Page 83 of Georgia: Britain's Story: Part 1
“You moan, and make these little noises when you eat something really good.”
“Umm,” I swallow my food, “that’s embarrassing.” I finish with a laugh.
“No, it’s not. It’s cute.” I’m sure my face looks like a tomato now, so I keep eating my pastry to avoid having to make conversation. He doesn’t say anything more, though.
“How is Constantine doing these days?” I ask after we’ve gone too long without anybody talking.
“He’s, well, he’s had better days.” I immediately look at him.
“Oh, I’m really sorry to hear that. Is it his health?” He laughs when I say this.
“No, god, no. He's going to live to be a hundred and twenty. Uh, no. Julie left him last week.”Wow,after all these years. He keeps going, “But I don’t think that’s actually bothered him all that much. Really, it was Georgia’s passing. He’s just not the same.” There’s something about his tone when he says this.
“So you knew?”
He hesitates. “Yeah. I just realized you didn’t know, did you?”
“Not until a week ago.” My god, has it only been a week? It feels like another lifetime ago. I shudder at the memory. That was the day I realized I was pregnant, the day I found out I was conceived via rape. The day before I got engaged and dumped. My stomach turns and I absentmindedly rub my hand across my abdomen.
“Are you okay?” Matthias asks, looking at me with concern, and then my abdomen.
“Yes, yeah, I’m fine,” I say, shaking my head. “Just reliving a memory, that’s all.” I give him a half-hearted smile.
“Did Liam tell you then?” he asks.
“Actually, no. He wasn’t the one who told me. When Georgia passed, she left me her notebooks. Hundreds of them. I could never figure out who she was writing to, or writing about, until last week when I learned about how I was conceived, which was shocking. But that was the first and only time she ever named your father.”
“I always loved your mom, Britain. You know she used to take care of me every time I got sick? Julie would make Constantine bring me into the office with him, you know how she is. And so, whenever I was sick, your mom would take care of me. I always wished she could’ve been my mom instead.”
“I didn’t know Julie did that. That must have been strange as a child having to go to your dad’s office when you were sick, no?”
“Julie never was exactly‘maternal.’” I just nod my head, feeling sorry. Georgia would have loved to be his mom.
“Georgia was really looking forward to being your mom, you know? She wrote about how she couldn’t wait for you and Alex to run wild through these hills.” When I look at him again, he’s slightly teary eyed. I reach out for his hand at the same time he reaches for mine. I let out a small laugh.
He breaks the moment, speaking first. “You know Julie was the one who made Liam do it.”Huh?
“What do you mean?”
“He didn’t tell you?” There’s that gut feeling again, the crappy one.What is he talking about?The look on his face tells me that maybe I don’t want to know, but I need to. I need to know.
“Matthias, tell me what?”
THIRTY
Britain
Matthias doesn’t look away from me, he doesn’t drop my hand. If anything, he squeezes it tighter, cementing his grip before he begins.
“I never told you why I ended things when I did. I always regretted not doing that, but I didn’t think it was fair to tell you at the time. I realize now that was a mistake.” He pauses, maybe waiting for me to say something, but I won’t. I’m all ears for this.
“The day we broke up, I had a meeting with Liam earlier in the day. You know, at the time, I was just getting into my position at MS, and was hoping he and I would start working together and focusing on real estate developments instead of agricultural land, or investments.
He brought me out to the land where Broken Ridge is now. He told me all about his idea for the development he wanted to create — a different kind of neighborhood. I was blown away and sold on the project, and I told him so. I said this is exactly the type of thing I want to be doing. He said okay, but there’s a catch.
He said, you need to break up with Britain. You’re going to need to focus all your time and energy on this project, and, ultimately, having an 18-year-old girlfriend would just be a distraction. He said people wouldn’t take me seriously if I was dating a teenager, regardless that you were a legal adult. I fought him on it, though.
I told him I thought that was stupid and fucked up to try and make me do that, but he drew a hard line in the sand. He said, if you don’t end it with her, I’m not bringing you on to this project. I need someone who can eat, breathe, bleed this. It was going to be a huge lift and a massive learning curve. 80 hour weeks, and he needed someone who would solely focus on the success of the development. He told me MS Group had been struggling recently, and this was the Hail Mary to redirect and drive the business to new revenue streams.
