“Thailand. At the Lloyds’ vacation home.”
Before Pete could comment, she hung up and put the phone back in her pocket. Was she so pathetic that her own brother didn’t think she could do better than mere material comfort? He’d made it sound like she’d never amount to anything if she divorced Gavin.
Love is a luxury for the rich.
Horseshit. Everyone deserved a chance at love. She deserved it. Her child deserved it.
She put her hands over her belly. People could always make more money. They could also lose it. But love—that lasted.
And she wanted something lasting, both for her and her baby.
* * *
Pete dug the heels of his hands against his gritty eyes. The air conditioner hummed quietly in his home office. His laptop whirred, crunching some data-models he’d been working on for Gavin.
How could Amandine do this to him?
Pete didn’t believe for a second it was Gavin who wanted to leave Amandine. Not after the jet, a gift that had every woman at the office dissolving into rapturous sighs. Amandine was the envy of all, having done incredibly well for herself. She had a husband who obviously adored her, and she was able to pursue her art without worrying about putting food on the table—hunger pangs tended to push the romanticism of being a starving artist aside pretty quickly.
How could Amandine throw it all away? And for what?
Love? Seriously?
Not that love wasn’t important. Pete wanted that for his sister too, but she was romanticizing their childhood, refusing to acknowledge the ugliness of being poor and laughed at by their peers. Love wasn’t just talking a good game. It was a selfless giving that went on forever. Norman had excelled at the former, but failed at the latter.
Gavin must’ve known things were coming unglued, Pete realized, recalling their earlier conversation over the Chinese take-out. Christ, what a mess. If the divorce got ugly, would Pete be able to stay at the firm? Or would he be forced out? Gavin wouldn’t have to actually fire him. It was simple to make an unwanted staff member leave.
Pete had lied to everyone about why he’d chosen to work under Gavin. It wasn’t because of better mentoring opportunities or more money or a bigger signing bonus, although those were certainly nice.
It was Brooke.
Brooke lived in Los Angeles. And ever since that afternoon in high school, he’d always gazed upon her from afar, never having the opportunity or the guts to make another move. Eight years of waiting, but he knew he’d only get one shot. She was used to better things than what he could have afforded back then, and he had to be patient until it was certain that he’d win her.
Now, after having worked for Gavin for over three years, Pete finally had the money and the means to treat a woman right. He wouldn’t be like his loser dad. Norman might not have been a malicious wife-beater, but even though that seemed to make all the other stuff okay for Amandine, it was setting the bar pretty low.
When he made his move, he’d give Brooke the world, make her happy—
But what if Amandine’s really unhappy with Gavin? You still gonna insist that she stay with him?
“Ah, damn,” Pete moaned. He knew the right answer—the only answer—but it wasn’t the one he wanted to give.
* * *
Gavin spent a couple of minutes glancing through his email, sent three very terse messages with specific instructions, then shut the computer down. The whole point of coming to Thailand was to spend time with Amandine, not deal with the never-ending series of crises that made up his work.
He vaulted the house railing and went down to the water where she was standing. He knew something was wrong the instant he saw her face. Thoughts—unpleasant ones from the way her eyebrows were scrunched—flitted through her eyes, and her mouth formed a grim, flat line under her pert nose. She turned and started walking further into the surf, water swirling around her knees. She looked perfect against the morning sun, almost unapproachably beautiful. But then a particularly large wave slammed into her and she tilted, her arms shooting out for balance.
Gavin leaped over and grabbed her before she could fall.
“You okay?”
She used him to lever herself back upright. “Yes. Thank you.”
“There’s an undertow here sometimes. You should stay more toward the beach than the ocean.”
“I was. Wasn’t I?”
“Not really.” He turned her gently toward the shore. “You’ve been going deeper into the sea with each step.”