Chapter 32
ZACH
My stomach is tied up in knots, because even though Maya tells me she’s okay, I know she isn’t.
She’s not the same Maya from before my father appeared. That tells me something. She schools herself, tries to smile, tries to compose herself, but the light in her eyes is dead, flat and gone out.
Her expression is composed, not natural. Her lips curve and she’s trying to smile, but her eyes don’t lift.
It’s obvious that something is off.
I love that Cari is talking to her. I love that she went and sought her out, found her before I did. I step forward, reaching for Maya’s hand. She lets me take it, but she doesn’t wrap her fingers around mine like she’d usually do. She’s shutting me out, slowly.
“Maya,” I say softly. “Shall we go back and join the party?”
“Uh … okay.” It sounds like she doesn’t want to, and it’s so obvious, and yet she’s trying so hard to act like she does, trying to be neutral and polite when she’s clearly not happy.
Maya looks past me. I’m staring at a different woman.
Not the Maya from a short while ago, from before we cut the cake.
The joyous woman who enchanted everyone she met.
Who smiled and laughed, whose face lit up whenever she looked at me.
I try to hold on to the version of the night I had back then, and how quickly it’s changed.
Now I’m in this nightmare hellscape of a night.
What the hell happened?
My father is talking to some business associates, a whiskey glass in his hand. He laughs, and it’s the most unfamiliar sound. It’s not like him to laugh, but maybe he’s doing it despite me.
He knows he ruined this evening.
You’d have to be a statue not to notice the chill in the air when he arrived, and my father is very good at noticing things. He sees below the surface. He senses things. He’s like all-knowing. Omniscient.
Cari keeps on coming over, to make sure Mayha’s okay. I appreciate her concern.
“Thanks for looking out for her,” I tell her.
I don’t know what this is. “Look, we can get out of here,” I suggest to Maya. “We can leave early and slip away. Just us.”
“How can we leave? We’re on a boat. Zach.”
I can arrange it if she really wants to leave, and it’s clear she does. I’ll ask the captain to dock early.
“I can’t help if I don’t know what’s wrong, and something clearly is wrong. You can’t convince me it isn’t.”
She pauses, then “It’s … my mom.”
I have a nagging feeling this is nothing to do with her mom. “What is it?” I ask anyway. “Can I help?”
She looks away. Doesn’t even dignify that with an answer.
“It’s not your mom, is it?” It’s coming back to me now, what she said when I told her she was pushing me away.
It’s not you, I promise. Now it makes me wonder, if it isn’t me, then who is it?
“I’m going to tell the captain to dock early.” I start to walk away, but she grabs my wrist.
“Don’t end your party early, Zach. Don’t. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for being like this.”
“Then tell me what’s wrong.”
She stares at me blankly.
“Talk to me, Maya. This is me. This is us. Please.” I beg. I want to help her, and I hate that she’s not letting me in.
“I just need to go home as soon as the boat docks.” There’s no drama, no edge to her words, and yet they hit me like a wrecking ball. My brain scrambles to rearrange them into something that doesn’t mean what they mean.
She’s hiding something from me.
Something she’s scared to tell me.
I have to accept it. She wants to leave as soon as we dock.
Dex and Rio were talking about having a party at one of the apartments, either Jett’s or Rio’s because those guys have pools.
They want to continue partying into the early hours.
It would have been fantastic, and memorable.
A fitting end to my day, but I have a feeling that Maya won’t want to go, and I don’t want to go without her.
“Do you want to go back to the apartment?” I say, calling it the apartment like it belongs to us, like it’s our secret meeting place.
She shakes her head. “No. I can’t. I can’t.”
I force air into my lungs. “Okay.” I try to sound flippant, but it doesn’t come out like that. I’m hurt. She’s just broken something in me, because I don’t understand and I don’t recognize this version of her. It’s so infuriating that I want to punch a hole in a wall.
“I’ll take you back to your apartment,” I tell her.
“There’s no need. Your dad’s just arrived and you need to spend time with him.”
“He’s my dad,” I say. “He’s always here.”
She stays quiet. Looks away. She probably thinks I’m being ungrateful.
“Look. I know he came all the way back, and I don’t know why he did that, because it’s not like him to put family matters before business, but I want this evening to be as good as it was before he arrived. The only way it can be salvaged is if I spend it with you.”
