Page 56 of The Business of Love Box Set 1: Books 1 - 4

KIMBERLY

A t the end of the day on January tenth, I was ready for a stiff drink and the company of a good friend.

So when Jackson walked into the bar in his leather jacket and jeans and a stupid grin, I was elated.

He met me on the dance floor for a big hug and we made our way to the bar and took our seats. We ordered two beers and angled our stools to face each other.

“Haven’t seen you in a hot minute,” Jackson said before taking a long sip of beer.

“Since the reunion probably,” I said.

“Damn. We need to be better at this.”

“Tell me about it. I’m starting to think you hardly know me at all.”

Jackson looked offended. “What?”

I eyed him suspiciously. “Are you seriously going to play dumb right now?”

“I’m not playing. I am dumb. You know this about me. Spit it out already. What have I done this time?”

I rolled my eyes at him. “You have successfully set me up on five back to back blind dates that were absolutely appalling.”

“Oh come on! You’re being dramatic.”

“I mean it, Jack. The last guy was an absolute dud. No joke. He spent the entire dinner talking to me about how he and his frat-boy friends like to get drunk every weekend and do stupid shit. Oh, and he was over half an hour late and had the audacity to be offended that I couldn’t accept his very obvious gift of guilt flowers because of my allergy. ”

“It is a weird allergy,” Jackson muttered under his breath. “Especially for a wedding planner. I mean, really, what sort of psychopath willingly pumps themselves full of drugs on the day they’ve been planning with their clients just so they don’t turn into a puddle of snot during the ceremony?”

I pointed a warning finger up at his face. “Don’t.”

I knew my allergy was a strange one but I had no control over that. Of course, it was inconvenient to be a wedding planner of all things and have such an aversion to flowers. But I could manage it when I had to, and on my client’s big days, I always managed it.

He held up his hands and feigned defeat. “All right. All right. I’m sorry, Kim. Honestly, I’m not trying to hook you up with these losers. You deserve the best and nothing short of it. I don’t know why quality keeps falling through the cracks.”

“I’m not doing any more of your setups.”

“Don’t be like that. We’ll hit it out of the park one of these times. We just have to keep on trying. Wasn’t that your motto back in high school?”

“No. I’m being smart.” I drank another mouthful of beer and savored it on my tongue.

It eased the stresses of the day. I’d felt like I was pinned against a wall with all of Verity’s requests from yesterday and having to follow through and make all the changes—some of which were new additions she and I hadn’t even discussed.

I just woke up to them in my email inbox.

“If I keep seeing guys you want to match me up with, I’m going to end up mounted to some creep’s basement wall with fake shiny black eyes or some shit. Each one is worse than the last.”

Jackson laughed and shook his head. “Come on, Kim. There’s no way they’re that bad. I haven’t been sending you out into the wild with sadistic taxidermists.”

“One of them told me I smelled like his mother.”

Jackson recoiled and his nose scrunched up. “Ew. Gross. Why?”

“I didn’t ask. I got up and left. Actually, that’s pretty much how every single date has ended.”

Jackson frowned and chewed the inside of his cheek. He and I had been friends since high school, and I had once believed he knew me well enough to successfully set me up on dates with men of the caliber I would like to date.

Men like Rick Garrett.

Was that the problem? Was I comparing all these young studs to the much older, wealthier, more sophisticated man whose wedding I was planning?

God, I hoped not. If that was the case, my chances of having a happily ever after of my own were even more out of reach than I thought. How could these dudes Jackson was setting me up with ever compare to the likes of Rick?

I groaned internally and let out a tired, weary sigh. “Maybe I’m just destined to be single.”

“A catch like you? Bound for eternal singlehood? Sorry, Kim, I’m not buying that one.”

I rested my chin in my palm and pulled a small crystal bowl of peanuts toward me.

I popped a couple in my mouth and then slid it between Jackson and me so he could help himself.

“Sometimes, I get caught up thinking that I should stop trying to force something that clearly isn’t meant to be right now.

Does it sound crazy to just admit defeat and focus on my work right now instead of romance? ”

Jackson ordered us another round of beers and then turned back to me. “In my experience, people find their soul mate after they throw in the towel and stop looking high and low for them.”

“I doubt I’m that lucky.”

Jackson took a handful of peanuts and began eating them out of his palm one after another until his lips were dusty with salt. “So I guess now isn’t a good time to tell you I have another guy lined up who wants to meet you?”

“No. God no. Tell him to crawl back into whatever hole he came out of. I’m not interested. No more dates for me. I’m going to focus on my work.”

“You mean focus on the soon-to-be-married guy you’ve been wanting to fuck for over a year?”

Was I that transparent that even Jackson knew how weak in the knees I was for Rick? “I have not wanted to fuck him. That’s so unprofessional. And—”

“True?” he asked with a cocky smirk.

I swatted his shoulder with the back of my hand. “Don’t be such a little know-it-all, Jackson. It’s not a good look.”

“I’m not a know-it-all. You just talk about the guy all the time. And Rick Garrett is kind of a big deal. You don’t have money and a body like that and not end up on magazine covers. Come on. Don’t be naive. Hell, I’d fuck him.”

