Always with you, p.2
Always, With You, page 2
“Thank you, Bruno!” she called after him, and he waved a meaty hand in the air but kept walking.
In her car alone, Ariel felt her own eyes finally fill too. She cried all the way home, so upset that she barely noticed the traffic that would normally be the source of her evening stress. When she pulled into the driveway of her sprawling Mediterranean Revival, she made sure to tidy her makeup so that it wasn’t so apparent that she had been crying. She would be strong so that, when she broke the news to Katie, her daughter wouldn’t feel like everything was out of control.
“Katie, I’m home!” Ariel called as she unlocked the door and pushed inside, balancing the carboard box. The smell of pizza wafted into the foyer, coming from the kitchen. Ariel rounded the corner into the open kitchen and family room to find Katie seated at the big, marble kitchen island.
Katie didn’t wait until Ariel set down the box of stuff from her office—she launched at her mother, and Ariel caught her in an awkward side-hug with one arm, almost losing the contents of the box as the girl burst into tears. Words ran out in a near-unintelligible stream.
“I had a terrible day at school. Brittney and her minions are just getting worse. I’m never going back, and please don’t make me. Mom, please.”
Surprised, Ariel scooted over to the island, dragging Katie with her, half-patting her back as she slid the cardboard box onto the island. In the box, Ariel’s phone dinged with a new message alert. Ariel picked it up as she scooped Katie into a full hug, making soothing shushing noises. She let her daughter cry into her shoulder, waiting it out.
Over Katie’s shoulder, Ariel opened the screen for her messages. Maybe it would be Dylan, with some uplifting birthday getaway planned that would help both Ariel and Katie get over this awful day.
But it wasn’t.
Ariel gaped at the phone screen. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
The text was from Dylan, but it wasn’t anywhere near about mistletoe and ski slopes. It simply said:
This just isn’t working out. It seems like we’re going in different directions, and I need to focus on myself. Please respect my decision to end our relationship.
CHAPTER THREE
Ariel felt as though her entire life was falling apart—well, at least, that she had been robbed of having any input in Dylan’s decision to break things off. And she certainly felt that she should have a say in the end of a three-year relationship. She was going to talk to Dylan, whether he liked it or not.
But first, she had a good, old-fashioned pity party. And Katie joined in. They spent all of Friday night watching sappy romcoms and teen dramas, polishing off a supreme pizza and an order of brownies, and making fresh, hot, buttery popcorn to share until they were both stuffed and drowsy. They talked about all of the day’s disasters, and Ariel had to rein herself in from interrupting their mother-daughter evening to make a few angry phone calls to parents she’d talked with before—obviously to no effect. And, needless to say, she had to stop herself from texting or calling Dylan. She left him on “read,” letting him sweat about her response.
“I can’t believe him,” Katie said as they sat on the couch, Ariel having just finished braiding Katie’s long, brown hair. Their second romcom was rolling into the credits. Katie’s tone held all the vitriol appropriate to a fifteen-year-old commiserating with a heartbroken friend. “He will never find anyone as awesome as you, Mom. He’ll be lonely and come running right back.”
Ariel laughed, patting Katie on the arm. As ferocious as her daughter sounded, Ariel was glad that Katie hadn’t yet had her own heart broken. It was not a rite of passage that Ariel was looking forward to for her one and only. “Thanks, honey. That’s sweet. But you know what, I have everything I need right here with you—and whether or not Dylan comes to his senses, that’s up to him.”
She sounded much more even and confident than she felt. Inside, she was a mess of unanswered questions and swirling emotion. But she had told Katie the truth. As upset as she was about Dylan’s text, when it came down to it, Ariel had raised Katie from infancy on her own, ever since the divorce, and she had learned to be tough and make it when there was just the two of them.
But that didn’t mean Dylan’s rejection didn’t hurt.
Ariel reached out and patted Katie’s knee. “Enough about me. Tell me what I can do to help at school. Is this a I-need-to-vent-but-stay-out-of-it-mom moment, or is it jump-in-here-with-the-might-of-mom time?”
