I’ve learned not to look back. Never. That way lies madness.
Jack and I had a long life ahead of us. He’d talk about Morgan if he wanted.
If I was that curious, there was always the internet. The Comptons were a very public family, after all.
Katie thought I was crazy not to press Jack for every little detail. When I refused, she dug up everything she could, invited me out for coffee under the pretense of a catch-up, sat me down at the Frothy Monkey, and forced me to listen. This is what I learned:
Jackson Compton met Morgan Fraser at a cocktail party in Tiburon, California, at the house of a famed literary agent, a stunning arts and crafts renovation across the bay from San Francisco. Their courtship was brief and glamorous. Jack was a party boy then, on the circuit, dating models and actresses, in the gossip columns all the time. Most eligible bachelor, all that. Feckless. Wealthy. Fun.
Morgan, a well-educated former foster child who studied computer science on scholarship at Stanford, was the exact opposite of the kind of woman Jackson Compton was attracted to, according to the salacious stories. There was nothing simple or easy about her. Her background was murky, her business interests bordered on the unethical, and she was clearly not interested in settling down.
But she was a stunner. Breathtakingly gorgeous. Beautiful, and brilliant. The night they met, she was out celebrating. She had secured the first round of venture capital for an eponymous IT company that was making waves with a nanotech microcamera that would eventually change the way the security industry handled smart home technology. Heady stuff. The Comptons bought out her company and made her a small fortune.
“See? He has a pattern of seducing women away from their passions,” Katie cried, getting even angrier when I laughed and told her I’d heard enough. She refused to stop, plowed ahead as if anything, anything, could change my mind.
I learned that after only a few months of dating, Jack and Morgan eloped. The move angered his parents, who felt he was too young to settle, and caused all the gossip magazines to launch covers with a grainy, out-of-focus telephoto shot of Morgan from behind in a slinky white dress that clung to her curves. It could have been anyone.
Three weeks later, on the last day of their honeymoon, she went missing.
There weren’t a lot of details. They were sailing off the coast of Monterey, having a last afternoon on the water, nothing risky. A storm blew up unexpectedly. Jack wrestled with the boat, but the boom sprang free and Morgan was swept overboard.
He circled, called the Coast Guard, but they couldn’t get to him for over an hour. By then, she was well and truly gone.
Her body wasn’t found right away. Eventually, a piece floated ashore. A hand, with a bent pinkie finger, wrapped in black cloth, the same color of sarong she was wearing when she went missing from the boat.
The hand was identified through DNA as belonging to Morgan Fraser. There was nothing else left of her. Sharks were blamed.
After a period of solitude ascribed to overwhelming grief, Jackson Compton threw himself into the family business, took over running the Foundation, traveled the world doing good for all mankind, and by all accounts, hadn’t been on the dating scene until that evening in Nashville, when I caught his eye.
Katie was not at all happy this story didn’t move me. What does it matter, I asked, heatedly at last? It was a decade ago, and he’s clearly over her. He wouldn’t be dating me, we wouldn’t be getting serious, otherwise.
She insisted I needed to be careful. I disagreed. We didn’t speak for a month.
Jack didn’t talk about his dead wife. So what? It was a matter of respect between the two of us. I didn’t ask. He didn’t tell.
Though sometimes, when he got quiet or short, I wondered if he was thinking of her. Mostly, though, I didn’t let it bother me. Not at the beginning. Not while I still thought Jack and I were destined for happiness.
9
Yes, Dahh-ling
A shrill scream comes from our left, and we jump apart like naughty children.
“Claire Elizabeth Hunter–soon-to-be-Compton, you are the luckiest girl in the world. Look at this place! It’s insane!”
“Katie! I’m so glad to see you.” I glance at Jack, expecting him to be grimacing—Katie Elderfield isn’t his favorite person, nor, obviously, Jack hers—but he is smiling broadly.
“Welcome to Italy, Katie,” he says, opening his arms for a hug. Good thing, because Katie crashes straight into us, tackle hugging, knocking me back a few feet. Romulus takes a step toward me, but Jack calls out something guttural and the two dogs sit immediately, quivering, five feet away.
“I am so excited to be here. My gawd, look at this place. Are those wolves? Jeez, Compton. And you—” She spins me in a circle, then raises both of my arms out to the side, staring at my neck. “Aren’t you the radiant bride. Are those pearls you’re wearing?”
I feel the blush creep up my neck, probably making the pearls stand out even more. “A wedding gift from Jack. You like?”
Katie runs a finger along the necklace. “Yeah. They’ve gotta be worth a fortune.”
Ah, there it is, that embarrassing twinge I have anytime anyone mentions the obscene wealth of the Comptons. I have to get over it. I might have started off with nothing, but I will never be in that state again, thanks to Jack.
Katie, her sleeveless top showing off the edge of a new and not-so-discreet tattoo, stamps up and down the length of the courtyard in her floral Doc Martens, staring at the Villa. The last of the prestorm sun glimmers off the diamond stud in her nose.
“Nice shack, Compton.”
“I’ll let my father know you approve.”
The tension between them is back, damn it. “Any chance my parents and Harper were on the boat? I know they were planning to come from Rome tomorrow, but with the weather...”
“I didn’t see them. If Harper were on it, I’d have noticed. She’d have been taking pictures nonstop.”
I look to the billowing storm clouds.
“Jack, should we reach out to them? The hydrofoil won’t be able to manage the return trip with the storm, will it?”
“Don’t worry, darling. It will run until the storms arrive. We might get lucky and they hold off. Worse comes to worst, we’ll send the helicopter for them when the weather breaks.”
Katie can’t resist a teensy eye roll. “Yes, dahh-ling, don’t worry. They’ll find their way. I want to see inside this place, and then I want to sleep for a week. God, I hate jet lag. Compton, are you offering tours or are we supposed to stand out here in the courtyard?”
“Katie,” I start to scold, but Jack has other ideas.
“Actually, if you don’t mind getting yourself settled in, Katie, Claire and I need to sit down with my parents for a bit. And the lawyers.”