Chapter Thirty-Seven
Tristan
“Say that again?” I said, looking at Ben with wide eyes.
“Molly’s here.”
“Here?” I repeated. “As in, at the resort?”
“Yes.”
“You saw her?” I asked. “With your own eyes?”
“Uh…no,” Ben admitted. “Monica from the reception informed me when she walked in.”
“Why didn’t we know this?” I demanded.
“I don’t handle bookings,” he reminded me. “That’s up to the reception staff.”
“One of them would have mentioned it to you,” I said. “Considering everyone’s been talking about Molly’s departure the last few weeks.”
“Alani was the one that took Molly’s reservation,” Ben replied.
“Ah,” I said. “I suppose that explains it.”
“Clearly, her loyalty is to Molly over you,” he said, and he sounded a little pleased by that.
I frowned. “I can’t really blame her,” I said. “So… Molly’s here.”
“Yes.”
“What suite is she staying in?”
“She booked herself into a room,” Ben told me. “Room number 305. She paid upfront for the whole stay.”
I sat back in my chair, feeling extremely uncertain. “Where is she now?”
“Probably in her room,” he replied. “She’s made no reservations at any of the restaurants for tonight.”
“Why do you think she’s here?”
“How would I know?”
“Take a guess,” I said. “We parted on bad terms, why would she come back here?”
“Maybe she wants her job back.”
“She wouldn’t want to work for me after what happened,” I said.
“Maybe she’s here for you?”
I smirked darkly. “She wouldn’t work for me because of what I did,” I said. “Do you really think she’s going to run into my arms after she believed I cheated on her?”
“Absence makes the heart grow fonder.”
“Fuck that,” I said, shaking my head. “I know Molly… She will never be with me as long as she believes I slept with someone else.”
“Hey, I have an idea,” he said.
“What?”
“Why don’t you just go down to her room and ask her,” he said, in a sarcastic tone.
“Oh, sure,” I said, matching Ben’s tone. “I bet that’ll go over really well.”
“Can you blame her?”
“Find out why she’s here,” I said.
“What?” he asked incredulously.
“Find out why she’s here,” I repeated impatiently.
“How?” Ben demanded. “Short of walking up to her and asking her myself.”
“I’m sure you can figure out a way,” I said. “You have people.”
“People?” he repeated. “I have people? Who do you think I am? Some mafia boss or something?”
If I weren’t so stressed, I would have cracked a smile. “That would have been helpful to me.”
“Emma’s right,” Ben sighed. “You are a coward.”
I gritted in my teeth in annoyance. “I’m glad to see my sister’s been doing the rounds. I’ll need to have a chat with her.”
“Emma has a point.”
“Emma is a—wait,” I said, realizing that my sister wasn’t known for staying out of other people’s business. “Where is Emma?”
“How the hell am I supposed to know?” Ben demanded. “Contrary to what you might think, I don’t know everything that happens around this resort. She’s probably by the pool or something.”
“She can’t know that Molly is here,” I said, standing up.
Ben rolled his eyes. “Because she’ll rat you out.”
“Of course, she will,” I said. “She’s been fishing around for Molly’s number.”
“Huh, how nice of Molly to accommodate Emma and arrive at the resort.”
“Shit,” I said, walking around my desk. “Shit… if—”
I was interrupted by a loud knock on my door. I froze in place and Ben and I turned around. “Someone sounds mad,” he said, sounding half amused.
“Fuck you,” I shot at him.
“Should I answer the door?” he asked. “Or will you?”
I was about to answer when the door flew open and Molly walked in. She was wearing a soft blue dress that flowed seamlessly over her stunning figure. Her blonde hair was loose, and her blue eyes were on fire. Even in anger, she looked stunning and I took a quick second to admire her beauty.
“Ben,” she said, and her tone was warmer than I had expected. “How are you?”
“Molly,” Ben said, feigning surprise. “This is a surprise.”
“Is it?” she asked. “I’m sure you were aware that I’d arrived at the resort.”
“Not until a few minutes ago,” he replied honestly. “I wish you would have called me.”
“I didn’t want to make a big deal about this,” she said.
“About what exactly?” I asked, stepping into the conversation.
Molly looked around Ben towards me and I saw the fire in her blue eyes again. “Hello, Tristan,” she said, and any warmth that had been present in her tone before now disappeared immediately.
“Molly,” I said, taking a step towards her.
Molly turned to Ben. “Ben, would you mind giving us a moment? I need to talk to Tristan in private.”
“Of course,” he nodded.
He gave me a parting glance that looked sympathetic and amused in equal measures. Then he left the office and closed the door behind him. I felt my nerves rise up and constrict around my throat. My palms were sweaty and I felt as though my throat was parched, even though I had barely said two words to Molly.
“You’re back,” I said at last, when the silence wore on and on.
She looked out towards my stunning view. “I missed Hawaii.”
“Is that why you’re back?”
