Lunch proceeded in a respectful and dignified manner. Somewhere along the way, I became preoccupied with my thoughts. What did Liam think? Were we just having sex? Had this just been some entertainment for the few months he was in New York? Did he have any of the feelings I did? Was it ridiculous to let myself get involved with him? Should I keep a tighter rein on my emotions? How do you ask these questions after two dates? (Granted, one ended with us having sex.)
Two weeks before, I hadn’t known this man, and now I was talking fellatio with him in public. Without realizing it, I finished my pasta and merlot, and the mood had changed from flirtatious and light to something more serious.
“Well, I say we get this shopping expedition underway!” Taylor announced after we had turned down the offer of dessert. “Where do you want to go, Charlotte?” Her tone seemed to evoke the earlier mood of the day.
“I don’t really know. I just thought I’d wander and have a look. I’d like to get a bottle of wine or two for dinner this evening. I think we drove past a wine shop,” I answered, hoping my lighthearted tone didn’t seem forced.
“I saw a bookstore that I think I’ll go hang out in until you’re ready,” Marcus remarked.
“Oh, so is bookstore the code word for sex shop in the Hamptons?” I asked Marcus.
“I don’t know. You could ask Martha Stewart when you run into her at the wine store.” He seemed relaxed enough.
“How much time do you want, Liam?” I asked without looking him in the eyes.
“How about we wander down the street and see if anything looks promising? I’ll need an hour at most. I could give you a call on your cells and let you know…” When he answered, his tone was carefully neutral.
In front of the restaurant, Marcus and Taylor went their separate ways, leaving Liam and me alone. He reached out and took my hand. I looked down at his and felt its warmth. “Let’s walk this way,” he suggested. We walked the short distance to a wooden bench nestled between two arching trees. When we sat down, I sat farther away from him than he wanted, so he slid closer to me, putting his arm on the back of the bench and resting his hand on my shoulder.
While twiddling with the silk fabric of my dress, he gazed at the bustle on the street. “This reminds me a bit of shopping on High Street in Dublin, where I grew up. Saturday is always a busy day. I love the energy of the weekend. Saturday is electric and then Sunday is so lazy.” I found myself relaxing as I listened to the lilt of his voice and the description of his home. He told me about his parents and three brothers, and I found myself laughing at his stories.
“Your poor mother. The four of you must have been horrible!” I remarked after a particularly outrageous story involving a soccer ball, a muddy field, and a group of girls.
“Don’t feel sorry for her. One slap from her and you’d never doubt who was in charge!” The twinkle in his eye suggested that he respected his mother and found it all amusing. It was endearing.
Without warning, those laughing eyes turned serious; his look became quite intense and his hands held mine a little tighter. “You don’t know, Charlotte, but I’m thirty-six years old. Not to be bragging, but I’ve had enough relationships to know when a woman is questioning something. I’m not entirely certain what I said or did to make you go all quiet and sit as far away from me as you could. But I hope this helps.” He looked at me more intensely, without any nerves. “I really like you. I think that after we get to know each other a bit better, I could more than really like you. I want to hold your hand, talk to you for hours, and see if we want the same things out of life. I’m not going to attempt to deny that when the image of your bare skin next to mine flashed across my brain, the blood left my head, and I said idiotic things.” In humor, he added, “By the way, it’s likely to happen again!” Back to being more serious, he added, “The only question I have is, what do you want?”
As he began, I’d felt awkward but by the time he was finished, I was mesmerized. Of course I wanted someone who knew me, loved me, and couldn’t keep his hands off me. Giving way to brutal honesty, I said, “I want the same things. I was sitting in the restaurant wondering all kinds of things. Truth is, I just haven’t had that many relationships, and I still find certain conversations awkward. Thanks for being so honest! It really makes me more comfortable.” I put my hand to his cheek. He lowered his head, giving me another heart-stopping kiss.
