by Avery, Joy
“Gram, do you remember Emory Chambers?”
His grandmother placed her fork down heavily, then dabbed at the corners of her mouth with her napkin. “Yes. I remember her.”
Christian eyed her for a moment. “You never cared for Emory. Why?”
The woman didn’t hesitate supplying an answer. “Because she wasn’t the perfect match for my grandson.”
“What you mean to say is you didn’t think she was good enough for a St. Claire.”
“No. I just didn’t think she was good enough for you. Chauncey, maybe, but not you. Anyway, that no longer matters. You’re marrying a lovely girl whom I happen to adore. One who is quite suited for you.”
Christian was certain the only reason his grandmother adored Yasmin so much was because of her last name. Like the St. Claire name, the Manchester name carried a lot of weight and held status. And if there was one thing his grandmother flourished on, it was status.
“And speaking of your bride, she misses you. Which is why I’ve had the jet fueled and a flight to Dubai arranged. You leave tonight. I’ll have the driver take you to the airport.”
Christian laughed. “What? Surely, you don’t expect me to just pick up and fly to Dubai. Besides, if Yasmin missed me so much, she would be here instead of seventeen hours away.”
“She’s a supermodel, Christian St. Claire. A highly sought after supermodel at that. You should be thrilled that she is in such high demand.”
“Ecstatic,” he said dryly, downing the rest of his white wine.
“Dessert now, ma’am?”
She waved off her butler. “No, that won’t be necessary. My grandson is leaving. He has a plane to catch.”
Chapter 8
Emory tried her damndest not to think about Christian, but she was failing miserably. She hadn’t heard anything from him since their exchange in her mother’s yard. Three days ago. As silly as it sounded, every time her phone rang, she hoped it was him. How pathetic could she get?
Remembering their last night together, she stabbed a hydrangea into the centerpiece she was working on. The only person she could be pissed at was herself. How could she allow her feelings to take control of her like that? Why did she have the right to question Christian’s love for Yasmin? Of course he loved her. He was marrying her for Christ’s sake.
“Yes, I love her.”
The words rang in her ears like deafening church bells, and it suddenly became difficult to breathe. She closed her eyes and wished that it was all a dream. That Christian had never strolled into her shop. That she’d never spent time with him. That’s she’d tossed the keys back to the rental car agent when he’d showed up at her front door three days ago, stating Mr. St. Claire had arranged the rental of the vehicle for her. She simply wanted to go back to the night before Christian. When things were much simpler.
In a few weeks, it’ll all be over, she reminded herself. She would never have to see Christian St. Claire again. The idea brought only minimal relief. As much as she didn’t want to see him, the more she craved to see him.
Pathetic.
The shop door chimed, and Emory welcomed the distraction. “I’ll be with you in one moment.”
Moving from the back of the shop, Emory stopped dead in her track. Of all the people she could have ever guess would visit her shop, Christian’s grandmother was not one of them. Her visit could only constitute trouble.
“Ms. St. Clair?”
“Mrs.,” she corrected her. The woman examined Emory as if she were a reject from a mental institution and wasn’t worthy of breathing the same air as her. “Dear, I thought I’d made myself clear two years ago when I asked you to stay away from my grandson.”
The woman hadn’t asked, she’d ordered. Clearly, Amelia St. Clair had discovered she and Christian had reconnected. But how? Surely, he hadn’t told her. Then it hit her. Yasmin had to have mentioned her name and Mrs. St. Claire had put two and two together. Oh, God. Did this mean Yasmin knew also? Was that the reason Yasmin hadn’t responded to the email she’d sent earlier?
“I’m not sure what you believe is going on, but I can assure you anything between Christian and I is strictly business.”
“Really?”
Emory understood immediately that it was a rhetorical question so she didn’t bother answering it. Mrs. St. Claire scrutinized her surroundings with a distasteful scowl on her face. The woman made Emory feel like a visitor in her own shop—an unwanted visitor at that.
