He released one of her hands, but retained the other one and tucked it on his arm, walking forward towards the house. “So if I were to help you start your own business now, with the information that you currently have, what kind of business would that be?”
Okay, that question came out of left field. She was only vaguely aware of walking into the brightly lit house with all of the windows looking out onto the ocean. The stars were starting to come out and twinkle in the distance and a lighthouse flashed its light rhythmically.
“I don’t know.”
He’d gotten her up the stone stairway to the front door, pulling her inside. “Why not? Isn’t there something you’ve always wanted to do?”
The thought of refinishing antiques popped into her mind, a dream she’d always had since she’d been a child. But it was a risky business, not one she was willing to put her future into. “I…”
He halted just inside the door and turned to face her. “Stop right there, Rachel. What were you going to say before you stopped? There was something on your mind but you rejected the idea.”
She shook her head and straightened, not willing to let him know about her silly dream. Refinishing furniture was a ridiculous pipe dream! “Nothing. I haven’t had a chance to think about what I’d like to do in so long. Especially since I’ve been trying to keep up with you.”
He sighed and took back her hand, leading her into the kitchen where he found two bowls sitting beside a crockpot of chili. “You’re not being honest with me, Rachel. But that’s okay. You don’t trust me but I can wait. Eventually, you’ll tell me what I want to know.”
She accepted the glass of red wine that he handed to her, taking a sip so she could hide her face behind the large globe. He was right. This was all a matter of trust. And she simply didn’t trust him.
“What’s in the chili?” she asked, trying to change the subject.
He ladled a heaping portion into one of the bowls and handed it to her. “I have no idea. Molly won’t let me see everything she adds. She thinks I’m going to steal her recipe.”
Rachel laughed but it was more at the idea of Emerson actually cooking. “I can’t imagine you standing at the counter chopping things up for a meal.”
“I can cook,” he said, pretending to be offended. “I boil a mean pot of water.”
She laughed again but sat down next to him on the big, leather sofa, slipping her tennis shoes off and curling her feet underneath her.
As soon as the laughter died away, an awkward silence descended between the two of them.
“You haven’t tried your chili,” he prompted.
Rachel stirred the rich stew, feeling slightly ill and ill at ease. “Weeks ago,” she started off, wanting to figure out what was swarming around in her head, needing to tell him what she’d been thinking today. Well, and for the past several weeks, “before all this…,” she wasn’t sure how to keep going.
“Before I took you to New York City and gave you the thing you thought you always wanted?” he prompted, taking a bite of the spicy chili.
She rested the bowl on her legs. “Well, yes.” Thinking back, she realized that she’d been pretty harsh about the whole situation. “I’m sorry,” she finally said. “I was scared.”
He stopped eating and looked at her. Waiting for her to continue but when she sat beside him, fighting some internal battle, he reached out and touched her cheek. “What were you afraid of Rachel?” he asked gently.
She took a deep breath, realizing how nervous just her breath sounded. “You.” She didn’t sugar coat it this time. “You terrified me.”
“Why?”
“Because you made me feel things I didn’t want to feel. You made me want something that I didn’t think was right.”
Rachel wanted to continue, but she felt so miserable. And confused. And she’d been confused for so long, she was sick of it. She was tired of everything lately.
She looked up, prepared to tell him all of it. She wasn’t sure she trusted him, but he deserved to hear the truth. “Here’s the thing,” she started off, looking directly at him. “I didn’t like my old job. I kept thinking it wasn’t enough. I thought that, if I could only make it to the Wall Street gang, I’d love it. I’d feel like I’d finally made it.”
“And when you were there?” he asked her tenderly.
She looked down, then stiffened her spine and shook her hair off her shoulders. “I hated it. I kept waiting for that thrill of success to arrive, to get some feeling of accomplishment. To know that this was genuinely where I was supposed to be.”
“But it never came, did it?”
She sighed and shook her head. “Never. All I ever felt was exhaustion.”
“I know.”
She laughed harshly. “You don’t know!” she exclaimed. “You fit in that world. You knew exactly how to play the games. It’s not an effort to you, is it? Living in that world is instinctive.”
He shrugged his shoulder, unwilling to lie about this when she was being so honest to him. “Yes. I know how to play the game, how to manipulate the people around me so my ventures are profitable.”
Rachel felt defeated. “I wasn’t ever able to be successful,” she replied. “It wasn’t ever instinctive to me.”
He took both their bowls of chili and put them on the coffee table in front of the sofa then turned so she was looking directly at him once again. “Rachel, I want you to listen to me and really hear me this time. Will you do that?”
She was nervous again. He wasn’t just close, he was surrounding her. And it was overwhelming. She’d wanted him back for so long and this was Jack! This was the man she loved. The Emerson side was still there but she could see how the two sides meshed together and….the Emerson Jackson man was…thrilling! She nodded her head carefully.
“Good! Now here’s the problem,” he started off. “You think you haven’t succeeded, but you need to examine your idea of what success is. You think it’s being the alpha in a pack of rabid dogs.” He ignored Rachel’s snort of laughter and continued. “But that’s not success. I accept that your need for success is directly tied to your need for financial security, but perhaps you could also be successful if you were happy in the job. If you were happy doing what you want to do. The one thing you missed when examining all of the companies I had you research was the human factor. You kept looking at the statistics and never looked at the people within the companies.”