The Gift of Love (5 page)

He grabbed his marriage report from the desk, escaped from the building, and ran down the street. He sat in his car for several long moments, steaming. They shouldn’t be able to get away with what they’d done. He had to do something. Maybe if he talked to a couple of their neighbors, he could find out some gossip about them, give him an idea of something he could do to get back at them for what they’d done.

When he had himself under some control, he approached a couple of the houses on the street where the BU/MU office was located. Several people refused to talk to him probably based, he realized later, on his wild, unkempt appearance. The few who would talk to him only said having BU/MU in the neighborhood sometimes caused parking problems. Otherwise, the company was an okay neighbor.

Hardly the information to get him the revenge he was hoping for. He gave up his quest and left Northwest Portland hoping the drive back to Seattle would help him think of a better way to make good on his promise to Summer Olsen.

By the time he was home, he hadn’t come up with any legal, much less ethical, ways to get back at Break Up or Make Up. In addition, as he cooled off and his saner self emerged, he realized how dangerous it might be to his chances of making partner if he tried to damage a small business.

But he was also sure he was in the right and resented the feeling of powerlessness to prove to Summer-what’s-her-name how wrong she was. However, if there was nothing he was willing to do, he reluctantly decided he’d better let it go and hope karma would sort things out.

He’d pick up the pieces of his plan and get on with his life. He comforted himself with the knowledge that all the rest of the plan was working. He’d even have enough money from the bonus he’d be getting from the CloudCo project to use as a down payment on a new place to live, where he didn’t have to pay rent. A condo would be nice.

For the foreseeable future, however, he would definitely not be looking for a new girlfriend. Not until he could be sure the next woman he got involved with was ... well, he wasn’t sure what she’d be. All he knew was she wouldn’t be anything like Allison. She would understand how she fit into his plans for his life and be happy to be part of it.

Eight months later

Bella was wrapping up a phone call when Summer came into the BU/MU office and placed a cup of coffee on her desk.

When the call was finished, Summer explained, “I thought you deserved a treat today. I think you like salted caramel mochas, don’t you?”

“You are my goddess. I love them!” Bella took a sip of the drink and moaned her appreciation. “This is what heaven tastes like, I’m sure. I hope you got yourself one, too.”

“Based on your recommendation, I did. And you’re right. It’s delicious.”

“So, tell me, how come I’m getting this unearned treat?”

“Like hell it’s unearned. You’ve been amazing taking over for Darcy. You mastered everything you needed to learn in only a few days. I didn’t have to hover over you at all. I should have brought you a mocha every morning.”

“As much as I love them, a daily salted caramel mocha is probably not part of a healthful diet,” Bella said. “But as a treat, it’s about as good as it gets. Thanks.”

Summer started toward her office but stopped halfway down the hall and, without looking back, said, “When you have five minutes, can you come into my office? There’s something I want to talk about with you.” Without waiting for an answer, she proceeded to her office and closed the door.

Uh-oh. Now what?
Bella tried to think if anything had gone wrong in the past few weeks, anything she’d screwed up, but nothing came to mind. Then the obvious occurred to her. They were coming to the end of Darcy’s maternity leave. Summer would be telling her when the job was over. That had to be it.

The past eight months had been some of the best in her life. Using the skills she’d developed managing her family’s real estate office, she’d quickly taken over the daily operation of the BU/MU office. Summer seemed happy to let her run things her own way, even giving her the latitude to tweak a few of Darcy’s procedures. And she gave Bella additional letters to ghost.

When she told her brothers about her “new” job, they had asked a lot of questions, conveniently ignoring the fact she’d been working for Summer for almost two years. When they insisted on investigating BU/MU to make sure it was a “safe place” for her, Bella was furious and asked if they’d entered some contest to see who could be the most overprotective brothers on the planet.

She was embarrassed but felt she had to tell Summer what was going on. Summer had laughed it off. Of course, no red flags showed up, and Luis reluctantly told her they “approved” of her new job.