Katie rolled her eyes but snuggled under Ariel’s outstretched arm. “You’ve talked to school before. It isn’t getting better. Can’t I homeschool? I know you work, but I’m fifteen. I can go online, and you can check it when you get home.”
Ariel winced, looking back over the couch at the cardboard box that sat on the kitchen island. “About work …”
Katie looked up at her. “What?”
“I got fired today,” Ariel blurted before she could mull over in her mind the dozens of pros and cons of telling Katie now. But just like they always had been, she and Katie were a team. And Ariel didn’t want to keep anything from her daughter.
Katie sat up, her dark eyes widening. “What? Work and Dylan? That sucks!”
Ariel nodded, her throat feeling thick. She started to rush into an explanation of how everything would be okay, how they had savings and she would get another job, and she would make sure that Katie was taken care of, but before she could deliver the platitudes, Katie held up a hand.
“Mom. You don’t have to reassure me. I know we’ll be all right. We always are. You always take care of things.”
Ariel’s throat burned and tightened even further. “Thanks, honey,” she whispered.
Then, as if trying to lighten the suddenly heavy mood, Katie said, “Do you want a high school drama next, or a road trip movie?”
“You choose,” Ariel said, picking up her phone and swiping to see that Dylan had sent another text. “Though I would guess that you aren’t in the mood for any more high school drama.”
The message on Ariel’s phone shored up her resolve to completely ignore him for the remainder of the evening.
No reply? How childish.
She put her phone on silent and set it aside, his words burned into her retinas. She was childish? He was trying to break up over text!
Katie flopped back down onto the couch next to Ariel, and Ariel refocused on her daughter, snuggling her in close again. As the movie started, Ariel looked at Katie’s profile. There was something troubled in her eyes. Ariel hugged her tighter.
Tomorrow, she would see what she could do to help Katie. And then she would confront Dylan.
***
In the fresh light of Saturday morning, Ariel sent off an email requesting to schedule a meeting with the principal of Crown Palms Academy and then showered and dressed. Katie came into the kitchen just as Ariel was making coffee, waving a text invite from her Art Club to a new gallery show that was going on later that day. With a hug and a promise to call if she wouldn’t be home for dinner, Katie grabbed a muffin from the basket of them that Ariel had set on the counter and bounced off to get ready.
After Katie left, Ariel opened her laptop and dedicated the morning to surfing online for a few job openings and sending several emails to contacts putting out feelers. Then she spent a couple hours tidying up the house and decluttering—including dumping everything that had come from her office into the trash. She’d decided that she didn’t want any of the bad juju that came along with the stapler or fancy company paperweight. And she didn’t feel as though she was ready to face the little click-clackity metal ball desk doohickey that was supposed to bring her calm and Zen.
Everything sorted for the moment, and her afternoon unexpectedly clear, Ariel decided that a little retail therapy was in order—and when she studied herself in the hallway mirror, she added a salon trip and mani/pedi to her plans. A killer dress and a little pampering would bring her mood up. And it certainly wouldn’t hurt to look her best when she dropped in on Dylan tonight. A cup of coffee and blueberry muffin along for the ride, Ariel grabbed her purse.
“On a mission,” Ariel whispered as she let the front door close softly behind her.
Hours later, glow-up completed, Ariel drove toward Dylan’s just as the Miami sun was setting over the tops of the palm trees, sinking low between the high-walled estates that dotted many of the residential areas in Coral Gables. It wasn’t long before Ariel arrived at Dylan’s place. The drive hadn’t been overly long, but Ariel had been nervous the whole way. Her initial plan to drop in on Dylan unannounced had seemed bold and assertive at first, a way to declare that she wouldn’t accept just a cookie-cutter text as the end of their relationship.
