“You wouldn’t know her,” I said.
Bri gave me a look like two plus two were coming together. It would be too much to hope that she’d keep it to herself.
“Is it the event planner? It must be. She wasn’t too thrilled to see you hiding with Evie.” She gave herself a smack in the forehead. “No wonder you told me to stop saying you were engaged. She’s the one I told.”
“Event planner?” my mother’s voice was tight.
Not wanting to get Serena in trouble, I said, “No. That would be wrong. She could lose her job for that.”
Bri smirked. I hadn’t fooled her.
“You know, Devin, we all know that young men like to play the field a bit, but it’s time for you to get serious. You need to be more discriminating. There are women who’ll pretend to love you just to get at your money.”
I looked at my mother. “What do you think marrying Evie would be about? Pretending to love for money.”
“Not money. Breeding. Status. I know you think that’s not important, but it is.”
“They might be gold diggers,” Bri said.
“Thank you.” Maybe Bri was on my side after all.
“They might like him for his other assets.”
I choked on my potato.
“Are you being vulgar again?” my mother asked Bri.
“The point is, I’m not an idiot. If I can run a multi-million dollar business, I can probably pick a wife.” I shook my head. “Which I’m not doing, at least not anytime soon.”
“Why not?” my father asked. “There’s nothing wrong with settling down, son.”
“I’m not going to get married just to be married. You make it part of a job, when it’s a personal thing. To be honest, I’m not sure I ever want to marry.”
“I agree,” Bri said. “It’s more hassle than it’s worth. Plus, there’s lots of fish in the sea. How can you settle for just one?”
My mother looked like she might pass out. “We did everything right with these kids, why are they so ungrateful?” She asked my father.
“I wasn’t much different at his age. I just had more respect for my parents and the responsibility of the business,” my father said with a sharp eye on me. “You’ve come a long way since when you first went to Europe, but you still have a ways to go, starting with giving up this club idea and focusing on what has made Roarke restaurants world-renowned.”
“What’s that?” Bri asked deadpanned.
“Oh for goodness sake.” My mother patted her eyes with her napkin, a sure sign that she was getting teary. “Why can’t we just have a nice family dinner. Why do you have to ruin everything with your snark, Bri?”
Bri inhaled a breath. “Sorry Mom.” I could see her withdrawing into herself. For the rest of dinner she’d likely only give yes or no responses.
“This is a family dinner, right?” I said.
“Yes. That’s what I want.”
I shook my head. “No. What you want is a dinner in which Bri and I toe the line. If you want us to give lip service and placate you, we can. But if we’re having a family dinner, maybe you can let Bri and me be who we are, not who you want us to be.”
My father’s gaze cut to my mother. “They’re not wrong, Katherine.” Then he looked to Bri. “At the same time, you could learn some manners and respect.”
“I didn’t realize I was so difficult,” my mother said passive abrasively.
“Daddy, how did your appointment go today,” Bri asked ignoring my mother.
He shrugged. “Everything is about the same.”
“Is it really?” I asked. “Be honest, Dad.”
He glanced up at my mother.
“Your father is doing great,” she said in that way mothers did to hide just how bad things were.
“Is there something I can do?” I asked. My parents weren’t easy, but that didn’t mean I didn’t love them or wouldn’t want to help them in a time of need.
My father shook his head. “You’re a big help at the office.”
“Do we need to make changes at home? Maybe move your master bedroom downstairs?” I asked, knowing his mobility would slowly get worse.
“I don’t want to talk about this at dinner,” my mother said in a clipped tone.
Bri rolled her eyes, but thankfully didn’t respond.
I blew out a breath. “Okay. Well, then I’ll let you know that I’m moving out this weekend.”
“Why?” Bri pouted. “It’s more fun with you here.”
“I’m buying a place on Central Park West.”
“You don’t like it here?” my mother asked.
“Mom.” Bri couldn’t hide her annoyance. “How is it he’s old enough to get married, but not old enough to have his own place. In fact, it might improve his chances to get married if he moved out.”
“I don’t need your help,” I said to Bri. “I’m not trying to escape; I’m just wanting my own space.”
“We have plenty of space here.”
I wondered if my mother wanted me here because she loved me or because she wanted to keep me under the family rule.
The rest of the dinner went about the same. After dinner, I met with Bri to talk about the club plans, and then she headed out to see her friends. Back in my own room, I continued to work until deciding to get some sleep.
Once in bed, I remembered what my sister said about having my own place improving my prospects with women. I wondered if I’d convince Serena to see me at my new place and if so, would she stay the night?
Deciding to ask, I called her up.
“Hello?”
“You picked up.” It was the first time since my parents’ party I’d called or texted her and got a response. “That’s a good sign. Is it too late to call?”
“I’m just having a glass of wine and reading.”
That was something she could do at my place. “How busy this weekend are you?”
“Pretty busy, why?”
I couldn’t help but wonder if that was true. It seemed to be her standard answer. “I’m buying a place and thought you could come over and help me christen it.”
