Chapter 20
CASSANDRA
THREE MONTHS LATER
“I think I got the ‘Irish Potato’ gene,” I said to Chelsea as we ran along the Quince River trail. It was later than we usually got out—eight o’clock—and already humid.
But Chelsea had actually shown up for our run today, so I wasn’t complaining.
Things had gotten a bit better with her since the springtime. She’d gotten a boyfriend, some guy called John, who was perfectly nice, if not a little bland. I didn’t think it was going to last between them, but at least he’d tamped down her partying over the summer.
“We have the same genes,” she said from behind me.
“But you don’t go all pink when you work out,” I said.
“Sure I do. I just don’t go that pink.”
“Exactly,” I said. “I’m an Irish potato.”
As she came up beside me, I squinted like I was inspecting her. “Okay, you’re kind of pink, too.”
“You look like you’re glaring at me,” she laughed. “Like that time you caught poor John in the hallway.”
I laughed hard at that one. “I wasn’t glaring, I was just seeing if I recognized him.”
“You were embarrassing.”
“That’s what big sisters are for, isn’t it?”
Chelsea made a sound but picked up speed so she was in front of me. She craned her neck as we passed through some trees, as if looking for something out on the water.
“Why do you keep doing that?” I asked. She’d been doing it the whole run. In fact, she’d been acting strange since she knocked on my door to get me this morning, which she never did. I was always the one dragging her out.
“I’m not doing anything,” she said.
It was the same thing, I realized, that Eli had said to me last week, after forwarding me a news story he said I might be interested in.
He hollered it across the hallway, as he often did, asking if I wanted to see it, and I’d given him the thumbs up just to get him to leave me alone.
Then I’d gone back to the document open on my screen—the same document I’d been working through for the past two and a half months—the Harringtons’ implementation plan for the review they’d completed on time and under budget.
Though I still hadn’t paid for any of their services, despite emailing Blake a few times.
He’d kept brushing me off with, “Soon, I promise”. Which would have been less irritating if I didn’t also feel like I was getting punched in the stomach every time I saw his name anywhere, on any document.
And especially in my inbox. Even when I’d emailed him first.
I’d been doing okay in the weeks since Blake had left. Mostly.
I was sad, sure. Okay, devastated. I missed him all the time, and was even considering asking Eli if we could change offices just so I didn’t have to sit looking at the spot he’d sat all that time.
It probably would have helped if I’d gotten rid of his fishing rod.
I’d first discovered it was still in my office when I’d had a meeting with Seamus a week after Blake had left.
I’d needed to distract myself with work, so I’d gone all in, speaking with people I knew I’d be considering for various parts of the implementation plan down the road.
Per Griffin’s recommendation, I was meeting with Seamus to see if he’d want to submit a proposal to do the east wing renovation, which wouldn’t be happening until fall at the earliest.
It had been funny seeing Seamus wearing a suit.
He looked handsome, I’d realized. I’d known him since we were kids, but I’d never seen him in anything formal.
I’d only seen him in jeans and a t-shirt, like he’d been wearing the week before in the east wing; workout gear; or his baseball uniform, when I dragged myself to one of Eli’s games.
We chatted briefly about Chelsea—he’d run into her downstairs—and I knew he was trying to politely ask if she was okay.
He was worried about her, too. “She’s seeing someone,” I said, trying to reassure him.
When his face fell, I realized how much that wouldn’t help.
He was into her. And now he was crushed.
Join the club.
I was about to say something—an apology—when he brightened.
“That’s great,” he said. Seamus gave a half smile, and it looked as if maybe he was actually happy for her. Maybe he wasn’t crushed the way I was, just a good person.
A better person than me. I couldn’t think of Blake without my heart feeling like it had flattened.
Seamus had clearly wanted to move on with the work meeting—he’d sat up straight and adjusted his tie.
But that’s when I realized I had seen him in a suit—that very same suit, I was sure—for Mom’s funeral.
As if that hadn’t been sobering enough, when he readjusted his long legs under the chair, he’d knocked something with his heel.
When he reached down and came up with Blake’s reel, he’d been deeply confused, and then horrified when I’d started to cry.