I laughed. So did Jackson.

When we had our snickering under control, I sighed heavily and rested my elbows on the bar.

“It sucks, Jackson. I like him. A lot. And I have for a while. And the closer we get to the wedding, the more I realize the woman he’s marrying is a truly terrible person.

She doesn’t care about him. She just cares about what his last name can do for her. ”

“Which is a lot,” Jackson noted.

He wasn’t wrong. “I just wish Rick could see it for what it was. He’s being used.”

“Guys like him will always be used. It’s damn near impossible to find someone who loves you for who you are when you’re that wealthy.”

That made me sad to hear. Rick deserved real love and his little girl deserved to see her father be adored by a good woman.

I suspected she needed that kind of influence in her life.

Verity certainly wouldn’t make a good role model when it came to true love and compassion and communication—or any of the healthy habits a stable, balanced, successful relationship required.

With a stepmother like Verity, what sort of teenager would Chessie become? Would Rick’s goodness win out against Verity’s shallow ways? Or would Chessie fall in with the wrong group of girls and become more and more like her vain stepmother with every passing day?

“What are you thinking about?” Jackson asked.

“Nothing.”

“Liar.”

I smirked. “It doesn’t matter. I was thinking about his daughter.”

“Rick’s?”

“Yes. Pay attention.”

Jackson chuckled. “You really are hung up on this guy.”

“I just have to make it through the wedding and then I can leave Rick Garrett in my rearview mirror and move on. He won’t take up any more space in my head once the job is done.”

Jackson didn’t say anything, but based on the slight downturn of his lips, I had a feeling he didn’t think it would be that easy. Truth be told, neither did I. Rick would be a hard man to forget.

I forced myself to smile and sit up straighter. “Anyway, that’s enough about me. We haven’t seen each other in months, and here I am sucking all the air out of the room talking your ear off.”

“Some things never change.”

“Like your sass, for starters,” I quipped.

Jackson shoved the peanuts toward me. “Take those away from me before I eat all of them.”

I stared at the crystal bowl. There were eight peanuts left. “Jack, you already ate all of them.”

“No, no,” he said, pointing at the bowl. “See? I left those for you.”

“How chivalrous.” I laughed before helping myself to the remaining peanuts. As I popped them in my mouth one at a time, I gave Jackson my full attention.

He told me all about his work, how things were going, and how he’d landed some pretty big clients. “The trouble is,” he said, “they’re not here in Nashville. I think it’s time I expanded my business and ventured out to wider and greener pastures.”

“How wide and green?”

Jackson eyed me uncertainly for a minute and hesitated before answering.

I felt my heart fall in my chest. “Jack, are you moving away?”

He nodded.

“How far?” I asked.

“I wanted to wait for the right time to tell you, Kim. And tonight didn’t feel right. I was going to.”

“Just tell me where,” I said.

“New York.”

“Really?” I felt a grin tugging at my lips. “Jack, that’s awesome! I think you’d be really successful out there. Sure, it’s expensive, but you’ve been doing really well, and all you have to do is get your foot in the door, and then you’d be on your way.”

“I appreciate the support. I wasn’t sure how you would take it.”

“I’m in New York all the time for work,” I said. “I can make a point to come visit any time I’m out there for clients.”

“I’ll hold you to it.”

“Is this a for-sure thing?”

“It’s done. I’ve already signed paperwork for an apartment and I’m looking at office spaces online.”

“Wow,” I breathed. This was all happening so quickly. Almost too quickly. “I’ll miss you.”

“I’ll miss you too, Kimmy.”

“Don’t call me that.”

He flashed me a charming smile. “Sorry. Can’t help myself sometimes.”

I lifted my beer. “Cheers to new beginnings.”

He tapped his glass to mine. “And entrepreneurship.”

“I like that.” We drank from our beers and smiled at each other when we set them down. “Are you nervous about setting out on your own like this?”

He shrugged one shoulder. “I was actually considering asking Hailey if she wanted to move with me. She hates her job out here. We all know that.”

“You should do it,” I said.

He blinked at me. “Really? I thought for sure you’d say it was a bad idea.”

He thought I’d think it was a bad idea for him and the girl he’d been in love with since high school to move in together?

He was more na?ve than I thought. And so was Hailey.

They’d been doing this silly dance for years now and I hated to think what might happen to them if they lived in two different cities and went from seeing each other every day of the week to being reduced to online video chats and in-person visits once a month or so.

“You should ask her,” I said. “I bet she’d appreciate the offer even if she can’t wrap her head around moving away.”

Jackson nodded. “Yeah. Maybe I will. Oh! Before I forget.” He paused and twisted in his stool to rummage in the laptop bag hanging off the back of the chair.

He always carried it with him in case he needed to pop online to chat with a client.

He unzipped the bag, pulled out two paperback books, and placed them down in front of me.

They were W. Parker novels.

I pulled them close to me and opened the covers. Inside, scrawled in black felt, were signatures from the author.

“You didn’t?” I gasped.

“I did,” he beamed. “Does this make up for the series of shitty dates I’ve set you up with?”

I giggled and ran my fingers over the autograph inside the cover. “It’s a start.”