18. Blair
— ? —
Blair
The weeks had started folding into each other, one bleeding into the next until I’d mostly stopped counting them. Long enough that the shape of my life at Nan’s had stopped feeling temporary. Long enough that I no longer flinched at the empty side of the bed.
Henry was with Nan for the weekend, which meant I had no excuse not to attend the celebration weekend at the vineyard.
Trip had planned the whole thing. A weekend of festivities for the newly engaged couple, complete with wine tastings and dinners and the kind of elaborate production that only Trip Vanderford could orchestrate on two weeks’ notice.
I’d tried to beg off, citing exhaustion and pregnancy and a general desire to hide from the world, but Trip had called three times and texted fourteen more, and eventually I’d given in.
“You’re my best friend,” he’d said. “You’re basically responsible for this engagement. If you don’t come, I’ll be emotionally devastated.”
“You’ll be fine.”
“I’ll cry. Publicly. In front of Luca’s entire family.”
“You cry publicly all the time.”
“This will be different. This will be tragic crying. The kind that makes Italian grandmothers bring out their rosaries.”
So here I was, driving through a storm that had come out of nowhere, my windshield wipers working overtime, my phone buzzing with weather alerts I was choosing to ignore.
The rain had started about twenty minutes outside of Newport and gotten progressively worse, the kind of biblical downpour that made you wonder if someone was trying to warn you.
I gripped the steering wheel tighter and squinted through the water sheeting across my windshield.
The sensible thing would have been to pull over and wait it out.
But I was tired of being sensible. Tired of making the careful choice, the safe choice, the choice that protected me from feeling anything too intensely.
For three months I’d been careful, and where had it gotten me?
Alone in a cottage with my grandmother, pregnant and separated and watching my life from a distance.
Tonight I wanted to celebrate. Even if the joy wasn’t mine.
The vineyard inn was beautiful, even through the rain.
Stone walls, climbing vines, the kind of rustic elegance that looked effortless and probably cost a fortune.
I parked and ran for the entrance, getting thoroughly soaked in the thirty feet between my car and the front door.
By the time I pushed through into the lobby, I was dripping onto the marble floor, my hair plastered to my face, my dress clinging to my body in ways that would have been embarrassing if I’d had any dignity left.
The concierge looked up as I dripped across the lobby, her professional smile flickering only slightly at my bedraggled appearance.
“Mrs. Beaumont. We’ve been expecting you.”
“I have a reservation. Blair Beaumont.” I pushed wet hair out of my face. “Sorry about the floor.”
“Not at all. The storm has been causing problems for everyone.” She glanced at her computer screen with the particular expression of someone delivering bad news while trying to look sympathetic.
“Actually, speaking of problems. We’ve had an influx of travelers due to the weather.
Several rooms that were supposed to be vacant have been, well, occupied. ”
“What does that mean?”
“It means your original room is no longer available.”
I stared at her. Water dripped from my hair onto her polished counter. “I have a reservation. I made it two weeks ago.”
“I know, and I’m so sorry. We’ve been calling every hotel in a thirty-mile radius. Everything is booked. The storm has grounded flights, closed roads.” She paused, clearly bracing herself. “We do have one room available. A suite, actually. It’s quite lovely. But there’s been a complication.”
“What kind of complication?”
“The other guest whose room was affected. He’s also been offered the suite. Since you’re both here for the same event, we thought perhaps.”
The front door opened behind me. A gust of wind and rain swept through the lobby, and I turned.
Will stood there, rain dripping from his hair, his coat soaked through, looking as surprised to see me as I was to see him.
He had that particular disheveled quality that came from battling a storm, his usual composure stripped away by weather and circumstance.
Water pooled on the marble around his expensive shoes, and his shirt was soaked through and clinging to him, transparent over the muscle of his chest, the dark hair beneath it, the flat plane of his stomach.
I was trying very hard not to notice and failing.
My eyes dragged down the line of his throat, the wet column of it working as he swallowed, and lower, to the way the fabric stuck to his forearms where he’d shoved his sleeves up.
A low pull tightened in my belly. My pulse dropped somewhere it had no business being.
