23. Bas
BAS
When we got up to the house, we went into the library, I lit a fire, and we sat beside each other on the sofa.
“Are you going to open it?” I asked, pointing to the envelope clutched in her hands.
“I haven’t decided.”
“Open it, Gem.”
She slid her thumb under the flap and took out a folded sheet of paper. As much as I wanted to, I refrained from reading over her shoulder.
“Well?” I asked when she set it facedown on the coffee table in front of us.
“Named partner, as she said. My own events. I can pick my staff as well as have the final say on the vendors I use.”
“Anything else?” I pressed.
“A signing bonus that’s more than I made in my best year. However, it comes with a contingency.”
“Which is?”
“They need me to start next week. The holiday season is booked solid, and they need my help. They want me back, and they need me now.”
Say no. Don’t accept their offer. Stay here with me at Whitmore, and we’ll build a life together. The words were on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn’t bring myself to say them.
She’d told me months ago that it was her dream for the ball to be a rousing success, and it was.
The second part of that dream was that she could return to San Francisco, both vindicated and with her head held high.
I couldn’t ask her to do otherwise. If I did and she turned the offer down, it would be for me, not for herself, because I’d told her I needed her.
“This is fabulous, Gemma.”
She looked up. “It is?”
“It’s what you wanted. This is the whole reason you said yes to Alex. You’d be a fool not to take it, and you’re not a fool.”
“What about my job here?”
“The biggest events are over with.”
“We have two Christmas parties booked.”
“I’m sure we can find someone to take those over, maybe even to stay on permanently. I can ask Camille, and if she doesn’t know anyone, maybe Thalia or Wallace do.”
When her eyes filled with tears that she turned her head to hide, the easiest thing would’ve been for me to say I didn’t want any of that.
That I wanted her to stay. But I couldn’t.
It didn’t matter how much every word cost me; I had to put Gemma first. Wasn’t that what people did for the person they loved?
And I did. I loved her so much. Every part of my body ached with the thought of losing her.
“What about our agreement?”
“If you mean the year, you can’t seriously think I’d hold you to that. I’m fine, Gemma. You’ve witnessed how much more my father’s peers respect me. I’d say that goal has been accomplished exceedingly well.”
“So you don’t need me?”
God, how I did, but I couldn’t allow myself to tell her. “I do not.”
She stood. “I’m tired, Bas. I think I’ll go to bed.”
“Go ahead. I’ll be up soon.”
I didn’t try to kiss her or even touch her.
If I did, I’d crumble. Instead, I waited a few minutes and walked toward the front door, intending to go to the cellar.
There, I could be alone. There, I could allow the tears I’d fought so hard to stop to fall.
I was almost out the door when she said my name.
She stood on the stairs, in a gossamer nightgown, looking like a dream. My dream.
“Please don’t leave. Please come to bed with me.”
I nodded once and followed her upstairs, and we made love in the bed that was meant to be ours. We both knew this would be the last time, and neither of us acknowledged it.
Gemma called Helen Lombard the following morning from the kitchen while I made coffee and tried not to listen. I should’ve left and gone somewhere far enough away to not hear her say she accepted their offer and could start the coming week.
It took her a day to finalize the paperwork for the ball. Izzy came to help, and I stood around the corner, unseen, and listened to their conversation.
“Can I ask you something?” Gemma said.
“Of course.”
“I met a woman at the Whelans harvest party. She told me she’d dated Bas and gushed about how wonderful he was and how it was too bad he wasn’t the type to settle down.”
“Sounds like Muffy. Was it?” Izzy asked.
“It was. Then she said something else.”
“I can only imagine what it was.”
“It was about you. These were her exact words: ‘Too bad he’s not the type to settle down. At least, now that Isabel Van Orr is off the market.’”
Izzy didn’t respond right away. “Look,” she finally began. “There was a time when I thought maybe Bas and I might end up together. By his own admission, he thought the same thing. But we wouldn’t have. We loved each other—we still do—but more like brother and sister.”
“Do you think she was right? I mean that he isn’t the type to settle down.”
“Two days ago, my answer would’ve been different than it is now.”
“What do you mean?” Gemma asked.
“I thought for sure you were the woman to capture Bas’ heart the way Kick captured mine.”
“You’ve changed your mind?”
“If you were, he’d never let you take this job.”
I walked away then, not wanting to hear what else either of them had to say. If Izzy truly knew me as well as she thought she did, she’d realize Gemma did hold my heart, and that was the reason I couldn’t ask her to stay.
The morning she left, I loaded her bags into the trunk of the Lexus and put her printer in the backseat.
She stood at the driver’s door, with the keys in her hand, as if she was waiting for me to say something. I kissed her instead, and she got in the car.
Her taillights disappeared down the drive and through the gate. I stayed where I was until the dust settled, then went inside.
I reached into my pocket and took out the small case I’d gotten from the library this morning.
If Gemma had told me she’d changed her mind, that she didn’t want to go, I would have gone down on one knee, taken out my grandmother’s ring, slipped it on her finger, and begged her to marry me.
I returned it to where it had been, on a shelf inside the glass cabinet where I kept the other things that were precious to me, our family’s journals.