"For some reason, I'm starting to question whether that passage was actually built for the staff," I say.
"You think whoever originally designed the house was just crazy?"
"Potentially."
It took us so long to get back through the house, I'm sure whoever was at the door is long gone by now, but as we approach the entryway, the doorbell rings again. Almost immediately, there is a series of rapid-fire knocks in the center of the door. I open the door, and Franklin immediately bursts into the house. His eyes are wild, and he reaches toward me like I'm the last thing standing between him and a shootout at the O.K. Corral.
"Cade! You're here! Thank god!"
"Of course, I am. I told you this is where I was going to be."
"You haven't answered your phone!"
"Calm down," I say. "When did you call me?"
"I've called you every day for the last three days," he says.
I look down at my phone, scrolling through my recent calls. I shake my head.
"I don't have any missed calls from you."
"I called, Cade," he insists.
His eyes dart over my shoulder, and I turn to see Fiona standing a few feet away, watching us with a confused expression on her face. My heart sinks in my chest. Suddenly, I'm facing exactly my nightmare – my two little worlds have crashed into each other, and there's nothing I can do to stop the collision. As much as I may want to, I can't just shove Franklin back out onto the porch and pretend this didn’t happen.
"Franklin," I say, gesturing toward Fiona. "This is Fiona. Her grandmother owns this house. We are very… old friends."
"I'm familiar with Grammie," Franklin says. "I've made enough lunch reservations for the two of you over the years. It's nice to meet you, Fiona."
Fiona gives an unsure nod.
"Fiona," I say, "this is Franklin, my assistant."
"Your assistant?" she asks.
I can see her evaluating Franklin's suit. Though it is more disheveled than I have ever seen, it still looks expensive and high-end. She looks around us through the open door, and I follow her gaze to the sleek black Bugatti parked outside.
Well, shit.
"I hope you don't mind," Franklin says when I look at him. "I didn't know how to get here, and I thought this was most efficient."
"Why would he mind?" Fiona asks.
"It's his car," Franklin explains.
Fiona's eyes lock on me, and I see the hurt and unasked questions in them before she turns and storms away. I start after her, but I hear Franklin behind me.
"Cade, I really needed to talk to you, and you weren't available. You never returned my calls, and I had tried so many times. I was really getting worried about you, and I didn't know what else to do."
"Are you sure you weren’t calling my office number, Franklin?" I ask.
His mouth opens, and it snaps closed again without a sound. He's usually on top of things, but it seems that Mr. Norton has him a bit more frazzled than I was prepared for. We'll have to figure that out later. Right now, I need to clear things up with Fiona.
Leaving Franklin standing in the entryway, probably contemplating whether or not he had been calling a phone just feet away from his own for three days straight, I chase after Fiona. I find her upstairs in her bedroom. She's folding a blanket with the harsh, sharp movements of someone trying to keep their hands busy.
"Fiona," I start as I walk into the room.
Her hands drop in front of her, and she looks up at me.
"What's going on, Cade? Who is that?"
"I told you, he's my assistant."
"Right, your assistant. Of course. And that car? Is it really yours?"
"Yes," I say.
"Not many small business owners I know have an assistant in a custom-tailored suit or a brand-new Bugatti with a driver. I don't understand what’s going on here."
"What do you want to know?"
"I want to know what the hell is going on. I want to know why I thought you ran a fledgling construction business, and now I’ve found out that you have a personal assistant, an expensive car, and are important enough of a person for said personal assistant to drive all the way out here. Who are you?"
There's a hollow ache in my chest, and I wish I could rewind the situation and go backwards. I've always had my reasons for not advertising my wealth and living a private life. Now as I look at Fiona, those reasons don’t make as much sense. I never meant to hurt her, but as I look at the tears sparkling in her eyes, I realize that’s all I’ve done.
"Franklin runs my business on a day-to-day basis. I own a company called Endeavor, but I choose not to be directly involved. Franklin handles things for me so I can live on my own terms. That's it. I'm the same person I've always been," I tell her. "It's still me."
"Bullshit. The man I knew didn't have any of this. But that was ten years ago. I don't even know if I knew you then. "
"Yes, Fiona. You knew me. You’ve always known me. I never told you I had some fledgling business. If that's what Grammie told you, then that's on her."
"And you told her something different?"
I hesitate. Fiona lets out an exasperated sound and tosses the blanket in her hands on to the bed.
"Why does it matter how much money I make? Or how big my business is? None of that ever mattered before."
"That's because you didn't own a business before, and you didn't have any money. We were kids. Then you just…" She stops.
I don't want to ask her to finish her thought. This is a conversation I know we’ve needed to have, but never wanted to. This has been building up inside both of us for ten years, but now that I'm facing it, it hurts even worse than I had imagined.
"Then I just what, Fiona?"
"Then you just disappeared. You walked away, and I never knew what happened to you. You left me."
"Do you want to know?"
"Of course, I want to know. How could I not? I shaped my entire life around you, Cade. You were everything to me. Then you just walked away. You left me behind, and never thought twice about it."
