Page 32 of Between Commitment and Betrayal

The family that he loved, that he built, that he’d surrounded himself with had everything all mapped out. I understood it. I’d done the same already for my mother. We knew she would be cremated and given back to the land like she wanted. We’d talked about her belongings, and she’d said she was giving the studio and house to me.

Now, I questioned all that. Yet, I couldn’t question her. Giving her the burden of pointing a finger at her wouldn’t help.

“I’ll be fine.”

“You don’t always have to be fine, Evie,” she said quietly. Yet, my mother had always been fine. She’d never cried about the divorce or about being a single mom. She got up, ran the yoga studio, and taught me to do the same all on her own.

“It’s just hard to digest it all,” I said quietly. “He was trying with me, you know? And now...”

“You can miss the idea of him, baby girl. You have to give yourself grace to miss and to hurt, even though you didn’t know what the future held. Maybe you miss your hopes. That’s real and you shouldn’t discount it, okay?”

I took a shaky breath as I peered around the house. “I know you’re right. I just don’t like change, and I like to be one step ahead.”

“Or a million steps ahead.” She chuckled. “It’s okay to breathe, to feel, to let go a little.”

I nodded. “I’m going back to bed, Mom. You’re my sunshine.”

“My only sunshine,” she replied back. It was the song she’d always sung to me on a bad day, the lyrics we still exchanged as I love you’s now. I hung up and tried not to cry, curled up in that bed, and tried to ignore people milling around organizing my life.

Not much later, the movers and assistant were gone, and Declan knocked on the oak front door. I padded over the plush cream carpet to swing it open. “Hi?” I said, wiping the sleep from my eyes, not sure why he was here.

“Were you still sleeping?” He squinted at me as if it was absurd.

I tried to smooth the hoodie I had on as I took in the formidable man standing before me, looking as bright and awake as the sun. “I’m not a morning person. Your assistant stopped by though.”

He nodded. “You get all your belongings?”

I glanced at the lingerie and clothing rack. “I got more than that.”

He hummed. “Wear what you want. Return what you don’t. I promised a lingerie store.”

I chewed my lip and tried not to melt at how casually he offered an explanation. “I really didn’t need it—”

“I really wanted to give it though. So, I did,” he said without a worry in the world about it. “Anyway, you always wake up this late for work?”

I shrugged and nodded.

He chuckled, “That’s shocking actually.” The desire to slam the door in his face grew as his eyes twinkled with what looked like amusement and pure energy that I needed to get from a big dose of caffeine. “You’re normally ready to go when you get to the gym.”

“Sort of shocking you know that considering you never used to say hi to me or notice me the mornings I work.”

He leaned against the doorframe, “I’ve always noticed you, Drop, no matter how damn hard I try not to.”

My heart beat fast at his confession. “Well, I normally have a gallon of coffee. So, I’m up by then.” I tried to stifle a yawn and motioned toward him at my door. “Was this a wake-up call or do you need something from the guesthouse?”

It was then I took a minute to look him up and down. Declan normally wore gym shorts and a T-shirt—or no shirt at all—when he was working out. Instead, standing on the white doorstep, he was dressed in a navy suit with shiny gold cuff links and a HEAT pin on his lapel. Clean-cut, tailor-made for him. “Are you going to work or someplace else dressed like that?”

He pulled at his collar. “I have meetings most of the day. My brothers are stopping in, and we’ll be talking with shareholders, discussing new designs, ironing out what will happen with the gyms, spas, and resorts in the next year or so.”

“Oh.” It occurred to me that only Declan and his brothers had been invited, that Carl’s legacy wasn’t being passed down to me at all. “I guess that makes sense.”

“You guess?” He lifted a brow.

“It’s mostly your company now, right? It might benefit you to take into consideration all the dynamics.”

“Do you think we don’t do that already?”

“Melinda is managing the spa, she may want—”