“I’m sorry. That sounds like it would be fun.” Her voice was quiet, which made me wonder if she had a roommate she was trying not to wake.
“If you come over, it would prove my sister right,” I said.
“About what?”
“My love life would improve.”
“Love life?”
Ah shit, maybe I shouldn’t have said love. “You know. My time with the ladies.”
“Ladies?”
“You, Serena. Maybe I’d get more time with you.”
There was a pause from her end that had my gut clenching in that way it always did when I felt like she was putting up a well.
“I wouldn’t mind that,” she finally said.
“By the way, I set them all straight about Evie. I even told them I was interested in someone.”
“Oh?” Her voice pitched up slightly, making me wonder if she was nervous about my mother knowing about her. Considering she knew my mother was a snob, I supposed I couldn’t blame her. “What did they say to that?”
“Bri guessed it was you, but I told her it wasn’t so it wouldn’t get back to your job.”
“Thank you.”
“My mother wanted to know who you were too, but I didn’t say anything. You know, if I were forty, I could see all their concern about me getting married, but I’m not even thirty.”
She sighed. “I think it’s in parents DNA to want their kids married.”
“So your parents do it to you?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I’m not sure I’ll ever get married, which will make my mother batshit crazy.” There was perverse joy in that idea.
“Really. You don’t see yourself ever getting married?”
I couldn’t read her tone. Was it a good thing or a bad thing that I wasn’t sure I wanted to tie myself down?
“I don’t know. What I’m taught about marriage doesn’t make it
appealing. I mean, my mom wants me to marry a woman simply because her family is old money. Love isn’t a factor.”
“So you’d marry for love?”
“Maybe. I don’t really see the purpose of it. I mean, marriage started as a business deal right? Father’s married off their daughters for money and title.”
“What about children?”
“I’m pretty sure that’s not in the cards for me.”
Again, there was a pause on the line. “You don’t like kids?”
“I like kids, I just don’t see myself having them. I certainly don’t want to have them simply to carry on the Roarke family name and business. Besides, I’m not sure I’m dad material.”
“Why not?”
“I’m too selfish, I suppose. Raising kids, done right, takes time.”
“Maybe your feelings would change if you had one.”
Was she talking me into having kids? That didn’t make sense because I could hardly talk her into dating me. Clearly she wasn’t eyeing me as long-term material.
“Maybe, but what if I had them and my feelings didn’t change? It wouldn’t be fair to some kid to have a dad like that.”
I suppose it was unusual to not want marriage or kids. Perhaps she’d think there was something wrong with me that I was concerned I wouldn’t love them the way I should. It was yet another reason that perhaps I should move on from Serena.
15
Serena
What was Devin wanting with me if he was never going to marry or have kids? Was it just a continuation from before? A fling with the girl from the wrong side of the socioeconomic tracks?
I suppose I should be glad that he saw this thing between us as not something that could develop into a committed relationship. After all, I couldn’t marry him and keep Andrew a secret. He couldn’t marry me and keep me a secret from his mother. On the other hand, I was sad, and yes, a little hurt, that he didn’t think I was marriage material.
His comments highlighted just how little he knew of the world average people lived in. He had choices in life that most people didn’t have. Money and influence were currencies that bought anything a man wanted, and could make inconveniences go away. After all, his mother had offered me a crapload of money to disappear.
“I guess you don’t have to worry about it. Men have choices like that,” I said to his comment about having a kid but not being able to commit to it.
“What do you mean? Women can choose too.”
“Not always. Not in the case of an unplanned pregnancy. There are many women out there who raise children without fathers because the fathers didn’t want to be bothered with it. Or sometimes they’re just not involved. Mother’s don’t have a choice to be involved or not.”
“In that situation, I like to think I’d step up. But given the choice to have kids or not, I think I’ll opt out.”
He’d step up to fatherhood out of duty, but not out of love. Considering that was what his parents were asking him to do by marrying a woman he didn’t love and taking over a business he hadn’t a choice in running, I almost felt like I was giving him a gift by keeping Andrew from him.
Don’t fool yourself, Serena, my conscience warned. He still has the right to know.
“I suspect you’re going to want a brood of kids,” he said.
“I’d like at least one.” I scoffed at myself for my answer.
“You probably want the whole shebang. Husband. Kids. Home with a picket fence.”
I sighed. “I suppose in an ideal world, all that would be nice. I totally wanted that for a time, but today, I’m older and wiser. I’ve learned that life doesn’t always turn out the way you plan.”
He was quiet for a moment and I wondered what I’d said that left him without a response. “Serena?”
“Hmm?”
“What happened to you?”
My hackles rose, feeling offended that he thought something was wrong with me. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, did someone hurt you? I hate the idea that something happened to you to change that free-spiritedness you’d had. I grew up so stifled and meeting you five years ago was like having my first breath of fresh air.”
Had things been different, his statement would have filled me with warmth. I’d loved that who I was brought life into his drab, ordered world. But things weren’t different. He’d brought me life too, in the form of a son, and I’d always cherish that. But it had been a significant change that meant I couldn’t be a free spirit. I had a child to house and feed. A college tuition to save for. And I had to be present as much as I could, so dating or a personal life just wasn’t in the cards.
