by Emily Bishop
I groaned. If only it were that simple. “It’s so much more than that, though.”
“Okay,” he said, immediately accepting my truth. “If it’s more than that, what is it?”
“I don’t know! There’s just something between us. Something that I can’t explain.” No matter how hard I searched for a way to explain it, it just didn’t come.
“Are you in love with him?” Drew’s eyes grew somber.
I answered without hesitation. “No. In lust, maybe. Love? Not in a million years.”
“Lust we can deal with. Especially since it looks like he worked you over pretty good last night.” The humor was back in expression.
“Fuck you, revered and beloved best friend,” I shot at him but he just laughed.
“You’re too late, baby girl.”
I rolled my eyes. Of course, he’d gotten laid last night. Girls, guys. People found Drew irresistible. I was pretty sure that I was the only one who had been born with an immunity to his charms, a fact that I would forever be grateful for. It meant I would always have him as my best friend. My brother.
“You going to see him again?” he asked.
I didn’t need time to think about it. “No.”
“Okay then, we’ll deal with your lust by taking you out and getting you a rebound lay to warm your bed tonight. And I’ll buy you a whole stack of batteries for your battery-operated boyfriend until Shane leaves town.”
“How did you know the batteries of B.O.B were dead?”
“Have you even seen how tightly you’ve been wound recently?” His eyes sparkled with amusement. “No woman having regular orgasms looks like that.”
I punched his arm. “Asshole.”
“If that’s where you like it,” he teased.
I blushed but laughed. Only Drew could make me laugh in a time like this. Well, Shane, too, but it was best to not think about him for a while.
“You want to spend the day watching bad horror movies and getting day drunk before we head out tonight?” I asked, already heading to the kitchen for a bottle of tequila that I knew I had stashed somewhere after Drew’s last break-up.
“Don’t you know it,” he replied, flicking on the television and surfing Netflix until he found a movie we’d been saving for our next ‘crisis day.’
For the next few hours, Drew and I got lost in our familiar routine for whenever either of us underwent a crisis. We watched bad movies, pigged out on takeout, and drained a bottle of tequila.
Our first crisis day had actually been shortly after my dad and I had arrived in Mystic, although we’d only added the tequila years later. Drew had been watching movies in his room, eating pizza, when we’d gone over there one afternoon. I’d plopped onto the sofa with him, my eyes red from crying all morning. My dad had been so upset that our house in Texas had been sold.
Drew hadn’t said a single solitary word. He opened his arms for me to crawl into, hit the play button on the VCR, and eventually shared his pizza with me. Even as a seven-year-old, he’d known what I needed. Shane’s life might have been blessed with more money than you could count in several lifetimes, but mine had been blessed with a friend like Drew.
After several rounds of shots, Drew begged me to come out to a club with him. Normally, I would have said no, but I was just buzzed enough for that to seem like a good idea.
At the club, the bass pounded so hard I could feel it in my stomach. The lights flashed in dizzying patterns, and I was on my way from buzzed to drunk.
None of it was enough to drown out the tired lines of the boring, typical losers that kept hitting on me. I swore that those assholes could smell blood in the water when a woman was brokenhearted… Even if she had broken her heart herself by asking questions that she wasn’t ready to hear the answers to.
All their advances did was exacerbate my desire for something more. Something real. Someone who treated me with tenderness and respect.
Like Shane. Sure, he’d enjoyed getting a rise out of me but he respected me enough to back down before it made me feel bad about myself or went too far. I missed that.
The assholes in the club could take lessons from Shane. If only he wasn’t so busy building a legacy for a family who had hurt so many people over the years. Bile rose in my throat. I didn’t want to think about how proud he’d been of building that legacy that very morning.
“This is the life, right?” Drew asked, sidling up next to me and motioning to the bodies writhing on the dance floor and the shots flowing as if from a fountain over at the bar.
“Sure,” I agreed flatly. Even if it really didn’t feel like any sort of life that I wanted a part of in that moment.
“Come on, Fee. We’re single. We can have as much fun as we want with whoever we want.”
All I heard was Shane’s voice in my memories, sounding hurt and confused when I demanded that he leave. I regretted the way I’d acted but I’d been so angry, at Shane’s lie, at what happened to my father, at everything. Shane had looked so helpless, fighting a fight he didn’t even understand.
“I guess but there’s no one here that I want to have fun with.” I didn’t know where Shane was or what he was doing but I knew that he was the only one that I wanted. Regardless of how much Drew tried to steer me in a different direction.
“No one you’ve found yet but the night is still young,” Drew said, pointing me at a preppy-looking guy dancing awkwardly at the edge of the dance floor.
I shook my head. Not that one either.
“You have to remember that he lied to you, Fee.” Drew had had a ball with that little tidbit of information earlier. “You gave him a shot to tell you the truth, and he lied without hesitation. Aren’t you all about honesty?”
My teeth sank into my lower lip. I nodded.
“Exactly, I remember very distinctly the day that you made me swear up and down that I would never lie to you, embellish to you, or bullshit you. Shane flat out lied. Not only that, he kept lying. Even after he met your dad, and after you slept with him.”
