“I just haven’t gotten around to selling it yet,” he said.
She rolled her eyes. “You have the skills and resources to do anything you damn well please. You kept the house for a reason.” She smiled up at him. “It’s frightening when you have something to lose. Trust me, I get it. But what I’m saying is your feelings don’t change even if you’re not with her. Don’t you see, big bro? You love her either way.”
The breath rushed from his lungs. Jenny couldn’t be right. He hadn’t allowed himself to love anyone besides his sister since the night their lives had changed forever. The price of losing someone that mattered was simply too high.
But Allison’s face flashed through his mind. He’d seen her at her best and her worst. He’d seen her serious and playful. Sexy and professional. He knew her better than anyone else, save Jenny. Her likes, her dislikes, her dreams and fears. All of it had come out during their years together. They’d moved passed being mere colleagues a long time ago.
His fingers rose to the blue scarf around his neck. He remembered the night she’d given it to him at the first staff Christmas party she’d attended. She’d been a mix of nerves and excitement when she had pulled him aside and given him the gift. Though it wasn’t unusual to exchange little trinkets with his close staff around the holidays, he’d been left speechless by the scarf he knew she couldn’t afford. And while he had far more expensive, luxurious ones hanging in his closet, from that day on it had been the only scarf he wore.
Why? He’d told himself it was a respectful gesture, but that didn’t explain why, years later, he still looked forward to digging it out of storage every fall. It was a reminder of Allison. Of how she’d cared about him, even way back then when she was too naïve to understand their business relationship was developing into something far deeper than it should have.
Was that love? The yearning to spend every minute of the day with someone. The desire to make them smile no matter the situation. The crushing emptiness that came from being apart.
“When you think ten years into the future, who’s in your life, Dare?” Jenny asked. “Are you still alone in that big empty house?”
He didn’t want to be. It was a house made to be filled with the sounds of people. Children running down the stairs. A dog barking in the backyard. A wife laughing as he attempted to cook dinner.
There was only one person he could see that fantasy unfolding with.
He met his sister’s eyes. “She won’t forgive me.”
Jenny patted the lapels of his suit. “I’ve never seen you give up without a fight, brother. Surely you don’t mean to start now.”
No, he thought. Not when this fight was the most important one of his life.
“I need your help,” he said. “There’s something I need to get.”
If he was lucky enough to get another chance to talk to Allison, then he’d better make it count.
Chapter Twenty
“I can still get you a date to the wedding,” Gillian offered, sitting cross-legged on the bed.
“No thanks,” Allison said, coming out of the bathroom. “This will be tough enough as it is. I’m just going for the ceremony and then I’m out of there.”
“Mmm.” Gillian sipped from the mug in her hands.
“What do you think?” She twirled around in her sunny yellow dress.
“Classy. You’ll make him wish for what he can’t have for sure.”
“That’s not why I’m going.”
“Sure it isn’t. Jenny is such a close friend, after all.”
She grabbed her clutch and stuffed the invitation inside it. “I spent weeks thinking of nothing but this wedding. So what if I want to see the final result?”
“That’s not why you’re going and we both know it.”
With a sigh, she turned to the bed. “He tried to talk to me at the café. I think maybe I should have let him.”
Gillian tugged on a piece of her hair. “What are you hoping will come out of today, Allison?”
“I’m not hoping for a happily ever after,” she said. “The way we left things was…cold. Now that tempers have cooled, maybe we can have a real conversation and part as friends. He might even give me a decent reference in the future.”
“The man you love broke up with you and you what? Hope you’ll stay friends?”
She stuck out her tongue. “I’m still working in the business world even if it’s a different sector. All connections are good connections.”
Gillian collapsed back on the bed with a huff. “Save me from delusional friends,” she sighed.