Crossroad to Love (Fab Five Series) - By Anna Kristell Page 0,84
She had told him that it just did not work out, but Alex could tell that she had wished it had, no matter how cheerful she tried to be.
She was packing for her trip to Iowa when the phone in the bedroom rang. She walked over and picked up the receiver. “Hello.”
“Katy, this is Ryan. I just came from a meeting regarding the new restaurants. It’s definitely a go and going to begin sooner than we anticipated. Chloe asked me to call you. She is about ready to have you come to Dallas. She wants to work with you on the décor of the new restaurants. She thinks the party room ideas you had are pretty great. So she wants to get started on the rest of the places.”
He sounds so cold and businesslike, not personal at all. So is the way we are going to play this game?
“Hello, Ryan, good to hear from you. Actually, I am leaving in the morning to spend the week in Davenport working with Angie. But I could get to Dallas in a few weeks, if that’s okay. I’ve gotten a few ideas ready for Chloe.” Two can play this game. If it’s strictly business he wants, then it’s strictly business he’ll get.
“I think that’ll be fine. Do you need me to make reservations for you?”
“I’ll arrange for my plane reservations before I leave for Angie’s in the morning. And I’ll be staying at Jon and Mari’s house in McKinney while I’m in town, so one of them will pick me up at the airport. You needn’t be concerned. I know you’re busy right now.”
“All right, let us know your final plans, when you’ll be arriving and all. Then we’ll schedule a meeting for after you get here.”
“Give Chloe my love and tell her I’ll have lots of ideas ready for her.”
“That I can do, I’ll see you in a few weeks, then. Goodbye, Katy.”
“Bye, Ryan.” Click. He had hung up. She stared at the receiver in her hand disbelievingly. I guess he was serious when he had said we could work together, because he intends to act as though those nights in Dallas never took place. How can he so easily forget how he told me he fell in love with me at first sight? How can he ignore the fact that we almost made love?
Perhaps he’d decided that he had never really loved her, that it was just a chance meeting between two people with a connection to the past. Whatever he was thinking, Katy would prove to him and everyone else that she could be just as professional and businesslike as he could. She did not need Ryan when she went to Dallas. She had Chloe and Marianne and work to keep her occupied. She would not get in his way at all. He could go back to being the playboy bachelor of Dallas. Determined as she was, Katy felt a twinge of jealousy at the thought of him and other women. He was supposed to be hers.
A short time later, she had pulled herself together and finished packing. She called the airport and arranged her flight to Dallas in two weeks. That would give her a week after she returned from the Quad Cities to work on designs for Chloe and prepare for the trip.
After a simple meal of vegetable soup, Katy pulled out the bath beads she had bought at the mall that last day of the trip and indulged herself in a warm, jasmine bath. Once she was clean, relaxed, and dry, she lay on the bed and decided to call Mari and let her know she’d be coming to Dallas. Marianne was elated to hear from her. She listened as Katy told her about the phone conversation with Ryan.
“I’ve not seen him in the society pages like I used to, so I don’t think he’s gone back to his old ways, Katy. Maybe it’ll be better when you get out here and see him in person.”
“Have you talked with Chloe since we all came home?”
“Yes, we did have lunch one day. She’s very busy with the new restaurants. We plan to get together for dinner, but it hasn’t happened yet. Jon is busy too, as is Shane.”
“She didn’t mention if Ryan was dating?” Katy gingerly asked.
“No, she didn’t, Honey. She’s still hoping for the two of you to get together. She’s probably cooking up a good matchmaking scheme as we speak. She is a hoot, that one.”