Chapter 28
VICTORIA
Betty was at her desk when I knocked, reading glasses on, a stack of papers in front of her that she was working through with a red pen. She looked up and waved me in without putting the pen down. The woman’s desk was never going to be cleaned off.
“Door opened or closed?” I asked.
“Closed. If it’s open, everyone comes in and out.”
I closed it and sat in the chair across from her. She finished making a note on whatever she was reading, capped her pen, and set it down. Then she took off her glasses and looked at me.
“Jeff Connors,” she said.
I barely concealed my grimace. “Okay.”
“He reached out last week.” She smiled and wrinkled her nose. “He’s considering a significant sponsorship for the upcoming gala. It would be a huge win.”
“That is huge,” I said.
“It is.” She folded her hands on the desk. “He wants a dinner meeting to discuss the terms. I’d like to send you. This is your baby and you would be able to give him all the ins and outs.”
I felt the smile on my face go slightly stiff. I kept it in place through sheer force of will. “The last dinner meeting I went to ended with me losing Jack Montana.”
Betty laughed. “You’ll be fine.”
“I know, I know.” I shifted in the chair. “It’s just, full disclosure? Jeff Connors was at the auction.”
She nodded. “I remember.”
“He was a little—” I paused, trying to find the word that was accurate without being melodramatic.
Or offensive, even if the guy was one of the most offensive men I’d ever heard.
“Aggressive isn’t quite right. Pushy, maybe.
Gross. The level of ick was a lot. I brushed it off at the time because it was a crowded room and I was focused on the event, but looking back on it, I didn’t love it. ”
She sighed, tapping her fingers on the desk.
“Victoria, I would never ask you to walk into a situation that makes you uncomfortable. Not for any amount of money. If you don’t want to handle this meeting, you don’t have to. I’ll find another way to handle it or I’ll go myself.”
She wasn’t trying to guilt me into the job, but I felt it. She did so much for the charity. I could get through a meal with a mildly gross guy.
“No,” I said. “I can handle it.” I thought about it for another second. “Does it have to be dinner though? Could it be something else? Could he just come here?”
Betty tilted her head. “Here?”
“To the office. An actual meeting in an actual conference room with an actual agenda.” I gestured vaguely at the room around us. “He’s considering a sponsorship. That’s a business arrangement. Why does it require a restaurant?”
She picked up her pen again and tapped it lightly against her notepad. “These finance types tend to work long days. They cram meetings into their meal breaks, too.” She paused. “But I understand your point.”
“A lunch meeting,” I said. “Could you get him to agree to lunch instead of dinner? It still has food. It still feels social. But it’s a different energy. More professional. I’d feel a lot better walking into a lunch meeting than a dinner one.”
“Yes, I think I can probably make that work. I’ll say it’s a scheduling issue.” She made a note. “Lunch it is. I’ll have his assistant reach out and we’ll find a date that works.”
“Thank you,” I said. And I meant it for more than just the scheduling adjustment.
She looked at me over the rims of her glasses. “You know you can always tell me when something feels off.”
“I know.” I stood and smoothed my skirt. “I’ll be ready. I can handle him. If he’s a jerk, I’ll walk away.”
“Good. We want his donation, but not that bad,” she said. “If he steps one toe across any lines, tell him to shove it.”
I walked back down the hall to my desk. Lunch with Jeff Connors would not be pleasant, but I had sat across from men like him my entire life. I knew how they operated. I spoke the language fluently even though I’d chosen to stop living in that world.
I could do this.
I packed up my desk a little after five, which was practically a miracle given the week I’d been having.
The afternoon had been quiet. Betty had left early for a board commitment and the rest of the staff had cleared out by four thirty.
I sat alone in the office for the last hour, catching up on emails and trying not to think about Jeff Connors and his pending lunch meeting.
I texted Callum and let him know I was on my way. We had taken a couple days off. Both of us needed to work. It was too easy to get caught up with one another and ignore everything else.
Callum answered the door before I could knock. He was in jeans and a gray T-shirt and holding two bottles of beer.
“You made it,” he said.
“I did.”
He grinned and stepped back to let me in. The house had a different energy tonight. It was alive. I could hear voices coming from the back terrace.
He handed me one of the beers before I’d even set my bag down. It was ice cold.
“Thank you,” I said and took a long sip. Some of the tension loosened from my shoulders.
“Come on.” He put his hand in the small of my back and steered me through the living room and out through the glass doors. “Dinner will be ready soon.”
