I shook my hair back and straightened my shoulders. Big girl panties, Hannah. I swung my weekender and my purse over my shoulder before my gaze settled on the small vase on the table by the door.
My secondhand tulips.
I plucked them out of the vase and tucked them carefully in my purse. They were mine now. Just as last night was forever mine, no matter how it had ended.
As soon as I stepped into the hall, I saw the champagne in a bucket beside the door. It was only then I glimpsed the do not disturb sign Asher must’ve hung when I wasn’t paying attention.
I picked up the bottle of champagne and tucked that away too. Another reminder. I’d drink it and recall every detail of this perfect, unforgettable night.
Then I looked back one last time.
“Goodbye, Asher,” I said quietly to the room and closed the door behind me.
Four
Two months later
A meeting at eleven. Another meeting at noon. Then lunch, followed by another meeting.
Already my day was a shitstorm.
My sales manager had quit with no warning, leaving me to meet with several of our biggest customers. I had little time to get up to speed on their accounts and even less time to consider if my long-term, trusted employee had taken off with all his sales contacts in tow. If so, whatever company he landed at next would benefit from all the relationships he’d built while being paid by Wainwright Publishing Industries.
But I didn’t have time to dwell on the possible misuse of company resources. Not when my grandmother was on the phone, upending my life in her sweet, chaotic way.
“When is this trip again?” I sorted through the piles of paper on my desk, desperately searching for my Day-Timer.
Lately, that brown ring-bound book was my life raft. If I put the task in a little box with a time and date, then I could check it off when it was completed. All those checkmarks were in my win column. Examples of things I’d managed to address and handle in a timely fashion.
Yes, my world might be spiraling out of control, but this was how I held everything together. I put it on the calendar and I dealt with each item at a time.
“March eleventh through the seventeenth. It’s already in your Day-Timer. I put it there last month.”
I stopped searching and smiled, amused as always at exactly how well she knew me. Then the dates finally sunk into my head.
“Mid-March? I have the Free Papers Expo that week. Who is going to watch Lily if I’m out of town? Most of it is local, with only one overnight but—”
“I’d suggest friends, but you’d have to stop working long enough to make some. I know it’s not the same for you since Billy died, but you have to stop hiding in work sometime, Snug.”
The old nickname smoothed away the tickle of irritation. “You know, most people see me as a formidable man. Yet you call me that.”
“You’ll always be my Snuggle Bunny even if you tower over me. Now stop stalling and tell me when you’re going to do something about this nanny situation.”
I sighed. “I interviewed two of them. What more do you want?”
“Did you hire either of them?”
“Of course not. They weren’t right. I can’t leave Lily with just anyone.” I straightened my tie. “I’ll muddle through. Maybe Vincent can cover for me at the expo.”
“Right, and then you’ll just take a week’s vacation because I’m traveling with my group of fuddy-duddies. We’re going south in August, so you better make time then too.”
“August is a long time from
now.” And I wasn’t sure if I’d make it through this week, never mind five months away. “Let me handle the March vacation first, okay?”
“That’s how you deal with everything. Mark it down as something to handle. Tell me this, do you ever enjoy anything anymore? Ever take a day or a night for yourself? Not since New Year’s Eve—”
“Gran.” Her name was an admonition. I was not going there. I’d been doing my damn best to pretend that night had never existed.