The Boss Project by Vi Keeland

“I’m sorry.”

“Thank you.”

“What about your dad?”

“He retired to Florida last year. Never remarried after my mom. My sister lives down there and has kids, so he moved not too far from her.”

“You were…engaged once, too, right?”

Merrick’s eyes flashed to me quickly before returning to the road. His lips pursed. “You like to dig around, don’t you?”

“It’s an occupational hazard. I ask questions and try to fit the pieces together to see the whole puzzle.”

“Oh yeah? What pieces have you managed to put together about me?”

I didn’t want to mention the comment Will had made—that his fiancée had annihilated him—so I was vague. “I’ve heard around that you were engaged to your business partner and it didn’t end well.”

Merrick stared at the road. I thought maybe that was the end of our discussion, but then he cleared his throat.

“You’ve shared a lot about your life, stuff that wasn’t easy to live through. Yet you seem to have found a way to make peace with it. I have a harder time talking about things.”

I nodded. “We all handle things in different ways. That’s okay. I didn’t mean to pressure you into discussing something you aren’t comfortable talking about.”

Merrick went quiet for a long time. It surprised me when he started to talk again. “Amelia and I started the business together, though she didn’t want to be an equal partner and didn’t want her name on the door.”

“Why not?”

He drummed his fingertips on the steering wheel. “She said she wasn’t a people pleaser. She wanted nothing to do with any personnel or dealing with a board of directors. Used to say she wanted to play Monopoly for a living but didn’t want to own Hasbro.”

“Why be a partner at all then?”

Merrick frowned. “I pushed her into it. She was smarter than me and understood people more, even though she didn’t want to get involved with most. Plus, she out-earned every trader in the industry her first year, so she deserved more.”

“Wow. Sounds like she was some sort of a whiz kid.”

“She was.”

He didn’t offer more, so I debated whether to push. But I was curious. I knew she’d died, but I didn’t get the feeling it was her death that had annihilated Merrick.

“Can I ask what happened between the two of you?”

The exit for the airport was coming up, so Merrick put on his blinker to get into the right lane. Our eyes caught briefly as he looked over his shoulder before changing lanes.

“My story isn’t that different than yours. I found out I never really knew the person I thought I was going to marry.”

“I’m sorry.”

We exited the highway to the road leading to the airport. Merrick pointed up ahead. “There’s a cell phone lot right over here. Customer service said to follow the signs to passenger pick up and go into the office in the baggage claim area. Hopefully it won’t take too long, but why don’t you drive around and wait in that cell phone lot. I’ll text you when I have it.”

“Okay.”

I wanted to ask more questions, but I thought Merrick might have intentionally changed the subject.

“How’s your ass today?” he asked. “That shard was in there pretty deep.”

“It’s sore. But I looked this morning, and it’s not too red or anything.”

“If you need a second opinion, just let me know.” He winked, and it set off a flutter low in my belly.

Lord, crushing on this man was such a dead-end road. Not only was he my boss, but we’d both had disastrous relationships with people we worked with. And my sister had been right to remind me that Merrick’s battle was harder. He had to move on from a ghost. Yet the more time I spent with him, the more I liked him, and even worse, the more frequent my fantasies became. Could there be something to what Kitty had told me?

We pulled up at the terminal. I walked around to the driver’s side to take the wheel, and Merrick went in. Before I could even get back to the cell phone lot we’d passed, he’d called to tell me he had his luggage. So I headed back.

“That was fast,” I noted when he opened the passenger door.

“Yeah, it was pretty painless. The office was empty, and my bag was sitting to the side with a few others.”

“Do you want to switch places and drive?”

“Not unless you want me to.”

“No, I’m good.”

Merrick clicked his seatbelt on. “I was thinking, since Marvin is at the house, why don’t we take a little detour?”

I shrugged. “Sure. Where to?”

“You said your Airbnbs aren’t too far from here, right?”

My eyes widened, and I smiled. “They’re only about a half-hour drive. Part of it is on the way back to Kitty’s, but I get off the highway earlier and head east for a bit.”

“Let’s check ’em out. I’ve never stayed in a treehouse or a campsite.”

“That’s glampsite.”

Merrick smiled. “I stand corrected.”

I shifted the car into drive and started on my way. “I’m so excited. I’m not sure if they’re rented or not, but I can check the website when we get there. If they are, I’ll just show them to you from the outside.”