“You seem to have that effect on me.” He brushed a strand of hair out of my face. “I seem to forget a lot of things when I’m around you.”
“Is that a good or a bad thing?” His eyes had zoned in on mine and I felt something strange and new bubbling between us.
He shrugged again and smiled. “I have no idea yet.”
“When will you know?” I asked, leaning in. I hoped he was going to kiss me this time. Hoped that he didn’t leave me high and dry, like last night . . .
But as luck would have it, his cell phone rang and he answered it.
CHAPTERSIXTY-THREE
Ryan
He walked out of the filing room and back into his office. He needed to have this conversation behind closed doors as it usually ended up becoming heated.
“Brian,” he said into the phone when he saw who was calling.
“Hi, I just wanted to talk to you after that board meeting, alone. Without Charles interrupting,” Brian Rautenbach said.
“Sure.” Ryan sat down at his desk and waited for what was to come.
“Ryan, we don’t build malls.”
Ryan sighed. “I know.”
“So why are we?” Brian asked.
They had been down this road so many times before. Ryan kept silent.
“I’ll tell you why, because Charles Grey said so. Because he has an ulterior motive for doing it. Your dad started this company to give people holidays. That is what we know about. I proposed an alternative to the mall and I’m telling you, my idea about the short-stay holidays—closer to the city, weekend getaways—will work.”
Ryan rubbed his forehead. “Maybe you’re right, Brian. But it’s too late now. We’re building the mall.”
“Not necessarily,” Brian said.
At that, Ryan raised his head. “Oh?” he asked. His interest had been piqued.
“I spoke to Omnicor Developments, and they said they would be happy to take over the project. We would get our money back, and some more. They were looking to build a mall in that area anyway, and we’ve broken ground and done the grunt work.”
“Omnicor said they would take it?”
“Yes.”
Ryan looked around his office, deep in thought.
“Ryan, you know why I joined this company all those years ago?” Brian asked.
“Why?”
“It was your father’s passion. He was all about delivering the best holiday memories to families. That was the heart of his business.”
Ironic, Ryan thought, that he hadn’t exactly delivered the best family memories to his own children when he was alive.
“I know he was a hard man, but he had a vision and a passion. God, I still have that, and I would hate to see this company building soulless malls when we could be,should be, doing something else.”
There was a pause as Ryan took it all in. His father had been passionate, he’d give him that. Ryan, however, didn’t have that same kind of passion for what his father had been doing—maybe that’s why he’d let this mall happen.
“God, you should be running this company, you know that,” he said.
