Chapter 10
MAYA
Fleur and I are sitting at one of those tiny round café tables that spill out onto the sidewalk, the kind that barely fits two people and a couple of coffee cups.
The summer air is thick and sticky, and I’m in shock again, as Fleur recounts her terrible date with the emotionally unavailable but spiritually perfect guy.
“That sounds awful, hon. I don’t think you should have gone. He’s so much older than you.”
Fleur breaks off a piece of her cinnamon bun. “I like to give people a chance.”
“You’re too kind and too forgiving.”
“Age shouldn’t matter. Look at George Clooney and Amal.”
“Was this guy a George Clooney?”
“More like a balding George Washington,” Fleur moans.
“The president?”
“Is there any other?”
I have no idea what he looks like so I quickly check him out online and make a face. “You poor thing. I take it there were no sparks?”
“If sparks mean him lecturing me about his podcast for forty minutes—”
“He has a podcast?”
“Anyone can have a podcast. Even you, and even me. There were fireworks. Not.”
“So it’s a no?”
“What do you think?” She breaks off another piece of her bun.
“If I were you, I would tell Dave that his app doesn’t work, and I would not use it anymore.”
“I can’t do that,” she cries. “He’s so sweet and he’s working incredibly hard. He’s really trying. He’s in there every day, tweaking things, asking for feedback, listening to what I have to say. I want his app to succeed, for his sake.”
“And what about you?” I ask softly. “What do you get out of this?”
She waves her hand dismissively, like she doesn’t want to talk about it.
I feel sorry for her. My own dating life hasn’t been great, but it’s not been as crazy as hers.
Mine has been quieter, whereas she’s determined not to be alone.
I broke up with a guy months before I got this job, because I wanted to focus on my career.
I wanted to prove myself when I got this job and working for Katherine is full on.
Still, I’ve given it my all, working late into the night and on weekends if needed, I wouldn’t have had the time for a relationship.
And now the thought of leaving and moving closer to my mom is becoming more real.
But I love this city. It’s a shame my boss has made my life too difficult, and I’ve given up on the promotion carrot she’s still dangling, but I can’t do this for much longer.
Zach coming on the scene has made things worse and now my emotions are all over the place.
“I’m done talking about me. I want to hear all about your Friday night dinner with your mystery man,” Fleur says.
I recount the date, and am forced to recount every tiny detail, from the interior of Dali, the restaurant, to the dishes on the menu, and the wine Zach ordered. I tell her everything, without telling her who he is.
“He’s perfect!” Fleur shrieks. “He’s sounds just perfect. A dream.”
Zach Knight does seem like the perfect gentleman, from the outside, but we have history, history he knows about and history he’s completely ignorant of. It complicates things.
“Are you seeing him again?”
“I don’t want to ever see him again.”
Fleur’s eyes widen. “Why not?”
I shrug, because I can’t articulate my words clearly.
“If you don’t want this man, give him to me. I’ll take him off your hands,” she begs.
The thought pinches me. And that in itself is a surprise.
Zach does sound like the perfect guy, and I must come across as ungrateful and nasty.
That’s probably what he thought, too. After all, he took me to a beautiful restaurant and we ate the most delicious food, yet, he did his utmost to impress me, and despite him being the perfect gentleman, all I felt was the gulf between his world and mine.
It instantly put me on guard. Everything Zach did for me, pulling out my chair, ordering the expensive wine, every gesture of generosity felt like a show of wealth. It reminded me of the power imbalance between us, the same power imbalance my mom always felt being a housekeeper to the rich.
A couple stroll past us, arms linked, tourists slowing down to peer into shop windows. I watch them, wrapping my fingers around my tall glass of iced latte, the glass cool against my skin, condensation pooling on the tabletop.
Life is so not fair. Why couldn’t he just be a normal guy? Someone who watches football with his buddies, and knocks back beers after work. Someone who works a 9-to-5 without constantly checking his phone and maybe goes fishing on the weekend instead of spiraling over every little thing.
Everything would be so different then.
And if only he weren’t burdened by his bloodline.
Would I be attracted to him then?
Yes.
Am I attracted to him now?
Also yes.
The only thing keeping me from him is our past, and yet he talked about that time with such fondness, sometimes with a rueful smile. He seemed to want to dwell in it, and I wanted nothing of the sort. I kept thinking, you don’t get to have my past. You don’t get to turn it into something it wasn’t.
