“Where to, boss?”
“Boss,” I say, under my breath. “How many times—” That shit doesn’t matter at all. Noah grins at me, eyes shining. I’m not in the habit of leaving in the middle of the workday, and he knows it.
“Who are we looking for, boss?” I can tell he’s trying to stifle a laugh, so I look at him with narrowed eyes.
“How do you know we’re looking for someone?”
“You’ve been staring out the window all week, mooning about Carolyn. Any idiot can tell you miss the hell out of her. So where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
“You know.”
“I don’t.”
“Text her, then.”
“No.”
Noah rolls his eyes in an exaggerated fashion, then gives me a look that I would never tolerate if he weren’t such a close friend.
“Fine. Where do you think she might be?”
It’s hard to think straight because I’m so fucking wrapped up in what I have to do.
“She’s probably at the boutique.”
“That store she owns? Couple blocks away?”
“How do you know that?”
Another look.
Noah turns around and peers into the sideview mirror, then steers the car back into traffic.
“Wait.”
“I’m taking you to that store, boss. If you sulk for another week I’m going to lose my damn mind, and so is everyone else.”
“There’s something else I need to do first.”
The idea comes to me in a painful flash, but it makes such complete and total sense that once my mind works out the logistics, there’s no way I can’t follow through.
Carolyn will know my apology is absolutely sincere. She’ll have no choice but to believe me.
And even if she chooses not to, I’ll move on with my life knowing that I did everything possible to win her back, up to and including baring all the details of the worst parts of my past. Every little thing.
If she wants to know about me, she can.
I love her too much to live any other way.
I love her too fucking much.
My heart throbs with it, aches with it, until I think it might burst.
I have to get to her.
“Safe deposit box,” I say to Noah the next time I can get a breath.
This is in motion now, and I’m not going to stop until I find her.
Chapter Forty-Five
Carolyn
Scott Richards, my financial manager, purses his lips and looks across the desk at me.
He’s not my favorite person in the world, but he’s been adept at managing my money all these years, so I’ve been able to forgive him for his occasional older man bullshit.
Right now, unfortunately, it’s in full force.
“Ms. Banks, I’m just not entirely convinced that selling this asset would be in your best financial interests.”
“Why not, Scott?”
He taps his fingers together in front of his chest like the banker in Monopoly and takes in a breath through his nose. “When we originally purchased the storefront, it was worth far less. Your renovations, and increased traffic over the past year, have increased its worth considerably. I can only expect that to continue. Selling now could lose you millions in future profit.”
The word “profit” reminds me of the millions I’ve made off of Ace, and it turns my stomach. Scott Richards never blinked an eye at that source of revenue, and—it just now occurs to me—that may be because he’s a member of the website himself.
Was. Was a member of the website. Right now, as I sit across the desk from Scott Richards, in the strange and stupid position of having to convince him to do what I want with the properties I own, my technical team is dismantling the website, downloading the data onto a secure drive that will be stored in a safe deposit box that only I can access, and securing the domain name and all related domain names for the foreseeable future.
Rainflower Blue went offline at ten forty-three this morning. I know, because that’s the exact time I watched the tech team take the site down. A man with a goatee—I can’t remember his name—turned to me and smiled. “We can still reverse it, if you want.”
I’d shaken my head. “Not a chance.”
“What if I don’t care about millions in future profit? What if I just want to offload the property?”
Scott spreads his hands. “It is your property, Ms. Banks. I would be remiss as your financial adviser if I didn’t inform you that it might be a misstep.”
“Then what would you suggest?”
“Close the boutique if you’d like, but we can carefully select a tenant so that you’ve got some return on your investment.” He opens his mouth, like he’s going to tell me one more time that it would be unwise to get rid of the property at this juncture, but then closes it.