by Cj Howard
“Yes,” she answered curiously.
“People are like that, Emma. Sometimes the ones that we think are ugly ducklings are really beautiful swans who are just waiting for the right person to see it in them. They don’t always show it plainly on the outside like some others do. Remember when Peter helped me out here at the house when he brought that doctor in? That young man saved my life and he never talked to me about it and he never asked anyone anything, he just did it. He took care of things. He’s a take charge kind of man. He has an ugly duckling past, and he had an ugly duckling reputation until he married you, but I’ll tell you something, my girl, I would not be sitting here with you right now if it wasn’t for him, and that’s the truth.”
Emmaline knew it, and she had tried to keep that fact out of her thoughts because it would sway her and she wanted to make an unbiased decision for herself.
“I’ll say it like this, because no matter what I say, you need to make up your own mind. Sometimes we see things that we want, and other times we know there are things that we need. You have to figure out which one of those boys is what you need, rather than what you want, and you have to look under their outside feathers to figure out if you are looking at a swan or an ugly duckling. You focus on what really matters to you, and what you really need, and you’ll make the right choice. You have good heart, baby girl, you need to trust in it.”
She smiled and felt the peace and relief in his wise words comfort her. He was right. Peter had shown her sides of himself that hardly anyone had ever seen; good sides that were often overlooked because of his mistakes. The only downside to Peter was that he didn’t want her back; or at least he said he didn’t. His desperate kisses with her told her otherwise. She knew she needed to talk with him and then she could have a clearer idea of what she wanted to do.
Emmaline hugged her grandfather and kissed his cheek, and then left him and drove back to the house with a much lighter heart.
The Final Chapter
Tristan and Peter had been trying to go over their business plans, but there was a thick and awkward tension in the room that would not dissipate. Peter finally had to ask Nelson to give them some time alone, and when he left, Peter sat down at his desk and looked directly at Tristan.
“What’s on your mind, Tristan?” he asked, feigning ignorance.
Tristan sighed loudly and pushed his hands into his pockets for a moment, walking over to Peter’s desk and sitting in front of it. “You noticed,” he said shortly.
“I would like to think that I know you fairly well, Tristan. Something is on your mind and it’s something I have a feeling we need to talk about.” He watched his business associate and waited for him to respond.
“It’s Emmaline,” he finally said with a big exhale.
“What about her?” Peter asked, waiting to see what Tristan was willing to tell him.
Tristan took a deep breath and looked right at Peter. “We have gotten close, Peter. I love her. I want to marry her.”
Peter would have liked to think that he could have appreciated Tristan’s honesty, and he knew the words were coming, but when they were air that had suddenly found a voice, they seemed to zing at him like poison tipped darts that blazed over the desk and hit him squarely in the chest. Peter did his best to keep his poker face on and not look as sick about it as he felt.
“Tristan, she’s already married to me.” He spoke as simply as he could in an effort to keep emotion out of it.
“I realize that,” Tristan replied. “As your employee, though, Peter. I found out about your arrangement with her; it’s a marriage of business and purpose, not a marriage of love. I want her because I love her, Peter.”
Peter took a big breath and let it out slowly. He loved her too, but he wasn’t about to tell Tristan that. “She’s contracted to me for three years.” He decided to keep playing it cool in an effort to dissuade Tristan from pressing him further.
“I’m aware of that,” Tristan said quietly. “I want to ask you to let her go early. Give her a divorce so that she can be with me and have some happiness. You’re going to wind up being the governor of the state; you will be busy with politics and you won’t have time for a wife, especially one who isn’t a real wife. Let her come to me, please Peter.”
Peter turned his chair a little and crossed his legs. “How does she feel about you?” he asked, not wanting to know, but searching for a way out of the direction the conversation was going.
“She wants to be with me, Peter. She’s only talking about staying with you because of the commitment she made to you. She’s loyal,” he added.
Peter looked sharply at Tristan. “At least someone is,” he said coldly. “You are my business partner, Tristan, what made you think it would be acceptable for you to steal my wife away from me?”
Tristan’s face grew anxious. “Peter, you don’t love her! You have a bevy of women at your beck and call; you go out of town to be with other women and you have no connection to Emmaline other than your business relationship which just happens to be a marriage and even that is only a technicality!”
Peter didn’t like the way that Tristan was speaking. “You want to watch your tone with me, Tristan. You know a good deal about me, but you don’t know everything, and I am telling you right now, you are asking for too much. She is my wife, she is my employee, this is a crucial time in both my business and in my political career and I need her here with me. That’s that. She has a responsibility to me and a duty, and you don’t need to be filling her head with romantic dalliances. She’s already committed, and as you just said, she is loyal, so let her be what she is and let her stay with what she has committed to, and don’t try to sweep her away under your arm and leave me in the dust as the fool!”
Tristan narrowed his gaze at Peter. “You don’t care about her at all! You are only interested in your project and your campaign! I love her, Peter! That should mean something, even to a cold hearted womanizing bastard like you! I want to marry her and love her for the rest of my life, and no matter what, that’s what’s going to happen! Don’t make us wait three years because it might be better business for you! Where is your honor?”
