by Liz Crowe
“Cara,” he said. “Si prega di non essere arrabbiato con me.”
I glared at him. “Don’t go Italian on me, mister. I’m immune, remember?” He held out an arm. Usually my signal to tuck into his side and wrap my arms around his waist. I stayed put on the opposite side of the giant, mostly unused kitchen. We went out for most meals, on the rare occasions we were home at the same time.
“Why me? I mean … did you …”
“I loved you, yes,” he insisted. “I do. It’s …” He rubbed the back of his neck again—a nervous tick I’d learned to interpret as guilt. His gaze hardened and he straightened to his full, impressive, six-foot-five inches. “It was you who never loved me. You loved what I did for you, I’m sure. But …” He shrugged. “Your heart, it’s with another.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I said, throwing up my hands even as I knew he spoke the God’s truth.
“Don’t curse, my love. It’s unbecoming.” He leaned against the granite counter, arms crossed, face neutral. “It’s all right. I understand.”
“No, you’re full of shit. You’re compartmentalizing and making excuses for whatever you’ve been doing outside our marriage.” I walked up to him and went up on my tiptoes to stare him in the eyes. “Who. Is. She?”
He gripped my arms and pushed me away. “Collette,” he said. “And she’s already pregnant so …” He gestured at my uncooperative body. “There you are.”
I stepped away, unprepared for the rush of sickening jealousy that rose up from my toes in a hot wave until it hit my brain.
“I’m leaving,” I said, not really stopping to think to where I might go at that point.
His eyes narrowed. “No, you aren’t. Stay here. I’m going. There will be papers for you to sign in the morning. If you expect to reap anything from these last few years, I suggest you sign them fast.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Fuck you and reaping anything from this … this …” I waved my arms around, fury leaving me almost speechless, “… this farce.”
“Ah, the truth. It always will out.” He thumbed my chin, kissed my nose, picked up his watch and pen again and walked out of the house.
Without a thought in my head but to remove myself from this empty, echoing nightmare of a life, I grabbed my purse, threw a few things into one of the many designer suitcases in my closet, and got behind the wheel of my expensive German sports car. As I gunned it out of the garage, I noted the gas gauge pinned at empty. Still not even contemplating where in the hell I was driving, I pulled into the closest gas station. When my credit card got rejected a few times, I knew Marco was good as his word.
Luckily, I’d kept a few bucks of my own money in my New York bank. It had gone untouched and gathering a bit of interest over the past few years, so I dug out my old debit card and used the machine inside the station.
Glancing down at the key fob in my hand, I closed my fingers around it, then tossed it to the cashier. “Enjoy it,” I said on my way out the door. “But it needs gas.”
Once I’d checked into a half-decent hotel near the airport, I bought a bottle of cheap wine and drank it all, staring at the fumes and the dust and catching a whiff of what I’d loved so much about Florida under all the stench of failure filling my room. Gardenias, mixed with the tang of the ocean … if I closed my eyes I could even smell the pool chemicals and the expensive coffee that would be ready every morning for me … and for Marco of course.
He sent me one text: “The papers will be sent to your home in Kentucky. I assume that is where you’re headed.”
A screamed and threw my phone against the wall, then cried myself to drunken sleep. A muffled buzzing noise woke me. Confused by my surroundings and wondering why I couldn’t smell the morning coffee, I leaned over the side of the bed and retrieved the phone, noting the word “Lindsay” on the incoming call. With a sigh, I put the thing to my ear.
“Angel,” she said. “Honey, are you all right?”
“No, Mama, I’m not.” I burst into useless tears again. She waited me out. When I could form words I said, “He left me. I couldn’t have a baby. Or I was getting too old, I don’t know. Shit.” I was sitting cross-legged on the bed, and caught sight of my reflection in the mirror over the cheap chest of drawers. My hair was straggly, my face puffy. I looked like a loser—pretty much exactly what I was, I supposed.
“Come on home, then.”
“No.” I got up and started pacing. “I can get work down here. I need to stay here.”
