Rules of Negotiation

by Inara Scott

  I can’t help but think that this is partly my fault. After Thad left, I worried about everything. I worried about paying the bills. I worried about being able to send her to college. And I missed him so much it was like a hole in my heart. I know I overreacted. I tried to steer Tori away from men who would be like him and to push her to focus on her career. And I still believe that I did the right thing. I’m so proud of her, of how hard she works and how successful she’s been. But at some point I forgot that the most important thing was that she was happy. Is she happy now? Is she happy with Phil? I don’t know but somehow I can’t help but think that I failed her. I only wish I could talk to her about this. I try and try but the words will never come. Oh, how I wish the words would come!

  A scratchy, sandpaper feeling tickled the back of Tori’s throat. She cleared it, but everything had become tight and thick.

  Two months later, she stopped at another entry:

  I can’t help but wonder if someday Tori will read this. Tori, if you do read this, I hope you aren’t mourning for me, but know that I am in a better place. I hope you know that I loved you with all my heart and every ounce of my being. I hope that I didn’t send you down the wrong path. I hope that you know how proud I am of you. I hope you could feel my love, even if I could never say it. I hope most of all that you don’t make the same mistakes that I made. I hope that you are happy.

  Tori closed the book and hugged it to her heart. An unfamiliar wetness rolled down her cheeks and she pushed it aside with the faded quilt. But it kept coming and coming, until painful noises rattled in her chest. Finally, she dropped her head into her hands and sobbed.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Tori threw her purse down on the conveyor belt, removed her shoes, and threw them into a gray plastic tub. After pushing both into the X-ray machine, she walked through the security gate and was relieved not to hear the buzz of the metal detector.

  “Have a nice flight, ma’am,” the burly TSA agent said with a polite nod.

  “Thanks.” She snatched her purse and shoes and pulled the wrinkled boarding pass from her back pocket. Gate E5. She squinted at the glowing departure screen to make sure the gate hadn’t changed and then set off at a grim pace.

  E23…E22…adrenaline had already sent her pulse through the roof and she began to pant. Had it really been a week since her mother died? Was it possible that so much time had elapsed? It seemed as if she’d been living in an alternate universe since then, with time moving slower and faster all at the same time.

  E18…E17…what would he think when he saw her there? Would he even speak to her? Had she truly lost him forever when he walked out her door?

  E10…E9…E8.

  Tori hitched her bag over her shoulder and began to jog. She was going to throw up. She needed to get this over with, and she refused to have this conversation on a plane to England. Though she had bought the ticket, she didn’t intend to use it unless he wanted her there. Really wanted her there.

  She was moving so fast that she almost plowed into the tall, broad-shouldered man in a dark blue polo shirt and faded blue jeans, walking away from the gate. Blue-black hair curled obediently back from his forehead. Tori caught her breath when she saw the familiar crooked nose.

  “Brit.” The words died in her throat. For a moment she considered turning around and running back the other direction. But she had come too far, learned too much about herself in the week since her mother’s death to do any such thing. Squaring her shoulders, she cleared her throat and tried again.

  “You’re going the wrong way,” she said.

  He drew back when he saw her, shock widening his eyes. “Tori? What are you doing here?”

  His eyes were guarded, the gray sky of a snowy day. Better not to think about what that meant, she thought. Better to simply press on without thinking.

  “Do you have a minute? I have something I need to tell you.”

  He cocked his head, studying her from head to toe. “I was about to get on a plane. Are you sure it will only take a minute?”

  “My mother died,” she blurted out. “Right after you left. It was a massive stroke.”

  He drew back. “Jesus, I’m sorry. I had no idea.”

  “Of course you didn’t. How could you?”

  He inclined his head toward a row of seats. “Perhaps we should sit down?”

  “I think I better stand up,” she said, a nervous smile creasing her lips. “I may need to pace.”

  “I see.” He took her elbow and steered her away from the crowd. “I’m sorry, Tori. I really am.”

  Polite. He sounded excruciatingly polite and concerned. The kind of concern you’d have for a stranger. She bit her lip.

  “I would have called to tell you but I didn’t want to do it over the phone, and it was impossible to get away.”

