Chapter Twenty
Ava cut off a gasp. She’d already gaped once. “But you weren’t even with Dane when that movie came out.”
“I didn’t simply spring from God’s green earth,” he drawled, “the day I began my employment with your brother.” His lips worked in either a smirk or a smile. “Nor was I hatched.” He said the word with emphasis, as if he’d heard them all pondering his origins over the years.
Ava had the good grace to blush, as did Gabby, all the way to the roots of her blond hair.
Fernsby breezed right past that. “May I surmise that you told him to stick it where the sun does not shine?” He blinked, maybe even smiled. “If you’ll excuse the crass phrase, it is quite apt.”
Totally apt. “I told him there was no way I’d give up my education or my dreams.”
“And may I presume also that he did not relate to your Pretty Woman reference?”
Ava, still reeling from thirty glorious, mind-blowing minutes in her office, and now Fernsby’s revelations, said, “He didn’t get it at all. He actually said something like, what the hell did a movie matter?” Or maybe that’s what she’d heard rather than what he’d said.
“After which, when the young—” Fernsby stressed the word. “—man didn’t get what he wanted, he walked out.”
“Uhh,” was all Ava managed at first. “It wasn’t exactly like that.”
Fernsby seesawed his head. “We must know exactly what happened if we are to advise you, my dear.”
“I left first. It was his apartment,” she said, adding a shrug. “He couldn’t walk out. So I did.”
Fernsby let out a long, “Ahhh,” as if it were a sigh. As if suddenly he had a complete understanding of the entire situation.
She added quickly, “Then he never called me, never texted, nothing. I didn’t hear from him at all.”
“May I glean from this information that you didn’t call him either?”
He made her feel churlish. He made her feel… What was the right word? Sort of responsible? “I just figured that if he wanted to apologize and rescind the offer, he would call me. He never did. And I assumed that meant he was done with me.”
Fernsby once again drawled, “You know what they say about the word assume.”
“Yes. I know.” Her cheeks felt hot.
Finally, Fernsby patted her hand. “You were young.”
She hadn’t felt young after the break with Ransom. She’d felt as old and haggard as the ages.
“The young often see things in black and white. No gradations. But perhaps our young man—” Again, Fernsby stressed that word. “—should have known better.”
Gabby jumped in. “Yeah. He should’ve known better. I remember how you were back then. Totally devastated.”
Fernsby added, “And you buried yourself in your studies. You graduated with honors, I know. Then you grew your business into what it is today.”
Her deep breath actually hurt. “I’m starting to wonder if I worked so hard all those years just to prove something to Ransom.” As well as her parents.
Gabby shook her head, her hair flying before drifting back down over her shoulders. “Maybe that was part of what drove you, but from where I was sitting, it looked to me like this was always something you wanted to build. You didn’t do it for him. You did it because you had a dream. You hated that dreary place, and you wanted to make the lives of older adults better.”
Ava looked at her sister with new eyes. Gabby had been so young then, but perhaps she’d also been the wiser one.
“Maybe I’m still trying to show him.” She thought for a moment. “For this catering issue, I took him down to the San Juan Bautista home. He asked to see the facilities his people would be working in, but… okay, I wanted him to see what I’d built.” She put her hand over her mouth, emotions roiling inside her. “I drove him down there in the Pantera because I wanted him to see how well I handled the car. The car he’d always dreamed of owning. I see now that I was trying to show him how far I’d come.”
“Oh my dear,” Fernsby said with more feeling than she was aware he had. “You don’t need to show anyone what you’ve done. The miracles you’ve brought about are self-evident.”
Her eyes misted. The man had never been free with his praise. And what he said made her feel almost as good as Ransom’s admiration had.
“I wanted to show him. But over the last few days, as we’ve worked on menus and logistics, he’s revealed a lot about himself too.” She pressed the corner of her eye before a tear could trickle out. “He feels that what I’ve created is brilliant. He made it very clear he was impressed with how I’ve made my dreams a reality.”
She had to take a sip of her champagne before her throat closed up.
“But it’s not just what he thinks I’ve accomplished. It’s what he gave my residents. He actually painted Myrtle’s nails while I painted Edith’s. He knew how to paint a woman’s nails. I didn’t even know he used to do it for his grandmother. And he does it for his niece too.” The words seemed to rush out of her then. “You should’ve heard how he talked about his brother. He really loves the guy. And he loves his brother’s family. In fact, he adores them. Then there was the way he jumped into the wedding, producing that meal at a moment’s notice.” She raised her eyebrows. “He didn’t scrimp on one thing. He gave Rosie and Gideon that fabulous champagne for a wedding present. He made something spectacular out of nothing, and he did it for Gideon and Rosie.”