“Well, that’s your choice, of course,” she sounded distant, yet nosy at the same time. The complexity of this tone put me in familiar territory. “But I have to tell you …”
A sharp knock on the door made me frown. “Mama,” I said, trying to peer through the peephole. “What have you done?”
“Just what I think is right for my children.”
“Oh, Jesus,” I said, slumping against the wall. “How did you find out where I am?”
“Your husband called Kieran and told him you’d run off and where you were—did you know he tracks your location from your phone? Amazing. Anyway, Kieran told Dom. Dom told Diana. Diana told her sister. She told Cal. It’s the way of our world, or have you forgotten? Anyway, Cal apparently wondered out loud why it was any of his business where you were anymore, and rightly so. But Kieran somehow convinced him to come down there to get you, the poor man.”
I hung up on her. “Go away, Cal,” I said to the closed door. “Go back home. I don’t need saving.”
“Let me in, Angelique,” he said.
The sound of his voice, something I thought I’d long discarded as no longer relevant for me, made something in my chest give way. I slapped a hand over my mouth to keep from saying anything else.
He knocked again. “Your brother made me come all this way. At least let me in to take a piss.”
I jerked the door open. Calvin stood there, looking travel-rumpled but perfect in his ubiquitous khakis and button down shirt. He had new, deeper, worry lines on his forehead. And a wedding ring on his left hand. I blinked at it, cursing myself for thinking that a fine a catch such as this man would sit around pining and waiting for me to get over myself and realize what I had right in front of my face.
“Come on in,” I said, relieved and jealous and furious with myself all over again.
Chapter Twenty-Two
New York City
Two Years Later
“Come on, Angel, I told you what time to be here.” Aiden’s voice grated on my nerves, but I forced a smile, reminding myself that at least one of the Love family members had a right to be a diva. His fourth book had just been released, and he was in New York for a book signing.
He’d brought the whole damn family, and I’d promised them tickets to one of the big shows, thanks to my connections, since I worked in the promotions department for the theater in question.
I sighed and spun my chair, wishing I had the nerve to open my own dance studio, and recalling the conversation I had with Gayle about her planned expansion in Lexington.
“Come home, Angelique,” she’d pleaded with me. “I need your help.”
But I was not going home. I couldn’t face it and all it represented for me, especially knowing Calvin and his wife lived there.
In the two years since my divorce, I’d maintained as much distance as I could, skipping the Love family Christmas with excuses about busy seasons and whatnot involving my new, lame-ass job that at least allowed me to stay in the city. But this year, I knew I’d get roped into the melee. I had about six weeks to figure a way out, but part of me didn’t want to do that.
“All right, all right, hold your water,” I said, grabbing my purse and heading out into the cool, early November air. “I’m coming. I’m just a few blocks away.”
“Hurry, will ya?” He hung up.
Deciding that to walk there would be quicker and cheaper than hailing and paying for a cab, I started hoofing it toward the big Barnes and Noble, where, I was told,
they’d had to issue tickets for the A.L. Amatore book reading and signing.
Aiden had taken our father’s family’s old country name as his pen name. The movie based on his first book, the one chronicling our parents’ wild and crazy start as a couple, was being filmed in and around a horse farm in Virginia, since hardly any decent farms remained in Kentucky.
I’d stayed in touch with Cal after he made that trip down to Florida, catching me at my absolute worst. He and his wife, another doctor he’d met and dated in med school, after I took a powder and mailed him his ring back like the loser I was, lived in Louisville now, with a mortgage, a dog, probably even a white picket fence. But no kids. A fact that gave me a completely inappropriate sense of satisfaction. I tried not to resent the hell out of the woman, considering I’d never met her. I usually failed.
The whole family was descending on my city for this weekend, complete with kids, teenagers, the works. I’d dreaded it like the very plague, but now that the big day had arrived, I found myself looking forward to guiding everyone around, taking them to a show, to some great restaurants, seeing the familiar-to-me sights through their fresh, un-cynical eyes.
I noted the long line out the door of the bookstore, and experienced a thrill of pride for my youngest brother. Although I was also a little squeamish about having my parents’ early lives splashed all over the big screen. Aidan had used different names, but it was well known that he’d based it on their story.
