CHAPTER TEN
Scarlett
Why couldn’t I have no conscience? Why was I so susceptible to guilt?
After the confrontation with Griffin in the movie room, I'd been determined to not allow myself to be manipulated. Which included not attending the Thanksgiving meal with Griffin. Unfortunately, Chef Depardieu was under the impression I was ‘so excited' for my first Thanksgiving in my new home as a married woman and had promised me with great exuberance that I'd never forget it.
Faced with the chef's enthusiasm and the amount of hard work I knew he was putting into the meal I found myself agreeing to the dinner. Not only that but Griffin had me dress up for Thanksgiving and stop by to say hello to all the members who were dining at the club together. There were a lot more of them than I'd have suspected and by the time we'd arrived the wine was overflowing at the tables, and they seemed to be having a jolly good time together.
Griffin excused us as politely as possible, and that's how I found myself seated next to him at the dining table in our private dining room in the penthouse.
Xavier had the day off, so we were served by one of the waiters from downstairs. Once he'd left, I stared at all the food on our table.
“This is excessive.”
Staring at it, my husband nodded. “I’ve already arranged to have any viable leftovers taken to the nearest soup kitchen.”
The hell of it was I knew he wasn’t doing that to impress me. Griffin had always been quite generous in an off-hand way. I liked to think I’d just made him more aware of the consequences of his generosity.
“Good.”
He nodded, suddenly seeming unsure as he stared at the food. Griffin cleared his throat. "I'll be honest… I haven't celebrated Thanksgiving since my mother died. Obviously, we don't celebrate it in England so… anyway, I have no idea what to do."
A huge part of me wanted to reach for his hand. Instead, I asked quietly, "Is this hard for you?"
“No,” he said, curt. Then he frowned. “Well… perhaps a little.”
“Then why do this?”
His dark eyes cut to me. “Why do you think?”
Our gazes held for a long, tension-filled few seconds. Finally, I looked at the plates of fancily carved turkey, Pomme de Terre, sweet potatoes, vegetables, pecan pie, pumpkin pie and variety of sauces that were spread out on the dining table before us. None of it looked like the kind of Thanksgiving food my parents prepared. It was like the fine-dining version of Thanksgiving. "The last time I celebrated Thanksgiving was before my parents died. They hosted it at our house and invited Eric and his parents. My sister was so rude the entire time that Eric's mom eventually laid into her. My parents were mortified. Melanie slammed out of the house and didn't come home for two days." I gave a huff of laughter. "That would be my last Thanksgiving memory. My sister creating drama."
I felt Griff studying me and finally looked up at him. He opened his mouth to ask a question and then seemed to think better of it.
“What?”
He shrugged. “Nothing. I just… you’ve never mentioned his parents before. You haven’t kept in contact with them?”
The thought of Eric’s parents made me inwardly wince. “No, Eric’s,” I said his name pointedly, “mom and I had a thing at his wake.”
“What kind of thing?”
Sadness bit me. “She was distraught, not thinking clearly. She blamed me for taking him away during the last year of his life. That she didn’t get to spend the time she should have with him because I stole him from her.”
“Jesus Christ,” Griffin muttered. “I’m sorry.”
"It was a little humiliating, but his dad was kind. He apologized and said that she would regret saying those things to me once she was in her right mind. But I couldn't stick around after that. I'd stupidly thought that when Eric was gone that I'd have my in-laws to count on for comfort… for a family since I didn't have my parents anymore." I pushed down the pain and threw him a smile that didn't reach my eyes. "Oh well."
Fierceness flashed over his face, and he reached for my hand. I wanted to pull away at the same time I wanted to hold on forever.
“I don’t want you to feel alone anymore, Scarlett.”
As gently as I could, I extricated my hand from his and looked at my plate. "Do you feel alone?"
“When you pull away from me, yes.”
Guilt suffused me which just irritated the hell out of me because I had nothing to feel guilty about. Infuriated I reached for the tongs on the turkey plate and picked up the carved meat. “Well, then,” I huffed, “You’ll know exactly how I felt when you dumped me off in that apartment.”
