Tracy had gone to the Journal to defuse the Gordon Jones situation for me. I wasn’t sure if I still had a job per se, but it was all a moot point, I refused to work for Alistair. Nicolas had called Dad to let him know of my arrival. It was impossible for me to use my phone to call out, and I was stranded in the apartment.
Frustration boiled up. “And all for what? A whim? A decision to just throw this down, when I had everything to lose and he had everything to gain? It was selfish! It was selfish and lax and terrible of him to do it, when all he cared about was himself. Alistair is not an idiot. He understood the risks, he calculated the fallout. And he still took the chance when every direction swung towards disaster.”
The words I had held in for hours bubbled out, spiteful and insecure and angry and hurt. “And you know why? Because he’s only thought about himself. In every scenario, he’ll emerge unscathed. In every scenario, I’m screwed. And now I have to pick up the pieces, and I’ll be damned if you or anyone convinces me that he can fix this for me. He made the mess, he’ll clean it up, but I’ll take care of myself.
“Do you know how long I’ve been doing this? Six years domestic and international, four in college, three in high school. I struggled to improve. I made a name for myself. I was always professional, always timely, and my research and writing was high-quality. I was someone serious, a person who did good work. I was on my way to becoming something significant. I had pride in that person, in my career. None of that matters now. When people see my name, I’m just some rich bastard’s Friday-night screw. He turned me into that in the world’s eyes. If you can’t see that, then this conversation is over. Especially since I didn’t want to talk to you in the first place. Just leave.”
I had standards to uphold, especially for myself. I’d failed those, and I had broken the creed. I was more than Alistair’s conquest; I was my own woman and I could make my own decision about who I wanted to be with. And the worst part was that he didn’t trust me to decide on us, that he hadn’t just asked me.
He could have just called me like a normal person. He could have sidestepped all this insanity and just reached out. Instead he had to pull strings, force situations, box me in.
It all boiled down to an utter betrayal of every part of me—who I was as a woman, who I was as a journalist. He’d disregarded all that and torpedoed every part of my life that mattered in that regard.
My standing in the industry, in the city.
The way people viewed me.
Airing out my personal life for all to cackle over.
This had all been a mistake. I should have listened to my gut. He’d treated me like a puppet he could mold and direct.
I had been right to be wary. I had been right to feel in my gut that all this was wrong to start with. That incessant voice in me that had told me to step back and walk away had been right.
I shook my head. I couldn’t think too much. Thinking and wondering and worrying had led me to this moment, and now I just had to act. I had to get home and figure out what was next.
I brushed past Gertrude into my bathroom, gathering toiletries by the handful.
Gertrude, ever relentless, followed.
“He does love you. This wasn’t done with malice.”
My eyes flickered to Alistair’s toothbrush, which had brought me such immature joy this morning. I scowled at it, saying, “I don’t want to hear this.”
Gertrude grabbed my shoulder to stop me from walking out.
“I’m telling the truth, Ms. Reynolds.”
“And I do not know how to make this any plainer—it does not matter. It doesn’t matter what he feels for me or why he did this. It’s done. Everything is ruined.” I jerked myself out of her viselike grip. “Why are you here, anyway? You hate me, couldn’t wait to be rid of me.”
“Mr. Blair didn’t send me. Despite what you think of me or what you consider my motives to be, I have been with Mr. Blair for years. I have come to care for him very deeply, much like a brother. You have a brother, no? Can’t you understand the need to protect him?”
“Don’t you dare try to compare my relationship with my brother with whatever sick relationship you and Alistair share.”
Gertrude hesitated while I gave her a pointed raise of my right eyebrow. I shoved past her back into the bedroom and flung my toiletries onto the bed. With snapping motions, I packed them into my duffel.
“Mr. Blair is desperately starved for love. He doesn’t want anyone else except you.”
I was busy shoving the last bottles into my duffel bag when my arms slowed. My skin was growing cold and the harsh sound of rain striking the glass windows echoed through the vast room. I was weary.
“You’re wrong.” I turned around and stared at Gertrude through the bathroom doorway, in her infuriatingly perfect suit with perfect heels, looking not a day over twenty. “Alistair needs no one.”
Gertrude considered me for an edge of a second and then shook her head slightly. She began walking slowly to me, the tips of her heels making light clicking noises against the tile.
“You’re wrong. You have no idea how wrong you are, Ms. Reynolds.”
I turned my back to her before she reached me, but before I could make a move, a heavy thud crashed next to my bags.
A leather-bound book with gilded cursive script. It was old with its corners scuffed and torn. The pages’ edges had once been colored with gold, but were now caked in black streaks.
Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri.
“What is this?” Was this a trick, some sort of weird German power play? Like a horse’s head in the bed?
Gertrude said, “Look at it. Open it.”
I ran my fingers across the worn cover. There was a force inherent in it, an energy that drew me to it. The book gave off a faint scent of old wood, of burnt trees. I opened the book carefully, and it fell to a dog-eared page and the dark gray back of a picture jammed up against the spine.
The photo type was familiar, the vintage Polaroid film that Nicolas used to use. I pinched the photo between my fingers and slowly turned it over.