I hated that after everything, my body still lit up for him on sight, that three months of righteous distance couldn’t stop the heat from sliding down between my thighs the second he walked through a door.
“Blair.”
“Will.”
“The concierge called. Said there was a problem with my room.”
“Same.” I gestured at my own soaked state. “Apparently the storm has turned the entire inn into a game of musical chairs.”
He stepped further into the lobby, the door swinging shut behind him, cutting off the howl of the wind. For a moment we just stood there, two dripping people staring at each other across a marble floor, everything between us making the air feel thick.
“You’re suggesting we share a suite,” I said to the concierge, not taking my eyes off Will.
“It has a sitting room and a bedroom. Very spacious. Quite comfortable, really. Under the circumstances, it seemed like the most reasonable solution.” She was watching us with the particular attention of someone who sensed drama and was trying to pretend she didn’t.
“We could offer a significant discount, of course. For the inconvenience.”
I could say no. Could demand they find me somewhere else, even if it meant driving through a hurricane to reach it. Could maintain the boundaries I’d been building for months, the careful distance that was supposed to protect me from exactly this kind of situation.
Will was watching me. Waiting for my decision.
Not pushing, not presuming, just standing there dripping on the marble floor with his hands in his pockets and his expression carefully neutral.
He was leaving it entirely up to me. Three months ago, he’d have assumed.
Would have made the decision for both of us and expected me to go along with it. Now he just waited.
I didn’t know if that made things better or worse.
“One room,” I told the concierge. “It’s fine.”
Her relief was visible. “Wonderful. I’ll have your bags sent up immediately. The suite is on the third floor, best view of the vineyard. Well, when the weather clears.” She handed over two key cards. “Is there anything else you need? Extra towels, perhaps?”
“Towels would be good,” Will said. “Several of them.”
“Right away.”
We squelched toward the elevator in silence, leaving wet footprints on the marble.
I was hyperaware of him beside me, of the space between our shoulders, of the way his breath sounded in the quiet lobby.
The elevator arrived with a soft chime, and we stepped inside, the doors closing on the lobby, the world shrinking to just the two of us in a small mirrored box.
“You didn’t have to agree to this,” he said.
“I know.”
“I can sleep in my car if you’re uncomfortable.”
“In a hurricane?”
“It’s technically a tropical storm.”
“Will.”
“I looked it up while I was driving. Hurricane requires sustained winds of at least seventy-four miles per hour. This is only clocking in at around fifty-eight. So technically.”
“So technically you’d still be sleeping in a car in a dangerous storm because you can’t share a suite with your wife.”
“Soon to be ex-wife, potentially.”
“We haven’t discussed that.”
“I know.” He kept his eyes forward, watching the floor numbers tick upward. “I’m just saying. I don’t want you to feel trapped. If you’d rather I find somewhere else.”
“It’s one night.” I kept my own eyes forward too, both of us studying the elevator doors with unnecessary intensity. “We’re adults. We can handle it.”
“Can we?”
I didn’t answer. The elevator dinged, the doors opened, and we walked down the hallway to our shared suite without another word.
The room was beautiful. High ceilings, exposed beams, windows that looked out on the vineyard being battered by wind and rain.
Lightning flickered in the distance, illuminating the rows of grapevines bent nearly horizontal by the wind.
A sitting room with comfortable furniture occupied the front of the suite, with French doors opening onto what I assumed was a bedroom.
One bedroom. One bed. I could see it through the glass doors, enormous and inviting, piled with pillows.
Will immediately started pulling cushions off the couch.
“What are you doing?”
“Creating a demilitarized zone.” He carried the cushions to the bed and began arranging them down the center with the focus of someone defusing a bomb. “For your comfort.”
“With throw pillows?”
“The throw pillows are load-bearing. Don’t mock the throw pillows.”
“You’re building a pillow wall.”
“A pillow barrier. An essential boundary marker. A physical representation of our mutual agreement to maintain appropriate distance.” He stepped back to examine his work, tilting his head critically. “There. Your side, my side. Never the twain shall meet.”
I looked at the pillow wall. It was ridiculous. Five decorative cushions arranged down the center of the bed, barely a foot high, the kind of barrier that would collapse the moment either of us moved in our sleep.
I laughed.