Page 9 of The Best Wild Idea (Off-Limits #3)

Juliet

In a daze, I set Grant’s letter down on the counter and pull Monica’s card out of the envelope. I feel dizzy knowing that Grant placed that card inside this very envelope himself while imagining me reading it one whole year later.

I set her card down on the counter next before taking a step back, staring at the collection of papers, feeling like I’ve just seen a ghost.

My body breaks out in a cold sweat while my heart pounds in my ears. How did he set all this up? Especially without me knowing? Did Silas know this whole time? Did he know when he came over that night?

My eyes land on the business card.

Monica Braverman, Luxury Travel Agent

The swooping cobalt blue M of Monica’s name looks too cheerful for the way I feel right now. Too cheerful and too real.

She’s written, Looking forward to your call! with a smiley face just below her signature line, along with what I imagine to be her personal phone number. I’ll bet she’s never received a call quite like the one I’m supposed to make right now, and maybe she never will again.

I push my hands against the cold, stone countertop and drop my head, exhaling slowly while trying to catch my breath.

This is not what I had planned for tonight, and certainly not what I’d planned for the next few weeks of my life.

Reading Grant’s words feels like a balm laced with salt, poured right into my broken heart, slicing through a wound that had only just begun to heal — somehow both soothing and extraordinarily painful at the same time.

Getting the slightest taste of him without being able to fully indulge doesn’t feel fair, but I also wouldn’t trade it.

Not for the world. And knowing that at least four more letters like this are waiting for me in different locations around the world makes me want to drop everything and sprint straight to the airport.

Which means? I have to go.

Even if Silas is my travel partner.

Of all the people . . .

Why would Grant do that? Why would he ensure that each letter will only be released to me if Silas is there? Why wouldn’t he just send me on my own?

I mean, he’s right. At one point, the three of us were an inseparable trio. Silas was the brother Grant never had, and in turn, he was my best friend, too. At one point, he was one of the best people I ever knew.

Long before college and before I ever met Grant and Silas that day in World Civ class, those two were a package deal.

Best friends. Bros for life. Coming from two incredibly connected families, both of them had attended the same prestigious boarding school just outside of Boston.

They graduated side by side at the top of their class, then roomed together at Harvard, while I was there on scholarship.

Most of Grant’s boyhood stories involved tales of Silas and him doing outrageous things together, sometimes with the other kids they befriended along the way, usually Dax or Ryeson, but always with each other.

I’d seen Si and Grant gallivanting around campus together early on in my freshman year.

Noticing how cute they both were, if not completely opposite of one another.

Grant with his serious nature and classic prep school good looks.

A mop of thick black hair giving way to wide-rimmed glasses and dark blue eyes you could get lost in forever if you weren’t careful.

And then there was Silas: a Ralph Lauren model in another lifetime.

Unnaturally attractive, if not overly cocky and charismatic on top of it all, making him extremely popular with girls on campus.

His dark brown hair naturally held on to traces of the sun, with streaks of amber tones bringing out the flecks of gold in his forest green eyes.

You could hear his laugh around campus before you saw him, usually up to something loud and generally obnoxious with Grant. But in the best way.

When in World Civ I’d asked the pair of them for a pen, knowing full well that I had at least two spares in my backpack, I’d simply wanted to get to know them.

Grant asked me out soon after, and the rest was our history.

I might have fallen in love with both of them, if I hadn’t grown so attached to Grant shortly after he took me out.

I told myself that Grant was the safer of the two.

The mellow, down-to-earth one between them that made me feel secure and cared for.

But they complemented each other, and I felt lucky to have them both in my corner.

I’d set Silas up with a few of my girlfriends over the years who were always batting their eyes at him and asking me if he was single, but I stopped doing that after realizing he was never one to settle down into anything serious.

Which meant he was always with Grant and I, hanging out between his own hookups and dates, entertaining us with his playboy antics.

I loved them. One as a friend, and the other as my everything.

But that was before.

And I’ll never forget the week everything changed.

Grant and I got engaged. Then less than one week after that, Silas’ father died.

His entire world changed in one loss of a heartbeat.

Si inherited his father’s multi-billion-dollar business portfolio.

So if he’d been a bit brash and cocky before his inheritance was signed for, the instant media attention as one of the world’s most wealthy — and arguably most handsome — young bachelors did a huge number on his ego.

Right here is where it happened. Silas disappeared.

Not physically, but in every way that someone can disappear while standing right in front of you.

