Chapter 22
Ethan’s head felt like it was being squeezed in a vise. For as long as he lived, from this point forward, he knew he would never shake the image of former child actor and current celebrity heartthrob Noah Booker leaning in to kiss Gem on the lips.
He’d left shortly after she had and a minute or so after Noah had announced he had to use the bathroom, not even considering for a minute that both men would have had the same inclination to follow her. Although Noah had his flirtatious side, Ethan hadn’t suspected he actually had a thing for Gem.
And why not? said the cynical little voice in his mind.
It certainly wasn’t because she wasn’t pretty enough or worthy of admiration.
No, a more insidious and unpleasant thought arose, one that painted him in likely the worst light imaginable.
It was the idea that she had always just simply been his.
The thought of another man wanting her, liking her, had never occurred to him, because, his lizard brain concluded, she wasn’t for another man.
Only for him.
It was ludicrous and pathetic and most of all misguided, especially after everything that had happened between them, but it was the one prevailing thought he could remember having for the majority of his life.
Before it could have been construed as anything other than friendship, before they had even reached their formative and hormone-driven teen years.
The thought that Gem was his—his friend, his person, the one who was made for him and him alone.
If he was so trite as to reflect on the concept of soulmates, maybe he would have put a finer point to it and just called her that.
But then he had lost her. And with that loss, he had lost the right to call her anything, even a friend.
Which was why seeing her and Noah kissing should not have evoked any reaction other than perhaps a mild curiosity. Maybe a bit of confusion. A shade of annoyance.
But nothing even remotely close to the inferno of rage engulfing him. He had to turn away, tear his eyes from the infuriating image before him, before he did something ridiculous like race down the stairs and physically push them apart.
He stalked back down the hall, completely bypassing the dining room, where Norman, Maggie, and Katy were presumably still eating, and ended up in the main foyer, pacing back and forth at the bottom of the stairs.
Every turn on his heel spurred him to go back downstairs to the kitchen, to catch them heading to Gem’s bedroom, to stop them from indulging in their passion.
What would it accomplish, though? Aside from making him look like a stalker and a creep—a man who had no right at all to dictate who she saw or kissed or liked.
Instead, he turned away, trying to decide whether he should just go to his own room or walk right out the door instead.
His plans were in shambles anyway. With Emily here, it was only a matter of time before social media caught wind of her presence at Donwell Cottage.
Then accounts would start making the connection between her trip and Katy and Noah’s—a picture with a similar-wallpapered background or the red facade of the cottage peeking from the corner.
The questions would begin—why were they all really there?
It had been a stupid idea to begin with. One that now, in hindsight, he could admit had probably only been, in his own subconscious way, to be closer to Gem. In a moment of crisis, she had always been the one he’d turned to. Why would this time be any different?
“Boy, you look serious.”
Swirling around, he turned to see Emily sauntering down the stairs.
Resisting the urge to groan and roll his eyes, he gritted his teeth and gave her an imitation of a smile. “I’m fine. How are you enjoying your stay?”
“Great,” she responded, her smile less forced but just as insincere. “Surprised to see me?”
“Couldn’t have been more surprised,” he replied truthfully, jaw still clenched. “Why are you here?”
“Honestly?” She had approached him fully now, close enough to touch—which she didn’t hesitate to do, running a perfectly manicured finger down his chest. “Your office told me where I could find you when I told them I wanted to make amends.”
Damn it. Emily knew what kind of pull she had over there, now that she had gone nuclear on all of them. She’d probably coerced some unsuspecting and awestruck intern to give her the details after their phone call.
Ethan hadn’t even bothered to follow up with Gayle to ask why Emily had come. It would only serve to put a bigger target on his back, as she would undoubtedly tell Fordham and then all hell would break loose.
“You don’t need to make amends, Emily.” He sighed, mustering everything in his power not to remove her hand forcibly from his chest. “It’s fine.”