“Don’t convince me to change my mind.” She lifts her hand to my chest. “You should spend time with your family, and leave me be.”
I stare at the water, and the lights in the distance, trying to make sense of this chaos and knowing, with a sinking feeling, that I can’t salvage this evening.
“Would you like a drink?” I ask, finally. “Or something to eat?”
“No, thank you,” she says too quickly, like she’s going to say that to every question I ask. So I keep my hands at my sides, resisting the urge to reach for her, resisting the urge to pull her into me. My eyes search for clues.
Her chin is lifted. Her gaze is steady. Her hands are empty. No glass. No plate. She’s not eating. She’s not drinking. She’s not enjoying herself tonight. She’s enduring it.
I glance toward my father again, and instantly regret it.
He’s talking to another group of guests and moving through the crowd like nothing’s happened.
Like he didn’t walk in and freeze the entire deck with one step.
Like he didn’t change the air. Like he didn’t change the mood.
Like he didn’t change this memory I’ll always have of my thirtieth birthday.
How wrong I was to think it was going to be perfect.
All the dominoes lined up, ready to fall.
And hell if they haven’t.
“I don’t know what I said. I don’t know what I did,” I say quietly, accepting that this night can’t be salvaged.
“It’s not you,” she says, quickly. She’s said something like that before. She looks at me for a second and I really think she might let me in and tell me what’s wrong so I can fix it. Because I will fix it. But then she inhales, slow and controlled.
“I’m just tired,” she says.
It’s the kind of sentence that ends conversations. That says she’s done. I can’t get through to her, because every attempt I make pushes her further away, retreating into herself.
I don’t want to be that kind of guy. Something’s going on here. I’ll get to the bottom of it. I don’t know how, but I will.
“Okay,” I say, giving in. “As soon as we dock, I’ll get the driver to take you home. Please.” I say it quickly. “If you don’t want me to come with you, I’ll feel better knowing you’ve been taken safely back to your apartment.”
She gives me a small nod, then turns her face toward the water again. I stand beside her, surrounded by celebration. Music roars through the night air again. The deck below us is full of people dancing, with chatter and laughter filling the air.
It feels like watching a movie I’m not a part of.
We’re on the sidelines, not part of the fun. Just watching, like onlookers.
***
The yacht docks, and everything happens quickly.
Maya doesn’t linger. There’s no slow winding down, no standing around while people decide what’s next.
She thanks Cari softly, tells Dani and Raquel that it was nice to meet them, then she murmurs something polite to my brothers.
She’s already halfway toward the gangway, when I rush to grab her arm.
“I need to go,” she says to me, apologetic but firm.
“At least let me walk you to the car,” I say instantly. “Make sure you get into the right one.”
She swallows, turns away, like she can’t get out of here fast enough. I see the car we came in, and help her get in, before giving the driver her address.
“’Bye,” I say, eyes lingering over her face, willing her to open up to me, to change her mind, to let me in.
Anything.
She surprises me. She sits forward on the seat, her hand reaching for my shoulder. “’Bye, Zach. Hope you had a happy birthday.” She presses a light kiss on my lips and then she sits back.
I close the door, watching the car drive off, and still I feel the press of her lips on mine.
This night ended nothing like I’d hoped it would.
The void Maya leaves behind feels too big.
Enzo stands beside me. “You alright?”
“Not sure.”
He hesitates. “She looked overwhelmed.”
Though he’s usually observant, I’m not sure I agree. This was more than overwhelm. I silently contemplate what it might have been.
“It didn’t feel like this was about you,” Enzo adds.
And there it is. Enzo voicing something that’s been gnawing away at me makes me believe it.
It’s not you. That’s what Maya always said.
I didn’t mess up.
It was something else.
Something older.
I hear excited chatter behind us. It’s the gang.
“They’re talking about continuing with the party,” Enzo informs me. The chatter grows closer. Dex pokes me lightly in the ribs.
“Good night?” he asks.
I wonder where he’s been all evening. “Yeah. Thanks. A night I’ll never forget.”
He frowns. “What? Come on. It’s your birthday.” He looks around. “Where did Maya go?”
“Said she had to get back.”
“That’s a shame,” says Rio. “Would have been nice to have her come back with us.”
“She left?” Raquel asks.
“I didn’t notice her leaving. What happened?” Dani asks.
“I think it was something to do with her mom,” Cari says, looking at me like she knows it wasn’t that.
