I leaned down and struggled to pick up one of the paddleboards under my arm. “Can’t sneak off on the job. Grab a board and an anchor and follow me!”
Trav looked amused.
I began paddling off into a secluded spot that was deep enough that if Conner fell—which, let’s face it, he was going to—he wouldn’t hit the bottom.
I looked back to see him following me, shakily. I smiled and dropped my anchor, motioning for him to come up beside me. He knocked his board into mine. “Conner, we can’t do yoga this close together,” I laughed as he dropped his anchor.
“No?” he asked innocently, turning to square up his body with mine and running his free hand down my cheek. He put his hand on my waist, tentatively, and suddenly, my butterflies had butterflies. I moved to wrap my paddle-free arm around his neck, and when I did, my board tipped, knocking us both off our precarious balance and into the cold water.
“You’re supposed to be a professional,” Conner said, laughing, as he came back to the surface. Our paddles were floating nearby,and I swam to Conner and held on. This time, I wrapped my arms around him and kissed him. He brushed my wet hair off my forehead and kissed me a second time. “Hi,” he whispered.
“Hi.” I smiled.
“How about you come back to my boat with me?”
I nodded, climbing back on top of my paddleboard. “We can take these over. Trav won’t mind.”
I let Conner get up ahead. I was so surprised to see him again that I was practically floating on air. But I was also already dreading having to say goodbye. I adored him.
He helped me onto the boat, and I kneeled to lift my paddleboard onto the deck. Conner pulled me up, and wrapping me in his warm embrace, kissed me again. It felt so good to have his skin on mine. He tasted of seawater and smelled just a little bit earthy and real, which I found intoxicating.
As we kissed, I felt him pull the ties on my bikini top with a practiced hand. “Oops,” he whispered as it fell.
“Conner,” I scolded.
“The staff has the morning off,” he said.
“Someone will see!” I protested.
He took a step back to admire my toplessness and said, “Well, then, we’d better get you inside.”
He pressed the button to open the sealed door and we stepped inside, the door closing behind us. In a matter of seconds, my body was pressed against the glass, his hands in my hair, and suddenly, any proclamation of not seeing him again felt impossible, silly. As the string on my bikini bottom gave way, I forgot that Hayes was the only person I had ever slept with, and that maybe I should be nervous about what that meant. I forgot about the girl I had been with him for all those years. Today, right now, I was a woman.
CORNELIAA VanderbiltApril 29, 1924
If Cornelia was honest with herself, she knew she’d fallen in love with Jack partly because of his English accent. But was that so wrong, really? She knew plenty of girls who had fallen in love with a man because of his money or his title, his family or his connections. Although Jack did have all those other bright, shining qualities, everyone knew that Cornelia, who was widely regarded as America’s wealthiest woman, didn’t need any of them.
Cornelia had never thought of herself as the type of woman to be caught up in a whirlwind romance. But Jack had changed everything. He understood her. He took care of her but also knew when she needed to take care of herself. Not a month ago, he had announced, on one of their daily long and rambling walks, “Connie, I’ve decided to leave my post.”
Jack was the first secretary of the British Embassy in Washington, D.C.
Cornelia was shocked. In their strolls around Washington—solving the world’s problems, as it were—they had daydreamed about leaving it all behind, about trading newspapers and political functions for the serenity of Asheville. She hadn’t believed it would actually happen.
“Jack,” she argued, “you love your post. You can’t give that up.”
“I can’t be happy without you, my dear,” he replied. “And you cannot be happy without Biltmore.”
She slipped her hand in his. How true it was. Biltmore was Cornelia’s playground, her birthplace, her birthright. It had always been her safe haven from the insatiable eyes of the press that, whether she was in New York or Washington, Newport or Maine, seemed determined to eat her alive. Most of all, it was her remaining connection to the father who had loved her above anyone or anything else—even the dream home he had created in the Blue Ridge Mountains.
“What will you do there?” Cornelia asked hesitantly.
Jack looked over at her, never slowing his pace, matching her step for step as they kept their heart rates up, warming themselves against the chilly March air. “I’ll manage the farm, oversee the dairy. I’ll work with your mother and the lawyers and the estate managers and superintendents to ensure that Biltmore lives to see another generation.” He paused. “And what about you? What do you dream of when you think of our lives at Biltmore?”
“Art, maybe. Motherhood, perhaps?”
Jack stopped walking and pulled his future bride close, kissing her for all the world to see.
“Motherhood will suit you quite nicely,” he said. “I am sure of it.”
