Читать книгу Moonlight In Vermont - Kacy Cross - Страница 6

Two

The next morning, Fiona had enough distance from last night’s shocking conclusion that she thought she could tell Angela without breaking down. She’d tried to call Ang at least three times in the long hours before two a.m., when she’d finally fallen into a fitful sleep. But she hadn’t been able to dial. Her throat kept closing and she couldn’t stand the thought of falling apart, not even with Angela.

Today she needed a sympathetic ear.

Fortunately, her oldest friend answered on the first ring. Calling a therapist during work hours was always dicey and Fiona hated potentially interrupting a session.

Her friend would reschedule a patient for Fiona, no questions asked, but that wasn’t necessary for this conversation. It wasn’t like the contents of her news would change if she had to wait thirty minutes to hash out the worst thing that had happened to her in recent memory.

“Oh, please tell me you have good news,” Angela begged her. No hi, how are you? It was straight to a request that Fiona couldn’t fulfill. “I have been listening to sad stories all day long.”

Great, so she got to ruin Angela’s day too. That was what friends were for, right? “Nate dumped me last night.”

“What?” Angela squawked. “Oh, honey.”

“I’m just in shock.” That was an understatement. No matter how much she tried to spin it, the reality didn’t change. Nate hadn’t cared enough to give her a second chance, to let her show him that things would be different once her schedule calmed down.

If only the Morrisons’ flight hadn’t been changed, none of this would have happened. It was pure bad luck, and now she was single. Again.

“You know what they say—men are like melons,” Angela said. “It’s tough to pick a good one.”

Fiona pictured Angela sitting on the long leather couch in her office as she talked Fiona through this. That was what Angela did. She made people feel better with nothing more than compassion and a unique, soothing tone in her voice.

Except she was wrong about the situation. For once.

“Nate is a good one,” Fiona corrected. “And I thought we were destined to be together. I guess destiny fell asleep on the job. Ang, what am I getting wrong? Nate and I had something so special.”

Well, no, obviously they didn’t or they’d still be together. Clearly the problem lay with Fiona if she couldn’t see that her “juggling” act had been making Nate dizzy this whole time.

“Why don’t we meet up? There’s no problem a good chocolate mousse can’t fix.”

Angela, bless her, had her back. Thank goodness they’d stuck to each other like glue through everything childhood, high school, and then college had to throw at them, and now this thing called adulthood. Ang had even managed to pull a smile out of Fiona.

“What, did you learn that in advanced psych? No, I would love to but Irwin Lanheim is about to stop by.” Irwin was an old friend of Fiona’s father—“friend” being relative. They’d been fierce rivals on Wall Street, but now that her dad had moved to Vermont, all of his relationships had changed. Including the one with her. “Who knows, that could be trouble.”

“You’re you. You can handle anything.” Angela didn’t stop there. “And Fi? Schedule some time for your feelings.”

“I will.” She wouldn’t. Angela always said stuff like that. It was practically her signature advice. But Fiona wasn’t Angela’s patient, and feelings didn’t get the job done or ease her loneliness. They just got in the way. “I’ll talk to you later.”

Irwin Lanheim cleared the door of Fiona’s office ahead of the receptionist, his broad smile already in place on his handsome jaw. The man did not age and had no less energy despite being closer to retirement age than he liked to admit.

“Fiona,” he called with a pleased chuckle as he laid his coat on a side table. “It’s been too long.”

Fiona rose instantly and met him at the corner of her desk to accept a brief kiss on the cheek, her own smile as big as his. It had been too long. “Irwin! I read about the merger. Well done.”

He nodded modestly, despite having just successfully led the conglomeration of two of the largest banking enterprises in North America. “Quite the compliment from the toast of New York real estate.”

“Sounds better than just being toast,” Fiona quipped back, uncomfortable with the praise.

“Yes, it certainly does.”

Fiona grinned. Irwin had always appreciated her humor, one of many reasons she liked him the best of her father’s old set of friends. “How are the newlyweds?”

Clearing his throat, Irwin put a bit of distance between them and braced both palms on her desk. “Kimberly left me. In fact, the papers were just filed this morning.”

Oh, goodness, she’d walked straight into that one. “I am so sorry.”

“No,” Irwin said graciously. “It is what it is.”

Somehow that made it easier to confess her own drama. “We’re kind of in the same boat then.”

“What, you and Nate?” Irwin’s eyebrows came together in concern.

“Nate and I are on a bit of a break,” she admitted. Seemed to be going around. What was wrong with both her and Irwin that they’d picked people to align themselves with who didn’t get them? Who ran at the first sign of trouble?

