“I can’t even imagine,” Dani said. “I thought I was lucky growing up in Charleston, but this takes the beach to a whole new level.”
I pushed my hands into my pockets, the safest way to keep myself from touching her. “Hey,” I said.
She turned to face me. “What?”
“I think you’d be great designing on your own.”
She grinned. “Really?”
“Really.”
There was so much more I wanted to say. To ask. Would she go back to New York to do it? Would she stay in Charleston? Did this version of her future have room for me in it?
She bit the side of her bottom lip and looked at me in a way that spoke of possibility. “It would be really risky,” she finally said. “I might not make it. Especially if Sasha works against me.”
“But you might. And you’ll never know if you don’t try.”
She nodded, looking back out toward the ocean. “It’s hard to let go, Alex. One minute I think I can do it, and then the next it’s like I don’t even know myself anymore and I just want things to be the way they were before, when I still believed designing for LeFranc was a possibility.”
But what about me? What about us? The question pulsed through my brain, willing me to open my mouth and ask her.
I took a step backward. “I should get our bags from the car.”
“Right,” she said, pressing a hand to her stomach. “I’ll just wait here if that’s okay.”
I left her staring into the Atlantic and headed back to the front drive to move the car and get our bags. I’d wanted to ask her, but I couldn’t do it. If I’d asked, she might have answered. And I still wasn’t sure she was willing to give the only answer I wanted to hear.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Dani
While Alex went to park the car and retrieve our bags—all but the wedding dress which we felt was probably better hidden in the trunk of his car—I wandered around the pool house. It was nicely decorated, comfortable, but not showy or gaudy in any way. Pictures of Alicio’s sons filled the living room, snapshots from their youth of them swimming in the ocean behind the house, paddle boarding, surfing, eating ice cream on the small boardwalk that led down to the water from the house. Alex was conspicuously absent from all but a few photos. In those few, he never looked very comfortable; he seemed to be hovering on the fringes of the photos, in the frame, but not really a part.
But then, he hadn’t been around nearly as much, only spending a few months out of the year with his mom and Alicio’s family. Maybe that was enough to justify the disparity.
In the wide hallway that led to the bedroom, a large, family portrait hung across from an ornately framed mirror. Victor and Gabriel were maybe twelve and fourteen years old in the photo. They posed with their parents on the beach, the blue waves crashing behind them. Their father looked flawlessly tanned, not too different from the Alicio I’d caught glimpses of around the office, except that his hair was dark instead of the snow-white he now sported. He had his arm around Alex’s mom, her hand resting loosely on Gabriel’s shoulder. It was the perfect family photo, except Alex wasn’t in it.
Sadness swelled inside as I thought of him coming home each summer, seeing the portrait, and countless others undoubtedly just like it. She was his Mom, and yet, looking at the photo, you’d never know she had any other children.
A noise sounded behind me and I turned, attempting, and likely failing, to wipe the sadness from my face.
Alex followed my gaze back to the portrait.
“She was your Mom,” I said sadly. “How could she—”
“She did the best she could,” Alex said, cutting me off. He stalked past me into the bedroom, dropping my overnight bag onto the fluffy duvet that lay across the bed. His hands now free, he shoved them into his pockets. “It was a glamorous life. I think she got swept up in it all. Plus, I chose to live with my father. I think a part of her always resented that choice.”
“But still,” I said. A part of me knew I should let it go. Stop pushing. But the injustice of Alex’s position as an outsider in the family his own mother had been such a vital part of felt blatant. “Didn’t she fight for you? How could she exclude you like this?”
“She did the best she could,” he repeated. “And she did fight for me. For my education to be paid for, for the car, the job. She wanted me to be successful.” There was a hollow note to his words that I couldn’t help but notice. The words he wasn’t saying almost told me more. Money, she had given him without question. But time? Attention? Acceptance? Had Alex ever gotten enough of that?
Suddenly, I understood on a deeper level why Alex had been so driven to discover Sasha’s crimes. This was about so much more than a wedding dress. It was about Alex saving Alicio’s company. He wasn’t just seeking vindication. He was seeking acceptance.
Later that night, my thoughts kept returning to the family portrait in the hall.
What must it have felt like for Alex when he spoke out about troubles at LeFranc, and his girlfriend sided with the company rather than him? A knot formed in my stomach. He’d spent his entire life watching his mom choose the LeFrancs. When he’d come to me—the one person who should have been on his side no matter what—I’d defended Sasha. Told him multiple times he was overreacting.
I’d picked LeFranc. Just like his mom.
No wonder he’d left me.
I’d hurt him in the worst possible way.
It took hours for me to fall asleep. Twice I crossed the room, opening the bedroom door determined to wake Alex, who slept on the living room sofa, apologize, and tell him I finally understood why he’d left so abruptly. Both times I chickened out, closing the door and huffing back to bed. How would he react? Would he accept my apology? Would he trust me again? He’d said he never stopped wanting me. But I wanted him to love me. Because—Paige would be happy to hear me acknowledge she’d been right all along—I had never stopped loving him.
Early the next morning, I sat on the side of the pool, my feet swirling in the cool, blue water, and called Paige. Though it was not quite seven a.m., she answered on the first ring. I sighed with relief when I heard her voice. I no longer had the guarantee that she’d be up with the children since she’d officially given up her nannying job, but I’d hoped she would answer anyway. I needed the clarity only a conversation with Paige could bring.
“Dani! How are you? How’s Florida?”
“Oh, good. I was afraid I’d woken you up.”
“Nope. Just got back from a run. Are you avoiding my question? How’s Florida?”
I’d told Paige I was simply attending the wedding with Alex, that he felt obligated to go and try and make amends with his stepfather. She still had no idea we were attempting to get back her dress. “It’s warm,” I said. “And beautiful. Alicio’s house is unbelievable. We’re staying in the pool house and even just that is amazing.”
“Have you seen Sasha yet?” Paige asked.
“No. But I promise to kick her in the shins for you when I do. How’s wedding prep going?”
“Let’s see. My job for today is to convince my mother she does not, eight days before the wedding, need to have the caterer add five different kinds of shrimp to the appetizer list. Five, Dani. Who needs five kinds of shrimp at one dinner?”