“Well, you’re the mother of his children. That should count for something.” I take another bite, the sweetness caressing my taste buds and my soul. “I already have an investor.”
“You do? Who?”
My husband.A petty part of me wants to drop that particular bomb, but given the state of her marriage, I don’t want to hurt her.
“It doesn’t matter. I don’t even know what I want to do with this place.”
As the words roll out of my mouth, unbidden, we both pause. Tessa looks at me wide-eyed. I probably mirror her expression, because where did that come from?
“You want to close it?”
When she says it out loud, I feel a five-second sigh of relief, immediately followed by guilt.
“I don’t know, Tessa. I’ve been closed for two weeks, and now I have a consultant who is preparing options.”
“Is he qualified to advise us on this?”
So it’s us already?“She is qualified.”
“Okay, I’d like to be involved.”
“Is this your new charitable endeavor?”
“It might be my future job. I’ve never had one and…” She looks away. “It’s time.”
This might be her antidote to loneliness. I’m mad it took her this long to care, but at the same time, I don’t seem to care enough to fight her on it.
If this is what she needs right now, I’m not taking it away from her.
“Okay.” I raise my forkful to toast this new collaboration.
She smiles and nods, taking her own generous forkful.
We eat in silence for a beat. I’m grateful for it, because it gives me a moment to soak in the new reality.
I have Gina and Tessa now to share the burden of this place, and maybe, finally, I can make it into something Dad would be proud of.
I enter the hotel to wait for Xander. We moved here last week while waiting for the closing on a beautiful townhouse in Chelsea.
Pavel, the boy from my building, is taking care of the cats, because I don’t want to move them around.
I smile at the concierge, exhausted.
I didn’t do much today, and yet it was the most eventful day in a while.
Tessa is joining the family business. Something I wished for but couldn’t have imagined. Let’s hope we don’t kill each other.
Ethan had a child while he was engaged to me.
His death might have erased my doubts, but when I think about it, they had always lingered. Ethan never showed up for me. I just created a narrative in my head, a story I wanted to believe.
And perhaps the narrative I have around Xander—an entitled playboy, or a man who will want to settlesoon with a woman his own age—is just that. A narrative I believe while ignoring my true feelings.
But there is a lot that no longer fits that narrative.
Xander showed me different sides of himself. He never hid his playboy ways. He never hid his carefree force of nature. He is confident in who he is. No masks.
And right now, he wants me.
