Page 11 of Mr. On Your Knees
Her brow furrowed. “For a while? He’s not doing that anymore?”
For a moment he stared at her, then he shook his head as if to clear whatever thought had entered his mind. “Oh, nah, he um, he retired two years ago after he had a heart attack.”
“What?” She couldn’t hide her shock or ignore the quick jolt of fear she knew Jared must have felt when this happened. “Is he alright? Who’s taking care of him now?”
“He’s good,” Jared replied. “Had a few months of intense life changes after that. Liam took over at the restaurant and Bronx moved back home to supervise an addition being built onto the house. Dad needed things on one-level, so we all pitched in and paid for that to happen.”
Liam and Bronx Desdune were Jared’s brothers—Liam was the oldest and Bronx, the youngest. Jared was the ambitious middle child and the only one to move away from Jacksonville where Barrett Desdune had settled after his wife had left the family.
“I’m sorry to hear he’s been having health issues,” she said when she really wanted to be the one to reach out and take his hand this time. Jared held his brothers and his father very close because he didn’t want to lose them the way he’d lost his mother. Desi’s heart ached for how he must have felt during that time and a part of her wished she had been there with him.
Their gazes held for long moments as the muted sound of conversations and clanking dishes floated through the background. It felt like they were alone, not sitting in a semi-crowded restaurant before sunset. As if they were the only two people in the world right now sharing unspoken words that they wished could somehow erase the past. But did she really want the past erased? Did she want to never have experienced the love that had blossomed so fast and pulsed so purely between them? Did she want to forget all the really good times they’d shared, the hopes and the dreams?
Herhopes andherdreams.
The ones that she now knew had scared him away.
Chapter5
The Ride
JARED
She was silent during the ten-minute ride from the restaurant to the Gbenga Gallery in the Wynwood Art District. He was too. Honestly, Jared was still amazed that she was here at all. Not just sitting on the passenger side of his Lexus GX, but in his life again. But she hadn’t argued when he suggested they ride to the gallery together and return to the restaurant to get her car afterward.
If you love someone, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours.
That was a quote he’d memorized as a teenager. It was on a business size card that his father kept tucked between the frame of the mirror of his dresser.
Jared had never liked to think of the rest of the quote.
If they don’t, they never were
But over the last few years, he’d wrestled with that part.
It wasn’t that he’d been waiting for Desi to come running back to him and their relationship he’d broken—he knew she never would. And he understood why. But deep down inside he’d been holding out hope that their paths would cross again. In that same random way that it had all those years ago when he’d first seen her at that cigar bar.
And that’s exactly what had happened. Desi had walked into that conference room as fine and enticing as she had that night three years ago.
“Did you know the job you were applying for would have you working with me?” he asked because he’d thought about that all weekend.
Again, he was almost positive that even if she hadn’t known in the beginning, Desi was too professional, too detail-oriented not to have researched the hotel once she knew that’s where she was coming for the interview. Still, he wanted to hear her thoughts on them being together again, even in just a professional capacity.
“Not initially,” she replied. She’d been staring straight ahead since he’d pulled away from the restaurant. “The ad didn’t give client details, but when Mari reached out to me and I saw the hotel name, I knew.”
She gave a wry chuckle and continued, “You got exactly what you set out for. Congratulations on the promotion.”
“Thanks,” he said making a left turn. “I’ve only been in the manager position for a year.”
“Is that why your Juneteenth event last year was at the Studdard Center instead of at the hotel?”
“Yeah. The manager before me didn’t think it was the right vibe for our usual guests. We had a couple of heated discussions about it and finally, I decided to just do my own thing with a community festival,” he said despising the memory of his working relationship with Reid Sinclair.
The man was a stuffy, privileged Yale graduate who Jared had decided hated being Black. Everything the man did from where he lived, his Caucasian wife, the society circles he ran in and the borderline bigoted political views he had, spelled someone who hated the skin they were in. For the first few years he’d worked with Reid, Jared had felt sorry for the guy, trying so desperately to be something he never could be—a white man. No matter how hard Reid tried to insert himself into those spaces as one of them, they were never going to fully accept him. Ever. To that end, Jared was the polar opposite. His goal wasn’t to be accepted in white spaces; it was to make it known that he belonged in any space he chose to occupy. The saddest part about Reid’s situation was that the man’s wife seemed really nice and their twin sons were adorable—it was too bad that Reid was probably only using them to validate the life he so desperately wanted.
“The big boss is okay with you having it at the hotel this year?”
“Jason Carrington’s a really cool guy. He comes from an affluent family, is loyal, level-headed and told me I should’ve called him directly when Reid shot down my idea for the celebration. He’s all-in on these plans as long as we keep it on-brand with the hotel’s reputation.” He came to a stop at a light. “I’d planned to do that anyway.”
