Mr. Knightsbridge

by Louise Bay

  Gabriel chuckled. “Yeah, I probably wouldn’t be sitting here if you’d have lost. Or if I was, I’d be wearing body armor.”

  “I just wanted her here,” I said. “I wanted to share it with her.” Nothing was right without Hollie. It was slowly sinking in that she was gone. Not just for tonight but forever. Faced with the prospect of Hollie not being around, I was being forced to consider what life felt like without her. It was like a fist to my face.

  I didn’t want to go home tonight because I didn’t want to be anywhere she wasn’t. A hotel room wasn’t going to be any different. I wanted to wake up next to her every morning and go to sleep, her body tucked into mine, every night. I wanted her in my life every moment of every day.

  “Hey,” Gabriel said. “Your parents would have been immensely proud. Your brother was there to celebrate with you and so were we. It’s a fantastic achievement.”

  I knew the theory. And of course, it was fantastic my brother had been there tonight. It was fitting. And I was grateful and so happy to have him back in my life. Even though we’d not seen each other for so many years, it was as if he’d never been away. But him being here just made me think of Hollie. If I hadn’t seen the way she was completely devoted to her sister, I would never have contemplated that David might have a legitimate side of the story. It was Hollie’s example that made me consider getting in contact with him again. If she hadn’t come into my life, tonight would have been even more of an empty experience than it was turning out to be. If she was gone for good, did that mean I would spend the rest of my life with something missing?

  I shrugged and tipped back my drink. “It will be good publicity with the store opening.”

  “Do you regret not making things right with David sooner?”

  Christ, was Gabriel trying to make me feel worse? “I think we both have regrets.” He wished he’d pushed me. I wished I’d not been so pig-headed. “But yes of course I do. We wasted a lot of years.”

  “Guess you wouldn’t want to repeat that mistake,” Gabriel said. He thought he was being subtle. Or maybe he didn’t—he wasn’t a stupid man. But he didn’t get it. The situation with my brother was very different. I’d been grieving and desperate to hold on to my parents. We’d both been young and in pain. Time and age had given us perspective. Hollie knew I wanted her to stay in London. She wanted to please her family more than she wanted me. It was as simple as that.

  “Hollie and I didn’t have an argument. She flew back to Oregon. I can’t change that, Gabriel.”

  “I get the impression that she was important to you. Like more important than anyone for a long time.”

  “Yes,” I said. The days of trying to deny that were long gone. “She was very important. Before Hollie, I was resigned to being on my own.”

  He chuckled. “Yes, I think we’d all figured that out.”

  “Hollie was different. She’s sweet and caring and funny and talented and fucking gorgeous.” There weren’t words enough to describe how really wonderful she was. “There’s no point dwelling on it. She’s gone. There’s no bringing her back.”

  Gabriel put his hand on my shoulder and pushed me to face him. “What are you talking about, Dex? She didn’t get married. And . . . she didn’t die. You don’t have to let her go without a fight.”

  He made it sound simple. I knew she hadn’t died or moved on, but I also knew I had to let go of things in my life that weren’t meant to be. “She’s a grown woman. I can’t make her do anything she doesn’t want to do, and she hasn’t called.”

  “So that’s it? You walk away?”

  “I didn’t walk anywhere. I’m right here where she left me.” She had my number.

  “Dexter, I’ve never seen you like this. I don’t want you to spend your life regretting that you didn’t do more.”

  “What more can I do? If she doesn’t feel the same way about me, I can’t force her.”

  Gabriel clapped me on the back. “You won tonight because you were determined and focused. Because you didn’t consider that you could ever fail. Am I right?”

  “Hollie might be a prize but she’s not a competition.”

  “You owe it to yourself to at least be clear to her about how you feel and what you want.”

  She knew how I felt about her.

  Didn’t she?

  “We didn’t get a chance to talk about next steps. I mentioned her staying in London though. Offered to put her in contact with some industry people.”