“My honor? My honor! You are the one running around behind my back sleeping with my wife, seducing her right out from under me and trying to steal her away, and you want to know where my honor is? I have always thought of you as a good man, Tristan, but I can’t overlook your underhanded actions while you have been a guest here in my own house,” Peter shouted as he grew deeply incensed.
Tristan stood up and began to pace. “I am not sleeping with your wife! We haven’t been intimate other than kissing! Peter, I feel strongly enough about this that I will draw this line right now. Either you give her a divorce and let her marry me, and we will continue our business, or I will walk out of here and our business partnership will go no further. It’s your choice, Peter. I want her, and she will be my wife or we will be through from today forward.” He planted his hands on Peter’s desk and glared down at his friend and business partner. Peter had been enormously surprised and relieved to learn that they had not slept together, but it did not deter his course an inch.
Peter stood up and straightened his jacket, then looked coolly at Tristan. “If that’s how you feel about it, then I suggest you begin to pack. She is not leaving this house, and she is not getting a divorce before the three years of our agreement are up. I am sorry to see that you have brought it to that level, but the choice is yours. Stay if you like, leave if you like, we can continue as business partners or end the days that we will work together, but I am telling you right now,” he walked around the desk and stood nose to nose with Tristan, “she’s not leaving and I am not going to give her a divorce for you.”
Tristan looked angry and resolute as he gritted his teeth and then answered, “Well, that’s that, then. We’ll leave and you’ll be served papers for her divorce. I’ll go make arrangements to be gone by tomorrow.” He turned and walked out of the office and Pe
ter watched him go with a heavy heart. He was truly fond of Tristan, and he hadn’t been in the dark about their intentions; he had known what was happening, and he had seen and heard it with his own eyes, but he refused to back down if there was even the slightest chance that she might want to stay. He had been so mesmerized by her kiss before they had been interrupted that he thought maybe she might want him after all, and that perhaps he had been mistaken, but he had heard the two of them in the garden, and he had seen them together, and he knew that what she really wanted, no matter how she kissed him back when he locked her in his arms, was Tristan.
He felt his heart sink low. He would have to give her the divorce that she wanted because he loved nothing in the world as much as her, now, and what he wanted more than anything was her happiness above all else. If a divorce and Tristan were what she wanted, then that was what he would give her, quietly, without fuss or fight, without hassle or issue, and she could leave with him when Tristan walked out the next day.
Peter had kissed her goodbye; kissed her soundly, and with all the love for her that he had. If that wasn’t enough to keep her with him, and if she wanted to go, then he would not force her to stay with him. He was no monster; he was only a man in love and if she did not want to be with him, he would not keep her caged.
Emmaline was sitting in the drawing room with a cup of tea and a book when Tristan walked in and closed the door behind him. She saw right away that he looked flushed and she stood up to greet him.
“Are you alright? What happened? You look as though there is something wrong!” She worried over him.
He came to her and wrapped his arms around her. “I’m so sorry, Emma my love, but there has been a change here at the house and with the business. Peter and I have come to an impasse and I’m sorry to say it, but we will not be continuing our business relationship any further than today. I will be packing and leaving tomorrow for San Francisco. I want you to pack and come with me. I love you, Emma, and we will get married as soon as we are able to, but in the meantime, I want you to come with me. You can file for a divorce as soon as we get to San Francisco.”
Emma was shocked. “What happened?” she asked with wide eyes.
He shook his head. “I tried to talk to him about us, and I explained how much we love each other and want to be together, and he wouldn’t budge. He is insisting that you and I have to wait until the end of the three years so that you can finish your contract with him and then he will grant your divorce and you and I can be together.”
Emma felt panic rising in her heart. “I’m contracted to him for three years, Tristan, I can’t just break that. I committed myself to him. It’s three million dollars and my word.”
“I’ll pay it. You don’t have to worry about that. Just come away with me, just…” He pulled her to him suddenly and kissed her hard, and the kiss felt off to her, as though something had fractured somewhere along the line and the lightness that he used to bring out in her was faded and dull.
She pulled away from him and he looked at her in surprise. “Tristan, my grandfather lives here. Everyone I know lives here. I love New Orleans, I can’t just suddenly jump and desert it, I can’t just leave it all behind, and I don’t want to leave. This is my home, my city; my whole life. I can’t move to San Francisco on a whim!”
He sighed deeply and nodded, sinking into a chair near her. “I understand. Listen, what if we do this. What if I leave tomorrow and then come back for you? What if I give you some time to say your goodbyes and take a little more time to make it right before you leave? I’ll do that.” He stood back up and hugged her to him. “I’ll just come back for you in a few weeks and that will give you some time to tie up all of your loose ends, and then you will come away with me and we’ll file your divorce papers and get married.” He kissed her hard again, his grasp on her was tight and his eyes were intense. “Then you’ll be mine; my wife, and I will love you, always.” He kissed her once more and she felt the coolness of it and pulled away.