  Something flickered in those inscrutable eyes. He adjusted a brown leather satchel on his shoulder and started to turn away. “Of course. You could hardly use your mother’s death as an excuse to take a few days off. Listen, I don’t mean to seem unfeeling but I’ve got to get on my plane.”

  “No, no.” She grabbed his elbow and spun him back to face her. “I did take a few days off, mostly because I was crying so hard I couldn’t see the ground in front of me. But then I had to go in to make contingency plans.”

  “Contingency plans? For what?”

  “For my quitting.” She took a deep breath. “I quit my job. I realized something. I realized a lot of things. I realized that I’ve been using my job as an excuse not to let myself care about anything. My mom had me so scared that I’d be deserted by someone I loved that I wasn’t loving at all. I dated men I didn’t care about so they couldn’t hurt me. Hell, I didn’t even care about my fiancé—I was more upset when my cat left me than when he did!”

  Brit’s mouth twitched at the corner. “Your cat left you?”

  She brushed it aside. “Long story.”

  “You’ll have to tell me about it sometime.”

  Was that a crack? A hint of emotion in his blank facade? Encouraged, she pressed on.

  “I thought if I made partner, then I’d have finally done what she wanted, and she’d be happy and I’d be able to relax. But it wouldn’t have been enough. That’s what I realized. It would never have been enough. When I met you, Brit, I was starving, and I didn’t even know it. I thought maybe I could satisfy my hunger by sleeping with you, but that only made it worse. Because along the way, despite all my efforts, I fell in love.”

  Wringing her hands together, she forced herself to look at him, full and square in the face, holding nothing back. “I love you, Brit. I know you don’t feel the same way, and maybe never will. But I’m tired of giving up before I start. I’m tired of spending more time with my damn BlackBerry than the only person in the world who makes me feel alive. I want to go to Scotland with you, if the offer still stands.”

  He didn’t respond. His face had frozen into an expressionless mask.

  Unable to bear the sudden silence, Tori hurried on. “You probably don’t want anything to do with me right about now. I know when you left you said you weren’t coming back and I understand if you don’t want me to come now that you know how I feel. But I had to tell you. Even if you don’t love me back, I still want to be with you. Pathetic, huh?” She tried for a smile, but it came out pinched, scared. “I had to tell you. I had to take a chance that you wouldn’t push me away.”

  He blinked and set down his bag. He opened his mouth, but no words came out.

  Once again, Tori sailed into the void. “Look, I can see how you feel. They’re boarding first class now. You better go.” She turned, her legs trembling so badly she wondered if she would make it thirty feet, let alone all the way back to Philadelphia.

  His hand closed around her arm. “Stop. Stop for one minute. You lawyers spend so much time talking I think you forget how to listen.”

  “Well that’s uncalled for,” she said. “I listen plenty. And besides, I’m not a
lawyer anymore. I don’t now what I am, exactly, but it isn’t a lawyer.”

  “You’ll be a lawyer until the day you die, my love.”

  “No I won’t. Did you hear me? I quit my job. As in quit, terminate—” The sound of the endearment finally penetrated her brain, and her mouth fell open. “What did you call me?”

  “I thought you said you were a good listener.”

  She punched him in the arm. “Don’t you dare tease me, you oaf!”

  A tender smile curved his lips. “I wouldn’t dream of it. You’d have me for breakfast.”

  “If you call me a tough nut, I’m turning around and walking right back out of this airport,” she said, voice quavering, tears filling her eyes. She had cried more in the past week than she’d ever thought possible. Once the dam broke, the tears seemed to linger behind her eyes, reappearing at a moment’s notice.

  “You’ve got me over a barrel then, counselor. Because I would do anything to keep that from happening.”

  That was when the first hint of cautious optimism hit her. Like a flower stretching its petals toward the warmth of an early morning sun, she let her body sway toward him. “Why?”

  “Because I love you, too.” He wrapped his arms around her, lifting her up so their eyes were on the same level, and her feet dangled helplessly above the floor. “I realized it that night at your house when you stood in that kitchen, surrounded by your mother’s things but so determinedly yourself. You’re belligerent and temperamental. You make me laugh and you make me think. You understand me better than anyone. Do you know, before you came along, I didn’t even realize I don’t like my apartment? It’s a beautiful place, but it’s not me. I want a house, like you have—except with more furniture, and maybe a few rugs.”

