Should’ve Known It’s You (Not You Again #7)

Chapter 35

CHAPTER 35

AUSTIN

W ithin forty-eight hours of sending out the invitations, all but a couple of the potential investors had turned us down. We’d had a sea of rejections and the dinner was in two days, but it seemed no one wanted their names associated with what had happened to the float.

I hadn’t been expecting a response like this. Of course, I’d known that we’d receive more rejections than acceptances, but this was unprecedented.

More discouraged than I had been in recent history, I sat across the table from an equally discouraged Kenny. She glanced at the numbers again, as if making sure that they hadn’t changed in the last two minutes, and then she sighed.

“This is it, right? The one shot I had at this has been ruined.” She ran her fingers through her loose hair, glancing around Slate’s living room where we were going over the final details of the party. “You’re not in the market for a roommate, are you? Because at this rate, I’m going to have to give up my place sooner or later, and there’s no way I’m moving back in with my parents.”

“Don’t go calling your landlord just yet.” I picked up my tumbler and took a sip of my whiskey. “Let’s just focus on the planning and take things one step at a time.”

Her chest rose on a deep breath. Those blue eyes pinned themselves to mine and she nodded. “Yeah. Okay. Let’s pretend we’re going to have enough people for all this stuff.”

Waving a hand absently at all the paperwork scattered across the table, she leaned back in her chair and sipped her own drink, a beer she’d been nursing for at least an hour. “Is there anything missing from this list of people we’ve hired? Can you think of anything else?”

“We’ve got caterers, servers, bartenders, and a cleaning company, so that’s the hospitality side of things covered,” I said, moving my gaze across the papers in front of me. “On the practical side, we’ve got the company bringing in the tables, chairs, and dinnerware, and then we’ve got the décor people coming in to put finishing touches on everything.”

“You’ve also got the vendor who’s sending a harpist?”

“Right,” I said absently, mentally combing over it all in search of something we might’ve missed, but the same company who was sending the harpist was also sending a photographer.

With my unlimited budget, I was expecting only the best from all these people, but I was starting to wonder if money was enough. From the beginning, I’d decided that I would put in however much it took to help her get her business off the ground, not at all putting a dollar figure on how much I was willing to spend.

I just hadn’t really let on to Kenny how much money I was throwing at this thing, and I really hoped she never asked directly. I knew how important this was to her, and even if she just wanted to be in business together and not together together, I still wanted to support her.

But damn, have I realized just how badly I want her.

After getting used to all the casual touches, and then the more intentional touches, it was agonizing sitting across from her instead of next to her without being able to touch her at all. I kept finding myself looking at her lips and wishing I could kiss her, and my cock wasn’t loving the idea of not being able to get close to her either.

As she reviewed all our final notes and carefully inserted all the paperwork back into our planning binder, she read our checklist out loud. If it was something she needed to remember to do, she scribbled a note in the pad she had beside her, little reminders to ask the caterer something or to check whether there would be flowers in the restroom.

I smiled as I watched her, unable to stop the damn thing from spreading on my lips. She was so freaking passionate that she reminded me of my sister. Jess loved Merrick Meadows the way Kennedy loved her vision of the hotel and restaurant.

The only real difference was that Jess loved a real, tangible thing. The place she’d grown up in. Kennedy, on the other hand, was as in love but with an idea she’d only ever seen in her head. Somehow, that made the whole thing even more magical to me.

I didn’t know what it was about this woman, but I really felt like I was under some kind of spell. So much so that all I wanted was for her to see that vision in her head become a reality, and even though she’d ended things, I felt honored to be able to help her make it happen.

There is something seriously, seriously wrong with me .

Suddenly, she looked up at me, immediately snapping me out of my thoughts. “Did we get the liquor permit?”

I chuckled, playing it cool and pretending that I hadn’t just been staring at her, admiring every minute detail about her—from the way she scrunched her nose when she was deep in thought, to her pursed lips and furrowed brow.

