Chapter 6 #3
Ben had been sending her texts for three days, frantic to talk to her, and she finally texted back.
“I did it. It’s a good piece. I love you.”
And then she went to bed and slept for twelve hours. Her mind had cleared after she wrote it, and she knew what she had to do now.
—
Lillith’s final days with John on the boat were the sweetest time she’d ever lived.
She felt like she was floating on air. John had talked about the future several times.
He talked about making plans with her for next summer.
He wanted to reopen his house in the Hamptons for them, and spend a month on Lady H in Saint-Tropez with her.
It sounded like a dream to her. He was everything she had ever wanted, and she was about to have all of it with him.
John told Lillith the day before she left St. Barth to go back to work that if they were going to travel together and spend time in the Hamptons and the south of France, it didn’t make sense for her to have a job, and she needed to give it up soon.
He said Helen had never worked. Lillith couldn’t afford not to and was embarrassed to say so.
He didn’t mention marriage, but he implied it.
But she needed her job, unless he supported her, which was humiliating to say, so she didn’t.
She wasn’t a gold digger and didn’t want money from him, but she needed her job in order not to be.
She couldn’t quit. She supposed he would address the issue eventually.
She would have no income of her own at all if she didn’t work.
She had no independent source of money, and at twenty-seven, her parents didn’t support her. They hadn’t since college.
They talked about her apartment too, and John said that she would be moving into the Trump Tower with him soon, and should start going through her things, deciding what she wanted to keep and bring with her.
He said she could put the rest in storage, or give it away.
He sounded sure and definite. Her whole life had changed in the space of a week, and she had so much to do when she went home, to prepare for her life with him.
He made it clear that he wanted her available to him, not working and installing someone’s apartment when he needed her.
John said that he expected Lillith to be the emotional support to him that Helen had been, and they were big shoes to fill.
He said Helen had been a saint, which was a lot to live up to, but he seemed sure she would.
He was moving ahead at breakneck speed. Her head was spinning.
It was almost as if she had eloped when she was with him, and now she was going home to start a life with him.
She didn’t know where to begin taking her old life apart.
It sounded scary but exciting, and she was eager to do it, to prove to him that she could be a strong support, and she would learn how to meet all his needs in time.
He warned her that Gabby would probably be difficult in the beginning, but he was sure she’d come around. She was already difficult, and Lillith couldn’t see how much more difficult she could be, but she was determined to help them make peace. Anything was possible.
John said goodbye to Lillith on the boat in St. Martin, and the crew took her to the airport. He didn’t go with her. He had conference calls coming in.
“Thank you for the most beautiful Christmas of my life,” she said to him, and he smiled at her.
“I had a wonderful time too,” he said, and kissed her.
She looked more childlike than ever with eyes full of dreams and her trust in him.
He loved how trusting she was, and how much faith she had in him.
She didn’t doubt him, and was ready to be the woman he wanted and needed now, whatever that meant.
She was willing to follow him blindly. “I’ll be home in a few days.
I’ll call you when I’m back,” he said, kissing her one last time on the deck, and she crossed the gangway to the quay, back into the real world.
She had been living a dream with him for eight days, and her time with him was like diamonds in her pocket as she left.
He waved as she stood on the quay looking up at him, and when the van drove away, he walked into his study and turned his computer on.
His face set in hard lines. He had work to do, and decisions to make.
He had countless reports to read, and forwarded them to the purser to print them.
There was another ugly story in the Times about the shipping line he’d bought, and the men he had fired, with interviews with some of them.
He had seventy-six important emails to deal with, and a class action suit against him.
None of it frightened him, but he had to deal with it.
By the time Lillith’s plane took off for New York, she was the last thing on his mind.
She was a child compared to all else in his life.
An enchanting child, but for John, business always came first.