by Claire Adams
“Can you really even trust your instincts when your emotion is so involved?” I asked. “I’m in love with him, and that is clouding everything else.”
“You’re questioning your whole relationship,” she pointed out. “Which means you’re not completely blind.”
“Just scared,” I said. “And worried.”
“Do you think that maybe you might be overthinking?” she suggested.
“Not in this case,” I said. “This is Tristan… I know him. I’ve watched him for ten years and paid attention to all the little things. He’s not as sold on this relationship as he claims to be.”
“Then you need to talk to him about it,” Alani said.
I smiled. “A simple suggestion,” I said. “And yet somehow, I find it the most complication option.”
“Are you scared of what he might say?”
“That’s an understatement,” I admitted.
“But wouldn’t you rather him be honest with you?”
“Of course,” I nodded. “Except that things are a little complicated now, what with the fact that I work for him.”
Alani’s eyes went wide for a moment. “If things don’t work out, would you continue to work here?”
I had been thinking the same thing over the last few days. The thought had popped into my head a few days ago and refused to budge until I had given it proper credence. I had suggested to Tristan that we make another visit to his private island for a little alone time. He had smiled and nodded and told me we would do exactly that when he had a day to spare, but that had been two weeks ago, and no trip had occurred.
I had been to the island only once, but I had formed a deep connection with the house and its picturesque surroundings. I longed to be alone with Tristan in that space again. It felt like we were cut off from everyone and everything…including my fears. I wished we could go back there, but I was trying to be considerate of Tristan’s workload.
“I don’t know,” I replied honestly. “I keep going back and forth. Sometimes I think we’re both mature enough to work together even if we did split up. But then… I really think about it, and I know that I couldn’t do it.”
“Oh, Molly…”
“I’ve been in love with Tristan for ten years, Alani,” I said. “If my feelings for him haven’t faded in that time, then they’re not going to. How can I possibly continue to live here and work for him? I’d have to watch him move on with his life, date other women, build a life for himself separate from me… It would be torture.”
Alani’s eyes were sympathetic, but I could tell she didn’t like the idea of me leaving. “This is all very premature,” she said. “Who knows, you and Tristan could end up married one day.”
I smiled. “I don’t know if Tristan is the marrying type.”
“Convert him.”
I laughed. “Easier said than done.”
“I have an idea,” she said, clapping her hands together.
“What?”
“I think the main problem here is that you don’t get enough time with him, right?”
“Well, yeah,” I said uncertainly.
“You’re both busy, it’s perfectly understandable,” Alani continued. “So what you should do is make time.”
“Uh…”
“What I mean is be spontaneous,” she said. “Surprise him when he least expects it.”
“Um, I’m not sure I understand.”
“I heard Ben talking with Tristan this morning,” she told me. “Tristan mentioned that he would be heading to his suite this evening to check on something… I’m not sure what, I didn’t hear that part. Why don’t you head on over to his suite and surprise him? Even if it ends up being a quickie in the shower or a fifteen-minute conversation, it’s something. Given how fast-paced your lives are, that’s what you’ll need to do to keep connected.”
I considered that for a moment. “You know, that’s not a bad idea.”
She smiled. “Excellent.”
“Wait,” I said. “I don’t have a key to Tristan’s suite.”
“You don’t?”
“Well, he’s always in my suite,” I said, with a shrug.
“It’s not a problem,” Alani smiled. “I can give you the staff key.”
Alani and I headed over to the reception where she handed me the staff key to Tristan’s suite. I thanked her and headed up to his room to surprise him, feeling slightly more positive and very excited.
Alani was right—given how much we both worked, I needed to be pro-active about time with Tristan, as opposed to brooding about it. If I wanted things to work out between us, I needed to try as hard as I could.
I got to Tristan’s suite and opened the door softly. I tiptoed inside and looked around. We were rarely ever in his suite. It was slightly smaller, and my view was far better. Still, it was a large and beautiful room. I heard the shower running in the bathroom, and I headed over there. I pushed the door open slightly and peered in. The shower was running, and someone was inside, but one look told me that it wasn’t Tristan.
I could see a faint outline through the smoky curtain. I could see the perfect silhouette of a naked woman. I froze in shock as my body reacted to seeing a strange woman in Tristan’s shower. Her clothes were all over the bathroom floor, and I could hear her humming softly under her breath. Realizing that she hadn’t noticed my presence, I backed out carefully and shut the door.
I stood in Tristan’s bedroom for a minute, trying to process what I had just seen. Was it possible that Tristan had just been stringing me along this whole time? Had he been sleeping with other women the whole time he had been sleeping with me? I felt hurt and disappointed and betrayed.
But most importantly, I felt like a complete and total fool—a fool who had clung to a perfect daydream instead of facing cold hard reality.
Chapter Thirty-One
Tristan
I had just finished a Skype meeting with my senior manager at the LA resort when I heard a sharp knocking on my office door. Frowning, I checked the time. My next appointment was not for another hour, and Ben was not due back for another fifteen minutes at least.
