She looks at me with a combination of gratitude and concern, but overall, I’m pretty pleased about how our talk went down.
The minute she leaves, I look at Devon, demanding an explanation.
“Lunch? Really?”
“Yes. Lunch. I owe you for winning our bet, as you so astutely called me on the other night. Why so prickly this morning?”
Sometimes I really want to slap him.
When I don’t answer him, he shrugs. “Never mind, I already know. Pick you up at noon? OK, see you later.”
Devon doesn’t bother waiting for an answer. Armed with the English muffin he commandeered from my plate as if he doesn’t already have one, he walks out of the kitchen, yelling back, “Next time look at your phone.”
Leaving me with no doubt Devon is being sketchy. Though I suppose there are worse things than having your brother forcing you to lunch. Besides, maybe it will distract me from thinking about Enzo.
I look at my phone again.
And then again, maybe not.
41
Enzo
“Welcome to Chateau LeMonte, Mr. DeLuca.”
“Thank you”—I look at her name tag—“Sarah.”
“It says here you will be staying with us for a week?”
“Until next Sunday, yes.”
She looks at her computer as I take in the eclectic mixture of woodside lodge and French country decor. This place always reminded me of our region’s coal mining past, but that might be only because I know the original proprietor was a mine owner. He opened Chateau LeMonte in the early ’40s, the French decor nothing more than his desire to class the place up.
When I was a kid, my parents took us here for dinner a few times on special occasions. For a long time, it was the fanciest place I’d ever been. As Sarah checks me in, I look past the log cabin interior to the empty deck. No one sits outside now, the cold keeping the few guests indoors. But the view is perfect, the setting as close to Montreux as I can get in Pennsylvania.
She’ll be here soon.
After I take my key card from the attendant, I grab one of the hotel notecards and scrawl a quick note.
Chari,
I’m sorry for tricking you into coming, and so much more. Join me for lunch, please. Give me a chance to explain.
Enzo
“I have a guest coming at around noon. Can you give this to her with directions to the Boathouse Cabin?”
“Of course, sir. It is prepared as you asked.”
“Thank you.”
I pass the restaurant and head back outside, following Sarah’s circle on the resort map. Eight individual cabins dot the lakeside around the building containing the lobby and the restaurant. Walking along a path, I find our cabin and head inside.
They did a good job.
Flower petals everywhere. Chilled champagne.
I drop my bags, chuckling to myself as I imagine what Hayden would say about me carrying them myself. For such a great guy, he can be an insufferable snob. Before Ada, I considered it my duty to bring him back down to earth, but now she’s taken up the torch. Though I’m not sure she’s always entirely successful.
Climbing the stairs, I take in the contrast between the log cabin walls and bright white and pale blue decor. The large, cozy-looking bed. Opening the sliding glass door, I’m reminded this is no Montreux—the weather is still very much that of PA in late winter. I stand on the deck anyway, taking in the lodge’s famous twenty-mile view of Lake Shohola surrounded by the Pocono Mountains. It’s no Swiss Alps, but it’s beautiful in its own right.
I’m lost for a time, playing my speech over and over in my mind.
I started with my family yesterday, begging them for forgiveness. They all claimed no apologies were necessary, but I still feel regret over the time I lost with them as I built what I thought was my legacy.
A movement in the distance catches my eye.
Chari came.
I wasn’t sure she would. Devon agreed to help get her here after I told him all the things I planned on saying, on doing, but that doesn’t mean she’ll be receptive. Even now, as I hurry down the stairs to open the front door of the cabin and she walks slowly toward me, I can feel her skepticism.
A look passes between us, and I curse myself for the umpteenth time for how foolishly I handled that phone call. The thought of offering any concessions put me into a panic. It would have been the equivalent of admitting I had a problem, that I had let my work habits spiral out of control. It felt like she was asking me to leave everything behind, even though the logical part of my mind knew better.
I’m a goddamn idiot.
“Come in,” I say. “It’s freezing.”
I know that from standing outside on the deck for the last fifteen minutes. Since Chari hates the cold, I open the door a little wider to show her the roaring fireplace in the corner of the downstairs living room. That might not be playing fair, but I’m desperate enough to use the resources available to me.
“I don’t understand. What are you doing here?”
She might not understand yet, but she follows me in anyway. When she stops at the entrance, I turn to look at her. Her cheeks are red, and I can’t see much of her bundled in a down coat and scarf. But she’s never looked more beautiful.
“Come warm up. I’ll explain.”
I hold out my arms for her coat. After a brief hesitation, she takes it off and gives it to me, revealing an outfit of skinny jeans and a chunky beige sweater. Chari’s eyes rest on the champagne stand next to the beautifully set wooden table just off a kitchenette.
She doesn’t move.
“Devon . . .”
“I asked him to get you here. I was afraid that if I asked you directly, you might say no.”
“Enzo”—my name on her lips sounds as sweet as it did that first night at the bar—“I’d never do that. We’ve known each other forever. We’ve been friends for years.”
I nod toward the fire, mostly because I’m still cold, and she follows.
“I don’t want to be your friend, Chari.”
Shit. That didn’t come out right. I’m usually slicker than this.
We’re standing by the fire now, close enough that I can smell her perfume. Vanilla and coconut. I want to skip to the part where she takes me back and lets me kiss her senseless. I want to slip my hands underneath that sweater and warm us both up more effectively than this fire can.
But we’re not there yet.
And if you fuck this up, maybe you won’t ever be.
“I screwed up.”
I asked my sister for advice, and she was very clear on one thing: be honest. The words fumble out of me with all the confidence of a teenage boy, but at least they’re true.
“I should have said so many things last week. But I honestly couldn’t see a way forward. Angel, Inc. is my life, has been for years.”
“And you were honest about that from the beginning.”
Chari’s so detached, it’s scaring me. It’s as if she’s already made her decision. And although I’ve talked myself into and out of hundreds of business deals, I’m scared shitless I won’t be able to change her mind.
“At the beginning I figured I could try to have it all. That I could work as hard as I’d been working and have you too. The reality of it was just . . . so much more difficult.”