Surprisingly, the house took a while to sell. There were lots of showings but no offers until a man who planned to retire to Portland bought it. He agreed to a rent-back agreement with Bella until he was ready to move, which, until recently, meant she didn’t have to apartment hunt at the same time she was looking for a place to work after Darcy returned to BU/MU.

She’d fallen into a comfortable routine, which her boss was about to remind her would soon change. At least, that’s what she assumed the meeting would be about.

Bella procrastinated for fifteen minutes, finishing up her coffee, sorting papers on her desk, and checking the client roster for upcoming due dates before deciding it would be best to get the bad news over with.

She knocked on the door to Summer’s office and, when she heard “Come in,” entered. Deciding it would be better to rip off the bandage herself she said, “I’m ready for you to tell me when I need to vacate Darcy’s desk. I imagine you called me in here to give me a date, didn’t you?”

“Partly but mostly ...” Summer leaned over the desk with a big smile on her face.

“You don’t have to beat around the bush,” Bella continued. “Part of me hoped she’d like being a new mom so much she’d want to stay home permanently and I’d be able to move into her job, but I knew it wasn’t likely to happen.”

“It wasn’t. But I have another ...”

“You’ve been terrific to work for. Between the experience I’ve gotten here and the reference you wrote for me, you’ve given me what I need to find a similar job. The letter of recommendation by itself was enough to open any number of doors.”

“Thank you. I was happy to help, but ...”

“No, really, Summer. It was an amazing reference. I’m sure that’s why I got a second interview for the Invesco office manager job. And for the interview I have this afternoon at the medical school. Haven’t heard from Invesco but even if nothing comes from it, it gave me interview experience, which is great and ...”

“If you’ll let me get a word in edgewise here, I have something I want to say.”

“I’m running off at the mouth, aren’t I? Sorry. Go ahead.”

“Yes, Darcy is coming back in ten days. But, no, telling you her return date wasn’t the reason I wanted to talk to you. You know I think you’ve been a great addition to the company. You handle our clients well, you’re a skilled office manager, and you’re a good writer. Most importantly, you
get
what we’re trying to do here.” She sat back in her chair and smiled.

Bella was puzzled. Where was this leading?

“I don’t want to lose you, but with Darcy returning, I can’t really afford to keep you here. So, I have a proposal. You know how much trouble I’ve been having getting the branch office in Seattle off the ground. I’ve spent more time and money going back and forth between here and there than I ever thought would be necessary. I can’t keep being an I-5 road warrior. But if I’m not there, nothing seems to move.” She sighed and shook her head. “I didn’t have this kind of trouble getting this office set up. It’s making me crazy. The only thing I can think to do is to have boots-on-the-ground-eyes-on-the-prize oversight. Would you be willing to move there for however long it takes to get things settled? Head up the project for me?”

Bella was so stunned she couldn’t make her mouth work. When she finally did, it was to say, “You’d trust me to be in charge of the whole thing?”

“There you go again. Your reaction is not the way to get a big promotion and a substantial raise, but yes, the general idea is you’d be in charge of the project. That’s the good part. The downside is, I have no idea how long it will take to get it up and running. You could be there for the few months I hope it takes or the three years it looks like it might take at the rate things are going.”

“I don’t care. It would be an amazing opportunity for me. And the timing couldn’t be better. The man who bought my father’s house wants to terminate the rental agreement I have with him so he can take possession next month. I started apartment hunting last weekend. Now I’ll just move my search to Seattle.”

“So the answer’s yes?”

“The answer is definitely yes.”

“I’m delighted. I hoped you would be willing to take it on. Maybe between the two of us, we can figure out what needs to be done to get my branch office in Seattle off its ass.” Summer stood, her hand extended. “Let’s talk contract and salary this afternoon.”