Dash was leaning back in one of the chairs with his ankles crossed, looking like a man who had nowhere to be and no intention of going there. Krista and Cleo had their feet in the pool and were laughing about something. Drew was at the grill. The assortment of smells made my stomach growl.
“She’s here!” Cleo announced when she saw me. She stood up and hugged me like we’d known each other for years. I was still getting used to how freely this family gave affection but I was adapting quickly and coming to love it.
“Hi,” I said into her shoulder.
“Grab a seat. Drew is burning things but it’s going to be fine.”
“I am not burning things,” Drew called without turning around. “It’s a perfect sear. There’s a difference.”
“The difference is whether or not we can eat it,” Callum said, dropping into the chair beside where I settled.
Dash raised his beer in my direction. “Victoria.”
“Good to see you both,” I said.
“We went to the store,” Krista said. “It is so amazing. I want to live there.”
I took a long pull of my beer, relaxing into the vibe. I could worry about the annoying lunch date later. I would tell Callum about it when we were alone. I doubted he was going to be thrilled with the idea, but I wanted to be open about it.
“Sebastian is going to walk in the show,” Callum said.
“He is?” I asked with surprise.
There had been talk about him doing it, but Sebastian insisted he was retired from the modeling business.
“Bernadette told him to do it,” Dash said. “His last hurrah before he’s on full-time diaper duty.”
I laughed. “That will be a huge draw.”
“Will Briggs and Mandy be making it out for the opening?” I asked.
“Absolutely,” Cleo said. “Mandy is chomping at the bit to get out here. She’s a bit of a control freak and not being present is killing her.”
“I bet.”
“We’re trying to convince Adrian to let little Buck walk in the show to model some of the kids’ stuff,” Krista said. “Elizabeth says getting Buck to walk a straight line would be next to impossible.”
“What about putting him in a wagon?” I suggested. “I think I saw one of those in the brochures.”
Cleo nodded. “When Mandy does weddings, she’s all about corralling the little ones in wagons and carriages. She loves kids but they are unpredictable and she doesn’t like the unexpected.”
“How did you two meet?” I asked Krista and Dash. Cleo had given me the short version, but I always loved to hear how different couples had found love.
“His family hired me to babysit him,” Krista said with a wide grin. “Hardest job I’ve ever taken on.”
Dash opened his mouth and I just knew he was about to say something raunchy but he quickly shut it when Krista gave him a look.
“I had to chase him around Greece,” Krista went on. “And now I’m having his baby.”
“She’s leaving out the part about me charming her,” Dash said. “And how she tried taking over my job with the company.”
Krista raised her water. “Tried and succeeded.”
Cleo clinked her bottle against Krista’s glass. “Girl boss.”
“I left that position willingly,” Dash said with a shake of his head. “It’s more fun being creative.”
I laughed. “It sounds like there’s a lot more to that story.”
“Steaks are done,” Drew called out.
Callum got up and went into the kitchen. He brought out a container of coleslaw and baked potatoes in a foil pan. “The potatoes, I baked, but the coleslaw, I ordered. I know nothing about slaw making, cole or otherwise.”
We sat around the outdoor patio table, quiet as we ate the steaks that were perfectly cooked.
“Am I remembering correctly that Adrian and Elizabeth also got together because she was hired to watch him?” I asked after we’d made it through most of the meal.
“You might be thinking of Sebastian and Bernadette, although she wasn’t hired to watch him,” Dash said. “Bernadette worked for the insurance company covering the shoot, and she was there to make sure the whole production followed safety protocols.”
“Adrian hired Elizabeth to be his fake fiancée,” Drew said.
I frowned. “Oh. Uh. Okay.”
“It was a PR thing,” Dash said. “Public image matters a lot when you’re in the spotlight like we are. You’ll get used to it.”
I hoped the fading daylight would hide the flush in my cheeks. The casual way Dash just assumed I would be sticking around awoke that heat in me. All of Callum’s family that I’d met seemed on board with us being together.
After stuffing our faces and drinking enough beer to get us a nice buzz, Cleo and Drew shared an Uber to go home. Dash and Krista were staying in one of the guest rooms at the opposite side of the house.
“Tired?” Callum asked as he led me to his bedroom.
“Exhausted. Full. And buzzed.”
“That sounds like a good way to be,” he said.
“It is.”
We went through our usual routine, brushing our teeth and I wiped off my makeup. I had some basic toiletries in the house. I didn’t want to think about what that meant. It was one of those things that just kind of happened.
Every day, we got closer, and I couldn’t be happier.