  “How very romantic,” Gabriel said, raising his eyebrows.

  “But obviously part of the reason I did that was because I didn’t want her to leave.” She had to know. I’d been the one to suggest she move into my place so we could spend more time together. I’d been the one to broach the topic of her staying in London.

  “You have to say the words. Like, make it very clear. Believe me when I tell you that lots can get lost in translation. You should have learned that from the situation with David.”

  There was nothing I could do to get back all the years I’d lost with my brother. And I couldn’t bear the thought of even one night without Hollie—let alone the rest of my life.

  If I’d bumped into Bridget a decade ago, I might be a different man. If I’d picked up the phone to David earlier, perhaps we would have reconciled years before now. I didn’t want Hollie to be another “if.”

  Just as the wounds of David and Bridget that I’d been carrying for years had finally healed, Hollie leaving had ripped my heart apart. And instead of leaving this fresh wound to fester and bleed, I wanted to stop wasting time. I wanted to heal.

  I wanted Hollie back in my life.

  Thirty-One

  Hollie

  I abandoned my suitcase, peeled off my coat and collapsed on our second-hand, brown velour couch as if it was good to be home. It wasn’t.

  “I don’t know what you did to Buck Newland, but thank God,” Autumn said, handing me a glass of water and coming to sit next to me.

  My first stop on the way back from the airport hadn’t been our trailer, but Buck Newland’s—Greg’s dad. I hadn’t managed to get him to lower the rent, but I had managed to get us an extra month to find another place to live. Buck had known our family a long time, and he knew the burden of sorting out new places to live was going to fall on me. He’d taken pity on me.

  “It’s still not long,” I said. “Did you find the listings?”

  “You think he might still come around?” She handed me a newspaper and flipped to the rentals page.

  “I doubt it. We’ve been here a long time and arguably we should be paying more rent.”

  “Not triple the amount.”

  “No. But Buck knows that apartments around here are few and far between. And he’s punishing us because . . .” Autumn already felt responsible for what had happened. I didn’t need to rub it in. “I need to focus on getting a rent deposit together for an apartment. We’ll have to live together and you and I will have to share a room until you leave.” The next few weeks I’d have to do a lot of extra shifts at the factory. It still wouldn’t be enough. All that extra work to go backward—back to living with my parents. At least Autumn would be able to leave Sunshine. “Mom is going to have to contribute from her work at Trader Bob’s and she’s going to have to keep working there if we’re going to have a hope of making what we need.” I was going to have to keep an eye on Mom, make sure she kept her job.

  “You think you’re going to miss London?” Autumn asked.

  That reminded me—I needed to unpack my carry-on and then the last traces of my trip to London would have left me. “It’s nice to be back to see you,” I said, avoiding the question.

  “What about Sexy Dexter? Will you miss him?”

  “Oh, I’m sure he’s moved on. You saw him.” I desperately wanted to know if he’d won the competition. It was late in London. The winner would have been announced by now. There would probably be an article about it online tomorrow. Dexter was sure to win. I’d seen the
designs from the other competitors and there was no comparison. Dexter had some kind of instinct or genetic programming that allowed him to see what would work and what would be too much. It was the elegance and simplicity of the Daniels & Co jewelry that I’d take as inspiration from my trip.

  I wasn’t giving up on jewelry, but I would have to shift my dreams a little and focus on my Etsy store. We needed the cash, and we needed it fast.

  “Did you text him? Call?”

  Dexter had emailed Autumn and asked me to call. But what was the point? I needed a clean break. I couldn’t look back. The sooner I resigned myself to my life in Sunshine, the better off I’d be.

  “No, and you promised you wouldn’t respond to his email.” If I had something to say to Dexter, I’d say it to him myself. I didn’t need Autumn playing go-between.

  “I haven’t. But you were living with him, Hollie. You two were serious about each other.”

