Love Redone (2 page)

Nicholas Temple Barrett was a wealthy man. If you took into consideration what was generally understood and written about in the media
, he had, in fact, more money than god. Not that he cared. Not that it mattered.

Great wealth
hadn’t ensured that he’d have a happy life and certainly hadn’t mattered a whit when his father had been mortally wounded in an
accident when Nick had been a teen.  No, the money was in actuality a life sentence that came along with a level of power and privilege most could
never even imagine.  At the end of the day though, all that wealth and all those privileges did not mean a thing when he went home to emptiness and the deafening sounds of a life lived in solitary confinement.

Being born into and raised
in the affluent world of the upper class, he’d had an uneasy relationship with the lifestyle and advantages that wealth and power produced. Those with the money had all the influence and control.  He’d seen up close and way too personally how ruthlessly these intangibles were called to play in every aspect of existence for those in the highest echelons of fortune’s prosperous elite.

Speeding along the highway in an outwardly
plain but oh so ostentatious limo, returning from yet another in a mind-numbingly endless tsunami of meetings and business engagements, Nick was restlessly edgy and out of sorts. He was leading a monochrome life on what seemed to be an otherwise beautifully sunny and vibrantly colorful late summer day in New York City.

Thoughts of
bland business meetings full of people who after all these years were easily forgotten and interchangeable were eating away at the edges of his mind. Being emotionally or personally reflective was not something he was prone to, not something that was necessary in his life as the privileged heir and now CEO to a massive company with worldwide holdings and pursuits. 

From the moment of his birth thirty-four years ago, Nicholas Barrett’s life had been matter-of-factly laid out before him with no areas of question or possibilities intruding on the strict confines of being the Barrett heir. There would never be those
childhood questions such as,
‘What do you want to be when you grow up?
’, no opportunities to engage his youthful imagination in superheroes or damsels in distress. 

No, for Nick, he would only ever be the man in the executive office at the pinnacle of a towering edifice of business iconography. He’d be the one calling the shots, regardless of his talents or lack thereof
, simply because of his having been born into it. People would do his bidding whether he’d earned that level of respect or not due to the circumstances of his birth.

Maybe that was why he was itchy and restless.
He’d been following the plan to a T, not that he’d had much choice, and while the business was thriving, and had done so for the eight years that Nick had been ensconced in the executive tower, he was empty inside.  No amount of knowing it wasn’t good to muddle over things that might have been but would never be could apparently keep his thoughts from straying to the danger zone of memory where the only occasion when he had broken free of the restraints of the Barrett legacy lived in carefully hidden visions of a time when he’d been truly, deeply happy. 

A time when he’d known what it was to be happy and free; chasing dreams and reveling in the challenges of a normal, everyday life when he had been just one of the guys, anonymous and sharing in a team effort to bring about meaningful change in one of the poorest regions on the planet.

Anytime he shone the light in his mind’s eye on that happier time when, fresh out of grad school, he had accepted a fellowship grant working on a project in Africa, an area ignored and forgotten by time and progress, he would have to deal with that other memory. 

The one filled with laughter that erupted in a giggle he couldn’t forget. 
The memory with the sun-gilded golden hair and startling turquoise eyes.  The remembrance of adorable bowtie lips under a perfect little nose and the way it made him feel when this memory of perfection would absentmindedly run her finger along her jawline from ear to chin when she was engaged in deep thought. As it made him feel right now, almost nine years later.

Expressing a deep sigh
, Nicholas Barrett forced his mind away from those memories and turned unseeing eyes on the city scene rushing by as his car moved through the always-crowded streets.

Maybe the edginess he was battling was due to his locale
, he mused. Perhaps all this pointless reflection and restless distraction was a result of having spent too much time in the city.  And not just this city. All cities, he reckoned, since his life was a never-ending itinerary of jet-propelled travel whether here in the States or around the globe, as was the case today. This particular car ride would eventually end at the private hangar Barrett Holdings kept for the company plane, which this evening would be taking him on another long-distance series of business obligations.

“
Where am I off to this time?” Nick queried out loud to the empty space around him.

Oh yeah, right.  This was the trip to Hong Kong to tour a string of hotels that Barrett was contemplating buying.  Three weeks in yet another bustling, noisy, crowded city.  Three weeks of monochrome days, cocktail
-party evenings, and unceasing socializing at night.  His Chinese hosts were eager to please him, which he knew meant an endless agenda and very little time to be off the radar.

He needed some down time after this trip.  Needed to get away from the never-ending business obligations that were swallowing his life whole.
Since he couldn’t remember the last time he’d taken any personal time for himself, much less even so much as had the thought, Nick knew he couldn’t just stand up and say he needed a break without the financial times speculating on his actions and affecting Barrett business.

God, the stranglehold of his birthright had tightened around him so much
lately, it was no wonder he was out of sorts.  Digital information and technology moving around the planet in real time at the speed of light had changed the way business was done and introduced the unwanted attention and constant intrusion of the media and some rude-as-shit bloggers who liked nothing better than to sit around and ruminate on what was going on in his mind.

No, to get away for some desperately needed space
, he had to do something benign that wouldn’t attract a lot of attention, wouldn’t make it seem like he was heading for an early midlife crisis. Remembering that his sister Jules was throwing what would no doubt be an over-the-top, Southern California-style birthday party for his favorite and only nephew, Dom, in a few weeks instantly gave him pause.