It was all so fucking adorable that I desperately wanted to pull her into my arms and kiss the crap out of her. Instead, I settled for a simple nod.

“Yes, we got the permit. Don’t worry about it.”

She let out a relieved sigh, shooting me a smile before she glanced back down at the binder. “Okay, good. One more thing I can check, then.”

When she sat up straight again, I was already looking at her. “What is it?”

“Do we have extra keys for the cleaning company?” she asked.

I nodded. “Gave them to the manager the other day on my lunch break.”

“Right,” she said, blinking rapidly as she looked back down. “Right.”

“At this point, there’s really only one thing missing,” I said.

Worry infiltrated her gaze, her lips parting as she blinked at me. “What?”

I arched my eyebrow at her. “Our guests.”

She sighed. “Right.”

“You can agonize over every little detail as much as you want to make sure that everything goes smoothly, but none of it is going to matter if nobody shows up.”

“We do have a couple of people coming,” she said. “I know that’s not as many as we wanted, but it’s something.”

“Sure, it’s something. If they actually invest. We’ve also got enough food and seating space for a heck of a lot more than that, so it’s up to you what you want to do.”

“What are our options again?” she asked, her gaze far away as she waited for me to respond.

“Our B-list,” I replied, wincing a little even for just saying it. “The A-list was made up of heavy-hitters. People who give more money than you would ever need to charity every month just because they’re bored. Present them with an actual business opportunity, and we only would’ve needed one of them to bite to have all the cash we could ever want.”

“And the B-list?”

I shrugged. “They’re still wealthy folks. Still influential. Inviting them so late in the game might make some of them feel disrespected, but we could try. If we could get a handful of them onboard, we’d still be okay.”

“What else?” she asked.

“We scrap the fundraiser and approach people discreetly starting next week. I’ll set up meetings and promise to keep their names out of it until the fervor dies down.”

After turning toward the window, Kenny gave it some thought, then finally glanced back at me and shook her head. “No, I still want to have the dinner.”

“Okay, so the B-list it is.”

She shook her head. “That’s not what I meant. Forget the fundraiser. We’ll have the dinner for the business owners in that neighborhood. Let’s just do something nice. It’ll let me live my dream for one night, and then I’ll let it go.”

I frowned hard. “What do you mean, let it go? Just like that? If this doesn’t work, you’re going to throw in the towel after all?”

“In the future, circumstances might change and I could try again,” she said. “Everything in the universe is telling me that I have to change paths, so let’s do the dinner for the people who deserve it the most, and I’ll figure out my next steps after.”

“Are you sure?”

She brought her eyes to mine, looking directly into them and letting me see the despair in hers. “Am I sure? No, but maybe it’s time to go back to school, or maybe something else is coming my way. All I know is that the universe doesn’t want this for me right now, and I have to listen.”

I couldn’t believe she was talking like this. “Don’t get me wrong. I love the idea of dinner for the neighbors, but I don’t think you should give up on your dream just because it’s not raking in the money right from the get-go.”

Shoving my chair back, I got up, walked around the table, took a seat beside her, and turned to face her head on. I even reached for her hands, needing her to know that I wasn’t going to give up so easily even if she seemed to be ready to.

“I’m going to help you make this happen, Kenny. Don’t lose hope, okay?” Sliding my fingertips across her cheek, I tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, my eyes blazing into hers. “I’m not sure where all this is coming from all of a sudden, but you’re not going back to school. Not if I have anything to say about it.”

She leaned into my touch, her eyelids lowering, and she rested her cheek against my open palm. “You’re saying all the right things, Austin, but it might be time to let it go. If the universe is against it, what’s the point of even trying?”

“I don’t give a fuck what the universe wants,” I murmured, bending my head closer with my eyes still locked on hers. “All I care about is what you want, Kennedy Sweet. The only thing I need is for you to tell me what that is.”