Sometimes, especially lately, a waitress or checkout girl would do a double take at the sight of my name, then shoot me a knowing smile, or flat-out ask me if that sexy Italian stable hand was my father.
I hadn’t read the book, and I didn’t think any of my brothers had, either—even Kieran, the one among them who actually read books.
But today was all about Aiden, “Little A,” as he’d been referred to until he got old and big enough to put a stop to it.
His wife, Rosie, and their kids—Jeff, now an angst-riddled teen, and Mandy, their energetic little girl who’d apparently decided she wanted to be a horsewoman like her grandmother—had been flown in by his publisher and put up at an expensive downtown hotel. He was doing the circuit—national morning talks shows, a few late night ones, and two big signings. Today was the first.
By the time I got past the guy at the door by by flashing my VIP pass and made it up to the second floor, everyone was there.
Mama and Daddy had flown in with Antony, Kieran, Margot, and Cara, along with all their kids.
Dominic and Diana drove up with Jace and LeeAnn, planning to leave their kids with various aunts and uncles and cousins while they spent a week at a bed and breakfast near Ithaca. A working vacation, Dom claimed, since he was guest brewing at a famous craft brewery up there. They’d been married for nearly six years, after a rudimentary justice of the peace blessing, but had never gone on a honeymoon. Too busy with the brewery and the expansion of the pub menu, since Diana had taken over that kitchen, they claimed. Kieran said Dom said they believed it would be a jinx to have a ceremony, which made our mama nuts, but she adored Diana so she stayed mostly quiet on the subject.
I hugged everyone, exclaimed over kids, including AliceLynn’s new baby. I’d been the maid of honor at her wedding right after my divorce. That had been, in a word, humiliating.
“You’re late,” Mama said, and rubbed something off my cheek with her finger.
“Don’t spit shine me.” I ducked out of her reach.
She frowned, then sighed, shouldering her purse and glaring at the growing crowd. “I hate these things,” she said. Daddy put an arm around her and kissed her forehead. “How’s the job?”
“Fine,” I said, unwilling to explain how much I hated it.
The doors had finally opened, and the long line was moving forward, headed to the escalators. Rosie gave Aiden one more kiss, then herded her kids over to us. Mandy latched on to her grandma.
“Let’s go find a horse book,” she insisted. Mama smiled and smoothed her curly brown hair.
I glanced over my shoulder and spotted Antony with his son, Josh, Mandy’s counterpoint cousin, born within hours of each other. The boy had his mother Margot’s looks, coolly blond with ice blue eyes, but the Love family jawline and chin dimple. Since he was growing into his father’s attitude, I knew they were in for a seriously wild ride once he discovered how his stark, aloof good looks would be catnip to girls.
Kieran had Sean, his youngest, on his shoulders. Cara stood next to Frankie, their oldest. Margot was fussing over AliceLynn’s baby nearby.
My breath caught in my throat at the sight of them all. Desire for stability, a good man, and a family had been consuming me lately. I figured it was my biological clock, tick-tocking away within my apparently barren body. Explicit and constant dreams about Calvin Morrison woke me nearly every night, leaving me pissed off, feeling sorry for myself, and insomniac.
A sharp smack on my butt made me shriek. Dom stood behind me, shit-eating grin on his face. Diana walked over to hug my parents. Jace had her little girl LeeAnn by the hand. The child was the spitting image of her father, Lee, the vet. I wondered how Dominic could stand it. But we all knew LeeAnn had him so tightly wrapped around her tiny finger, he was a total goner. Which, the entire Love family executive board agreed, was about damn time.
We all turned to look at our youngest brother Aiden, who was sitting, sipping water, and looking sheepish at the sight of the masses of people who’d come to hear him read and have him autograph their book.
“Fucking bookworm,” Dom said, his grin getting wider. “I always knew he had ‘famous’ written all over him.”
My sense of peace in the presence of my entire family ought to have been a warning. Nothing was ever this calm or perfect or wonderful for the Love family.