“I’m back because I have a contract with you,” Molly said. “And I should have considered that before I quit. I acted impulsively, and I regretted the decision almost immediately, but… I was emotional at the time and I didn’t think I could continue working for you, considering what happened.”
Was that it then? I wondered. Was she just here for her job? A part of me was relieved and a part of me was disappointed. She wasn’t here for me at all—she was here because she liked Hawaii and the job and the people she worked with. I had to assume that I was excluded from that group.
“Right…” I said awkwardly. “So you’re here for your job.”
“Yes,” Molly nodded. “Only if you’re comfortable with that. I know that I voided the contract when I walked out and you have the right to turn me away if you want to.”
“I’m not going to do that,” I said, feeling supremely uncomfortable.
I tried not to look directly at Molly. She was like the sun, and her beauty was blinding me with need and desire. I had forgotten how wonderful it was to have her here, to have her in my bed, to have her wrapped around my body... There was no other feeling quite like it.
“You’re okay with me resuming my work here?” Molly asked.
“Of course,” I said. “The resort needs you—you did amazing work while you were here. Everyone misses you.”
“Apparently not everyone,” she said pointedly.
I stopped short. “What?”
“I want you to know that I will stay away, Tristan,” Molly said. “Just because I work for you that does not mean we need to have contact. You can send Ben or Alani in to speak to me, and I will do the same. We don’t need to be around each other any more than we have to.”
“Molly…”
“I got your message loud and clear, Tristan,” she said. “I just wish you had the guts to tell me the truth straight to my face.”
I could see the muted anger on her face, and I knew instinctively that she was talking about something specific. “Molly,” I said carefully. “What exactly is the truth that you’re talking about?”
Molly looked at me closely for a long moment. “Emma,” she said, in one word.
I groaned. “She spoke to you.”
“Just before I came up here to speak to you,” Molly informed me.
“She’s always liked to stir things up—”
“Really?” Molly said, cutting me off. “I kind of thought that was you?”
“Let me explain.”
“There’s nothing to explain,” she said. “Like I said, you made yourself extremely clear. You let me think that Emma was some random woman you were fucking because it was easier than admitting to me that you didn’t love me and that you were only interested in sex.”
“Whoa, hold on—”
“Let’s not get into it, Tristan, okay?” Molly said, turning towards the door. “I just came up here to tell you that you don’t need to continue with the pretense. Let’s just put this whole thing behind us and get on with our jobs.”
“No,” I said firmly, darting in front of Molly and blocking her path. “Not until you hear me out.”
“Why are you interested in explaining things now?”
“Because you’ve got it wrong,” I said.
“Oh, really? What have I got wrong?”
“I let you believe that I had cheated on you because I loved you,” I said, wondering if that even made sense. “Not because I didn’t.”
She frowned at me. “You just heard yourself, right?”
“Molly,” I said, frustrated that I couldn’t seem to get my point across. “I’m an asshole, okay? I’m not good with women, and I’m terrible at relationships. I’ve been through more girls than I can count and in every single story, I don’t come off well. Ask my ex-girlfriends, and I’m sure they’ll be delighted to tell you.”
“What’s your point?” Molly demanded.
“My point is that I would have done to you what I did to them,” I said. “I would have neglected you into leaving me. Hell, I was neglecting you for the past few months before you left. I would have ended up screwing this up at some point in the future. Then you would have left me and… It would have been harder to get over, for both of us.”
Molly frowned, in confusion. “Are you serious?” she asked. “That’s the reason you let me believe you were cheating on me?”
“I’ve never felt guilty about how things ended with my previous girlfriends,” I admitted. “And, that’s because I didn’t love any of them. Our connections were based on sex and that fizzled out eventually.
“But with you and me… It was different. You were the only woman I dreamed about that I felt I could never get. Then things happened between us and I was so weak that I let it happen. And it was better than I could have imagined.
“But then work caught up with me, and I realized I was falling back into the old patterns. Work was becoming my focus and I realized that at some point, I would repeat all the mistakes I’d made in the past. But this time, I respected you, I loved you and I couldn’t bear the thought of hurting you… So I thought it would be easier to let you make your assumptions to save you a whole lot of pain later on down the line.”
Molly stared at me, and all I wanted to do was grab her and kiss her. Looking into her eyes, I realized something. I realized how stupid I had been and how ridiculous my reasoning had been. Emma was right. I was a coward. And I had been too foolish to see that I had the ability to change my life, I had the power to control my future and I had the ability to make the right choices. Instead of trusting myself, I had pushed Molly away because I hadn’t been confident in my own feelings.
“Molly,” I said, taking a step towards her.
She backed away from me as though my very proximity was hurting her. “No,” she said. “Don’t.”
“I don’t deserve you Molly,” I said softly.
When Molly looked at me I could see the hurt radiating from her forget-me-not blue eyes. “You’re right,” she said. “You don’t.”