Yes, that’s what he’d do.  After the Hong Kong trip he’d indulge in some family time
—head off to the left coast, hang with Jules, who conveniently was married to his oldest and best friend, Ned Stewart, spend some quality time with Dom. Just what the doctor ordered. Simple solution.

His mother
, he knew, would miss Dom’s party because she was off cruising the Mediterranean with her sister and a few of their lady friends, but if he timed things right, she will have returned home by the time he left California making it possible to head home to Connecticut for an overdue visit before he’d be forced to get back to the never ending business of being Nicholas Temple Barrett, business tycoon.

Well
, he certainly felt better now that was settled, Nick thought to himself, quite satisfied that he’d found a way to dampen some of his edginess with a plan to step back for a bit.  Maybe Hong Kong wouldn’t be all that bad if at the end of it all there was the promise of sunny skies, maybe a little surfing, definitely some sun worshipping, and a whole lot of family time with the only people he ever let inside his frozen emotional world.

Leaning forward
, Nick pressed a small button on the control panel of the armrest and called up to his driver.  “Let’s stop at that bodega in the Village before we go to the hangar, Mr. Allen.”  Chuckling softly, he added, “You know I can’t be stuck across the world without my butterscotch.” He was amused to hear his longtime driver, a sensible but funny middle-aged man he generally called by his formal name, laugh, too.

“Yes
, sir, Mr. Barrett.  I knew you’d want to make that stop, so just hang on and we’ll be there before you know it.  Oh, and by the way, Claire sent a text asking me to let you know that she sent over the contracts from legal by courier. They should be waiting for you in the aviation center.”

At the me
ntion of his trusty right hand Nick had to admit that as far as personal assistants went, Claire Dennison was the best of the best.  She was efficient, discreet, resourceful, and above all, loyal to a fault.  He trusted her completely and was tremendously grateful for the stroke of good luck that had brought her to his attention. Ordinarily she would be going along on a trip such as this one, but she and her partner had recently adopted a baby and he’d insisted she have this time with her little family without the burden of travelling.

His reverie broken by the car pulling up to the curb outside the funky bodega in the
Village where they always seemed to stop, Nick watched as Mr. Allen exited the car and headed to the store.  This last-minute purchase had become a habit, for he never traveled without a handy bag of those little golden candies that, when he allowed the thought to eke into his mind, was yet another reminder of she who was best left in the shadows of his memory. Unfortunately for him, in his present mood, he was powerless to halt the flood of memories from a far simpler time to come roaring into his thoughts.

She’d had a terrible sweet tooth
, and being in the middle of nowhere as they were back then, there was no chance to stop at a market and grab a candy bar.  Hell, it was so relentlessly hot at times that something as sensitive to temperature as chocolate would have been reduced to a gooey soup if not refrigerated. Since refrigerators were a luxury used for critical needs, that wasn’t happening.

Everyone at the compound, at least all the
Western workers and volunteers, had found their individual ways of dealing with such cravings. At the time, for Nick, the solution was an old childhood favorite—black licorice.  His sister would send him boxes of the stuff. 

For her, the one who hid in his heart, the sweet of choice had been butterscotch
-flavored hard candies, which he now craved in an OCD fashion, most especially each time he traveled.

He hadn’t had black licorice in forever
, but he always had a few butterscotch candies tucked away within easy reach.  Just like his memories—within easy reach, and lately, knocking quite loudly at the walls of his consciousness.

Maybe after he’d had some time away to refresh and regroup
, these remembrances would ease up and he wouldn’t find himself after all these years waking up in the middle of the night with a need so deep and powerful that he’d lose any hopes of sleep. He’d become a restless nocturnal being, shuffling around his massive home dragging an array of technology with him wherever he went, relying on the easy distraction of global, 24-hour-a-day business to keep him sane.

Nick knew keep
ing busy was the only way to knock back regrets and self-loathing about his part in the shattering of two lives.  Running like the devil away from a longing so deep it left an ever-present ache inside him. After all, some things were best left alone.  Things that couldn’t change.  Realities that were made of stone.  In other words, his adult life.

* * *

Her favorite time of day, dawn chasing the overnight sky away, was creeping up the horizon as Shannon plunked a mug of steeping tea down onto the hand-hewn, rustic outdoor table in the middle of her bougainvillea-covered terrace.

She liked the quiet solitude
that greeted each new day when she left the comfort of her bed and started her daily routines.

This was her time
—thirty minutes of early-morning yoga and undisturbed contemplation followed by several steaming cups of her favorite black-tea blend as she simply enjoyed the views, scents, and sounds of a newly awakened day.

Sometimes, especially after a restless night like the one she’d just emerged from, she really needed this peaceful interlude before her busy daily life exploded. It seemed now that she was enjoying a bit of success and notoriety, she had even less time to spend appreciating being in the moment
, so every opportunity she found to devote some time to centering became a high priority on her agenda.

Rounding up on twenty-nine years old, Shannon Reynolds found herself running a highly successful event
-planning company in laid-back Southern California.  Her accomplishment four years earlier as a young and innovative party planner who had stopped Hollywood in its own dramatic steps with an over-the-top, no-holds-barred movie premiere for the latest family blockbuster had shot her onto the celebrity event scene like a cannonball.

Her passion for the cleverly written series of books that featured half-human teen-age elves and fairies battling an
ancient curse being passed through the ages of humankind, had given her a unique vision for the premiere. Even the most hardened and jaded from the entertainment industry had been blown away and this single achievement had made her a “must have” for every and any A-List affair, be it business or pleasure, from that day forward.