The One in My Heart (17 page)

Our waiter came then to clear the plates. When coffee and desserts arrived, Mrs. Somerset turned to her son and asked, “I’m curious, Bennett. I don’t remember you ever being particularly interested in life sciences. Why did you go to medical school?”

It was a simple question asked earnestly. Bennett, however, hesitated for what seemed an unnecessary amount of time. I became aware that his father was frowning—either Mr. Somerset was concentrating really hard or it was an expression of open displeasure.

Eventually Bennett shrugged. “Just felt like it at the time—and haven’t had any reason to regret that choice.”

Mrs. Somerset delved further into his professional life—the kind of cases he saw, the schedule he kept, his opinion of his attending physician. Mr. Somerset listened attentively, but not happily. Bennett seemed not at all aware of the tension on his father’s part; he was the blithe young man who had everything he wanted, and his parents were only incidental to his happiness in life.

When the check was presented Mr. Somerset took it. As soon it was settled, everyone rose from the table. I said good-bye to Bennett’s parents with no small amount of relief: At least nothing untoward had happened—and we had better get out while that was still the case.

BACK IN OUR SUITE, WE
didn’t speak for some time. I perched on an ottoman before the fireplace; Bennett stretched out on the long sofa on which we’d made love the day of our arrival. The problem was, I couldn’t judge whether the dinner had gone off as well as could be expected or whether it had, at some point, gone off the rails.

Beneath this uncertainty thrummed the chaotic refrain of Bennett’s words.
Weeks of internal debate. Whether to approach her. It might turn out to be serious.

My kingdom for an accurate bullshit meter.

Bennett rose, came behind me, and set his hands on my shoulders. Not until his fingers dug into my muscles did I realize how tense they were. He applied just the right amount of pressure and kneaded away the tight knots from the base of my neck, the tops of my arms, and the sides of my shoulder blades.

And then he walked away and lay back down on the sofa.

“Thanks,” I said, my voice sounding unsure.

“You’re welcome.”

After a moment of not knowing what to do, I reached toward the paper bag on the coffee table, which contained the leftovers of the stuff he’d bought on Capri, and pulled out a handful of dried figs that still remained—I hadn’t eaten much at dinner and now I was hungry.

I tossed a couple of the figs at my fake boyfriend.

He caught them and set them aside. “You okay, Professor?”

“I’m tight with my mother figure. So, yeah, I’m okay.”

He covered his eyes with the heels of his hands and grunted. I guess I didn’t need to ask him whether
he
was okay: He wasn’t.

I had to resist an urge to go over and cradle his head in my lap. “When you were buying the house in Cos Cob, didn’t you have any idea that you were bidding against your parents?”

“No, I didn’t. None at all.”

“Your sister didn’t tell you anything?”

“We rarely talked about our parents. And this was January of last year. I didn’t say anything to her about my move until April, after I’d bought the apartment.” He set one hand on the back of the sofa and trailed the other on the rug. “But talk about being accidentally dickish on top of being intentionally dickish.”

“Are you talking about those attempted takeovers?”

He stared up at the ceiling. “I went to medical school as a fuck-you to my dad.”

A face-palm moment if ever there was one. I sighed and bit into a dried fig.

“He wanted to be a medical researcher,” Bennett continued. “But when he was in his first semester in medical school, his older brother, the one who was always supposed to take over the family business, died. So he put aside medicine to become a businessman.

“I, on the other hand, made my fortune by being in the right place at the right time, with an inheritance from my grandmother that came at the exact right moment for me to invest in a passel of start-ups.”

Zelda had told me something of Bennett’s success. The inheritance from his grandmother had contained a lot more than a single Pissarro. His great-great-grandfather, the too-good-in-bed gentleman who had been married to the lady in the John Singer Sargent portrait, had been an important collector of Impressionist and post-Impressionist art—the contemporary art of his era. Over time the collection had splintered and diminished, but Bennett had still received a veritable treasure trove.

He sold some of the paintings at auction for twenty-five million dollars and invested in a number of start-ups. Within a few years the twenty-five mil had turned into more than six hundred mil: Half a dozen of the start-ups had been acquired by iconic companies, and a few more by less iconic companies whose money was just as good.

“My largely accidental good fortune as an investor came about at a low point. Moira and I had just broken up for good—and so much of what I’d planned for the rest of my life was with the two of us together. I was adrift and angry. Since it was easier to be angry at someone else than to be angry at myself, I decided that my dad was to blame, especially since he’d been eerily prescient about how it would all end.

“I hated that he was right. And I hated that I’d failed so spectacularly, that my great love had turned out to have been pretty ordinary after all. So after another unsuccessful attempt at taking over his company, I decided to make it even more personal. I would go to medical school and have what he never had.”

I might have raised my brow a fraction of an inch.

“It’s all right,” he said. “You can be openly horrified. I was a very spoiled young man.”

I didn’t say anything.

His lips twisted in an expression of self-disdain. “And I might still be one.”

Whereas his father, from just as privileged a background, had never been a spoiled young man. Had probably exemplified duty and sacrifice. And had kept
his
long-term relationship intact.

“It was a strange feeling,” Bennett said slowly, “to realize that I admire him. That in a way I have always admired him, even when I thought he was both stodgy and despotic.”

And he wanted his father to think well of him in return. But how was it possible when his wealth had come too easily—at least in his own view—and his profession was a giant middle finger to Mr. Somerset?

I dug into the paper bag again. There was, thank goodness, a chocolate bar at the bottom. I broke it in two, lobbed half at him, and gobbled up the remainder in two bites.

