Heart of the Country, Page 2

  I hurried after, not trusting Jake in close proximity to Faith for a second.

  Faith had Dad laughing. That was a good sign. They were talking about horses. I knew Faith had grown up on a farm. And Dad had owned Arabians for a while. Faith was good at finding what connected people.

  Dad got into business pretty quickly, like usual. And Jake had to pipe in with all his knowledge about what we did. I just let them talk. I wasn’t interested in it right now. I was interested in the beauty before me, whose soft hair was being blown back by the ocean breeze.

  I was so engrossed in watching her that I didn’t realize Jake had changed the subject . . . to all the former women in my life. “Remember Leslie, Dad? I was certain that woman was going to end up on the front page of some major newspaper, and not for the right reasons.”

  I shot Jake a harsh look and he threw his hands up.

  “Bro, only joking, okay? Settle down. Faith here doesn’t seem like the kind of woman who is going to be scared off by a few flakes from your past.”

  He always did that. Put me in a position where no matter how I answered, I sounded like a jerk. I stood suddenly, taking even Faith off guard. “Faith,” I said, helping her to her feet, “I want to show you the beach. It’s amazing. It’s about a fifteen-minute walk to get down there.”

  “That sounds wonderful,” Faith said.

  I guided her by the small of her back toward the steps that led to the gardens, which would then lead us to the path to the ocean.

  Jake snorted, then made some comment about the upcoming hurricane season to Dad.

  Faith leaned into me. “I think the hurricane might be sitting right at the table,” she said with a wink.

  I laughed. That’s what I loved about Faith. She could see through all the muck.

  “I’m sorry about Jake. He can be that way sometimes. Overbearing.”

  “Maybe just protective of you.” She put her face into the wind as we walked, taking in the gardens and then the cliffs. “I can’t imagine waking up to this every morning,” she said as I helped her down the stone pathway.

  “The truth is, you take it for granted.”

  “Human nature, I guess.”

  We got to the beach and both tore off our shoes. We walked quietly along the water’s edge. I’d been amazed in the first week I met her how comfortable she was with silence. She sometimes seemed to crave it. In turn, it calmed me.

  There is something about being at the edge of the vast ocean that causes an instant examination of one’s life. I felt completely in the moment as we walked side by side, but at the same time it was as if glimpses of my future rolled in with the tide. She was in every wave.

  I stopped her, turned her to face me. She smiled and I wasn’t sure I’d seen anyone look at me with that kind of . . . what was the word? Delight? Her eyes sparkled against the high afternoon sun.

  I swept the hair out of her face and took her hands in mine. Then I knelt. My knee sank into the wet sand.

  The sparkle of her eyes vanished, replaced by shock. “What . . . are you doing?”

  “I’ve been raised to never make an impulsive decision, so you need to understand that in no way is this impulsive.” I pulled out the ring from my pocket and held it up to her. I felt energy tremble through her fingertips. “Faith, there are many things in life that require time and thought, and marriage is one of them. But I’ve thought so much of you and about you since the hour we met—enough to fill weeks if not months—that I believe this is a well-thought-out question. Will you marry me?”

  “Luke . . .” She fell to her knees so we were face to face. She cupped my hand in hers and we both stared at the ring, a simple, elegant solitaire that glinted dynamically against the light. Tears welled in her eyes. She tried to speak several times but nothing came out except three or four half words I couldn’t decipher.

  I wanted to beg. Badly. But I figured I was taking a big enough risk by asking her to marry me two months after we’d met. So I waited.

  She made me wait, glancing out at the ocean like it was going to confirm some gut feeling she had.

  Then she looked me square in the eyes. Her features tensed and her eyes grew fierce. For a split second I thought maybe things weren’t going to go my way. But then she said, “Yes!” and sprang into my arms, squeezing me so hard I almost toppled over. I laughed and held on to her.