"Yes, I did. You have no idea how much pain I was in, Fiona. I just want you to know the only reason I’ve built this life, is because of you.”
"How can you say that? How can you look at me after spending ten fucking years apart, and say the life you've built for yourself was for me?"
"I never meant to leave you behind," I say. "From the moment I met you, Fiona, I've known that you were something precious. You were different from anyone I’ve ever known. That was true back then, and it's still true now. Never in my life have I known someone like you. No one else even comes close. But, I guess that's the reason I walked away in the first place."
"What do you mean?"
"You've always been it for me, Fiona. There was never a question in my mind. I know I did stupid things. I did a lot of stupid things, but it never changed how I felt about you. I was going to come for you that night, just like I promised. But then I started second-guessing things. I always knew, deep down, that I wasn't good enough for you. Not with how I was living back then. I wanted nothing more than to be with you. I wanted to whisk you away and marry you and create a life together. But I knew if that happened, you would eventually figure out exactly what I already knew – not only that I didn't deserve you, but I would never be able to give you the type of life you deserve. I couldn't do that to you. I couldn't live with the thought of you having to settle. So, I left. It was cowardly as fuck, and I should have faced you and told you exactly what I was feeling, but I didn't. I told myself I would figure things out and start a career, establish a life for us, then come back for you. When I came back, I wanted to be someone you could be proud to have as a partner."
"I would have been proud no matter what," she says.
"I wanted to be the type of man you deserved, not some loser you happened to end up with. A few weeks after I left, I realized what I had done. I tried to get in touch with you, but I couldn't. No one answered. I came by the
house, but you weren't here. When I finally talked to Grammie, I realized you hadn't told her what happened between us, and I couldn't bring myself to tell her, either. It wasn't my place. I told her that we had a falling out, but that I was trying to make up for it."
"She never told me that."
"I'm sorry."
"Why didn't you try again?"
"I did," I tell her. "After talking to Grammie, I committed myself even more to making something out of my life. I went to school. I went to class during the day and worked overnight. I took extra classes to finish as fast as possible. I got my GED, then enrolled in community college, then transferred to UVA. I took business classes and honed the skills Gramps had taught me. Eventually, I was able to create Endeavor and start making money. All that time, I was thinking about you. It might sound ridiculous, but whenever I had a hard time or felt like I couldn’t push through it anymore, I thought about you, Fi. I knew I just had to push a little harder. I had to go a little further, and then we would have it all. The sooner I accomplished what I set out to, the sooner we could be together. It sounds silly, but I kept pushing and fighting to be the best in the industry. It wasn’t long before I started turning a profit. It wasn't much at first, but after a few months, it had built up enough that I finally decided I could come back for you. It all sounds so naïve now, I can’t –"
Fiona stops me from spiraling. "Cade. It’s OK. Why didn't you? Why didn’t you come back for me?"
"I did. But you were gone. By the time I came back home, you'd already left town and were living your own life. I asked Grammie where you were, and she gave me your address. I went straight there, but when I got to the house, someone else opened the door."
"What do you mean?"
"I knocked on the door, and a guy answered. I introduced myself to him, but he acted like he had never heard of me before. He said you weren't there, and that he was your fiancé. I knew then that I'd lost you forever. It had taken me too long, and someone else had claimed you while I was playing catch-up. You were in love with someone else, and planning a future with him."
"Ellis," she says.
I nod.
"That was his name."
"I didn't plan a life with him," she says, shaking her head.
"You weren't engaged?"
"We were," she admits. "For a short time. But it wasn't what I wanted. I could never envision a future with him. He just fit in with the life I was trying to build at the time. I'm sorry if that hurt you."
"That's the worst part," I say. "It hurt, but it also made me so angry. I was pissed. I was furious with myself for never getting in touch with you after leaving town. I was irrationally angry that you didn't wait for me, and that you had made a life with someone else after everything I had suffered while building what was supposed to be our future. It was foolish of me to assume that you somehow understood I would come back for you. I should have said something –”
"You’re not foolish, Cade," Fiona interrupts, stepping toward me. "But, you never needed to do anything to make you worthy of me." She looks down, shaking her head. "I’m not some prize to be won or idol for you to worship. I just wish I had been there when Ellis opened the door. It’s frustrating that we could have talked things out years ago.” She takes my hands in hers, her thumbs running across the backs of my knuckles like she’s trying to convey the depth of her feelings through physical contact. "I missed you so much."
Her voice has dropped to a whisper, and when she lifts her beautiful, tear-streaked face to mine, the kiss from last night flashes through my mind, and I can't resist her anymore.
I pull her against me, and my mouth crashes down on hers. Fiona gasps but quickly melts into the kiss. Her sweet lips part beneath mine and my tongue explores her mouth. God, I missed her. My hands leave hers and delve into her silky hair, holding her head steady while deepening the intensity of our kiss. Fiona wraps her arms around me, and I feel her fingertips press into my back as she tries to pull me closer. We kiss hungrily, and I am so lost in the feeling and the taste of her, I barely notice the sudden rain. A crash of thunder separates us, and a second later I hear Franklin's voice calling from downstairs.
