The Escape Clause (13 page)

“It was lovely, thank you.”

It was lovely
. Already she had a snooty tone to her. Maybe fate stepped in that day when he missed her at the airport.

“That’s good.”

“Marcus said you’d called that morning. I went to call you back, but I dropped my phone overboard.”

He clucked his tongue. “Musta been one helluva party.”

“Clumsy me really.”

“Doesn’t actually sound like you at all.” His hair dripped down into his eyes and he scooped it back. “So, how’s it going? How’s the wine business?”

“Fine, thank you. I’m just leaving an investors’ meeting in Paris. It looks like we’ll be in some very fine restaurants next month.”

His defenses with her were breaking down the longer her voice rang in his ear. The pang of her void was now pressing down on his chest

“I’m very proud of you, Avery. We all are.”

Did he hear her sniff? Was she crying? “That means a lot to me.”

An awkward silence fell between them. That had never happened before.

“It was very nice to hear from you,” Pete said wringing his shirttails on the floor. “I’m going to be late for work if I don’t get changed. The pipes in Jill’s apartment burst under the bathroom sink. I’m soaked in my newest suit. Had to send her upstairs to shower.” He hadn’t realized just how much Jill had rubbed off on him. He smiled listening to himself ramble.

“Pete, before you go, why did you call that day?”

He felt the blood drain from his head and he backed up to the toilet and sat down on the closed seat.

“I was desperate to talk to you—my friend.”

“I’m still your friend, Pete. Nothing has changed there.”

Yes, it had, he thought. It all changed.

“Right.” He scooped another handful of wet hair back and let out a breath. “Did you know my dad had surgery? Funny you can have heart surgery and be back to your self in a few days.”

“My mom told me. I’m glad to hear he’s doing well. I sent a card.”

He knew that. It was up on the mantel like a trophy. How many times had he looked at it just to see her handwriting?

“The day I called you, I’d spent the day with my mom.” He groaned. “And the evening with your cousins drinking it away.”

“How is your mother? Is everything okay?”

Pete pressed his lips together. He wasn’t going to cry like a baby to Avery, but he could feel the tears burning.

“No. Yesterday she started chemo.”

“Chemo?” Her voice rose through the phone. “Pete, she has cancer?”

Even the words hurt. “Yes. They’re very optimistic. They caught it early. Ed and Christian walked me through what will happen.”

“I’ll call her.”

That brought a smile to his mouth. “She’d like that. They miss you, Avery.” He couldn’t help it. It was true.

“I miss everyone too.”

Pete looked up and Jill stood in the doorway only wrapped in his towel. He hadn’t touched the woman and Avery wasn’t his to have anymore, so why did he feel so guilty looking at Jill’s beautiful curves?

“I need my hair pick,” she whispered pointing to the cabinet.

Pete nodded and pulled it from the drawer. He handed it to her and when she smiled the guilt over looking at her shot straight to his gut.

“Avery, I need to go. Call my mom. She’d love to hear from you. Courtney would like you to call too. She’s not having a great time with this pregnancy and every little thing that can cheer her up helps.”

“I’ll do that.”

“Bye, Avery.”

He waited a moment for her to say goodbye, but instead he heard. “I love you.”

He’d heard it loud and clear, but he disconnected the call. He didn’t need to drag it out any further. There was no need.

“Avery?” Jill asked as she ran the pick through her hair.

“Yup.” He looked at the clock on his phone. No matter what, he was going to be late. “I’d better get going.”

“Everything okay?” she asked as he stood.

“I think she’s lonely.”

“Reconsidering her move?”

He shook his head. “I don’t think so. Not sure why she called.”

Maybe he’d call in sick. Suddenly he wasn’t feeling so well.

He pushed back his wet hair one more time as he stood and walked toward the door.

Jill backed up to let him through, but he stopped right in front of her. Her eyes grew wide and he realized just how close their bodies were.