“Stop reminding me, Drewski. Seriously, I know what he did, okay? I know what he said.” As much as I hated to admit it to him, I knew that Drew was right. It was time to put Shane behind me.
Stop it! I chided the dirty part of my brain that instantly went to Shane pounding into me doggy style. That wasn’t happening.
As grudgingly as it might have been, I had to face the facts. Shane had lied to me, and he still hadn’t come clean. He was the guy who had taken over the company that had caused my dad’s downfall. I was a sick puppy for having spent even one night with him, despite Drew’s protestations.
Chapter Fourteen
Shane
I sat alone in my kitchen, sipping coffee and scrolling through different social media sites. Plenty of people were still talking about the oil rig accident. As selfish as it was, my thoughts were preoccupied by an entirely different disaster. One much more personal and nearer to my heart.
On a whim, I searched for Fiona on Twitter but nothing came up. Then I searched for Drew, feeling like a stalker and not caring. His profile popped up immediately. It wasn’t too surprising since he was always on his phone.
He’d posted a few pictures last night. My heart shuddered when I saw Fiona’s beautiful face staring back at me through the phone screen. It looked like they were at a club. There were a couple of selfies of Drew and Fiona posing together with shot glasses raised. And there was one of Fiona, all by herself, twirling around on the dance floor.
It killed me to see her wearing a sexy little slip of a dress, out partying with her best friend. Especially since I had no fucking idea what was going on between us, if anything, anymore.
I understood that she was pissed with me, but I still had no clue as to why. If I had thought to cyber stalk her last night, I would have seen these pictures then. I could have gone to find her at the club. It was probably a good thing that didn’t happen. It was frustrating as all hell, but I knew that I had to give her space.
My phone vi
brated and Fiona’s gorgeous face disappeared from my screen. Bart’s ugly mug stared up at me, a disappointing replacement.
I sighed. Real life, as Fiona put it, was calling. The billion-dollar company that I was at the helm of couldn’t leave me alone. I swiped the phone screen and answered.
“Perkins,” I barked. Real life was the last thing that I felt like dealing with. As far as I knew, there was nothing new on the EPA investigation, and I’d replied to all of my urgent messages already this morning.
“Shane.” Bart’s voice echoed on the other side of the line. “How’re things going over in Mystic?”
“Great,” I answered curtly.
“Not too great, I hope,” he said.
Shit. With those five words, I knew that my little hiatus was most likely at an end.
I played dumb, which I never fucking did. “How so?”
“We need you back in Houston, bud.”
I felt the air sucked out of my chest. I always knew my time in Mystic was temporary, but for a while, things here felt like they could be something real. Fiona had a lot to do with that. Now that she hated me, there was nothing really tethering me to this place. Still, I wasn’t exactly ready to leave.
“When should I come back?” I asked, taking a long swig of coffee. Whatever was going down, I needed to be alert.
“As soon as you can,” he replied, sounding exasperated.
“I can’t leave yet,” I said firmly.
“Why the fuck not?” he bit out.
“I’ve got things to finish up here. Information that I still need to find.” At least that was halfway true.
“The EPA called earlier. They said you’d sent the procurement documentation for the supplier that made the valve that caused the explosion. So, I’d say you’ve accomplished your mission there, 007.”
“What about the public?” I asked, although I knew that he wouldn’t have called if that was a problem. “The EPA investigation isn’t over. I’m not supposed to come back until that’s done.”
“Not an issue. P.R. put out a statement explaining the situation earlier. There are still small groups of protesters around but no worse than usual. I think we’re in the clear on that front.”
“I don’t see why we should deviate from the original plan. It would be best to let it die down completely. Especially since I have some more things to wrap up here.”
I was grasping at straws, but I couldn’t help myself. Of course, as the CEO of Perkins Enterprises, I could just tell him to go fuck himself and that I would go back when I was ready, but my work ethic wouldn’t allow me to do it.
“What’s going on with you, Shane? I thought you would be chomping at the fucking bit to get back here.”
“Nothing’s going on with me. I am chomping at the bit. I just don’t see the point of interrupting my work here if I’m going to get back there and fire the whole thing up again.”
“That’s going to happen either way,” Bart said. “There has been widespread speculation about your absence, even with the board putting out a statement. And the EPA confirming that you were keeping a distance because you respected the integrity of their investigation.”
Fuck. I knew about the speculation, of course. I had just been ignoring it, exactly like my public relations team advised me to do.
I idly wondered if Fiona had seen the rumors. Then I remembered that she didn’t know who I really was, and my gut sank like a stone. Whatever she was pissed off with me about then, my actual day of reckoning was fast approaching.
“You still there, Shane?” Bart asked.
“Yeah, I’m here.” Even if I wish I wasn’t.
“Good. Do you want me to speak to Justin to make your travel arrangements or do you want to handle it yourself?”
“Who the fuck are you talking to, Burrows? I’ll call Eric.” I didn’t need Bart or my assistant to organize my damn flight.
“There’s the Shane that we all know and love.”
