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“I’m fine. In one piece. On the plane to New Jersey.”
“I can’t believe that storm hit the island. It all happened so fast. I kept watching the forecast, hoping it would change for you. I can’t help but feel responsible. It was my idea for you to go down there in the first place.”
“No. No. It’s not your fault. I wanted to go. And believe it or not, it was still a good trip. Despite the storm. Despite everything.” She was trying to put the best possible spin on this, not merely for Kianna’s sake, but also for her own. She didn’t want to regret her time with Zane. She didn’t want to believe that it might have been a big mistake. But what do you do when you get what you’ve always wanted and then it’s snatched away by timing and circumstance? What do you do when the guy you’ve wanted for years tells you that it’s over before it’s had a chance to really start? Right now, it felt like nothing would ever sting as much as this rejection.
“Did you at least find a hot guy? Please say yes.”
Allison couldn’t suppress the smile that crossed her face. “I did. But I’ll have to tell you about it later. We take off soon, and I have to turn off my phone.”
“Okay, hon. Did you postpone your meeting with Black Crescent?”
“Nope. Still going in tomorrow. As planned.”
“Did you talk to Joshua Lowell?”
“I texted his assistant. We’re all good.”
“You’re a badass, you know that, right?”
Allison laughed. Her friendship and partnership with Kianna meant the world to her. She really hoped she wouldn’t end up letting her down. This Black Crescent meeting had to go well. “I’m trying.”
“Call me after the meeting tomorrow?”
“You know it. Talk to you then.”
Allison hung up the phone, switched it to airplane mode and tucked it into the seat-back pocket. She swirled her gin and tonic, took a long sip and glanced over at Zane and Scott. Zane, who was sitting at the window, made eye contact with her. That instant seemed to speak volumes—there was a connection between them that hadn’t been there before they got to the island. Zane knew it. She did, too. But he seemed resigned to setting it aside. Keeping it in the past. No matter how hot and passionate that connection was, it didn’t seem to be enough for Zane.
He dropped his gaze and returned his attention to her brother. Allison’s heart plummeted to her stomach, but she was used to the disappointment now. It was the story of her life with Zane. And exactly the reason why this visit to Falling Brook would be all about her role as businessperson supreme, not the woman who couldn’t stop pining for a man she couldn’t have.
Scott leaned across the aisle to talk to her. “Do you have plans tomorrow night?”
“Hanging out at your house. Not sure what else I would possibly be doing.”
“I wasn’t sure if you had work obligations.”
Allison wanted to strangle her brother for bringing up Black Crescent while Zane was sitting right next to him. “Nope. I should be done by midafternoon. Why?”
Zane peered around Scott. “He invited me over for dinner.”
“I wanted to thank him for taking such good care of my little sister,” Scott added.
What in the world was her brother up to? “Okay. Sounds great.”
Nine
Right on time, Allison pulled her rental car into the Black Crescent parking lot the following afternoon, shortly before two o’clock. She’d arrived back in Falling Brook in the nick of time—less than twenty-four hours before her scheduled meeting with Haley Shaw and Joshua Lowell. Anyone else might have used the fact that she’d been stranded on an island in the middle of a hurricane as an excuse to postpone the meeting, but that detail was a dramatic selling point. She could tell Josh Lowell that not even a natural disaster would keep her from doing her job, and doing it well. In the end, she and Kianna needed the Black Crescent contract. It was their best shot at keeping their company alive.
Of course, the only trouble with that was Zane. If she got the contract, she would have to tell him that she was working for the company that he considered the enemy. Even though there were no more remnants of romance between them, she couldn’t keep the secret from him forever. As she walked up to the sleek and modern building that had always stuck out in the otherwise traditional Falling Brook landscape, she was well aware that if Zane knew what she was doing right now, he would tell her she was not only a terrible friend, she was foolish. The things he’d said while they were riding out the storm in the Bahamas echoed in her head.The Lowells destroy everything. Families most of all.He’d been deeply hurt by the things the Lowell family had done to him and his parents, and it was clear that for Zane, it was about far more than the money. His entire world was turned upside down the day that Vernon Lowell made off with his family’s fortune. As far as Zane was concerned, his old charmed life ended that day and his new, far less shiny life began.
Allison had a somewhat different perspective. Oddly enough, she felt a debt of gratitude to the Lowells. If Vernon hadn’t disappeared with all that money, she might have never met Zane. That thinking might be employing some pretty messed-up logic, but that was truly the way she felt. Not having Zane in her life was an incredibly depressing thought, almost as sad as the other thought that had been winding through her head since the Bahamas—that Zane would ultimately be a thirst unquenched. She’d thought that making love with him would get him out of her system. But that had been a horrible miscalculation on her part.
The flight had given her entirely too much time to mull over Zane’s latest rejection. She wanted to shrug it off and move ahead, but her heart just wouldn’t let her go there. Her heart wanted to drag her down to the bottom of this murky sea in which she was adrift and remind her of the reasons why it was such a shattering disappointment to have him choose his friendship with her brother over a chance with her. She was in deep, and she had no idea how to swim her way out. Scott would never buy into the idea of her with Zane. He would always think of Allison as that little girl with cancer, even when she was strong and healthy and a grown woman. And if anyone knew Zane forward, backward and every other way imaginable, it was her brother. He was convinced that Zane wasn’t capable of commitment. The allure of other women was too great, although Allison also suspected that there was more to it than that. Zane might have been unbelievably brave in the face of that storm, but he was afraid of commitment and was possibly even more terrified of love. That put Allison in the category of a good time, right where every other woman he’d ever met also resided. Allison didn’t want to be just another girl, but it sure felt that way.
With the Black Crescent building looming before her, Allison couldn’t afford to think about that. She had a job to do and a business to keep afloat. Her first allegiance had to be to herself and Kianna now. She straightened her designer jacket and shrugged her laptop bag up onto her shoulder, then marched into Black Crescent.
She approached the main-floor reception desk. “Allison Randall for Joshua Lowell. We have a two o’clock.”
The receptionist picked up the phone. “One moment, please.”