But as the freeway had stretched out in front of her, Miami proper giving way to the slightly less congested Gables, her confidence had begun to flag. Could she really just march up to his door and demand to know what had gone wrong? There had been no further messages from him after his second message, though she had refrained from sending her own replies asking if he was somehow joking (cruel, and unlike him, but a distant possibility), or if he had been taken hostage and was sending the message to signal her to alert the authorities (okay, so she’d seen it on social media—or maybe on a TV show—but Dylan was a high-powered, high-profile attorney, and didn’t high-profile attorneys get kidnapped sometimes?).
Ariel slowed and turned her blinker on to ease into Dylan’s neighborhood. Parking her Audi in the circular driveway, Ariel popped open her door and wiggled out, which was a feat in her red bodycon dress. Her hair was freshly blown out, and the dark tresses fell to her mid-back. Her heels clacked on the cobblestones as she carried a bottle of wine and a bouquet of red roses to the imposing front door.
There were lights on in the house, but she couldn’t hear anything. And she knew that Dylan’s housekeeper wasn’t in on Saturdays, so they would be able to talk this out without anyone eavesdropping.
She didn’t ring the doorbell, instead punching the access code she knew by heart into the number pad on the front door handle. Unlike her key card at the office, the access code worked, and she quietly slipped inside, gently nudging the door closed again with her hip as she cradled the wine and flowers.
Now inside, Ariel could hear Dylan’s deep baritone coming from the kitchen area—or was it the dining room? She couldn’t hear what he was saying, but she did hear him laugh. She followed the happy sound, her spirits buoyed, down the hall toward the kitchen.
When she emerged from the hallway, though, her spirits plummeted. Her mouth dropped open. And the bottle of wine slipped from her hand, crashing on the expensive slate tile.
“What is going on here?”
Dylan, who had been seated at the small dining set that occupied the eat-in portion of his vast kitchen, jumped up at the sound of her voice and the breaking glass. The young blonde seated across from him—who couldn’t, in Ariel’s estimation, be over the age of twenty-two—did not get up. The remains of a dinner were still on their plates. The fine china plates were a set that Ariel had bought for Mr. Ratface, Esquire, for Christmas just last year.
“Ari, what are you doing here?” Dylan’s confused expression made Ariel laugh out loud, and his confusion quickly morphed into annoyance, judging by how his blue eyes clouded and narrowed and how his high forehead wrinkled.
“This?” Ariel waved the bouquet of roses at the blonde, who took a sip of her wine and calmly poured herself more as Ariel ranted. “This is why you broke up with me over text on my freaking birthday?”
The blonde uncrossed and crossed her legs, which seemed about a mile and a half longer than Ariel’s. She remained silent but looked over at Dylan expectantly.
“I … I–That isn’t any of your business. I’m not your business anymore. And how did you get in here, anyway?”
“The door code that I’ve used for the last three years, you jerk!” Ariel stomped her heel and caught a crunch of glass from the broken wine bottle. The acid smell of spilled wine wafted up to her. That must be what was causing her eyes to well—yes, that.
Dylan’s posture stiffened, and he looked over at the blonde. “Mitzi, if you’ll excuse us ...” Stepping away from the table, Dylan jogged over to Ariel and, grabbing her upper arm, spun her and marched her back down the hall.
“Let go of me,” she hissed, shaking her arm free when they were halfway up the corridor. “I can’t believe you! Mitzi? That’s what you name a teacup Pomeranian, not a human being! Let me guess, all of your dates are long walks in the park?”
Dylan rolled his eyes at her, still herding her toward the foyer.
“Three years of my life, wasted. And it was, ‘Ariel, you’re the one,’ and ‘I can’t believe how lucky I am to be with you.’ What hogwash!”
Dylan didn’t say anything until they were back at the front door and then he hissed low, “Look, I’m sorry your feelings are hurt.” He paused then and reached up to rub the back of his neck. “You look great in that dress, wow.”
“Spare me,” she snapped, tossing back her long, dark hair, which was freshly layered and blown out—and yes, the dress was killer. All of which she hoped would make him seriously regret it when she walked out of here.
