Did she imagine the flash of pleasure she saw in his eyes when he first lifted his head and looked at her in the door to his office? Because if it really had been there, it had quickly been replaced by a guarded, wary look.
“Sure,” he said. “Come in.” He leaned back in his chair.
She took a seat. Twisted her fingers.
“I just came to tell you that…um…I’m resigning from the fundraising committee.”
He looked first stunned, then disappointed, then completely poker-faced.
“Oh. Well. That’s a surprise.”
“I’ve enjoyed working with you. All of you.”
He still said nothing, so she turned to leave his office, her chest tight and achy. As she paused at the entrance, Caleb sauntered in.
“Yo, Sasha,” he said.
She forced a smile. “Whassup, Caleb?”
He grinned. “Just wanted to let you know our mom loved the stuff we made her. She thought it was off da hinges.”
Sasha’s smiled widened. “That’s great! I’m so glad she liked it.”
Caleb held his knuckles out and she met his fist with her own in a gentle tap.
“Thanks, Sasha,” he said and ambled out, the crotch of his pants down around his knees under a baggy T-shirt.
She turned and Nick stood there in the door to his office. Their eyes met and held and the room around them faded to the background, her consciousness narrowed to Nick’s lean, tanned face, the blaze of his blue eyes. The moment stretched out and she had to fight with everything she had not to move closer to him, something invisible and powerful and almost irresistible drawing her toward him.
He felt it too, she knew he did, and her heart went hard and cold in her chest at the thought that he was letting something go that could have been so incredible. She’d never felt this kind of attraction to anyone, ever. Had he? But just because she was rich he wasn’t even going to give them a chance. Her eyes stung and she swallowed through the constriction in her throat.
“Good luck with…everything,” she said to him, her voice a bit thick. “This is a great place. You do good things here.”
“Thank you.”
She picked up her purse and started to the door. When she brushed past him, every sense and nerve in her body was on high alert, ready for him to reach out a hand and stop her. But he didn’t. With a tight smile, she walked out the front door.
“Bye, Nick. Thank you again.”
“Bye, Sasha.”
“Okay, Tara,” Tyrone said Friday afternoon. “What have you got?”
Tara had all the paperwork prepared, all her careful research and spreadsheets with projected costs and earnings. She handed it all over to her grandfather.
As they went through it, Tyrone was quiet, occasionally asking a brief question, but not saying very much.
“You’ll want some time to look at in more detail,” she finished. It was tough to get a read off her grandfather. “I know it’s a lot to take in.”
“Yes, it is.” Tyrone gathered up the paperwork. “I’ll look at it in more detail tomorrow. But I have to talk to Joe about it.”
Her heart gave a little bump.
“You have to talk to him about it?”
He frowned. “Of course. He’s seen this, hasn’t he?”
“Yes. I showed it to him on Monday.”
“Why isn’t he here?” Tyrone frowned. “I want to know what he thinks of it.”
The truth was, he wasn’t there because she was terrified.
Although he’d given her some suggestions of things to change and other things to add, he’d never really said what he thought about her proposal.
Her stomach cramped. This project was so important to her. This was her chance to grow the business, to put her mark on the company and really make it her own. If Joe trashed it like he had the soap idea, she’d be devastated.
“Um…I didn’t know you wanted him here.”
“Well, I’ll talk to him about it.”
She sat there, looking at her grandfather. She rejected the idea of begging him not to do that. She looked down at the papers in her hands.
“Sure,” she said. “That’s fine.” Then she lifted her head, met his eyes. “Grandpa, did you know why Joe left his last job?”
Joe looked up from his computer as Tyrone entered his office. Tyrone held up a folder. Joe lifted a brow.
“This is Tara’s proposal for high density planting,” Tyrone said.
Joe nodded. She’d given it to him already? He’d thought they were going to do it together. His mouth twisted. She’d obviously wanted to meet with Tyrone alone. Had she told Tyrone about his previous job and what had happened?
“I want your opinion on this,” Tyrone said.
Joe studied the man. Surely if he was going to fire him, he’d come right out with it.
“I think Tara’s done an excellent job,” Joe finally said. “Her research is thorough, she’s projected a few different scenarios based on solid assumptions. Some of them are more realistic than others.”
“But do you support going ahead with the plan?” Tyrone asked.
Joe paused. He had to be honest. “Yes. Yes, I do. Even Tara’s worst-case scenario predicts we’d be turning a profit in two years. I think that’s a reasonable risk to take, and in the best-case scenario, the pay-off could be huge. I think we can’t afford not to do it.”
“Okay,” Tyrone said with a nod. “If you’re on board, then I likely am too. But I would like to take a day to go through all this stuff.” He turned to leave.
“Tyrone.”
The older man turned back. “Yes?”
“Do you have a minute? There’s something else I need to talk to you about.”
“Remember when Mom and Dad died?” Sasha said pensively.
She and Tara sat on the couch in the den, and for once Tara was drinking a martini and Sasha wasn’t.
“For the longest time, I pretended it wasn’t true. I made up this whole story in my head about how Grandpa was just telling us that to punish me.”
“Punish you for what?” Tara turned on the couch to face her sister, propping one elbow on the back of the couch and leaning her head on her hand. It was so unusual for her and Sasha to be talking, talking about something real, something meaningful.
“The week before they died, I had a big fight with Mom and Daddy about getting a horse. Remember I wanted a horse so bad?”
Tara nodded.
“Well, Mom and Daddy talked about it, but they still said no. I was so mad I was yelling at them and I told Daddy I hated him and I wished I had different parents.”
“Oh no.” Tara’s heart contracted at the thought of what Sasha must have felt after their death.
Sasha nodded. “Two days later they were gone. God, I felt so guilty. Anyway, I made up the story and I kept believing one day they’d come back, once I had suffered enough.”
“Grandpa never liked to talk about stuff,” Tara said with a sigh. “So we never talked about how we felt or how much we missed them. It was like it wasn’t allowed.”
Sasha nodded.
Tara’s throat ached again. “So, while you were pretending they were coming back, I was just in deep denial about feeling anything at all.”
“Yes.” Their eyes met. “I guess that’s why I’ve been drinking so much,” Sasha said slowly. “And why you work so much. But lately it hasn’t been helping.”
“What does help?” Tara asked with a wry smile. “I want to know.”
“You know what helped? When I was working with the kids, teaching them how to make jewelry. When I helped Isaiah and Caleb make something pretty for their mom because she works so hard. When I found out Julia’s mom is only a year older than me and she has a daughter, goes to school and works two jobs—three, at one time. And I could do something—only little things, I know, but still—I could do something to help Julia and her mom. That helped.”