She was so different with her curves and her softness compared to Avery and her sculpted, toned, yoga body. The desire to touch her was clearing the anger Avery had brought out in him.

It was time. Avery was his past. A great past, but that was over.

He took another step toward Jill. She backed up against the doorjamb and sucked in a breath.

Without a word he raised his hands to her face, cupping her cheeks, and pulled her to him for a long, deep, satisfying kiss.

When he pulled back, her eyes were still wide and he was sure she still hadn’t taken a breath.

“Have a good day. Maybe we can catch some dinner,” he said as he stepped away.

Jill only nodded and Pete smiled. He’d never kissed anyone into a trance.

Perhaps the day could get better he thought as he walked out of her apartment and up the steps with a little bit of a skip in his step.

Chapter Fifteen

Avery bit down on her lip as he line went dead on the other end. Had he heard her? Did he know what she’d said to him?

Tears began to fall as the driver pulled up to the apartment building. She wiped them away as quickly as she could. No one could see her like that.

She put on her Chanel sunglasses, which she thought made her look like Audrey Hepburn. Gripping her clutch in her hands, she sucked in that Pierpont aristocrat and that Keller courage. No one would see her crack over a man she loved and who was obviously preoccupied with Jill.

Jill.
The name resonated in her head.
Good things come from the basement. Didn’t you tell me that?
She could smack her head against the window for telling him that.

He should have come to France with her and it would have all been okay.

She clenched her jaw and fought from sinking down into the seat as the driver stopped.

She thought that had she just stayed in Nashville with Pete everything would have been okay. They’d have been there for each other while his father had surgery and now while his mother underwent chemo. It should have been her in the basement helping him clean up the water mess. In the midst of the chaos, they’d be planning their wedding. She and Julie could have been wedding dress shopping together.

She looked down at her hands and thought of the ring that had adorned her finger for such a brief time.

Had even the thought of them been a mistake?

No. She couldn’t believe that. Nothing with Pete had ever been a mistake.

The driver opened the door and Avery stepped out of the back as if she’d been doing it her whole life to have such grace. It felt good and that Pierpont power surged through her making her forget the momentary thoughts of what could have been had she stayed.

The man at the door to the building gave her a nod and she returned it with a curt little nod as well.

When she reached her apartment, she slid the key in the door, pushed it open, and then made sure it was locked securely before she literally fell onto the floor and cried.

They were wasted tears. She was lonely, that was all. Perhaps a trip back to Nashville would soothe her. She could regroup and then focus back on the business that had been so important it had her giving up family just to be there.

Yes, that’s what she’d do. When Marcus called this evening, she’d let him know her plans. Her grandfather would probably approve. Wouldn’t he understand what she’d left to take him up on his offer?

The tears began to dry and she pulled herself up off the floor and walked to the kitchen to make a pot of tea.

Marcus was furious on the other end of the phone when Avery told him of her plans to go home for a visit.

“You have just met with investors who will need to be taken care of. This idiotic idea that you go back to America is ridiculous. You’ve only been here over a month. Your grandfather will think it is ridiculous as well.”

“Marcus, I would be gone all of a week.”

“That is not an option, Avery. I forbid you to go.”

She took a breath to argue his
forbidding.
Who did he think he was commanding her like that?

But his demanding words cut her off. “Now the driver will pick you up precisely at eight in the morning. You have a meeting with a bottle designer. He knows what we want, you are just to admire his work. Do I make myself clear?”

“Perfectly.”

“Do not be late. I am not going to discuss this with your grandfather. Again, you have been absurd in your thoughts. I do not recommend you bring it up to him either. I am very disappointed.”

Avery clenched her jaw. “Marcus, I’m a grown woman. You can’t tell me what to do.”

“I can as long as you are being thoughtless. Your life is here with me now. We agree.”

“No, you agreed to that.”

“Avery, you agreed to that when you accepted my gifts and let me take you to bed. Now you will be mindful.”

