Love Irresistibly

Thirty



IT TOOK BROOKE almost two weeks to rework her schedule so she could fly out to Spectrum’s headquarters. Granted, she was doing this on the sly, merely telling her secretary that she would be out of the office to attend to “personal matters.” Since she’d only taken three other vacation days in the two years she’d been with Sterling, she figured she was due for the time off.

She did, nevertheless, feel guilty. She hated going behind Ian’s back—although, obviously, she had no choice under the circumstances. She believed in loyalty, and she didn’t relish the thought of having to tell Ian that she was leaving. But at the end of the day, it was her career. She worked hard, she was good at what she did, and she owed it to herself to explore this opportunity with Spectrum.

Thus, on a Friday morning Brooke found herself on a seven A.M. flight to Charlotte, North Carolina. After takeoff, she reviewed the questions she wanted to ask Palmer and the other members of the executive team, and ran through her vision for retaining market share and growing Spectrum’s sports and entertainment division. She’d just begun perusing some articles she’d printed out about the city of Charlotte, when the first-class flight attendant came by to offer her breakfast.

“We have a choice this morning: blueberry pancakes or a Denver omelette,” she said.

Brooke’s mouth fell open. Get out of here. “A Denver omelette? Seriously?”

The flight attendant sighed, as if steeling herself for a two-hour ride with yet another fussy first-class passenger. “Yes, a Denver omelette. They’re one of our most popular breakfast entrees.”

“Oh, no—I wasn’t criticizing,” Brooke said quickly, trying to explain. “It’s just this inside-joke thing. I mean, not with you, since obviously we’ve never met before, but with this other person who . . . you don’t know and who isn’t here and, actually, he isn’t even really speaking to me right now, but if he had been here, trust me—he would’ve found this really funny.”

The flight attendant gave her a no-more-coffee-for-you look. “Omelette or pancakes, ma’am?”

Right. “Omelette.”

The flight attendant set the breakfast onto her tray and made a fast getaway. Brooke looked down at the omelette, knowing exactly what she would’ve done if circumstances had been different. She would’ve taken a photo of the omelette with her phone, and then texted Cade as soon as the plane landed with some sort of quip like, Didn’t realize you were moonlighting as a chef for United, or—even better—And I didn’t even have to put out this time.

Yep, that would’ve been a good one, all right.

A real good one.

Brooke looked out the window, trying very hard, as she had been for the last two weeks, not to wonder what Cade was up to. They hadn’t spoken, texted, or e-mailed since that last night together, when they’d agreed that it was better not to see each other anymore.

That part had been harder than she’d anticipated.

She turned back to the Denver omelette, trying not to hear Cade’s low, teasing voice in her head.

Nine o’clock it is. I’ll pick you up at your place.

I’ll have a Denver omelette waiting.

That’s cute.

She should’ve just gone with the damn pancakes.


* * *


IT WAS A whirlwind day from the moment Brooke touched down in Charlotte.

A car met her at the airport and took her to the Ritz-Carlton for a quick pit stop to drop off her bags. From there, she was whisked away to Spectrum’s corporate headquarters. She met first with Palmer, who then introduced her to several other company officers—she couldn’t say how many; she lost count after ten. She learned all about Spectrum’s mission to “transform the food hospitality industry,” and there was no denying that they were indeed the Goliath to Sterling Restaurants’ David: they were in hospitals, senior living facilities, schools, colleges and universities, corporate buildings, and, of course, sports and entertainment venues.

It was clear what Palmer was looking for in an EVP of sales and business development; in fact, he came right out and told her: someone aggressive and ambitious, someone who would do more than trot out the same old tired ideas and “corporate-speak.” He spoke about the fairly extensive travel that would be involved, and made a comment about that not being a good “fit” for the former EVP of sales.

“Family man, really good guy,” Palmer said. “We just needed someone who could step it up to the next level.”

Brooke had lunch with two of the executive officers she’d been introduced to earlier, neither of whom she’d describe as the most vivacious person on Earth, but then again, there were a lot of stiffs in the corporate world. Luckily, she clicked better with the general counsel, whom she met after lunch.

About two minutes into her meeting with the general counsel, his assistant stuck her head into the office. “Sorry for the interruption. Randy Kemp wants to meet with you today. He says it’ll only take five minutes.”

The general counsel rolled his eyes. “Randy Kemp wants to talk about his deposition in the Kentucky FLSA case, and that is definitely more than a five-minute conversation. Tell him he can have twenty minutes at four thirty.” He turned to Brooke after his assistant left. “How much are you not going to miss all this when you’re EVP of sales?” he asked jokingly.

“You mean, having at least two conversations a day that start with ‘So, um, how bad would it be, legally speaking, if I told you that . . .’”

The general counsel chuckled. “Exactly.”

Brooke smiled. Weirdly . . . she thought she kind of would miss that.

At the end of the day, she met up with Palmer again, and he led her down yet another hallway to a corner office.

“Thought you might want to try it on for size,” he said, with a wink.

“This would be mine?” she asked.

He nodded. “All you have to do is say ‘yes,’ Brooke.”

She stepped into the large office, modernly furnished with cream marble and ebony wood furnishings. The view from her office at Sterling was better, but it wasn’t the view that mattered—it was what the office represented. The money. The title. The fact that she’d be running the entire sales division of such a large corporation.

One simple word, and it was all hers for the taking.

All she had to do was say yes.


* * *


BY THE TIME Brooke finally made it back to the hotel around ten o’clock that night, she was exhausted. She’d been awake since five A.M., she’d had to be “on” for nearly twelve hours straight, and she was feeling somewhat . . . out of sorts.