“Tristan, I haven’t accepted your proposal of marriage yet, and I just told you that I am not going to leave New Orleans. When I said that, I meant that I am not ever going to leave it. If you want to be with me, we need to be here, because I’m never going to leave.” She looked at him earnestly and he bit his lip and nodded.
“I understand.” He turned from her and began to pace, pushing his hands down in his pockets and sighing. “We’ll work it out. All the same, I’m going to go tomorrow and I will come back for you in a few weeks, alright?”
She looked at him in consternation and nodded. “We’ll see,” she answered him. She had absolutely no intention of leaving and no matter how she said it to him, he just couldn’t seem to grasp that. Perhaps when he had had some time to let the dust and emotion settle a bit, he would understand that and maybe he would consider living in New Orleans, but as for herself, there would not be a day when she didn’t live in her beloved home city.
He stopped pacing and walked toward her, then he reached for her and wrapped her in his arms again. “I’ll come back here and we’ll talk about it. We’ll work it out and then we will be together forever, and everything will be right.” He kissed her cheek and then let her go, and he turned and walked out of the room, closing the door behind him as though that were the end of the matter and it had been settled.
Emmaline watched him go in utter disbelief. How had he gone from being her ideal to being a bit obsessive? She looked at the door and thought of what her grandfather had told her. She decided that she needed to go and talk with Peter and listen to what he had to say about all of it. She had committed herself to him, and he was paying her, so her first priority for advice and insight was her grandfather and her second priority was Peter.
She walked out of the drawing room and into the foyer toward Peter’s office when she saw Nelson walk out of the office door and close it behind him. He shook his head at her and motioned to the office on the other side of the door.
“He’s on a call right now; he will be a minute, Emmaline.” He smiled at her and said, “Sit with me a moment?”
She nodded and they sat together on the wide bench in the foyer.
Nelson turned and looked at her carefully and spoke to her in a quiet voice, “You know, Emma, I make it a point to stay out of everyone’s business here, but somehow that always makes me the center of it, so I always know everything that’s going on. I understand that you have a vested interest in both Tristan and Peter, and I’m not going to give you any advice because that’s your choice to make, but there is something I think you ought to know before you make any permanent decisions. I think it will give you some insight that you may never know otherwise.”
She looked at him in surprise and waited. “What is that?”
Nelson leaned toward her conspiratorially and said in a near whisper, “Since the day you found Peter in the drawing room with those two women, he has not been with any other women at all.”
She gasped in shock and stared at Nelson. She could barely have been more surprised. “But he went out of town for just that reason all those times! How can that be? It’s been ages since then!”
“Oh, he’s tried, believe me. He has gone out of town a few times trying to find some way back to his old life, but you, my dear, have stolen his heart, and that’s a feat I never thought I’d see done. He hasn’t been able to be with any other women because he only has one woman on his mind and in his heart, and that is you. He thought that if he tried to take other women into his bed with him, he could push you out of his system, but all he did was make it worse on himself. I just wanted you to know, he loves you, Emmaline, and what you know about him isn’t the complete truth. He doesn’t always explain himself to everyone, and he didn’t want you to feel threatened or obligated or guilty in any way, so he never told you that he wasn’t able to be with other women. He never told you that he doesn’t want them because he loves you.” Nelson stood up and took Emmaline’s hands in his, lifted them to his lips
and kissed them very lightly. “Now then, I’m off to take care of some things for Peter. He has a lot of changes going on right now. Please don’t mention our chat to anyone.” He smiled at her and she nodded.
“If you want to go in, feel free,” he said, indicating the office, and then he turned and walked away.
Emma stared after him in astonishment and felt warmth enter her heart and begin to seep throughout her whole body. She wondered in amazement at how she had not seen Peter loving her before. As she thought about it, she could look back over the weeks that had passed, even at the wedding when they spent their day together and when he kissed her at the altar; he had loved her even then and she hadn’t known it, but she could see it now as clear as day, and the knowledge of it wrapped itself around her heart and stayed there.
It seemed that she had two men to talk to again that day, and she started with the one that would cause her the most sorrow first.
Emmaline walked down the hall and knocked on Tristan’s door. “Tristan!” she called out to him.
He opened the door and smiled at her, inviting her into his room. His suitcase was on the bed and he was filling it with everything he had. His blue eyes were bright and determined. She didn’t know how she was ever going to get through it, but she knew she had to.
“Tristan, we need to talk,” she said gently. He stepped close to her and looked at her face as if he were trying to read beyond what she showed him at the surface.
“What is it my love? What’s the matter?” he asked with concern.
She turned from him and began to walk around the room, nearer to the window and she stood close to the wall and looked out of the glass into the grounds beyond the house. He walked up beside her and watched her carefully.
She spoke in a soft and kind tone. “I need to tell you that things have changed, Tristan. I told you that I needed some time to think about everything; to think about us, to think about being with you, about making love with you, about marrying you, and now I’ve thought about it enough that I have answers for you. I know what I need and what I want.”