Fernsby added, “And perhaps just a little for you too.”
“He might have,” she acknowledged. “He pulled an all-nighter to get the catering plans for the residences back to me the very next day because I told him I had only two weeks to put everything in place.”
Her mind raced with all the generous, warmhearted things Ransom had done this week—the times he’d just been himself, not a billionaire celebrity chef.
“On the way back from San Juan Bautista, we were caught in a terrible traffic snarl and had to spend the night down there.” At the look in Gabby’s eyes, she added quickly, “In separate rooms. But we didn’t have any clean clothes for the next day, so he took me over to Supermart.” She smiled at the memory, at the feelings that swamped her now, feelings that had swamped her that day and, if she was honest, had swamped her since the moment she’d walked into his office to ask for his help. “I’ve never had so much fun. I bought a pair of glittery platform tennis shoes.” She looked at Gabby. “You would love them.”
Suddenly, she heard herself gushing about a man. About Ransom.
“The next morning, we went for pancakes. I’ve haven’t had pancakes like that in years.” She almost said she hadn’t eaten them since she was with Ransom. “We shared them. A ten-stack of chocolate-chip pancakes, and we finished them all.”
Gabby’s blue eyes rounded. “I never thought I’d say it, but he actually sounds like a keeper.”
All Ava could do was stare. She felt how wide her own eyes were, how fast her heart was beating.
“And since that seems true,” Gabby added dryly, “then I want to know why you still look like a deer caught in the headlights.”
Ava wanted to think it was the sex in her office. But it was also the things Ransom had done. And it was Gabby, her staunchest supporter, who’d called Ransom every name in the book. Gabby, who’d refused any opportunity that would have allowed her to work with him and advance her career. How could it be that now Gabby thought Ransom was a keeper?
It left her wide open, like a deer jumping into the road, blinded by the lights.
Fernsby, who seemed to know everything, said quietly, “Even when someone has shown that they can change, the pain of the past still lingers.”
The man was wise. Maybe he actually was a hundred years old. How else could he know exactly how to explain what she felt to Gabby?
Ava had wanted to skewer Gabby the moment she’d seen Fernsby seated at the table. But now she wanted to take her sister in her arms and hug her tightly.
Because Fernsby was a godsend.
Then the wise man gave her the softest, saddest smile. This from a man whose number of smiles she could count on one hand. Just when she thought she’d controlled her tears, her eyes misted all over again.
“You must take as long as you need to get to a point with Mr. Yates where you are even willing to think about love again. Love isn’t something you rush.” He wagged a finger. “Love is something you must earn, especially after you’ve wronged somebody. It takes time to earn that trust again.”
A soliloquy on love. From Fernsby. A man who never dated. A man she thought had never been in love.
“I know this might be hard to hear.” He patted her hand. “But I believe you need to regain his trust as well. Because love is a two-way street.”
With anyone else, her hackles would have risen, and she’d have gone in fighting. But this was Fernsby, and the man knew things. “I truly am starting to see that. But I still don’t see exactly why I need to regain his trust.” She needed Fernsby’s insight now more than ever.
He blinked, the corners of his mouth lifting in what might actually be another smile. “Even though Mr. Yates didn’t do the right thing,” he said, “it doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt him to lose you just as much as it hurt you to lose him.” He was silent a long moment, letting her absorb those words. “You didn’t stay to talk it out. You didn’t compromise. You walked away. He made an offer you didn’t like, but—correct me if I’m wrong—finding a middle ground wasn’t even an option, was it?” He said it so softly she felt herself straining to listen.
She licked her lips. She swallowed. Then finally she shook her head. “No, it wasn’t. When I didn’t like what he said, I was outta there.”
“You were out of there,” he echoed. “And neither of you came up with a way to make it work. He didn’t call you. But you didn’t call him. Your feelings were hurt and you left. His ego was bruised, so he left too. But if I were he, it would have broken my heart to lose you. To watch you walk out of my life and never look back would have shattered me. If I were he.”
A single tear fell from her eye at his heartfelt words.
“If you will humor an old man, I would like to tell you the story of when I fell in love many years ago.”
Ava shared an astonished look with Gabby. Fernsby as a young man? Fernsby in love? It didn’t seem possible. Both she and her sister nodded for him to go on. Ava was sure Gabby was dying to hear the tale as much as she was.