Mrs. St. Claire thumbed a poinsettia leaf. Without the courtesy of eye contact, she said, “Stay away from my grandson, Ms. Chambers. Since we’ve had this conversation once before and now again, I trust we won’t need to have it a third time?”
She eyed Emory with a look of contempt. Emory folded her arms across her chest but remained silent. If she parted her lips now, something cruel would escape. Even though she loathed the hateful woman, Emory had been raised to respect her elders.
“I’ll take that as a yes.” She adjusted her chocolate-colored full-length mink coat. “Merry Christmas.” Then turned to leave.
Just like the cruel woman to add condescending mock. “I’m not afraid of you. I allowed you to intimidate me then. Not now.” Emory wasn’t sure where the burst of confidence surfaced from, but refused to back down.
Mrs. St. Claire performed a slow rotation toward Emory, then smiled in a cold, menacing manner. “Silly girl. You should be afraid.” Her face hardened even more. “Do you truly believe my grandson still loves you?”
“Yes, I do.”
A mix between a smirk and a smile slid across her face. “Well, why don’t you just call him and ask. He’s at the Armani Hotel. In Dubai.”
Emory felt a tug in her chest. Dubai? That explained why she hadn’t heard from him.
“It’s such a romantic place. The Armani. You can stand on the balcony and bask in the splendor of Dubai.” She glanced at her watch. “Which I imagine he and his lovely fiancée are doing at this very moment.” Amelia fished inside her purse, removed her cell phone, then offered it to Emory. “Shall we call?”
Emory’s regret shifted to anger. “You are evil. I hope you—” She stopped, refusing to allow this bitter woman any power over her. “Please leave my shop.”
“Gladly.” She turned and strolled away. “Oh, and in case you’re deluding yourself and choose not to heed my warning, I’ll be forced to tell my grandson that your love of money was far greater than your love for him. I’m sure I don’t have to remind you of the fifty thousand dollar check you asked for.”
Emory trembled with fury. Through clinched teeth, she said, “I never asked you for a dime.”
“Asked. Offered. Does it really matter which terminology is used? You took it. How would you explain that to my grandson? Do you think he’d be so forgiving when he learned your greed outweighed your love?” Mrs. St. Claire cupped her gloved hands. “Good day, Ms. Chambers.”
***
Christian hated international travel. The time zone switch, the cultural shock, the distance. But this trip needed to be made. This trip would order every step he took going forward. He rapped on Yasmin’s hotel suite door and waited. When he didn’t get an answer, he knocked again. Maybe she’d stepped out. Just then, he heard shuffling inside.
“Coming,” she said.
When the door opened, she jolted from his presence. Her long, jet-black hair cascaded over the white robe she wore. “Christian?”
“Surprise. Can I come in?”
She stepped aside. “Of course you can.”
Inside, he scrutinized the impressive looking room, its modern furnishings, and sleek layout. This was definitely five-star accommodations.
A slow smile lit her face, and she draped her arms around his neck. “It’s good to see you. If you’d told me you were coming, I’d have met you at the airport. What are you doing here?”
“I needed to see you,” he said. “Face-to-face.”
Yasmin pulled away and stared at him, confusion playing
in her expression. “Face-to-face? Is everything okay?”
No. Things were far from okay. And he would take the blame for them being that way. Washing a hand over his lips, he pointed to the sofa. “Can we sit?”
By this time, Yasmin’s expression had turned to worry. “I don’t want to sit, Christian. What’s going on? Are my parents okay?”
“Yeah, yeah. Everyone is fine.”
She rested a hand over her chest and exhaled heavily. “Thank God.”
“Yasmin…” Christian searched for the precise words. “Do you remember me telling you about the time I nearly burned the house down when I was a kid, with Chauncey inside?” He’d never been more frightened in his life when he thought his brother would perish because of him.
Yasmin studied him a moment. “No.”
Of course she didn’t, because he’d only shared the traumatic experience with one person. Emory. That’s how he’d known he loved her. He hadn’t been afraid, or ashamed, to show his vulnerability in front of her. He continued, “What about the reason why I wanted to design airplanes?”
