“So, do you enjoy these things?” I asked.
“Not usually,” she said breezily. “But I presume I will feel differently about this party.”
Because I was here? I wanted to jump in and save her feelings. I couldn’t count the number of times I had said,Look, I’m flattered, but Greer was the only woman for me, in the past three and a half years.
But then she said, “I have a thing for Tanner Prescott, and he’s here.” She smiled at me and said, “Your arm is a ploy to make him jealous.”
I laughed, suitably humbled. “You always have a plan, don’t you?”
She nodded and stepped away from me, handing me my old-fashioned and taking a sip of her rosé. “You have to stay a step ahead,” Lindsey said. “It’s a gorgeous night. Want to go out by the pool?”
“If we’re by the pool, Tanner won’t be able to see you.” I was very amused by this.
“Oh, he’ll follow me,” she whispered. “Just you wait and see.”
“We’re excited about your first day at McCann,” I said, following Lindsey outside and sitting down on the end of one of the chaises, pulling up my pants legs to accommodate the low position. Couples and small groups were scattered around the white pool deck, cocktails in hand.
“So am I!” she practically squealed.
“Tanner will be very impressed,” I joked.
She grinned. “So what about you?” she asked, sitting on the chaise beside me. “Any leads?”
“On stories?”
She sighed and looked at me, exasperated. “On women, Parker. Seriously?”
I shrugged but didn’t say anything.
“I have a girlfriend you would really like…” She trailed off.
“I don’t think I’m ready for all that.”
She looked into my eyes. “Forgive me if I’m overstepping. But she’ll always be there, won’t she? Do you think you’ll ever really be able to be with someone else without thinking of her?”
Before I could answer, Tanner Prescott, as promised, was heading in our direction. Lindsey did an above-average job of pretending she didn’t notice until he reached her.
Then she was gone. But her words lingered. My mind flipped immediately, out of habit, to Greer. But it terrified me to admit that Lindsey was right: I wasn’t thinking about tonight or this party or these people at all. My mind was up the coast, in the city that never sleeps, with the one that, I was now realizing, most certainly got away.
Three days later, I was on a plane to New York. I was going to sign paperwork and brief the office on the details of the new acquisition. But it could have waited. The papers could have been faxed; I could have sent someone else. I was going because I wanted to see Amelia.
I didn’t have a plan. I knew what I had always felt for her had resurfaced and I knew the loss of the babies would make things strained between us. And then there was a huge part of me terrified that if I tried to move on, I would only think of Greer.
Were it some other woman, we could date. We could say we’d tried. But if things went awry with Amelia, there was no coming back from that. We would be in each other’s lives forever.
And so, as I hailed a cab into the city, I decided that I wouldn’t tell her anything. Not yet. This meeting would be strictly professional. I looked at my watch, 7:13 a.m. I would be in the city before she left for work.
The cab smelled distinctly like eucalyptus. Maybe a little cinnamon. Peppermint? About halfway through the ride, caught up on email and tired of being inside my own head, my curiosity got the best of me. “What is that smell?” I asked.
I could see the driver’s smile in the rearview mirror. “Essential oils.”
“Why do you have them in the car?”
“Makes it smell better—and it’s supposed to promote good health.”
Good health.Those two simple words were all it took to catapult me backward, to staying up all night Googling Ayurvedic treatment centers, stem cell transplants, holistic therapy. When Greer opened her eyes that morning, I was filled with adrenaline. I was sure that one of these three packets I was about to present my wife held the cure. We would goto India or maybe just California or even the mountains of North Carolina. Three options. She could pick the best one.
But when I told her, she put her hands on my face. “My mother died of ovarian cancer, and now I am, too. It’s okay. It’s okay to just accept it, sweetheart. It doesn’t make you less of a man to admit when you have lost a fight.”
