Best enemies forever, p.15
Best Enemies Forever, page 15
He looks like an older version of his son.
“The famous Constance,” he says. He gets out of the chair and gives me a long appraising look. “Welcome to Oak Hill.”
“Thank you.” I extend a hand and give him my biggest smile. “It’s amazing to finally be here. Gabriel has told me so much about it.”
“Has he?” Richard’s eyes slide to Gabriel. “We’ve put you up in the Green Room.”
Gabriel nods. “Good.”
“Pete is out getting supplies for the barbecue. You’ll help later?”
“Yeah, of course. Happy to.”
Richard nods and turns back to me. “So, Connie, is it? That’s your nickname?”
“Yes, please. I prefer it.”
He puts a hand on my elbow. “If you’re going to be a Thompson, it’s only right you get a tour. This house was bought by my grandfather, toward the end of his life. He spent nearly a decade renovating it.”
Gabriel shoots me a look that’s equal parts annoyed and amused, and I have to bite my lip not to smile. Clearly he’s not thrilled about the prospect. I bet he’s heard all of it time and time again.
Richard is polite the entire tour. He points out little oddities about the house, like the crack above the mantlepiece from a lightning strike in 1928. They’ve never repaired it, he explains, because it’s a welcome reminder of the dangers of hubris.
“And after that, we Thompsons became a very modest bunch,” Gabriel says dryly. “Never prone to wild ambitions again.”
That makes me laugh, but Richard only gives a sigh. “Always the jokester, my son. Come on. Let me show you to your room.”
Gabriel fetches our bags, and we walk up the wide, wooden staircase to the second floor. The walls have beautiful wainscoting and are adorned with black and white photographs, framed in passe-partout.
“The hall of fame,” Gabriel mutters
I stop by a photograph of young Gabriel. I remember this version of him. He’s probably in his midteens here, the way he’d been at St. Regis, two grades ahead of me. He’d been the best lacrosse player at the school.
In the image, he’s surrounded by his teammates, and he’s holding up a giant trophy. His smile is wide and true. He’s happy here. Actually, really happy.
“Where’s this from?”
Gabriel opens his mouth, but it’s his father who answers. “My son was a very gifted athlete back in the day.”
“Yes, he was. I remember from school.”
“Of course, it never went much further after that,” Richard says. He pushes open the door to a guest bedroom. The wallpaper is indeed green, a soft, moss color that contrasts the white wainscoting and the dark wooden floors.
And in the center of the room is a neatly made queen-size bed.
One bed.
“Make yourselves at home,” he says. “I’ll be downstairs. And Connie?”
I turn away from the bed and its implications. “Yes?”
“Welcome to the family,” he says. “Just keep the corporate espionage to a minimum this weekend, okay?”
He says it with a straight face, but it has to be a joke. I smile wide. “I’ll try, I promise.”
Richard’s hard stare breaks, and he chuckles at his own wisecrack. He heads down the hall, leaving Gabriel and me alone in our room.
Gabriel sets our bags down with a thud. “Ignore him.”
“He was joking. Right?”
“Mostly.”
I close the door behind us and lean against it. Of course, we’re sharing a bed. Based on the looseness in Gabriel’s shoulders as he digs through his bag, he isn’t surprised. Or if he is, he keeps the emotion close to the vest.
I can perform in front of others. I can play my part. The poker game had been fun, until the very end when the realness of it had made my heart freeze in my chest.
But this won’t be in front of an audience. It’ll just be me and him, his tall body stretched out under the same comforter as mine.
Gabriel digs out his sunglasses and stands again. The room feels small with him and I in it and the door closed. The bed takes up too much space.
He looks at me and gives a slow smile, as if he can read what’s on my face. He’s always been annoyingly good at that. “Panicking over the bed, princess?”
“Of course, not.”
“Of course, not,” he repeats. “Because you would never have impure thoughts about your husband.”
I roll my eyes. “Well, I can be professional.”