I saw her first.
I don’t know why I picked her out of the crowd. I’d been talking to Cara and Kieran while their little boys raced around the room, ostensibly being watched by the older cousins.
“Got a promotion,” Kieran was saying.
“Oh?” I’d said, preoccupied for some reason with a woman in the line waiting with the latest A.L. Amatore novel tucked under one arm. I frowned, wondering why she was bugging me. “Oh, wait, you’re gonna be principal? Of our old high school? Wow. Weird.”
“Yeah,” he said, grinning. “And there’s more.” He waggled his eyebrows at me. Cara elbowed him. “Ooof, hey, what’s that for?”
“We weren’t going to say yet, Francis,” she used the short form of his middle name in a way that made me smile. “This is Aiden’s weekend, remember? Besides, it’s a total accident,” she said to me. “I’m too damn old. Sean’s almost nine already. My doctor is pissed off at me. That’s such a weird thing, making your doctor mad.”
“Everything’s a competition with these knuckleheads,” I reminded her.
She touched her stomach in a way that told me her news without words. I hugged her tight. “I think it’s great, Cara. I know you wanted another one, and you’re not too old, I’m sure.”
She pulled away, looking at me funny. Embarrassed to be caught being emotional when I knew damn well I was flat-out jealous of all this flipping wonderfulness. Where was mine? I wondered. I didn’t want to think that way, but I did anyway.
You have what you want, Angelique, remember? You live in New York City. You don’t have to deal with your mother every day. Hell, you barely deal with her twice a year anymore. Shut up and quit moping.
I looked for her just then. I’m not sure why. Maybe to reassure myself that keeping my distance was the best way, justifying my self-inflicted isolation by catching her bossing somebody around or doing her passive-aggressive nosy thing with one of my brothers or their wives or kids. When I finally caught sight of her, she was standing behind Aiden, her hands on the back of his chair. Daddy was next to her. They were staring at that girl I’d been fixated on earlier, the one now at the front of the line with the book under arm.
I g
rabbed Kieran’s arm and jerked my chin in the direction of the tableau at the book-signing table. Aiden’s agent stood slowly, then glanced over where the rest of the Loves were milling around, being the semi-celebs we were, thanks to my brother’s first book.
Mama’s expression made me worry the girl had a gun or something.
“Ow,” Kieran said calmly, peeling my fingers off his biceps. “What’s going on?”
The agent lady turned to face us and made a “come over here” motion. I glanced around. Antony was talking to Dom and holding his grandbaby. Kieran sidled over to them and said something I couldn’t hear. Antony tried to hand the baby to me, but Cara stepped in and took her.
The room was getting louder by the second. Confused, with a strange buzzing sound filling my head, I looked at the autograph seekers. They were restive, craning their necks and talking to one another. Aiden’s agent walked around the table and started down the line. They seemed somewhat placated by whatever she was telling them.
I stood, bracketed by my brothers. Aiden rose to this feet, pointed at the girl, then turned to glare at our mother. He was obviously furious. I’d never seen such an expression on his face before. It sent a bolt of panic straight through me.
“Let’s go,” Antony said, striding toward the table. Kieran and Dom followed him. I stood, frozen, unable to imagine what could have made Aiden so mad. Someone gave me a little shove from behind.
“Go on, Angel,” Diana whispered. “Looks like a family thing. And whether you want to admit it or not, you’re part of the family.”
I frowned at her. She’d not exactly avoided me since the whole Cal debacle, but since I hadn’t really made myself available to the family for so many years, she didn’t have to. Her face was grim, her jaw set. “Please. Go on over, and then come and report to the women, at least?” Her expression softened into pleading.
I nodded, then walked toward the family crowd now blocking Aiden from my view. About halfway there I heard raised voices. One of them was Aiden’s agent. “Listen, folks, we really need to get this line moving again. People have come a long way to meet Aiden. We can have this discussion after.” Her New York accent grated on my ears. But Aiden didn’t move. He still had his arm up. His finger was still pointed at the girl—woman, I amended—now that I was closer. I did a double take when I got a closer look.