  In the distance, standing on the ledge of the cliff, was Jake. He sipped his drink, watched us for a moment longer, and then turned to walk away.

  3

  FAITH

  TO THE LIGHTEST OF APPLAUSE, Luke formally announced our engagement to his family a week after he’d proposed to me. I had to look hard for one approving smile. Candace, Jake’s wife, seemed oblivious to the rest of the family’s disapproval, so I smiled back at her and kept her in my focus as I tried my best to not look sick to my stomach. Whatever Austin had felt for me before was gone. I suppose he didn’t expect to meet me and then instantly become my father-in-law.

  Luke, however, didn’t seem the least bit fazed by the lack of response. I asked him why he didn’t tell his dad and brother the day we were engaged, and he explained that there were just certain ways Carradays did things. The announcement of an engagement had to be more of a formal affair, a proper gathering or some such. I warned him of the enormous learning curve I was embarking on, but he told me not to sweat it. I kept getting the impression he wasn’t all that fond of his world anyway. There was something restless in his eyes, detached from it all.

  After drinks and “light” hors d’oeuvres fancier than anything I’d ever tasted, we returned to the city in his limo. I’d grown fond of his driver, Ward. He was an older gentleman with a wry sense of humor. I got the feeling he always knew more than he was saying.

  In the very back, we snuggled against each other and watched the beauty of the Hamptons fade into the roaring life of the city. After some time of comfortable silence, Luke sat up and said, “Have you been thinking of the wedding? What you want? The sky’s the limit.”

  “The sky seems impossible to fill.”

  “What have you always dreamed of? Every little girl has her wedding dreams, doesn’t she?”

  Sure. Olivia and I used to spend hours in the barn, setting up our weddings. The horses were our guests. We’d trade off being bride and groom. But if I had to admit it, dreams had lost their luster for me. The pomp and circumstance of dreams—and their ugly cousin, hope—had led me to a place where I’d stopped dreaming. I’d made a deal with myself that I wouldn’t let dreams and the hope of what could be ever rule my world again.

  “You know,” he said, “Candace knows Vera Wang. They do some charity thing together every year.”

  A Vera Wang wedding gown? I felt breathless at the thought. I looked at this man I was to marry, the one I’d felt I’d known my whole life. It seemed he wanted nothing more than to make me happy. I had seen this kind of love only once in my life and had believed I’d never see it again. How could I have been fortunate enough to find it?

  I turned my attention to him. “Luke . . . I can’t be one of these people . . . one of you people.”

  “I know. I would never want that.”

  “Then what do you want from me? There’s nothing that I can give you. You have everything.”

  “This isn’t everything,” he said, gesturing around us. “You are everything. I don’t need another second to know I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

  “Are we really doing this?”

  “Yeah.” He touched my arm lightly, like he was making sure I was really there.

  “I have a wedding to plan!” I squealed for the first time since I’d left the country. It sounded good.

  Luke laughed at me. “Anything you want! Do you want it in the city? Or back in North Carolina?”

  I stared out the window, my hand in his, contemplating my options, envisioning myself in a white gown, long and shimmery. Beside me was my dad. At the front of the church stood my
sister, holding a white bouquet. But they vanished right before my eyes.

  I had a new life here.

  I turned to him. “Let’s go away.”

  “A destination wedding . . . I like it! Hawaii?”

  “No. I mean, you and me. Just . . . you and me.”

  “It will always be about you and me,” he said.

  “Let’s do it now.”

  I could see it in his eyes. He needed no convincing. We gazed at each other and nothing else needed to be said. This was real.

  Luke leaned forward. “Ward, take us to MacArthur. And have the plane ready.”

  “Sir?”

  “Now,” he said with a smile. “Bermuda?” he asked me.

  I laughed. “Actually, I was thinking of the courthouse.” I looked down. I didn’t dream big anymore. I hadn’t in years.

  “Nothing is off limits,” he said. “Anywhere in the world.”

