by Claire Adams
“Of course,” I nodded dryly. “Whatever she can blame on my father, she will.”
“To be fair, she blames my father for just as many things,” Emma said, with a shrug.
“Oh?” I said, with some interest. I had never particularly warmed to my stepfather, who was as overwhelmingly boring as he was arrogant. “Like what?”
“Like my rebellious nature,” Emma said, with a satisfied smile. “She claims I inherited my sharp tongue, my brash manner, and my willfulness from him.”
“Huh, I wasn’t aware he had that much character,” I said slyly.
Emma shot me a sharp look that was laced with amusement. We had developed a shorthand over the last few years that some would describe as dark humor. Despite my best efforts today, however, I was having a hard time concentrating on the conversation. It was taking a lot of energy and concentration to attempt to appear calm and unfazed.
“As much as I would like to defend my father, I’m forced to agree with you,” she shrugged. “Although what he lacks in personality he makes up for in mystery.”
“Meaning?”
“He has secrets,” she replied. “Kind of like you.”
“Excuse me?” I said, taking the bait.
“I hear you have a girlfriend,” she said, and her tone shifted slightly. “Or at least, I hear you had a girlfriend.”
“That’s none of your business,” I said immediately.
She smiled, and I knew instantly that she wasn’t just going to let this topic go. “Nothing is ever really my business,” she said. “I make it my business.”
“Yes, I remember,” I nodded. “That’s why I avoided you when we were kids.”
Emma sat up and crossed her legs. Then she fixed her dark hazel eyes on me. “You and Molly, huh?” she said. “At long last.”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, come on,” she said, rolling her eyes. “You’ve always held a candle for Molly. Don’t even bother denying it.”
“What makes you think I did?” I demanded.
“I may be seven years younger than you, but that doesn’t mean I’m stupid, Tristan,” Emma said harshly. “Or blind, for that matter. I just noticed things.”
“You’ve seen Molly and I interact all of what…two times?”
“It was enough,” she said, with a shrug. “Remember that big party that your father hosted to open one of his many hotels?”
“Yes.”
“You invited me to that.”
“I didn’t invite you,” I reminded her. “You begged me to include you.”
“Whatever, same difference,” she said dismissively. “The point is I was there, and so was Molly and her family. I watched the two of you the whole night. At first it was only obvious to me that Molly was infatuated with you, but as the night progressed, I realized you had feelings for her, too.”
“Based on what?”
“The way you looked at her,” Emma replied. “The way your eyes lingered on her when she spoke. The way you made excuses to touch her throughout the dinner. The fact that you barely noticed the cocktail waitress who was flirting with you.”
“I noticed her,” I said defensively. “I slept with her later that night.”
“And did you think of Molly the whole time?”
“I knew letting you have a suite here would come back to bite me in the ass,” I groaned.
She narrowed her eyes at me. “Do you deny it?”
I sighed heavily. “No.”
She smiled smugly at me. “I thought so…. Now, what happened?”
“Nothing,” I said, trying to brush it off. “She was here for a few months, we got involved, and now we’re not involved anymore.”
“Why?” she pressed.
When Emma got like this, she was like a dog with a bone. She wouldn’t let go until she had dug deep. “This thing with Molly was…it was just a fling.”
“Bull.”
I raised my eyebrows. “It’s true.”
“Please, you think that’ll work on me,” Emma asked. “I know you, Tristan, better than you think. You’re lying to me.”
I groaned. “Do you want anything to drink?”
“I’d like some answers,” she shot back. “And while you’re supplying them, you can grab me a drink, sure.”
“Why do you care?” I demanded. “You barely knew Molly.”
“No, but I liked her,” she replied. “And I happened to think, even back then, that she was a perfect match for you.”
I rolled my eyes. “Don’t you want to go swim or something?”
“The whole resort is buzzing by the way.”
“People like to gossip.”
“Especially about their hot young boss,” Emma smiled sweetly. “Who apparently drove off a woman that everyone loves.”
“She chose to quit,” I said. “I never asked her to leave.”
“Uh-huh,” she said, fixing me with a curious expression.
“What?” I demanded, growing impatient.
“Would you like to tell me why she quit?”
“Obviously, it wasn’t working out between us,” I said, with a shrug. “And she couldn’t very well continue working for me after we broke up.”
“And you just let her go?”
“I told you,” I said. “She was just a temporary distraction.”
“You are an asshole,” Emma said pleasantly. “And a liar.”
“Why would I lie?” I asked calmly.
“Because you’re a coward,” she said simply. “You’re scared of how you feel about Molly, and instead of owning up to it, you’re running from your feelings.”
“Fuck,” I said, running my hand through my hair. “Who do you think you are? My shrink?”
She gave me a wide smile. “I’m starting my doctorate next year,” she said. “Psychology.”
“Fuck,” I repeated.
