Something about the painting he was creating made her think of Vanessa. She smiled again. She couldn't imagine Vanessa with a guy in paint-splattered jeans. She was more the CEO, drives a Jaguar, type of gal. Finally, Carrie's bag was full and her arms were tired, so she hopped back into Tyson's car and headed over to his winery. She sang along with the radio, feeling carefree and happy as she drove up the long driveway to Green Vineyards. The parking lot was full of tourists on the wine-tasting prowl.
That could have been me, she thought, just another random tourist going from winery to winery. Instead, she'd met Tyson and her whole weekend had been a blur of passion and laughter. He was the best thing that had ever happened to her, and she wasn't going to screw things up.
They were going to have to figure out the details. His business was in Napa, hers was in San Francisco. Maybe they could do three nights a week at her town house and four here for a while. Until she could build up a client base in Napa.
Okay, so she was really jumping the gun on their relationship. But as she got out of Tyson's car and headed inside her mind swam with the possibilities of the new, wonderful life they could share together. She was utterly confident about her feelings for Tyson and had high hopes about his feelings for her. But then she looked up, and all her visions of a perfect afternoon, a perfect life together with Tyson, shattered to the ground. As did her bag of fruit and cheese and bread, which fell from her lifeless fingers to the gravel parking lot. But she didn't notice anything other than how cold, how distant Tyson's eyes were as he watched her from the shaded front porch of his winery.
With James standing right beside him. Oh, God. Her knees nearly buckled.
Tyson thought she'd lied to him. Just like his ex-wife. He'd never forgive her.
She wanted to run to him, to beg him to listen to her explanations that things weren't how they looked. But she never got the chance. James was already heading for her, his arms open wide, as if he expected her to run, gratefully, into them.
"Mummy told me you called the house, baby. You sure missed me, didn't you?"
"'Baby?' "
He smiled at her, a smile so full of itself that she could hardly believe she hadn't really seen it for two whole years. "That's what a man calls the woman he's about to wed:'
Her eyes shot to Tyson, and she knew they were wild. Horrified. But Tyson's expression hadn't changed. It was still grim. Worse, it was impartial. Almost as if he was doing nothing more than watching two strangers hash things out after an argument.
Carrie was desperate to clarify things, lest the man she loved with all her heart think she'd been playing him all weekend.
Directing her words at Tyson, she said, "We're not about to be--" "I told Tyler all about our engagement on Thursday night at Farallon. He thinks I'm the luckiest guy on the planet:'
"It's Tyson, not Tyler;' Carrie said, feeling things spin more and more out of control by the second. James threw one of his smooth smiles over his shoulder.
"Sorry about that, buddy. Must have heard wrong."
Tyson didn't respond. Didn't take his eyes off Carrie. They burned through her, and she would have given anything in that moment, anything at all to have him look at her like he had a few hours ago in his bed. Acting as if everything was perfectly normal, James said, "I drove all the way up to Napa to be with you. To show you that we belong together. You should really keep your cell on when you're traveling:' he chastised, "so that I can get a hold of you. Mummy said the same thing."
Oh, God, he had to bring Agnes into it, didn't he? As if it wasn't bad enough that with every word out of his mouth she was losing her chance at real love. With Tyson.
She opened her mouth to tell James to go away, that she wasn't marrying him no matter what, but her tongue refused to work right. Besides, he was quicker, wilier than she could ever be.
Tyson finally spoke from up on the porch. "I found your ring, Carolyn:'
Her heart stopped beating.
The huge yellow diamond lay in his palm, sparkling in the daylight, and she hated the expensive jewel more in that moment than she'd ever hated anything in her life.
"You lost the ring?" James said, the censure and disbelief in his voice loud enough to make several heads turn in the parking lot. Making an obvious effort to tamp down on it, he turned back to Tyson with an insincere smile. ''I'd like to pay you a reward for finding my fiancees ring. I know how heartbroken she would have been if anything had happened to it:'
Carrie barely resisted the urge to punch him-maybe she had it in her after all-as Tyson said, "Seeing you two together is reward enough:'
He threw the ring to her, and she watched it arc through the air as if in slow motion. She caught it as he walked away. Every muscle in her body screamed at her to run after him. To deal with James later. But when James said, "Don't worry, Carolyn. I forgive you.
You'll need to be less careless with your things.in the future' she finally snapped. She had to clean up the bad things in her life before she could build better ones.
She shoved the ring at James, into his chest, and watched it slide down his Prada blue-striped button-down shirt to the gravel.
''A, I am not careless. Ever. I wasn't wearing your ring because I didn't want to wear it. I tried to give it back to you at the restaurant but you wouldn't hear of it. Wouldn't let me break up with you. Which brings me to B. There is no future for us. None. I'm not marrying you. Period. I'm breaking up with you, once and for all." The words flew out of her mouth in a rush, and when she ran out of breath, she felt a pang of guilt. Just because he wasn't the right man for her didn't mean he was a bad person, did it?
She opened her mouth to apologize for breaking things off, for realizing in the eleventh hour that forever wasn't meant to be for them.
But again, James beat her to the punch.
He reached down and picked up the ring. He blew the dust off and slipped it into his pocket, then said, "Mummy never thought you were good enough for me. I can see, now, that she was right. Good-bye, Carolyn'
He turned to walk away. A better person might have let him go, might have let him get the last word in. But Carrie had finally come to realize that she didn't need to be that better person every second of every day. "Oh, yeah, I almost forgot C. My name is Carrie. Not Carolyn.
Next girl you ask to marry you, you might want to get her name right first."
TEN
OVER JAMES'S SHOULDER, SHE'D SEEN TYSON heading into the fields. She took off, running, through the vines. And then she saw him. Hacking at an unruly bush. That might as well have been her head. He was drippingit with sweat, and he'd never looked more beautiful.