Palmer and two of the VPs—luckily, not the two stiffs from lunch again—had taken her to dinner at a French-Italian “seasonal cuisine” restaurant located in the city’s historic Elizabeth district. The conversation was good, and the food and wine were excellent, and all in all, she’d had an enjoyable evening. But something was off.

Never once had Palmer pressured her to accept the offer, but she knew, understandably, that he was eager for her response. And several times during dinner, she’d been tempted to say that one word, yes, because of course she should accept the offer. It was an excellent opportunity, and by and large she’d liked the people she’d met at Spectrum. The pragmatic businesswoman in her had been shouting, What are you waiting for? all through the dessert course—but something kept holding her back.

She didn’t know what, exactly, that something was. But she’d first noticed it that afternoon, when Palmer had shown her the office that would be hers at Spectrum. He’d needed to step out to take a phone call, and while he was gone she’d taken a seat behind the sophisticated ebony wood desk. To “try it on for size,” so to speak.

It hadn’t felt quite . . . right.

She’d ignored the sentiment, thinking it was nothing, that it was merely akin to buying a new house but not feeling like it was actually hers until she moved in. But that same nagging feeling had popped up again throughout dinner, whenever she’d been about to accept Palmer’s offer, so in the end, she’d just stayed quiet.

Brooke decided to sleep on it, wondering if perhaps she was simply feeling off because she was tired. The next morning, she woke up refreshed, reinvigorated, and ready to check out Charlotte with an open mind. The driver was waiting for her when she got downstairs, and he came armed with a list Palmer’s secretary had put together of places Brooke should visit while in town.

Charlotte was a big city, but she noticed that it had something of a small-town feel—which appealed to the midwesterner in her. After touring around all morning and early afternoon, she asked the driver to drop her off at an outdoor café by her hotel, one that the concierge had recommended. She ordered a Margherita pizza and a glass of wine, and then she settled in and waited for that moment to come when she knew that accepting the offer was the right way to go.

Then she waited some more.

The moment sure seemed to be taking its sweet old time.

When the waiter brought over the pizza she’d ordered and she was still waiting, she thanked him and happened to catch sight of the people at the table across from her: a little girl, about eight years old, eating lunch quietly while her mother typed away on her BlackBerry.

“Almost finished, I promise,” the mother was saying. “I just need to get this e-mail out before my client drives me completely nuts.”

Brooke watched them, able to identify with the woman’s feeling all too well. In a minute or two, she would put down the phone, smile at her daughter, and say, “Sorry. Just had to finish that.” Except it wouldn’t be finished, because, really, no work problem urgent enough to require the immediate attention of a woman simply trying to enjoy lunch with her daughter, or, say, a barbeque with her best friend, or a book club meeting with some girlfriends, could ever be fixed with one e-mail. The work would still be there when the woman got home, or maybe another issue would pop up that required the woman’s attention, because work was always there. And it wasn’t that the woman was complaining—she actually liked her job, in fact—but lately she’d been wondering if her life had gotten a little . . . off balance.

Or, maybe Brooke was over-personalizing the situation. Just a bit.

She tabled that thought as she walked back to her hotel. In her room, she fired up her laptop and, naturally, turned first to work-related e-mails. After that, she checked her personal account and saw that Rachel had e-mailed her, saying how great it had been to catch up at Ford’s barbeque and that she wondered whether Brooke wanted to get together for lunch anytime next week.

Brooke started to write back to Rachel, saying that next week was likely going to be busy. While she didn’t specifically mention it, she was already thinking about how she needed to catch up on things at work after her three-day weekend, particularly since she very possibly was about to tell Ian that she was quit—

Midsentence, she stopped typing and took her hands off the keyboard.

She was so sick of writing those words.

Sorry. Too busy. Can’t leave work right now.

Darn, I have a work thing that night.

Maybe after work.

Count me in tentatively, depending on work.

Work.

Work.

Work.

Brooke got up from the desk and walked over to the window. She looked out at the Charlotte skyline, which was pretty with the sunset. But it wasn’t Chicago.

She took a deep breath, realizing that for the first time in years, she didn’t have a clue what she wanted. It had been one thing when she’d accepted that her current lifestyle wasn’t conducive to a long-term romantic relationship, but what about all her other relationships? She saw Ford, she’d managed to at least protect that one friendship, but what about everyone else? Rachel? The book club? Her former co-workers at her old law firm—they used to get together once a month for Friday happy hour. When had she stopped doing that?

She could hear Ford defending her, even to herself.

Don’t beat yourself up, Brooke. Work, family, whatever—everyone’s busy these days.

Yeah, but there was busy, and then there was crap-when’s-the-last-time-I-called-my-parents busy.

Crap. When was the last time she’d called her parents? She e-mailed them fairly regularly, but an actual phone call? She could check her cell phone call log to find out how long it had been, but she was pretty sure she didn’t want to know.

This EVP position at Spectrum sounded every bit as demanding as her job at Sterling, perhaps even more so given the travel involved. And Brooke knew herself, she’d be starting over at a new place, which meant she’d want to prove herself and succeed—the same thing she’d strived to do at Sterling, ever since Ian had taken a chance on her two years ago. Just like she’d always felt the need to do, the girl from the Quads who’d had to work her butt off for every opportunity.

But maybe it was time to stop feeling like she had to prove something.

Maybe it was time to take a breath, to slow things down a notch, and simply enjoy her success—and all the other things in her life, too.

Except . . . she wasn’t sure she knew how to do that.

You’re a smart woman. You’ll figure it out.

Strange little tears sprang to Brooke’s eyes, and she half-laughed at herself. Of course, even though Cade wasn’t there, and they weren’t even speaking, he’d still managed to have the perfect line.

He’d said exactly what she needed to hear.