“I don’t—”
“What about how I felt when my mother died. Or how angry I was at my father when he decided to move to England and start a new family, leaving me and Chauncey for my grandmother to raise? Or why I—?”
“Christian!” Yasmin spoke with her hands. “No, you’ve never told me any of those things. What is this all about?”
“It’s about…love.” He paused a moment. “It’s about love. I can’t marry you, Yasmin. I can’t marry you because, in my entire life, I’ve only ever loved one woman.”
These had to be words no woman wanted to hear weeks from her wedding day. He prepared to be mauled, or at least, slapped tasteless. Ignoring the potential risk, he continued. “You have to believe I never meant to hurt you, Yasmin. I just never expected to—”
“To discover you’d never stopped loving Emory?”
Instead of fists, the blow he’d experienced came in the form of words. The shockwave of her comment coursed through his entire body. “How…?”
“I’d misplaced my passport. In the process of tearing up the house looking for it, I came across a box in the garage. I saw pictures of you and Emory together. You looked…happy. Really happy.”
He knew exactly the box she referred to. The one he hadn’t been able to bring himself to toss out. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
Yasmin hugged herself and slid her attention away from him. When her focus returned, she said, “I wanted to at first. I wanted to be angry. I wanted to feel something, anything. But I didn’t. I’m pretty sure I should have been livid, but instead, I felt relieved. I think in the back of my mind I was hoping that the two of you would discover you’d never stopped loving each other. It would have given me a way out.”
“A way out of what?”
“This engagement. I don’t want to marry you either, Christian. I just didn’t know how to tell you. Plus, my mother and your grandmother were both so excited. I didn’t want to disappoint them.”
Christian should have been insulted, upset, or at a minimum hurt. But he wasn’t any of those things. Like Yasmin, he experienced relief. And humor. He laughed, then laughed some more. Yasmin joined in and they laughed together.
Sobering, she shook her head. “God, we’re pitiful.”
“Yeah, we are.”
“How’d we allow it get this far, Christian? Neither one of us wanted to be married—at least, to one another. How did it get this far?”
“A lack of communication,” he said.
“Yeah. We were never good at that, were we?”
He shook his head. “No, we weren’t. Out of curiosity, why did you say yes to my proposal if you didn’t want to get married?”
“For the same reason you proposed.”
The baby.
Christian rested a hand on the side of his neck. “Funny how things work out, huh?”
“Yes.” Yasmin patted her hand against his chest. “You’re a good man, Christian St. Claire. Emory is lucky to have you.”
Emory. He frowned, doubting she wanted anything to do with him at this point. But that damn sure wouldn’t stop him from trying to change her mind.
Chapter 9
Cleaning was what Emory did when she was stressed, and the visit from Amelia St. Claire the day before had stressed her plenty. But something told her Jordyn would have preferred to have been anywhere but inside Emory’s walk-in closet, helping to sort through the clutter. Maybe it was the frequent heavy sighs, or the constant trips to the bathroom that lasted fifteen minutes.
Jordyn tossed her head back in frustration. “Can we please take a break?”
“The pizza should be here shortly. We’ll break then.”
Jordyn blew out another heavy sigh, not bothering to mask her boredom. “Okay.”
“You’re the one who volunteered to help me, remember?”
“Yes, I did. I just didn’t think you’d take your Christian frustrations out for four consecutive hours. On a Saturday night, nonetheless,” she whispered.
Emory laughed. “No one’s thinking about Christian St. Claire. I was fine before he strolled into my shop, and I’m fine now.” Though, that was hardly the case. “Pass me that sandal. I think I just saw the match in that pile over there.”
Jordyn passed Emory a black, strappy shoe. “He loves you, you know?”
Emory stared at Jordyn a moment, then shook off the sting of her words. Christian didn’t love her. He loved the woman he was about to marry. Lifting a purse, she said, “Do you want this Louis Vuitton bag? It’s practically new.”