“Oh, I know you can be. It’s all you’ve ever been.” He leans in closer. “Let loose for once.”
I push past him and reach for my bag. I need to find a sundress and sandals to change out of my black office attire. “I know how to let loose.”
“Prove it,” he says.
The confident drawl of his voice has never failed to annoy me. Get under my skin, taunt me. He’s used it to great effect over the years.
I hate that it still works.
I hate that I want his approval, his attention. The poker game had changed things. Feeling him hard, having his desire confirmed, was supposed to give me leverage. Instead, it’s left me permanently off-kilter.
My hands finally brush over the blue cotton fabric of my sundress. I pull it out and turn around to face him. He’s leaning against the opposite wall, eyes on me.
There’s a challenge in them.
“You want me to prove it? Fine.” I reach behind me for the zipper of the dress.
His eyes widen in surprise. It’s the most delicious feeling, seeing that. Catching him off guard.
I tug my arms out of the sleeves and, right there, in the golden light streaming in through the windows, I push it down to my waist. Beneath the delicate purple lace of my bra and my flushed skin my heart is pounding.
“Connie…” he says. But his eyes are on me. On my body. There’s naked desire there, as prominent as his erection had been last weekend.
I shimmy the dress off my hips and kick it off, standing there in nothing but my underwear. A part of me is terrified. So much of me on display for him. And it’s him. Gabriel Thompson.
But the larger part of me feels only triumph. His eyes are hot on my legs, my hips, my breasts. They pause at the lacy edge of my panties.
My skin feels on fire.
“Hopefully, I didn’t leave you in too much pain the other night.” I reach for the summer dress and step into it slowly, pulling it up over my body. I slide my arms into each strap. “Because I’ve heard it can hurt, you know. When a man goes…” I look down at his groin and smile. “Unfulfilled.”
Gabriel stands very still. His hands work at his sides, clenching and unclenching. “I wasn’t unfulfilled.”
What? Had he snuck off with someone else at the party? Surely, he wouldn’t. I’d been there the whole time, the bastard.
I reach for the zipper of the sundress, but I can’t reach it. He sees and crosses the distance between us. Reluctantly, I turn and hold motionless for him. Jealousy burns in my stomach. Not that I have a right to, but… No, I do. We haven’t revisited the whole celibacy conversation.
The bastard.
He tugs my zipper up, his finger brushing my bare skin the entire time. Then, he leans in until his voice brushes my ear. “After the poker night, I had to jerk off twice just to go to sleep,” he murmurs. “And I was thinking about you the entire time.”
My mouth falls open. The image of him sprawled out on the bed I’d seen just hours earlier… with his hand in a tight fist around his erection. Would his face be tense, his eyes closed? Would he groan?
“That’s right,” he says. “Does it feel good, knowing I want you?”
“Yes,” I breathe. The confession escapes me on an exhale, like the truth I can’t keep contained any longer. He runs his hands up my bare arms. Shivers follow in their wake.
“Tell me you want me, too,” he says.
I squeeze my eyes shut. I can’t. Because if I do, everything collapses. The careful distance, the necessary distrust, the inevitable dissolution of this sham of a marriage.
Wanting him will make it all so much harder. It will make it hurt when this ends.
“I don’t,” I whisper.
His hands disappear from my arms, and he takes a step back. There’s a disappointed tone to his voice. “You’re lying, Connie.”
I turn to face him. “Isn’t that what we are? A lie?”
His eyes are unreadable on mine, narrowed and focused. I meet them with my own. I don’t know what he sees in them, but whatever it is finally makes him sigh. “I’ll be downstairs.”
The door shuts behind him with finality. I press a hand to my beating heart. Every time I try to raise the stakes, and every time I rise to his taunting, he throws it back at me just as hard.
One of these days I’ll cave.
Connie
I head downstairs a while later, past rows of doors that presumably lead to other guest rooms. One is open and I peer inside, only to find it’s a study. Bookshelves line the walls, and on an armchair lies a striped cat, curled up and sleeping, its tail twitching ever so slightly in its slumber.