Dylan looked back down the hall, as if to verify they were still alone. “This isn’t about love. That woman in there—Mitzi—is the daughter of one of the senior partners. This is purely … purely a—”
Ariel felt her blood run cold. “You dumped me so you could woo your way into making partner?”
At least he had the decency to look ashamed for a minute or two. “You know I’ve been trying for the last two years. Nothing has worked. I’ve got the highest percentage of settled real estate transactions in the firm, no run-ins with the bar, and my client accounts are all bringing in big cash to the firm. I needed a different tactic. And when you texted me that you’d been canned from your VP position …”
“You had to dump the dead weight. Got it.” Ariel drew herself up to the tallest she could, which was five-six on a good day in two-inch heels. “Well, your loss, buddy. Don’t come crawling back when Princess Cupcake in there decides being wifed up by a forty-something lawyer isn’t quite as exciting as spending her daddy’s money down in Coconut Grove and living single.”
Dylan stepped back. “Get out,” he said, his voice cold.
Ariel looked at him, taking in his neatly pressed chinos and light-blue polo. His dark, wavy hair was perfectly styled, and in any other instance, she would have found him absolutely irresistible standing in his boat shoes in the foyer of this lavish home. A place she had felt at home in the past few years.
But not now.
“Gladly,” she retorted. She yanked the door open behind her and turned. Halfway out the door, she realized that she was still holding onto the roses. “Oh, and by the way—” she turned again, sharply, and tossed the roses at Dylan. The paper cone stuck to her sweaty palms, and Ariel watched as the paper ripped, and the flowers kept going, sending individual stems flinging at him like floral missiles. Ariel watched them each bounce off of him as he flailed to bat them away, protecting his face with one hand while he swatted with the other. Heaven forbid one of the thorns scratched his chiseled, always court-ready face “—Happy Birthday to me, you jerk.”
She slammed the door behind her on her way to her car.
CHAPTER FOUR
When she arrived home, Ariel plopped down on the couch with a deep sigh, her glass of wine providing little solace from her heavy thoughts and her aching heart. There was no escaping that ugly vision of Dylan with his new flame—that plastic, generic, reality TV star, young girlfriend—and it left her with a feeling of crazy-stupid-betrayal that she just couldn't shake.
Curse Dylan—his handsome face and his charming smile! What a fraud he had turned out to be! The tears threatened to come. She raised her glass of wine in toast to her own foolishness. How could she have ever trusted him? She stared at the mantel, at the pictures they'd taken together in happier times—before Dylan had gone and broken all his promises. Ariel stood from the couch, grabbed a framed photo from the mantel of her and Dylan together, and hurled it into the fireplace.
Ariel glanced around her living room for more photos to relegate to the flames. On top of a nearby bookcase, she saw a stack of photo albums. Curious, she set her wine down and retrieved them—she hadn’t taken a photo on film in years, and she’d forgotten what these old albums even contained.
She carefully set the stack on the table in front of the couch and sat down to go through them. “Endless Harbor” was etched across the top volume’s leather cover, sending a wave of nostalgia over Ariel as she picked it up, returning to the couch to open the album’s fragile pages.
Inside was a collection of memories from her childhood summers in Maine. There was her father and her sister, before he’d left them—life before the heartbreak and loss. The old, Victorian house with its wraparound porch and gorgeous grounds, acres filled with beautiful gardens and views of the lonely ocean. It all came back to life in her mind—the place her father, and she, had loved most in the world: Endless Harbor.
Ariel closed her eyes as tears flowed down her cheeks, remembering summers spent there in all its beauty. The walk-in fireplace in the living room. The giant, antique grandfather clock in the entryway. The beautiful, hand-carved banister leading up to the second floor. The quaint, little, winding roads that lead to the house perched on the bluffs.
She thought about the quiet, little marina where they would rent out boat after boat after boat. All day long. She recalled the time she had fallen overboard and had to be rescued. Her father had thrown her a lifesaver and told her to grab onto it and stay afloat until he could get to her. Then he had been beside her, swimming strongly to shore, towing her in.
