So Cormac loved girls as long as it was fun, and light, and easy. But the moment it changed, the moment his girl wanted more, he ended things. Better to end things immediately than let the relationship drag on, with her hoping and waiting and praying for more. Because there wasn’t going to be more. Not from him. Not ever.
And Cormac had managed to escape serious relationships and entanglement until Daisy entered his life.
From the day he took custody of her, Daisy changed everything.
And Daisy was still changing him.
*
Whitney had just taken a chair at the long table in the Denver boardroom when Cormac walked in.
She couldn’t believe it. It’d been eleven days since he’d left and she hadn’t expected to see him again, and yet here he was, strolling into the conference room as if he always attended the Friday editorial meetings.
He greeted everyone as he dropped into a vacant chair, again acting as if he belonged here.
Of course, since he owned the magazines, he had a right to be here, but he’d never flaunted his power before. She knew why he was doing it now. He was proving a point. Reminding them all of who he was, how he had the upper hand.
Her stomach churned as she watched him flip open a notepad. Her response to him was intense and visceral. She didn’t want to hate him. She didn’t want to react this way around him. She didn’t like being angry and emotional. But he represented everything she’d lost.
He was at the very heart of her grief.
Just two weeks, she told herself, trying to regain her center. Two weeks and she’d be free. Two weeks and she’d have a different job and a different set of problems.
During the ninety minute meeting, Whitney kept her gaze fixed on her team, and scribbled notes, and yet she kept missing huge chunks of the discussion. It was impossible to focus properly with Cormac in the room. With him near, her thoughts wandered, and memories surfaced…memories she didn’t like and want to remember.
April had been her best friend since she was five. April was the sister she never had. Daisy was April’s…
Daisy…
Whitney ground her teeth together and held her breath and then slowly, carefully exhaled. Breathe, she told herself. Breathe and let go. Breathe and forget. But how could she forget when she couldn’t forgive?
And then finally the meeting did end, but before she could escape, Cormac stepped in front of her, blocking her way, asking a question that anyone could have answered. Instead he asked her, which kept her there, trapped in the boardroom with him while the rest of the staff quickly filtered out.
The door closed behind the last straggler and she smiled tightly. “You could have asked anyone on the team for that information,” she said stiffly, clutching her laptop to her chest.
“So I can’t ask you?”
“We had an agreement that you would let me work, undisturbed.”
“Which I have, for two years.”
“The agreement is still in place.”
“Not if you don’t respond to emails or phone calls—”
“Because we have an agreement,” she interrupted.
“I needed a response,” he countered. “You didn’t respond, which invalidates the agreement.”
“You could have gone through Jeff.”
“I am not going to drag an executive vice president of an entire publishing group into this exhausting feud.” His jaw tightened. “We have to deal with this, Whitney. We have to move on.”
But that was just it. That’s what he didn’t understand.
She couldn’t.
She couldn’t forgive him and she couldn’t forget and she couldn’t do this anymore.
Her eyes burned and her throat ached. She swallowed around the lump filling her throat. “I have given my two week notice.”
He didn’t respond and she pressed on, clutching her laptop tighter. “I’m job hunting now. I have a good employment agency looking for management positions for me. They already have some very good leads and your HR will be able to replace me fairly easily.”
Cormac still said nothing.
Whitney’s eyes felt hot and gritty. “You have to admit it will be better for all once I’m gone—”
“No. I don’t agree. And there is no way we can replace you in two weeks. It’d be impossible to replace you in two weeks even if HR wasn’t overwhelmed by trying to shift bodies from one state to another.”
She exhaled in a rush. “And yet you replaced me overnight before.”
“Whitney.”
“You did. One day we were together and then the next you had another beautiful woman on your arm…taking her to the ball you’d asked me to attend with you.”
“We agreed in the beginning that we wouldn’t confuse personal and professional—”
“And yet you did! You made it personal. You made it personal by making sure my goddaughter was not allowed to see me!”
“But your reference just now, it wasn’t about Daisy. It was about you and me. And the way we ended our relationship. But that was a long time ago, Whitney. Four years. Maybe five.”
“Five, and stop saying we.” Her voice cracked and heat washed through her. She was amazed that even now, after five years, she could still feel the old baffled pain and anger. She’d loved him so much. She’d thought he was perfect. Love had tricked her. Blinded her. “You ended it, and you’ve been in charge of our relationship, personal as well as professional, from the beginning, but not anymore. I’m done. I’m moving on. And yes, you can replace me in two weeks. You have to replace me. Furthermore, I’ve been promised a generous severance package—”
“If you work for sixty days. The severance package is for those who give sixty day’s notice, not fourteen.” He shrugged apologetically. “I’m sorry.”
She curled her fingers into a fist. He wasn’t sorry. He’d never been sorry for anything. Worse, he had to know, that as she’d come from nothing, and had worked so very hard to get to where she was now, she wouldn’t simply walk away from a generous severance package. She couldn’t afford to walk away from tens of thousands of dollars. Frankly, she didn’t know anyone who could. “Sixty days?”
If he heard the break in her voice he gave no indication. “Yes.”
Her nails pressed harder into her palm, the sharp edge biting at her skin. Sixty more days…?
Two more months…
Two months would mean a big fat severance package, and with the severance package she could finally buy her own home. A condo or small house, something that was hers and only hers…
“You need me to train my replacement,” she said.
“No.”
Her brow furrowed. “But I’d be here in the Denver office.”
“You’d be in Marietta.”
“What?”
“I describe what we needed in the emails. The ones with the subject Important. Please Review.” He gave her a long look. “I gather you didn’t read my emails.”
“No.”
He took a seat on the edge of the table. “So in short, here’s the position. You’d come to Marietta—”
“No.”
“And help ready the new office building for the publishing group,” he continued, as if she’d never spoken. “It’s an old building and it needs work. I’ve hired a designer and contractor to tackle the remodel but they need direction. You are the Creative Director for Sheenan Media. You know the company inside and out, and you know how to communicate the brand, making you the perfect person to oversee the renovation of the Crookshank Building, and help welcome the Media team as they arrive in December and settle in.”
“How long would I need to be in Marietta?”
“Probably through the holidays.”
He meant Christmas, didn’t he? Whitney looked away, chewed the inside of her lip, trying to imagine spending Christmas in Montana. “You know I don’t like going back,” she said quietly.
“I do.”
She glanced back at him. “Would I
report to Jeff, or would I have total freedom?”
“You’d be responsible with the majority of the decision making.” He hesitated for a fraction of a second then continued, “But you’d work with me, not Jeff.”
Her head lifted, and her gaze locked with his. “You know I can’t do that.”
“Can’t, or won’t?”