The Thompson family might have its own form of dysfunction, just as we do. Families that run companies together usually do. But they have this, at least. A place steeped in tradition, community, and familial ties, even if it comes with expectations.
My heart is still racing because of what happened in the bedroom. It feels like I’m tiptoeing a tightrope, trying to navigate the great lie Gabriel and I are attempting to live. One wrong move, and I might fall.
I walk down the worn wooden stairs and past a giant country-style kitchen. Conversations drift out of the open door, and I hear the clunking of ice into glasses. This seems like the kind of place where someone makes homemade lemonade. It’s so idyllic, it’s almost painful.
Gabriel isn’t on the porch. But his aunt Sharon is, sitting next to an older woman with silver hair pulled back into a bun. She’s holding a legal pad and reading it over with a serious expression.
Could this be Grandma Edith?
“This will do,” she says. Her voice is dry, rustling like leaves in the fall, but there’s no mistaking the authority in it. “But swap out Eve and Jeremy.”
Sharon takes back the legal pad. “I’ll get them set up.” She makes to rise but pauses when she sees me. “Ah. Gabriel’s Connovan wife is here.”
Grandma Thompson turns to look at me. Beneath the silver cap of hair shine a pair of intense dark eyes. “Constance,” she says. “Good. I’ve been waiting for you.”
“Hello, Mrs. Thompson.”
She chuckles softly. “I’m Grandma Edith, girl. I haven’t been a missus in over twenty-two years.”
Sharon moves past me, disappearing down the steps with her legal pad in hand. Grandma Edith gestures at the vacated chair beside her. “Have a seat.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” I tell Gabriel’s grandmother and sit down next to her.
She nods like this is self-evident. “So, you’re the girl that’s sent my entire family into a tizzy.”
My eyebrows rise. “I suppose I am, yes. Are people talking?”
“Talking?” she asks and laughs again. It’s brief and perfunctory. “Girl, they’ve been chatting about nothing else since the newspaper article came out. Some want my grandson excommunicated, you see.”
My hand curves around the armchair’s handle. “Oh. I hope that doesn’t happen.”
“Of course, not,” Grandma Edith says. “He has too much potential.”
I nod. He does, and even I see that. Perhaps a bit too clearly lately.
“You’ll find that we don’t pretend with pleasantries here. I don’t, at least. When you’ve lived for as long as I have and dealt with as much shit as I have, you’ve earned it. Not having to be pleasant.”
“Yes, I’m sure you have,” I say carefully.
She turns her shrewd eyes on me. “Then, I’ll assume you know what Gabriel is up against in this family.”
“His cousin?”
“Yes, among other things. And now his path is linked to yours.”
My mouth feels dry. “Yes. Right.”
“Tell me about yourself,” she orders. “From the beginning.”
There’s a refreshing glass of lemonade on the table in front of us. It’s hers, but I’ve never longed for something more. “All right. I was born in New York City, twenty-nine years ago…”
She listens as I detail my life story. I keep it brief, sticking to the most important parts. Only at one point does she interrupt me.
“And you went to school with my grandson. Did you not?”
I nod. “He was two years ahead of me at St. Regis. We didn’t go to the same college for our undergrads, and as you know, he worked for two years before going to law school. So we ended up attending Harvard Law School at the same time.”
We’re not alone on the porch anymore. At various points in my story other people had appeared, taken seats further down, brought out a giant tray of watermelon. They’re all trying very hard to act casual, even though I’m dead certain every single one is trying to overhear my conversation with Edith.
“Tell me, girl,” she says. “What do you see in him now that you didn’t then?”
Oh.
The real question here is hiding beneath the surface. Why did you really marry him? The key part of any lie is the kernel of truth at its center.
The entire porch holds its breath. Gabriel’s other aunts and uncles. Cousins. In-laws. Plus-ones.