“Oh shit,” he’d said, standing up. Now he looked panicky.
“It’s fine,” I said. “It’s unavoidable.”
He had no idea what I meant, but he’d offered to snap the offending rod in two.
I’d laughed, teary-eyed. But it wasn’t like I could snap my memories of Blake in half.
Blake Harrington was all over the resort, in every room and hallway. As we started actually implementing their plan, it was like stitching him even more deeply into place.
It was fine, I would be fine, I knew I would. I just wasn’t quite there yet.
But I was treating myself with grace.
I’d been journaling and seeing a therapist, like I promised Chelsea I would. Chelsea had gone to a few appointments, I knew, but I suspected she’d stopped going recently. I had a note to ask her after giving her some time.
My therapist was helping me focus on self-love, she called it, and it was helping. It would be the key, I knew, once this fresh pain from Blake settled down.
It just hadn’t yet.
Even though nothing about that last night with Blake should have surprised me, I’d still woken up in tatters. I’d told him I loved him, and he’d been silent.
Before I met him, if I’d said that to someone else, opened up like that and been responded to with nothing, I think it might have broken me. Now it hurt. It was like nothing I’d ever felt before besides grief—but I knew one day I’d be okay.
I’d meant what I said to him, that I just needed to say it. And it was better than having not done it.
Now, as I pounded along the path behind Chelsea, who’d stretched out to a few yards ahead of me, I thought about Blake once more. Because that’s what Eli had wanted me to see. He’d forwarded me the article, and then he’d come over to my door and waited while I opened it.
“What are you doing?” I’d said as he stood in my doorway.
“I’m not doing anything.”
“You are—”
“Just read the damn article, Cass.”
When I pulled it up, I’d sucked in a breath. It was the front page of the business section; a photo of Blake and Lila—that same one from their website where they stood back-to-back.
HARRINGTON CONSULTING SPLITS
I’d read the article so fast I’d had to read it again to make sure I was getting it right.
“Wild, huh?” Eli asked, leaning into the doorframe now. He was waiting for my reaction.
Oh my God. It hit me then that Eli knew about me and Blake.
“Who told you?” I asked.
“Told me what?”
I’d scowled, gone up to him, and slammed the door. I’d heard him laughing on the other side.
There was nothing to laugh about—Blake and Lila splitting—both the business and the marriage, was sad.
Wasn’t it? But in another article I’d found the other day, I saw something the first hadn’t said, that Lila was planning on forming a new company with her partner, Brynn.
That article had been called Introducing Mr. Mrs. and Mrs. Shark.
There was mention of Harrington Consulting carrying on in some other iteration, but with no further details.
I’d grinned, my heart blooming for them.
But my happiness hadn’t lasted.
The split—and the new company—had to have been in the works for a while, and it wasn’t like Blake had reached out to me.
What he’d said at the golf course that time had to have been facts—that he just wasn’t the kind of guy who settled down.
Not because he was some kind of rake, but because he didn’t know how.
I knew he felt at least some of what I felt for him. But I couldn’t change who he was.
I took in a fresh breath of air, reminding myself that everything else was good. I was doing well, the Rolling Hills was on its way to doing well, Chelsea was doing well… ish. Even Dad was planning on coming home next month for his grandson’s fourth birthday.
It was all just fine.
Then I noticed I was on the path alone.
“Chels?” I called.
Something was off. I knew it right away. Not bad off, I didn’t think, but something weird. That’s when I noticed where I was—the point in the trail where I’d fallen that day. Where I’d slipped in and been pulled out of the river a few short seconds later, by…
I slowed. There was a dingy parked on the riverbank up ahead, close to the place I’d found Blake’s fishing rod. I’d recognize that boat—and the auburn-headed lug standing next to it any day. It was my brother, Griffin.
Chelsea was standing next to him, hands on her hips.
What the—?
I started running again, my eyes so closely focused on my brother and sister on the beach that I nearly missed the sound. Someone was yelling.
My first thought was someone was in trouble. But when I scanned the river, I didn’t see anything but fast-moving water.
And the island, dead ahead.
But the island wasn’t vacant. I stopped again for the second time in only a couple of minutes.
