Page 52 of Fireworks & Forehead Kisses

“Declan. He’s leaving to go overseas for six months tomorrow, so hopefully, that will clear his head. It’s a trip my Dexter made every year.”

Mr. Stick Up His Ass was going to be out of the country for six months. Between my night with Big and finding out I wouldn’thave to deal with Mr. Stick Up His Ass for the next six months, maybe my luck was turning around after all.

18

DECLAN

I leanedback in my high-back leather chair and looked out over Leicester Square in London, watching all the people below going about their day. As I stared down at the sea of colorful dots bustling from here to there, I wondered if any of them had someone they could not stop thinking about. Someone who consumed their thoughts. Someone who was on their mind morning, noon, and night.

It had been five months, one week, and two days since I woke up in that hotel room alone, and not one of those days had gone by that Carrie hadn’t crossed my mind. Hell, if I was honest, there might not have been an hour that had passed without a thought of her drifting through my head.

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw her face. Her eyes. Her hair. Her smile. The curve of her waist. The slope of her neck. I still smelled the sweet scent of her perfume, or lotion, or shampoo, or whatever it was that was uniquely her. I could still feel the way her body felt in my arms as I held her in bed. I could still hear the melodic sound of her voice.

Before I left for Japan, I’d looked up all the bookings at the hotel and hadn’t found one room registered under any Carrie,Caroline, Karina, Cassidy, Charlotte, Cari, Kari, Karie, Kerry, Carri, Karri, Kerrie, Kerri, Keri, Cerry, or Karrie. There’d been one Carol and a Catherine, but when I cross-referenced the I.D.s on file, they weren’t my Carrie.

If I really wanted to get in touch with the mystery woman who had haunted me for the past five months, all I had to do was reach out to Fatima. She would know how to find her. But something was stopping me from doing that. Maybe it was the obsessive way I thought about her or the way I’d been with her that night. Or maybe it was the fact that if I got someone else involved, it would become real. I wasn’t sure I was ready for that, or that I even wanted that. Ihadgiven in to the temptation of going onto Fatima’s social media accounts to search for Carrie, but that was just another dead end.

In the end, I decided it was for the best. At least, that’s what I was telling myself. My reaction to Carrie was too potent. She had a power over me that no one else had ever possessed. I’d had sex with her and not worn a condom. I’d wanted to confess that I loved her. If those weren’t two glaring red flags, I’m not sure what would be.

I turned back to the computer and saw that I had an unread email from Ashley. It was the daily progress report she sent me to keep me in the loop about the eco-friendly line she and Gran had been working on for Wolfe Clothing, which was launching in two weeks’ time.

Our daily correspondences were less than friendly. People often say the problem with texts and emails is that you can never really tell the intent of the sender because they can be misinterpreted. Ashley, however, managed to convey through her carefully crafted, sarcastic, passive-aggressive responses that my micromanagement was not appreciated. Unfortunately for her, I didn’t give a shit. She wasn’t qualified for the position my grandmother had given her. She had a degree in art andpsychology. She was out of her depth being in charge of sourcing materials, budget, production, and distribution. Basically, any sort of project management was not in her wheelhouse. She thrived on the creative and marketing side of things, which was where I believed she belonged in the company.

To be fair, she’d done her best, given her background. She’d proven that she was bright and resourceful, but the ball had been dropped repeatedly. Things were overlooked and not handled properly, or at the very least, not up to my standards, which I had pointed out to her. Repeatedly. Once I got back home, I was going to insist that she step down as COO and be replaced by someone who was actually qualified. I had already instructed Hannah to put feelers out and had three candidates that I’d be deciding between.

I knew that my grandmother was going to fight me on it. She wouldn’t appreciate Ashley’s demotion, but the girl had been thrown into the deep end without a life jacket, and if I hadn’t been as involved as I was, she would have drowned and lost the company asignificantamount of money, not to mention, our reputation would have been tainted. Deadlines would not have been met, and the line would not be launching on schedule or on budget.

My phone rang, and I looked down and saw it was my grandmother calling.

She also wasn’t a huge fan of my management style. Technically, she did answer to me, but she was my grandmother, so obviously, that wasn’t the case. The titles that we held at the company didn’t mean anything. Except I would put my foot down about keeping Ashley in the position she had no business holding in the first place.

“Hello, Gran. How are you?”

“Have you spoken to Serena?”

I was silent for a moment, sure that I must have heard her wrong. Why in the world would she be bringing up my ex? It had been over five months since I’d seen or spoken to her. Maybe this was about the condo. Serena’s deadline to move out was last week. Perhaps she’d needed an extension, which was ridiculous, but I’d deal with it.

“No. Why?”

“She came to see me.”

“When?”

“Yesterday.”

“Why?”

“I asked her to.”

“You asked Serena to come and see you?”

“Yes.”

“Why?” I repeated the question.

“I wanted to speak to her.”

I couldn’t tell if she was being deliberately obtuse or not.

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