16
Trystan
I probably shouldn't have made friends with the bartender at The Ordinary because my gin tolerance is apparently quite low. I've been flirtmailing with Emmy, and it's gotten out of hand. When she doesn't write back, I'm left with a rock in my stomach that feels a lot like it could be rejection, if I was sure I knew what that felt like. Most of all, I'm asking myself how I can be behaving this way with someone I've laid eyes on for approximately ten seconds at the very most.
Checking my email one more time before I leave my laptop on the desk, I'm disappointed to see she still hasn't responded.
Instead I see an email from Isabel Montgomery.
Subject: We really do need to talk.
Of course Isabel wants to talk. My grandfather basically stipulated that the only way she could continue to receive the same business disbursements into her spending account was to go through me.
I would have to sign off on them.
My grandfather, may God rest his manipulative soul, is basically forcing Isabel Montgomery to kiss my ass or go without. The whole situation is so messed up. Frankly, I'm sure it's destined to breed more hatred than mend anything.
Not one to run from conflict, I decide we may as well meet and get all the grievances aired and over with.
From: Tmontgomery
To: [email protected]monthomesandfacdotcom
Subject: Re: We really do need to talk
Isabel,
That would be fine. I'll be available for coffee before our morning meeting with the firm accountants. Please be at the hotel by eight.
Trystan
Feeling happier that I'm the one in control now, I close my laptop, strip out of my clothes, and climb into bed, letting inebriated and broken sleep claim me. Except it doesn't. And I get up to get Emmy's phone and bring it back to bed.
Good night, Emmy.
The response comes immediately.
Emmy: Good night, Trystan
Sighing heavily and too mentally wired to sleep, I mindlessly surf her phone. Maybe I can find something, anything, that will turn me off.
Her Instagram profile, even though I scrolled through it before, becomes my focus. There are the pictures of food I've already seen, and halfway through scrolling and trying to find more than the couple of pictures of Emmy rather than her dinner, I realize there are repeating links to another Instagram account. The account I've been looking at is her work one. I tap her name at the top and a drop-down choice comes up with another name AnAngelintheForest. My frown clears as realize the reference to her last name, Dubois, loosely translates to The Woods or The Forest in French. And that's when I hit the motherlode. I grin and make myself comfortable. Pictures of her around town, sunsets over the water, the beach, her toes in the sand. I zoom in, even her feet are pretty. Pale skin, pink polished toes. And her ankles are slender.
I hate my stalker self right now, but I push on.
Pictures of her with a blonde woman tagged as her friend Annie. Emmy with a little baby boy—Annie's baby, I presume. Her with Armand. All three of them together. Clearly the three of them hang out a lot. Emmy with an older man with white-gray hair who has no family resemblance whatsoever. I read the caption: "The families you choose are the families that once chose you." Something about the way it's written sends a prickle of melancholy through me. It has a lot of likes. The man isn't tagged. But I wonder if it's David. I click out and go back to the main page of pictures and continue my search.
And oh, I really shouldn't have done it.
My thumb and my eyes zero in on a picture of people on the beach. I open the picture up to full screen. I see who I presume is Annie, her belly round and pregnant in a navy blue swimsuit. But I barely spare her a glance because there's Emmy, her red hair is wild and streaking sideways in the breeze and filtering the sun. Her mouth is open and wide with laughter, and her sweet, curvy, little body is packed into a tiny yellow bikini.
Holy hell.
I sit straight up in bed as if I can see it better if I'm upright. My gaze slides down her body from her slender neck and collarbone, over the swell of her ample breasts, the barest hint of a tightly-budded nipple shadowing the fabric, and down the soft skin of her belly, pauses on the small yellow triangle, and on down her shapely legs to those pink toes.
Aaaand, I'm hard.
Fuck.
I have a headache starting to brew between my eyes, and I pinch the bridge of my nose. Surely, it's the gin and not the fact I was supposed to find something to exterminate my crush, not magnify it a thousandfold.
Now I know how she looks in a bikini, a visual I could have done without. Because, Christ, she is far from the skinny women I normally go for, but she is quite possibly, the sexiest woman I have ever seen. The image is seared onto my eyeballs. And even half an hour after I've put her phone safely on the other side of the damn room, I can still see it.
I turn on the TV in the dark and flick mindlessly through channels looking for ESPN, hoping for lots and lots of sports stats.
What have I been reduced to? Because even in my most hormonal teenage years, I never focused this hard on a girl.
The incessant buzzing ring of Emmy's phone wakes me in the dark. The hands of my watch glow faintly, telling me it's just past six. Pushing myself from the bed, I stumble to the desk where I left her phone.
It's a Manhattan number. Naturally, I answer it.
"Oh," the voice responds to my raspy morning greeting. "Uh, is Miss Dubois available please? This is Penny Smith from Rockaway Nursing and Rehabilitation. It's an emergency."
I shake my head and scrub a hand down my face to wake myself up. "Um, she's not here right now."
"This is her phone, right?"
"Yes, sorry." I give her my cell phone number. "She's reachable on this other number until this evening." This is an absolute farce. How could two lives possibly get more complicated over a set of phones?
"Thank y—"
"Wait." I swallow. "Is everything all right? You said it was an emergency."
"Are you related to Miss Dubois?"
"No, but—"
"Then, I'm sorry. I'm not at liberty to tell you. But if you hear from her, can you please ask her to call us as soon as possible?"
"Is it . . ." I rack my brain for the name. "David. Is it about David, is he all right?"
