The way he’d said that made me take a step back. “What do you mean?”
“You are the last person I’d trust!”
“Why do you say that?”
“After all your lying about Gabriel and your relationship in college! I know you two were together, I saw you. At that party!”
Oh, God, I thought. This again.
“Believe what you want to,” I said, too tired for this conversation, and turned to walk away.
“I saw you kissing him!” he said.
“Yes, I kissed him, but it was just to make his boyfriend jealous. Are you for real? You’re so full of shit, Matthew Waterstone, seriously! You couldn’t just talk to me about this? Gabe and I were just friends, he was the one willing to do stuff with me over the holidays when you had to go away. He took me to the hospital when I had stomach pains and you had to go to some fundraiser gala. He was the one who did my laundry after I got a tennis injury, and you were too busy studying to help me. So special, aren’t you! Not like I could trust you exactly either! You know what, I told you about the pregnancy, which was the right thing to do. Now you can go back to your pretend perfect world! I won’t bother you again.”
I walked off, everything blurry through the tears that were filling my eyes.
But I felt better after telling Matthew exactly what I thought of him and his precious family.
For the first time, I’d let him have a piece of what I’d been thinking for years.
And it felt good.
Chapter 14
Matthew
I was in meetings all day. There was a problem with distribution in Europe and I had to talk to the head of our office in the UK about the hold up in customs. Then there was an issue with a supplier in Michigan. My uncle had asked me to look into a contract with one of our original suppliers. I had sent it to our legal team, but I delayed in looking at the email he sent back. The lawyers often sent very long, wordy messages that took forever to wade through. But I couldn’t put off my uncle much longer. As chairman of the board, Albert had considerable power and influence. I suspected he thought he should have been named CEO, but my mother had always been very firm on carrying out the wishes of my father and since these were set out clearly in his will, going against them would entail a legal battle that would be costly and most certainly cause great conflict in the family.
It was late by the time I went home. Traffic was bad, and I found myself gridlocked between the traffic lights. I waited for the cars to move and leaned back, closing my eyes, and taking a deep breath.
In that moment, my thoughts drifted to Lauren and to the conversation we’d had in the morning.
I heard her words again.
There was nowhere for me to go. I couldn’t avoid thinking about what she’d said to me anymore.
Strangely enough, it was the last thing she’d said to me that had upset me most. My perfect pretend world.
How did she know?
I had everything. Money, power, a great job, good health, and excellent family connections.
But I wasn’t happy.
I hadn’t ever been happy.
Back in college, Lauren had already noticed that. She’d once asked me, right in the beginning of our relationship, what I wanted to do for a break that we had between terms. I told her I had to go back to the city to see my mother. She asked if I wanted to go. I told her it wasn’t about what Iwanted, that this was what was expected of me, and I had to do it. Lauren had given me a mischievous grin and asked me what would happen if I didn’t go; if I went with her on whatever adventure she had planned. Wouldn’t that make me happy? I’d gotten annoyed with her, snapping at her that she didn’t get it, that I wasn’t like her and that I had important things I had to do. I couldn’t jump in a camper van and head for the hills whenever I felt like it. I told her I couldn’t think about what made me happy all the time, that I had other responsibilities.
She had touched on a major weakness, something that had been bothering me for a long time, but I’d not allowed myself to think about. The fact that I was unhappy, that I didn’t really care about the family the way my mother wanted me to. Spending time with Lauren in college was the closest I’d come to doing what I wanted. It had nothing to do with my family or my father, it was all about me. I had not told Lauren much about this, I always kept my feelings hidden from her. I didn’t want her to know how much she meant to me. Later, when I was taking over as CEO, I booked a few sessions with a business coach, to prepare me for the leadership position in the company. But the coach took me back to my past and my most important relationships, my connections with my parents. She told me that I had essentially grown up as an orphan, with both parents absent. She said I’d never learned to form relationships and had to work on forming proper bonds.
I had disagreed with her, become quite upset.
But I knew she was right.
Deep down, I knew it. The only person I’d ever had any real relationship with, was Lauren. The girls I’d dated, the friends I’d gone outwith had never gotten close to me, I’d never let them. But I had let Lauren in. She was the only one who knew the guilt I felt about my father; that I barely remembered him, this man who’d become larger in death than he had been in life. I was ten when he died and even by then, I’d spent very little time with him. He was always working, away on business. There were flashes of memory, a fishing trip one weekend, a Christmas surrounded by snowy trees and a cabin in the woods. My father’s smiling face, friendly but vague. Snatches of images that could have come from a film I’d seen. I couldn’t miss someone I’d never known. Lauren understood this, never having had a father figure in her life either. But she had a mother, a present mother, someone who had featured strongly in her life, a positive influence.
It had been difficult for me to deal with how much Lauren had meant to me, back in college. The feelings I had for her were deep and had made me feel vulnerable and unsure of myself. I had become used to being on my own and having someone else to share things with me felt wonderful and terrible, at the same time.