“I was so certain our love couldn’t be real. I wondered how a woman like Mathilda could love me.” He put a hand to his chest, as if even he couldn’t believe he’d had the thought. Then he gave what sounded like a short bark of laughter, except that Fernsby didn’t laugh. Ava wasn’t sure he even knew how. She’d thought his laughter vocal cords had frozen long before he’d gone to work for Dane.
Still with his hand on his chest, he said, “Of course, I wasn’t the man you see sitting before you today. I was flawed. And perhaps too arrogant for my own good.”
Fernsby was still arrogant. But he was also wise. And Ava hung on his every word.
“I can say now that I couldn’t see the forest for the trees. I was so convinced that Mathilda couldn’t love me that eventually she became convinced of it as well. And poof.” He waved his hands in the air like a magician. “She was gone forever. Out of my life. It was only in my later years that I realized the terrible mistake I’d made.”
Fernsby never made mistakes. But here he was, admitting to a grave error.
He turned his severe countenance upon her. “Don’t convince yourself that what you feel for Ransom and what he feels for you isn’t real. From where I’m sitting, it looks as if it might very well be the real thing.”
Ava’s insides curdled. Had she made a mistake all those years ago? Was she making the same mistake all over again?
Fernsby wasn’t about to let her off the hook. “You’ve got a second chance, my dear. Take it from me—those don’t come around often.” He wrapped his fingers around hers. Fernsby, the untouchable, was touching her for a rather prolonged period—three times in one sitting, in fact. His wise gray eyes bored into her, seeming to see all the way to her heart. “So don’t cock it up this time.”
Gabby’s soft giggle filled the air. Because Fernsby never talked like this. Cock it up? Oh no, that wasn’t Fernsby at all.
“Remember, love is a compromise because two hearts must meet in the middle to become one.”
Oh God. Ava finally saw that she was cocking it up. She’d cocked it up back then, probably just as much as Ransom had. When she believed he didn’t value her dreams, just like her parents had always ignored her achievements, she didn’t stay to talk. She didn’t try to compromise. She didn’t even let him explain what he really wanted from her or what his offer meant to him.
Instead, she’d cut and run.
She’d been telling herself that it was all because they couldn’t make love work, that there was something wrong with them. That if he’d truly loved her, he would never have pretty-womaned her. He would never have even come up with that terrible offer.
But the truth was that she had run because she was afraid he didn’t value her. She’d been afraid he’d say he didn’t love her, but that she’d make a damned good mistress.
Fernsby had opened her eyes. And Ransom had opened them for her, too, with all the caring, beautiful things he’d done over the last few days.
Her feelings were real. His feelings were real. Their love was real.
She’d cocked it up all those years ago because she couldn’t stay and listen to him. Because she was afraid to compromise.
But she’d be damned if she’d cock it up again.
* * *
With Gabrielle at his side, Fernsby watched Ava drive away in her chauffeured car, like Cinderella rushing off to the ball.
“Wow,” Gabrielle said, the thrill of wonder in her voice. “I can’t believe you actually did that, Fernsby.” And she held up her fist.
He eyed it, looking down his long nose, then splayed his fingers on his chest. “I am Fernsby, and I do not fist-bump.”
Gabrielle laughed. She had a beautiful laugh. And she laughed a lot. Especially at him. Just as his Mathilda had loved to laugh at him. He’d seen it as just another reason why she couldn’t really love him. But with his great maturity—great in more ways than one—he saw now that it had been the laughter of love.
He stuffed the memories down deep once more, having trotted them out only for Ava’s benefit. Because memories formed a rabbit hole, taking him down, down, down… to places he couldn’t climb out of.
As they walked to the car where Lord Rexford awaited them, Gabrielle skipped to keep up with his long strides. “But you did love my vegan wedding cake,” she pressed.
“I give credit where credit is due,” he drawled. Then he looked at her. “But please don’t let it go to your pretty head.”
She wagged a finger at him as he beeped the car lock. “Too late, Fernsby. It already has.”
Now that his job was done concerning the erstwhile Miss Ava Harrington and her beau, Ransom Yates, he considered Gabrielle with determined eyes. When she finally fell, that girl would fall hard. And, as always, he would be there to offer sage advice and a helping hand to finding her way to true love.
And then there were Troy and Clay. These Harringtons needed his help. Desperately.
He would make it work out for all of them. Helping his charges along the path to love was his mission. He’d only ever failed once. With Mathilda. He wouldn’t fail again.
After all, he was Fernsby.