Page 76 of Blame It on the Bikini
"Why can't they be the same thing? They were for you. Right?"
"Most of the time. Actually, no. Not most of the time." He paused. "Thirty-five years ago, I attended a business conference in San Diego. After it ended, I decided to take two weeks off work. I was feeling so stressed and pressured, I was actually having heart palpitations. It was all too much, and I had to take a break." He took a breath. "It wasn't just work that was making me tense; it was also your mother. We'd been dating for a year, and she wanted to get married. She wanted to merge her father's company with mine. She thought we could be a power couple, and I thought so, too. But I wasn't sure I was ready to get married."
"Why didn't you just tell her that?"
"Oh, I did. And she always said there was no rush, but her words and actions didn't match. And her father's company was a tantalizing offer. He wanted me to be the son he'd never had. He wanted to give me a chance to really grow my business that I had spent ten years of insanely long hours working on."
"You're making your relationship sound like a business deal," he said with a frown.
"I didn't mean it like that," his father said. "I really cared about your mother. But she was as driven as I was. She wanted a lifestyle like the one she'd grown up in. She wanted a man like her father." He paused. "It's hard to explain, but I felt conflicted about everything. And then I met this woman on the beach, this free-spirited, red-haired, quirky woman who had a smile as bright as the sun and an energy for life that felt unmatched. We started spending time together. I came to find out she had left a bad marriage, a poor work environment, and was starting all over. She seemed so brave to me, so determined to live life on her terms, and I was captivated."
"Was her name Josie?" he asked, confident he already knew the answer.
"Yes. And she lived in this apartment building by the beach. My two-week vacation lasted four weeks. We had a passionate love affair. It was wrong. I knew it, and I couldn't stop myself. When I was with her, I felt more like myself than I had in years. But I knew it wasn't my real life. I had a business to get back to. Your mother was calling me all the time. I felt guilty and horrible about it all."
"So you ended it?"
"Josie ended it right after I told her I loved her. She said I loved my life in Los Angeles more, and we would never last. She was right. I went home, and a few weeks later, I asked your mother to marry me. I never saw Josie again."
"But you bought the building she was living in."
"I did. It came up for sale, and I didn't want to see her lose her home because she'd finally found her happy place after a harrowing year, and I wanted her to be happy. After I bought it, I had an associate ask her if she would be the manager."
"Did she know you were the owner?"
"She did. She told Steve she would love the job as long as she could work directly with him, and he had been instructed to say that was what was going to happen."
"And you never talked to her in thirty-five years?"
"Not until the week before you went there. I told her that my son needed to see a different life to make sure he knew what he really wanted. Four weeks had been just the right amount of time for me. I thought it would be for you as well."
He stared at his father. "Do you think you made the wrong choice in going home and marrying Mom?"
His dad didn't answer right away, then said, "Sometimes, I do."
Even though he'd known for most of his life that his parents weren't that in love with each other, he was still surprised to hear his dad admit that. "If you were unhappy, you could have gotten a divorce. You could have gone back to Ocean Shores and been with Josie."
"No, I couldn't. We'd said our goodbyes. And I didn't want to disrupt her life."
Everything finally clicked into place. "You don't want me to sell Ocean Shores because of Josie. Why didn't you just say that? Why the charade? The promise to live there for four weeks?" He felt a burst of anger. "Did you just want to mess with my life?"
"No," his father said sharply. "And I told you I would give you the choice to sell it or not. I just wanted you to go there. I wanted you to have time away from all this so you could make the best decision for what you wanted to do in your life."
"If I sell the property, then Josie ends up homeless. I can't believe that doesn't bother you. It's why you hung on to it all these years, isn't it?"
"Yes, but if you want to sell, we'll make sure that the tenants have enough money to go wherever they want to go. The amount of money we would make off the deal would more than cover that."
"Did Josie beg you not to sell when you talked to her?"
"No. She said things would work out the way they were meant to, and she would always be grateful for the past thirty-five years."
"That sounds like her," he said with a sigh. "But I still don't get your reasoning."
"I'm going to release you from the agreement," his father said. "You can make the decision right now as to what you want to do. It's your call, Grayson. But before you tell me your answer, I want to know something: Did you have fun while you were there? Did you learn anything about yourself?"
He hated to give his father the satisfaction of being right, but he had no choice. "Yes. I had a great time, and I learned a lot about myself, about what I want."
"Which is what?"