Through the warmth that infused me, I suddenly realized that a large part of what was bothering me was that I was busy falling for someone and hadn’t told my closest friends. Why was that? Tiziana hadn’t been able to tell me about falling in love with Ted, all because of Des. My excuse was that I’d been behaving like a six-year-old. I finally absorbed that Tiziana had been trying to spare my feelings.
I was so lost in my thoughts that I only came back to the present when he unfurled his arm from around me and tilted my head so that he could look at me. One look at his beautiful green eyes and I was a puddle. Tears gushed from my eyes, and I felt awful. I was pulled into the safe embrace of Liam’s arms, and my face burrowed into his chest. He murmured words of comfort and rested his cheek against my hair. When my tears had been shed, I stayed there breathing in his warmth, aftershave, laundry detergent, and deodorant until I’d regained complete control of myself. I dug a tissue from my purse, mopped my face and blew my nose.
With what had to be a blotchy face and a red nose, I peeked at him with a wavering smile. His hand was holding mine, and his thumb slid across the skin on the back of my hand. I took a deep breath to calm myself and confessed, “I really like you. You’ve been nothing but very kind and… real… with me. I’ve had so much going on with work that I’ve been ignoring other areas of my life altogether. I need to sort out a few things, and then I’ll feel much better.”
With a squeeze of his hand, Liam let mine go. His smile was warm and polite. Wait! Polite wasn’t good. I didn’t like looking at him and not seeing affection for me in his eyes. Indifference wasn’t good. Before my brain could put words and action together, he stood up and took a step away. “I’ll give you time to think, to try to sort things out. I’ll just go pop in to a few shops and see if there’s anyone I can talk to. I’ll give a call in a bit and see if you’re ready to leave.” Then he walked away.
I sat on the bench for a few more minutes, realizing that I should have talked to him. Taylor was right. If I had told him about Des, I could have told him about being angry at Tiziana. My guess was that what I said had been horribly misunderstood. Fortunately, I had two days to try to undo the confusion. I scanned the street and saw people peering into storefronts, looking for inspiration.
“Well, it isn’t every day a gorgeous, available, successful Irishman offers himself up. Do something!” I muttered to myself.
Chapter Seven
WE MET BACK at the car close to an hour later. Loaded down with bags, Taylor was quickly the brunt of much teasing by Marcus. “Just Easter goodies!” she said, defending herself.
“You’re pathetic,” Marcus said as he turned his attention to me. “You only have two bags! What kind of woman are you?”
“The kind who uses discretion!” I replied in defense of my honor. I looked at Liam, hoping for some kind of taunt, but only saw polite neutrality. Hoping to draw him in, I immediately teased Marcus about his search for Martha Stewart and sex toys. The distraction only lasted as long as it took us all to pile back into the car.
If during the remaining drive to the Clarkson Estate, Marcus and Taylor noticed that Liam and I were subdued and sitting farther apart, neither of them let on. It was a relief to see the gate to the drive and an even greater relief to get out of the car.
At the massive forest green front door, we were met by the friendly man I’d met the last time I’d come to the Hamptons with Taylor. “Hello, Jeff, how are you? You look great!” Taylor said, greeting him as she gave him a hug. Marcus shook Jeff’s hand.
“Who’s Jeff?” Liam asked me quietly.
“J
eff runs the house for the Clarksons. I wouldn’t call him a butler. I’m not sure that would be politically correct. He’s great. He makes everything run like clockwork.”
Taylor reintroduced me to Jeff, and Liam stepped forward and introduced himself as a friend of Marcus’s. The lack of communication earlier was making itself known. I was becoming more and more insignificant to Liam by the minute. Taylor shot me a confused look, and I replied with a small shake of my head. “Later,” I mouthed.
Liam’s eyebrows shot heavenward when Jeff’s very southern drawl became more evident. “Won’t you all have a cocktail on the back veranda? I have the bar stocked and some appetizers waiting. Your mother called to let you know that they’ll be arriving just before dinner,” he said as he led us into the house. “Now, don’t worry about your bags. I’ll take them up for you,” Jeff added over his shoulder as we walked through the foyer and down the wide hallway to the rear of the house.
