Chapter Fourteen
Molly
I was scrolling through my Instagram feed when I stopped on a recent post of Jason’s. He was standing in a small group, between two women. Both women were attractive, but it was the redhead on his left that I zeroed in on.
She was tall and willowy, and she was wearing a short dress that displayed her long shapely legs. Her red hair had been blow-dried to a glossy sheen, and her smile seemed to light up her face. I felt my heart beat a little unevenly as I stared at her near perfect face.
I remembered the first time I had ever met Lizzie Strauss. She had accompanied Jason and Tristan home one holiday while school was out.
I had been fifteen at the time and had been looking forward to their visit for months. I had stood by my window for two hours before Jason’s familiar car pulled up in the drive. I had watched expectantly, desperate for a glimpse of Tristan. When he stepped out of the vehicle, my heart had skipped a beat, but the joy I felt had been short lived.
A few seconds later, the back door of the car opened and Lizzie got down. Even back then, she was all leg. She had been wearing denim shorts with a tie-dyed crop top that showed off her flat stomach, her belly button piercing, and the tattoo on her left hip. She looked like something out of a movie, an Amazonian beauty that reminded me of everything I was not.
I had watched with a sinking feeling in my gut as Tristan had placed his arm around her and they moved into the house. I had suffered through the whole weekend, watching from afar as Tristan and Lizzie exchanged little gestures of intimacy that seemed to cement their bond. I hated when she laughed at his jokes, put her hand on his leg, or leaned into his body as though she had a right to be there. I had felt physically sick the whole weekend. And at night, I would cry myself to sleep, wondering how I was going to survive knowing that Tristan loved someone else.
The morning that Tristan, Jason, and Lizzie were set to depart back to college, I had found Lizzie in the backyard overlooking the cornfield. I had watched her silently and enviously for a long while until she had turned around and spotted me watching her.
Her smile was sad, and perhaps that was what made me approach her. “Hello,” she said, as though we had just met.
“Hello,” I had replied.
“We haven’t spoken much this whole weekend,” she had said.
When I didn’t say anything, Lizzie turned her gaze back to the cornfield. “Don’t waste your time mooning after him, Molly,” she had said unexpectedly. “You’ll only wind up getting hurt.”
When I had looked at her quizzically, Lizzie had smiled knowingly. “You have feelings for Tristan, don’t you?”
“I don’t,” I’d said defensively.
Her smile seemed to get wider and sadder all at the same time. “He’s charming and handsome and witty and smart,” she continued, ignoring my denial. “It’s easy to love Tristan. But the only thing he really loves is his dreams. And unfortunately, his dreams are so big, they crowd you out.”
When I said nothing, Lizzie had given a huge, tired sigh and walked back into the house. I didn’t go out to say goodbye to them, and after that day I had never seen her again.
Until, of course, I had come across her picture on Jason’s feed. I was staring at her face, recalling that conversation with fresh perspective when I heard Gregory’s voice across the pool, calling my name.
I set my phone down and looked up. Gregory was walking towards me with a towel thrown across his shoulder. “Hi,” I said. “Are you here for a swim?”
“I certainly am,” he nodded. “But I also wanted to see how you were doing after last night.” He sat down on the lounge chair next to mine and stretched his feet out. I sat up and swung my legs down to face him.
“I’m sorry I cut out early, Gregory,” I told him. “I just didn’t think I could continue with dinner after that.”
“That’s quite alright,” he said, waving away my apology. “I had fun last night.”
“Did you?” I asked, incredulously.
“Of course,” he nodded. “It was actually quite an enjoyable first date…even if it was interrupted. And, even if it was completely fake.”
I felt a little spasm of guilt. “I shouldn’t have included you in this,” I said. “It was unfair.”
“I offered to be a part of it,” he reminded me.
“But still…you’re Tristan’s business partner, not to mention his friend,” I pointed out. “It was wrong of me to put you in the middle.”
“You might not have discovered how he really felt if I hadn’t have gotten involved.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Um…did I discover how he really felt?”
“Of course,” Gregory nodded. “Tristan definitely has feelings for you.”
“He denies it.”
“Of course, he denies it,” Gregory nodded. “Because he’s very clearly in denial. The man’s a fool. He insists that he has no feelings for you, he insisted as much this morning, too, and yet he can’t contain his rage when he sees you with another man.”
“What happened this morning?” I asked, jumping on that.
“Tristan visited me in my suite,” Gregory said, flashing me a smile. “Basically he wanted me to stay away from you.”
“Did he give you a reason as to why?”
“He said it was because he felt a brotherly obligation to protect you from the likes of me,” he said. “He feels that I’m not good enough for you.”
“He said that?” I asked, horrified.
“He most definitely did,” Gregory nodded. He seemed amused rather than offended. “He was in quite the mood, too.”
