He’d fallen in love with a funny, beautiful woman who made himwant. A future, a family. A life with her. And when she didn’t love him back, he’d gotten pissed at her for filling his head with those dreams. But that wasn’t Thea’s fault; she hadn’t asked him for any of those things. She’d just been so perfect for him that the dreams grew on their own.
Thick helplessness churned in his stomach. How was he supposed to stuff those dreams away now that they’d hatched? With a sigh, he shuffled to the sink to start washing the dishes Faith had left behind. Then a thought hit him with such clarity that he almost dropped one of the etched glasses.
Faith had asked what he’d done to her best friend. Said Thea’d done nothing but cry since their breakup. Surely she wouldn’t be that upset if she didn’t have some sort of feelings for him too.
That was enough to keep the embers of his dream alive. He’d just have to figure out a new plan.
Twenty-Seven
Thea knocked on her boss’s partially open door and stuck her head in. “Hey, do you have a—”
Her words died on her lips at the sight of Brandon Lowell with his elbows on his desk and head in his hands as a furious, tinny voice poured from the cell phone in front of him. When he looked up, the expression in his sharp blue eyes was the bleakest she’d ever seen.
“What can I do for you?” he asked tiredly, smoothing down his blond hair where his fingers had left it uncharacteristically mussed.
“Yeah, um, I can come back.” She started to edge out the door, but he pointed a commanding finger at the guest chair.
“No need. It’s just my two-minute hate.”
She dropped into the seat. “Come again?”
“Every day that I’m on the road, my father calls to let me know the many ways I’ve disappointed him.”
“Whoa.” And she thought Peter was bad.
Brandon gave a terse smile of acknowledgment. “The bad news is, it’s usually longer than two minutes. The good news is, I can mute myself and multitask while he’s shouting it out.”
At that moment, the angry voice picked up steam, and Thea distinctly heard “fucking disappointment” and “squandering my legacy.”
“That isn’t even on speaker. That’s just his voice.” Brandon sighed. “Anyway, what can I do for you?”
“No, seriously, we don’t have to do this now. It isn’t—”
“Talk,” he ordered over the rise and fall of the man on the phone.
Okay then. Thea pressed her hands on the top of her thighs, breathed out hard, and said, “I’m quitting.” Then she burst into tears.
Brandon looked at her in silence for a beat before he unmuted his phone and cut off the tirade on the other end with a firm, “Sir, I have a meeting to get to. I’ll be back at headquarters on Monday.” He ended the call, stood, and pulled off his suit coat, rolling first one sleeve and then the other. “You. Me. The Elephant.”
Thea dried her eyes with a tissue she fished from her purse and followed him out the door even though it was only ten a.m. on Friday and she had hours of phone-answering she was supposed to be doing. But Brandon apparently didn’t care because he hustled her out the door and into his sedan for the quick drive to the Elephant. Once they were settled at the long mosaic bar, he insisted they wait until they were halfway through their first drinks before he approached anything resembling a serious conversation.
“All right.” He set his old-fashioned down on the glass bar top. “What are you quitting, exactly?”
“I don’t know. The station job? The Brick Babes? Ever feeling happiness or joy ever again?” She drained the rest of her mojito in one long gulp.
He nodded and brushed a thumb over his chin. “Okay. The station’s no problem. You’re a great receptionist, but we can deal if today’s your last day.” He sipped, swallowed, continued. “The Brick Babes? Also no problem. That’s a volunteer gig, and you can bail anytime. Again, we’ll miss you, but I get it. As for that last bit—”
“Oh God, ignore that. Sorry.” She stabbed her straw to the bottom of her glass, embarrassed beyond belief that she’d gotten emotional in front of the heir to the Lowell Consolidated media empire. Brandon’s family owned more than a dozen radio stations across the country, so he probably dealt with a handful of other Theas every day who all had their own crises as they kept the wheels turning at the Paducah hot country station or the Pahrump Top 40 or whatever.
But he didn’t seem terribly bothered as he gestured at Tammy the bartender, who got to work mixing a second old-fashioned. “Another mojito?”
“I shouldn’t.”
“You were sobbing in my office twenty minutes ago.”
Thea glumly tapped her empty glass on top of the bar, and Tammy tossed her long braid over her shoulder. “I gotcha, doll.”
After their alcohol had been replenished, Brandon swiveled on his stool to face her. “Have you ever noticed that I visit the Beaucoeur station pretty frequently?”
