I wished I could transport myself back in time to the old Harlow when she arrived for the summer. She’d had no idea just what a brilliant summer lay ahead of her. Would I change any of it? Yes, I would make sure I appreciated every moment just that little bit more.
“Ready?” Bridget asked, appearing with her keys.
I nodded but she paused and fixed me with those knowing Montmarte eyes. “Are you sure?”
Feeling my face stiffen with unshed tears, I looked away. With a nod I bent to pick up my carry-on. “Of course. Let’s go.”
She opened the front door but closed it suddenly and swung around. “You still love him, don’t you?”
“What?” I asked startled.
“Heath. You’re still in love with him, aren’t you?”
Now my face well and truly threatened to crumple. Damn it!
“Don’t go without telling him,” she said, looking me directly in the eye. “Don’t leave without letting him know exactly how you feel.”
“It’s time to go home, Bridge.”
She shook her head and then looked up at me. “At least let me take you past his house to say a final farewell. He at least deserves that, doesn’t he?”
“He is over it. He is fine. He said goodbye to me last night with a pat on the back.” I adjusted my carry-on over my shoulder feeling a jolt of disappointment at the memory. “He said his final farewell to me a long time ago.”
I’m not sure if it was a last ditch effort to break me into staying, but Bridget drove slowly to the airport. She took the longest route possible. And it was torture. Taking in the sights that had become home to me for the last five months. The beach. The Pier. Fat Tony’s Pizza Palace. And Epic—where I had first laid eyes on a performing Heath.
“Bridge.” My eyes filled with tears behind sunglasses.
“Yes?” She turned to me hopefully.
“I don’t want to miss my flight.”
She looked defeated, but nodded and put her foot down.
When we made it to the airport, my flight was boarding.
Bridge hugged me tightly at the gate.
“I’m going to miss you so much,” she said, holding me tight. I didn’t want to let her go and my face was so frozen with sadness I was afraid it would shatter. “You come back to me whenever you want. There is always a room for you.”
We broke apart and my eyes scanned the airport. Searching for what? Did I really think he was going to show up to say goodbye? Really?
Really…?
“I will, I promise. I will come back soon.” I kissed her and hoped the bright smile I wore was convincing. “You helped give me the most amazing time of my life, Bridge. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
I swallowed the hard lump in my throat. “I’ll see you soon, I promise.”
With that, I turned and boarded my flight, and with a heavy heart I left California and the most incredible summer behind me.
Chapter Twenty-One HARLOW
“You’ve lost a lot of weight since the last fitting,” the dressmaker complained, pinning the ice-blue satin closer to my hips. “It’s going to take a lot of work to have it ready by the weekend.”
“But you will be able to fix the dress before the gala, won’t you?” My mother looked horrified.
“It will be a stretch—”
“Of course we will pay whatever it takes—”
As this ridiculous conversation took place around me I stood on the small carpeted box lost in a daydream. My earbuds were stuck in my ears but I could still hear them over the music. In the mirrors that surrounded me I could see I had indeed lost weight. But it was hard to eat when your heart had died in your chest and you just didn’t know how you could continue to put one foot in front of the other.
“Well of course, Mrs. Montmarte,” said the dressmaker.
My mother smiled. It amazed me how she could make the warmest gesture feel ice cold.
She rose from the chaise lounge, crossed the dressing room and yanked the earbuds from my ears.
“Did you hear that? It’s going to take some effort, but your dress will be ready.” Her eyes were hard. Her face pinched. “At least some people are willing to make an effort.”
I looked at her. But her words, her sarcasm, her innuendos, didn’t make it past the abundance of heartache and indifference inside of me.
“I’ve already said I am sorry,” I replied. But my words—all of my words—were born out of a necessity to say something, anything, just to shut her up. “I am a week late, Mama. Not a month.”
“The season has already started and you aren’t ready,” she snapped, fiddling with the pins at my hips. She hadn’t forgiven me for delaying her enjoyment of the debutante season. Or for the tattoo. She looked at it as if I’d been marked by the devil and had changed my name to Damien.
“Someone died, Mama. My friend. I had to stay.”
She sniffed. “If he was dead then what does it matter to him if you’re there or not? Really, Harlow, you have responsibilities.”
I hated her in that moment. I shoved my earbuds in my ears to stop myself from saying something really hurtful, but was suddenly swung around and found myself looking straight at Colton.
“Colton!”
He pulled me into his arms and twirled me around. “Look at you Miss Beautiful. Goddamn, woman! You. Are. Hot.”
I stepped out of his arms. “What are you doing here?”
He smiled, conspiratorially. “I’m you’re date.”
“Date?”
“The ball. I’ve come back to escort the prettiest debutante to her coming out party.”
Colton was pure South. His accent. His words. Everything. I couldn’t help but smile. It was comforting to see him.
“Now, now, Colton Labousse, you’re not supposed to see Harlow until the gala. A lady has to keep some mystery about her for the big day,” Mama reproached him gaily in her thick Carolina dialect as she swept across the room.
She loved Colton. His family were rich. Filthy rich. And their golden son could do no wrong in her eyes. She swooped between us and kissed him on each cheek before playfully patting him on the chest, and batting her long lashes at him. I rolled my eyes. Ugh! Really?
“Thus with a kiss I die,” Colton quoted Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet as he kissed her on the cheek. Then offering her his most devastating smile, asked, “Not even a sneak peak?”
If there was one thing Colton was good at, it was twisting parents around his little finger. He played up to my mother’s ego and she loved it.
“Okay but just a quick one.” She grinned like a young girl and I rolled my eyes again.
He turned to me and offered me a more genuine, softer smile. He whispered, like we were playing some kind of conspiracy. “Come out and play with me tonight? Dinner at Alto’s?”
I did a quick tally of my options in my head. Another cold and stilted evening with my parents? Or forget my heartache with an evening of distraction with an old friend?
“You got a better offer I am unaware of, Miss Montmarte?”
He was so smooth. Yet comforting. Like a beacon in the darkness. I smiled and shrugged. “Sure. Why not.”
He flashed me that million dollar smile.
“Pick you up at eight?”
The smile disappeared from my face and the months peeled back so rapidly I felt dizzy. Suddenly, I was standing at the dessert bar at the café in LA, with Heath.
“You’re not going to let this go are you?” I said.
“No. Absolutely not,” replied Heath.
“If I agree, will you leave me alone?”
Two dimples flicked next to his floodlight smile. “Pick you up around eight?”