“Come in,” I called.
A second later, the door to my office flew open, and Molly walked inside. Her face was pale and strained, and her eyes looked angry and slightly red. I stood up and walked to her immediately, worried about what had caused her to react that way
“Molly,” I said, reaching for her. “Are you alright?”
“Don’t,” she said, turning her hand up to block mine. “Don’t touch me.”
I froze in place as I felt a wave of confusion take over. Obviously, she was mad at me… I just didn’t know what I had done. She had given me no indication that there had been anything wrong in the last few days. Was it perhaps something that had happened just now?
“I… Molly,” I said slowly. “I don’t know why you’re so upset?”
She stared at me for a moment, as though she were trying to figure something out. Her hand was still up, preventing me from approaching her. There was something in her expression that made me both scared and sad at the same time. There was intensity in her eyes that made me take pause. Whatever she was feeling right now was serious. Whatever she had seen or heard had made a big impact. I noticed that her body was stiff, but her hands were shaking.
“Molly, can I get you a glass of water.”
She didn’t answer me. In fact, it felt like she hadn’t even heard me. I let the silence stretch out, hoping for some indication of what was going on. Finally, she turned away from me, as though she couldn’t bear to look at me any longer.
“Molly, please,” I said. “I’m worried… What’s going on?”
“How long?” she asked at last.
“What?”
“How long has this been going on?”
“What?” I demanded. “How long has what been going on?”
“The women, Tristan,” she said, and her voice shook on my name.
Her emotion
broke my heart, but I couldn’t bring myself to approach her. I was trying to understand what she was talking about. Had someone tried to break us up by telling Molly some ridiculous story about another woman? Or maybe it was Jennifer… had her presence here inspired the staff to spread rumors that had maybe reached Molly? What if she’d found out about Molly and me and was trying to get back at me? A hundred different possibilities rolled around in my head.
“Molly, I don’t get it… What women are you talking about?” I asked. “Who told you this? I would have thought you’d know better than to believe anyone else.”
Molly smiled, but it was an angry smile. “I believe my own eyes,” she said. “Can you argue with them?”
I frowned. “Can you please, please explain to me what happened? How am I supposed to defend myself if I don’t know what you do?”
Molly’s expression seemed to smooth out for a moment. “I wanted to surprise you today,” she said. “I heard you were going to be in your suite this evening and so I decided to head down there and surprise you.”
“I—”
Molly cut me off before I could say anything more. “I walked in hoping to find you, but what I found instead was a naked woman in your shower.”
I stared at Molly for a moment and then suddenly everything clicked into place: Emma. Molly had seen Emma in my shower. I was just about to open my mouth to give her the explanation when Molly spoke.
“Unless… Did you even know someone was in your suite?” she asked, and there was desperation in her tone. “Was it just some employee taking advantage of the amenities because they know you rarely use your suite? Is that it? Is this just a huge misunderstanding?”
All I had to say was a simple yes. And yet, I realized that I couldn’t do it. My tongue curled in on itself and suddenly it hit me. I saw the pain on Molly’s face. I saw what the possibility of my future mistakes could do to her. I had been battling with this very thing for the last few weeks. I had been terrified to let her down. I had been terrified to revert back to my old ways and leave Molly broken and devastated.
What was our future? I honestly didn’t know. Could I give Molly everything she deserved? Could I give her a life of domestic bliss? Could I give her the safety of a home and the promise of children? Could I give her fidelity and loyalty and attention? I wanted to do all those things with her, but I wasn’t sure if I could. I wasn’t sure if I had the propensity to go the distance.
If I said yes, then she would believe me wholeheartedly. She would throw herself into our relationship and would beg for my forgiveness for presuming that I was cheating on her. We would move on, and we would get further into this relationship. A few years would pass by, and things would start to change. What if I realized that commitment was not for me? What if I decided that I was happier without the pressure of having to consider someone else all the time?
They were selfish thoughts, and I knew that the fact that I was having them in the first place meant something. I needed to save Molly from myself, and in order to protect her later, I would have to hurt her now. It was a split-second decision, weighted by the bulk of my own insecurities, doubts, and fears, but I felt at the moment that it was the noble thing to do.
“No,” I said.
“No?” Molly repeated, and her eyes turned sad again. “There was no misunderstanding?”
“I should have told you about this sooner,” I said.
“About what sooner?” she demanded.
“The woman you saw in my suite… I’ve known her for a long time,” I said, choking out the words and trying to make them convincing. “And I care about her very much.”
Molly stared at me for a moment and then she turned her face away. A curtain of golden hair hid her expression from my view, and I was grateful for that.
“I trusted you,” she said softly, and her tone was like a knife to my gut.
“Molly—”
“I trusted you!!” she screamed, throwing the full fury of her eyes onto me. “And worse… I loved you!”
