Chapter 15 #2
But he thought, as he turned away from her, he could not, for her or anyone, carry the weight of her emotional baggage while she pretended it didn’t exist.
Poppy
Poppy, still irritated by Wren’s and Thom’s insistence that ghosts didn’t exist—he and Wren didn’t need to be so patronizing!
—and caught off-guard by Thom challenging her about Benji’s infidelity, took a slow walk back to the inn, Felony ambling beside her.
It was a stunning fall morning, and the trees on the opposite side of the lake had turned from yellow to a deep red, and the lake was a deep, lovely blue not seen outside of books depicting fairy tales.
It was nice, actually, to have some time to herself, to think and to breathe, to take stock of her life, to walk in the sunlight.
Apart from trying to duck Thom’s questions and his curiosity about Benji cheating—she still hadn’t worked how to tell him or Wren why she’d run—life was okay. Good even.
Her work was fulfilling—she was making progress on Melody’s map and character arc, and she had received other queries from her author friends.
Some of those queries, she was sure, would turn into commissions.
She’d started to embroider an F-You cushion for Wren’s dancer friend, and she’d spent yesterday afternoon hanging out with Hadley. So, yeah, good.
Or mostly good. But given what just happened, maybe it was time to admit that something was a little off with Thom.
She couldn’t put her finger on it, and it was just a feeling—a flicker that started after Wren told her about Benji cheating. And yes, maybe it was making her, subconsciously, a little—just a very little—anxious.
It was so intangible, so vague, that she couldn’t find the words to explain it to Thom. What would she even say? Sometimes I think that you aren’t completely happy—with me, with us, with what we are doing?
Saying it out loud would make her sound like an insecure idiot.
No, she was overreacting; he was simply busy these days.
The news had spread about him going on his own, so instead of renovating the inn, he spent the bulk of his working day at his computer, those sexy wire-framed glasses on, diving back into his consulting strategy work. No, there wasn’t a problem with Thom…
She hoped there wasn’t a problem with Thom.
As for her mother and her siblings, well, they hadn’t contacted her for a while, and she was very okay with that. Life was a great deal simpler without having to deal with her mom’s micromanaging, petty aggressions, and barbed comments.
Luna, and by Luna she meant Luna and her cronies, was looking for a cottage for her to rent—and repeatedly assured her that something would become available after Halloween when the town emptied.
She’d yet to tell Thom she wanted to move out of Solstice Deep, and thought it better to wait until she had a place lined up.
Coming up the inn’s drive, she looked up at the faded, navy house and wondered if she imagined seeing the biker chick standing in the window of her loft bedroom.
Poppy didn’t mind her hanging out there, but she’d lose it if she messed with her art supplies.
After letting Fel off his leash and slipping into the kitchen to make herself a cup of coffee—she could hear Thom’s voice coming from the library and presumed he was on a call—she went back to the front porch and sat down on the top step.
She placed her phone on the step next to her and wrapped her hands around her coffee cup.
She sipped, ignoring the sound of a growly engine coming up the drive.
With Thom now so busy with his consulting work, he’d outsourced the renovations to contractors, and for the last week, there had been trucks coming and going.
She simply wanted to tune them out. Her eyes on the screen, she patted the pockets of her jeans, looking for her buds, wanting to watch her favorite band’s latest video.
“Poppy.”
A halo appeared around the back of his head, and it took Poppy a moment of squinting to bring Benji into focus.
Her mouth dropped open as she took him in, looking blond and perfect and so damn stylish that it made her want to scrunch up his pale, mint-green linen jacket to give it some much-needed creases.
To put some dust on his white trainers, a hint of wear in the leather belt holding up his tailored, loose-fitting white pants.
God, Benji was here. How boring. “What are you doing here?” she said flatly.
Benji pushed his designer glasses into his hair and slid his hands, tanned and so smooth, into the pockets of his pants.
Yeah, GQ perfect, but so polished, so unreal.
He was a good-looking guy, but there was no emotion in his eyes, no authenticity in his practiced smile.
Why hadn’t she seen that before? Ah, that was because she hadn’t wanted to, because her parents’ and family’s acceptance trumped looking closer at the man she’d decided to marry.
Ugh. The wave of disgust, aimed at herself, hit hard. It was why she couldn’t tell Wren and Thom why she’d bolted. If she felt this yuck about it, they’d feel even worse. Luckily, she snapped out of it… “What are you doing here, Benji?” she asked again, meeting his pale blue, cold-as-hell eyes.
