Page 4 of You Know Why

He groaned. “Brooklyn . . .”

“All right, I give up. Tell me.”

That mischievous grin widens, enough to make his dimple pop. And then he drops the bomb. “I’m taking you and the kids to Italy for the holidays.”

I stop swiveling. “Excuse me?”

“Italy. All four of us. We’ll spend Christmas sipping Chianti and walking through the markets in the snow.”

“Ha ha.”

“I’m serious.” He leans forward, captures my leg, pulls me and the chair over to him. Puts his hands on my hips and kisses me. Deeply. My heart begins to pound, and when he pulls away, I am breathless. The beard he’s been growing has moved past the spiky stage to soft, and I am more than interested in taking things further. The advantage of school-age children and two work-at-home parents—plenty of private time.

He places his palm on my cheek and stares deep into my eyes, as if he knows what I’m thinking. “Italy. For three weeks.”

I like being married. A lot. I like having kids. A lot. There is a steadiness to it all, a sense of completion. I especially like the guy sitting across from me. And I love to travel, especially on short notice. It appeals to my sense of adventure.

But I don’t like being made the fool, and there isn’t a chance in hell he is really serious.

“All right. What’s really going on?”

Trey frowns. “I thought you’d be happy. You’ve always wanted to go back overseas. You’ve been saddled with me and the kids, not traipsing around the world like you used to. I know you long for the open road, baby. I thought it would be fun.”

Long for the open road. Oh, Trey. You have no idea.

“Fun for me, and the kids, yes, but for you? You hate to travel, for work or for fun. I can barely get you to leave the neighborhood.”

He waves a hand in a circle. “Just because I don’t like it doesn’t mean I won’t do it. It’s high time we have a little fun. Besides, it’s a favor. Bob has a conflict. Pat has that trip to Dubai, and he decided to go with. He was supposed to have a meeting at an economic conference in Milan, and he decided to let me take over the account. It’s a new client, a huge whale, and he’s handing me the keys.”

“That’s great, babe.”

“I hate to say no to him, you know that. Stepping into his shoes on this one is a big deal.”

He’s not wrong. Bob Gussin is my uncle and Trey’s boss. He and his wife, Patricia (“Call me Pat”)—fabulous people—run an investment firm here in Franklin, the Gussin Group. TGG’s headquarters is right off the square downtown. They are venture capitalists, the vaunted, necessary private money that quietly creates wealth by investing in people’s companies. TGG is known worldwide and has investors who are so important that their identities are masked. Even Trey, who is second in command, doesn’t know some of the account holders’ names. Plus, Uncle Bob and Aunt Pat are the kids’ de facto grandparents. My mom’s been gone since Margot and I were teenagers, and my dad . . . We aren’t close, for myriad reasons. Dad and Bob were never close either; they are half brothers. Plus there’s a big age difference, nine years.

Trey had a falling-out with his parents when he was young, and they haven’t communicated since. Despite passing along the family name—a tradition Trey wasn’t willing to part with—they’ve never met their grandchildren. Or me, for that matter. I don’t even know where the elder Lockes live, specifically, only that they’re outside of some grand town in Connecticut.

Uncle Bob and Aunt Pat are the best. If Bob wants Trey to take on a job, it must be worth it.

“So you’d have to work?”

“Just for the first three days. Then we can tour the country. Milan, Venice, Rome, Florence. Tuscany. Verona. Don’t you have an ancestral family somewhere in northern Italy?”

“Pinerolo. Near the Italian Alps.”

“We’ll go to Pinerolo! Maybe we can go skiing. The world is your oyster. You can show us everything you love, and we can make some new memories, too. There’s only one catch. We have to go tomorrow so I can make the conference.”

“Tomorrow? You want to go overseas for three weeks . . . tomorrow?”

“It will be like old times, Brookie. Picking up and moving at a moment’s notice. We used to love doing that.”

“You have stars in your eyes, my love. Tomorrow . . . Trey, that’s too soon. The tickets are going to be ridiculous. And the kids, pulling them out of school before the holiday break is so disruptive. Neve has her cameo in The Nutcracker . . . Not to mention I’m on deadline.”

A luscious, silky deadline. I can’t help the internal eye roll.

“Baby, this deal goes through, and you will never have to work again. We can get Neve private lessons. Build Four a LEGO house out back. And we can start working on number three.” He wiggles his eyebrows suggestively.

Now I know something is up but leave that for the moment. “Logistics, babe. Passports, tickets, hotels. Someone needs to care for Bohdi. The kids’ passports are fine, and mine’s up to date, but yours is not. Remember? I tried—”