Having provided us with our beverages and something to munch on, Jeff was off in a flash.
“I need to get me a Jeff!” Marcus announced. “Wouldn’t it be great to show up at home, have a drink waiting, house cleaned, dinner cooking, and laundry done? How do you make that happen?”
The three of them debated which was the best path to take to end up in the Clarksons’ enviable position. I quietly listened to the friendly exchange while I sipped my glass of icy-cold white wine. When I’d finished, I excused myself.
I went to the kitchen to find Jeff, who was preparing dinner. “Jeff, I hate to trouble you, but I need to make a long-distance call to Europe. Is there somewhere private I can go?”
I was led to a gorgeous sunroom on the west side of the house decorated in dark mahogany furniture with bright fabrics. Glorious tropical plants filled the room. I found a chaise and tucked up in a corner beneath the canopy of a huge banana plant after Jeff left. It was 4:30 in New York, so it would be 10:30 in Italy. Who knew if Tiziana would be home on a Saturday night?
The phone rang twice before a male answered the phone. At first, I was startled, but then I realized I had heard the voice before. It was Ted.
“Hello, this is Charlotte Young. May I speak with Tiziana, please?” I didn’t want to slight Ted. I just didn’t know him well enough to start chatting with him.
“Sure! Just a minute,” he answered happily.
The phone clattered as it was set down and then there was chatting in a distant room, and footsteps approached the phone. “Charlotte?” Tiziana asked with concern in her voice.
“Hi, Tiziana,” I said with guilt.
“Charlotte, how are you? Are you all right?” she asked, rushing.
“I’m fine, Tiziana. How are you?”
“Bella, I’m fine, but not. Life with Ted is perfetto, but everything… no.”
Not really knowing where to start, I took the coward’s way out and asked, “How are the wedding plans coming along?”
She regaled me with stories about planning hell. And we had a few good laughs at her mother’s expense. I gasped when she alluded to how much things cost.
“Well, if you weren’t inviting most of Europe, it wouldn’t be quite so expensive,” I teased when she told me how many people she planned to invite. It seemed that anyone and everyone were being invited to this wedding.
Finally, I said, “Tiziana, I’m sorry. I’ve spent so much time and energy being angry at Des that it has only just occurred to me that all this has to be hard on you. I’ve missed out on so much. I’ll try, I really will, to let it go. So, please! Tell me how you and Ted came to be in the first place.” I thought it would help us both if we got entirely caught up, and there was so much I didn’t know.
“Well, darling, it happened so fast. After we met at the casino, I gave Ted my phone number. I felt guilty because of Gianni, but I was so compelled by Ted. He called me several times while we were in Chamonix. When things with Des became so complicated, it seemed better to keep my phone calls with Ted to myself. It wasn’t until I returned to Italy and found him waiting on my doorstep that I realized how serious he was. He spent the next few weeks in Rome. We had so many romantic dinners, spent hours walking all over the city. When he went home, I felt dead inside. Fortunately, when he went back to England, he felt the same. He asked me to come visit him. I told him I couldn’t do that until I had confessed everything to Gianni.”
“Wow. How did Gianni take it?”
“Yes, of course, Gianni was destroyed. I felt terrible. No, I still do. Anyway, I got on the next possible plane to London and spent three days there. They were the most passionate three days of my life.” She laughed at the pleasant memories.
“When did he propose?”
“When we were in Chamonix, only I didn’t know he was serious. He had just helped us ski out of the clouds while Des was helping you. I thought he was teasing me! It wasn’t until I was in England and he proposed again that he confessed that he had been serious the first time,” she explained. Finally the subject returned to me. “How about you, bella? How are you? Will you come to Saint-Tropez?”
“Well, things are pretty much the same in that department. I’ll have to let you know at the last minute, I’m afraid. Is that okay?”
“Of course, you can just show up at the last minute, you know that.”