“He was impossible to ignore at school,” I say. “He’d show off in front of his friends in the yard, or win trophies for the school in lacrosse. It seemed like he never studied, never came prepared for a test, but he still came out on top every single time. That annoyed me to no end.” I look over at Grandma Edith. “I’m someone who starts preparing weeks before an exam. Months, if possible.”
“I know the type well,” she says. There’s a glint in her eyes that makes me suspect she means herself.
“He was the same in law school, only then, I got to see it up close. He’d charm teachers and students alike, and even when it was clear to everyone he hadn’t studied, he still pulled the answers like a rabbit out of a hat. That annoyed me. The fact of him being a Thompson and me a Connovan factored very little into my thinking at the time.
“But I knew, even then… that I liked him. I was dreadfully aware of where he was in the classroom at all times. I didn’t like when he riled me up, but I found that I hated it even more when he ignored me.”
I take a deep breath. All of it is the truth, so far. I had been aware of him, painfully so, all the time.
And I don’t know if that’s ever really stopped.
“In the years since, seeing Gabriel would set off the same old emotions. Only they started to feel different. What I’d once envied him for, I now admired about him. I think, maybe, I always did, and I just couldn’t admit it to myself. He’s handsome, of course, but he’s also smart, talented, funny, and ambitious. He’s incredible.” I look over at Grandma Edith, and my smile turns wry. “Even when he’s annoying as hell.”
“Oh, men often are. The most annoying thing about them, though, is how that never seems to stop us from loving them.”
I think of my father, who is the word “distance” personified. Of my oldest brother, who has never once let me in. And of Gabriel, who seems to know me better than I sometimes know myself… including which buttons to push.
“Perhaps that’s why we love them,” I say. “They never make it easy for us, and we love a challenge.”
Her eyes sparkle on mine. “If he doesn’t challenge you, girl, he isn’t the one.”
Someone calls out on the front lawn. Lines are being drawn. I see someone who looks a lot like Jacob, Gabriel’s cousin, in a cap and a polo shirt.
“The game is starting,” Grandma Edith says. She sits up straight and looks over the porch railing with obvious interest.
“What game?” I ask.
But it’s not Edith who responds.
“A touch football tournament,” a voice says behind me. I turn to discover Gabriel leaning against one of the porch’s pillars. There’s a hidden smile on his lips, and I know immediately that he’d heard every single word I’d said.
“Oh,” I breathe. “Are you playing?”
“Yes.”
That’s what she’d been doing, Grandma Edith, on that legal pad. Going over the teams.
I glance at the woman beside me. With a shawl thrown over her shoulders and a pleasant expression on her face, she could be anyone’s sweet old grandma. Only I’m getting the sense that she very much isn’t.
“Wish me luck,” Gabriel says. He walks backward out onto the lawn, that hidden smile blooming into a full grin. Yeah, he’d heard every word all right.
“Good luck,” I say. “Be careful!”
He rolls his eyes, but it’s good-natured. I’m not certain if we’re playing a married couple now or actually being one.
“Are Gabriel and his cousin on opposite teams?” I ask his grandmother.
She keeps her gaze on the teams assembling. “Of course.”
Right. Of course.
I grab myself a lemonade and settle down to watch what looks like a very serious setup. Lines are drawn across the grass with white spray paint. I count at least twelve people in various forms of athletic wear, milling about, ready to start. Most are guys, but there are at least three or four women there, too.
Gabriel’s chatting with a group of his cousins, all around the same age as him. I lean closer to Grandma Edith.
“Does this happen every family reunion?”
“Oh, yes,” she says. “Medals are awarded.”
I can’t tell if she’s joking or not.
The sun shines brightly down on the two teams, standing on opposite sides of the freshly mown lawn. I can still see the lake glittering beyond the trees, a silent spectator to the Thompson family game.
Gabriel is wearing a T-shirt and shorts. He’s grinning, flexing his arms, and talking to someone to his left.
I feel like I’m back at prep school.