“Molly—”
“I thought you loved me, too,” she screamed. “I thought we had something special. It was a long wait for me, and I thought it was worth it. It was worth it to me…until…”
“I never meant to hurt you.”
Her blue eyes flashed to mine, and I cringed against the emotion there. “How can you say that to me?” she demanded. “How can you look me in the eye and say that to me? You did this to hurt me—how could you not have. I should have known… It was only a matter of time. I was such a naïve fool to think that I could change you, to think that I could be enough to change you.
“This was the real reason you never told Jason, isn’t it?” Molly continued fiercely. “You knew it wouldn’t last between us. You knew I would find out sooner or later, and you wanted to keep Jason from ever knowing so that you could keep your friend after you were done with me?”
I looked down; it was hard for me to look her in the eye. “This is for the best, Molly.”
I saw her eyes go wide as though I had slapped her. “Did it mean anything to you?” she asked softly.
Tears were sliding down her face, and I felt my heart bleed at the sight. I so desperately wanted to reach out to her, touch her, pull her towards me, and beg her to forgive me—but I couldn’t.
“Of course it meant something to me,” I said. How could I lie to her about that? I couldn’t even if I had wanted to—she was too important to me, and I couldn’t bring myself to say anything else.
Molly scoffed in my face and turned from me towards the door. “Another lie,” she said. “If it had meant anything to you, then you would have at least had the decency to break up with me first…before you fucked another woman.”
“Molly—”
“I have to go back home,” she said.
I had expected as much, but it still hurt when she said the words. I pushed back my emotion and put on an expression of calm. “I’ll make arrangements to get you on the next flight out.”
I could see the sparkle of tears on Molly’s face as she shook her head at me. “I’ve spent ten years of my life loving you,” she said softly. “It was such a waste.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, it was the only thing I could say.
Her smile was heartbreakingly sad. “You know the really tragic part?” she asked. “Despite everything, I still love you. Even now… I still love you. I can’t just stop—but now I know I have to at least try. Goodbye, Tristan.”
With that, she turned and walked out of my office, but it felt as though she had just walked out of my life. I sat down heavily and reached for the bottle of bourbon I kept in the mini bar underneath my desk. I had just poured myself a glass when Ben walked in.
“What the fuck was that all about?” he demanded of me. “Molly’s leaving?”
“She just handed in her resignation,” I replied without emotion.
“What happened?”
“She saw a naked woman in my suite and assumed I was cheating on her,” I explained.
Ben frowned. “Naked woman… Are you talking about Emma?”
“Yes.”
“Emma was only in your suite because her room hadn’t been vacated yet,” Ben said, looking confused. “Molly knows Emma, surely?”
“She does,” I nodded. “But Molly never saw Emma’s face…”
“Then why the fuck didn’t you tell her?” he demanded.
“Because I realized something,” I said in a deadpan voice. “I’m not cut out for relationships; at some point, I’m going to hurt her. So…”
“You decided to make the decision for her—again.” Ben looked disgusted with me.
“I’m trying to protect her.”
“You’re an asshole,” he said, shaking his head at me. “Emma’s not going to like the fact that you used her to get rid of Molly.”
“Emma will understand,” I replied, not caring whether she did or not.
“Molly wants to leave first thing tomorrow mornin
g,” Ben told me.
“Make the arrangements for her,” I said, knocking back my glass of bourbon. “Make sure she has a first-class seat back home.”
“And what are you going to do?” he demanded.
“I’m going to sit here and get drunk. Obviously.”
“You have meetings.”
“Cancel them,” I said firmly. “I’m taking a sick day.”
“And what about dinner?” he asked. “You were going to have dinner with Emma tonight.”
“Give her an excuse, any excuse,” I said uncaringly. “I’m not in the mood to make small talk with my sister tonight.”
Ben looked at me with a mixture of pity and disgust. “You just made a huge mistake; you know that, don’t you?”
“Ben, I mean this in the nicest possible way,” I said, pouring myself another glass. “Get out of my office and stay out of my business.”
“No problem,” he replied. “You’ll want to get used to being alone. And maybe you deserve to be.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” I muttered darkly under my breath.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Molly
My mood was so sour flying back that even the luxury and comfort of first class could do nothing to soothe me. I had bought a book at the airport, but after realizing that I’d read the same sentence ten times, I decided to put it away and just wallow.
“Excuse me, ma’am?”
I looked up at the statuesque blonde flight attendant who was leaning over me with a pleasant smile on her face. Her eyes were a dark brown, and her hair had been combed into a perfect topknot that displayed her high cheekbones and lovely aristocratic nose. She looked like the kind of woman who never had any guy troubles. She probably used men the same way they used her. Which worked, because she never expected anything more from them. Which also meant she could never get hurt.
I knew I was building a character around her face that probably didn’t exist, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t in the mood to be fair.
“Yes?”
“Can I offer you something to drink?” she asked. “We have a selection of fresh juices.”
“Anything alcoholic?” I asked.