Touching the Billionaire - Holly Jaymes Page 0,70

I know that Theo Wolfe has stars in his eyes for you. I saw them for myself when he sat with us at the dinner table. What I’m wondering is why you didn’t confront him and give him a chance to explain. Maybe there’s a perfectly good explanation. Or maybe he did just as you said but you can’t go second-guessing it.” She took a sip of her tea. “So tell me what he said or did that you didn’t give him a chance to explain?”

“He did try to talk to me but I told him I didn’t believe him.”

“Well, I guess it wasn’t that serious," my grandfather said, standing in the doorway to the sunroom. He entered the room with his own cup of coffee and sat in his grandpa chair.

I gaped at him and then looked at my grandmother, trying to understand why they were ganging up on me.

“What I think your grandfather is saying to you is that if you didn’t trust him, not even enough to hear him out, then it couldn’t have been very serious.”

“He used and betrayed me,” I said, not liking how defensive I was having to be. These were my grandparents. They should have been on my side.

“What if he didn’t? How do you know for sure?” my grandfather asked.

“Because I overheard him and the director talking about it.”

“But you didn’t give him a chance to tell you about it. Did you hear the whole conversation from beginning to end? What was said after you heard what you heard?” my grandmother asked.

I looked down. “I left. I’d heard enough.”

“Sounds to me like you hadn’t heard enough when maybe you could have but you didn’t give him a chance,” my grandfather said.

I wiped the tears that dripped on my cheeks.

My grandmother put her tea down and came over to sit with me on the little porch couch, putting her arm around me. “You know what the secret is to Grandpa’s and my marriage?” She didn’t wait for my response. “It’s trust and communication. I know it sounds easy, but it’s actually kind of hard.”

“It’s one of the hardest things ever,” my grandfather said.

“To trust someone makes you vulnerable,” my grandmother continued. “But having open communication helps with that. It’s partly how the trust is built. But you have to be willing not just to talk and share your own feelings, you have to listen to the other person as well. Maybe Theo would have confirmed what you think you already know, what if he didn’t? What if you misunderstood?”

I thought back to Theo’s desperation in wanting to talk. Was it possible my grandparents were right?

“If you don’t trust him, Madeline, or aren’t willing to listen to him, then there really is nothing there to salvage,” my grandfather said. “Now, I don’t know if Theo is the man for you. Personally, after seeing what your parents have gone through, it seems to me you should be with somebody outside the business, but if you have feelings for him and it’s possible that he’s the one, it seems to me that it would be worth listening to him. Love isn’t always easy. Just like your grandma said, you need to have trust and communication, which can be hard sometimes. But I’m here to tell you it’s worth it.” He and my grandmother exchanged smiles. From my perspective, I’d never seen them have difficulties in their relationship, but I knew that was something adults would have hidden from children or grandchildren.

They’d definitely given me food for thought, and something to share with Nadine the next time she was acting philosophical about love and relationships. I didn’t see how it was going to change my current situation with Theo, but it was something that I would tuck away on the off chance I ever had another opportunity to fall in love.

Confession

Theo

Having Oliver come stay with me offered a distraction from missing Madeline and wondering what I could do to fix things between us. I vacillated back and forth between utter despair at having lost something so good and being royally pissed off that she believed I was a man who would betray her like that. Two nights after my brother arrived, instead of going out, we got annihilated on my terrace and he told me that if I cared for her, I needed to attempt to make amends.

“Whether you get back together or not, you two need to at least talk it out. Otherwise, you’re going to