Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Hayden
Since Cara has a grooming appointment to get to, we part ways on the sidewalk. I would have liked to spend more time with her and maybe talk through some more of the details, but we both have to get to work. I pick up Penelope and my bags, and head back to Boston.
I ignore the business calls that come in during the drive, which is unlike me. But I have a lot to get done and dictating task lists into my phone calms me. Although, they’re not so much tasks as things I need to run by Cara later.
Things like what she’s going to wear and what kind of cake she’d like and what kind of reception she wants to have. I’d said a simple wedding, but there isn’t anything simple about it, I guess.
I already have Penny and my laptop with me, so I skip my apartment and drive straight to the tall, shiny building my company offices are in.
We have an underground garage and private elevator, so in no time, I’m waving to the Reilly Financial receptionists and heading down the hushed hallways with Penny at my side.
There’s an office between the hallway and mine, and it’s the domain of Taylor Sullivan.
Executive Assistant doesn’t even begin to cover her role in my life.
Shortly after I opened my own financial firm, I poached her from her previous boss.
He kept asking her questions and then speaking over her answers, though it was obvious she knew more about what was going on than he did.
I respect her, I pay her well, and she helped me make my company what it is.
I know her next birthday will be her sixtieth and I dread the day she tells me she’s ready to retire.
While I appreciate her playing the dragon guarding the mouth of my cave for the most part, it also means I can’t sneak into my office.
“Good afternoon,” she says pleasantly enough, bending to give Penny her customary chin rub. It’s always struck me as less Penny looking for affection, and more as her tolerating the greeting due her as the boss’s dog.
“Good afternoon,” I respond. I’m not surprised that when I open the door and follow Penny into my office, Taylor’s right behind us.
Her closing the door behind us doesn’t bode well for me.
I set my computer bag on the desk and hit the button to open the shades.
My office is best described as austere. Steel.
Glass. Leather chairs. Other than Penny’s bed, this room isn’t designed for comfort.
If somebody wants to lounge on a couch, they can go home and do it. I’m here to work.
“It’s unlike you to be out of the office so much,” Taylor says.
It’s more than a simple observation. There’s something else she wants to say, and whatever it is, it’s making her uncomfortable.
I know she’s not carrying news of some kind of hostile takeover of my company.
Every person in my company who has the power to even think about it is somebody I trust implicitly. But there’s something going on.
“Just say it,” I urge, giving her a smile to remind her she’s free to speak her mind in this office. I pull my phone out of my pocket and toss it on my desk before settling into my chair.
“I’m not sure exactly what you’re doing back in New Hampshire, but I know it’s personal.” She shrugs. “The people who don’t know what little I do know are afraid you’re sick. Or that somebody in your family is sick. And some are concerned you’re thinking about moving the company up there.”
I hadn’t considered that. “Nobody’s sick, and I don’t want them worrying about their jobs. Not only is that bad for morale, but I don’t want them hunting for new jobs with some other firm.”
“That was my thought, yes. But I can’t lay those concerns to rest without giving them something.”
“I’m getting married.”
She laughs for a moment, but when I don’t laugh with her, her amusement dies off pretty quickly. “Are you really?”
“I am.” I lean back in my chair. “I’ll be marrying Cara Gamble on the twenty-ninth of this month, in Sumac Falls.”
She sits in the leather chair across from me without invitation. “Cara Gamble. Like the Gamble property? Hayden, what the hell are you doing?”
Taylor is probably the only person in the world who can speak to me like that in this office and get away with it. She’s also one of the few people who know one of the goals I set for myself was buying that house.
“I know it looks bad,” I say, holding up my hands. “But we dated in high school and we went to dinner and sparks reignited and…we’re getting married.”
“Must have been quite the dinner.”
I ignore that and try to shift the focus back to the business at hand. “I’ll probably be splitting time between here and New Hampshire for a while, but you can reassure everybody that neither this company nor their jobs are going anywhere.”
“Good.” She looks at me for a few seconds, then smiles and shakes her head. “Married. I know you well enough to know this isn’t like you and you’re probably up to something. But you also told me about the girl you left behind once, so maybe I’m wrong.”
I neither confirm nor deny. “It’ll be a private ceremony in our hometown, if anybody asks. I don’t want it to be a whole thing around here, though of course I want you and your husband to be there.”
“Understood. Will you be needing my assistance with the planning?”
“Definitely.” I break down the basic terms of the prenup and NDA, and ask her to draft the documents in the simplest terms possible, so Cara can understand them. “Obviously, I need those ASAP.”
“So this wedding won’t be changing your intention to buy the house?”
“No.” The word sounds curt, even to my own ears, so I force a smile. “Gin will be selling the house to Cara and me, as a married couple.”
Her eyebrow shoots up. “But you want it in the prenup that you’ll pay her half the value of the house you’ll have already given her mother full, fair value for?”
More than the fair value, actually, but I zip it. Taylor already doesn’t believe me.
I look her in the eye. “We will be buying her mother’s house, so obviously in a divorce, it would be joint property. But hopefully the prenup will never be relevant, and I’ll be a married man with a house and a company to run and the best dog ever.”
Taylor looks at Penny, who’s lying on her bed watching us. “And what does Penelope Louise think of the other woman in your life?”
“Believe it or not, she loves Cara. She even chooses to curl up with her over me sometimes.”
“Really?” Taylor smiles, and for the first time, she relaxes and looks genuinely happy for me. “Isn’t that interesting.”