"I can't tell you, I'm sorry. I need to hang up so I can call her."
"Sorry. Yes, if I speak to her, I'll let her know you called."
I press end on the phone and sit down heavily in the desk chair. Apparently I missed four calls before I'd answered. Grabbing my unfinished water bottle from last night, I chug down the rest of it. Realizing I never quite got to the bottom of who David is to Emmy, I pull out my computer and type in Rockaway Nursing & Rehabilitation, learning that it's a senior care facility. I remember a David calling several times the first day I had Emmy's phone, but as soon as I'd answered, he'd hung up. He probably thought he'd dialed the wrong number. I didn't answer the next few times he tried.
I open the text message app.
Rockaway Nursing trying to get hold of you urgently.
I start typing Let me know if there's anything I can do and then delete it. I only need to pass along the information.
God, I spent way too long stalking Emmy last night. I was using her as a distraction to what was going on in my life. She's obviously taken the place of my usual methods. And it has to stop. We are getting far too involved in each other’s lives.
A quick workout and hot shower later, I check in with Dorothy then Mac to make sure everything is on for the closing of the deal next week. Dorothy still hasn't had any luck finding me a hotel. If Beau lived in town, I'd ask him if he had a spare room. Damn, I'd take a couch right now.
After I pack my roll-on, I head downstairs to meet with the Montgomery matriarch.
Isabel Montgomery stands, drawing my attention as soon as I enter the small but elegant lounge area.
She takes a step forward and holds out her hand. "Trystan."
"Isabel," I reply, accepting her handshake.
She clasps both cold, papery hands around mine and squeezes. It's a rare display of affection.
Clearing my throat, I look past her at the seating area. She's chosen two arm chairs in the corner that face each other and share a small table. A carafe of coffee and two cups are already there. "Shall we?" I ask.
"Let's." She purses her lips in what may or may not be an attempt at a polite smile, it's hard to tell, and holds her pearls as she lowers herself back to where she was sitting.
A server materializes silently.
"Are you eating?" Isabel asks me.
I don't have a menu, but I look up. "An omelet if you have it. Chef's choice."
"Very good, sir," the man inclines his head and melts away.
I pour some coffee in my empty cup and wait for Isabel to say whatever it is she needs to.
It's not until I've added cream, stirred, and taken a sip that she begins. I watch her over the rim of the delicate fine china cup I'm holding.
"It was . . . as I said, a shock to see you," she says and again her hand comes nervously to her throat. "I didn't know you'd heard of your grandfather's passing, let alone that you would come. And well, now with . . . the will, of course, it makes sense."
She looks at me expectantly, but I have no idea what I'm supposed to say. So I wait.
She breathes out, and her eyes flick away and back, becoming hard. "You're determined to make this unpleasant, aren't you?"
A stab of hurt, a memory from my childhood, hits low in my chest, but I do my best to use it to fuel annoyance instead. "I'm not determined to do anything, Isabel. You asked to see me." I take another sip of coffee. "And I do wish you'd get to the point."
She wrings her hands in her lap. They are bony with age, the knuckles a tiny bit out of proportion to the delicate line of her. Arthritic, perhaps.
"Look, Isabel." I soften slightly. "I'm sorry for your loss. I imagine it must be devastating to lose your life partner. And I'm sorry that seeing me was a shock. I am sure you were quite satisfied that you'd effectively cut my mother and me out of your life for good, and I—"
"I made a mistake." Her mouth pinches, and she looks away and blinks several times.
"Excuse me?"
"You heard me. I made a mistake. I . . . was hard on her. And perhaps I shouldn't have turned my back on her like I did if it meant we lost you too."
I stare at her, my breath stalled in my lungs.
"Don't . . . you . . . dare," I finally manage in a low tone. Then abruptly lean forward.
She glances around nervously and back to me.
I carefully set my delicate cup down before I throw it across the room or accidentally crush it.
"Now, Trystan, I . . . look, please." She reaches out a hand, but I stand and she's forced to pull it back. "Don't make a scene," she says quietly, nervously, eyes darting around the room.
Leaning down so to the passersby it might look as if I'm telling her a secret, I put my hands on the arm rests either side of her.
She leans back but has nowhere to go.
"I won't make a scene," I say quietly to the side of her head, "as long as you get something clear. All I wanted was a family. I was thirteen years old. I loved you. As cold as you were. I loved it here. I thought I'd come to paradise. Only, we were sent away again. And then I had to watch my own mother die a long slow death. Alone. For all her faults, she was your daughter, for Christ's sake," I hiss. "And you ignored her. Ignored me. It's a little too late for regrets, don't you think? The time to pretend you gave a shit about me would have been while I sat alone at seventeen in an NHS hospital as a stranger told me my mother had finally gone to God. If you think I'm hardened . . . difficult . . . heartless . . . ruthless, you haven't seen anything. You made me this way, Isabel Montgomery. And I'll do whatever I damned well please."
I pull back and stand.
Wet tracks mark Isabel's powdered cheeks. Her normally regal, statuesque features are crumpled and broken. I look away from her. The waiter takes that moment to arrive with my omelet. I grab a napkin from my place setting and hand it to her. My hands are shaking, belying my composed tone.
"I won't be eating after all," I tell the nonplussed server. I peel off some bills to cover the meal and then head to check out of the hotel.
I want to beat the shit out of something, but I have nowhere to go and nothing to hit. I don't care what Ravenel says about me sticking around, I need to go back to New York and get some distance from the clusterfuck my life turned into over the last three days.
I'm flying out of here tonight, no question.