Page 98 of Finding You
I was blown away. I had spent years being told to keep my head down and work and that I wasn’t ready yet. Now he was ready to turn over the reins?
“The paperwork is being drawn up and should be ready by the end of the week.”
I didn’t know what to say. It was finally sinking in. It was happening. He listened, he understood, and he respected my plans and my vision.
“You have pursued this carefully and strategically and have done your homework. You know your stuff, and although I might not agree with it all, I have confidence in your ability to lead. But you have to apply that same patience, that same focus, to your personal life. You have to be willing to take risks.” Oh shit. I knew there was an ulterior motive here. I looked around, half expecting my mom to jump out from behind the furniture.
“Thanks, Dad. I appreciate it. I will do it my way, but I’ll make you proud.”
He smiled at me. “I don’t doubt that.” He paced around some more, and I knew what was coming. “You know, Declan, you keep yelling at me for playing it safe, saying we need to adapt and take risks. Follow your own damn advice, son. We all know you pushed Astrid away. You left her before she could leave you.”
I was growing weary of talking about this. “Dad. It’s not like that. I did what was best for everyone. Fear had nothing to do with it.”
“If you are in love with her you figure it out.”
“It’s not like that.”
“Your mother will be devastated.”
Now I was pissed. I had reached my limit of parental disappointment. “Why? Because I’m single?”
“No,” he snapped. Staring me dead in the eyes. “Because we clearly raised a moron.”
That shut me up. My parents were tough, but this was beyond the usual Captain Quinn pep talk. “You are thirty-five years old so I am sad I need to say this out loud. Love, real love, does not come around very often. You cannot take it for granted, you cannot throw it away. You have got to hang on with both hands and ride out every storm together.”
“But her career…” I started.
He interrupted me. “Don’t shame the poor girl for her ambitions.”
“I’m not!”
“It sounds like you are. Women can do anything and everything, and trust me, most of the time they do these things better than we do.”
I nodded. He wasn’t wrong.
“If anyone can make it all work, it’s Astrid. And you should be by her side, supporting her and helping her build a full, beautiful life. Instead you push her away?”
“Dad, I know I fucked up. I knew before the words even came out of my mouth. But what I feel for her, it’s not like anything I’ve ever experienced before.”
“You think you’re protecting her, Declan, but you’re really just protecting yourself.”
Was he right? I had felt pressured to create a fake relationship to make my parents happy. But had that been the real reason? I had always been desperate to please them, but maybe I just wanted a girlfriend. Maybe I wanted a special person in my life but was too messed up to realize it. Since Astrid probably wouldn’t ever be in my league, it felt safer to have a fake relationship. To protect myself. Clearly that had backfired spectacularly. I was losing my mind without her.
“I’ve tried to apologize, to get her back. She wants nothing to do with me.”
“You’ll figure it out, Declan. Trust yourself and your instincts. That’s what I did with your mother.”
And with that, he walked out of the office and I was left staring at the ocean, with absolutely no clue how I was going to win back the love of my life.
39
DECLAN
It had been a long day.I hadn’t slept the night before, replaying my conversation with my father over and over and thinking about how I could get Astrid to at least talk to me. I thought after leaving the note and the sledgehammer at her door I would hear something. But Astrid was tough—that was what I liked about her. She was going to make me work for it, and I respected that. I was up at four to get to work, since I was going out on the water today. We had some ground to make up if we were going to make our quotas by the end of the quarter, and I was still covering for Paul. I couldn’t afford to keep his boat docked another day.
Also, I had an ulterior motive. Out on the water, working my ass off with the crew, wet and cold and fighting the elements, would keep me from thinking about Astrid, about the business, or about how thoroughly I had ruined everything.
It was after six p.m. when we got back to port. I was exhausted and looking forward to a hot shower and a glass of whiskey. I had a ton of work to do in my office, but I didn’t have it in me to slog through a few more hours. I was bone-tired and emotionally spent.