  Funny. I just wanted to be where he was, and the rest of the world could come and go as it pleased.

  4

  LUKE

  SHE PULLED AT each of the sleeves on my jacket, tugging them so that the material sat close and tight atop my shoulders. Her smile gave glimpses of both pride and hesitation. Her calm eyes held mine. “I don’t completely understand why you’re doing this,” she said, “but I know that I completely trust you.”

  “That’s all I need,” I said, kissing her on the cheek. “Wish me luck. Wife.”

  “You know I don’t need all this,” she said, gesturing around our Central Park West loft. “You don’t have to build an empire.”

  I nodded. “I know. Empires have never appealed to me.”

  “Do you think this will be the hardest thing you’ll ever do?”

  “It’ll be fine,” I said. “I promise. My father is a reasonable man.” A difficult swallow following that statement probably betrayed my confident demeanor, though Faith had a way of seeing through all my guises. After a year of marriage, I’d finally given up on trying any of them.

  Ward picked me up downstairs and the drive was quiet. I’d turned off my phone and everything else that might be a distraction, using the twenty-five minutes to focus and go over all the important things I wanted to say.

  I arrived at Carraday Towers—the place Money magazine had described as a palace to capital, with an old-money touch—a little after 9 a.m. Far from the gaudy gold of Trump, it reeked of staid power. I took the private elevator to the seventieth floor. Even after working here every day since graduating from college, it never felt comfortable to me. As the door swooshed open, I stepped out and turned right, walking the long hallway that felt more like a corridor, my steps quiet against the burgundy carpet.

  I have very few childhood memories of my father. He seemed to look the exact same way since I was kid. Never aged. But never young. His hair was always white, like a snowdrift. His skin, baby smooth with ever-pink cheeks.

  As I walked silently, hesitantly, a single thought rolled through my mind. I was there to break his heart. It was under the guise of business and life opportunity, and we would both play along as if that were the case, but I was done. I had never fit quite right into the family. I was the perpetual cockeyed glance. I was the backroom conversation. I was loved but not seen. Not like Jake.

  I checked my watch. Right on time. I turned the corner and walked into an office that required double doors to keep the world out. Or in.

  “Luke,” he said without looking up. “Please, sit.”

  I sank into a leather chair that felt more like a throne, adrift in his massive city. I was surprised Jake wasn’t joining us. He typically never left Dad unattended.

  What I’d figured might take ten or so minutes to explain took only two. I’d made the tactical mistake of handing over my documents too early, a distraction to Dad as he tried to listen to me and read what was before him.

  I held my breath but tried to look relaxed as I watched my father peer through his reading glasses, looking the sheet that I had handed him up and down. I started to fill the heavy silence that had come upon us, but Dad waved me off and demanded quiet. He then slid his glasses off his face, folding them carefully as he looked at me.

  “And you say you’ve thought this through?”

  “From every angle.”

  “You’ve already met with the Michov Brothers?”

  “Yes.”

  “This term sheet is final?”

  “It’s a done deal.”

  At my words, I saw my father’s expression change. I’d only seen that look one other time, years ago when my mother announced in front of the entire family that she was divorcing my dad. Dad had never remarried and never would. Dara was the love of his life. But money was the love of Dara’s. When my father hit a rough patch and lost millions, she left.

  “Why would you want to leave us, Son?”

  I’d expected the question but not the tone, which was not harsh or angry. His steel-cut eyes looked dreadfully . . . disappointed? No. Sad.

  “Honestly?” I asked, biding my time a little.

  “Have you not been honest so far?”

  I put my hands on the armrests, felt the leather under my fingers. Most people would go their whole lives and never feel leather like this. But it meant nothing to me. Because it wasn’t by my own hand.

  “There’s nothing I can accomplish here.” I looked him right in the eyes like I’d practiced in every mirror in the house.

  “What are you talking about?” His hands pressed against his desk and I thought he might stand up. I hated when he stood up. “You have the entire world at your fingertips here!”