He gave her a long, tip-to-toe look, his lip curling at her old jeans, hole-in-her-toe Vans, her slouchy, loose sweater. “I’m definitely not here to ask you to come back,” he stated. “That ship has sailed.”
“I cannot begin to tell you how glad I am to hear that,” Poppy told him. “And I know the ship’s sailed because I torpedoed it, remember?”
He glared at her. “You caused me a ton of embarrassment. And you also need to refund me for the booze I bought and the honeymoon trip I wasted.”
“Sue me,” Poppy told him, leaning back on her hands, completely relaxed. “And I’ll counter-sue you for emotional distress for screwing my bridesmaid.”
Benji’s cold expression didn’t change. “You didn’t really care about that,” he said, shrugging. “You were only marrying me to make your parents happy.”
Poppy’s mouth fell open, shocked that Benji had a smidgen of emotional intelligence. She would never have expected it from him. “When did it start?” she asked. Not because she cared, she was simply curious. How long had she ignored the signs?
“Since shortly after our engagement party.”
A year? Huh. She’d sleepwalked through life for the best part of a year. She was deeply ashamed of herself. “Well, it goes without saying that I’m really glad I found out before we said I do.”
Benji tipped his head and sent her a smile he’d borrowed from a shark. “My affair wasn’t the reason you ran. I think you only found out when she posted those old photos on social media. You didn’t know about her before.”
Poppy sat up slowly, her mind racing. How could he know that? She lifted her eyebrows, not wanting to ask how he’d figured that out.
“We spoke in the morning, Poppy, while you were getting dressed for the wedding. You told me you were nervous, that you’d see me in an hour in the church.”
Shit, she’d totally forgotten about that.
“There’s no way that in the space of forty-five minutes, someone—with my lover as one of your bridesmaids—squealed.” He shook his head. “Doesn’t track. Nope, you ran without knowing about her.”
Yeah, I ran out on you because two ghosts told me I was making a mistake. And God, they were right. Thank you, Ruby and Naomi. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Poppy was annoyed. Annoyed by him, annoyed that she’d wasted so much time on him. Simply annoyed. “If you aren’t here to talk to me, I presume you are looking for Thom?”
He nodded and angled his chin to the open front door. “Is he inside?”
She thought about lying, about sparing Thom the hassle of dealing with his brother, then realized she didn’t have the right to do that. Besides, Thom was a grown-ass man, he could handle his brother. She started to stand up. “I’ll call him.”
“Don’t bother, Poppy, I’m here.” Thom walked over to her and his hand on her shoulder forced her butt to connect with the stairs again. She looked up at him and winced at his granite-hard expression. He placed his hands on his hips, a modern-day warrior.
“First Mark, now you. What do you want, Benji?”
Benji looked from her to Thom and back again. “Let’s talk inside, in private.”
Thom shook his head. “Let’s not. Poppy, stay where you are.” His eyes drilled into Benji. “You can stay where you are, too. You’ve got five minutes. Speak.”
For the first time, Poppy saw Benji look unsure of himself, off-balance. “Five minutes might not be enough, Thom.”
“You’ve now got four and a half. Speak.”
Benji shifted on his eight-hundred-dollar loafers. “I need you to come back to Sheffield Strategy as CEO.”
Thom released a sharp bark of laughter. “The situation must be dire if you are here in person to ask me after the shit you pulled.”
Benji looked past him, and Poppy noticed his downturned mouth and his gaunt cheeks. Mmm, life wasn’t so easy for the golden boy these days. She couldn’t help feeling a little gleeful.
“If you come back as CEO, you and Mom can force the board to allow me to work as your deputy. If you don’t, I might get canned.”
And there it was. Benji’s job was in jeopardy and he expected Thom to sort it out for him. Because that’s what Thom always did: he took Benji’s shit, was expected to clean up his mess. She really hoped he wouldn’t, not this time. Benji had brought this on himself.
“So I heard,” Thom said, his expression not giving anything away.
“If I get canned, I probably won’t be able to enter politics later.”
Her heart bled. Did Boston need another narcissistic, dickhead politician?
She thought not. She wanted to tell Thom that refusing his request would be a massive public service, but when she looked up at him and took in his cold, stone-hard face, she winced.
She’d never seen Thom look so… Hurt was too soft a word.