The reception’s desk was only a short distance from Summer’s office. Even so, after the conversation with her boss, Bella’s legs were so wobbly from the shock of the offer she’d gotten she could barely make it back there. She dropped into the desk chair and stared across the room, not really seeing what was there, merely replaying the conversation in Summer’s office.

No one ever had shown this level of confidence in her abilities before. Not her parents. Not her brothers. Certainly not the employees in the family real estate office who blew off any suggestions she’d made on how to do things differently, knowing she’d only gotten the job because she was related to the owners.

But Summer trusted her, was giving her a chance to prove herself. Summer was her hero. Heroine. Whatever. In the months she’d been running the office for BU/MU, Bella had rediscovered how good she was at organizing and managing a small business. More importantly, how much she liked doing it. She’d had a chance to hone her skills and grow her confidence. Not to mention use her writing skills.

Now, with this opportunity, she’d be able to show her brothers—and reinforce in herself—that she wasn’t a spoiled brat with no goals, nothing to offer the world. Summer trusted her and she was beginning to trust herself.

All she had to do was find a place to live in Seattle and move her things there. After she sorted through all her parents’ belongings, divided up the good stuff between her brothers, sold what no one wanted, and shipped what they did want to California, of course. Then she’d be ready to take on the challenge of figuring out what was going on with the Break Up or Make Up operation in Seattle.

Easy peasy.

• • •

When she told her brothers about her new job, Bella was mildly offended although not terribly surprised when Carlos expressed his concern about her taking such a responsible position when she had no experience getting a business off the ground. Luis asked if she didn’t think she was getting in over her head with such a challenge. Ernesto worried that she would be in a strange city without family around when she needed help, which he was sure she would. She was tempted to tell them to shove it but held her tongue. All their skepticism did was make her more determined to prove she could accomplish what Summer wanted done. She also kept to herself her secret hope—if she did a good enough job as project manager for this phase, she might have the chance to manage the new office when it opened up.

Her siblings’ comments on her decision were followed by a series of e-mails in which they gave her unsolicited advice on everything from moving companies and how to pack glass art to which books to take to Powell’s to sell and what papers needed to be shredded and which saved. Somehow, being on the way to proving herself made her brothers’ interferences easier to take, and some of their advice was actually helpful.

For example, her brother Javier offered to make a couple calls to friends in the Seattle real estate business and ask for some advice on where she could find a safe, affordable place to live. Six months ago, she would have turned him down, so fed up with their interference she’d been. But now, her common sense told her to accept.

He put her in touch with Sandra Daniels, a woman she was sure was a former friend-with-benefits who hoped, by helping his sister, she’d revive the relationship with Javier. After a series of e-mails and texts with ideas on where to look for a place to live, she came to like the woman’s sense of humor and was tempted to tell her Javier’s track record made him a bad bet for a long-term relationship. But she couldn’t bring herself to say hurtful things about her favorite brother or to make assumptions about a woman who might be someone she’d want to befriend when she moved.

After two weekends looking at all the listings Sandra sent her, she settled on a tiny but cozy one-bedroom apartment in an older building in the Fremont neighborhood. It was considerably smaller than the house she’d been living in, but it had the advantage of being all hers. At least it would be as soon as she got her parents’ house cleaned out, made arrangements to move her things in, and got settled.

Tackling the problems with the BU/MU expansion was a little more complicated. She and her boss brainstormed for hours about how to hasten the glacial speed with which the process for changing the zoning was moving. Without the change, the house Summer had purchased couldn’t operate as a commercial space and the renovations they’d planned couldn’t be done.

The glitch in the process could all be traced back to a hostile neighborhood association president who seemed to think BU/MU was more akin to a brothel than a counseling service. The official was vocal in her opinion, which had resulted in bad P.R. in the local paper when the association formally objected to the project. Summer had put off hiring a Seattle business consultant to help with a marketing plan until the other problems got sorted out. It would be Bella’s call when to bring MBA Consulting, the firm Summer had decided to hire, into the picture.