Where She Belongs (21 page)

“
I’m
sure Europe will be lovely in the fall, Rita.”

“
Rita,
if I only have an hour, I need to go and talk to Gabe,” Bryce
put in.

“
I
mean it, Bryce,” she said. “See you in exactly an hour.”

Bryce
ended the call. “Damn woman,” he muttered. “What’s
this about the new HomeZones contract? Who’s idea was it to ask
for double our original arrangement? They could have ruined
everything.”

“
Shanna,
and they agreed once she added that our product is far superior to
anyone else’s.”

“
Shanna?
Shanna went for this number? You let her lead the call?”

“
I
thought it was an open and shut, final handshaking agreement, then
we’d send the papers. So I let her take it. She spit out this
outrageous number and I nearly reached over and ended the call.”

“
God,
all those weeks, months of work could have been lost.”

“
They
wouldn’t let us go that easily. I admit I was shocked then
annoyed, but they agreed and that was damned exciting. Especially for
her. You should have seen her.”

“
You
should have told me that night so I could have celebrated with her.”

“
You
would have flipped a lid. Anything else you need to go over before
you leave?”

“
What
is this about my password?”

“
I
explained this to you. Your password is too easy to guess. Tech
explained it like seventy times.”

“
Oh,
please. I can barely remember my own name in the morning. I’m
not going to have some meaningless password that I’ll forget.”

“
You
need a more secure password. The right hacker could easily guess
yours and gain all the information from our company on the entire
server: financial records, bank account numbers. Please pick a more
secure password. Go home, you need to rest.”

“
Fine.
I suppose Shanna rearranged my files.”

“
Yep.”

Bryce
shook his head. “Damn girl.”

“
She’s
applying for a marketing position.”

“
She
told you that?”

“
We
were texting over the weekend. She’s nervous but optimistic.
She’s afraid two years of working for Trenton will have made
her forget everything she knew.”

“
At
least she won’t be working for that asshole. I’m sorry
for how things turned out between you two.”

“
I
am, too. I deserved it, I guess. She tried to tell me five years ago,
but I couldn’t get over that she was too young, your daughter,
all these ideas I had about her. And I wasn’t even divorced. I
thought she deserved better.”

“
She
said something about five years when we had a chat one day. I am
pretty sure I don’t want to know.”

“
Probably
not. She was still a kid.”

“
Maybe
she does deserve better, but if someone will treat her better than
you, I can’t find him. I guess we’ll have to adjust to
having Trenton von Brooke in our lives forever.”

“
They
aren’t married yet. You can still hope.”

“
And
you won’t hope?”

“
No.
I’m better off not hoping for that.” For her. Of course,
his heart would never give up hope. He’d love her forever.

Bryce
patted his shoulder. “I’m going to check my e-mail, then
I’ll get out of your hair. You can have my office.”

“
I
prefer mine. I came to grab some files I needed. If I can find them.”
He pulled open the filing cabinet. “She was right, this is a
much more efficient system. I should have had her do my cabinet as
well.”

Gabe
grabbed his files and headed back for his office, making a point not
to think about Shanna or hope Trenton would slip and he’d get
her back.

*
* *

“
He
needs a hobby,” Rita Whittikar said to her daughter on the
phone. “But something easy, something he can do from home.
Something to keep his mind occupied.”

Shanna
sighed. It wasn’t a surprise her father was trying to work
while he was supposed to be resting and recovering. She tried to
remember if he’d ever taken a sick day when she was growing up.
Her mom had been hard pressed to even get him to take vacations.

“
How
stressful do you think mentoring someone would be?”

“
Mentoring?
Like a student?”

“
No,
a young entrepreneur. There might be an investment aspect to it.”

“
You
know we have the money for small investments.”

“
I
do.”

“
Gabe
told us you found out.”

“
Dad
and I talked about it. I thought he would have mentioned it.”

“
He’s
had a lot on his mind. It’s not like we meant to hide it from
you. It’s not something you announce to your child. Hey guess
what we are worth almost eight million dollars.”

“
Eight?”

“
Well,
with property values and other investments.”

“
And
the house dad is building?”

“
I
don’t know. He insisted on building this house. I figured what
the hell, he worked all those years, he could have his hobby and do
whatever he wanted with it.”

“
Do
you think he expected me to live in it?”

“
I
think at first when bought the land, he thought when you came home,
you’d want a place of your own. You announced you weren’t
coming home, so he held it. He put Gabe’s name as owner shortly
after. Suddenly, a couple of months ago, he announced that he’d
arranged for the utilities to go in.”

“
He
told me he was bored and needed a challenge. Which is where my idea
comes in.”

“
Yes,
tell me more.”

“
There’s
a start-up, a guy who knew Trenton at school. He asked if Trenton
would talk to his father about investing, but Trenton doesn’t
want to ask Byron. I talked to the guy, it’s a great product.
I’d love to, but I don’t have any money. But you and Dad
do, and Dad could help the guy out a little. Give him some advice.
But he wouldn’t have the day-to-day responsibilities of running
the company. It would help Gabe out, since Dad would busy, he
wouldn’t be bugging Gabe with a thousand e-mails and phone
calls.”

