The Beginning of Always (39 page)

Me vs. Alistair.

Thomas and Gertrude vs. Me.

Train vs. What the Hell.

So I sat with Train on the plane as Gertrude and Thomas smashed their heads together and whisper-plotted between the two of them for the entire duration of the five-hour plane ride. Alistair sat in a row ahead of us by himself.

At times, I caught myself watching him. I couldn’t help myself.

I’d be lying if I said he hadn’t been on my mind. Ever since the Monday Kiss and the Tuesday Apartment Heist (as I’d taken to labeling them in my brain), my entire head and heart had been waging war. The cat was out of the bag and now all the pieces were on the table. There was no more sidestepping the issues of our past. Well … at least most of the issues of our past.

But as I observed him on the plane ride, I couldn’t convince myself that the words I had spoken on Tuesday weren’t, in fact, cruel.

Yes, cruel. It was difficult for me to digest, but during the self-imposed “sick day” I had given myself on Wednesday, as the hours wore on and the screaming in my head dimmed, my conscience had slowly begun to percolate past the fog of confusion and I had become increasingly alarmed at my behavior. Not only at the way I had treated Alistair, but the irrational, immature, and entirely unprofessional manner in which I had conducted myself through this entire process.

I wanted to apologize. I needed to apologize. It wasn’t fair of me to yell at him, to question his motive, to be rude and to hurt him. The past was the past, and I didn’t relish the fact that my words had stung him, even if that was what I had intended.

I needed to remind myself that I knew Alistair. That I knew who he was and how he was, and perhaps I should take his current behavior and comments at face value. I still couldn’t accept an apartment, and I couldn’t be convinced that getting back together would be the best idea for us, but I had to learn how to be the bigger person and treat this tactfully and with class.

But as I walked into the expansive, sprawling Malibu beach mansion, it suddenly dawned on me how little I actually knew about class. If the Upper East Side apartment was luxurious, Malibu could only be deemed Hollywood insanity.

Train entered behind me. “Pretty intense, huh?”

I chortled. “Like something out of a movie.” Windows took up the entire western wall from ceiling to glossy hardwood floor. The windows had a view that spilled out over craggy cliffs, the ocean waves crashing up high and frothy beneath them. When it was high tide, it appeared as if the water could almost reach the home. The bright spring sun shimmered over the rocks and the glass and stainless steel and white cement that composed the home.

The entire main body of the house was one giant room, with sections parceled out by furniture placement and hallways leading off to the side.

“Come on, I’ll give you a tour,” Train said, picking up my bag and offering his arm to me.

Train led me around skillfully and with familiarity, as if he had been here before multiple times. The home had six bedrooms and eight bathrooms and was so sprawling that after the third room I got dizzy.

He finally brought me to a large side bedroom replete with windows that also overlooked the craggy cliffs, with views that glided across the entire surface of the water. Small sailboats dotted the horizon and seagulls surfed the sky in lazy, languid swoops.

“Well, here we are. This is your room,” he said, dropping my duffel bag onto the dresser.

“Thanks, Train.”

I wandered past the bed, stuffed to bursting with fresh white linens and a mountain of colorful pillows, and paused in front of the window closest to the en suite bathroom. I threw open the curtains and pushed the windows open, allowing sunlight to spill inside, accompanied by a blast of salty air penetrating the rooms.

I leaned forward, inhaling deep lungfuls of the fresh, crispy scent, and a sharp pang of grief stabbed at my chest.

“Are you okay, Ms. Reynolds?”

I fiddled with the edge of the curtain, considering my question. “Where did Alistair go?” I asked it as nonchalantly as possible, adding a tinge of boredom into my tone.

Train cleared his throat. “Boss went to the offices first to check in with the employees. He’ll be back soon.”

I dropped the curtain and tucked my hands into my pockets. “Oh. Okay.”

“You’ll get your chance with him, don’t worry.”

“I’m not worried.”

“Is everything okay?”

I swung around, a cheery grin upon my lips. “Everything is great. It’s nice being in California. I’ve never been to Malibu before.”