If it were possible to reach across the airwaves and strangle someone, I would’ve done it at that moment.
“You’re going to regret that comment,” I warned him.
“Not if it got you to pull your head out of your ass. Let me know when you’re getting back. There are a ton of meetings that you need to be in.”
Was that resentment in his tone? I shook my head. It couldn’t be. Bart lived for me, and for Perkins Enterprises. He was probably just overworked. God knew that I could relate to that feeling.
“Will do.” I hung up without another word. There was nothing more to be said.
I felt torn in half once I threw my phone onto the kitchen counter. Bart was right. A part of me was eager to get back. To take control of my damn ship and steer it to greater things in the wake of the tragedy that had rocked it. But it was a part of me that I’d felt disconnected from since I’d arrived back in Mystic.
That part of me lived for work. For the challenge. That part didn’t love, or even like. That part fucked girls without knowing their names and went home feeling satisfied. That part partied with the guys but didn’t care to know a single fucking thing about them. They shared the same proclivities. That was all I needed to know.
On the other side was this new, or very old, part of me that I was just starting to rediscover. The part that hated work. The part that hated Perkins Enterprises and everything that it stood for since my dad’s reign. The part that enjoyed spending time with one particular girl and didn’t want work getting in the way of that. The part that could spend the rest of my life buried deep inside just that one girl.
I pocketed my phone and headed out to the backyard, needing some fresh air so I could think. The sun shined down on my unfinished boat, like a reminder that things in Mystic weren’t quite done for me. I wanted to get to know Fiona better, and even to connect with Drew because he was her best friend.
I wanted to level with Fiona and her father. I wanted to work to win him over, if that were even possible.
More than anything, I kind of just wanted to sign the company over to Bart and the board. I wanted to finish my boat and spend my days fishing with Fiona. I wanted to go back to Fields of Fire and challenge her to complete the black obstacle course. I wanted to learn the million different things that made her tick and how to talk her back off the ledge.
I walked out barefoot in the grass. The cool morning dew dampened my skin but the sun was warm on my shirtless shoulders. It was shaping up to be a beautiful day. A perfect day to keep working out here. But I passed the boat and made my way down to the edge of the water.
I walked out onto my private dock and sat down at the far edge, dangling my legs over the water the way I used to do when I was a kid. If only life could be that simple again.
Regardless of how much I wanted to stick around here, I was a Perkins. I had been raised to do my job and to do it to the best of my abilities. I differed from my father in more than a few fundamental ways but I couldn’t deny the call to the family business any more than he had been able to.
I still wanted to make our family name stand for something more than destruction, after my father had torn it down. I wanted to turn the company over to my own son someday with pride and a booming future waiting for it and him.
If I ever did have a family, I wanted to be financially secure enough to still have this house here in Mystic. I wanted my own children to sit here, the way I was now, and listen to the gentle lapping of the waves against the dock. I wanted them to watch the boats in the distance, heading out into the vast unknown. I wanted to be next to them when they caught their first fish.
As tough as it was to come to grips with, the company was what made this all possible. My father had done a lot of things wrong, but he’d provided for his family, just like I wanted to.
I had been deluding myself, trying to stave off my workaholic tendencies, or for thinking for even one second that I was going to turn my back on the company.
The work side of my persona was too strong, too deep
ly rooted. The company was, and always had been, the essence of my existence, and I was committed to it. No woman or town was going to get in the way of that. It couldn’t.
As much I struggled with the decision to go back to Houston and Perkins Enterprises, my trip to Mystic was always going to be just that. A trip. It wasn’t a permanent change. The sooner I accepted that, the better.
Once I got home, to Houston and the office and the women waiting to fuck me, courtesy of the Most Eligible list, Mystic would fade to nothing but a distant memory. The memory of Fiona might linger but even she had to come second to the wellbeing of the company that my family had been building for generations.
I planned on coming back, of course. But those would just be visits like this one. Passing moments in my life, filled with fond memories. It was just the way that things had to be.
I would miss Fiona for a while and feel guilty about what my family had done to hers, and others like them, for much longer. It was just another reason why I had to go back. To right the wrongs of the past.
I groped for my phone, reluctantly punching in Eric’s number.
My pilot answered almost instantaneously. “Mr. Perkins. Where are we going and when?”
I sighed. “We’re going to Houston on Wednesday.”
It was only Monday, but I needed some time before I went back.
“Excellent,” Eric said, assuring me that the jet would be ready on Wednesday afternoon. “When do you want to return to Mystic? I can file the flight plans now.”
“Don’t worry about it, Eric. There won’t be a return trip. We’re only going one way this time.” I fucking hated the words, but it didn’t make them any less true.
Chapter Fifteen
Fiona
I finished work late on Tuesday, well after the sun had set. I hopped into my car to make the short drive home. Although the thought of going back to my empty house sent a pulse of sadness through me. Another two days had passed since I’d last seen or heard from Shane. At this point, I was sure I’d run him off for good.
I knew that Drew was right, and I shouldn’t get hung up on him. He had lied to me, and then had the gall to throw his privileged life in my face. But I couldn’t help wondering what could have been.