Page 18 of Fierce Love
But I can’t focus on her, because Hollyn has also risen from her chair, and our gazes are locked. I hate the simmer of emotion threatening to bubble up inside me, scald me again. Whatever hold she had on me is still there, and I resent it.
“You’re the other producer?” Her words are tinged with the panic I felt when I saw her on my screen less than an hour ago.
“Yes,” I bite out, unable to say anything else when faced with those doe eyes that make my stomach twist with longing.
“I can’t take this job,” she says, and her wide eyes turn to Posey. “Yeah, this isn’t… this won’t work.”
“No,” I agree. “It won’t.”
“Whatever is going on here,” Felipe says, still seated, wiggling his pen at me and then Hollyn, “unless it involves something illegal, the two of you need to get over yourselves. She’s got the experience and feel we need on camera beside Posey, and you,” he says, trying to catch my gaze, “have the money. Don’t tank this project because the two of you have history.”
Iwishthis thing between us felt like history. It would be so nice to look at her and feel nothing but nostalgia.
“If she stays,” I say, “I go.” Ultimatums have never been what I reach for first, but in this case, it’s self-preservation.
“I’m not staying,” Hollyn says, avoiding my gaze as she gathers her things. “If I’d known, I wouldn’t have come.”
“Wait,” Posey says, stretching her arms wide in a stopping motion. “I don’t know what’s going on here, but we can figure out a way to make this work. We can. Creative thinking is all we need.”
“I have a job. I have a life. It’s not here,” Hollyn says, slinging her purse over her shoulder. “I’m sorry I wasted your time.”
She steps around the table and gives me a curt nod on her way past, as though our act of agreeing that we couldn’t exist in the same space has put us on the same team somehow. What a joke. She’s almost out the door of the boardroom when the scent of her apple shampoo arrives, having drifted behind her. Against my will, I close my eyes, and I remember what it was like to have her naked, pressed against my side, my nose buried in her hair. My chest is unbearably tight.
“Are you drunk? This isn’t like you,” Posey hisses from beside me. “What’s going on with you?” She’s searching my face, and I honestly have no idea what she’ll find.
“I think I’m quitting this project,” I say.
“Nathaniel.” She breathes out my name. “Without you, it doesn’t move ahead. The government grant isn’t enough to coverall the costs. We’d have to charge the people for their own makeovers.”
“Maybe this is a sign that the show shouldn’t run at all when the only person you can find as your cohost is the last person on the planet I’d be okay with.”
“You don’t hold grudges, and you don’t dislike anyone except your cousin Hugh, so I don’t…” Then she tilts her head, and understanding lights her eyes. “Oh my god. It’s the opposite of that, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know what it is,” I say, suddenly weary. “And I’ve got no desire to find out.”
“If you find someone else,” I say, loudly enough for the other producers to hear, “I’ll come back on board. If you really want her, you need to find another money guy. I’m not it.” At their protests, I merely throw up my hands, rotate on my heel, and leave the boardroom.
As I exit the elevator, I catch a glimpse of red hair ducking into a cab, and I hate how my feet urge me forward, as though they have a mind of their own.
Bill is waiting at the curb, and I climb into the back. We sit for a moment, with him waiting for me to give him some direction. Going home seems even more depressing than being in the back of the car.
“Just drive around for a bit,” I say.
“That, I can do,” Bill says, shifting the car into drive and pulling away from the curb.
As I look out the window, the city zipping past, an idea—not a good one—forms. My alcohol-addled brain latches on to it, and before I can second-guess myself, Bill is headed in a new direction, one that’s sure to lead me straight to hell.
Chapter Nine
Hollyn
Fourteen years ago
It takes him a week to keep the promise he shouted from the doorway of the bar before he left. In the days in between, I convinced myself that he wouldn’t show up or that, if he did, I wouldn’t even notice. But the minute he enters The Drunk Raccoon, it’s like something inside of meknows, as though the energy in the room shifts with his presence.
Unlike last weekend, there’s no departing cruise ship—that’s tomorrow—so the bar has a steady stream of people without being too crowded. He swaggers to a table, loose-hipped and confident in a way only criminals and rich people are, and I wonder how I missed all the signs of privilege the other night.
The camp attendant’s outfit and his callused hands threw me off. Even today, his worn jeans and soft flannel shirt suggest the rugged outdoors more than fancy dinners and Rolex watches.
