The Truth About Fairy Tales (16 page)

             
When Jackson’s call with Ben ended, he found me there. He picked me up in his arms and carried me to bed. It was then that I awakened. “Sorry, I was trying not to wake you.”

             
“That’s okay. How’d the call go?”

             
My head was against his shoulder, still half-asleep, but his silence forced me to look at him. I knew the answer he didn’t want to tell me. This couldn’t be good.

             
“I’m afraid it’s definite. The negotiations are stalled. I’m going to have to go, Maggie. I’ll leave on Monday. I’m afraid it will take most of the week.”

             
My heart broke. I pictured the week ahead for me, but it only looked long and empty. Classes were out all that week and I’d managed to get out of work as well. I’d been looking forward to having all this time off to spend with Jackson. It should have been perfect.

             
Now my perfect week loomed ahead of me filled with emptiness. I started making new plans. I would go home and be with my grandmother and Lee after all. They’d welcome me as always.

             
Jackson didn’t mention the trip or the holiday again, but I think in his own way he was sad about being apart. There were just little things that gave it away. I’d catch him watching me as if he were trying to decide what to do with me.

             
I called my grandmother to let her know the good news. There was something almost forced about her happiness and I wondered if maybe I was disturbing some other plans of hers for the week. Had Lee talked her into letting go of her stubborn independence and convinced her to marry him?

             
I was beginning to feel like a fifth wheel.

             
Jackson told me that he would be taking the company jet to Paris and would leave late Monday. My time was limited and I was desperate to spend every possible moment of what I had left with him. I’m sure he was starting to wonder what happened to the old determined Maggie. This new clingy woman in her place had us both confused.

             
As the days grew closer to the time that he would leave me, I found I couldn’t say a word. I couldn’t tell him any of the things I was feeling.

             
Sunday was a bittersweet day for me. Jackson and I spent the whole day together being lazy, not leaving the house for anything. I’d warned my friends not to bother me during that time and they were taking my threats seriously.

             
I watched him pack the evening before and somehow I resisted the need to cry. I sat on his bed while he packed, watching me with the same lost expression that I knew was on my face.

             
The next day, Jackson was tied up with calls most of the morning, even though he didn’t go into the office. I didn’t see him again until lunch. I’d spent the morning trying to study, to keep my mind off my lonely week ahead, but I wasn’t really paying attention to what I was reading. I was listening to the sound of Jackson’s voice coming from his study. I loved the sound of his voice.

             
Our last meal together was a quiet affair. Neither one of us had much to say. We only looked at each other with that lost longing look in our eyes. I guess there really wasn’t any need for words.

             
He’d asked me to go with him to the airport. I didn’t want to remember him that way—leaving me behind—because it reminded me of my future that was getting closer with each passing day. I couldn’t refuse Jackson anything.

             
I tried to joke about it. I told him I’d never known anyone who owned their own jet.

             
Jackson asked me if I’d ever been to Paris before to which I’d given him that smug look of mine. I hadn’t been out of the state, for that matter, but I couldn’t tell my sophisticated worldly man that.

             
My grandmother and I had planned a trip to Europe once upon a time. It had been something we both dreamed of doing and had decided once I graduated from high school we would take that trip. Unfortunately, it had never come about. Gran broke her leg a few weeks before we were scheduled to leave and that had been that. Shortly afterward, I was off to the university. We’d never rescheduled, although, we both kept promising ourselves that some day we would.

             
Jackson and I left the house in a rush that evening. He was busy gathering all the necessary papers he’d need for the meeting and trying not to forget anything.

             
I couldn’t think of one single thing to say to him on that ride to the airport. He’d asked me to stay at his place while he was gone and I was driving his car back home.

             
Sidney set in Jackson’s lap as usual. He’d asked me to bring the old man along as he referred to my little dog because even though he’d never admit to it I knew he was crazy about him.

             
When we pulled around to the private airstrip there were a couple of other cars waiting there. At first, it didn’t really dawn on me that one of them looked awfully familiar. I was too sad to consider any of these things. I’d just assumed it would be the pilot of the jet because I knew no one else was traveling with Jackson.

             
“Come inside and let me give you the tour.” He told me once his bags had been stowed away.

             
I let him lead me inside the plane, but I only wanted to get this final goodbye over. I was so close to losing it in front of him and I didn’t want to do that. I couldn’t show him how much I was going to miss him. I’d never felt this way before—this was all new territory to me.

             
The plane was everything I would have expected it to be and a whole lot more. Inside, standing before me grinning with that ‘we got you look’ on both of their faces were my friends Genna and Serena.

             
“What are you guys doing here?” Surprised, I turned to ask that same question of Jackson.

 
              Serena took Sidney from my arms. “You’d better ask her before she gets it out of me.” When I turned back to her, Serena, Sidney and Genna had moved a little away from us.

             
“Ask me what? What’s she talking about, Jackson?” He was smiling at me with that uncertain expression he was using with me more and more lately.

             
“I want you to come to Paris with me, Maggie.” I could only stare at him, not really understanding anything he’d just said to me.

