"Grace, honey, you look like I just kicked you in the gut. Why don't you tell me what's happened, and then I'll tell you all about Jack and his love life?" Rachel reached over and patted Grace's arm. Rachel was willing to talk about Jack's love life? Grace should have known Jack was attached. Of course he was.
Grace looked Rachel in the eye and told her the cold hard facts. "Okay. This is the long and short of it, Rachel. I told you that Jack and I had a thing in college. It was a pretty serious thing, at least for me it was. But Jack is bi-sexual, and at his age he just wasn't ready to commit to anyone. So I watched him with other people because I refused to share him. And it broke my heart a little more every time."
"Oh, honey, I had no idea." Rachel's look of pity made Grace want to cry, but she forged on.
"By the time we graduated he wanted me to move to Seattle to be closer to him. You see, I had an offer to intern out here. The problem was, Jack still wasn't ready to give up his other flames. So I started to bend. I thought maybe I could hang on until Jack decided I was enough. I loved him so much. I wanted to give him what he needed and I prayed one day very soon that would be me." A tear slipped down Grace's cheek. "I'd just told Jack that I would try, I would move to Seattle and we'd try. Then one of his boyfriends showed. He kissed Jack right in front of me, and I couldn't handle it."
Rachel shifted the baby from one breast to the other while Grace watched Anthony duck into the ridiculously cute pirate ship made for a handsome little pirate to climb and play on in his backyard.
"Was it because it was a guy?" Rachel asked without rancor. Grace only heard curiosity in the other woman's voice. Grace actually chuckled.
"No, it had nothing to do with his bi-sexuality. I hated seeing him with women, but seeing him with men was more difficult. Not because I thought it was wrong, because I didn't, I still don't. It was because I couldn't compete. Do you know hard it is to love a person and know that everyone is a threat to that love? It's not just the girls you have to worry about, but the guys too. And trust me, Jack had no shortage of admirers."
"No, I really can't imagine how hard that would be," Rachel admitted.
"Anyway," Grace blinked away her agitating tears, "it wasn't because he was kissing a guy that I was crushed. It was because Jack was kissing anyone other than me. He was my guy. I was devoted. He was jealous of my male friends, but I had to learn to live with him needing other people."
"That prick," Rachel growled.
"No, don't be angry with him now. Jack was always honest with me. I was the one who let it continue. We were just too lopsided. In the end I took an internship in New York and did my best to forget him. So that's our story," she finished.
"And when he picked you up on Monday?" Rachel asked.
Grace blew out a puff of air that sent her hair flying. "On Monday he took me for breakfast. We were together for all of an hour before he had me in his arms."
Rachel smiled at that and brought the baby up to her shoulder for a burp.
"It didn't go beyond kissing, probably only because we were in public. Then he took me to Artifex and I haven't seen him since."
Now Rachel frowned and the baby let out a lusty burp, giving her opinion on the matter. "He's such an asshole."
Grace had to laugh at that. Rachel and Jack were like brother and sister. They adored each other one moment and cursed each other the next.
Rachel rose from her seat. Tony appeared on the veranda to take the baby and call Anthony in for a bath. Grace followed Rachel back into the house and into her home office. She opened a door on her sideboard and pulled a framed portrait and handed it to Grace.
"I put that picture away so Jack wouldn't have to see it when he comes over," Rachel explained.
It was a photograph of Jack standing out on the veranda she'd just been occupying. In the photograph was an extremely tall and ruggedly handsome man with a serious five o'clock shadow, stood with his arm around Jack. The man was a head taller than Jack, and Jack wasn't a short man. The guy wore what she knew some would refer to as a wife-beater and a pair of jeans hung loosely on his lean hips. Jack looked like his usual perfectly manicured, impeccably dressed self. Jack was grinning happily into the camera. The other guy only had eyes for Jack, and the look of love in his eyes reminded Grace of the look Tony gave to Rachel. They were clearly together, and obviously very much in love. Grace wanted the ground to open up and swallow her so she didn't have feel the pain coursing through her heart and mind.
"I don't know what happened, because Jack refuses to talk about it, but he and Matthew broke up just over six months ago," Rachel told her. "They were together for two years and on the verge of getting married. Matthew was going to sell his house and they were going to live in Jack's much larger home. But something happened the day before the big move, and the marriage never happened. Matthew just disappeared from Jack's life overnight."
Grace's heart leapt and she felt like a total jerk for feeling happiness over something that had to have been painful for Jack.
"He hasn't dated anyone that I know of since Matthew. So if you're still interested in pursuing Jack, this may be your time to make a move."
SIX
Grace sat in the garden area of the Fairmont Olympic just staring out at the fluffy clouds floating peacefully in the sky past the grand floor to ceiling windows. Bright morning sunshine filled the room and warmed her skin. It was too bad the sun's rays couldn't also warm that chilly spot in her chest. Grace had to make the decision of a lifetime and she still didn't know what to do.
She'd risen early with the intent of doing some sightseeing, but Grace hadn't been able to muster enough enthusiasm for anything more than a delicious breakfast of heirloom frittata at The Georgian Restaurant. Then she'd wandered from the restaurant over to the garden and there she'd sat for the last two hours.
The night before had been eye opening for Grace on several levels. First, and perhaps the most shocking, was that Grace wanted a family of her own, and she wanted it sooner than later. Her hectic existence in New York hadn't allowed her the time to stop and think about what she really wanted from life. After one night with Rachel and her family, Grace knew she was ready for a different kind of hectic life now. Grace wanted the kind of chaos that came with being a wife and mother. Second, Grace knew that no matter what she decided about Artifex, she wouldn't be taking the junior executive position at Stein and Watson. As grateful as she was for the opportunities that the company had provided her, Grace couldn't go on living like a worker bee with no hope of ever being the queen. She'd become restless and unhappy in New York. It was time to move on. Third, Grace had to come to terms with the fact that no matter how desperately her heart ached for Jack, she would never find her "happily ever after" with him.
Rachel and Grace had debated the merits of Grace giving Jack a chance to get his head out of his ass before she gave up on him. Rachel was convinced that Jack was doing what he thought was the right thing for Grace and Artifex by staying away from her while she made a decision about taking the CEO position. Grace might have believed that before she'd seen the picture of the loving couple Jack and Matthew had been. Now she had trouble not comparing his current behavior to his behavior back when they were in school. Something Victor said to her on the day of Jack's father's funeral kept running around her mind.
"He occasionally gets a taste for pussy . . . It's no big deal."
Rachel believed Jack was gay, not bisexual, because she'd never seen him with a woman. In nearly six years of friendship and partnership he had never been seen with a woman. But Jack had kissed Grace and promised to do more. So what? Was that really a big deal? Not really. He'd probably remembered what a pain in the ass she'd been in college about sharing his affection and had thought better of being entangled with her again.
"He occasionally gets a taste for pussy . . . It's no big deal."
The advice Victor had given her so long ago was harsh, but from all that Grace had seen, it was true and good advice. She hadn't listened back then. She would now.
Grace's cell phone began to chirp a little tune in her purse, "Grace Yates," she answered.
"Grace, it's Rachel, good morning." Rachel sounded bright eyed and bushytailed. With two kids, there probably weren't many opportunities to sleep in.
"Good morning," she replied.
"Hey, I was just wondering if you had any plans for tonight." Rachel asked excitedly. "Tony's mom is in town. She's going to watch the babies tonight so Tony and I can go have a little fun."