“Just life, Devin. Like I said, responsibilities. Obligations. I can’t afford to be impulsive.”
“Is that what we were? Impulsive?”
For reasons I didn’t understand, tears came to my eyes. I supposed I was grieving the two young lovers five years ago. “Yes.”
“And now?”
“I don’t know what’s going on now, to be honest.”
He was quiet again for a moment. “Is it impulsive to feel drawn to a person? I have to sound like a cliché but I’m a fucking moth and you’re the flame. Is that impulsive?”
“I don’t know about impulsive, but there is danger in getting burned, isn’t there?”
“Fuck.”
Neither of us said anything for a time.
“I’m a selfish bastard.”
“Oh?” I said, curious about his statement.
“You and I want different things. If I was an honorable man, I’d wish you luck and let you go. I will if that’s what you want, but I meant what I said. I think of you all the fucking time.” He laughed in a way that made me think he was self-conscious or embarrassed about all he was revealing. “But I don’t want to hurt you and I’m afraid I will.”
My breath hitched because I knew the truth. I wasn’t the one who’d be hurt. “I feel the same.”
“That I’ll hurt you?”
“No. That I’ll hurt you. I already have, and I’m not sure I can stop.”
“We’re fucked then.”
I laughed even though I wanted to cry. “It appears so.”
The line was quiet again and I held my breath feeling like my entire future hinged on the next few things that we said.
“I guess I should go.”
I swallowed the lump as I realized this was it. We were going to end it now before anyone got hurt.
“Okay,” I managed.
“Okay.” But he didn’t hang up and neither did I. We sat in silence for what felt like an eternity, and yet when he finally said goodbye, felt too fast. As I hung up, I was reminded of the saying about being careful what you wished for. I just got my wish. Devin was giving me up. Andrew would be safe from his mother. Devin wouldn’t be forced to care for a child he didn’t know about or didn’t want. But it was true that wishes could be devastating because in that goodbye, I felt like I’d lost a dream.
When Devin hung up, I went to bed and cried. It was silly to cry, and yet I couldn’t help it. I felt like everything I’d ever wanted was within my reach and yet a million miles away. And all of it was my fault. Because I was a coward. Because I wasn’t a good enough person, I was hurting him.
I reached over and picked up my phone from the bedside table and sent him a text. I’m sorry. Then I curled into a ball and tried to get some sleep.
The next morning I woke to a return text.
Do you wish it was different?
At first I wasn’t sure what he meant, but then I decided he was asking if I wished our situation was different. If I wished we were in sync with our goals and lives.
My initial impulse was to lie or to say something to the effect that wishes didn’t matter, only the reality of our situation. But I felt like I owed him something of the truth. Or maybe I hoped it would lessen my guilt over my actions. Either way, I told him the truth.
Yes.
Then I put my phone down and did my morning rou
tine, which for once didn’t perk me up for the day. I got Andrew up and ready, and after taking him to my mother’s, I walked to the subway to head to work.
When I exited the station outside my building, my phone pinged with a text.
Do you think we’re capable of creating our own destiny?
Wow. How could I respond to that? Of course, I knew that we could affect our own futures, but we also were at the mercy of outside forces. The weather. The economy. Our own impulsive behavior that lead to unintended consequences. The last one was the big one in my life. I loved Andrew with all my heart and wouldn’t change a thing about having him. But he wasn’t part of my plan when he was conceived. Because he was the most important thing in my life right now, I couldn’t make plans that could hurt him. So while, yes, I thought I could set my own course in life, I did have boundaries within which I had to navigate.
Devin’s question seemed to suggest that he thought we could overcome our challenges. The problem was, he thought our only challenge was my job and the fact that we had different ideas about marriage and children. Those were not small issues. I liked my job. I wanted a husband someday. But the real problem was the fact that Devin was a father and didn’t know it. And to a lesser extent, fears around how his mother would treat Andrew. I had no clue how to overcome those challenges, at least not without risking losing Andrew.
It took me several tries to figure out a response. Finally I messaged back. Within limits.
I waited outside my work building for a reply, but after a few minutes when one didn’t arrive, I tucked my phone into my purse and headed inside and up to my office.
“Roarke St. Pat meeting in my office, ten minutes,” Nikita said as I made my way to my office.
“I’ll just put my things away and be right there.” In my office, I grabbed my notebook and folder for the event, took my phone from my purse and put it in my pocket, and then put my purse in my desk drawer. As I left my office for the meeting, my phone beeped.
I stopped in the middle of the hallway and pulled my phone out.
Can limits be pushed?
I read and reread his message knowing he was asking if there was any hope. My heart filled with emotion that he was trying so hard to find a way for us. I couldn’t figure out why he still cared after everything I’d put us through. Every fiber of my being ached to tell him that yes, limits could be pushed. That if we both wanted to be together we could, but the reality was when he learned the truth, it would likely destroy whatever feelings he had for me.
Heart of Hope: Books 1-4 Page 36