She stood up, picking up the box and giving them one last look before she headed to the door. “Come on, ladies. Let’s get the last of these boxes downstairs so the movers can get in and out and not charge me any overtime when they finish up tomorrow.”
“Aren’t you loaded?” Cree reminded her. “What do you care about overtime for movers?”
“True.” The smirk on Vanessa’s face was met with an equally sassy smile from her friends. “I am loaded. That doesn’t mean I want to pay overages. How do you think rich folks stay rich? We never pay more than what we have to for anything.”
“Ms. Jared, which room did you want us to empty next?”
Vanessa looked down from the top of her spiral staircase to see Johnny, the supervisor for the moving crew currently packing up her home.
“You can start in the dining room next.” Johnny tipped his baseball cap to her, then directed his men to the room. “If you need me, I’ll be in the first bedroom on the right.”
Vanessa stepped inside of her bedroom and looked around. She’d moved into this room once she’d discovered Karl’s infidelity. She’d seen it as a safe place back then. Now, it felt more like a prison, locking her away from the future she knew was waiting for her.
Not after today.
Today marked the first step into the rest of her happy life. All she had to do was put the relics of her misery away for good.
She hugged herself as excitement spread through her. Selling this house, and everything in it, had been a scary first step into her future. She quickly realized, however, as the movers picked up all the boxes in each room, that she was effectively closing a door to the pain she’d carried for so long.
She picked up one of the empty boxes scattered on the floor and began packing up her vanity. Reaching for a bottle of perfume, a knock on the door startled her.
“Johnny, you nearly scared me to death.”
She turned around to find Johnny standing at the bedroom door with a huge bouquet. Its red and white roses were somehow oddly familiar. “Where’d you get those from, Johnny?”
When he didn’t answer, she walked to the door, taking the flowers out of his hand and nearly dropping them when she saw who’d been holding them.
“Michael?” She hoped the unspoken—What are you doing here?—went without saying because her tongue was too busy falling out of her mouth for her to actually articulate her thoughts.
He tilted his head and gave her a playful half smile that didn’t help the fuzziness in her brain that was keeping her from forming words.
“Would you believe I was in your neighborhood with what probably amounts to a ton of red and white roses?”
His humor disarmed her, giving her just enough time to stop worrying about the why of his appearance and focus on the spark of excitement that zipped through her once he smiled at her.
She pulled herself together as best she could, offering him a small smile in return. She had no clue why he was here yet. It was probably best if she tempered her expectations.
Too bad her palpitating heart didn’t get the memo about keeping things chill. Because if it beat any faster, she’d need CPR. Which might not be so bad if it got Michael’s mouth on hers.
“The flowers are lovely.” She looked around for a flat surface for him to set them on and pointed toward a nearby windowsill. “Sorry, every surface is covered with a box. I’ve been packing like crazy for the past few days.”
He walked over to the window, setting the flowers down before turning back to her.
“Thank you so much for the flowers, Michael. I just wish you hadn’t traveled all this way to deliver them to me.”
He smiled in her direction, and that inexplicable feeling of burning from the inside out took hold.
“Oh, I didn’t bring these for you. These are the flowers you had sent to me. The card you sent with it said, ‘Follow your happy.’ It sounded like great advice, so I came in person to thank you for the flowers and the wisdom.”
When she’d placed that order at his sister’s shop during the festival, she’d never thought she’d have a chance to see how he reacted to her gift. And now that she knew, her heart ached a little more thinking of the two weeks they’d lost.
“So.” He swept his hand around the room. “Are you giving away things to Goodwill?”
“Not exactly?” She lifted her eyes to his and the ache she’d been nursing since she’d left his house felt fresh, like she’d popped a stitch on her sutured wound. “I’ve sold the house.”
Something akin to sadness flashed across his eyes. It called to her, that was the only reason she could come up with that would explain why she found her legs moving her closer to him.
“You’re leaving?”
