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Leaving me with no doubt Devon is being sketchy. Though I suppose there are worse things than having your brother forcing you to lunch. Besides, maybe it will distract me from thinking about Enzo.
I look at my phone again.
And then again, maybe not.
41
Enzo
“Welcome to Chateau LeMonte, Mr. DeLuca.”
“Thank you”—I look at her name tag—“Sarah.”
“It says here you will be staying with us for a week?”
“Until next Sunday, yes.”
She looks at her computer as I take in the eclectic mixture of woodside lodge and French country decor. This place always reminded me of our region’s coal mining past, but that might be only because I know the original proprietor was a mine owner. He opened Chateau LeMonte in the early ’40s, the French decor nothing more than his desire to class the place up.
When I was a kid, my parents took us here for dinner a few times on special occasions. For a long time, it was the fanciest place I’d ever been. As Sarah checks me in, I look past the log cabin interior to the empty deck. No one sits outside now, the cold keeping the few guests indoors. But the view is perfect, the setting as close to Montreux as I can get in Pennsylvania.
She’ll be here soon.
After I take my key card from the attendant, I grab one of the hotel notecards and scrawl a quick note.
Chari,
I’m sorry for tricking you into coming, and so much more. Join me for lunch, please. Give me a chance to explain.
Enzo
“I have a guest coming at around noon. Can you give this to her with directions to the Boathouse Cabin?”
“Of course, sir. It is prepared as you asked.”
“Thank you.”
I pass the restaurant and head back outside, following Sarah’s circle on the resort map. Eight individual cabins dot the lakeside around the building containing the lobby and the restaurant. Walking along a path, I find our cabin and head inside.
They did a good job.
Flower petals everywhere. Chilled champagne.
I drop my bags, chuckling to myself as I imagine what Hayden would say about me carrying them myself. For such a great guy, he can be an insufferable snob. Before Ada, I considered it my duty to bring him back down to earth, but now she’s taken up the torch. Though I’m not sure she’s always entirely successful.
Climbing the stairs, I take in the contrast between the log cabin walls and bright white and pale blue decor. The large, cozy-looking bed. Opening the sliding glass door, I’m reminded this is no Montreux—the weather is still very much that of PA in late winter. I stand on the deck anyway, taking in the lodge’s famous twenty-mile view of Lake Shohola surrounded by the Pocono Mountains. It’s no Swiss Alps, but it’s beautiful in its own right.
I’m lost for a time, playing my speech over and over in my mind.
I started with my family yesterday, begging them for forgiveness. They all claimed no apologies were necessary, but I still feel regret over the time I lost with them as I built what I thought was my legacy.
A movement in the distance catches my eye.
Chari came.
I wasn’t sure she would. Devon agreed to help get her here after I told him all the things I planned on saying, on doing, but that doesn’t mean she’ll be receptive. Even now, as I hurry down the stairs to open the front door of the cabin and she walks slowly toward me, I can feel her skepticism.
A look passes between us, and I curse myself for the umpteenth time for how foolishly I handled that phone call. The thought of offering any concessions put me into a panic. It would have been the equivalent of admitting I had a problem, that I had let my work habits spiral out of control. It felt like she was asking me to leave everything behind, even though the logical part of my mind knew better.
