Janie raised her eyebrows. “Charlotte’s boyfriend. Wow.” She wet her lips. “It’s hard to believe you’re with them again. I thought you were done with all of them.”
Alexander’s mind thrashed. “They tracked me down.” It was sort of true, although the opposite was truer. “Well, it’s complicated.”
“It always is with the Whitmores.” Janie offered a sad smile.
The server came, and Janie ordered a cocktail and an hors d’oeuvres that Alexander had already guessed she would like.She set the menu aside. It seemed they would talk first, see how it went, and then order more food.
“I’m so sorry, Janie,” Alexander breathed.
Janie looked taken aback, as though she’d prepared for a fight first.
“I’m sorry that I’ve been so incommunicative,” Alexander said. “I’m sorry I’ve worked myself to death and taken myself far away from our family. I’m sorry that, when the rumors started circling about what really happened that night all those years ago, you could do nothing but believe them. I recognize that that’s my fault.”
Janie was listening intently, her eyes smoldering.
Janie’s voice cracked. “You always do this.”
Alexander was taken aback. “What do you mean?”
“You always make me fall back in love with you. Just like that.” She snapped her fingers, as though it were really that simple.
“But we are in love, Janie,” Alexander whispered. “That’s why it feels that way.”
Janie closed her eyes. “Maybe I don’t want to be anymore. Perhaps it would be easier if we called it off.”
Alexander’s chest heaved, but he told himself to remain calm. “I don’t want to. I want to work at this. I’ll do anything.”
Janie remained quiet for a moment. The server arrived with her cocktail and hors d’oeuvres, which she placed in the middle of the table, gesturing for Alexander to have whatever he wanted. But now that Alexander’s future hung in the balance between them, he wasn’t sure he’d ever be hungry again. He flared his nostrils.
“The thing is,” Janie said, “I can’t understand why you won’t tell me what happened that night. What did you see? Why are they trying to get to you? What do they know that you don’t want to say?”
Alexander’s eyes filled with tears. He glanced to either side to see that the tables were empty. No one could eavesdrop on them. They were safe. But could he bring Janie in on this? Did he even have a choice?
Chapter Nineteen
Fourth of July 1998
Nantucket Island
The logbook on the front desk of the White Oak Lodge kept a record of every person staying at the iconic and luxurious hotel at any given time. Now, at the beginning of the most frantic season of the year, the logbook was stuffed with signatures. Every suite, every room, every bar, every restaurant, and every terrace of the White Oak Lodge was filled with people from all walks of life. Movie stars, directors, scientists, weather forecasters, models, and professors—people who’d swarmed from all over to take in the most sensational day of the summer in the best place in the world. Like the rest of the Whitmores, Alexander’s head was spinning. But he couldn’t show it. No one could know how stressful this was.
It was midmorning when Alexander finished his tasks at the stables, sped back to the room he still shared with Janie upstairs, showered, and changed into a sleek pair of slacks and a black button-down. He combed and gelled his hair painstakingly, thenraced downstairs to help out at the front desk. Allegra and Lorelei were setting up for the Fourth of July party while their mother and father were off sailing with their wealthiest guests—a task they were required to do to maintain the idea that they, too, lived a luxurious and easy-breezy life. Jack was somewhere, doing whatever it was Jack Whitmore did. And everyone had mostly forgotten about Nina, who, at eleven, could take care of herself. Sort of.
It tugged at Alexander’s consciousness that they weren’t helping Nina enough.
But Janie was at the front desk, drowning in work. Phone calls kept blaring in, and guests kept storming up, asking her for things like fresh towels, restocking their mini-fridges, croquet supplies, and so on. Janie’s eyes were panicked. Alexander hopped behind the mahogany desk and began to pick up the slack, and within half an hour, they were caught up, but only barely. Under his breath, Alexander said, “It’ll be like this the rest of the day. But we can relax at the party.” They’d hired a non-Whitmore to manage the front desk so that all of the Whitmores could celebrate the Fourth together.
Janie looked sour and strange. She refused to look Alexander in the eye. Alexander’s smile remained forced and uncomfortable, but Janie didn’t fake it with him. Ever since the miscarriage, it had been challenging to get her to look at him. He knew a miscarriage was a devastating thing, that it had had real ramifications on Janie’s body image and mental health. But in his opinion, nothing had really changed. They could try again any time! They could have the future they’d planned for!
Alexander touched Janie’s hand, and she brushed it away.
“Janie,” Alexander breathed, his chest heavy, “what is happening to us?”
Janie couldn’t look at him. She began to reorganize the papers on the front desk, moving old keys to the side, as she said, “I don’t know if I can do this. I feel so stifled. I feel so lost.”
Alexander took a step back and crossed his arms. He waited, hoping she’d fill in the blanks on her vagueness. Eventually, she did.
“I don’t want to work at this front desk,” she whispered. “I don’t want to spend my life in this prison of a hotel. I want to live. I want to be free. I want to see the world. I thought you wanted that, too.”
