Grant shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose. “It was a total freak accident. Line drive to the temple on the golf course. I guess he was still conscious in the ambulance, but he hemorrhaged.”
Tara clasped her hand over her mouth, struggling to keep her balance. Johnathon was dead. It didn’t seem fathomable. He was not only so young—only forty-one—but he despised golf. None of this was fair.
“Where is he?”
Grant gestured with a backward nod of his head. “I had them bring him up to a private room. Miranda’s with him right now. I didn’t want her having to say her goodbye in the ER or even worse, down in the morgue.”
“Who called you?”
“Miranda. She was at the country club, in the middle of a tennis lesson when it happened. She was able to ride with him to the hospital.”
Miranda was Johnathon’s third wife. She and Tara enjoyed a pleasant enough rapport. Miranda was a highly successful interior designer and had done some work for Tara, staging homes for sale. “This is awful. They’ve hardly been married a year.”
Grant took Tara’s hand and led her over to a small waiting room so they could sit. “That’s the least of it.” His face adopted an even more somber look, something that Tara would not have thought possible. “Miranda’s pregnant and Johnathon didn’t know. She had to tell him in the ambulance while he was dying. She’d been planning to surprise him with the news. Tonight.”
A profound wave of sadness hit her. Johnathon had wanted a family for a very long time. Children had been one of the bigger issues that came between Tara and him. She’d wanted to wait, but she’d assumed they were going to have a lifetime together. “Oh, my God. A baby. And now he’s gone.”
“I know. I can’t even believe the timing. It doesn’t seem fair.”
Tara felt as though they were all taking a master class in unfair. “Her only family is her brother.”
“She’s really going to need a lot of support. Help with the baby.”
Tara’s heart felt impossibly heavy. She and Miranda weren’t close, but Tara knew what it was like to be on her own. Adrift. With no one to lean on but herself. “I’m happy to help. Whatever she needs.”
“Even as Johnathon’s ex-wife?”
Tara nodded emphatically, even as memories of her short and tumultuous marriage to Johnathon flashed before her. Happy days. Sad days. Crazy, inexplicable days. “We were never right for each other. He wanted kids right away. I wanted to get more established in my career. He was always trying to squeeze everything he could out of life and I was too busy being methodical.”
“For two people who weren’t right for each other, you certainly fell fast.” Grant cleared his throat. It wasn’t the first time he’d voiced his displeasure with the way Tara and Johnathon got together.
Tara had met Grant and Johnathon on the same night, at a mutual friend’s birthday party, eleven years ago. It had been Grant who’d flirted with her all night, and Grant who’d asked her out. But it was also Grant who got called out of town for a family emergency the next day, and it was Johnathon who swooped in like a bird of prey, sweeping Tara off her feet. She’d always chalked it up to fate. And Grant never seemed to suffer. He’d had plenty of women in his life.
“I know. That was just the way he was. Everything moved like lightning. It was stupid, and we were young, but I don’t regret it.” She heard her own voice wobble. Reality was finally starting to settle in. Johnathon was gone. Her first love.
Grant pulled her into a tight embrace. “Of course you don’t. He was an incredible man. An unbelievable best friend.”
Tara settled her head on Grant’s shoulder and allowed herself a few quiet tears. She didn’t like to cry in front of other people. There’d been too many times in her life when doing that had made her feel weak and vulnerable. But this was different. This was Grant. One of her oldest and dearest friends. A man she’d had a crush on for a day or two before his best friend took center stage. “He was also a human tornado.”
“He was indeed.”
“What’s going to happen to Sterling Enterprises?” Tara asked. Johnathon and Grant had built their real-estate-development firm into a true empire, but Tara had been there in the beginning. She’d thought she was a part of the team, but Johnathon eventually decided it was a bad idea for a husband and wife to work together. He’d pushed her to focus on selling real estate, rather than building. And so she had, because she loved him and he’d had a vision.
“Sterling will be fine.”
“You’re sure?” She was still holding on to Grant. She didn’t want to leave the cocoon of his smell or the comfort of his embrace. Being in his arms right now was like a soft wool blanket on a cold fall day. Nothing like the rest of the hospital.
“There’s a plan in place for me to step in as CEO. I just never thought we’d have to use it.” Grant gently rubbed Tara’s back. “I’ll have to coordinate some things with Miranda, since she’ll be majority owner now, but I’m guessing that between her own business and the baby on the way, she’ll gladly let me steer the ship. I don’t see any reason for her to do anything different.”
Tara sat back and Grant took her hand again. “You’re the one who’s going to have to break it to the staff. And fast. Before the media finds out,” he said.
He nodded, keeping his fingers wrapped around hers. “And there’s a funeral to plan.”
It was all so overwhelming. “That’s going to be a lot for Miranda to deal
