office that overlooked the Boston Common. Despite my quest, I didn’t particularly want to give that up either, especially if I failed.
“So, now that that’s settled”—Aidan’s voice when he spoke was as soft as flannel—“where do you think you might want to start looking for your laughter?”
I felt myself smile when I answered. “Ireland.”
chapter four
MARTIN, WE HAD a meeting scheduled for eleven, or did you—gasp—forget?” Jason Knightley, or the bane of my existence, as I thought of him, stood in the open door of my office, looking pointedly at his watch.
At six foot three, he was tall, with broad shoulders and a thick head of dark-brown hair that flopped in a perfect wave over his forehead. Knowing him, he likely spent no time on his hair but simply towel dried and finger combed it into masculine perfection. So annoying. He was dressed in his usual office attire, which consisted of a dress shirt—today’s was pale blue—that he wore with the cuffs rolled back, showing off his thick forearms; a geometrically patterned tie in light and dark gray; charcoal-gray trousers; and a pair of black Converse high-tops, as if being an adult ended at his feet.
I loathed him. He had come to work for the ACC three years ago, after a hot-wing-eating challenge he’d thought up for the Children’s Leukemia Society went viral. He was all flash and no substance. During Knightley’s first month here, Aidan had paired us up to acquire a major gift from Overexposure Media Group, a locally headquartered multimedia corporation. What should have been a slam dunk of an ask turned into one of the most humiliating experiences of my life, and I’d never forgiven Knightley—not a surprise, given that it was all his fault. Looking back, I was stunned that we’d survived the experience without bloodshed.
While I operated on innovative ideas and attention to detail, letting my corporate partners know that they could trust me implicitly to achieve what I promised, Jason relied on that indefinable something about him that made everyone seem to like him immediately—everyone except me. My colleague Julia called it charm, but I had never seen that in him. I found Knightley to be about as charming as a runny nose, which was to say not at all.
I glanced at the clock on my desk, or rather at the spot where the clock on my desk used to be, then looked back at him, meeting his smug expression with a defiant tilt of my chin. I never missed a meeting, ever. My life was ruled by my schedule, and I had never deviated from it until today. Knowing it would vex him, I shrugged, drawing out the gesture by holding my hands up as if to say whatever.
His eyes narrowed. He had eyes that switched from blue to gray depending upon what he was wearing. Today they were blue, which was one more reason, on top of his square jaw covered by a thin layer of neatly trimmed scruff, full lips, and perfect arching eyebrows, that I found him to be too much. The other women in the office spent an inordinate amount of time trying to decide if his eyes were blue or gray. It was galling.
“I didn’t forget. We’ll have to reschedule,” I said. I offered no other explanation and turned my back on him and continued packing.
On my way back from Aidan’s office, I had snagged an empty box from the mail room so I could pack up the few personal items I had at work, because now that I’d initiated my departure, I was ready to be gone. After a quick visual survey, I realized I could have just used a plastic bag from 7-Eleven. It was amazing to me that I’d been here for seven years, and yet there were very few sentimental items displayed on my desk and bookshelf. Kind of sad for a place that had been my second home.
“Reschedule? I didn’t think the itinerary queen—that’s you, by the way—even knew that word. Wait,” he said. Knightley stepped into my office, a frown creasing his brow. “What are you doing?”
I picked up one of the awards for excellence that sat proudly on the bookshelf by my desk. I had four; Jason had two. I knew it bugged him that I had more, so I took great delight in huffing a breath on the Lucite wedge engraved with my name and lovingly polished it with the sleeve of my jacket. Did it need it? No. Was