The vile taste of disrespect for him, and herself, rose in her throat. How could she have been so foolish and careless? How could she have thought that it would make the memory and the feelings for Pete just go away? Was that what she had thought? So much of that week was an absolute blur.

Her mother had admitted to playing these kinds of games in the past with men. How had she survived them? How had her heart made it through them?

“I must go, Avery. You be on time tomorrow. The driver will bring you back in the afternoon and we will meet with your grandfather for dinner. Goodnight.”

The line disconnected and she sat on the loveseat and stared down at the phone. He had no right to talk to her like that. Tomorrow she would tell him exactly what she thought of his behavior. She may have, in a weak and horrible moment, given her body to him, but not claim. She may have accepted his many gifts, but just as easily she could give them back.

She was Avery Keller and no one pushed her around.

The vineyard seemed busier than usual, Avery thought as the car drove toward the house.

Marcus’s car was parked out front. She grit her teeth. It was interesting how since day one he’d had run of her home. Even before anything had happened between them.

She opened the door before the driver could even get out of the car. “You can put the bags inside the kitchen,” she said, pointing, but continued walking.

Marcus was just inside the house in the small room she used as an office. “Welcome home.”

“What are you doing here?”

“We have an appointment with your grandfather in an hour. Freshen up and meet me outside in fifteen minutes.”

Avery looked around the small room. “Where are my personal things?”

“Pictures?”

“Yes, where are my pictures?”

Marcus sat back in the chair and let it recline slightly as he looked up at her. “This is your professional office where you will conduct business. There is no place for photos of old boyfriends.”

She took a deep breath. “Why must I meet people here?”

“This is the vineyard. This is where everything starts.”

Avery fisted her hands on her hips. “Marcus, where are my things?”

He stood and walked around the desk toward her. “They are stored. Now go upstairs and get ready to visit your grandfather.” He reached for her arms and pulled her in to place a kiss on her lips. He didn’t move until her mouth went pliant under his.

“That’s better,” he said as he pulled away. His dark eyes locked on hers. “Now we have less time. Please hurry.”

Avery turned and headed for her bedroom. She’d been right. Everything had changed on that yacht. As she gathered her toiletries, she looked in the mirror and realized she didn’t even know the woman looking back at her. It hadn’t even been two months. Who had she become? Was this really the woman her mother was all those years ago?

Regardless of her mother’s past this wasn’t who she was now. Avery absolutely needed that trip home no matter what Marcus thought.

As the sun fell behind her grandfather’s enormous house, she wondered how it was her mother had grown up there. Then she thought better of it. Her mother had been shipped off to boarding schools from a very young age. That was where she’d met Avery’s uncle, Zach.

Avery smiled when she thought about it. A quiet American boy, her mother would always tell her. He was awkward and out of place. Her mother had fallen in love with him when she was just a small girl.

She contemplated that perhaps her mother and her uncle, who had married her father’s sister Regan, were just like her and Pete. Though her uncle never felt about her mother the way she and Pete had finally admitted to feeling about each other.

But would that be how they would turn out? In-laws? Old friends?

Thinking about her mother having anything to do with the huge house in front of her, she began to miss the simple house her parents had raised her in. She thought of Ed and Darcy’s house, which was her grandparents’ old house. She thought of the house she’d moved out of that belonged to her aunt. How many Kellers and Bensons had lived there over the years?

The stories she’d heard were that the first romance from the basement was her aunt and uncle John.

The thought of Jill and Pete actually hooking up seeped into her consciousness and her chest ached. She’d told him herself that was how things worked—and then she moved away.

Who was this Jill? Who was this woman he was spending his mornings with? Was he spending his nights there too?
A good friend
, Pete had told her. She bit down on her lip and waited as the driver stopped the car, stepped out, and opened Marcus’s door first.

Marcus stepped out of the car without another word to her or the driver. The driver came to her door and opened it “Thank you,” she was sure to say especially in the absence of Marcus’s words.