“If you think I’m going to just drop this conversation, you’re wrong.” She takes the box from me and I follow her into the house, where she sets it on the front desk. “But since you asked, my client was great.”
We kept Pane’s business plan since everything was set up. Cristina’s been busy with clients. At night, Ron takes folks on a tour of the garden. The area bed-and-breakfasts are filled to overflowing with new tourists. Luckily, the tornado that hit the house didn’t destroy anything in town. It basically plowed through the countryside. Mine was the only house that was hit, thank goodness, and when the magic righted the home, all the new additions remained.
So the town of Mystic Meadows has spit-polished itself to gleaming, and the mayor has even announced that we’re going to have a Christmas festival.
Yeah, things have changed since the Pane Maddox effect took place. That’s what folks call it—the Pane Maddox effect. Though Pane would have called it the Rowe Wadley effect.
Either way, he would be proud.
“Have you called him?” Cristina asks.
I shake my head. “No, and he hasn’t called me, either.”
She follows me into the kitchen, where I slip out of my shoes and open the fridge, grabbing a pitcher of water and filling a glass.
She slides onto a stool at the breakfast bar and drops her chin into her folded hands. “And why should he call you, when you’re the one who did the dumping?”
“Look, I did it—”
“For the best, yeah, I know. So you keep telling me. Then why do you look so miserable?”
I speak between gulps of water. “I’m not miserable.”
“You’re not? Could’ve fooled me, with the way you mope around the house, sighing all the time. And don’t think that I don’t know that you’ve been cyberstalking him.”
“You broke into my phone,” I accuse.
She huffs. “You can’t call itbreaking inwhen you gave me your passcode years ago.”
“That’s besides the point,” I mutter.
“Look.” She sits up straight and takes the glass of water that I offer. “Call him. You two were great. I know his mother said that you were wrong for each other, but since when do you listen to what anyone else says, anyway?” Before I can muster an answer, she continues, “I know you want to do it all on your own. I get it. But there are some things in life that should never be done alone.”
“Like what?”
“Like living.”
I laugh painfully. “Living?”
“Yeah. Do you think that if I had what you and Pane did—correction,do—that I would give it up?”
“There are other—”
“Rich billionaire fish in the sea?”
I shoot my best friend a pointed look. “It’s not about the money.”
“Yes, it is. That’s why you dumped him. Rowe Wadley, you left Pane Maddox because he had too much money, because with it, that meant you wouldn’t have to do anything alone. You’d have to rely on someone.”
“And what about when he left?” I snap. “What would happen to me then?”
She shrugs. “He already left because you made him, and look how miserable you are.”
My heart convulses because Cristina’s right. I am miserable. I am miserable and lonely and in mourning for giving up the one person I wanted to keep.
She rises, knocks back her water, and takes the glass to the sink. “I bet if you called him, he’d answer.”
Without another word, she leaves the room, leaving me to thoughts that do nothing but paralyze me in place.