He went from being someone I loved and admired to someone who oozed the uglier sides of wealth and privilege, acting like money could solve anything he said or did that hurt.

The loss of who Si was broke my heart, and within months he was a man I could barely stand to be around.

The immediate shouldering of immense responsibility might have been too much for any twenty-six-year-old to handle gracefully, but it took him to a place that was so different and so dark that I rarely saw him outside the sleaziest tabloid photos — usually with a few women draped around him as he stumbled out of a nightclub in some random location around the world.

And whenever I did see him in person? He’d grown so bitter toward me — toward everyone that had someone left to love — that all I ever received were sarcastic jabs thrown my way, usually at the expense of being Grant’s ol’ ball and chain.

The transition gave me whiplash and felt as bad as if he’d slapped me across the face himself. It hurt losing him. And that was before I lost Grant, too.

Over the last year, I haven’t heard a single peep from Silas since he walked off my porch the day of Grant’s funeral.

Not even after I sold the building he gave us.

I’d heard through their friend, our mutual attorney, Dax, that Silas had asked him about the sale, but that he didn’t look into it any further.

I think it’s because Silas already knew the role the building had played in the end.

I’ve never allowed myself to question Silas about the building.

Afraid of what I might uncover if I do. Afraid that if I say the words out loud and notice any hesitation in his response — or see any look in his eye that might suggest Silas already knew — the knowledge of that would break me for good.

I like to think Silas meant well that night he showed up to offer me money, but the conversation was tone-deaf and cold.

We were so stiff and awkward that night, shifting on our feet inside the home that Grant and I had shared and made memories in without him.

Me, with my swollen red eyes, pulling miserably at my thick black dress that had grown too tight while Silas stood quietly in my foyer.

Him, dressed in a crisp charcoal suit, looking fresh off a designer runway in Milan. Like he was more ready to jet set or spend all night getting bottle service at a swanky nightclub nearby than having just attended his best friend’s funeral a few hours before.

The house was so quiet when he came. I could hear him breathing over the floorboards creaking beneath his feet as he shifted around, unsure of what to say.

Just seeing him had sent a flood of nostalgia that felt more like a desperate need for something of the past to still exist between us.

Threatening to make me forget how horrible things were between us.

When really, I just wanted more than anything to spend ten minutes living in the past, where Silas and I could laugh with each other, and Grant was just another room away.

But everything about it was uncomfortable.

He’d stood too close.

Studied me too intently.

Spoken too gently.

The familiarity and softness in his eyes while he watched me squirm had nearly ended me. The old Si was still in there and I could see it.

I could tell he was hurting, too. Of course he was. But seeing him again that night, with no one else around to ease the mood, was like seeing a second ghost. One I wanted to turn back time for.

I knew, in my gut, it was the old him standing at my door. His words and his offer didn’t match his demeanor, as if someone else had put him up to the task, asking him to make me feel small. He’d squirmed so uncomfortably, like he hated himself just for saying it all out loud.

But I didn’t know what else to do. So instead of saying anything meaningful, I’d glared too harshly, forcing myself to ignore the sickening wave of missing him that I’d felt when I’d first seen him, the old him, standing outside.

Without Grant to buffer things, everything we said felt charged and electric and wrong. Like I couldn’t get away from him fast enough but also like I never wanted him to leave. Never wanted that part of me that was alive with both Silas and Grant to walk out the door with him forever.

But it did. And I’d practically pushed him out.

I knew I wouldn’t reach out to him after that, but he hadn’t either. And now, a whole year has gone by.

I glare down at Monica’s card wondering whether I can just retrieve the travel itinerary from her and fly solo to these places. Opting to convince whatever hotel staff is holding Grant’s letters hostage to give them to me without Silas there.

But I toss the card back on the counter and exhale stiffly.

Years ago, I would have hopped on a plane with Silas without a second thought. Especially if Grant was coming along, too. But those days, those carefree moments, feel impossible now.

“Why would you put me in this position, Grant?” I whisper.

After everything I’ve already gone through?

I check the clock above the stove.

Seeing it’s almost five o’clock makes my head spin.

The letter mentioned that our plane takes off first thing tomorrow morning, which means I need to get in touch with Monica now if I’m going to keep this absolutely asinine ball rolling forward.

I could spend hours debating whether or not to go, torturing myself over the decision I have to make, but it would only be a waste of time.

I already know that if there’s a plane taking off tomorrow that’ll bring me closer to another letter, another lost piece of Grant, then I’m going to be on it.

Even if Silas is right there beside me.