Dex announces loudly that we’re all going back to Jett’s penthouse for a private family after-party. Rio lets out an enthusiastic whoop. Matteo looks like he’d rather crawl straight into bed, and Enzo hesitates, caught somewhere between obligation and escape.
“Fine,” Jett says, grimacing. “One drink.”
“One drink, Jett?” Cari cries, rolling her eyes. “For the love of God, let your brother have a proper after-party.”
Rio laughs and claps Jett on the shoulder. “See? Even Cari thinks you’re killing the vibe.”
“I am not killing anything,” Jett mutters.
Plans are made anyway. Cars are called. Voices overlap.
No one notices how quiet I’ve gone, or that the night is already over for me.
They think this is just the natural end of a party.
They have no idea something else has already ended.
I look around instinctively and my gaze catches my father across the deck.
He stands apart, talking to someone I don’t recognize, but his eyes are on us.
“I’ll see Dad home,” I offer.
A wail of cries answers back. “It’s your party, dude,” Rio says.
Dex looks aghast. “Yeah, no one should have to do that, least of all when it’s your celebration.”
“I’ll see him home, and then I’ll come over,” I insist. My mood is low, and I’m not motivated to do anything. I just want to see how Maya is but something tells me to give her the space she obviously needs.
Maybe I will turn up at Jett’s apartment before I go home. “I’ll see you later,” I say to my brothers, and head towards my father.
“I’ll see you home,” I tell him. I didn’t see him speak to any of my brothers all night, and the fact that they’ve all left and gone on to an after-party he clearly isn’t invited to stirs up the old, familiar mix of obligation, resentment, and guilt I’ve never quite managed to shake.
He smiles faintly. “You don’t have to.”
“I know, but you came, so …” It’s the least I can do.
His loyal chauffeur is there, and the drive to his penthouse is quiet. I struggle to find something to talk about. “I thought you were staying away longer.”
He shrugs. “Plans change.”
“They usually don’t for you.”
There’s a pause in which I feel like he’s about to say something, so I wait. A pause.
“You’re with … Maya?” he asks finally. It feels like he struggled to say her name.
“Yes.”
“It must be serious,” he remarks, testing the waters.
I stay silent, preferring him to show his cards, because I don’t know what angle he’s taking.
Finally, he says it, “Serious enough for you to acquire a majority stake in the company she works for.” He sighs long, and with disappointment. “And I thought you were finally making a smart business move.”
“It is a smart business move. I saw that it had potential. I knew I could turn things around. I am turning things around.”
“And the girl?”
It annoys the hell out of me to hear him refer to her like that. “Maya,” I correct sharply. “Her name is Maya.”
He hums, noncommittal. “You’re letting sentiment cloud your judgment.”
“No,” I snap. “I’m letting competence guide it. She has nothing to do with the decision.”
“If you say so.”
My thoughts drift back to the past and I have a question which has been burrowing a hole inside me for a long time. “Why did Maya and her mom suddenly leave the Knight Estate?” I ask, watching him carefully, but his calm expression doesn’t give anything away.
“Her mother found a job somewhere, as I remember it.”
I push deeper. “They left in a hurry.”
“Must have been a good job.”
That’s all he gives me. No specifics. No detail. I feel like there’s more to it.
The car stops outside his penthouse building.
“Happy Birthday,” he says, getting out. “Drive him home, will you?” he orders the chauffeur.
It’s a cold, clipped exchange. Not how a father and son would say goodbye on what should have been a momentous celebration.
I almost head back to my apartment but know that Dex will probably come hunting for me if I don’t show up. Also, there’s no point in returning to an empty place. No Maya to end the night with.
I’d imagined her here. Kicking off her shoes, us talking about the party, making love all night, then falling asleep tangled in each other.
Instead, I take the stairs to Jett’s penthouse, but standing outside his door, hearing the laughter, the music, the sheer joy, I feel alone and empty and so not in the mood.
I go back to my place and pour myself a drink I don’t want.
Standing at my window, I stare at the lit-up network of lights in a city that now feels indifferent.
I feel the change, in my bones and in the air. Nothing matters to me in this moment, and it’s because the woman I’m in love with rushed away without an explanation.
Something scared Maya tonight. Something made her retreat into herself and away from me so completely.
And something in my gut tells me it had nothing to do with the party.