  “It meant we got more time together, that’s all. I’m sure I wasn’t the first woman Dexter lived with. And I won’t be the last. He’s a great guy.”

  “So, you’re not going to do the long-distance thing?”

  “You think he’s the kind of guy who does FaceTime sex? Long distance is for relationships that are either super casual or super serious. It’s either ‘I’ll see you next time I’m in New York’ or ‘We’ll bear this time apart before our wedding.’ Dexter and me? We weren’t either. Whatever we had always had an expiration. Long distance would never have worked.” I’d thought about it. In fact, I’d thought about nothing else on the flight home. This was easier. No expectations. I’d go back to life as usual. The last thing I needed was to torture myself by pretending things could be different. Because things weren’t different. As my gramma used to say—deal with what you’ve got, not what you’d like. It was advice to live by.

  My sister was staring at me. “So, what, you shook hands, thanked each other for the orgasms and said ‘see you around’?”

  “I need to finish unpacking,” I said, getting to my feet and heading to my room. The last thing I wanted to do was pick through the leftovers of my relationship with Dexter. As if leaving him wasn’t bad enough, I hadn’t even had a chance to say goodbye.

  Heat roared in my chest at the thought of not being with him again. I was resigned but that didn’t mean I was happy about it. Just because I’d accepted the way things were didn’t mean it didn’t hurt every time I thought about him. It didn’t mean my heart wasn’t broken.

  “Are you okay?” Autumn said from the doorway.

  “I’ll be fine,” I said, unzipping my backpack. I knew I would recover. Somehow. Someday. I had to. “I just need a good night’s sleep.”

  “Nothing like your own bed, right? Although I imagine Dexter’s bed wasn’t so bad.”

  I pulled out a sweater and a pair of sneakers from my bag. “Yeah, I was okay with slumming it for a while.” I tried to squeeze out a smile and make a joke of it, but I felt drained—like my battery was running low and my body was fuzzy and my limbs were stuck in mud.

  “At least we’ve got an extra month, right?” she said.

  “Exactly.” It was the absence of bad news that equaled sunshine in Oregon. Things didn’t have to go right—if they just didn’t go wrong, that was a good day. I had to push down the memories of my time with Dexter. He’d been from a different time in my life. Now I needed to get back to my reality.

  Thirty-Two

  Hollie

  I plastered a grin on my face, trying to stop the hopelessness breaking through, as I ran my finger down the schedule. “And that one there,” I said to Pauly.

  “Are you sure? It means you’ll have four double shifts that week and only one day off.”

  “I’m sure,” I said.

  “Babe, it’s your first day back and you’re one shift in. You’ve forgotten how you’re going to feel after a week back in the saddle.”

  “Pauly, seriously. Just put me down. I don’t want to lose out. And call me before you put the next schedule up, will you?”

  “I heard you were thrown out of the trailer park,” Pauly said.

  Gosh darn it, I was sick of people knowing my business. “So, we’re all set?” I didn’t want to get into it with him. There was no point. I needed the money and working was the only solution.

  He shook his head and typed in my employee ID. “We’re all set.” Anyone would think I was asking him to do my shifts for me, he seemed so glum about it. I should be the one picking up whiskey on the way home to get me through the next few months.

  I squinted as I opened the door into the daylight of the Oregon afternoon to find my sister waiting for me.

  “Hey,” I said. “You need a hand with that?”

  She seemed to be weighed down with a thousand bags. What had she been buying and where did she get the money for any of it?

  “You can take the whiskey,” she said, pulling out a bottle from her purse. “It was making my shoulder ache.”

  “What are you buying whiskey for?” I asked as we made our way through the parking lot. Not toward a car, because I walked the ten minutes it took to get to work. Even in the rain, it was fine as long as you didn’t try and take the shortcut across the field.

  “You got plans tonight?” she asked, setting quite a pace back home.

  “You mean apart from that conference call with Paris and pilates at the country club?” I asked.

