Her words came out like rain, soaking through to my core. I saw Hollie’s point of view so clearly when she talked about making decisions that impacted her sister’s life. That was because I knew Hollie’s heart. She was always trying to do her best.
It was exactly who I’d thought my brother was until he’d betrayed me so badly.
“It’s different,” I said, thinking back to the photograph of my brother that I’d found online. He looked older—even had a few gray hairs at his temples. A lot of time had passed since I’d last seen him.
“Is it though?” Hollie said. “You’ll never know unless you ask him.”
Hollie made it sound simple. “A conversation can’t just wash away years of pain and hurt, Hollie. That’s not how life works.”
“But it might,” she said. “Until I got the internship at Sparkle, I didn’t believe in miracles. And then meeting you and working at Daniels & Co—the strangest, most magical things can happen. What have you got to lose by picking up the phone? It might be the best thing you ever did.”
Being with Hollie made music a little sweeter, the sea air a little fresher and the sun a little brighter. And all those things added up to making my life a whole lot richer.
She was beautiful. Creative. Talented. Sweet. Funny. Caring. Innocent and wise in the same breath. But she couldn’t perform miracles. Not even she could reconcile my brother and me.
Twenty-Three
Hollie
I wasn’t the only one to gasp as Jeremy removed the velvet from the stand to reveal the Daniels & Co entry for the princess of Finland’s tiara. There was no doubt it was beautiful. Nothing created drama like diamonds. The peaks and valleys on the band, representing the mountains of Finland, were breathtaking. But despite feeling a little disloyal and a lot ridiculous, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was missing.
What did I know? I was just the intern.
“Does everyone love it?” I turned to see Dexter scanning the faces of everyone in the conference room. We locked eyes. He frowned, looked away, then whispered to Primrose.
She nodded and turned back to the room. “It would be good to hear each of your voices. Let’s go around the room. Lauren, what’s your reaction?”
“It’s mesmerizing. Even better than the picture. And the way that emerald hangs in the center, it’s—” Lauren looked like she was about to tear up, so Primrose moved swiftly to the next person, who said similar things. Shit, what was I going to do? They were right, it was beautiful and amazing. There was no doubt about that. But that wasn’t my only thought. Should I be honest and risk embarrassing myself and upsetting Dexter and Primrose, who had both been so good to me?
“Hollie?” Primrose asked. How was it my turn already?
“I mean, just what they said. I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s gorgeous.”
“But?” Dexter asked. I felt all the eyes in the room slide to him before following his gaze to me.
I sucked in a breath and nodded. “I mean, I think it’s a winner.”
“But you have a comment,” Dexter said. Dexter had never spoken to me in front of the team before. Even though Primrose knew we were dating, she’d never singled me out for anything other than tasks strictly within the remit of an intern. Dexter shining the spotlight on me like this was going to make people suspicious, and he needed to quit it. “Hollie, I’ve asked everyone to speak freely.”
He could make his own dinner tonight.
“I think it’s beautiful. But I think . . . if it was my design, I would have been tempted to create some kind of link between the future and the past.”
“But that’s not the theme,” Dexter said. “The theme is the Finnish landscape.”
“I agree. I wasn’t thinking it would have to be anything particularly extreme—just a subtle hint at the link between the generations.” Every time I saw the design of this tiara, I couldn’t help being brought back to that night I’d met Dexter, the night I’d seen the tiara his parents had made for the queen of Finland.
“And how exactly,” Dexter said, “would you do that?”
I briefly glanced to my right, where the rest of the team glared back at me, horrified, as if I’d just told a convent full of nuns I didn’t believe in God.
But I believed in Dexter. If he’d been entirely happy, he wouldn’t want to hear what I had to say. “The tiara the queen wore on her wedding day was designed by your parents. That’s an advantage your competitors don’t have. If you just whispered that connection in this piece, I think it might give you the edge.” I stood and took a step toward the tiara. If I was going to tell him what I thought, I wasn’t going to half do it—I was all in. “The way your parents’ tiara links these points with the twisted rope of diamonds,” I said as I looked up at Dexter and Primrose, who had both stepped forward. “You could do something similar with these smaller peaks at the back. The rope would be too much, but a single swath of diamonds might work. I think it would give emphasis to the larger peaks, which would enhance this design while incorporating a technique from her mother’s tiara that the princess might appreciate.”