It was a picture of … a girl?
I squinted. The Polaroid was old and a bit faded; it had definitely seen better days. A young teenage girl with long wavy brown hair was standing upon the bottom rails of a wooden fence and leaning forward to the camera. She had a wide smile that crinkled her big eyes. Her hair flowed over her bare, lightly tanned shoulders.
She was me.
I recognized the scene. It was the summer that Alistair had run away from St. Haven; he was helping his dad mend fences on the far side of their property. Nicolas and I had made it a routine to go out to Blair Farms and harass Alistair while he worked. He didn’t act it, but I knew he enjoyed our company.
At least, I thought I knew it until he left town without telling anyone, not even me.
Sadness twisted in my chest, mingled with confusion. Questions about why he still held on to this old photo, years later, percolated into my mind. They wondered, they searched …
But with a shake of my head, I thrust myself out of the past and into the present. The harsh reality of now thudded and screamed, reminding me of what was at stake.
“Where’d you get this?” I snapped the book close, shuttering my teenage self away. “Why do you have this?”
“This is Mr. Blair’s.”
“So my ex-boyfriend uses a photo of me as a bookmark. Big deal, who—” But before I finished my sentence, Gertrude, who had by now made it within arm’s length of me, shot her hands out and gripped my wrists. I widened my eyes in surprise and then immediately narrowed them in irritation; her grip was hard and those claws of hers dug into my flesh.
“Gertrude, let me go. I’m warning you.”
There was a staredown between us, and while I waffled on whether to slap her or punch her, Gertrude released me and stepped back.
“Please.” Her eyes turned soft and those harsh lines of her face diminished. “Just hear me out.”
Be
fore I could answer, Gertrude began pacing, walking short, frantic lines in front of me. Her voice was strained.
“Four years ago, Mr. Blair had a fire at his old building. Electrical problem in his neighbor’s apartment. The sprinklers weren’t enough. The flames engulfed the entire floor within minutes. It was in the middle of the night, and he was asleep. As his emergency contact, I got a call from the police at two a.m.
“I raced to the hospital. The firefighters told me other residents had said Mr. Blair went back into the building three times to evacuate his neighbors, but went back a fourth time even though everyone was accounted for at that point. Everyone told him not to go in, that the fire was out of control. He told them he needed to grab something important from his apartment, something he couldn’t let go of, something he couldn’t live without. The firefighters found him collapsed in the stairwell, unconscious and suffering from smoke inhalation.
“The hospital gave me his effects while he was in treatment. He had nothing on him, except the item which he risked his life for. This book.” Gertrude waved a palm in the book’s direction. “I thought he was insane. The book wasn’t valuable, just the average rerelease you could find in the bookstore. It was only when Train showed up and opened it that we realized it wasn’t the book he was saving, but the picture.
“That picture. That picture of you.” Gertrude jabbed a finger in my direction. “Thomas and I had spent hours trying to figure out who the girl in the picture was. When Alistair woke up in the hospital, the first thing he asked was if the book was intact. He asked me to keep this in our company safe. He said it was his most prized possession. He literally risked his life for it.”
My face was growing hot with each word, each syllable and each claim Gertrude was slinging around.
“Then you arrived, fresh from nowhere with an assignment to profile him. You immediately struck me as unnervingly familiar, and finally, I realized it.”
Gertrude stopped pacing. “You are the girl from the photo. You now just as much as confirmed what we all suspected. Mr. Blair has loved you for years, since forever it seems.”
The initial shock wore off and I gave a heady exhale to dislodge the thoughts.
“I’m not sure how telling me this changes anything. Nothing matters beyond the reality of now.” I zipped my duffel bag with finality, then dragged it onto the floor.
Gertrude was struck by my reaction. “How can you be so callous?” she cried.
“Me? Callous? That’s rich coming from you, Gertrude.” Now I really had to laugh. “Maybe I am callous. Maybe I am heartless. I’ve had to be to survive what he’s put me through, what life has put me through. So Alistair almost killed himself to save a picture of me? I don’t know what to think of that, but it doesn’t justify the events of now. Nothing does. He makes his own choices, and I won’t even begin to try to understand his justifications for them.”
“Do you think he’d go through all this trouble just to punish you? He was never out to drive you out of a job or to shutter the Journal. He … he …”
“He what?” I challenged.
“I can’t say for sure why he did it, but I can guess. He wanted you to write the profile. I don’t know, maybe to get close to you or something. But he wanted control over the situation. Worst-case was that he stopped the piece from publishing with his clout as owner. That’s it.”
“That’s it?” I nearly screeched with fury. “You guys asked for an article, forced me to be around him nearly twenty-four seven, lying to me the whole time. I write the thing, really try to validate all that time, all that work, and he was just planning on killing it? That’s it? Do you know how emotionally torturous these past weeks have been?”
It was all so incredible. The delusions of these people. It would be almost hilarious if my career hadn’t just been crushed to nothing with all these libelous reports.
The headlines flashed in my memory, racing across my mind’s eye to remind me what exactly everyone now thought of me.