  “No, I don’t. I have your world,” I said, my voice more urgent than I intended. Why did I need him to understand this so much? “Dad, I am checkmated on all sides of this company.”

  I stood and began to pace. Another thing I hated because I did it when I was nervous, but I wanted him to hear me. “First, no matter how much success I have here, everyone will always say it’s because of you.”

  He lowered his eyes, staring at nothing on his desk.

  “Second, Jake is the first in line. There is no way I can ever run this company.”

  His stoicism returned and he folded his fingers together. “You think you’ll be running Michov Brothers?”

  I walked to his desk, put my hands on it, leaned in, a little ways across. Even so, I was still far away from him. The desk was so massive that when I was a kid, I got in trouble for lying across it to see if I could touch both ends at the same time. The rumor was it weighed four hundred pounds. Probably the marble.

  “No. But, Dad, I’ll be making a name for myself on the Street. This is just the first step.” I tapped my finger on the sheet that lay on his desk.

  “How much is enough?” he said, almost to himself.

  “This isn’t about money,” I said, retreating to the leather chair.

  “You’re certainly asking for much.”

  “That’s to buy in. I’ll pay that back. With interest.” I gave a short nod like two men would who trust each other in a business deal.

  Dad leaned forward, his eyes sharp as ever. “Just about every person who has sat in that chair and said those words to me has left with my money and never come back.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. I knew my dad had been burned many times. Part of it was his position. It just happened at that level. Part of it was, as I always suspected, that my dad was a champion for the underdog. He really did believe in hard work and a little bit of luck. He’d never admit it, but he did. I hoped he believed that for me.

  “I can’t sit in this building for the rest of my life.” I felt heavy suddenly. It hit me: I’d felt like this my whole life, and it was the first time I’d said it out loud. “I just can’t, Dad.”

  “So you’re going to quit and take my money with you?”

  I shook my head. He wasn’t getting it. He was hurt. Growing angry. Which made me angrier because he never seemed to hear me. “No,” I said e
venly, “I’m going to quit and cash out equity that was going to be my inheritance.”

  “Your inheritance?” He breathed it more than said it.

  “If I lose it, I lose it.”

  “Hmm.” He leaned back in his chair, almost disappearing into the shadow of the massive bookshelf behind him. “That’s a dangerous game.”

  “Life’s about taking risks.” I also leaned back, crossed my legs. “They don’t actually teach that at Harvard. In a class, anyway. But it’s not a bad philosophy.”

  “Sure. Until you lose.”

  Dad’s secretary, Mona, came to the door, her long legs the center of attention. “Mr. Carraday, they’re waiting on you.”

  “Thank you, Mona.”

  I glanced at my watch. Dad had scheduled me in for a whole fifteen minutes. Unbelievable. In the old days, I would’ve walked next to him, fighting to keep up with his pace, talking fast to get all my points in. But instead, I remained seated. That, perhaps, was the most powerful statement I could’ve made. I watched Dad stand and gather his materials for his next appointment. I stayed quiet. So did he.

  He walked past me. I didn’t turn. But then he did, which surprised me. All he said was “Okay, Son. Okay.” And he left.

  I expected my heart to be broken, but it had never felt more glued together in my life.

  I took a moment to compose myself and close my briefcase. Mona smiled warmly at me as I left, assuming business was as usual. I returned to the corridor that took me to the private elevator.

  At least I could have Ward drive me one more time.

  But no sooner had my feet hit the concrete sidewalk than Jake was on my tail. Dad had to have called him right away.

  “Have you lost your mind?” he yelled behind me.

  There was no use running. I had to face him.

  He hadn’t even caught his breath when he said, “You didn’t even tell me? You just march into Dad’s office and blow up our family?”

  “I couldn’t tell you, Jake. I knew you’d tell Dad. And I needed to be the one to do it.”