Page 41 of Willowbrooke
He nodded, signaling that he wasn’t fishing for compliments, but appreciated them nonetheless. “It’s been really hard since Dad died—honestly, since before then too...”
“You mentioned you were kind of running away from some stuff when you decided to come back to Willowbrooke.” I recalled our conversation the night he had made pasta for me. Would I finally find out the truth of what he’d left behind, and why?
“I spent most of my twenties networking and building up relationships and word of mouth to find new opportunities consulting for startups,” he began. “I wouldn’t have said it then, but it’s obvious now that I was trying to make a name for myself—trying to show my dad that I didn’t need him. Trying to prove him wrong.”
“How did you get into that in the first place?” I asked.
A flash of light and a huge clap of thunder temporarily prevented him from responding. The wind and rain were still wailing outside the house. I assumed being up on top of the cliff made conditions worse at Willowbrooke.
“I have a business degree and got an MBA right after. I worked at a handful of startups, trying to help with operations and finances, but I noticed a pattern that the make-or-break moment for each of them was whether or not they couldscale their business. Whether the business idea was scalable, or whether management was the problem—scalability was always the core issue.” He took another bite of his dinner.
“That was awfully clever of you to see so early in your career and take advantage of it to build your own brand.”
“Maybe growing up around Dad and Uncle William finally rubbed off on me.” He chuckled. “But the more companies I consulted for, the more I became jaded by a lot of it. So many of these startups were run by rich kids—trust fund babies who were playing around with money like it meant nothing.” Leo paused.
“I was one of them once.” He leaned back into the couch. “I mean, I’d like to think I wasn’t a brat about it when I was younger, and Ihateto admit that Dad pretending to disinherit me actually worked by teaching me the value of money, but it was more about how they didn’t see that the decisions they made affected people who couldn’t afford to just move onto the next project as easily. There were lives at stake, and they didn’t care. It got harder and harder to keep going. So I was ready to figure something else out when everything changed.”
Even though I had grown up in an upper-middle-class home, because of how my parents treated me, I’d always felt a drive to fend for myself. They made it clear early on, when they refused to support changing my major from architecture to interior design, that I was on my own. And as the office manager at the firm, although it was nepotism that got methe job, I barely scraped by, which they knew. But I refused to ask them for help.
I preferred to struggle instead of admit defeat. Not with them.
Leo was the same.
“And then there was Quinn…” Leo sighed heavily, then took a large pull of wine.
I waited quietly for him to continue. Seeing Leo this bare, this exposed, I knew I needed to let him speak in his own time.
“She worked at one of the startups where I was consulting. She was bright, gregarious, and we had so much in common. We were together for over two years when I proposed.”
I nearly spit out the sip of wine I’d taken, but managed to swallow it instead.
“When Margot quietly reached out to me after her divorce, she took quite a liking to Quinn. They became very close, and it felt like Quinn was the daughter she’d never had. I think Quinn really helped Margot process her divorce and was a good distraction while she was picking up the pieces.
“But after a while, I could tell something had changed. And when Margot told me about Dad being sick—Quinn pushed me to go home and reconcile with him, which was weird because she knew how much I’d gone through because of him.
“After being home for a while, the veil kind of lifted, and I started to see her in a different light. She barely called, visitedmaybe once or twice, and only asked if things had gotten better between us. And it dawned on me that the whole time, she had only been with me for money—for status.
“I think at some point, Margot told her I’d been disinherited, and that’s why she was so keen on me reconnecting with him. When I realized that, so many things started to make sense, little things that I had noticed and tried to ignore. And once I understood what I really was to her, there was no putting us back together.”
“That must have been devastating,” I commented delicately.
“I hadn’t felt so betrayed since Dad basically told me I was on my own.” Leo looked down at his wineglass while he swirled the remaining liquid. “Margot was destroyed when she found out I broke off the engagement.
“Quinn denied everything, but so much fell into place; I didn’t believe her. Like she was always bringing me to these awful black-tie events under the guise of networking, but she wasn’t trying to help me, she was trying to help herself. I saw her for exactly who she was, and everything she did was for her own benefit.
“Margot tried to interfere—tried to help mediate, but I was done. That trust was broken and was never going to be repaired. And what’s funny is that I knew it was the right thing because when I told her we were over, I felt so much lighter. I’d never felt more free in my life. Even Dad could see that a weight had been lifted off my shoulders.
“But it wasn’t until I met you that I realized how lonely I’ve been the past couple years.” His voice was soft…yearning. “Or how nice it is to be with someone who actually cares about you with no strings attached…”
I looked up at Leo then, not realizing how close his face was to mine.
In the dim light, the shadows of insomnia gathered below his eyes were more pronounced. Leo didn’t just look physically tired, he looked mentally exhausted. Grieving his father had not been kind to him; I wished there was something I could do to comfort him through his loss.
Our eyes locked for a brief moment, hazel on blue, before I involuntarily closed the gap between us.
If I thought the warmth I had felt at his fleeting touches and attention were satiating, it had nothing on the sparks that flew the moment my lips met his.
Surprised by Leo’s immediate acceptance of my advances and hungry reciprocation, what started as a quick, intense, and passionate kiss turned languid, soft, and sweet. He tasted only of the wine we had imbibed, and smelled like the salty ocean air.