“I just feel like you should have known that the real chemistry lay between me and you,” she said in what he was certain she hoped was a sultry whisper.
“Emily.” Ethan closed his eyes briefly before opening them and leveling her with a hard gaze. “As I’ve told you, repeatedly, things have been strictly professional between us at all times.”
“I think,” she replied with a little smile, seemingly undeterred, “you just don’t know how good you could have it.”
Before she could even give him a chance to respond, she tilted herself up to kiss him, her mouth pressing to his. He had a moment of surreal abstraction—Is this actually happening? What even is life?—before immediately comparing it to his kiss with Gem.
Although sometimes fond of hyperbole, Ethan was not a man who leaned toward flowery words to describe something. Instead, he preferred keeping things simple, straightforward.
And that kiss, the one with Gem—it had been monumental. Life-changing.
It had finally put things into perspective for him in a single beat of clarity.
Like the way people said that their lives flashed before their eyes when they were on the brink of death.
In that singular moment, Ethan had been confronted with all his failures, all the wasted time he’d inflicted on himself and endured, a glimpse into the future he could have—all in the span of mere seconds.
It had been like a movie playing out, and it had been over way too quickly, without even an opportunity to discuss, and now…
Now she’d been kissed by Noah, who came with the glow of celebrity and so much less baggage, and Ethan, unfortunately, was also being subjected to a kiss, one that was somehow both too dry and too wet at the same time and distasteful in every way and was literally no comparison.
“Really?”
At the sound of someone’s incredulous, angry, and disgusted proclamation, Ethan wrenched away from Emily, only to feel his stomach drop. Julia was there, looking at both of them with a mixture of anger and hurt.
“Ethan—” Emily began, as if knowing her time was significantly limited with him, and anything she wanted to say, she would have to get in right then and there or it would never be heard at all.
But Ethan was past listening. Not for the job, not for anyone. All he cared about was Gem and doing anything he could to take that expression away from her, one that was all too familiar. One that also turned his stomach and filled his chest with regret.
Pushing past Emily and hardly sparing her a glance, he stepped toward Gem just as she turned on her heel and walked away, moving quickly along the hall in the direction she’d just come from.
Ethan picked up the pace, realizing she was walking faster than he’d originally anticipated and he was losing ground.
He did a double take as he passed Noah, who was standing now in the dining area, along with Maggie, Katy, and Norman, all of them watching in wide-eyed bemusement as things unfolded.
Ethan didn’t even bother to explain. He followed Julia down the stairs toward what he thought was going to be her bedroom, but she veered in the opposite direction, through the kitchen and toward the glass doors that led to the walk-out.
“Julia!” he called, but she had already pushed them open.
Rain filled the small space, spattering against the tiles as she stalked through the doors and went out into the yard.
Biting out a curse, Ethan hesitated for only a second before following her out.
The beautiful day that they had experienced just this morning had turned into a storm, the sky gray and the rain coming down hard enough for him to feel a gradual soaking-through, but not immediate and torrential like it had been the other day.
He made sure to close the doors behind him, and then he looked to see where she had gone.
Since the walk-out was a part of the stone foundation that gave way to a separate entrance to the house, it had always seemed to him like the house’s secret heart.
A cool spot in the warmth of summer, a dim reprieve on sunny afternoons, filled with the scent of stone and lake air.
In his parents’ day, it had been an entrance to the bottom level of the house, a place for storage and old furniture.
Julia had transformed it into something magical—an opening into the kitchen, where he could imagine the natural light streaming in every morning, a backdrop to her sunrise baking habits, a beacon that shone through the sweet scents suspended in the air.
He was distracted momentarily by his nostalgia and imagination, but now he came back to the present moment, stepping into the rain and finding himself face-to-face with Julia, breathing heavily, eyes blazing, the rain pelting down on her in steady rivulets.
“What do you want?” she cried.
“I just want to talk!” he yelled back, trying to make himself heard over the sound of the rain pattering against the gravel pathway that curved around the back.