Jordyn pushed the bag away. “That’s not a Louis, that’s a Stuey. Anyway, did you hear what I said?”
Emory ignored her. “I think I have the wallet to match around here somewhere.” She sorted through another pile.
“Emory?”
“Where did I put that wallet?”
“Emory! Stop!”
Emory hurled a bedroom slipper she’d fished from a pile. “What, Jordyn? What do you want me to do? Admit that I love him, too? I do. I love him like I’ve never loved any man.” Lingering tears stung her eyes. “Do you want me to admit that his getting married hurts me to my core? It does, because I should be the one he’s pledging forever to. But I screwed up.” She exhaled. “I screwed up. Instead of standing up for the man I loved, I walked away from him. His grandmother was right. I didn’t deserve him then, and I don’t deserve him now.”
“His grandmother?”
A tear slid down Emory’s face. Dragging her hand across her cheek, she said, “I lied. I lied to Christian. I lied to you. I lied to myself.”
“Lied? What does that mean?”
“It means the only reason I broke up with Christian was because of his grandmother. She’d said…” Emory closed her eyes, swallowed hard, and recited the words Amelia St. Claire had spoken to her. “She’d said her grandson was accustomed to having the best of everything. Including women. That I may be a good lay, but that’s all I’d ever be to him. ‘He’s a St. Claire. St. Claire men don’t marry beneath them. When he’s done getting what he wants from you, he’ll dump you like garbage.’”
The words still packed as much punch now as they had when they were first said to her. Emory decided to spare Jordyn the details of how Mrs. St. Claire had used their mother’s diagnoses against her. When the pain from the memory passed, Emory opened her eyes. Tears ran down Jordyn’s face, and a great deal of compassion shone in her eyes.
“You never told me,” Jordyn said.
“I never told anyone. I… I just wanted to forget.”
“Why did it matter what she thought? Christian loved you, Em.”
“I know he did. But he had dreams, Jordyn. Big dreams. Dreams that required money. His grandmother threatened to cut him completely off. And I have no doubt the vengeful woman would have. She’d promised he would regret the day he ever met me. I couldn’t… I couldn’t allow that to happen.”
/>
Jordyn slapped at her tears. “You tell him. You tell him now what that…that…ooo! I’m so pissed.”
“I can’t.”
Jordyn’s face contorted. “You can’t? Why the hell not?”
The doorbell chimed, drawing both their attentions.
“The pizza’s here,” Emory said, eager to end the conversation.
“I’ll be right back,” Jordyn said, fanning her eyes. “This conversation is not over.”
But Emory needed it to be. Instead of debating, she nodded and returned to tackling the disarray around her.
After fifteen minutes had passed and no Jordyn, Emory figured she’d escaped to the bathroom again. “Jordyn?”
No answer.
“Jordyn?” she called out again, this time with a bit more authority.
“Jordyn left.”
The sound of the masculine voice startled Emory. She gasped at the sight of Christian filling the doorway. His presence made her nervous and caused her heart to pump overtime. Coming to her feet, she said, “Wh—” The words stuck in her throat.
“What am I doing here?”
She nodded.
“I needed to talk to you.”
So many emotions washed over her. Christian’s presence was like a breath of fresh air, but it also made it hard to breath. She couldn’t continue this way. “You shouldn’t be here, Christian.” Tempted to ask him about his trip to Dubai, she resisted. That would mean she had to explain how she knew he’d traveled there.
“This is where I want to be,” he said.
Stepping over scarves, purses, and shoes, she brushed past him. “I can’t do this.”
His brows furrowed. “Do what?”
“This. Me pretending I can be your friend. I can’t. I am in love with you. I’ve always been in love with you. And because of that love, I’m a sinking, Christian. Every minute we’re together, I plunge deeper and deeper. I’m drowning.” Tears stung her eyes. “I can’t do this. It’s not fair to you. It’s not fair to me. It’s not fair to Yasmin.”
“You’re right,” he said.