Chapter 5
Phoenix
“She’s impossible.”
They’re the first words that burst out of my mouth when I storm into my office, followed closely by my assistant. Wyatt closes the door behind us and then moves wordlessly to one of the leather chairs by the bookshelf while I begin pacing in front of the window.
“Mm-hmm,” he says once he’s seated. His hum is absentminded, even bored, and when I glance over, I find his attention not on me but on the leather folder open in his lap.
“She does the stupidest things,” I go on. “She’s stubborn on purpose.”
Another droning hum from Wyatt. I shake my head and resume my pacing, passing back and forth in front of the large window.
The view from my Sunset Harbor office is nothing like the view from my office on the mainland. When I first set up here five years ago, I wasn’t sure how it would feel; I’d been visiting and then working at headquarters since my senior year of high school. Not as an executive, of course—I did a little of everything, though not necessarily well. I was horrible at product development; generating ideas isn’t my strong suit. I’m not particularly creative, so design and ergonomics weren’t great either.
Implementation and logistics, though? Organizing all the moving pieces and making sure they do what they’re supposed to do? That’s where I found my niche. Now I oversee teams of people putting plans into action, taking care of the tedious details—and I do it from my office here on Sunset Harbor. I traded in the city skyline for a distant view of the ocean and the faint jingle of bicycle bells as people pass.
Never thought I’d live on an island where no cars are allowed, but here we are. Wyatt came with me, of course, because I’m one of those unfortunate workaholics who would not function without someone keeping track of all the little details in my own life.
He jots something down in his folder; the leather chair dwarfs his slight frame, but the seat still squeaks as he leans forward and continues to write. Since it doesn’t appear he’s going to respond, I speak again.
“And half of my time is spent chasing along after her, making sure she doesn’t catapult right over the edge of a cliff.”
“I think it’s possible you’re underestimating her ability to avoid cliffs,” Wyatt says, finally looking up at me.
“She was trying to work at the adoption fair, Wyatt,” I say as I continue to pace. I can hear the incredulous note in my voice, and just the memory of her sitting at that table makes me want to roll my eyes again. “She’s allergic to dogs. ”
“Mmm,” Wyatt says, returning to his folder.
I shove my fingers through my hair and then turn to him, stopping in place so I don’t wear tracks in the carpet. “Can you please say something more helpful than that?”
“If you tell me what you’d like to hear,” he says, distracted once more as he flips through the pages of his legal pad, “I’d be happy to oblige. ”
I narrow my eyes at him, and even though he’s not looking at me, I still catch the ghost of a smile in response.
“Am I being unreasonable?” I say stiffly. I have to force the question out, because I doubt I’ll like his answer.
“It’s unreasonable to think you can control another human being,” he says without hesitation. His glasses glint in the light as he glances briefly at me. “Especially one like Miss Blakely.”
“I don’t want to control her,” I say. “I just want her to stop doing dumb things.” Then, pausing, I add, “And what do you mean, especially someone like her?”
Wyatt shrugs mildly. “She’s shown herself quite averse to your suggestions.”
“She has, hasn’t she,” I say in a grim voice. It’s not a question.
“And you must admit,” he goes on, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose, “that her frustrations are somewhat warranted.”
“If she doesn’t want to be treated like a child, she shouldn’t act like one.” But even as the words leave my mouth, I know they’re not quite right. I let out a tired breath. “No. I just—want her to make smart decisions. I want her to take care of herself so that I don’t have to take care of her. And then someday when I’ve died, probably of a Holland-induced heart attack, I can look Trev in the eye and tell him his little sister grew up well. And then”—my voice is louder now—“I can tell him not to dump responsibilities like this on his best friend who’s already stressed enough as it is, dealing with succession wars and insane family members.”
“Speaking of insane family members,” Wyatt says, “your mother called.”
“I bet she did.” I rub my temples as a wave of exhaustion hits me .
“Indeed,” he says, and one corner of his mouth quirks as he looks at me again. “She asked me to pass along her message.”
“Let’s hear it, then,” I say with a sigh.
He ducks his chin. “She wishes you to stop ignoring her calls, and she would like you to know that she’s hurt you’re avoiding her. She would also like to tell you that she knows many young women?—”
“There it is,” I mutter.
“Any of whom would make excellent partners in matrimony,” Wyatt continues. “She would like to remind you that your grandmother is very serious about the company being inherited by someone who’s married, and she would also like to remind you that your cousin Lawrence has been dating someone for the last year, so you can feel reasonably assured that he’ll propose to her soon in hopes of inheriting.”
I pity the woman who shackles herself to Lawrence.
“Anything else?” I say.
“Yes,” Wyatt says, and I’m not surprised, because Marshana Butterfield-Park is neither brief nor succinct. “She made a rather tearful plea for you to remember that she loves you and wants you to be happy, and for that, you need to get married and inherit the company.”