  “Good. You have plans with me then. We’re just going to make a start tonight. We won’t get it all done, but we can get an idea.”

  I peered into one of the shopping bags she was carrying. Whatever it was, it wasn’t groceries. “Make a start on what?” I said. “I’m happy if whiskey is part of the equation but all I want to do is go home and watch Bravo.” Anything to keep me distracted from thinking about London. About Dexter. About the life I’d left behind. At some point I’d maybe start designing again. I had a couple of ideas but no energy to put down on paper something I wasn’t going to be able to make.

  Buck was at the entrance of the park. “Hey, Buck, can’t stop. Gotta get back and pack,” Autumn said, pulling me by the sleeve when I slowed to say hi.

  What the hell was up with her. “What have you been buying? You better not have thrown away your textbook money on something stupid and whiskey.”

  “Come on and I’ll show you,” she said, marching toward our trailer.

  It seemed like time slowed with every pace toward home. It was the last place I wanted to be. Being indoors, I was faced with how starkly different my life had been this time last week.

  She was first up the steps, through the door and was emptying her bags before I’d even finished taking my hoodie off.

  “What are you doing?” I asked as she spread out what she’d brought back on the table. There were about a hundred Sharpies, each a different color, and a ruler and sticky notes. And then a huge roll of paper.

  “Is this an elementary school art project?” I asked, pulling out two shot glasses and setting them next to the whiskey.

  “Nope. This is planning HQ.”

  I poured out the whiskey, careful not to spill a drop.

  “What are we planning? How to not run out of Sharpies?”

  She ignored me, came over, picked up her shot glass and held it up. “Here’s to getting out of here,” she said and tipped back the shot.

  I’d drink to that. And I did.

  The warm, sleepy liquid slid down my throat, loosening my limbs and making the world slightly more bearable. A couple of more shots and I might be able to call Mom and Dad to make sure they were packing.

  “So,” she said, screwing the lid back on the bottle. “No more until we’ve done some work. We need to keep a clear head.”

  I was hoping a lot of whiskey was the plan to get out of here, but apparently Autumn had something else in mind.

  “Come on.” She shooed me over to the dining table like I was cattle.

  Autumn clearly meant business. And I f
igured it was easier to just play along. I’d sneak a couple more shots and just let her talk. And then I’d go to bed, hopefully before the dark and quiet could leave room for thoughts of Dexter to take over in my mind.

  She sat opposite me and rolled open the large sheet of paper. “So, I’ve been doing some research. We can do flights to London for five hundred dollars as long as you don’t mind a bit of a layover.”

  London? I sat back, the soothing effect of the whiskey lifting like a pigeon when a car backfired. I was totally confused. Autumn removed the lid of the bright pink Sharpie with a pop and wrote “out” at the top left of the page, underlining it twice.

  “You want to fill me in on what we’re doing here,” I asked, a little uncomfortable. I didn’t understand what London had to do with a pile of Sharpies, and there was no need to figure out the cost of flights. If I ever went back, inflation would have been around the block a few times and who knew what the price would be. “Because I really want to go and watch some housewives scream at each other.”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” She looked at me as if I was being deliberately dumb. “We’re hatching a plan to get your ass back to London.”

  I groaned and went to stand.

  “Sit down,” she snapped. My sister never snapped at me and I could count on the fingers of one hand how often she’d told me what to do.

  “I was just going to get the whiskey,” I lied.

  “I told you. We need clear heads.”

  “For what? I’m not going back to London.” I needed to be here—to earn money, to keep an eye on Mom so she kept bringing in a salary. “I don’t have anything to go back for.” My internship was over. I’d not made any friends other than Dexter really, and well . . . that was over. And now I couldn’t bring myself to find out who’d won the competition. I would be devastated for him if Daniels & Co hadn’t, but if they had, I was worried I’d be so bitter about not being there that I’d take that bottle of whiskey and down the entire thing.