Page 22 of Make Her Mine

But right at this moment, she never wanted to set foot in the Indigo Lounge again.

11

Esme had never felt so alone in her own bar.

In the three days since Sasha had caught her with Nora, they hadn’t spoken. Sasha refused to talk to her. She hadn’t told anyone else about what she’d seen as far as Esme could tell, but she hadn’t been willing to sit down with Esme and have a talk. It was starting to get awkward; Ruby and Cam were noticing the frigid chill coming from Sasha, and Esme felt the weight of Sasha’s disapproval more heavily by the moment.

She was probably going to have to explain things to Ruby and Cam, whether she liked it or not. Ruby, writer that she was, would probably have some level of sorrowful understanding of the situation. Feckless Cam with her string of conquests would also get it on some level. But overall, they, too, would probably be at least a little bit dismayed that Esme had gotten involved with the woman whose primary current goal was to crush all of their dreams.

The crazy thing was that Esme had sat with herself for two long nights trying to find the shame and regret that Sasha seemed to think she should be feeling. All she could find was an ache of longing for Nora, and sorrow that she’d inadvertently hurt her feelings with her panicked words.

It’s nothing! It’s just sex!

Of course it wasn’t. It never had been, and Esme could fully, openly acknowledge that to herself now. It was why she had always found an excuse to snap at Nora and push her away whenever something happened that got Esme a little too close to making herself aware of the deep truth of it all. It had never once been nothing, never only been sex. Their connection the first time they met had been immediate and strong. It was just amazing that Nora hadn’t run away when Esme had been so entirely unpredictable, time and again.

Until now. The nothing comment, made in a moment of fright when Esme just wanted to defuse Sasha’s anger, had apparently been Nora’s last straw. Esme couldn’t blame her for that.

She did wish, however, that Nora would give her a chance to apologize. For three days now she’d tried to text and to call, begging for a minute of time. Just a chance to explain how sorry she was. She was fairly certain she hadn’t been blocked, but she wasn’t being answered. Which meant that Nora was seeing her attempts at outreach and was actively deciding to not respond. She was making a conscious choice.

That hurt, but Esme knew she deserved it and more. So, she’d been sitting with the pain, letting herself feel it completely, a bit masochistically.

It was harder to sit with Sasha’s disapproval. But she didn’t know how to explain things to Sasha in a way that would make her understand. Mostly because she herself didn’t understand. Acknowledging the depth of her attraction to Nora didn’t magically make her able to understand it. Sasha was right, Nora wanted to take away the most important thing in Esme’s life. So how could Esme still miss her so badly, want her so much? She should be furious with Nora, she thought. Or even happy that Nora seemed to be done with her and would no longer be emotionally complicating her life. Because ever since Esme had met that impossible, gorgeous, magnetic woman, her life had been upended. She was going to lose the one thing she’d ever believed in with a deep and abiding passion, the thing to which she had devoted half her life, because of this woman. So why was she almost just as sad about Nora ignoring her as she was about losing the Lounge?

The long and short of it was that Esme just didn’t know. Which meant she couldn’t talk to Sasha about it. That, she just had to deal with. Esme was coping by making sure she was always at the opposite end of the bar from Sasha, or avoiding the kitchen, or holing herself up in her office, as she was now. The time alone was giving her a lot of room to think about whether or not she could figure out a way to save the Lounge.

At this point, there was no way Nora wouldn’t kick her out. Esme was sure of that. She was either going to have to find a new space somewhere else or… hell. Buy the Fairchild. Esme lifted her head up to look at the photos on her office walls. It felt like they were all staring back at her, their smiles mocking. Buy the Fairchild? You? You barely have a dollar in change in your wallet.

No. That was impossible. Esme rested her chin in her hand and sighed.

There was a tap at her office door. Surprised, Esme turned in her chair and opened the door. It further surprised her to see Oliver Fairchild standing there, an anxious expression on his face. “Esme?”

“Ollie. Long time no see.” The Fairchilds she did like seemed to have been avoiding her since the sale news broke, when usually they were in at least once every couple of weeks to have lunch. But she was glad to see Oliver despite everything. “What’s up?”

“I’m uncomfortable even bringing this up,” Oliver said, and he looked it. “But we haven’t heard from Nora Hartley in a few days. Since the building sale affects you, I was wondering if… maybe she’d talked to you lately?”

Esme looked at him. Is he for real? “Me? You really think she’d talk to me?”

He actually squirmed. “One of the last meetings we had with her, I spotted some notes on her desk. Listings for spaces that would be appropriate for a place like the Indigo Lounge. I thought she might be working with you on relocating.”

Esme felt her eyebrows nearly hit her hairline. “That’s interesting news, Oliver. But no, I haven’t been working with her on that; I’ve been working on my own to see what options I might have.” She looked at her desk and started to fidget with some of the paperwork there, unsure what to make of the info she’d just been given. She breathed in deep. “I haven’t heard from her.”

“Ah. Okay.” Oliver still stood in the doorway, and when Esme turned to focus on him again, he didn’t seem to know what to do. Finally, he just said, “Well, if you do hear from her, let her know we’re looking for her. Alexandra is actually furious… if she wants to just reach out to me directly, that’s okay.”

“Sure, Ollie. Okay. It was nice seeing you.” She sat in her desk chair and smiled until he went away. When his footsteps faded into the general noise of the Lounge and she couldn’t pick them out anymore, Esme grabbed her tote bag from under her desk and hustled out of her little office, taking swift steps to get to the bar.

Sasha glared at her, but Cam, in today to wait tables, looked her over with interest. “Where are you going, E?”

“Just… out. Got a meeting.” She avoided meeting Sasha’s increasingly thunderous gaze. “I’ll be back.”

With that, Esme turned and headed for the back entrance to retrieve her car.

She’d never made an effort to visit the building Nora’s firm called home. That seemed a little too much like personal involvement, and of course that was something she had been fighting against.

Now, Esme stood outside of the glass-coated high rise and felt like a gawking tourist as she stared up at it. She felt very, very small. No wonder Nora had felt like she could come in and just crush the Lounge under her exquisitely-shod foot. Swallowing, Esme stepped into the revolving door before she could lose her nerve.

It was so strange to be here. This building was only a mile away from the Fairchild, but the worlds couldn’t be more different. No ornate wrought iron here, no cascading plants. Here it was all glass and granite and chrome, carefully cultivated slender trees in pots, tasteful abstract watercolor art. It somehow was and wasn’t what she expected of Nora.

Twisting the raffia handles of her tote bag, Esme stepped over to the reception desk. Her mouth was dry and she rued leaving her water bottle behind. “I’d like,” she began, but had to pause and swallow. “I’d like to see Nora Hartley, please.”

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