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“I want to go, Jenna. Let’s give each other a little breathing room. Maybe it’s time for each of us to decide what is really important, and if our relationship is or is not. You didn’t hurt my feelings. Your rejection might not be good for my pride, but I appreciate your honesty.”
Jenna watched Brock walk off and knew that he was hurt, and more than he was admitting. She couldn’t blame him for pushing her toward the next step in the relationship. He had been patient. But she knew she couldn’t want what she didn’t want or feel what she didn’t feel. She also knew once they really talked about it, it would be over. She knew she was dragging it out and it wasn’t fair to Brock just to save herself some discomfort. She went back inside, ordered another drink, and went into dinner, alone.
She wasn’t sure who looked at her the most through dinner—Dan or Harper. Jenna knew that everyone wondered why the chair next to her was empty. Even Dan raised a questioning eyebrow.
When the dinner was finally over, the senator and his wife got up to make a toast and to thank everyone for coming—and for their hefty contributions.
Suddenly, as if someone closed the curtain at the end of a play, the lights dimmed as a signal that the party was over. Jenna was amused that, in a way, it was like a performance. Everyone put on their party face and played their part. All of this was more tiresome than fun. But she would think about that later.
Though some would stay on with the senator and Mrs. Roseland until the wee hours, the close friends and some family, most would make their way back into town.
Jenna stood to join the crowd winding through to the main doors to go home. The cars begun to line up in front, and she waited on her driver and tried not to think about Brock, Dan, or anything else. She was exhausted. Her phone pinged as she settled into the limo.
Dan wrote:
—need to see you, where, when?—
She wrote back:
—9 in the morning, bench at river—
He replied:
—I’ll be there—
When she got back to her room at the hotel, she found Brock sound asleep. She smiled as she looked around the room. His clothes for the next day were all lain out on the bed. His excitement about playing golf with the senator was another quality that she liked. He knew how to live in the moment and take joy from life’s smaller things—not that golf with the senator was so small to Brock. But she recognized the sincere, joy-in-the-moment quality fade as he got more caught up in the world of the rich and powerful. The more he advanced, the more success came his way, the less likeable he was becoming. That sweet, dependable, loveable and uncomplicated guy she was first attracted to, for reasons she chose not to examine too closely, was almost gone.
Chapter Ten
As tired as she was, Jenna’s brain would not stop as she thought about her past life, her life with Brock, and specifically, her life with Dan years before. She wondered why humans seemed cursed to have their brain preview one’s entire life right at bedtime. But preview it, she did.
She slipped on her nightgown, washed her face, and climbed into the other queen bed in their suite. Later, as she flipped her pillow for the fourth time, trying to make herself think of anything but Brock and Dan, Brock was first on the highlight reel of her brain. She lay back and let herself examine things, as painful as it was.
Brock seemed to be a good leveler for her, a balancing out of her energies. He was more moderate, and overall, a happier person than she, the champion of the world worrier. She was someone who could barely get through an hour without conjuring all kinds of things to ponder and stress over. She seemed to need the Brock-like calmness in her life when she met him. He came along at the right time, when she was longing for something easy, steady, and without chaos or drama.
Exhausted, as she tossed and turned and wished for sleep, it was the thought of Dan that kept her awake. Dan ruined things as far as her having a love life or a real relationship with anyone else. Sure, she dated, and even had a few long-lasting relationships that lasted for months, but they always ended the same way. She was to blame, and they all told her in some way. Hearing it hurt her feelings at the time, and now going back over the complaints, it still stung, but it rang true. She didn’t know what she wanted, and she was too hard to please. She traveled too much and was too independent. The list went on, but the theme was the same. Something was wrong with her. Something was missing in her that didn’t allow her to accept a man into her world for the long haul. She knew this about herself but didn’t know what to do about it. She resigned herself to never having what other people seemed to take for granted, and so she devoted herself to her work, her business, and tried to put the past behind her.
As for Brock, she was repeating her history, and she felt guilty, like always. Maybe she thought he was so easygoing that he’d allow her to get away with her take on what a relationship should be—she thought that was probably true. She thought she could control him, but she was wrong. He was the most recent man to see her for what she was. She was missing a piece of her heart, and she knew who owned it. Was it gone forever? One thing she did know for certain, she would never sleep with Brock again.
The sound of Brock getting dressed for his golf game the next morning woke her, but she pretended to be asleep to avoid any kind of confrontation. She opened one eye and looked at her phone. She had an hour before meeting Dan. She lay still, willing Brock to hurry, and finally, when she heard the door close, she called room service for toast and coffee before jumping into the shower. She ate her skimpy breakfast and got dressed in record time, choosing jeans and a T-shirt, and putting her hair up in a ponytail again. The female’s how-to-survive-the-Southern-weather-best beauty secret. She kept the makeup at a minimum and put on her darkest sunglasses.
Jenna made her way down to the river, taking the well-remembered route, and wondered again why she left Savannah, or more accurately, why she never returned to Savannah as an adult. Everything was so different from New York City.
In Savannah, strangers smiled at you for no reason. Life was a bit slower and included others, rather than in her New York City world where everyone were always trying to beat others to the punch. Everything was a contest in New York City. From getting the best seat on the subway or waving down the taxi coming up the street, it was to-the-victor-go-the-spoils. When it came to scoring the seats in the best restaurant or getting the best tickets for the hottest new plays, the contest was especially heated. Living in New York City was a true survival of the fittest.
But she couldn’t blame her problems on New York City. Big cities were like that—lot of people using the same resources. She chose to live there to be one of millions, semi-anonymous, and now, she wondered why.
As her thoughts settled as she ran the route she knew so well, and as her view changed, she was reminded there were other ways to live. She saw herself as trapped in some sort of foggy dream for the last few years, and now she was waking up and seeing the world. Maybe she was seeing herself, her real self for the first time in years. The realization was throwing her a little off-kilter, and she wasn’t sure what to do about it.
As the route took her to her end point, Gloria’s bench by the river, she saw Dan sitting on the bench and looking down at his phone. She slowed her light jog to a slow walk and watched him for a few seconds before she made herself known. “Hey, I’m here. Sorry to be a bit late.”
Dan looked up and waved her over. “Come sit for a minute. I got confirmation Laura Bradstock reported her diamond necklace missing. She was at the party last night. Scott, an old friend of my brother’s, who’s now with the local police department took the report and told me she didn’t miss it until she went to the ladies’ room when she was getting ready to leave the party.”
Jenna sat next to Dan on the bench, and she tried not to think of other times that she had done the same. She felt her past and present collide and struggled to make herself focus. She sat back and exhaled. “I see you’ve worked all your many contacts already. So, somehow the Red Cat got the necklace off her last night without her even knowing. That is impressive.”
Jenna couldn’t help remembering she had done the same thing. A little diversion, a small bump, a spilled drink, crowded elevator, easy. She knew exactly how to do it.
“This does not bode well for me, Jenna. I was there at the party, and now the necklace is gone. I asked Scott to let me know if Gail Wells contacted them about me.”