“You should have had ‘asshole’ tattooed on your forehead while you were at it—so your parents would never forget.”

He sighed and broke off a piece of chocolate. “I’m surprised I didn’t. When I made up my mind to go to medical school, I was high as fuck—having a shit-ton of money and no purpose in life never fails to lead straight to cranking out on a yacht in Saint-Tropez.

“Looking back, even though it was a decision made purely from spite, it saved me from myself. I had to sober up, for one thing—I was going to stick it to the old man even if it meant I had to actually study. And drugs and dissection”—he grimaced, as if remembering a particularly bad trip—”those two did not go well together.”

I, who somehow managed to be on university campuses for fourteen years straight without ever smoking a joint, fished in the paper bag again. But it was empty of further calorie-laden solaces. Bennett gave the rest of his chocolate to me. “Don’t worry. I haven’t had any hard drugs in eight years. If anything, I miss smoking more.”

That was only part of what bothered me. “Do you even like medicine?”

The thought that he might have devoted nearly a decade of his life to a field in which he hadn’t the least personal interest, the only value of which was in how much it would rub his dad the wrong way…Something very close to a desperate unhappiness swamped me. “Because if you don’t, you should get out right now—I don’t care how close you are to the end of your fellowship.”

He smiled a little, not the glossy, glamorous kind of smile, but one tinged with a trace of sadness. “You’re a good friend, you know.”

I wasn’t. I was with him only because of a wretched covetousness that overrode my self-control.

“And to answer your question, I do enjoy medicine, far more than I ever expected to, paperwork aside. And I love going on medical missions—it’s humbling to be able to actually make a difference.”

Something in me fell back into place with a sigh of relief—perhaps I was a better friend than I thought. “Then you don’t need to worry about why you started medical school. It will come through, that love—and your dad will see it.”

He sat up slowly and pushed his fingers through his hair, the beautiful prodigal son who had come home, even though no father shouted in jubilation for a fattened calf to be slaughtered and a magnificent feast put on. “I hope you’ll prove to be right.”

“Give it time,” I said softly.

He rolled up the now-empty paper bag. “Sometimes I wonder what it might feel like to be close to my parents. I wonder whether we’d ever be as close as you and Zelda.”

“You mean having your menstrual cycles perfectly synced?”

He snorted. “Other than that.”

You don’t want to be as close as Zelda and me. You don’t want every moment of joy counterpoised by a shadow of fear. You don’t want to begin every New Year praying, Let this not be our last together.

“There is no substitute for how much care and affection you put into a relationship. So…baby steps.”

He nodded, his expression contemplative as he studied me. I had the strange sensation that he wasn’t thinking so much about what I’d told him, but what I’d kept to myself.

I stood up. “I’ll go to sleep now. Good night.”

He rose and barred the path to my door. I braced myself for a touch, or perhaps a murmur, but he only asked, “What do you do when you despair, and there isn’t an August rain to drown your sorrow?”

I didn’t think it was possible for him to ask me anything more penetrating than my personal sexual fantasies. I was wrong. Compared to despair, lust was nothing.

I made my tone light. “Then whatever weather would have to do, wouldn’t it?”

He cupped my face. I swallowed—he would kiss me again. But he only pressed his lips to my forehead. “Thank you. I wouldn’t have been able to handle dinner without you.”

It’s what you pay me for
, I should answer.

Instead, I rested my hand briefly against his arm and told him, “I’m glad to help. Consider this my medical mission where I might actually make a difference.”

Chapter 10

I DRIFTED IN AND OUT
of sleep, dreaming of a rumple-haired, dirty-hot Bennett surrounded by beautiful girls, snorting lines of cocaine from a glass table.

I woke up disoriented and restless—and immediately Googled him. There were a couple of men with the same name who had fairly high-profile jobs—one a journalist, another an event promoter in LA—and pages that mentioned their names clogged the first dozen pages of search results. And when I Googled “Dr. Bennett Somerset,” only a few meaningful results turned up, mostly from his medical school and the two hospitals where he had worked.

If he was on Facebook, the account was hidden. I found nothing on Instagram. A Twitter account, opened at the instigation of his sister, most likely—she was the only one with whom he’d exchanged tweets—had sat idle for several years.

I put aside my laptop, got dressed, and started to pack. But my progress was slow and haphazard. I couldn’t stop thinking of the rudderless young man trying to distract himself with sex and drugs—and couldn’t stop wishing I’d been there for him.

That was, of course, unrealistic thinking on a crazy scale. Had I been there, he’d have used and discarded me. But it was a powerfully alluring idea, that of saving a man from himself and winning his eternal devotion in return.

My phone vibrated—a text from Bennett.
Having breakfast with Mom at a nearby café. Be back soon.

The hotel phone rang at that exact moment, startling me. I picked up, expecting the front desk.
“Pronto?”

“
Buon giorno
. May I speak to Evangeline?”

Mr. Somerset.

“This is she. What can I do for you, sir?”

“I was hoping you’d have breakfast with me.”

The thought of sitting down alone with Bennett’s father chased away my appetite. “That sounds lovely.”

“Excellent. How about the hotel’s restaurant? And what’s a convenient time for you?”

“I can be down in fifteen minutes.”

“I look forward to it.”

I reached the hotel restaurant in precisely fifteen minutes. Mr. Somerset and I shook hands, visited the continental breakfast buffet, and sat down together. We exchanged pleasantries. The weather had turned cold and foggy again. Bennett and I were headed out for the airport in an hour; the older Somersets would be staying another night on the Amalfi Coast.

A waiter came and poured coffee. Mr. Somerset took a sip from his cup; I took a deep breath.