I shook my head. “I don’t get him.”
“He’s a complicated man,” Gregory agreed. “But he’s also a man who’s never committed to a woman his entire life. I think the thought terrifies him. I think that deep down he knows that he can’t just get away with a fling if he gets involved with you. He knows it will lead to something—and he’s terrified.”
“That can’t be the reason.”
“I think it absolutely is,” Gregory nodded. “But one thing is certain, and that is that he has feelings for you. He probably has for some time, based on his reaction.”
“Could it possibly be that he says what he means?” I suggested. “Maybe this really is just brotherly concern. I mean, it’s not like he reacted like that to any of the other men I dated.”
“That was different.”
“How?”
“He didn’t know any of those men,” Gregory explained. “He couldn’t vouch for them one way or the other. And the fact that you never dated the same man twice might have made him complacent. It shows that you were never serious about anyone. But I think he sees you differently now.”
I frowned. “I don’t know about that.”
“Trust me,” Gregory assured me. “He realizes… He’s just stubborn. He doesn’t want to give in to his feelings for you because he’s convinced himself that it would only lead to disaster.”
I sighed. “I don’t know why I’m continuing with this plan of Alani’s,” I said. “What does it serve? I’ve been thinking about the possibility of Tristan and me for a while now and…”
“And?”
“It’s very possible that it would end badly,” I admitted. “We’re so different.”
“Maybe that’s why it’ll work out between you,” he said. “My wife and I were polar opposites, too.”
I looked at him in surprise. “You’re married?”
“Was,” he corrected quickly. “I was married. We’re divorced now.”
“Oh.”
“We got married really young,” he explained. “We were both still in college, and we eloped in Vegas one day on a whim. It was the most spontaneous thing I’ve ever done in my entire life. We were as different as night and day, but that was made the relationship interesting. All the differences between us is what created the passion and the fire that made our lives fun.”
I raised my eyebrows. “But you got divorced,” I pointed out gently.
He smiled. “Because we let the little things get to us,” he said. “Because we were too young. And too immature to realize what it took to make a marriage work. We started to get on each other’s nerves. We decided to quit instead of fight, and in the end… We ended things prematurely. I was only twenty-two when the divorce was finalized.”
“It sounds like you regret the decision,” I pointed out.
“I do sometimes,” he nodded. “In a way, my way of escaping the pain of the divorce was to bury myself in work. Which is probably the reason I became so successful. But sometimes I can’t keep thinking that if I’d chosen differently, I’d be living a quiet life in the suburbs with my wife, a couple of kids, and a minivan parked in the drive.”
“Where is she now?” I asked.
“My ex-wife?”
“Yes.”
“She moved to Switzerland shortly after we got divorced,” Gregory replied. “She married some Swiss guy a couple of years later, and she’s got a son now.”
I looked at his face and could see the regret there. “Do you still keep in touch with her?”
“I did for a while,” he nodded. “But it was too hard to see her in her new life. It’s been a few years since we last spoke.”
I nodded. “Is that why you’re helping me?”
“I like you, Molly,” he said. “You’re a great girl, but up until last night, I didn’t know you. I know Tristan, though, and he reminds me a lot of myself. Why should he repeat the same mistakes I made?”
“That’s very noble of you.”
Gregory smiled. “I’m getting soft in my old age.”
I laughed. “I wasn’t aware that thirties were considered old.”
“Working this hard ages you,” he said. “You forget to live; you forget to enjoy your life. This vacation is the first one I’ve been on in four years.”
“Wow.”
“Everyone seems to have forgotten that we work to support and enjoy the families we’ve built,” he reflected. “What’s the point in working this hard if we have no one to go home to?”
“I don’t know if everyone thinks that way, though,” I said, thinking of Tristan. “Some men just aren’t cut out for family life.”
“Maybe not,” Gregory agreed. “But I don’t think Tristan’s one of them.”
“Based on?”
“Instinct,” he said vaguely. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Of course.”
“What do you want?” he asked. “In regards to Tristan?”
I sighed—that really was the million-dollar question. “Would you judge me if I said I didn’t know?”
Gregory smiled. “Take the time to figure it out,” he said. “Don’t waste your whole life living on memories.”
There was sadness in his tone when he said it, and I couldn’t help but reach out and take his hand. “You’re a nicer guy than I had you pegged for.”
He laughed. “I’ll take that as a high compliment.”
“It was meant as one,” I said. “I wish… I wish that if I were in a different place emotionally…”
“I know,” he nodded. “I wish that date last night had been real.”
I could sense the possibility between us, but in the same breath, I knew it was a hollow feeling. It was hollow because of how I felt about Tristan. With that realization staring me in the face, I finally knew exactly what I wanted.
And I also knew that Lizzie had probably been right. I would probably get hurt.