Train wasn’t convinced, but he didn’t pry further. “There’s a private beach down the cliffs in front of the house. It’s low tide, so you can walk quite a ways until you get to the water. I can take you if you like.”

“Maybe tomorrow, I’m kind of exhausted. I think I’ll take a nap if there’s nothing to do at the moment.”

Train nodded. “Alright, I’ll be in the living room if you need anything.” He hesitated, uneasy about leaving, but at my silence, he nodded again, threw me a tentative smile, and left.

I stood in the same spot for a while longer, gazing out into the distance, trying not to think but feeling so wholly sad that if I really allowed myself to do so, I could almost cry.

Bam.

I awoke with a start, nearly tumbling out of the pillow fortress I was forced to nap in.

“Ms. Reynolds,” a curt voice called out.

I swatted at a particularly large sequined bolster pillow wedging itself against my neck and popped my head out.

“Thomas?” I asked in a confused tone.

I received an annoyed grunt. I was greeted with a mass, buried under bags, trudging slowly and uncertainly into the room. Somewhere underneath that was Thomas, apparently.

“Some help,” the bag-covered mass said rudely. I blinked twice, confused, then scrambled up to help offload the burden.

Thomas pushed all the bags off his body so they fell half on me, half on the bed.

“What is all this?” I asked as I elbowed a particularly heavy one away from me.

Thomas exhaled a loud breath, then grabbed the first bag on top of the pile, which I could now see was a cloth garment bag, and unzipped it in front of me.

“You have to get ready for the welcome party,” Thomas said, extracting a large pink feathery concoction and thrusting it into my unwilling hands.

I sputtered, feathers flying in my face and mouth. “Party?”

Thomas was relentless. He seized another garment bag and unzipped it, prepared to foist whatever new item into my grasp. “Guest start arriving at six thirty, so you have a little bit less than an hour.”

“Wait, wait!” I chucked the pink feathers onto the study table and chair next to the door. “When was this decided?” I had only been asleep for less than two hours and we had only arrived at the house an hour before that. No mention of a welcome party had entered the conversation at any point.

Thomas snatched another bag, his hands thrusting the zipper down so roughly he nearly ripped it out of its stitchings. “Doesn’t matter when it was decided. Guests arrive soon and I’ll be damned if I have to spend time babysitting you to get dressed.”

I tried to gently push his hands away, lest he ruin whatever was in the bag too. “What are you doing here, anyway? Since when did you care about this stuff. It’s typically Gertrude’s job.”

Thomas busied himself with a sea of large paper shopping bags that I hadn’t noticed were on the floor. “Gertrude is busy. Doesn’t matter why I’m doing this. It needs to get done, so it’s getting done.” He threw a slinky gold gown at me that I caught in midair, the hanger almost gouging my eye out.

“So what’s the deal with this party?” My fingers ran over the smooth silk of the dress on the hanger as I hung it on the curtain rod by the window.

Thomas grunted while wrestling pair after pair of shoes from the shopping bags. Trying to make myself useful, I began unzipping all the garment bags and hanging up the dresses to join the gold piece of work next to the window.

“Mr. Blair has clients and prospective investors on the West Coast. Since we rarely travel this far, it’ll good for the expansion to get his face out there.”

He squatted down on his haunches to get closer to the bags, a more efficient post since now he was able to pitch shoes out of the bag over his shoulders. “Mr. Blair knew you didn’t bring anything appropriate for the occasion, so he commissioned these to be sent over. Select the ones you like, but if you don’t find any, you can let Gertrude know and she’ll try to find something.” Thomas paused, a Louboutin in his grasp, and then hesitated before continuing. “If you’d like to go out yourself, I can get a car for you. But the shopping areas are a bit further away and the event begins soon.”

I tore my attention from the ocean of chiffon that was billowing in the wind. Thomas was standing in the middle of a Saks store explosion, three pairs of strappy heels in his hands and several pink feathers in his hair from that bird outfit that had been thrown unceremoniously against the back of a chair. I wanted to laugh aloud, the absurdity of this all twisting the surreal quality of how so much in my life had changed so drastically in the span of a week and a half.