Then I launched into telling her about my literal run-in with Des. “It was so weird, Tiziana. He said, ‘Clearly, I was wrong.’ I have no idea what he meant. I was just relieved the police didn’t show up and arrest me.”
“I have to admit that I haven’t talk to Ted about this lately. Des made it clear that he didn’t want the issue to come between them. I can only assume that if Ted hasn’t said anything, he doesn’t know anything,” she replied, sadly.
“I wonder what Ted thinks of me,” I dared to say.
“Oh, bella, he thinks very highly of you. He knows that you’re a smart and capable woman. Obviously, I’ve already told him about the situation from my perspective,” she said, soothing me and my ego. Trying to get the conversation to a lighter plane, she continued with a giggle, “For the future, I suggest you begin by talking to your manicurist about how she’s styling your nails.”
“That’s for sure!” I laughed. Not quite able to let it go, I returned to the previous topic. “I literally hate the thought that, with Des in your life, I can’t just show up. That everything has to be carefully planned. I’ve read and reread the documents, and I don’t see any way that he and I can be in the same place.”
Tiziana reverted to her soothing tone with her familiar purr. “Bella, please don’t worry. Ted will talk to Des. It will all be resolved, and this won’t be a problem. I’m sure, by the wedding, we’ll be laughing about this. Remember that I love you, too, and I’m not going to let someone, even Ted’s best friend, cause us problems.”
Restored by her confidence, I declared, “Okay! Enough about him. I want to tell you about someone I’ve met!”
“How gorgeous. Tell me all about him,” Her voice was full of happiness. For the next twenty minutes, I rambled on about Liam, told her everything from how gorgeous he was, to how concerned I was about falling for someone who lived far away and about my possibly having blown it this afternoon. “It sounds like a very familiar story to me. I understand why you’re worried. You know what helped me? Do you remember that movie you dragged me to, The Bridges of Madison County? In it there is a line, something like, ‘This kind of certainty comes but once a lifetime.’ You need to let your heart lead once in a while.” She wore her passionate Italian heart on her sleeve.
“You’re right!” Suddenly I heard talking and heels clicking at the front entry. “Listen, Tiziana, I need to go. I’m at a friend’s home for Easter, and her family has just arrived. I really am glad you were home. Thanks for being such a great friend. I love you. Say hello to Ted, and I’ll call sometime this week, okay?”
“Okay, bella. Ciao for now. Listen, if Ted talks to Des, I’ll give you a call.”
I sat f
or a minute, quietly taking in the conversation with Tiziana. My body and soul were in less turmoil. There would never be enough words to describe how grateful I was for my friends, and I was enormously relieved that I had called her. Whether things with Des Bannerman ever got resolved or not, I couldn’t let him affect our friendship. He would have to learn to deal with me.
Leaving the quiet sanctuary of the sunroom, I found Taylor, Marcus, and the rest of her family sprawled on the veranda. A drink in everyone’s hand, the party was in full swing. “Oh, hello, Charlotte. Taylor mentioned you would be here,” Faith Clarkson said with all the warmth of the Atlantic Ocean crashing on the sand a few hundred yards away.
“Hello, Ms. Clarkson, Mr. Clarkson. I hope your drive was pleasant,” I greeted them as I looked around for Liam.
Taylor and Marcus finally bailed me out. “Let’s go down to the beach and find Liam. I’m sure he’d like to join us for a drink.”
“Oh, I’ll go! Your parents have just arrived. I’d be happy to!” I offered, leaping out of my chair.
“My, aren’t we eager,” Ms. Clarkson commented coolly.
Certain that this was some kind of leading statement, I decided to go in search of Liam before she could sense my present vulnerability or all hell would break loose.
I heard Taylor in the retreating distance remind her mother of her manners as I walked down the worn wooden boardwalk to the beach.
Where the water gently rolled up to the white sand, I looked for sand dollars and shells while searching the horizon for Liam. After walking for twenty minutes, I turned around, thinking to search the other direction. I raised my hand when I saw that he was no more than one hundred feet away, then walked quickly in his direction.
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