“
I’m
trying to monitor your Dad’s time, but I have a few obligations
I couldn’t get out of. Did Gabe tell you Dad’s been
bugging him? That much?”

“
Gabe
said Dad’s pretty steady.”

“
Poor
Gabe.”

“
Poor
Gabe what?” Bryce asked in the background. “Are you
talking to him? Give me the phone, I need to ask him something.”

“
Hold
on a sec,” Rita said into the phone. “I am not talking to
Gabriel. And you need to let that poor man do his job. I’m
talking to Shanna. She has an idea.”

Bryce
grumbled something Shanna couldn’t understand. The next voice
she heard was her dad’s grumble. “Fine. You have busy
work for me do you?”

“
Nope.
I know of someone who needs your expertise.”

“
Stop
pandering to me.”

“
I’m
really not pandering. He also wants your money. He’s a guy who
Trenton went to school with. Bryon von Brooke won't invest. But I
thought, you have money and you have time. You could invest in them,
help mentor them.”

“
Tell
me about the company,” Bryce said.

Shanna
smiled. “It’s a small start-up …”

Chapter 13

Shanna
stared in disbelief at the e-mail from Henry Schnek, vice president
of marketing.

She
hit the button for Trenton’s office.

“
What’s
up?”

“
There’s
no openings in Marketing.”

“
I’m
sorry, babe. I’m sure something will become available soon and
you’ll be at the top of their list.”

“
Yeah,
it sucks not to be hired based on that, not on my lack of merits.
It’s depressing.”

“
I
know. Well, at least it’s Friday and you’re going out
with the girls tonight, right?”

“
At
least I can get drunk and forgot my troubles.”

“
You
should leave early, get your nails done or your toe,s or whatever it
is that you women do at the spa where you come out looking like the
thousands it cost.”

“
At
least our efforts pay off. I might do that.”

She
sighed as she ended the call. A half hour later, she logged off and
went to Trenton’s office to give him a kiss. He had plans for
the evening with his own friends. People who looked down their noses
at her because she didn’t come from old money. She wanted to
glare at them and tell them her parents were worth millions as well,
only they had earned it, not inherited it.

“
Whose
meeting you tonight?”

“
Tristan,
Calvert, Afton, Claire, Kendall and, Micaden.” He stared at his
computer screen, his mouse moving back and forth.

“
Gabe
kissed me,” she blurted.

He
stopped and looked at her for a moment. “What?”

“
Gabe,
we kissed, a couple of times.”

Trenton
shrugged. “He’s been in love with you since forever. It
was creepy at first, then I worried because you text him and talk to
him daily.”

“
And
now?”

“
You’ve
chosen me. Clearly. If you were going to leave me for him, it would
have been last month while you were there, kissing him.”

“
So,
you aren't the least bit annoyed or jealous or angry about it?”

He
returned to his computer screen, which made her frown. “Not
really. You’ve chosen me, I win, I have great confidence in
myself. And I had planned this as a surprise for tomorrow, but I
thought we’d go check out some rings you might like.”

She
smiled. She’d hoped he wouldn’t take her shopping for a
ring, that he’d buy her one he’d picked out and spring it
on her.

“
After
I marry you, I will be upset if you kiss other men. But you made no
promises to me so far, so, no, I’m not upset.”

“
Have
a good evening with your snooty friends.”

“
Have
a good evening,” he said, either ignoring her comment, or he
hadn’t heard her.

Irked
that confessing to kissing another man hadn’t ruffled him in
the least, she left the office and took the elevator down the stairs.
She went around the block to her usual nail place. While she waited
for a nail tech to be ready for her, she called Gabe to share her
disappointing news about her lack of job movement.

*
* *

She
and Carmen met at the door of the bar. Carmen linked her arm with
Shanna's and they went to the bar and ordered drinks for themselves.
"I invited a couple of others as well. That okay?"

"Sure,
the more the merrier."

"What's
got you so glum?" Carmen asked.

"I
applied for a job in the marketing department, but they said they had
no openings for me."

"That
sucks."

"Yeah.
I'm feeling crappy. I didn't even lose on merit, there isn't anything
open."

"How
have you transitioned back to working for Trenton?"

She
wrinkled her nose. "He was really sweet about my news, told me
to go home early, get my nails done, all that jazz."

"That
was nice of him. Glad to hear he does treat you well."

"I'm
tired of my own problems. Tell me about yours."

Carmen
launched into a tirade about her landlord, as the other women started
arriving. After that, the conversation turned to Gina's engagement
and wedding plans, Tia's trip to Europe in a few months, and other
things in people's lives. Shanna was grateful for the reminder that
her problems were not the only problems in the world, that others had
shitty moments in their lives as well.