And then, in other ways, it seemed like forever since I’d heard her singing in the shower, or watched her get ready for bed, or lost myself inside her body. She’d always made me go slow at first, claiming she was worried about my size, even after we’d been together for years. Probably she said that just to flatter me (it worked every time), although she’d been a tiny little thing, with curves in all the right places. I’d never minded the fifteen extra pounds she insisted she had to lose—in fact, I loved them, loved the way her body was soft and mine was hard, the way those curves felt beneath my hands and lips and tongue, the way she’d wrapped herself around me. It had felt so good to take care of her.
Fuck, I missed sex. I missed everything.
“You need to get out there again,” said my oldest brother, Brad, because he knew everything. “Let me introduce you to April, the new realtor at the agency. She’s hot, and I think you’d have a good time. Or at least get laid.”
I told him to piss off.
“Come on, man,” he’d said again last week as we jogged together down one of the dirt roads that bordered our forty-six acre farm. “It’s been three years. You’re not even trying to move on. When are you going to get over her?”
“Fuck you, Brad,” I’d replied, taking off with long, fast strides that left him in the dust. Not trying to move on? Every fucking day I got through meant I was moving on. Every morning I got out of bed meant I was moving on. Every goddamn time I took another breath meant I was moving on.
And as for getting over her, it would never happen, so he could parade an endless supply of hot women in front of me, but it would just be a waste of time.
I’d already met the love of my life; I’d known her since we were kids.
I’d married her, and I’d lost her.
There was no reprieve from that. There was no redemption. There was no second chance.
I didn’t even want one.
Four
Margot
“Are you sure you want to take this on right now?” Jaime reached across my desk and handed me the client file, her expression doubtful. I’d just volunteered to take over a new account that involved a few days of travel, a lot of research, and not much money. The client was a small family farm focused on sustainable agriculture. The perfect place to get the hell out of town and not bump into anyone I knew. “A farm doesn’t really seem like your thing.”
“Why not?” I asked, stuffing the file into my bag. “I used to ride horses, remember? I think I even have a pair of boots laying around.”
“You kept your horse at a hunt club. This is a farm.”
“How different can it be?” I flipped a hand in the air. “I’m sure I can handle a farm. And like I told you, Muffy says it’s best if I leave town for a while anyway, at least until the gossip dies down.”
“Until the gossip dies down?” Jaime grinned as she crossed her arms. “That’s going to take a while, Sconewall Jackson.”
She wasn’t kidding. It had been almost a week, but Sconehenge was still a wildly popular tale among the country club set, who hadn’t witnessed a good Scene in months. (“All this good behavior is so tiresome,” my grandmother had complained at dinner last week.) The story had been embellished to include Tripp taking a scone right in the nuts (a change I liked) and Amber throwing a plate of beignets at my head (one I didn’t). Scones were selling out at local bakeries, the shop that made the ones I threw started calling them Jilted Heiresses (I turned down the endorsement deal), and people were fond of quipping, “Revenge is just a scone’s throw away” at cocktail parties all over town.
My mother was beside herself (“Really, Margot, who on earth is going to want to be seen with you now?”) although my grandmother had cackled with glee when she heard the story. My father seemed rather confused by the whole affair, and Buck was only sorry he’d missed it.
But we’d agreed that after a sincere apology to Mrs. Biltmore (made the following day when I’d had to go back and pick up my Mercedes since I’d been too drunk to drive it home), I should probably make myself scarce for the rest of the summer. “Or at least until someone else behaves badly,” Gran whispered. “I’ll keep an eye out. Nobody pays any attention to old ladies, and we see everything.”
“So tell me what you know about this client,” I said to Jaime, packing up the rest of what I’d need from my office over the next two weeks. Valentini Brothers Farm was in the thumb area of Michigan, about two hours north of Detroit. I’d rented a little cottage on Lake Huron that was less than a mile from it, and I figured I’d use the time I wasn’t working to relax in a beach chair, read a book, rethink a few things about the direction of my life.
“Not much,” admitted Jaime, perching on my desk. “It’s owned by three brothers. Quinn met one of the brothers, Pete, and his wife, Georgia, at a local farmers market and they got to talking. You know how Quinn is, he makes friends with everybody.” She rolled her eyes, but I saw the blush in her cheeks, which always appeared when she talked about him. Jaime didn’t like to believe she was a romantic, but she was head over heels for Quinn. “Anyway, the guy mentioned that they were struggling to grow their brand awareness and increase customer engagement—although he didn’t put it like that—and Quinn, of course, was like, ‘Oh, my girlfriend can help you. That’s exactly what she does!’ He gave them my card, and Georgia called me last week.”