I’ve made it halfway to the elevator when I hear the tap of high heels behind me. I almost don’t want to turn around. If I can just get to the elevator and shut myself inside, I can close this door behind me and?—
“Ian, wait.”
I freeze with my hand on the elevator button. Closing my eyes, I take two deep breaths. Then I turn to face Dana Peschka.
“You don’t have to say it,” I tell her. “You’re going with another candidate.”
She doesn’t argue. “Look, Ian—you’re a great guy,” she says. “It’s just that our company culture here at Wyeth Airways requires something a little—different.”
“Different,” I say, pivoting to face her. “You want the guy I was at dinner two weeks ago. That guy would have gotten the job.”
She levels me with a frown like I’m the D student blurting a rare correct answer in class. “I can’t say for certain, but yes—the personality you showed us that evening was much more in line with the corporate culture of Wyeth Airways. What’s required to take our company to the next level.”
“And therein lies the problem.” I take a deep breath and let it out in a heavy sigh. “That’s not me. Not the real me.”
She frowns and folds her arms over her chest. “Pardon me for saying so, but I think you’re wrong.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’m saying you’re wrong.” Her frown is chiseled in place, but there’s warmth in her eyes. “I’ve been running companies for a long time, and I know people. That guy you showed us at the restaurant a few weeks ago? That’s more the real Ian Nolan than you realize.”
I can’t hold back a snort of disbelief. “You’re saying that you know me better than I know myself,” I say slowly. “That I’m mistaken about who I really am.”
“No,” she says, drawing out the syllable like she’s talking to an ill-behaved teenager. “I’m saying sometimes people shove their heads so far up their own asses that they lose the ability to see the light.” She taps one stilettoed foot on the tile floor. “That’s my professional assessment, take it or leave it.”
My mouth drops open. I can’t believe she’s talking to me like this. I can’t believe?—
“I can’t believe I let Sarah get away from me.”
Dana doesn’t blink. It’s like she expected me to say this all along, and I wonder whether we’ve been talking about work or my love life this whole time.
Maybe both.
I’m still too stunned to speak, which is fine since Dana isn’t through. “You want to know why we offered you this contract in the first place?”
I open my mouth to answer, but she doesn’t give me a chance.
“We liked you because you were tenacious,” she says. “You’re hardworking and dedicated and have a track record of making smart business decisions. You want to know why we considered taking you on full-time for Wyeth Airways?”
“Because you wanted someone passionate and emotionally present, and you mistakenly thought that was me.”
“No, you’re mistakenly believing it’s not you,” she says. “That guy we saw at dinner a few weeks ago was a great guy. Smart and funny and passionate and alive and exactly the kind of guy Wyeth Airways needs.”
Exactly the kind of guy Sarah deserves.
If Dana’s words hit me like a slap, my own thoughts are more of a full-fisted slug to the stomach. I stand there sucking in shaky breaths like a kid on the playground who just got gut-punched beside the monkey bars. I can’t find my voice, which is just as well since Dana has more to say.
“Here’s the thing, Ian,” she says. “You can be both. You can be stiff and rational and detached, but unless you’ve got the other side to balance you out, you’ll never be an effective leader.”
Or an effective fiancé. An effective husband.
I know I should care about this job, but I don’t. Not right now. All I care about is Sarah, and the hurt in her eyes when I walked away. I put that hurt there. Me. I did that to her, and I’m the biggest piece of shit in the world.
God, I love her.
The thought hits me between the eyes like a hatchet blade, but more painful.
I love her? How the fuck did that happen?