“It’s fine. Leave the heels and the dresses, you don’t have to tend to m—”

Thomas interrupted, “There’s makeup and hair stuff in one of these bags. Do you need a makeup artist? We can hire one to come within half an hour.”

Now I did laugh, although it was more short and shocked compared to the uncomfortable snide tone I had ringing in my head.

I shook my head. “I can do my own makeup.” I gave a small smile. “I appreciate it, Thomas. The assignment is almost over. I’ll be out of your hair soon enough.”

Thomas didn’t need any further encouragement. He dropped the heels as if burned and they fell to the floor with a muffled clunk. Shaking feathers out of his hair, he bustled out of the room and snatched at his portfolio. After getting tangled in the strap of the many bags littering the floor, I watched, amused, as he wrestled himself out, all the while cursing.

Soon I was left alone, and I sighed before digging in, ready to don armor for the evening.

“Hey, there, gorgeous!”

Train rumbled over from the patio door, all suave and dangerous in a three-piece black suit.

“Bow tie?” I laughed, reaching up to fiddle with the wide pink polka-dotted tie at his neck. Train hitched up his shoulders and threw his chest out, beating at it with a closed fist.

“Real men wear bow ties,” he declared, all seriousness.

“Oh, yes, very manly,” I answered in an equally grave tone, nodding solemnly.

Train grinned, then gave me a long look that he punctuated with a low whistle. “Check you out. I guess Mr. Blair buying out the store was helpful. Found something you liked?”

I twirled in my pin-thin strappy heels, so that the pale tulle danced about me.

“It’s a fun dress. I haven’t dressed up this fancy for a while.” At first I’d thought it was too much, but all the gowns were equal in extravagance, so I’d eventually given up downplaying the whole night and just gone big. I’d decided on a nude-colored silk dress with ruching all along the strapless bodice and across the waist and hips, until it clung tight to the knees and flared out with a massive, voluminous mermaid’s tail.

“You look great. Boss is going to love it.”

I ignored that. “So, going to be a big party, huh?” I surveyed the great room from my vantage point in the yard. It was already set up with small bar tables and servers bustling with prep work. I had spotted Thomas and Gertrude in the front bedroom/office making harried calls, but Alistair was nowhere in sight.

“Yeah, I think I heard something like a hundred and fifty guests.”

“Like a small wedding.”

Train chuckled. “My wedding had three hundred people. Let me tell you what, now that was a party.”

Train and I lingered in the backyard, chattering away easily with each other and sipping on champagne a server brought us. Eventually, Gertrude rushed out and chased us back into the main building, announcing that “guests would be arriving any minute.”

And they did. Train was filled with greetings and smiles for the people showing up, and I lingered in the background, making mental observations about who was who.

CEOs of similar real estate holding companies along the West Coast.

Wealthy landowners with interests in selling.

Random rich people whose occupations escaped me.

All of their husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends. Each individual dressed to the nines and looking for the man of the hour, who was all but absent.

I eventually lost interest, catching the general gist of the types of people I’d be spending the evening with. I wandered off through the now-crowded room, weaving in and out from between small circles of people. I ended up in a far corner, a corner that led down to a dimly lit hallways that curved into darkness, its final destination out of sight. An array of large-scale artwork dominated the walls, abstract oil paintings that were modern and confusing.

I was standing in front of one, contemplating how much the atrocity had sold for, when I felt it. I felt his presence before I saw him. The air shifted from neutral to dangerous and that internal kick in my soul, that gut feeling I got every time I was around Alistair, the one that had been following me around since I was a little girl, it made itself known.

Alistair came from the shadows. He was wearing a three-piece suit, just like everyone else, but maybe it was the anticipation, maybe it was the strange foreign setting or maybe it was just because I was so damn tired of lying to myself, but the sight of him made my mouth run dry.

The suit was cut perfectly to his form, so that every angle was accented to perfection. His broad shoulders and strong arms, that flat stomach that underneath all those clothes cut into tight muscle. His chin held a confident, almost arrogant tilt to it and the package was all tied together by an understated blue tie and silver cufflinks.

Alistair looked so good, it physically hurt me.