Page 56 of Once Bitten

Chapter Twenty One

“If you don’t call me when you’re next home, I will hunt you down and kidnap your first born,” I warned Heather as we stood by the car, finding it hard to leave.

“I’ll save you some time, you can take him right now. He’s pretty easy, just feed him 8-9 times a day.” Heather replied.

Finn opened his mouth to say something, but closed it pretty quickly when I threw him a withering glare. “Come on, we should go, beat the traffic.”

I pouted and Heather pulled me in for a last hug, whispering to me, “I’ll see you real soon, don’t worry about it. Nothing can keep us apart now.”

I climbed into the car as Finn blew a kiss to his sister and started the ignition.

“Bon voyage,” Heather waved to us, as we drove out of the car park.

“I miss her already,” I said, staring sadly at my hands.

“Yeah, me too,” Finn agreed, laughing when my head snapped up to look at him surprised.”What? She’s an annoying sister, but she’s my twin, my other half. Couldn’t live without her. So I hired her so I could boss her around and get my frustrations out on her that way.”

“She looks like she’s done a great job running the place.”

Finn nodded, “she really has. She has less of a hands-on role than Patrick and Doris do, French hospitality is more structured, but she manages this place and the staff better than any of the others are managed. They respect her and listen to her, which can be hard in France and her being American. But she’s been here for 4 years, and business is growing every day.”

“You two are amazing. Sheesh, talk about greedy, leave some stuff for other people.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, it’s enough you’re cat walk worthy, you’re also super intelligent, great business persons, and just generally wonderful people. Her more than you, but you get my gist.” I taunted him.

“Well, obviously that’s all true, even if you have left out that I’m a great dancer and folder of napkins,” he pretend to pose in the rear view mirror, before sobering, “but we make mistakes too. Big ones. Change our lives and the lives of people we love type mistakes. Mistakes we’ll regret for the rest of our lives.”

“Sure. But everyone does, Finn. The point is to move on and learn from them. And sometimes, even repent.”

“Have I?”

“I can never thank you enough for reuniting Heather and me, Finn.”

“But it was my fau-“

“Shush, maybe talking too much is one of your faults!” I screwed up my face as he chuckled. “Didn’t you hear me? It’s not repenting if you didn’t do anything wrong. But you did, and you’ve fixed your mistake. Seeing Heather again...and seeing her forgive ME, I needed that, Finn. As much as everything you and I have been through, losing her broke my heart too. And you fixed that. So yes, I think you’ve repented.”

We both sat in silence, Finn focused on driving, and I mulled over the last day.

“Finn, you know about my story, but I don’t know yours. Why haven’t you married?”

He didn’t answer for awhile, and then just shrugged. “The answer isn’t relevant to anything to do with us. Let’s just focus on us for the rest of the week, like we agreed, ok?” He reached for my hand and pressed the palm to his lips, before laying it on his thigh.

I didn’t know what to make of that, and I guess I didn’t want to. I reached over and turned the radio on, letting the sun warm my shoulders and the music take me to a place far away.

***

“Sweetheart, Kara, wake up. We’re here.” Finn nudged me and I opened my eyes. I’d fallen asleep on the ride back and we were back outside the Four Seasons. The doorman open my door and I smiled sleepily at him. Finn took my hand and walked me to the elevator.

“This is NOT the Radisson!” A familiar voice accused us one of the chairs in the waiting lounge.

It was Larry.

“Larry! What are you doing?” I asked surprised, I’d spoken to him before we’d left Lyon almost two days ago, and he hadn’t mentioned anything about flying over. “Finn O’Reilly, this is Larry Hummel.” I introduced them.

Larry took Finn’s outstretched hand, “well, good news, they gave Dean the all clear.”