couldn’t afford our mortgage and almost ended up on the streets.”
“But it didn’t happen, right?” Kyle frowned.
“No. Ma had an ace in her pocket,” I sighed. “She had to swallow a lot of her pride, but she got our heads above water. Still, I’ll never forget what that felt like.” Eating canned food for days, selling our television. My mother almost sold her treasured scissors—a hairstylist’s lifeblood.
“I’m confused. You did your undergrad and masters at Cornell.”
“I had a scholarship.” I smiled. “And Ma…”
“The ace in her pocket?” Kyle raised a brow.
“Nothing devious,” I replied. “Let’s just say I was given a fair chance to qualify. Hey, this is our first date. You’re not expecting me to tell you my life story, are you?”
Kyle grinned sheepishly and changed the subject.
After we ordered dessert, my gaze wandered around the restaurant. That was when I noticed a man at the corner of the nickel-plated bar.
“Kyle?”
“Yes, my sweet?”
The endearment made me pause, but I decided to roll with it. “I see a friend at the bar. Do you mind if I say hello?”
“Not at all,” Kyle replied as his gaze automatically pulled to the bar. “Go ahead.”