“Well, I’m sorry to hear that. Unfortunately, when you work as hard as you and I do, sometimes relationships tend to be a little bit difficult.”

And that was why she’d had few qualms about mentioning the blow Nate had dealt her—she and Irwin were cut from the same cloth. She felt a little better knowing that he faced some of the same struggles.

“My parents somehow found a way to make it work, though,” she mused, but that just put her back in a contemplative mood about what had gone wrong with Nate. And that wasn’t productive.

“Hey.” Irwin brightened. “How is your father? He still in Vermont?”

“Yes, he’s still running the inn with my stepmom.” Amazing how she’d gotten that sentence out and kept a smile plastered across her face. It was a sore spot, and she spent a lot of time trying to forget about the inn that had stolen not only her father from her, but all of her childhood memories. Irwin didn’t know that, though.

“What’s it been, like five years?” He didn’t pause long enough for her to confirm that it had indeed been five very long years since Harris Rangely had pulled up stakes unexpectedly. “I have to say, the city is certainly a lot less fun without my old rival.”

It was better that way, actually. Her father had betrayed Fiona’s mother’s memory by moving away, and now Fiona never had to think about how devastating of a blow it had been. Except when people like Irwin, who’d known her father, brought it up.

“I actually passed our old apartment on the way over,” she found herself saying. That was a sore spot too. That apartment had been her home, the one she’d shared with her parents, where she’d grown up. “I just can’t believe my dad up and left the city like that.”

The apartment, where all her greatest moments had happened, belonged to someone else. Vermont had swallowed her father whole, as if the Wall Street tycoon who’d been married to her mother had never existed.

What was wrong with her? Nate had done a number on her, for sure, but that was no reason to dump all of her angst on an old friend. “I’m sorry. You did not come here to listen to me reminisce.”

“The city is your passion. You take after your mother, and it’s that passion that helped you build a great business. But…” Irwin leaned forward, a sure tell that he had gotten to the part where he planned to explain why he’d come by today. “You can do better. In fact, with the merger complete, I want you to run the new real estate arm of my banking interests.”

Fiona blinked. As revelations went, that was a doozy. Obviously someone was trying to get her out of the game. Otherwise, why would he assume she was looking for a change? “I’m honored, but my business is great as it is. I’m my own boss. Why would I want to change that?”

“Because you’ve got a problem,” Irwin informed her blithely, hands outstretched as he laid down that provocative statement.

She couldn’t not play along, mostly because she had to hear what he’d say next. “Oh, I do?”

“Yeah, there’s only one of you. Could you imagine what you might do with a staff of ten? Or a hundred?” He pointed out the window where thousands of properties lay waiting for her special blend of skill and desire to match the right place with the right buyer. “You can craft the Manhattan skyline like it’s your own set of Tinkertoys.”

Intriguing. Her mind spun off in a hundred directions as she instantly sifted through the possibilities of what this offer entailed. She could build an empire, follow in Barbara Corcoran’s footsteps. Maybe even get her own TV show one day. If nothing else, she’d have partners in this business she could trust, who could take some of the load off for when Fiona needed personal time.

Maybe she could even get Nate back. That dangerous thought wouldn’t stop swirling through the middle of everything.

Then reality woke her up in a hurry. Commercial real estate had a completely different set of rules, of pitfalls and challenges. Could she do it? Of course. It might even be fun to see if she could dominate that arena as she had residential property. However, it would be a giant increase in responsibility, not to mention adding hours upon hours to her already busy work week.

But what else did she have to do with her time? Nothing. Maybe destiny had handed her this opportunity to make up for the Nate-sized void in her life. Or a potential way to eventually show him that she’d made changes he might appreciate.

Apparently sensing her indecision, Irwin climbed to his feet. “Okay. Just think about it. But not for too long.”

As Irwin grabbed his coat to show himself out of her office, Fiona nodded, her mind still whirling with this unexpected decision. Fate had a funny sense of humor. If this had happened two days ago, she’d call Nate immediately to hash out the pros and cons. That was why she’d fallen for him, after all. He had a sharp, strategic mind and he’d always listened to her with this intense focus, then offered his opinion with concise, well-thought-out reasoning.

Well, not anymore. Now she’d make her own decisions based solely on what was good for Fiona Rangely.

Brunch had not been a good decision.

Fiona stared at the exposed brick next to the tiny table Angela had grabbed near the window and reeled back the emotion that seemed to always be so close to the surface these days. The coffee didn’t taste right and she couldn’t stomach the thought of eating. Normally, she loved people-watching, but every person strolling down the sidewalk outside had a mate. Two by two, they laughed at each other’s jokes as they walked, joined at the hip as if they couldn’t bear to be separated.

