Chapter 30. It’s Me. I’m the Terrible Blind Date.
It’s Me. I’m the Terrible Blind Date.
The next few days were some of the worst of my life. I sent Rob a couple of messages, asking for another chance to explain things, but all of them went unread and unanswered. Opa said that Rob still checked in with him every day, but other than that, it was as if he—we—never existed.
He’d ghosted me, and I knew I deserved every bit of it.
Oma’s will deadline was getting closer, so here I was, only two months away from potentially losing her legacy.
I came clean about the will to Ellie and Jenna and apologized for keeping it a secret from them.
They gave me a hug, then tried to encourage me, telling me that anything was possible.
Anything could happen in those two months.
They meant well, but I realized that I didn’t really care.
Because Rob wasn’t in my life, and that was all that mattered.
I had briefly, in a moment of madness, contemplated hiring an actor to be my pretend boyfriend.
That was what I probably should have done from the very beginning, and my life wouldn’t have intersected with Rob’s, and things would probably have been a lot easier.
But I nixed the idea seconds later, because the thought of having to pretend to be in love with a stranger for the next two months made my stomach sick to the core.
My friends convinced me to at least give things one last shot, so I did. Instead of jumping on a dating app, Jenna had set me up on a blind date with one of her coworkers, who was supposed to be one of the nicest guys she’d ever worked with.
The date turned out to be another disaster.
Only this time, it was my fault.
Jenna’s friend—Colin—was all that she’d said he was.
Handsome, polite, and a good listener. In fact, he was too good of a listener.
Within half an hour of meeting him, I’d shared with him the entire sordid saga of how Rob was playing matchmaker for me and how I ended up falling for him.
The poor man had to spend the entirety of our dinner listening to me pouring my heart out about Rob.
“I sent him a couple of messages to apologize.” I pushed my mashed potatoes around the plate instead of eating them. “Maybe more. Like, five or ten. But he ignored them all. I don’t know what else to do.”
Colin shot a quick glance at the people at the table next to us, like he was pleading for help, then let out a long sigh, and it occurred to me that it was probably his fifth sigh in the space of thirty short minutes.
“I know where he lives. Do you think coming over to explain myself is too stalkerish?”
My date lightly smacked his forehead. “You know what? I think I might have left my fridge door open, and I just bought a big tub of my favorite Greek yogurt. I probably should go home so it doesn’t go bad.”
And that was when the first realization hit me.
I was turning into that horrendous date that other people would gossip about. I was reenacting my Shane the Nightmare Date from a few months ago, but this time, I was the Shane.
“Gosh. I’m so sorry.” I groaned and placed my fork on my plate. “I shouldn’t have agreed to this date in the first place. I’m sorry to have wasted your time. You’re a lovely man, but I think my mind is elsewhere tonight.”
And that was when the second realization hit me. I didn’t want to date other people. I didn’t even want to pretend to date other people. I only wanted Rob.
Because I was madly, desperately in love with him.
A few days later, a thick envelope from Goodwin Property Group arrived at the yarn store.
It had another letter addressed to all the owners and tenants at our precinct, mentioning how several business owners on the strip had graciously agreed to their offers, and how they would like to share their plans in the hopes of convincing the rest of us.
I skimmed through the letter before fishing a thick bound document out of the envelope.
It was a planning proposal of what the new multipurpose building would look like: retail spaces on the ground level, a ten-story residential area, hotels, offices, with an urban rooftop garden and a multistory parking lot.
There was a short message from some bigwig at the City of Port Benedict expressing their excitement at this investment, saying how the development aimed to “transform the Port Benedict shopping precinct to complement the main Plaza building, while uplifting the lifestyle and living experiences of our residents.” More things followed—a site investigation report, an urban design analysis, an artist’s rendering of what the completed building would look like, even a waste management plan.
My heart skidded to a halt when I got to page thirty-nine and saw the name of the party responsible for the indicative concept plans for the project.
Hands trembling, I flipped to the very end of the proposal, and scanned my eyes through appendix A, the architectural statements and plans.
It had the construction documents for the project, and in the right-hand corner of the page was the name of the party that had been appointed to design the new development.
