Chapter 41
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Autumn
It was raining, and I had no appetite for bad weather.
Instead of being out sightseeing, making the most out of my last few hours in Croatia, I’d packed and repacked my case at least nine times.
I was due to fly to Paris this afternoon, but I didn’t want to go.
How ridiculous was that? I was due to go to Paris, France, and I didn’t want to go.
I was homesick. Not for Oregon. But for London. For my sister. For Gabriel. And Bethany.
“You called at the perfect time,” Hollie said as she answered my videocall. “I’m deciding on napkins. To tell you the truth, Dexter decided on napkins and chose something ten times more expensive than we need, so I’m rechoosing napkins. Don’t say anything if you speak to him.”
“I promise. What are the options?” She held up two white napkins. “I prefer the plain ones.”
“Great. Me too. The coordinator was pushing the scalloped edges, but I prefer the plain white.” She collapsed onto the couch I recognized from her office. “So, haven’t spoken to you since you left Greece. How’s Zagreb?”
“Pretty. I wish you were here,” I said, a little too weary to keep my smile from faltering.
“I wish I was there too. I could have come out. You want me to see if I can get flights?”
“Hollie, you’re getting married in two weeks. You can’t come out now. And anyway, I’ll be back in London in six days.”
“I’ve missed you so much,” Hollie said.
“Same.” I didn’t have the energy to launch into how great the trip was, which was what I normally did when she told me she missed me. I didn’t want her to worry.
“You don’t sound like yourself. What’s the matter?”
I wasn’t sure whether or not Hollie was expecting me to have gotten over Gabriel by now, but we hadn’t mentioned him since I’d left London. “I miss you. I miss London.”
“Does that include Gabriel?” she asked.
I drew in a breath and prepared myself to disappoint my sister.
“I’m so happy that I’ve had the chance to come to Europe, see all these amazing places.
And I’ll never regret leaving. You might not like this, but as much as I wish you’d been here with me, I wish Gabriel and Bethany had been here too. ”
She stared into the phone, her eyebrows pulled together, but didn’t say a word.
“It’s been weeks and I miss him more every day.
Not less.” I thought back to the dinners Gabriel and I had been to at Hollie and Dexter’s place, and wondered how often he’d been there without me in the past month.
It had taken me every ounce of willpower not to ask after him during every phone call.
But just like I was out of energy, my self-control was at an all-time low.
Hollie’s frown might have been disapproving but it also might have been sympathetic. Did she know something I didn’t?
“Have you heard from him?” I asked.
“I was about to ask you the same question. I’ve been avoiding him,” she said.
“I told him I didn’t want to have any contact while I was away.
I wanted him and Penelope to have a good shot at giving their marriage another chance.
” A thousand times a day I’d wondered if that had been the right decision.
He might have moved on already. He might have thought I’d given up on him. “You haven’t seen him at all?”
“Just once when I picked up Dexter. Wedding prep is a pain in my butt but it’s a great excuse not to have people around for dinner.”
“What about Dexter? Has he said anything?”
“About Gabriel? He’s banned from telling me anything.”
I understood why she didn’t want to hear how Gabriel was—she was a loyal secret keeper, and while it was one of the things I loved most about her, I just wish her lips were a little looser when it came to Gabriel.
“You think he’s back with Penelope?” I asked.
When Hollie didn’t respond I assumed the screen had frozen. I held my phone toward my hotel room door. Damn WiFi.
“You know what?” she asked finally.
My heart pounded like I was waiting to hear my fate. She knew something, I knew she did, just like I knew she didn’t want to tell me what it was. “What?” I braced myself to hear the truth. Better to find out here than watch him turn up to Dexter and Hollie’s wedding with Penelope on his arm.
“I think I know you pretty well.” That didn’t sound good. “I’ve seen you go through your fair share of boyfriends.”
We were veering off course. I wanted to know about Gabriel and Penelope. “Where are we going with this?”
“I’m saying that you’ve had lots of other boyfriends and I bet there’s been a few you’d have difficulty recalling a surname for.”
“Enough with the slut shaming, Hollie. You’re supposed to be on my side.” Was she saying I wasn’t good enough for Gabriel?
“Like, you’d just move on, right? You’d leave them in your dust.”
“Jesus, Hollie, you’re making me sound like a monster.”
“Sorry,” she said, grinning into the camera. “I’m just saying that you’ve been through Europe on your own and you haven’t met anyone. No crazy affairs, no Italian boyfriend, no flavor-of-the-week. You’re still pining for Gabriel.”
“Are you recapping all this for any particular reason or are you just testing the WiFi?”
“You’re in love with him.”
Hearing it from my sister was like being presented with evidence of an open and shut case. Of course I was in love with him—that wasn’t new information. But knowing Hollie saw it too proved it wasn’t going to be something I just got over.
“I know,” I said, standing up from the bed and staring out over the city.
I was in love with a man who might well be starting a new life with his wife.
A man who used to love me and who I hadn’t seen for weeks.
A man who was hundreds of miles away, just where I’d left him. “What’s your point, Hollie?”
“My point is that you’ve had the opportunity to spread your wings and you still love him, so you need to get the heck back here and fight for him.”
I spun to face my suitcase. “You think?” Excitement fizzled in my chest before panic pushed past. Did she know something and wasn’t telling me? “Who am I fighting? Is he back with Penelope?”
“Honestly I don’t know. I told Dexter I didn’t want to hear about any of it because it didn’t seem fair. But if you love him, you need to tell him.”
“I’m due to fly to Paris this afternoon. If he’s decided to go back to Penelope, I’d rather stay there and lick my wounds.”
“Fly to Paris,” Hollie said. “If things are going to work out, a few days won’t make much difference.
Go distract yourself with the city and make a plan—I know you’re good at those.
If you weren’t, Dexter and I wouldn’t be about to get married.
Then get your butt back here and fight for him.
I’m sure there’s a part of you that’s scared to care about a guy but—”
“I’m not scared of loving him. I just don’t want to get in the middle of him and Penelope if he can make a life with her. He’s not good at giving people second chances.”
“Sometimes they don’t deserve them.”
“That’s not for me to decide. That’s up to Gabriel.”
“Right. It’s up to Gabriel to decide if he wants you or not. Come back. Tell him you love him and then he can decide what he wants.”
Was that what I should have done all along?
I’d been so sure that me staying around would have muddied the waters for him and kept him from giving Penelope a second chance, but maybe she didn’t deserve him?
And although I wanted Gabriel to be happy, I wanted him to be happy with me.
Because I knew he was the only man that I would ever want.