This time, Emma didn’t smile. Instead, she stood up and walked over to me in a manner that was so pronounced that it was decidedly intimidating. “Apparently, the rumor running around the resort is that Molly stormed into your office because she found out something.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “I’d really like to know who’s behind these salacious rumors.”
Emma rolled her eyes at me. “Is it true?” she demanded.
“She was mad about something,” I admitted at last. “Yes.”
“Which was what exactly?”
“She wanted me to give her a commitment,” I said, skirting around the real reason she had stormed into my office. “And, I wasn’t prepared to make her any promises.”
“Because you’re a coward,” Emma nodded.
“No,” I said defensively. “Because it’s what’s best for her.”
“Says who?”
“Me!”
“Oh yeah,” she scoffed. “Because you know what’s best for everyone.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Come on, Tristan,” Emma said, matching my annoyed tone. “You’re holed up here in Hawaii working so hard that you forget to actually live your life. You realize you’re not even thirty yet, right?”
“Your point?” I demanded.
“How are you qualified to know what’s right for Molly when you don’t even know what’s right for yourself?”
“I can still kick you out of that suite you’re in,” I threatened.
“Go ahead,” she said calmly. “I’ll just pack up my stuff and move right in here with you. Of course, next time I’ll be sure to lock the bathroom door in case another one of your girlfriends walk in and gets the wrong idea.”
She knew about that, too. I groaned inwardly, both infuriated and amazed at how accurate all her information was.
“What?” Emma asked, looking me in the eye. “You’re not going to deny that that’s what Molly was upset by?”
I sighed and collapsed against the single seater. “Our relationship would have ended at some point. This gave us both an out…
It’s better this way.”
“You’re a coward,” Emma snapped.
“You said that already,” I said callously. “So if you’re going to circle back around to your greatest hits, I’d suggest you take your leave and leave me to my misery.”
“So you admit you’re miserable after Molly left?”
I groaned loudly and buried my face in one of the throw pillows. “Please,” I begged. “Please just leave me alone.”
“Oh don’t worry about being alone, Tristan,” Emma said, as she moved towards the door. “You’ve got the rest of your life to be alone…especially if you keep running from all the people that love you.”
The moment she left, I felt a keen surge of relief. And on its heels came the thick choking discomfort of knowing that Emma was probably right.
Chapter 34
Molly
I was lying in bed in my sweats and an oversized t-shirt that I’d owned since I was twelve years old. It had a picture of Calvin and Hobbes on the front, and it made me nostalgic for a time before I knew Tristan Dubois. I was brooding over the sad turn my life had taken when I heard a knock on my door.
“I’m fine, Mom,” I called, throwing a pillow over my head. “I don’t want pie.”
“I’m not here to offer you pie,” Jason said, barging into my room without my consent. “In fact, I’m pretty happy you have no appetite at the moment…more pie for me.”
I rolled my eyes and sat up in bed as Jason closed the door behind him. “You were always a glutton for peach pie.”
“No arguments there,” he said, sitting at the edge of my bed.
“When did you get here?” I asked.
“Fifteen minutes ago,” he replied.
“Did you make the trip just for me?”
“I may have.”
I groaned and collapsed back onto my bed. “I knew Mom wouldn’t be able to resist calling you.”
“She was worried.”
“She doesn’t need to be.”
“Oh really?” he said as he lay down next to me. “Because it seems to me like you’re depressed about something.”
“I’m not,” I lied. “I’m just broody.”
“Broody?”
“That’s right,” I nodded. “A period of mourning is customary after you’ve lost your job.”
“Except you didn’t lose your job,” Jason pointed out. “According to Mom, you quit.”
“What has she told you?”
“That’s basically it,” he said. “She told me you arrived yesterday without warning with all your bags. You refused to eat anything and refused to talk about anything except to say that you quit and were home for good.”
I sighed. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Too bad,” he said unsympathetically. “Cause we’re going to talk about it.”
“No thanks.”
“Okay then, I guess I’ll have to call Tristan.”
Jason reached for his phone, and I groaned and smacked it out of his hand. “Fine, fine,” I said, in frustration. “I’ll tell you what happened.”
“Excellent,” he said triumphantly.
“But you have to promise me one thing.”
“Which is what?”
“Don’t give me a hard time about this, okay?”
He frowned. “Oh boy…”
“It’s not anything terrible,” I rushed to tell him. “It was just…poor judgment on my part.”
He raised his eyebrows. “This would all make a lot more sense to me if I knew what you were talking about.”
“Right,” I said, biting my lip. “Well… I just want to start off by saying I loved the job. The people were great, and the interaction I had with the staff was… Well, let’s just say I made some friends.”
“Okay, so you obviously didn’t quit because you hated the work.”
“No.”
“Has this got anything to do with Tristan?” he surmised.