“What—”
There, on the island, was a figure—tall, trimmed beard, broad shoulders, waving his arms.
In front of him, on the shore, was an elaborate row of driftwood.
I stopped when I reached the trail over where my brother and sister stood.
It was Blake, I realized, as I clapped my hand over my mouth. And he was yelling. It was difficult to hear over the rush of water, loud here against the rocks, but I was pretty sure he was saying the same thing I finally saw was spelled out on the beach in thirty feet of driftwood.
I LOVE YOU CASSANDRA KELLY
My body began to shake uncontrollably.
“Whoa, hey, you’re gonna fall in the river again if you’re not careful,” Griff said, scrambling up the slope to me.
On the island, Blake had stopped yelling. He was too far for me to read his expression, but his body language said he was concerned.
“It’s alright!” Griffin boomed, so loud I remembered myself. When he turned back, he was reaching up to me, hand outstretched. “Come on,” he said. “I didn’t come out here for a constitutional. Unless you don’t wanna go? I’m good either way.”
Wordlessly, I took Griff’s hand, and if I didn’t know better, I thought I saw him smile.
“Thanks for getting her here, kid,” Griff said to Chelsea as we passed by. My baby sister wrapped her arms around me briefly, then kissed me on the cheek. “Go easy on him, Cass.”
I was still too numb to speak. I looked back at Chelsea one time to see her walking back the way we’d come. She’d only come out here for me.
After that, I only looked forward. By the time Griffin had gotten us over to the other side, Blake was down by the water, his eyes on me. His expression was so filled with a mix of fear and dread and hope that Griff, once he helped me out, said, “Put the man out of his misery, would you?”
“I’ve got a few things to do,” he said. “I’ll be back in an hour.”
Blake nodded. “Thanks,” he said, his voice hoarse.
I didn’t turn, didn’t take my eyes off Blake. The outboard whined, then diminished as Griff drove to wherever Griff went when he was out here.
Then, and only then, did I speak.
“You came back,” I whispered.
Blake took a step toward me. “I think I always knew I was going to come back,” he said. “I left my fishing rod behind, didn’t I?”
I laughed, but it came out a half sob, and that’s when he came to me, taking my hands. “I’m sorry I didn’t say it back then, that last night,” he said. “I felt it, but I just… I didn’t know how to say it in a way that would make me believe it was okay to do it.”
“To do what, Blake?” I needed to hear the words again, up close, while he looked into my eyes.
He smiled, his expression so earnest I wanted to brush the stray hair from his forehead. “I love you. I love you, Cassandra Kelly, and I want the whole world to know.”
I smiled as he grew blurry through my tears. “How long did this take you?”
“An hour.” He shrugged. “A couple of hours. A bit longer than that.”
He pointed his chin upriver, where, to my astonishment, I saw a banner hanging over the Quince River Bridge. It said the same thing.
“It’s what the book called a grand gesture.”
“Wait, did you read a romance book?”
“I read a few. I have to say though, those books are a little… heated. I sincerely hope my mom hasn’t read the same ones, because, damn.”
I laughed then, long and loose and free.
When I tipped my face down again, Blake was staring at me, and that’s when I knew. I knew I’d be okay no matter what, that I was good and worthy and deserving of love. But I knew my life would be better if I got to love him, too.
So I said it back. “I love you, Blake.”
He kissed me then, long and hard and soft again, lifting me off my feet and then slipping and stumbling in the sand, just the two of us here on our island.
“Does this mean you’re going to move to Quince Valley?” I asked as he set me down once more.
He shrugged. “I was thinking about coming out this way.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Thinking about it, huh?”
Blake laughed, the dimples in his cheeks going deep. “I’ll go wherever you go, Cassandra.” He stroked my temple with his thumb. “Just maybe try not to fall into any more rivers. I don’t want to go there.”
“How about I promise I’ll say thank you next time you haul me out?”
“Deal,” Blake said, and I rose up and kissed him once more, my hand on his cheek and an overwhelming love for this man rushing through me, as strong as the Quince.
Then we lay down on the beach, my head on his chest, his heartbeat under my ear, ready together for whatever else floated our way.