Page 22 of Willowbrooke
Regardless of my tactics, we would occasionally have fleeting run-ins, but I avoided him as much as possible. Still, I had to admit to myself that it was nice to see a different side to Leo. After hours, he was a bit more relaxed, but also a bit more morose. Most nights, he’d post up in the living room with a glass of wine and read.
Although I had argued it would be better to wait to order the new sofa with all the construction in the house, he couldn’t stand the floral monstrosity any longer and practically begged me to order it early. It was nice to see he was putting it to good use. The deep cognac leather sectional fit well in the space, and I was excited for how the whole room would look when everything was put together.
Seeing him out of work-mode was both comforting, butalso disquieting. I could feel myself being pulled to him. I had to remind myself with increasing frequency that it was simply a line I could not cross. But the more Leo came out of his shell around me, the more I found myself thinking of him and what it would be like to be with someone like him…or just him.
I was playing a dangerous game.
William stopped by mid-week to share a glass of wine with Leo in the library. The two of them were awfully secretive, which had me wondering if they were conspiring against me. But contrary to my conspiracy theories, William pulled me aside to apologize for not stepping in the day Leo had found me in the solarium.
“What could you have done?” I shook my head, waving off his apology.
“I could have said something—I should have.” He frowned. “It weighed heavily on me after you left, and once the shock had subsided, I gave Leo a piece of my mind about how he had handled the situation.”
So that’s why Leo had displayed such a quick turnaround.
It didn’t make his apology any less genuine, but it did explain why he’d felt so tortured about how I’d left the house that day.
“I appreciate what you did,” I thanked him.
“I’m glad you’ve decided to stay.” William’s admission surprised me.
“Oh?” I managed in response.
“Leo’s been alone too long—I think it’ll be good for him to have you around.” William smiled gently. “He’s different with you.”
“Hopefully in a good way.” I laughed awkwardly.
William joined me. “Yes, in a good way.” He chuckled. “Take care of him.” His tone was still jovial, but the message was sobering.
“I will,” I promised, giving him a small wave as he took his leave.
Margot joined us for lunch on Thursday. I’m not sure what I thought her reaction to the new living arrangement would be, but she appeared delighted at the idea.
“You’re always so generous and thoughtful, Leo,” she gushed over her salad. “I raised you well.”
As I had come to expect with Margot, she got a little too deep a little too quickly, when she asked if I had any family to stay with.
Leo looked up at me across the table, silently giving me permission to circumvent the truth if it was uncomfortable. But I feared Margot would sniff out any lies or half-truths, so I was honest.
I explained my recent estrangement with my family after leaving the firm, and how my sister and I had never really been close because our parents had pitted us against eachother…a silly gambit because everyone had known Sloan would win, whatever the contest was.
“I know it’s hard, honey, but don’t close that door if you can manage. Look at what happened with Leo and George.” Margot took a sip of her sparkling water.
Leo held his breath, waiting to see how much Margot would divulge. After I’d confessed to knowing why the solarium was kept closed because Margot had spilled the beans, he had to know that wasn’t the only thing we’d spoken about. But I wasn’t about to give Leo a full debrief of our lunch conversation.
“Thank goodness my prodding worked on both of them—if they hadn’t reconciled…” She reached across the table and took Leo’s hand in hers. “You would have regretted it for the rest of your life.”
Leo looked a mix of a broken little boy, unsure if the acceptance he was hearing was true, and the grown man who was broken in a different way, still grieving the loss of the father he barely knew, and now, never would.
Her gaze held his for a long moment. I thought she might have forgotten I was in the room, but then she retracted her hand from Leo’s as she cleared her throat.
“You might consider talking to your sister as well. Maybe as adults you can find common ground. George and I had a difficult relationship growing up—it’s not easy feeling inferior your whole life. But I’m glad we worked through our childhood to see that our differences were an artifact ofthe way we were brought up, not because he and I didn’t get along,” Margot commented.
I couldn’t even remember the last time I had talked to Sloan—more than just passing words anyway. The apple of my parents’ eye, she had gone to school to be a structural engineer and was being groomed to take over the firm when my parents were ready to retire in the next ten or so years.
Sloan was the opposite of me in so many ways. Where I was short, freckled, amber-haired, and tomboyish, she was tall, willowy, feminine, with curves in all the right places, and long naturally blonde hair. The only feature we shared was our blue eyes, and if we hadn’t had that in common, I would truly have looked the part of the red-headed step child. I was treated like one, so our identical gaze didn’t seem to matter much.
Where I had failed and struggled in school, she had excelled and was top of whatever class she was in. My parents constantly sang her praises, and more than once, I’d heard them begrudgingly lament why I couldn’t be more like her. They had no idea how devastating that treatment had been for me at such a formative age. I didn’t think I could ever get past it—no amount of therapy in the world could squash those kinds of issues.
