Kate grinned. “So was meeting me a special occasion?”
For his parents, it had been, especially when they’d found out he and Kate had been dating for close to a year at that point. They’d expected him to bring a girl home, marry her in the church down the street, then take over the house and the gardens and continue the business for another generation. Trent had never intended to do that, but they’d seen the first long-term relationship he’d had as a prelude to a chapel and a preacher. “They thought so.”
“And you did not.”
Geez. Why had he gone down this road? “I thought you were special. They wanted me to settle down, and they thought you were the one.”
“And I wasn’t.”
“I was twenty-one, Kate.” For a millisecond, he’d thought about marrying her, then had seen a future spent on the sofa instead of in the mountains, and he’d broken it off. They were like the proverbial bird and the fish, never destined to live in the same place. “I wasn’t thinking beyond my next pizza, never mind the next year.”
He’d said the words to soften the reminder about their breakup, but he could tell Kate wasn’t fooled. She nodded, but her hair had dropped in front of her eyes. The distance between them increased. “So did you ever settle down?”
Trent had dated over the years, but the time he’d spent working, and then on treks, had been detrimental to any relationship he tried to have. He’d dated outdoorsy girls and businesswomen, but none of them had had that special…something that would have encouraged him to linger instead of leave. “The only thing I ever married was the company. In the first couple of years, it was because I was doing almost everything myself. Then GOA exploded, and all of a sudden, I was juggling more than I knew how to.” He went on to explain how he had built global brand awareness for targeted, specific expansion of GOA.
If she was impressed by the growth of his business, she didn’t show it. This was work Kate—all business and no emotion. She took notes as he talked and used her phone as a backup recorder for the conversation.
“Tell me more about your childhood,” she said, as dispassionate as a stranger. “How that impacted you and your business model. Your parents are entrepreneurs. Surely you learned something from them.”
Trent bristled. How many times had a reporter asked him the same thing? Assuming that because his parents ran a mom-and-pop garden center that he’d learned everything he knew from them? If anyone asked Trent’s father, he’d say his eldest son had learned nothing from the family. It had been a long time since Trent had asked his father anything. “My business model is different.”
“How so?”
“I’m global retail. They’re small-town sales.” Those two sentences didn’t begin to cover the gap between his vision and his parents’. They loved that tiny nursery and couldn’t understand Trent’s ambition. Or at least his father couldn’t. Mom didn’t care, as long as her kids were happy.
Kate’s gaze met his. “But in the end, isn’t it all the same thing? You’re helping customers find what they need, and then providing that. That’s what your parents do, only with plants instead of gear.”
“I disagree.” His parents had never thought, or even wanted to think, beyond Hudson Falls. Their customer base extended a few miles in either direction, and they were fine with that. It was only in the last year or so that Mac’s Nursery had added a website and social media component, mainly because Marla had insisted. She’d ended up with a degree in landscape design and was the one who’d come home to help out and take the business into the twenty-first century.
Trent had given up on trying to help his parents think bigger. His father didn’t like change, and Trent didn’t like butting his head against a stubborn wall. “I utilize multiple channels to reach customers all over the world. Part of our strategy in smaller, struggling countries is to source materials and labor locally. The customers in countries like Sri Lanka, for instance, take pride in knowing what they bought directly supports their friends and neighbors. As opposed to my parents, what I’m doing is targeted—”
“When did you become so boring, Trent?”
He sat back in the seat. “Me? I’m not boring.”
“We have sat here for ten minutes straight—not eating dessert, which in itself is a capital crime—discussing global sourcing and selling.” Kate shook her head. “The Trent I knew could barely sit still to discuss a chapter of Anna Karenina.”
“Those chapters were huge. And that book was the epitome of boring.”
She laughed. “You have a point there. But still…aren’t you tired of being the businessman all the time? That’s not who you were in college. It’s like it’s not even the real you when you’re talking like that.”
And this was the problem with working with a ghostwriter who knew his history—she could see through the charade, the marketing spin, and bring him back to reality. She’d nailed a part of himself that even Trent hadn’t recognized until now.
Somewhere along the way, Trent had shifted from being active and engaged to being the one behind the desk ten hours a day. She was right—that wasn’t the man he’d been in college, and it wasn’t the man he wanted to be. The only one who could change that, though, was Trent himself.
The waiter came by and bussed their table, boxing up the Tres Leches cake and handing the cardboard container to Kate. Trent paid the bill, and as he did, he glanced out the window of the restaurant at the bright lights across the street. A flashing neon sign beckoned, the letters dancing in the window.
Maybe it was time he stopped being the corporate man and went back to the person he used to be. “Let me show you just how boring I can be.” Then he threw some bills on the table for a tip, grabbed her hand, and they dashed out into the rain.
“I look like a clown.” Kate tied the last shoelace and tucked her own shoes under the plastic bench. Around her, there were rumbles and crashes, like being in the center of a storm. “I swear my feet aren’t this big in real life.”
Trent shot her a grin. “I think you look adorable.”
She parked her fists on her hips and shot him a glare. Why had she let him talk her into this crazy idea, anyway? “You might want to reread Wooing Women 101, because ‘adorable’ is the last thing any woman wants to hear. It makes me sound like a six-year-old.”
He shifted closer. Around them, a steady hum of activity, punctuated by thuds and crashes, and an undertow of top-forty music on the sound system. It was loud and bright and busy, but it didn’t matter. The rest of the world disappeared until all Kate heard and saw was Trent, and the hurried pace of her own heart. “Am I supposed to be wooing you right now?”