It was Carmichael Architects.
I dropped the proposal on the desk, as if it was on fire.
So Rob had known, all along, about the development plans for the precinct, and he pretended to know nothing about it?
Anger and disappointment swirled inside my chest. He chose not to tell me, even though he knew how important this place was to me.
I might have done him wrong by not telling him about Oma’s inheritance clause, but he lied to me about this.
I didn’t bother looking at the rest of the proposal.
Shoving it and the letter back into the envelope, I stalked out of the office and told Nicole that I was going out for an hour, then dialed Rob’s number as I walked to my car.
He didn’t pick up, which wasn’t surprising.
I called Alec instead, who picked up on the third ring.
“Hey, Kim.” He sounded like he was in the middle of a construction site. “What’s up?”
“I need to know where Rob is right now. You know how Goodwin is trying to buy out all of us? Do you know that his dad’s company is working with Goodwin on that project?”
“What?” Alec sounded confused. “He never told me.”
“You should probably rethink your choice of friends. If you don’t know whether you can trust your best friend, who else can you even trust?”
“I’m sure he has his reasons,” Alec said. “You’ve met his dad, right? Maybe he’s just as much in the dark as the rest of us.”
I scoffed. “He must know. Just tell me where he’s at today.”
Rob was where Alec said he would be. The site he was working on was a large allotment of land that had just recently been opened and subdivided into smaller plots. He was standing outside one of the half-built houses, talking to one of the guys on the crew.
I slammed the door as I got out of my car, clutching the Goodwin envelope in my hand.
Rob frowned when he saw me marching up the driveway. “What are you doing here?”
I pulled out the proposal and shoved it in his chest. “What the fuck is this?”
Color drained from his face.
“Your father’s firm is working with Goodwin? Why the hell didn’t you tell me? Why did you pretend that you knew nothing about it?”
“Oh, now you’re angry at me?” His eyes flared as he shoved the proposal back at me. “You have no right being angry when you’ve also been hiding things from me.”
“No.” I glared at him. “You don’t get to pull that card. This is different. You’ve seen how worried I’ve been about everything, how important this was to me because of my grandmother, and you chose not to tell me?”
“Has it ever occurred to you that I probably don’t have a choice?”
“You chose not to tell me,” I repeated.
“It wasn’t my choice.” He ran a hand through his hair, looking frustrated.
“Everyone at Carmichael Architects had to sign an NDA when we submitted our interest. Something about Goodwin wanting to protect the intellectual property of the project. I couldn’t say anything to you, even though it was killing me not to.
Breaking the NDA could mean lawsuits and substantial financial consequences for my dad, and I couldn’t do that to him. ”
I waved the proposal at him. “But you can do this to me.”
Rob flinched. “I tried to convince him not to submit a tender for the project, but he wouldn’t listen. It’s a huge opportunity, and Dad was adamant that we had to be involved, especially after how difficult things were the past few years. It’s his firm, not mine. I don’t have a say in it.”
“That might be true.” My body was vibrating with fury.
“But it’s your life, not his, and you have a say in that, and you didn’t have to be involved with any of this if you didn’t want to.
You never really wanted to work for him, anyway!
Are you just going along with what your dad wants because you think he’s right? ”
He scoffed. “That’s rich, coming from the person going along with her grandmother’s wishes even though it wasn’t what she wanted.”
“It’s not the same thing, and you know it. I did it because I loved my grandmother, and I wanted to honor her wishes. Not because I wanted anyone’s approval. Do you really still think you’re nothing but a builder, and working on this with him will make you worthy in his eyes? In your own eyes?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” His jaw clenched.
“But I do know! I know that you’re an amazing guy.
You’re a hard worker. You’re loved by your friends, and your family—screw your dad.
You have a career that you love, that you’re good at, and you don’t need to prove yourself to anyone.
You. Are. Good. Enough. Can you get that through your thick head? ”
He opened his mouth, as if he was about to say something, but let out a long sigh instead. “I don’t know. I’m trying. I really am. I’m sorry.”
Disappointment welled up in my chest. “Me too, Rob. Me too.”
And with that, I spun around and left him.