“I knew how you felt while I was doing it,” he bit out. “I was blind fucking drunk for two days after.”
I practically threw the meat on his plate and returned for more for me. “You’re telling me that throwing me away was difficult for you, right? So why do it?”
He exhaled wearily. “Scarlett, we’ve already discussed this.”
Yeah, yeah, I wasn’t ready to hear it. I was getting so sick of that! “Fine, if you won’t talk about that then tell me about the last Thanksgiving with your mom.”
Griffin cut me a dirty look. "Are you trying to inflict pain on me today?"
I flinched at the guttural thickness of his words that gave away his emotion. “No.” I shook my head. “No, that’s not my intention. I just… I just don’t want to think about us anymore.”
We were quiet as I served the rest of the food.
Then I tentatively took his hand in mine and closed my eyes. "I'm not a particularly religious person, but I am a thankful one, despite recent events. I'm thankful for those who seek to protect me," Griff's hand tightened in mine, "And I'm thankful I have a roof over my head, food in my belly, and a warm, safe place to sleep at night. I'm thankful, in spite of the crap she's pulled, that my sister found someone to love her for who she really is. I'm thankful for good friends. I'm thankful for books. And I'm thankful for Chef Depardieu and the food on this table this evening."
There was silence, and I was just about to open my eyes when Griffin's deep, rumbling voice filled the room. "I'm thankful for the life I've been given. For good friends and loyal staff. But mostly I'm thankful for the woman beside me. I'll be thankful for her even if this is the last Thanksgiving I ever get to have with her."
My eyes flew open and connected with his. Longing seared across my chest.
Griffin squeezed my hand and gently let it go. “One day you’ll believe that.”
“Maybe one day I will,” I said, my words hoarse with emotion. “But I don’t think I’ll ever believe that I’m the most important thing in your life.”
He huffed in frustration. “You’re the only thing in my life.”
Not wanting to argue about this, not now, I picked up my fork and knife. “Let’s eat.”
The only noise for a while was the sound of our cutlery against dinnerware and the sipping sound of us drinking our wine. A few minutes passed, and it felt like an hour.
"I was thirteen. My mother was dying." Griff suddenly said. "Her room had been turned into a hospital. But she'd asked Xavier to set up a dining table in there for Thanksgiving. And somehow she found the strength to sit at the table with me. We didn't talk about life as if she wasn't going to be there. We'd been doing that for weeks, and I felt like it was driving me slowly insane."
Tears pricked my eyes. No matter what he’d done to me, the thought of Griffin as a heartbroken little boy broke my heart.
“We laughed a lot,” he smiled sadly. “I remember laughing so much I choked on a piece of turkey.”
I chuckled, the sound a little watery from my tears.
“But when it was done,” his smile fell, “It was done. I knew the moment the exhaustion was just too much for her. We got her back into bed. And then she told me…” he rubbed a hand over his mouth, his features taut with strain as he remembered, “That she had to go. She had to leave me. That I might feel scared and alone for a while. But that one day I’d make a new family.” His dark eyes were bright as they locked with mine. “That she’d be watching over me and one day she’d send me a new family. And I’d be okay again.”
A sob burst out of me before I could stop it.
"I failed her," he whispered. "She sent me you and… I didn't take care of her gift."
I couldn’t look at him, my chest was so full of emotion as I wiped at the tears falling fast down my cheeks.
"You have no idea how much I want to believe you," my breath shuddered as I tried to speak through the overwhelming emotion. "I've been so alone for so long, and you made me feel less alone. Until you didn't. Until you made me feel more alone than I've ever felt before."
Griffin’s jaw was locked so hard, his eyes so bright, I knew he was fighting back emotion. It was real. There was no pretense here. “I’m so sorry, Scarlett.”
And for the first time since he’d brought me back here, I believed him. “I know.”
What I didn’t say was that I trusted him.
We ate the rest of our meal in silence, the tension so thick between us, I left the table as soon as we were done. It was either that or do something that would only confuse Griff, and I'd inevitably regret.