It was nauseating.

Shifting her attention back to Ang, she shook her head. “I shouldn’t have come. I’m not brunch-ready yet.”

Angela, who had dressed to the nines for the occasion in a gorgeous navy blue sweater set, set down her coffee cup. “Oh, sure you are. You have been working non-stop for, what’s it been now, three weeks?”

“Since Nate?” Rhetorical question. Of course that was what she meant. Lately Fiona had categorized everything as Before Nate and After Nate, a practice Angela didn’t like. “Oh, twenty-two days and thirteen hours, but I mean, who’s counting?”

Ang raised her brows, a sure sign she had a smart-aleck comeback all lined up. “So glad you’re not obsessing.” But then she rolled her eyes and smoothed back her red curls without mussing her style. “You remind me of this patient I have. Every session, he obsesses about his cat.”

Nice. So now Fiona’s heartbreak had been lumped into the same category as cat obsessions. “Isn’t there something called patient confidentiality?”

“Don’t be boring. And don’t block your feelings,” Ang threw in.

She’d been saying that every chance she had, which Fiona didn’t get. It was starting to become annoying, honestly. She had a broken heart here. What else was there to unblock? Did Ang want her to bleed? Cry? What?

“I just can’t believe that he dumped me,” she mumbled, which wasn’t even half of it. “If only I could pay to have my feelings go away.”

“How do you think I paid for my condo?” Ang said slyly.

If only taking Ang up on her subtle offer to help would work. It wouldn’t. Nate hadn’t called. Hadn’t stopped by. Hadn’t given Fiona the slightest indication he even noticed the void in his life where his girlfriend used to be. Maybe he didn’t miss her at all, which if true, would be just devastating.

Had she been ignoring his needs that much?

If he thought that, maybe he was punishing her for it. Making her feel lonely and abandoned like he’d said he had felt, until he decided she’d had enough and that’s when he’d come back. That was kind of mean, if so.

“Never mind,” Ang continued, “you know what your problem is? You never slow down long enough for you to actually have feelings.”

Fiona’s phone vibrated with the special pattern she used for Andy. Perfect time to segue out of this uncomfortable conversation into something that made sense—real estate. “Hold that thought.”

Ang pulled the phone from her hand. “My point exactly.”

Without the phone as a distraction, memories got the best of her, and this was no exception. “Nate used to love this place. He would get the Reuben on rye. It was his favorite.”

“Fiona.” Ang’s calm voice cut through the scene playing out in her head. The moment Fiona focused on her, she said, “You’re going to have to move on.”

No. That wasn’t happening. She needed to figure this out. There was always a possibility that if she did, Nate would forgive her. They could pick up where they’d left off. There was no law that said she couldn’t have hope.

Except Nate had given zero indication that he might be thinking of reconciling.

“Every relationship I’m in just falls apart. What if I’m alone permanently? Really, what if I’m like that half duplex that just sits on the market forever?”

“You need a fresh perspective,” Ang told her. “You know, I think we could both use a holiday out of town.”

The foreign word rolled around in her head as she tried to put some context around Ang’s point. “What, you mean like a vacation?”

“Yeah. Let’s shake things up a little. Get your mind off of Nate. You can come back here with a fresh start.” Ang’s face lit up. “I know just the place. We should go visit your dad. I’ve always wanted to see the inn.”

“The inn?” Now Angela was just talking crazy. Why would Fiona voluntarily visit the place that had supplanted her childhood home? “I don’t know. My stepmom is still upset with me for not visiting since last summer. And you know my dad and I have issues.” The last time she’d gone up there—which had only happened because Delia harassed her until Fiona took two days off to breeze through—she and her father had barely spoken outside of surface-level chitchat about the inn and its daily functions.

“You need a change of scenery,” Ang said firmly and gestured at the bistro’s other tables. “Let’s face it. Manhattan is ground zero for happy couples. Holding hands through Central Park, shopping along Fifth Avenue, brunch in places like this. I mean… look.”

Fiona followed her gesture to spy a couple with their heads together at a nearby table. They weren’t even eating, just laughing softly to each other in that way newly-in-love people do when everything is rosy and beautiful.

The couple even had matching scarves. Gag.

Angela topped off Exhibit A with, “That is my point exactly.”

It was an arrow through the gut, all right. The city wasn’t a good place to be right now, not if she planned to keep pretending she wasn’t devastated.

Then she had a worse thought. She had a much higher chance of running into Nate by haunting the places he liked, which was the real reason brunch had been a bad idea. The breakup had her all turned around.

If nothing else, she needed to be someplace Nate was not. “You sold me. When do we leave?”