According to the tense un-Serena-like e-mail that had awaited him when he got home, it had also been a mistake.
David disagreed. But with her stubborn streak, he’d need patience and finesse to bring her around to his way of thinking. Luckily, he had both.
Their first few exchanges following his trip had been awkward, and he sensed she would have avoided talking to him if he hadn’t initiated contact. But as their friendship slowly resumed its former flirtatious tone, he’d been confident that, while he could have made faster progress in person, time was on his side. Then, right before he was scheduled to be in Georgia for Thanksgiving, she’d surprised him by announcing she’d started seeing someone.
As an overachiever who thought nothing of clocking sixty-hour weeks, David was used to his hard work paying off—this morning was a perfect example of the success he usually enjoyed.
With the meeting adjourned, the executives around the rectangular table began to disband, and the president of finance, Richard Gunn, approached, a wide grin beneath his graying moustache. “Congratulations. I don’t have to tell you how rare it is that we give opportunities like this to someone as comparatively new to the company, but there’s no question you’re the man for the job.”
“Thanks.” David stood to shake the older man’s hand. At thirty-three, David wasn’t exactly fresh from college, but he knew he was younger than the other candidates they’d considered for the relocation. “I’ll give it my all.”
“We’d expect nothing less of you.”
He’d never given them reason to—he’d been proving himself ever since his grad-school interview with the communications technology partnership of Andrews, Gunn and Innes. David had been eager to be a part of the strides the company was making in the field of voice-related software, and he’d been pleased by the fact that the firm was in Massachusetts. David had deliberately looked outside the southeast to make his mark, which made him something of an exception in his family.
The Grants of Savannah often had things handed to them by virtue of their social status and wealth, but he enjoyed the challenge of relying on his merits rather than on his name. A definite contrast to his older brother, Ben, who had made it clear that when he ran for Congress next year, he planned to milk his connection to the two previous Senators Grant for all it was worth. But David looked forward to returning to Georgia now and demonstrating just how successful he could be on his own.
“Do you have plans for lunch?” Richard asked. “In light of your possible promotion, I might even consider picking up the tab. Unless you’d rather celebrate with the lovely Tiffany? I’d ditch me for her any day of the week.”
“Actually, Tiff and I, um, decided to part ways over the weekend.” Tiffany had decided, anyway. David had been rather bemused when she broke up with him…mostly because he hadn’t realized they were dating.
Richard frowned at his gaffe. “Oh. I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s for the best. I’m about to move, and Tiffany will find someone more suited to her in no time.”
Tiffany Jode was intelligent, gorgeous and the heiress to a small fortune—small as compared to national budgets. She and David ran in the same social circles and had ended up in bed on several enjoyable occasions. But the evenings they’d spent together had as often been a product of coincidence as of deliberate planning, and he’d never thought of Tiffany and himself as a couple. So he certainly hadn’t seen the breakup coming. He’d mentioned a few weeks ago that the AGI partners were considering Atlanta for their new headquarters, and that he’d enjoy returning to Georgia, if given the chance. On Saturday, when the subject had come up over their lunch at Turner Fisheries, she’d grown silent, barely touching the nearly famous clam chowder. On the way back to her place she asked if he’d even once considered inviting her to move South with him.
An immediate and unintentionally appalled no hadn’t been the answer she’d wanted.
“Ah, well.” Richard clapped David on the arm. “You’re a young man with plenty of other options. And there’s a lot to be said for the bachelor existence.”
Yes, there was. David had led a rich and varied social life for the last few years, work permitting. He enjoyed women. Even if lately he’d been subconsciously comparing them to the one who had pushed him away.
“Lunch sounds good,” David said, lifting his charcoal suit jacket from where it hung on the back of his chair.
“Excellent. I’ll have Francine call ahead to get us a table at the club. Meet you in about an hour?”
That gave David just enough time to finish outlining a report he was supposed to summarize this week and maybe read a few e-mails. But after he’d returned to his office, all he could think about was his impending return to the land of peaches, bad traffic and sexy Southern women. He hadn’t mentioned to his family that he might be moving back. He knew they’d be excited about his being just a few hours from home, and he’d wanted to wait until he knew for sure.
Now, he could tell them he was not only moving, but that before this time next year, he would quite probably take over as AGI’s Vice President of Business Development. The current VP had lived in Boston his entire life and had no desire to relocate now, within a few years of retirement, whereas David was young, ambitious and had contacts in the southeast. The partners could have put the move in the hands of Richard Gunn, who would also eventually transfer to Atlanta, while Andrews and Innes remained in Boston running the technological development side of the company. But obviously they wanted to give David this chance to prove himself.
He savored the thought of announcing the promotion to his proud family. Much as he loved them, he reveled in the knowledge that they hadn’t exercised any of their considerable influence to get him the position.
David had e-mailed Serena about the possibility of relocation, but in a vague, almost hypothetical way. When her “oh, that might be nice” response hadn’t exactly denoted her jumping for joy in front of her computer monitor, he’d strategically dropped the subject. I just didn’t want to jinx my chances at the leadership role. Not that he believed in jinxes…unless it was convenient.
He could call her now, he thought, as he glanced through his window at the soft rain that had begun to fall. April showers were hardly rare (hence the popular term), and the undoubtedly chilly mist outside bore no resemblance to the summer deluge that had taken him and Serena by surprise. Still, considering the way she’d been crowding his thoughts since the news this morning, it didn’t take much to bring that August downpour to mind.
They’d started the evening at an outdoor café in her eccentric neighborhood. Sharing a bottle of wine, they’d talked about being single, swapping progressively naughty anecdotes about their love lives before the unexpected storm sent them fleeing to her apartment, a renovated building that had once been a public school.
David had been sexually aware of her since he’d first seen her years ago arguing with someone in Student Affairs. But throughout their college friendship, which had begun while he briefly dated her roommate, one or both of them was usually involved with someone else, up until the time David had gone to Boston. Most of Serena’s boyfriends—such as the current touring artist David had dubbed the Happy Wanderer—were David’s polar opposites. So, when he’d spontaneously kissed her in her apartment, it had been without the usual Savannah Grant guarantee of getting what he wanted. He hadn’t been absolutely one-hundred-percent sure she’d kiss him back.
But she had. And then some. She’d gone from a flirtatious friend he met for
