If only the Morrisons’ flight hadn’t been changed, none of this would have happened. It was pure bad luck, and now she was single. Again.
“You know what they say—men are like melons,” Angela said. “It’s tough to pick a good one.”
Fiona pictured Angela sitting on the long leather couch in her office as she talked Fiona through this. That was what Angela did. She made people feel better with nothing more than compassion and a unique, soothing tone in her voice.
Except she was wrong about the situation. For once.
“Nate is a good one,” Fiona corrected. “And I thought we were destined to be together. I guess destiny fell asleep on the job. Ang, what am I getting wrong? Nate and I had something so special.”
Well, no, obviously they didn’t or they’d still be together. Clearly the problem lay with Fiona if she couldn’t see that her “juggling” act had been making Nate dizzy this whole time.
“Why don’t we meet up? There’s no problem a good chocolate mousse can’t fix.”
Angela, bless her, had her back. Thank goodness they’d stuck to each other like glue through everything childhood, high school, and then college had to throw at them, and now this thing called adulthood. Ang had even managed to pull a smile out of Fiona.
“What, did you learn that in advanced psych? No, I would love to but Irwin Lanheim is about to stop by.” Irwin was an old friend of Fiona’s father—“friend” being relative. They’d been fierce rivals on Wall Street, but now that her dad had moved to Vermont, all of his relationships had changed. Including the one with her. “Who knows, that could be trouble.”
“You’re you. You can handle anything.” Angela didn’t stop there. “And Fi? Schedule some time for your feelings.”
“I will.” She wouldn’t. Angela always said stuff like that. It was practically her signature advice. But Fiona wasn’t Angela’s patient, and feelings didn’t get the job done or ease her loneliness. They just got in the way. “I’ll talk to you later.”
Irwin Lanheim cleared the door of Fiona’s office ahead of the receptionist, his broad smile already in place on his handsome jaw. The man did not age and had no less energy despite being closer to retirement age than he liked to admit.
“Fiona,” he called with a pleased chuckle as he laid his coat on a side table. “It’s been too long.”
Fiona rose instantly and met him at the corner of her desk to accept a brief kiss on the cheek, her own smile as big as his. It had been too long. “Irwin! I read about the merger. Well done.”
He nodded modestly, despite having just successfully led the conglomeration of two of the largest banking enterprises in North America. “Quite the compliment from the toast of New York real estate.”
“Sounds better than just being toast,” Fiona quipped back, uncomfortable with the praise.
“Yes, it certainly does.”
Fiona grinned. Irwin had always appreciated her humor, one of many reasons she liked him the best of her father’s old set of friends. “How are the newlyweds?”
Clearing his throat, Irwin put a bit of distance between them and braced both palms on her desk. “Kimberly left me. In fact, the papers were just filed this morning.”
Oh, goodness, she’d walked straight into that one. “I am so sorry.”
“No,” Irwin said graciously. “It is what it is.”
Somehow that made it easier to confess her own drama. “We’re kind of in the same boat then.”
“What, you and Nate?” Irwin’s eyebrows came together in concern.
“Nate and I are on a bit of a break,” she admitted. Seemed to be going around. What was wrong with both her and Irwin that they’d picked people to align themselves with who didn’t get them? Who ran at the first sign of trouble?
“Well, I’m sorry to hear that. Unfortunately, when you work as hard as you and I do, sometimes relationships tend to be a little bit difficult.”
And that was why she’d had few qualms about mentioning the blow Nate had dealt her—she and Irwin were cut from the same cloth. She felt a little better knowing that he faced some of the same struggles.
“My parents somehow found a way to make it work, though,” she mused, but that just put her back in a contemplative mood about what had gone wrong with Nate. And that wasn’t productive.
“Hey.” Irwin brightened. “How is your father? He still in Vermont?”
“Yes, he’s still running the inn with my stepmom.” Amazing how she’d gotten that sentence out and kept a smile plastered across her face. It was a sore spot, and she spent a lot of time trying to forget about the inn that had stolen not only her father from her, but all of her childhood memories. Irwin didn’t know that, though.
“What’s it been, like five years?” He didn’t pause long enough for her to confirm that it had indeed been five very long years since Harris Rangely had pulled up stakes unexpectedly. “I have to say, the city is certainly a lot less fun without my old rival.”
It was better that way, actually. Her father had betrayed Fiona’s mother’s memory by moving away, and now Fiona never had to think about how devastating of a blow it had been. Except when people like Irwin, who’d known her father, brought it up.
“I actually passed our old apartment on the way over,” she found herself saying. That was a sore spot too. That apartment had been her home, the one she’d shared with her parents, where she’d grown up. “I just can’t believe my dad up and left the city like that.”
The apartment, where all her greatest moments had happened, belonged to someone else. Vermont had swallowed her father whole, as if the Wall Street tycoon who’d been married to her mother had never existed.
What was wrong with her? Nate had done a number on her, for sure, but that was no reason to dump all of her angst on an old friend. “I’m sorry. You did not come here to listen to me reminisce.”
“The city is your passion. You take after your mother, and it’s that passion that helped you build a great business. But…” Irwin leaned forward, a sure tell that he had gotten to the part where he planned to explain why he’d come by today. “You can do better. In fact, with the merger complete, I want you to run the new real estate arm of my banking interests.”
Fiona blinked. As revelations went, that was a doozy. Obviously someone was trying to get her out of the game. Otherwise, why would he assume she was looking for a change? “I’m honored, but my business is great as it is. I’m my own boss. Why would I want to change that?”
“Because you’ve got a problem,” Irwin informed her blithely, hands outstretched as he laid down that provocative statement.
She couldn’t not play along, mostly because she had to hear what he’d say next. “Oh, I do?”
“Yeah, there’s only one of you. Could you imagine what you might do with a staff of ten? Or a hundred?” He pointed out the window where thousands of properties lay waiting for her special blend of skill and desire to match the right place with the right buyer. “You can craft the Manhattan skyline like it’s your own set of Tinkertoys.”
Intriguing. Her mind spun off in a hundred directions as she instantly sifted through the possibilities of what this offer entailed. She could build an empire, follow in Barbara Corcoran’s footsteps. Maybe even get her own TV show one day. If nothing else, she’d have partners in this business she could trust, who could take some of the load off for when Fiona needed personal