"Cade? It's raining pretty hard out."
Shit. I forgot about Franklin. Fiona starts laughing, and I join her. I dip my head to kiss her again before we walk out of the room and head back down. Her fingers are lightly intertwined with mine as we go down the stairs, but she lets them fall at the bottom. Franklin has moved maybe a foot since we went upstairs, and is now looking dejectedly through the window at the hard waves of rain sweeping across the front porch. I take out my phone and text Jacob, letting him know Franklin would be inside for a while, and that he should come in. He declines, and I wave at him through the window. Fiona walks toward the kitchen as I guide Franklin into the living room, and gesture toward the sofa. He drops down, letting out a long breath like it's the first time he's sat down in the three days he's been desperately trying to get in touch with me. I sit down across from him and lean forward on my thighs as I look at him.
"Alright, Franklin, tell me what's going on.”
He opens his mouth to say something, and I see his eyes lock on something in front of him. I follow his gaze. He's staring at the patched floor.
"It used to be a hole," I say. "I'm going to stain it, but that means doing the rest of the floor, too. One project at a time. Now, tell me what happened to make you come all the way out here to find me."
Fiona comes into the room and holds a mug out toward Franklin. I can smell strong peppermint tea. She offers him a jar of honey, and he adds several large spoonfuls before taking a deep sip.
"Everything's falling apart," he wails when he swallows.
"I'm sure it isn’t," I say. "It’s probably fine. This is just the first time you've had to handle so many things at once without me available for consultation. But you run the company every day, Franklin. This is what you do. But since you're here, tell me what happened."
I listen as Franklin nervously explains the different problems with the permits that have popped up over the last few days.
Damn it, Ian.
By the time he's finished, I know he won’t be able to get this all sorted on his own.
"I know you're here helping Grammie," Franklin says. "And I know it's important to you, but everything has just gotten so out of hand. I'm sorry to come out here and bother you – I just didn’t know what else to do."
He looks like he's teetering on the edge of completely falling apart. It's so out of character for him, I know he's not exaggerating about what he's been going through since I left the office. With an organization the size of Endeavor, it’s easy for small issues to escalate into major disasters overnight. Now is one of the rare times I need to take control.
"It's alright," I say. "I can’t expect you to be able to handle everything, Franklin. That wouldn’t be fair. If it's alright with Fiona, I'll come back to the office with you now, and make sure this gets straightened out."
I look over at Fiona, who nods.
"Absolutely," she says. "I'll be fine here. Maybe I'll work on finishing up that floor. I'll use that buffer thing to get it ready for the stain."
I take a step closer to her, and take her hands, kissing each before kissing her on the lips. Leaning close, I meet her eyes.
"In no uncertain terms, will you get anywhere near that floor or any of my tools."
She laughs and nods.
"Fine," she says. "I'll find something else exciting to do while you're gone."
"Not too exciting," I say. I turn to Franklin. "Just give me a minute to get changed."
I head upstairs into the bedroom and change into the suit I brought with me. I had hoped I wouldn’t need it, but I've learned over the years to always try and prepare for the unexpected. As good an assistant as Franklin is, I still had a sinking feeling about the permits, and worried he would be faced with impossible decisions. At the end of the day, this is my company, and I am the one in powe
r. When things go wrong, it's up to me to make sure they are managed correctly. The last thing I want to do is leave Fiona right now, but I'll get this all taken care of and come back to finish what we started upstairs.
I see her eyes travel over my body as I jog down the stairs, and she bites into her bottom lip. I realize this is the first time she's seen me dressed this way. The only time even remotely close to this was prom, but there is no comparison between a cheap rental and a custom suit.
"You sure clean up well," she says appreciatively as I approach her.
I smile, straightening my cuffs.
"Being a billionaire has its perks." I kiss her. "I'll be back as fast as I can,” I say.
She nods.
"Be careful," she says. "That storm looks bad."
"Don't worry," I say. "My driver, Jacob, is the best in the business. He's driven through much worse before. As you might have noticed, he didn't even come in when I said he could. He is one with the car."
Fiona laughs.
"How very mysterious."
Forcing myself to walk away before I'm not able to leave her, I rush out of the house and down to the car as fast as possible, given the slick landscaping. Franklin is already on the phone with the office as we settle into the backseat, coordinating meetings for the rest of the day. He sounds considerably calmer and less frantic than he did an hour ago. When everything returns to normal, I'm going to schedule a one-on-one with him and find out what’s going on in his head right now. I'm sure there's an interesting story there.
* * *
That night…
I have never been as happy to see this house as I am when my car pulls up in front of it. The day was hell, but I managed to get all the projects back on track. The disaster with the permits has finally been settled, and I've made sure no other company will have to deal with that vendor again. After what I put Ian through this afternoon, I wouldn't be surprised if he completely changed career paths. On a better note, the woodworking program for the high school is shaping up almost exactly as I had envisioned it, and I made arrangements to visit the school to help with the full implementation. Summer is passing by quickly, and I want to make sure the program is ready to go when the students walk in for orientation so they can build up interest.
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