“IT was perfection, condesa. La abuela looked stunning—a total GILF if not for the part about me being gay,” Eduardo told me as I bid him farewell at the ferry.
“I think I should call her up and tell her you said that.” He dropped the flippant expression and actually looked scared for once. “Ha . . . gotcha!” I rarely got the upper hand with Eduardo and his outrageous comments, so I relished the enjoyment of making him squirm in fear.
“Ay, Dios mío, you scared me, condesa. Abuela would have my cojones.”
“Indeed she would, but she might forgive you for helping make her wedding so lovely.”
“It was my very great pleasure to help you both.”
Eduardo hugged me good-bye and did the two kisses to each cheek ritual he’d perfected, before boarding the boat. I blew him a kiss, and then turned back to Woody where Caleb was waiting inside for me.
I knew a few people were staying the night at Lucas’s beach house, but most of the guests had left the island after seeing the bride and groom away via helicopter. Herman and Nan were spending their wedding night in New York before heading off on their European cruise. The new Mr. and Mrs. Blackstone had looked radiant as they left the island this afternoon. It was strange, sending my grandmother away on her honeymoon, but it also felt so very right at the same time.
Caleb was taking a call when I returned, so I didn’t interrupt him as I drove us to the cottage. He’d asked me earlier if I wanted to go back to Boston for the rest of the weekend, but I’d told him I wanted to stay here. We’d come to an unspoken agreement about our sleeping arrangements during the last month. Most weekdays I stayed in Boston with him, because the penthouse redesign was now my full-time job. That left the weekends for the island and the cottage. I’d also started working from home on Fridays up until today, because I’d been planning the wedding. There was still plenty I could do via the Internet for redesigning the penthouse, so I planned to continue. I didn’t know what Caleb would think of my plan, and since he was technically my boss on the project, I really hoped he wouldn’t object. I knew he liked having me at his penthouse. I liked being there with him. But I needed to live on the island. I just needed it and didn’t really have the words to explain why. Maybe it was some kind of emotional healing for me to live in the same house where my mother grew up. I don’t know what it was that bonded me to Blackstone Island so deeply, but the need was there, and Caleb would have to understand and accept it—if he wanted to be with me. I knew what I felt for Caleb, and I didn’t want to be difficult. I also knew I didn’t want more pressure to acquiesce to a man’s control.
Meeting his mother just this afternoon pretty much cemented the fact that I didn’t really fit in to the Blackstone billionaire world—even more so now than I’d felt it before. I was an island girl, and I was going to stay an island girl.
“Offer thirty-nine point five and see if she accepts. I feel forty is our threshold on this, but at the same time, I want to make sure she bites hard. There haven’t been any reasonable offers up ’til now, so let’s just see how this first round goes. And not even a whisper of where this is originating, okay?” I shamelessly listened in on his conversation, knowing he was discussing a deal in the millions of dollars as if it were a daily occurrence. It probably was for him, and served as a reminder, yet again, how vastly different my simple life was from his.
“That’s right. William J. Brookermann is the principal on the offer. No, with two n’s. I already said it’s a silent partnership. She cannot suspect, or it’ll flop. Good. Of course, yes, put out feelers with the state. I want to know if it’s been done before. We’ll talk again midweek.”
Caleb ended his call and turned to me, grinning like a boy who’d just found a secret stash of sweets.
“Your business call just now pleases you?” I asked him, now curious about his conversation.
“It does. Very much.”
“Are you buying something?”
“I hope so.” More cryptic answers from him, but I wasn’t the kind of person who begged for answers. I imagined if he wanted to tell me about it, then he would. He hadn’t announced anything to me about his plan to buy some land and build a house on the south end of the island, either. I wondered if his call just now had been part of it. Whatever his business deal was about seemed to be good news, so I dropped the subject.
I could feel his eyes on me as I drove the winding roads up through the hilly grassland to the point. “What do you want to do tonight?” he asked after a moment.
“Thank you for asking,” I paused, “because it saves me from having to tell you what we are doing tonight.”