Page 77 of That Reunited Feeling

I need to move her to the bottom of the list. What time is the last person?

Four o’clock.

“...four thirty? Apologies again for the inconvenience.”

I repeat the process for Veena, the person who was scheduled at two-thirty, but ask her if she can do five o’clock.

As I hit Send, Rhona replies. “No worries. Whatever it takes to have the opportunity to work alongside Tom Dashwood. See you at four-thirty!”

Well, she already fits right in with her exclamation point.

And Veena responds almost immediately. “Hi Hannah. Yes, I can juggle things around to make five o’clock work. I’ll await your call then.”

And she has a totally different vibe.

This is going to be an interesting afternoon.

I take a giant breath to try to calm my racing heart and waft my top to fan my sweaty everything.

Disaster averted.

But now I have just fifteen minutes before the three-o’clock person to wash my face, slap on some fresh makeup, do something with my hair, which probably looks like something even a desperate homeless bird wouldn’t want to live in, and make myself some coffee strong enough to stand a spoon up in.

I push the chair back from the desk.

Now, where the hell is the bathroom?

Phew, that was an intense two-and-a-half hours.

Just one last thing to do. I click Send on the contact form on the Choc Full of Love website and fire off a message to Delia, asking her to request permission to share Katie’s contact info with me.

I can’t for the life of me figure out what Tom wants it for.

Not that I’ve had much time to think about it amid the panic and the back-to-back video calls.

I stretch my arms over my head and tick-tock my neck from side to side. As comfortable as this chair is, after this long sitting in one position, my back and neck are stiff. It probably didn’t help that it took me until halfway through the third chat for the stress of being late to fade enough for me to get into my groove and for my shoulders to drop below the level of my earlobes.

For the first time since I flew into this room in a wild frenzy, I look up from the laptop and out the window. This office is two rooms down from the living room and has a similar spectacular view over the river.

The dark green walls are calming and kind of make me feel smarter just by being in here. They’re lined with similar shelves to the living room, except these are full of books, notrecords. The spines bear mainly non-fiction business titles and biographies of entrepreneurs. And over in front of the window is a chaise longue—dark gray, armless, with strong curved lines.

Into my mind pops an image of Tom lying there, reading one of these books, his coffee on the small round table next to it, every now and then pushing his talented fingers through that sexy hair and looking up to watch the boats on the river.

What a thing of beauty that image is.

Of course, it’s way more likely he has no time for any book reading, coffee sipping, or chaise lounging at all. I mean, this office is almost as pristine as the kitchen and looks barely more used. Does he ever even work in here?

I slide open the top left desk drawer. A few pens roll around next to a couple blank notepads. The next one down has a pile of fresh envelopes, a phone charger, and an unopened roll of tape.

In the third are two large yellow envelopes addressed to Tom, with a stamp across the top of them that reads “Slate, White & Associates. Creative Solutions for Your Legal Issues.” They’ve been opened and are thick with paperwork. Divorce documents?

There’s something underneath them, though. A picture frame, face down. Unable to resist, I lift out the envelopes and flip over the frame.

My stomach drops to the luxurious thick carpet under my feet, and my fingers and toes turn ice cold.

Staring up at me is a head-and-shoulders photo of Tom looking ridiculously handsome in a suit, the happiest of happy smiles on his face as he looks down into the eyes of the bride smiling back up at him.

The bright blue sky and sun-dappled green leaves behind them give the impression that nature could never consider raining on such joy.

---