“It’s my family’s company. I’m going to run it one day.”
“That doesn’t make it any less important to me, Tyson. And if I can’t expect you to turn it down how can you expect me to?”
He gives a sharp sigh of frustration and starts to pace. “Okay, then…we’ll just have to be discreet. But Dina, we can’t stop what we just started.”
“We didn’t just start. We’ve been doing this thing for more than two years, Tyson. This weekend was a reset, with an escape hatch.”
“And what? You want to use it?”
I certainly don’t want to. But…I want to take him home to meet my dad. I want his family to know we’re together. And that he asked me to do what he isn’t willing to feels too familiar and terrible.
“Tyson, I have to go.” I walk back into the bedroom and start rifling around for my underwear.
“Wait, what? When is your train?”
I tug on my bra and panties and slip on my shoes. “I don’t know. I need to book it. All my stuff is still back at Le Meurice. I hope it’s okay. I was supposed to check out yesterday and be back in London today. And you’ve got to get to work too. They probably think you’re dead.”
He pulls on a T-shirt and a pair of jeans. “Dina, we were talking.”
“I know. But I’ve seen this movie before, I know what happens next, so I just want to skip to the credits."
“What movie? What are you talking about?”
“I put my career on hold to follow him all over the world while he pursued opportunities that he said were once in a lifetime. I didn’t want to move every year, but we were married, and I wanted him to have that. But as soon as I asked for the same consideration, he refused.”
“Ah, and there’s your first mistake, grasshopper. You shouldn’t give with the expectation of getting something back.”
I grind my teeth together, frustrated at his making light of what feels like an existential crisis
“That is utter bullshit. Yesterday, you said you loved those mushrooms. But in truth, you just enjoy them. 'Cause if you had to grow them to keep eating them, I doubt you would. Which is fine. It just means it’s not your passion.”
“I’m missing something, Dina. Why the hell are we talking about mushrooms?”
I groan, frustrated that I have to spell it out. “I want someone who will do the work and not just enjoy the harvest. And I want to be with someone who’s worth the work I put in, too.”
“How, when you won’t give anyone a chance?”
“I’ve given you so many chances. You had one just now.”
“That’s not what a chance looks like. You can’t possibly expect me to consider it.”
I glower at him. “Yes, how silly of me to expect Tyson Wilde to give as good as he expects to get.” I half laugh, half sob and brush the tears off my cheek.
“Dina. Come on.”
“No. It’s for the best. And at least neither of us have to worry about losing our dream jobs.”
He sits back down on the bed and stares at the floor but doesn’t say a word.
“I’m gonna go,” I mutter.
“Let me call you a car,” he offers. But his voice is listless, and I can tell he doesn’t want to.
“I’m going to walk. I’ll be fine, and you need to get ready for work.”
He stands and grabs my shoulders, shaking me slightly with the force of the movement. “So that’s it? You’re just going to leave? After you set a damn fire in my heart and let me think I’d finally started to warm yours up?”
“I set a fire in your heart?”
He presses a kiss to my mouth and pulls me into a hug. And I swear, the ground beneath my feet quakes when he whispers, “It’s an inferno, and it’s hot enough to keep us both warm. Trust me.”
20
The Legend
Tyson
“How was your weekend?” Remi asks when I answer his call. I decided to work from home today. But all I’ve done is sit at my desk and replay my conversation with Dina. She’s been gone for six hours, and it feels like a week. “She’s gone, Remi. I fucked up.”
He chuckles. “I thought Dupont signed the deal, and who’s gone?”
“Never mind.” I forgot how clueless Remi is when it comes to the rest of our personal lives.
“No, not never mind. Tell me. Wait, is this about Dina?”
“I don’t want to talk about it. And why can’t any of you just mind your own business?”
“Are you looking in the mirror right now? You could have written a sibling’s manual on snooping and interfering.”
“Why are you calling me? Shouldn’t you be in court or something?”
“It’s six a.m. here, and I was calling you to find out how your weekend was and to congratulate you on the job. Mom said it’s yours for the taking.”
“Only because she’s desperate.” I flop onto my bed.
“Tyson, you know she values you. Hell, she credits your strategy for singlehandedly growing Wilde’s retail distribution last year. You’re her rainmaker.”
“And yet I wasn’t the best candidate for the job until suddenly I was the only choice.”
“Woah. Ty, that’s not true.”
“It is, and when I step into that role and crush it, she’ll be forced to admit she was wrong.”
“Let me give you some advice, you can take it as you will.”
“Go ahead.” I normally chafe against his efforts to “school me,” a reflex from a childhood spent living in his shadow. But right now, I’m hungry for his help.
He’s silent for a few seconds, and I know he’s thinking, choosing his words. So I wait patiently, because I know he’s about to lay some wisdom on me. “Instead of beating your head against the brick wall of our mother’s unknowable motivations and unshakeable fidelity to Wilde World, you’re missing out on the things that are actually meant for you.”
“What if you’d had to choose between your firm and Kal?”
“I’d set the place on fire myself.” He says it with no hint of humor or levity in his voice.
“Really?”
“Oh, trust me. I can build another company in what’s left of my lifetime. Maybe not back to what Wilde Law is now, but I could do it. But I could never find another woman made so perfectly for me than my wife.”
“And you know she loves you. I don’t know how Dina feels. And I’m crazy about her, but what if she’s not the one?”
“There’s no magical the one. There’s two people deciding they love each other enough to do hard things with, to make sacrifices for, to forgive. And then there’s everyone else. And if you’re so sure you’re meant to run Wilde, then you shouldn’t be afraid to let it go until the time is right.”
His words wash over me and sink in, but it’s not my job or my mother or even my damn pride they make me think of.
It’s Dina, and how today, when I let her leave, as much as I hated to let her go, I wasn’t afraid to. Because through word and deed, she’s shown that I don’t need to be. I know my heart is safe with her. I know we’ll find a way. Now I just need her to know it, too.