  Tori smiled through her tears, as Brit continued. “I want a dog and a family. I want you, darling. Leaving you that night was one of the hardest and stupidest things I’ve ever done. I thought I could bully you into caring about me. When you turned me away, I thought I had lost you forever.”

  He leaned his face against her cheek as she wrapped her arms around his neck. “I wasn’t going to get on the plane. I couldn’t. I was coming back to find you, to beg you to give me one more chance. We’ve both been living someone else’s life, Tori. What do you say we start living our own? Together?”

  Her heart, struggling to comprehend what he had already said, fluttered unsteadily. “What do you mean?”

  He lowered her to the ground and pressed tiny kisses on her eyes, her nose, and her lips. “We can start with Scotland. I need a vacation and I think you do, too. When we’re ready to come back we can find a new place—a house somewhere that doesn’t look like your mother’s or like my sisters decorated it. It will look like us. You can practice law, but I promise to interfere whenever you start working more than sixty hours a week.”

  “And what about you?”

  Brit shrugged. “I’m not sure what I’ll do. Maybe I’ll find someone like your friend Jerry who needs help starting up a new company. It wasn’t until I talked to you and Jerry that I realized that was what I missed. My passion is starting from scratch and building something out of nothing. I’d like to do that again. Then again, we’ll have a wedding to plan, so that will take some time. Of course we could elope, but I think my family would kill us—”

  She hit him on the arm. An enormous, ridiculous smile threatened to split her face in half even as fat, watery tears slid down her cheeks. “Don’t you dare think you’re going to get away without proposing to me, you cretin.”

  Without missing a beat he dropped onto one knee. “Tori Anderson, love of my life, I have no ring to slip on your finger. I have no job and a lousy apartment that feels like a movie set. The only thing I have to offer is my heart and my love. Will you accept?”

  A fresh wave of tears welled up in her eyes. “Oh yes. Yes!”

  He jumped to his feet and kissed her with all the passion and love she never thought she’d have. The tears slid down her cheeks, healing her, making her whole.

  “We will create something new together,” he said. “Just the two of us.”

  She nodded and held him close. Tori’s Rules of Negotiation Number Six: When you’re offered the deal of a lifetime, smile. And never let it go.

  Acknowledgments

  I couldn’t have written this book if I hadn’t spent a decade in the trenches of law and business, where, unlike Tori, I had the benefit of many mentors, friends, and understanding clients. I can’t begin to name all the people who supported me during my years of practice, through the ups and downs of bed rest, babies, illness, long days, and lots of takeout, but to each of you, I offer my grateful thanks. Special acknowledgments always go to my critique partner, the ever-patient and long-suffering Susan Sey, who reads everything I write and still returns my e-mails. To my sister Maia, my advocate and best friend, thank you for giving Tori the ethical green light to date Brit. She couldn’t have done it without you. Though it makes me uncomfortable to even imagine him reading this book, I have to send love out to my incredibly supportive father, who wants nothing to do with romance novels but would probably read this if I asked (don’t worry, Dad, I won’t!). And finally, to my darling husband, who knows I am a lawyer down to my toes and loves me anyway, I can only say this: I am a very lucky lady.

  About the Author

  Inara was born in the winter wonderland of Buffalo, New York. She promptly commenced complaining about being cold, and didn’t stop until she moved to North Carolina to attend Duke University. After graduating with a degree in history and women’s studies, Inara wandered around the country teaching outdoor education and writing bad poetry. Given Inara’s love of argument, it was really only a matter of time before she ended up in law school. Inara practiced law for ten years before being rescued by her love of fiction. Today, Inara enjoys the rainy splendor of Portland, Oregon, where she writes young adult fiction and adult romance. Her debut novel, DELCROIX ACADEMY: THE CANDIDATES, published in 2010 by Disney-Hyperion Books for Children, was a 2010 Oregon Spirit Book Award Honor Book. Inara’s first adult romance, RADIANT DESIRE, was released in October 2011 by Entangled Publishing.