Levi understood Piper’s confusion because she was right. Hopefully, his answer would help her to understand.
“Monte Oliver’s accident was a wakeup call.” Rubbing his neck, Levi leaned against the locker as he gathered his thoughts. “What we have here on Earth goes by in a blink, Piper. I realized how much time I’ve wasted. Comfortably coasting along. I’m done. From now on, I refuse to play backup in my own life.”
“You think our friendship has been a waste of time?” The hurt in Piper’s voice was unmistakable. “I’ve treasured every second. I’m sorry you don’t feel the same.”
Like a knife to his heart, Piper’s words cut deep. Levi realized while trying to explain his actions, he’d taken a wrong turn down a dark alley. Quickly, he reversed course and headed toward the light.
“Meeting you at that wedding, agreeing to be your fake boyfriend, was the best thing that ever happened to me.” Wishing he could see what was going on in Piper’s expressive green eyes, Levi cursed the distance between them. “You’ve been my friend. My confidant. Now, I’d like you to be more.”
“More?” Piper asked.
“For too long, I’ve accepted my lot in life.” Levi smiled. “I’m the starting quarterback for the Seattle Knights. Win or lose, whether I succeed or fall flat on my face, no one will ever take that away from me. I can’t go back, Piper.”
“What exactly are you after, Levi?” Piper sighed. “What do you want?”
The answer was simple, yet infinitely complicated.
“I want everything.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
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“YOUR MONEY IS earning a nice rate of return. The investments we implemented last year are paying good dividends and according to all indications, the stock market should remain strong for now.”
Piper smiled at her client, making certain to maintain eye contact. People were instinctively nervous about putting the fate of their money in someone else’s hands—as any sane, rational person should be. One of her favorite college professors used to say that if your eyes dart all over the room while you speak, not only will you appear untrustworthy, you probably are.
Instilling confidence in her clients was top of the list in Piper’s book. She believed in her ability to make magic with numbers, but if she didn’t present a calm, I’m here for you through thick and thin, persona, no one would care if she was the second coming of Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein rolled into one.
Once Piper earned her clients’ trust, then she reeled them in and kept them around by showing off her impressive computer-like, numbers forward brain.
The woman who sat across from Piper’s desk needed a little more handholding than some. In her late thirties and recently divorced, Irene Trident had a lot on her plate. She made good money, but, as with most things, good was a relative concept.
If Irene only had herself to think about, her financial worries would be slim to none. But with two soon-to-be teenage daughters to think about—girls who she wanted to give the world—she spent a lot of time on crunching numbers and balancing budgets. And worrying. Lots and lots of worrying.
“What if I don’t have the money to put my girls through college?” Irene nervously tore her third tissue to shreds, the pieces littering the floor like falling snow. “My ex-husband has remarried, and his wife is pregnant. He’s moved on. Fine. His second family has become his priority. Great. But I can barely get him to pay child support. How can I force him to put money aside for Jane and Alice’s education? I can’t. The responsibility is mine.”
Piper checked the figures on her laptop. Her heart went out to Irene. When she was growing up, her parents struggled to make ends meet. Her grandmother hadn’t approved of the marriage and cut her mother off without a dime. Her father was a dreamer, not a wage earner.
They might have been happy, but her mother was raised a pampered rich girl and soon regretted the youthful rebellion that made her marry a handsome but penniless nobody.
Divorce and marriage to a second husband that Piper’s grandmother handpicked made Dara Engels a wealthy woman once more. But, as many had discovered, money did not equal happiness.
Piper’s mother was a bitter, resentful, controlling woman. The only pleasure she seemed to derive was an ongoing attempt to turn her only daughter into a carbon copy of herself. She would never succeed—never—but the war waged on.
“Keep loving Jane and Alice,” Piper said, patting Irene’s hand. “Steer them in the right direction but support their choices. I’ll take care of your investments. In a few years, when they’re ready for college, you’ll be able to send them off without any worries.”
“I feel better since I hired you.” Irene sighed. “But now and then, late at night, the doubts start to creep in.”
Piper knew where sleep was concerned, an overactive mind was a person’s worst enemy. Last night, thinking about Levi—the kiss—was a perfect example.
“Believe me, I’ve been there,” Piper assured her. “As I said when you first hired me, the world can be a volatile place. Natural disasters, pandemics, even, I hate to admit, human error. There’s no way to calculate for the unexpected.”
“You could lie and say nothing will go wrong.” Irene smiled for the first time since entering Piper’s office. “And I wouldn’t believe you for a second. Thank you for your honesty. For your hard work. And most of all?”
“Yes?” Piper asked.
“Thank you for being a friend.”
An hour later as she worked alone at her desk, Piper still basked in the warm glow of Irene’s words. Client and friend. The concept wasn’t something she’d learned—her teachers and the men she’d worked for after college passionately believed in drawing a line between themselves and the people they represented. They weren’t wrong.
However, when Piper opened her own business, she learned early on that to do a good job, she had to care about her clients on more than a professional level. She listened to their stories. Their hopes, their dreams. Their problems. Their heartaches. Piper laughed with them. And, yes, on more than a few occasions, she cried. Tears of sorrow and joy.
Piper knew her methods were unconventional—for her, putting her heart and soul into her job was the only way she could operate. She would have been successful without the personal touch she gave to each client. But she wouldn’t have been as happy. She wouldn’t wake each morning eager to get to the office.
After growing up in a volatile environment where she never knew from one moment to the next if her mother would be a raging ball of fire or a withdrawn block of ice, Piper spent the first eighteen years of her life holding her breath.
Out in the world, on her own, she found a brand of inner tranquility she hadn’t believed possible. Though she still dealt with the family drama—her mother, her brothers—she’d discovered that in life, everyone needed to find their unique brand of happiness.
Rubbing her eyes, Piper leaned back in her chair, sighed, and smiled. She had her job. She had her friends. And, though he seemed determined to rattle her peace of mind, she had Levi.