“In the beginning I thought...” John stroked his finger over his late wife’s teapot. “Well. Chandlers fall hard when they fall in love, after all. I assumed Nicholas was going off to mope somewhere. Then, one year, I happened to look at our flight records. He was flying somewhere, a different destination each time. All over the country.” He inhaled. “I assume that was to see you?”
Her body ran hot, then cold. Mortification and panic mingled. “It meant nothing. Don’t tell him you know about this. Don’t tell anyone, please.”
“I’ve kept it a secret, haven’t I? Even covered for the boy when he got sloppy. I’m not telling you to embarrass you now, my dear.”
“Then why?”
“I’m telling you if something were to develop between the two of you, I would approve. In fact, I would assist, in any way I could.” He patted her hand.
“Nothing’s going to happen.” She thought of her and Eve’s tussle at the bar. Of Brendan, and how he had coldly taken the company from her mother without a shred of remorse. “And I don’t think the rest of your family would echo that sentiment.”
Pain flashed in John’s eyes. “If Nicholas didn’t make it clear, my son and I don’t speak to each other much anymore. I don’t care what he thinks. I would protect you both from his foolishness for as long as I have breath in my body.”
His generosity made her want to weep. “He mentioned you were estranged. I’m sorry. I know how that feels.”
“I’m sure you do.” John’s shoulders hunched forward. “We’ve had a rough time of it, haven’t we? Sometimes I wonder what Sam would say about all of this.” John looked out the window, toward her old house. Sam’s old house.
“He’d ask why we quit, maybe.”
John turned to her. “You remember, huh?”
“Nothing’s over until you quit,” Livvy intoned.
John’s smile was nostalgic. “Sam really was a rebel in certain ways. Like you. But no, I think he’d say something more along the lines of, how the fuck did you all get here?”
“Is that what he’d say, or what you would say?”
“One and the same, love.” John sighed. “We were one and the same.”
Chapter 14
NICHOLAS SHOTLivvy a glance as they walked out of the house, trying to read her expression. He wanted to ask her how she felt, if she was overwhelmed at seeing his grandfather, what the man had said to her. He wanted to gather her close and smooth her tangled hair. He wanted to do every damn boyfriendly thing under the sun he didn’t have the right to do.
They reached his car, and he beat her to the passenger door. He opened it for her and waited, but she’d turned away to look west. The sun was setting over where Sam’s house was hidden by the forest.
“Do you know who lives in our old home?”
“No,” he answered honestly. “It was a family directly after it was sold. Then an elderly couple, but they left. I think it’s been vacant for a while.” He hadn’t checked the property records, though that would be easy to do. He hadn’t particularly wanted to know.
She only nodded, but didn’t move.
Nicholas had used to sneak into Livvy’s room inthat house. The walls had been painted blood red, her comforter and furnishings all shades of black and white.
She wanted to die because you didn’t love her anymore.
Jackson’s words had been looping in Nicholas’s head all day. He hadn’t been able to concentrate on work, or his father’s latest demands. All he could think about was a younger Livvy sobbing on the bed he’d lain in countless times.
She shifted, cocking her hip, a power pose she often adopted. Like him, she’d been raised to be assertive, powerful, certain of her place. She’d also been raised to keep a part of herself away from the outside world, visible only to the inhabitants of their privileged sphere.
No wonder she didn’t betray the depth of her pain when you helped yank that place away from her.
He’d tried ignoring his own past and history, burying his emotions so deep he could go long stretches without feeling anything. He’d tried binging on her in secret, stolen, isolated bites, telling himself that the small hit of excitement was enough.
It wasn’t now. He couldn’t roll away and walk out the hotel door, shove her in a compartment and move on with his life. He’d been taken out of that box and wound up so tight he wasn’t sure if he’d ever be able to go dormant again.
That didn’t scare him, oddly enough. For all his worries over the cauldron of emotions inside him, for the first time in a long time, he felt as though hewas on the right path. Not the perfect path. But the right path.
He pulled his phone from his pocket.
