Dare to Surrender

We’d clicked, therefore we were friends.

I settled back into my chair. “I’m thrilled for you,” I told her.

“Thank you.” She quietly assessed me with her vivid green eyes. “I’m glad you came back so I could share this with you. Not to mention the fact that you keep me organized.”

I smiled at her. “I’m glad too.” I’d missed the work, and I’d missed her friendship.

She leaned in close. “You know, I was fooled by Lance too.”

I whipped my head up. She hadn’t brought up Lance since the first night of my return, respecting that boundary, if not many others. I think she realized I needed time to heal, and she’d given me that. Apparently, with her engagement and happiness assured, it was time to focus on me.

My stomach churned, but I figured it was better to have the conversation and be done with it than to avoid it and let her push me until I revealed all.

“Lance really fooled you too?” I asked, surprised that she hadn’t seen beyond the smooth exterior to the slime beneath either.

She nodded. “I would have tried harder to talk you out of quitting it—make that abandoning me here—but you were so happy. You loved him, and you wanted security. I knew you well enough to know that, and Lance seemed the perfect man to provide it.”

At least I knew we’d both seen the same thing in Lance—in the beginning.

“I didn’t like that you gave up your independence and career to be with him, but I respected that not all women wanted the same things from life. Although I knew I’d miss your talent.”

I smiled. “I really did want to be happy with him. I wanted to make the home I never had but…” I smacked the side of my head and forced a smile.

“I admire you knowing what you wanted at such a young age. Nothing wrong with that. We aren’t all cut out for career only.” She glanced down at her ring as she spoke, making me think she’d done some reevaluating too.

“I should have realized when I called and couldn’t reach you, and then when you didn’t call me back—”

I held up one hand. “What?” To my knowledge, she had stopped calling me, cold turkey.

“When you started making excuses for getting out of our weekly lunches and had Lance tell me—”

“You called me?”

She nodded. “I called your cell. The number was disconnected, so I called Lance, and he promised to relay the message. After I did that twice, and he explained you’d made new friends and were too busy…”

Heat burned my cheeks. “God, I’m an idiot.” In the beginning, he’d always come up with something I just had to do on the days I’d had plans with Lisa, but I didn’t know he’d deliberately neglected to tell me she’d called. I should have realized. I shouldn’t have let the friendship go so easily, but Lance had been there, encouraging me to move on.

Lisa waved away my self-blame. “It never dawned on me that he wasn’t relaying the messages either. I just thought you were too busy with your new life and friends. And that was okay if you were happy, but I missed you.” Her lips thinned. “I should have known you better. So you see? We were both duped. Take heart in that.” Her kind gaze fell to mine.

“Thank you.” Lisa was another person in my life I could count on, I thought, immediately realizing I was mentally including Gabe in that small group of two.

A lump filled my throat as it always did when I thought about Gabe.

“Anyway,” Lisa said, her voice a welcome break from being in my own head, “we’ll just find you your own man like Tom.”

I hadn’t told Lisa about my short time with Gabe before showing up again in her life. The pain had been too fresh, and I wasn’t ready to admit I’d gone from one man’s shelter directly to another. I also wanted to keep him, what I felt for him, to myself.

I shook my head at her. I didn’t want a man like Tom. I didn’t want just any man. I wanted the one I’d left behind.

But I didn’t think going back was the right move, not with the months of silence between us. I’d taken some independent strides since leaving and had many steps still to come. I’d gotten what I needed—time alone to rebuild my life.

Too bad that life often felt so empty.

“We’ll see,” she said. “I’m just glad we had this talk.”

“And I’m so happy for you.” I glanced at her ring and smiled.

Lisa rose from her seat and held out her hand. “Messages,” she said, back to business.

I blew out a breath, relieved to have some normalcy and no more talk bout my past. I handed her a stack of pink papers, mostly phone calls I’d retrieved from the answering machine.

She flipped through them. “Okay, I’m on these. I leave for Chicago on Wednesday,” she reminded me.

“I remember.” Lisa did a lot of travel for the initial consultation phase of a project and again during install.

Lisa headed for her office, and I returned to my work. A few hours later, my stomach growling, I headed out for lunch. Lisa’s office was located near Cosi’s, my favorite sandwich shop, and I ate outside, enjoying the sun on my skin, the light breeze blowing across my face and through my curls. I returned to the office refreshed and ready to work.

“Isabelle, I’ve been calling your cell for the last fifteen minutes!” Lisa said as soon as I stepped out of the stairwell. I’d taken to walking up the four flights, the trip up and down the only form of exercise I had time for.

“I’m here now. I didn’t have any appointments scheduled. What’s wrong?” I asked.

She shoved a folder into my hands. I glanced down. Elite was typed on the folder label. “New client?” I asked.

Lisa nodded, rushing me through the main entry and toward the conference room.

“Then why aren’t you taking them? You screen the clients, I work on the—”

“She asked for you,” Lisa said.

I narrowed my gaze. “Nobody knows about me.” I paused. “My designing abilities, I mean.”

“Doesn’t matter. This is a nightclub to end all nightclubs. Only the crème de la crème will go there, or should I say, be deigned entry. The woman in that room asked for you, so go!” Lisa shoved lightly on my back.

This whole scenario made no sense. Grasping the folder, I opened the door to the small conference room. “Lisa—” I glanced over to find my boss had disappeared.