What she actually wants is to be supported financially and never work another day in her life. She doesn’t need to convince me to do whatever I can to succeed Mavis; that’s always been my plan.
I’m not sure she’d agree with the rest of my plans if she knew what they were, though.
Butterfield is doing well. We’re creating products that do their job for consumers as well as for the environment. But we could be doing so much more, and that’s the direction I’d love to take the company. I want to set up a humanitarian branch of operations, one that provides sanitary paper products to communities in need. Shelters, homes, entire cities—whatever it is, I want to help. I want to do something good.
I need to do something good.
“Mmm,” I say, narrowing my eyes as I turn my attention back to Wyatt. “A tearful plea?”
He nods.
“Fake tears or real tears?”
“Very definitely fake.”
“Right. Well,” I say, taking a deep breath and then letting it out, “I’m going to ignore all of that for now. I’ll call her”—I wave my hand—“I don’t know. Sometime. I can’t really focus on her right now.”
“Well, as for Miss Blakely—the only person responsible for her future is herself,” Wyatt says firmly, closing his folder with a snap. He hesitates; then, in a gentler voice, he says, “However, I understand your feelings, and I understand why you feel you need to watch out for her.”
Something faintly warm tries to blossom in my chest; I push it down and clear my throat. “I don’t need someone to understand my feelings,” I say. My family has never understood me or even tried—only Wyatt. “I just need to figure out what to do. She wouldn’t hear me out when I offered her a job.”
“I think that may have something to do with the tone in which you offered it.” He pauses briefly and then says, “Which job might this be? I wasn’t aware you were hiring.”
“I’m not,” I say, rubbing my hand down my face. “But I could. She could work for me. I’d pay her well. Plus insurance and benefits—she needs those.”
“And…the marriage?”
The word I would use to describe my vague noise of response is disgruntled. “I suppose—it’s possible,” I say, because while the personal side of me abhors the idea, the business side of me can grudgingly acknowledge the merits. “I refuse to wed a perfect stranger, and I refuse to pretend to love someone in order to marry. That leaves few options.”
Wyatt ducks his head slowly.
“Except if she wouldn’t listen about a job, there’s no way she’d listen about—” But I break off, because no matter how I try, I can’t make myself say the words.
Would I really ask Holland Blakely to marry me?
“Maybe I could still find someone else,” I say. The thought of marrying Amsterdam fills me with roiling, churning dread.
Wyatt snorts with uncharacteristic sarcasm. “I think you know perfectly well that there is no one else,” he says, and I raise my brow at him. “Sir,” he adds mildly.
I roll my eyes. “I have other friends,” I say. It’s true, more or less. I know other women. But…
“If you’ll accept my humble opinion, sir?—”
“Sarcasm doesn’t suit you, Wyatt,” I say.
Another ghost of a smile flits over his face. “As long as you maintain your current relationship with Miss Blakely, there will not be room for another woman in your life.”
I blink. “What? What relationship?”
“The relationship between you and Miss Blakely,” he says. “Though not romantic in nature, perhaps, it does leave little room for anyone else in your life.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I say, biting the words out.
He shrugs. “You’re not close enough to anyone else to propose marriage, anyway.”
I frown. “I’m not close to Holland, either. If anything, I would call us the opposite of close.”
“I disagree.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “You’re not serious. ”
His chin dips. “You’re not close friends, perhaps,” he concedes. “But opponents, rivals, maybe enemies—whatever you are, you’re close ones.” He falls silent, watching me as I grit my teeth and try to hold back my retort. I’m not one to hold my tongue in most situations, but Wyatt has earned my respect, no matter how much I disagree with him.
He was the one who helped me stand and brushed the dirt from my little black suit at my father’s funeral, when my mother had forgotten about me in her hysterics. He’s the one who made sure I was fed and clothed and taken care of when she confined herself to her room for days at a time.
In many ways, he raised me.
So I keep my thoughts to myself—that Holland and I are not close, not as friends or enemies or anything else. I give her my time and attention because I promised Trev I would. I made a promise to my best friend, and I owe him everything, because he’s dead and it’s partially my fault.
He’s dead, and it’s partially my fault, and—I realize with horror—I think I might actually ask his sister to marry me.
“Let’s finish here for the day,” I say, because there’s a weight pressing down on my chest, one I can’t dispel. Thinking about Trevor and the past always makes me feel heavy and tired and hopeless. “We can pick up on Monday.”
Wyatt just nods. And when he looks more closely at me, his wiry, brown-gray brows pulling low with concern, I turn away.
Long gone are the days when I unburdened my soul with anyone; I wouldn’t know what to say.
I wouldn’t even know where to start.