I stayed silent, and that gave Jason his answer. “I see,” he nodded. “Well, if you’re worried I’m going to take Tristan’s side over yours, then you have nothing to worry about it. He may be my closest friend, but you’re my sister.”
I smiled and gave Jason a kiss on the cheek. “You’re a good big brother.”
“Stop stalling.”
I gave him a small smile, and then I sat up in bed and Jason mirrored my movements. “I should preface this conversation by making a confession.”
“Okay?”
“I have been in love with Tristan since I met him,” I said quietly.
“Whoa,” Jason said, as his expression changed into one of surprise. “That’s… Whoa…”
I smiled. “Does that freak you out?”
“I… Well… No,” he said slowly. “It doesn’t freak me out. It’s just… I mean, when you were younger we suspected you had a crush on him—”
“Who’s ‘we?’” I demanded.
“Mom, Dad, and I,” Jason admitted. “But as you got older, you seemed less…aware of Tristan, and we all assumed you’d gotten over him.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I just got better at hiding it.”
“Ah…”
“In any case, when I went down to the resort, everything was great, and I had a really good time. Tristan and I didn’t see much of each other, and that was expected, but upsetting to me at first. I started dating casually, and Tristan seemed to get jealous of that. Then the night of the resort Christmas party—”
“You slept with Tristan?” Jason interrupted, his voice going up an octave.
“Uh… Well…. yeah.”
“Fuck.”
“It wasn’t just sex, okay?” I said. “We had a relationship… We were in a relationship.”
“For how long?”
“Since Christmas.”
“What?”
“Yeah…”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he demanded.
“I didn’t tell anybody.”
“Is that your excuse?”
“I wanted to tell you,” I said. “But… Tristan insisted that he should be the one to tell you. But he obviously never did because he didn’t really intend for our relationship to be long term.”
“But you thought it would be?”
“Things were going so well between us,” I said. “Tristan was amazing—”
“Of course he was amazing, Molls,” Jason said, sounding frustrated. “That’s how he is with women. He’s charming and charismatic and a whole heap of other things besides. It’s how he lures them in. Did you actually believe he would be different with you?”
“Well, yeah,” I said defensively. “It was different between us.”
“Oh,” Jason said, with obvious disbelief.
“Scoff all you want,” I said. “It was different. I felt it. I’ve seen Tristan with old girlfriends, and I know how he behaves around them. With me, he was…more like himself.”
“Okay, then what happened?” Jason asked. “There’s a reason you’re here brooding about something. Something must have gone wrong to make you quit.”
I sighed. “He became distant with me suddenly,” I said, unable to bring myself to tell Jason the whole truth.
I didn’t want this little thing between Tristan and me to destroy the relationship that he had with my brother. I wasn’t sure why I wanted to preserve that friendship, but I felt like it needed to be done. A part of me also knew that when I told Jason, he would definitely be pissed off enough to cut Tristan off, and I wasn’t sure if I was ready to let go of him that completely. At least this way, I would still hear about him through Jason.
“Distant?” Jason repeated.
“He just… He was working all the time,” I said. “He didn’t have time for me.”
His expression relaxed a little. “Is that the reason you quit?”
“I was angry and emotional,” I admitted. “I made a split-second decision.”
“So…you didn’t quit because…”
“B
ecause what?” I pressed.
“Because you saw him with another woman or anything, right?”
I gulped inwardly. “No,” I said, hoping that I sounded convincing enough. “No, that wasn’t it.”
“Oh, okay,” Jason nodded. “Because if that had been the case, I would have flown down to Hawaii just to kick his ass.”
I smiled. “Thanks, big bro.”
“Anytime,” he said willingly.
I nodded and looked down at my hands, feeling slightly more depressed than I had this morning. Talking through the whole thing had made me realize how rash my decision had been at the time. I had been impulsive, and I remembered what Meryl had told me on the flight back home. Should I really have let a man get in the way of my career? I loved my job independent of Tristan, and I should have stayed at it, for no other reason than to prove to him that he didn’t have power over me.
“Hey,” Jason said, calling my attention back to him.
“Yeah?”
“What’s going on in your head?”
I smiled. It was a phrase that Dad used to use on us when we were a little too quiet at the dinner table. “I guess I’m just sad,” I said.
“About Tristan or your job?”
“Both,” I said. “But with Tristan, I tried. But my job I loved, I wish that I hadn’t quit it.”
“Don’t you have a contract?” he asked.
“Yes,” I admitted.
“How long is it?”
“One year,” I replied. “I didn’t really consider my contract before I quit, though.”
“It’s not like Tristan will do anything about it,” Jason pointed out. “But it is a good excuse for you to go back.”
“What do you mean?”
“Go back and tell him that since your contract is still in play, you didn’t feel right about quitting halfway through.”
“But…”
“It’s going to be hard for Tristan to replace you,” Jason said. “He’s not going to make an issue about it.”