Page 82 of Broken

"Mom, Uncle Cal said we need to come up next week! They do fireworks Over. The. Water." Aines eyes were huge, and she used her hand gestures to emphasize 'Over the Water'

I was going to kill Callum Carter. I looked over at him and glared. I understand his want to be in her life, but I didn't want to break Aines heart if we couldn't go up there.

Thank God Kai was a natural at parenting, already. He stepped in and talked to Aine while I murdered his brother with my eyes.

"We'll see kiddo. Your mom and I both have work. She's already taken a lot of time off." Kai looked at me for confirmation. I had taken more time off than I originally planned this month.

"Fine. But can we please go see you soon, dad?" Aine mastered the whole sad eyes once she figured out it worked well on the Carter men.

I hugged Cal. "I'm not going to miss you, asshole."

We both laughed. He knew better. "Right. And I'm not going to miss you too, Pyro."

Before getting in the car, Cal kissed Aine on the forehead and promised to tell her about the time I accidentally set fire to his mother's kitchen when learning to bake. Yeah, he was on borrowed time.

It was just me, Kai, and Aine. Our little family of three. Kai kissed us both goodbye and got into the backseat of his brothers' car.

Aine and I stood there, hand in hand, and watched them drive away.

I never felt so lost and alone in my life, but I also never felt so loved and accepted.

forty-eight

Sinclair

IassumedEricgotthe hint when he stopped calling and texting me. So, when I came into work and saw that I had numerous voicemails, most of which came from him.

This was the exact reason I never slept with clients or business partners or anyone connected to my job. It always made things complicated and messy. Danielle was the one exception. If anything, that night strengthened our relationship.

I was still sick when I woke up, so I sipped on ginger tea when Danielle came into my office.

"You'll never believe what I just did?" She had been working on some major projects for the resort lately, many of them focused on getting the resort on the festival network. She figured if we got into the festival business, it'll boost sales exponentially.

"I looked up at her and smiled. "What did you do?"

"I got the city's approval to host a weeklong silver screen Movie Festival!" She bounced with excitement. I didn't know the details of the event she cooked up; I hadn't exactly been the most reliable coworker this past month, but I had a feeling I would love her idea.

"That's fantastic!" This would be our first project together. "I'm excited to hear the details."

We agreed to have lunch in her office and start on her project. We were a team, we worked together on all projects. I wondered if this was going to be involved enough for me to set aside the proposals I needed to work on. I hoped so.

I'd been unusually exhausted lately. I figured the chaos that became my life over the past few weeks drained me more than I thought. Stress and anxiety often caused nausea and fatigue.

Before I left my office, I called to check on Aine, who spent the day home alone. She assured me everything was fine and that her father and her aunt Mia had been checking on her throughout the morning. I smiled to myself. Of course, they did. Even if some stranger was her father, both of them would still be just as protective of her as they are now.

I sent them both texts, thanking them and sending my love. I promised to call Kai when I left work and made plans to talk to Mia over the weekend. For now, this was how we would keep the promises we made to each other. This was the way we found.

Danielle and I worked through lunch in her office. I brought butter garlic noodles from home because they seemed to be one of the few things that didn't upset my stomach lately. Thank God Danielle had a soft couch for me to sink into in her office because there was no way I could sit and work on her project for as long as we planned.

The festival was a fantastic idea and would appeal to those who loved Palm Springs for its rich, old Hollywood Glam history. We planned for different Silver Screen memorabilia to be displayed in giant tents during the day. The tents would be set up at different parts of the resort. Each tent focuses on a different genre of film and the era of the silver screen.

After the sun went down, we would show movies, projected on the blank sides of the tents. The movies shown would correspond with the theme of the tent we played them on.

We made a solid plan that would attract silver screen lovers from everywhere. We discussed the idea of having some Sinatra cover band play somewhere in the resort during the festival. We even talked about what it would take to bring in the iconic Forever Marilyn statue to display in the center of the festival.

We selected specific jobs and people to call for each of us based on our individual strengths and called it a day. We hoped to do this before the end of Summer, so we had two months to put this together and about six months' worth of work to do to prepare.

I grabbed my purse and cell from my office and remembered that I left Layla's ashes in my office when Kai came into town with them two weeks ago. I didn't know what made me think of them, or why I needed to bring them home with me, but it was time.

---