Naturally he noticed my distance. He figured out something was wrong. I wanted to tell him, but I couldn’t, not after he told me that his father has kidney disease. Now I can’t ever tell him.
I take a slow sip of my cold coffee, letting the noise of the street wash over me as if it might drown out the memory.
When he made a toast to “old friends finding each other again,” I felt sick. All I could think about was my mom crying while she packed our bags and we left in a hurry.
And yet, I have never forgotten when we kissed for the first time. All that longing and yearning for a boy I liked so much that I could barely sleep at night, came to a head. It was near the boathouse, on one of those early June days when sunlight dripped from the sky.
Suddenly we were standing so close, and then he leaned toward me. I didn’t lean back. I didn’t want to. He looked at me, and then I leaned forward before I could stop myself. We kissed.
It was quick and sudden and achingly real.
I’d never been kissed before, and it stole my breath away, sent a flutter through my chest and down into places that were still a secret, waiting to be discovered.
For a few seconds, it was just me and him, the world receding into nothingness as the shock of his lips on mine, his tongue meeting mine, turned my insides to liquid heat.
It only lasted a few seconds, but it stayed with me for days.
I heard my mom call my name, and I ran away, my heart beating with the thrill of something new, something secret, something special I knew I would never forget.
“You don’t know what it’s like out there,” Fleur says, looking at me like she doesn’t understand me. “It’s a jungle. If you can get a man, a good man, as well as a good-looking man, then you need to hold on to him with both hands. Wrap your legs around his waist and cage him in if you have to.”
“Fleur!” I cry. She can be funny. She’s dramatic, a diva, but funny. She has to laugh though, after all the dating disasters she’s had.
“Does he have a good head of hair?”
I laugh out loud. “He has a beautiful head of hair,” I whisper, and just saying it makes my stomach flip. He also has the sexiest of five o’clock shadows, and I’m always tempted to trace my fingers all over it.
In the restaurant, as we were led to our table, I saw heads turning. It was impossible to miss the way women looked at him; the lingering glances, the quick assessments, the subtle interest that followed him.
But he didn’t seem to notice or care. I saw the way the waitress sidled up to him when he first arrived, but he barely noticed.
He made it all about me. The compliments, that look of admiration in his eyes, the way he gently touched my arm, as we followed the waitress.
His touch startled me in a way I wasn’t prepared for.
I jolted, not because I didn’t like it, but because I felt the scattering of electric sparks along my arms, and the memories of old came flooding back.
One touch and I was on edge. Too aware of him, and too aware of myself.
He was dressed simply but impeccably. Nothing flashy.
Just clean lines, black and white. Classic.
He’s so striking anyway, but his height makes him even more impossible to ignore.
And despite all of that, I don’t think he’s a player at all.
Zach was never like that. He was soft, sincere and quietly kind, and somehow, against the odds, being in that family, he’s still grown up to be exactly that.
I set firm boundaries between us. I needed him to know that dinner wasn’t what he hoped it might be, and I think by the end of it he realized. Sort of. He hopes we’ll meet again, and while I find myself thinking about him more than I should, it can’t happen.
There’s no way I can tell him the truth without ruining every memory he has of the past. Every time he tried to be vulnerable, I put up my steel walls. Every time he leaned in emotionally, I stepped back. While he’s still as kind and as caring as ever, I have to stay away.
And yet, I wonder what he’s up to today.
A warm breeze lifts a strand of hair off my neck, sticky with humidity. It’s so hot out here.
“I don’t understand,” Fleur says. “You do like him. I saw the number of outfits on your bed. You wanted to impress him.”
I trace a slow circle in the ring of moisture my glass has left behind. “I wanted him to know I was doing okay.”
“He sounds so nice. What is it you haven’t told me? The real reason why you don’t want to give him a chance?”
She’s like a hungry dog with a juicy fat bone. She won’t let go of it. I take a big breath. “The reason I can’t be with him … I didn’t tell you this, but my mother used to be their housekeeper.”
“Their housekeeper?” Fleur asks weakly. Her eyes widen, like they’re about to pop right out of their sockets. “Whaddya mean she was their housekeeper? What is he, royalty?”
I take a deep breath. “I don’t know how much you know about the Knight family.”