             
“I have your passport and Serena here has agreed to watch the old man for us. I’ve got all your books so you can study your little heart out while I’m at those long boring negotiation meetings. Then we can see the city together. Well, what do you think? Will you come?”

             
“But I don’t have anything to wear.” Now that probably came out sounding like the most ridiculous of things I could possibly be worried about, but I couldn’t think of anything else at the moment. I wanted, really wanted to go with him. I had been secretly praying he’d ask me, but I knew that I couldn’t ever bring myself to ask him to come. I couldn’t. That gave away too much to him of what my feelings really were.

             
“We’re going to Paris, honey. I think we can find you something to wear, don’t you?”

             
“But…” I closed my mouth when I realized I was close to looking like a complete idiot in front of him and from close behind me, I could hear my two friends quietly sniggering at that answer so unlike the Maggie they knew.

             
“Do you want to come with me?”

             
I couldn’t even begin to deny that to him because it was right there in my eyes for him to see. “Yes…oh yes, Jackson!” I was in his arms and he was holding me close to the sound of my two friends clapping behind us.

             
“It’s about time you came to your senses,” my no-nonsense friend Serena was saying just before Jackson kissed me and I forgot the both of them entirely.

             
“Okay, you two out.” Jackson pointed to the door but they didn’t move. I think they were both in shock that he was actually kicking them out.

             
“Gees, and after all the hard work we went through helping you pull this thing off without Maggie guessing.”

             
They hugged us both and then left us alone.

             
“What did you have them doing?" I was at a loss for something to say to him.

             
“I don’t think you’d believe me if I told you, but let’s just say I couldn’t have done it without their help. Serena found your passport for me when I’d pretty much given up.”

             
“So you found my secret hiding place?” I asked him and was rewarded with that strange expression of his.

             
“Well, one of them anyway.”

             
“I need to call Gran and let her know I’m not coming…or was she in on this as well?” I saw the answer in his smile and could only shake my head. “You really were quite the sneak weren’t you? I never suspected a thing.”

             
After we’d taken off, I remembered Ben. “Does he know I’m coming with you?” I had to know the answer even though I wasn’t so sure I was going to like it.

             
“Yes, Ben knows. He’ll be there to pick us up at the airport.” He saw my expression and added, “Maggie, he knows we’re together. I’ve told him as much. So stop worrying, everything will be fine. You’ll see.”

             
“How long is this flight anyway?” I looked around and wondered how on earth I was going to relax enough to make it through the flight. And there was absolutely no way to sleep in those uncomfortable, however expensive looking seats.

             
“Eight hours and I know what you're thinking. Come with me.” He took my hand and led me to a small door that I’d assumed was storage. It opened up into another smaller room that actually held a bed.

             
I looked at Jackson and read all of his thoughts of how to pass the time pretty easy and wondered how many others had been there before me.

             
“No, Maggie. There have never been any others.” He answered my unasked question and smiled at my confusion. Jackson was getting more unpredictable and out of character as time went by.

             
After we’d spent several hours in a much more pleasant way, I lay next to Jackson who was actually sleeping.

             
Something was wrong. Why couldn’t I just be happy with the moment? I should be ecstatic. He was my dream come true. What was wrong with me? Then I remembered how little time I had left with him. Two weeks, maybe a little more, and then I’d be finished with school and he would be expecting me to disappear from his world as I’d been promising him for months now.

             
Maybe that was why he was being so nice to me now—putting up with all my little eccentricities. He knew he didn’t have to put up with them for that much longer. He’d never once asked me to change my plans and I was reading everything into that. He didn’t want permanency like the new ‘in love’ Maggie did.

             
In spite of all my tough talk, I wasn’t really fooling anyone especially myself. I would give up just about anything in the world to be with him for as long as he would have me. I still didn’t know where I stood with Jackson or if I stood a chance with him. I didn’t understand Jackson’s silence, but it was speaking to me much louder than his words.

             
The pilot’s announced our arrival into Paris. We dressed and tried to make ourselves presentable for Ben.

             
I was afraid this was not going to be a pleasant reunion for either of us. The last time I’d talked to Ben, he’d made it clear to me that he wasn’t ready to forgive me yet.

             
We went through the customs check without as much as a hitch. I was conscious of the curious looks we were getting and wondered what people must be thinking of us. Jackson, dressed comfortably in jeans and a sweater that looked wonderful on him and me, in my faded jeans and sweatshirt that I’d worn thinking I would only go back home to cry myself to sleep missing him.

             
Apparently, Ben spotted us right away but neither Jackson nor I were the least bit aware of him until he appeared before us. We were holding hands and Jackson was trying to keep me from being jostled by the crowd as we made our way through the terminal.

             
Ben’s expression gave nothing away as he shook his uncle’s hand and then hesitated for a moment longer before giving me a hug that was nothing like the Ben of old. He was being cautious with me.

             
It was still morning, Paris-time, when we left the terminal and drove along darkened streets to the hotel that was quite possibly the most expensive place I’d ever set foot in.