REPORTING FROM THE BEDROOM
$69/SQ FT
MEET MANHATTAN’S HOTTEST RENTAL
I wanted to scream. And the terrible thing was that it was all true. Every salacious word, each letter. I wanted them to be wrong. I wished I had held myself back. If I just hadn’t fallen into this again with him, then at least the articles would be wrong. Or I wouldn’t be so stupidly wounded at this betrayal if I had just stopped myself from trusting him again.
But now, all of this was the same as before. The agony, the doubt, the mind games. All the same, but infinitely worse because it was played out in the public sphere and splayed across every trashy street corner. Obscene amounts of money were involved.
My career, meticulously crafted, a reputation built over all these years, now gone. All for dumb nostalgic longing.
I was so angry. At myself. At Alistair. At the press. At the city. At the world.
Gertrude was still trying to salvage the situation, but it was as useful as trying to squeeze blood from a stone. “You know, I don’t know. Maybe he bought the Journal to help your career. Make you editor …”
I threw my hands up in the air in a sign of defeat. “You people are seriously crazy. I don’t want my … my …” I struggled with a word to use for Alistair. Instead I just continued, “I don’t want Alistair to buy my way up the ladder. That’s insulting! In the sincerest sense.”
I snatched my duffel off the floor and twirled around to leave, but Gertrude lunged for me and grasped my upper arm to stop me. She desperately called out, “Mr. Blair really cares about you, Ms. Reynolds!”
I wrenched my arm away from her touch. She took a step back at the warning glare I threw her way.
“Get your hands off me. And tell your employer to screw off. I’m leaving.”
“Wait, stop!”
I didn’t answer. I quickly charged out into the hallway. Train was waiting for me at the front door with his arms crossed across his massive chest, but with an uncomfortable expression on his face.
“Miss.” He blocked the exit. I moved to one side to walk around him, but he shifted his weight and stopped me.
“Let me through, Train.”
He shook his head slowly. “I can’t.”
“Get. Out. Of. The. Way,” I seethed, and my fists balled in anger.
Train returned me a pleading look in his eyes but didn’t move. I gave a scream of frustration through clenched teeth.
“What is this? You guys are holding me hostage? What the hell is going on?”
“Boss wants to see you.”
“Bo—Boss?” I was raging. “Alistair wants to see me? Alistair? He wants to see me?” I was nearly crazed with emotion and indignation. “That bastard!” I screamed.
“Miss …”
“Let me through!”
I shoved Train aside, but it was as effective as a fight against a brick wall. I reared back, ready to charge through, when with no warning Train moved towards me and swept me off the floor into his arms. One beefy forearm hit the back of my knees gently so that I buckled and lost my balance, and the other forearm braced my back for the fall. I let go of my luggage in shock and before I knew it, I was cradled against Train’s chest, his tie tangling in my hands as I flailed about.
“What the hell!” I was beyond emotion now. I was in the territory of visceral reaction.
“I’m sorry, miss.”
I thrashed in his grip, screaming, “Damn you! Damn you all!”
But Train ignored me, holding tight no matter how I fought. Gertrude entered the room. She cleared her throat and, with a nod towards Train, she scooped up my bag and exited through the front door, gesturing for Train to follow her.
It was useless. I stopped struggling and just let Train walk me to the garage elevators. His arms were warm and strong around me. I just gave up and dug my face into his chest, trying to even my breathing, wanting the anger and endorphins to drain from my body.
“It’s going to be okay, miss. It’s going to be
okay,” Train said softly.
I gave a low, sad laugh without humor. “No, it’s not. Not at all,” I murmured back, dread and sadness filtering between the seams of my anger.
The truth always comes out, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t do so violently, traumatically … in absolutes.
Chapter 31
Our car slid slowly down the crowded streets, windshield wipers cutting through the afternoon downpour. Gertrude was sitting to my left, her hands fussing nervously as she cast me anxious glances. It was strange witnessing her so uncomfortable. I would have enjoyed it, if I hadn’t been so dead set on hating all of them.
“Mr. Blair is waiting for us at his Upper East Side apartment.” She paused, then added, “The one he purchased for you.” She cleared her throat before continuing, “There’ll be less press there. Most aren’t aware of its existence, so it’s a lot safer than the hotel.”
I didn’t answer.
At my silence, Train peeked nervously at us through the rearview mirror. They were both on edge, completely discomfited by everything. Now that Alistair’s personal business had been shoved into the forefront of tabloid news, this new development tested their abilities.
It tested their questions about their boss’s personal life.
Or it must have—why else would Gertrude believe now would be the right time for her question? She cleared her throat again before saying uneasily, “You know … every year, he’d take July twenty-first off.”
She paused, waiting for me to chime in.
I disappointed her, only the sound of the car slicing through water filling the cab, the action hurtling me closer to the discontent of the future.
“Nothing could ever be scheduled on that day. He’d disappear. Not even Train would know where he’d go. Are you aware of any significance to that day?”
My mom had first gotten sick in July, all those years ago.
And then, years later, our baby had died in July.
And the year after the loss, we had long since broken up, our paths in separate directions already settled.
The Beginning of Always Page 42