She was sitting on a beach, a bucket of sand on her lap, her face tipped back as she laughed up at whoever had taken the photo. It was like seeing a miniature Sophy, except for the hair. Lily’s was dark and wavy and, in this photo, wind-tossed. But her eyes were Sophy’s eyes—the same shape, the same color. “British sports car green,” he’d once called them. And her mouth wore a little girl’s version of the delighted, sparkling grin that, like Sophy’s, would make the world a brighter place. Her fingers were clutching the sides of the sand pail, and George remembered how her much tinier fingers had clutched his as she’d stared up at him in cross-eyed solemnity whenever he held her.
He blinked rapidly, his throat aching as he swallowed hard. When he was sure he could do it without sounding rusty, he lifted his gaze and said, “She’s very like you.”
Sophy nodded. “People say that,” she agreed. “Except her hair. She has y—Ari’s hair.”
Ari’s hair. Because Lily was Ari’s daughter. Not his.
For all that George had once dared to hope, like her mother Lily had never been his.
They both belonged to Ari—always had—no matter that his cousin had been dead since before Lily’s birth. Some things, George found, hurt more than the pounding in his head. He ran his tongue over his lips. “She looks happy.”
“She is.” Sophy’s voice was firm and confident now. “She’s a happy well-adjusted little girl. She’s actually pretty easygoing most of the time. Once she got over the three-month mark, she stopped having colic and settled down. I managed,” she added, as if it needed saying.
He supposed she thought it did. She’d had something to prove when she’d told him to get out. And she’d obviously proved it.
Now he took a breath. “I’m glad to hear it.” George took one last look at the picture then held it out to her.
“You can have it,” she said. “I can print another one. If you want it,” she added a second later, as if he might not.
“Thanks. Yes, I’d like it.” He studied it again for a long moment before turning slowly in an attempt to set it on the table next to the bed.
Sophy reached out and took it from him, standing it up against his water pitcher so he could see it if he turned his head. “There.” She stepped back again. “She can…watch over you.” As soon as she said the words, she ducked her head, as if she shouldn’t have. “You should get some rest.”
“We’ll see.”
“No ‘we’ll see.’ You should,” she said firmly.
He didn’t reply, and she seemed to realize that was something else she shouldn’t have said, that she had no right to tell him what he should or shouldn’t do. “Sorry,” she said briskly. “None of my business.” She turned toward the door again. “Goodbye.”
He almost called her back a second time. But it would simply prolong the awkwardness between them. And when you got right down it, there was nothing else.
It had been kind of her to have come—even if it was simply “payback” on her part. Still, it was more than he would have expected.
No, that was unfair.
She might not love him, but she was tenderhearted. Sophy would do the right thing for anyone she perceived to be in need—even the man she resented more than anyone on earth.
He didn’t need her, he reminded himself. He’d lived without her for nearly four years. He could live without her for the rest of his life. All he had to do was end things now as he should have done four years ago.
“Sophy!”
This time she was beyond the door and when she turned, she looked back with something akin to impatience in her gaze. “What?”
He made it clear—to both of them. “Don’t worry. It will never happen again. As soon as I get out of here, I’ll file for divorce.”
Chapter Two
OF COURSE GEORGE would get a divorce.
The only surprise as far as Sophy was concerned, was that he hadn’t got one already. But even accepting the fact, Sophy felt her knees wobble as she walked away from George’s room.
She moved automatically, going to fetch her duffel, which one of the nurses had allowed her to leave in a storage area near the nurses’ station. But when she got there, her hands were shaking so much that she nearly brought down a load of paper supplies while trying to pull the duffel’s handle out.
“Here. Let me help you.” The nurse who had let her put it there in the first place took the duffel’s handle, slid it out and pulled it easily out of the storage space. She tipped it toward Sophy, then looked at her closely. “Are you all right?”
“Yes, sure. Fine. Just…tired.” Something of an understatement. “It’s all right,” Sophy murmured. “I’m fine. Truly.” She did her best visibly to pull herself together so the nurse could see she was telling the truth. She shoved her hair away from her face and tried to smile. “I just need some sleep.”
“Of course you do. It’s been a bit traumatic. You go home now and get some sleep. Don’t worry.” She patted Sophy’s arm. “We’ll take care of your husband.”
Sophy opened her mouth to correct the nurse, but what could she say? And why? Even though she wouldn’t let herself think of George that way, it was impossible to lie to herself, impossible to say that walking into his hospital room had left her unaffected.
The very moment she’d laid eyes on him this morning, the years since she’d seen him fell away as if they’d never existed.
And even worse was the realization that, however desperately she might wish it, she wasn’t over him at all.
When she’d walked into the hospital room to see George lying there, his head bandaged, his arm in a sling, his whisker-shadowed jaw bruised, his normally tanned face unnaturally pale, she felt gutted—exactly the same way she’d felt seeing her daughter fall off the jungle gym at her preschool.
The sight of Lily slipping and tumbling, then lying motionless on the ground, had shattered Sophy’s world. That same sickening breathlessness had hit her again at the sight of George in his hospital bed.
The difference was that Lilly, having landed on wood chips that cushioned her fall, had only had the wind knocked out of her. Seconds later, she’d bounced up again none the worse for wear.
But George hadn’t moved.
It was early when she’d arrived, straight from the airport, still stiff and groggy from a sleepless night on the plane. He should have been asleep. But it looked like such an unnatural sleep. And Sophy had stopped dead in the doorway, clutching the doorjamb as she stood watching him never flutter so much as an eyelash. She had been too far away to see the rise and fall of his chest.
She must have looked stricken because the nurse had said, “Watch the monitor.” Its squiggly line was moving up and down jerkily. But at least it proved he was breathing because absolutely nothing else did.
“You can wake him if you want,” this same nurse had said.
But Sophy had shaken her head. If George wasn’t dead yet, the sight of her first thing when he opened his eyes might very well do it for him.
“No. Let him sleep,” she said in a voice barely above a whisper. “I’ll just wait.”
“If he’s not awake in an hour, I’ll be back. We have to wake him regularly to see how he responds and if he remembers everything.”
No doubt about his memory, Sophy thought grimly now.
She turned to the nurse. “He thinks he’s going to leave today, to go to work. The doctor wouldn’t really let him…”
The nurse smiled. “I don’t think you need to worry about that. They’ll be watching him today and probably tomorrow. You should go home now and get some rest. Come back this afternoon. Chances are he’ll be much brighter by then.” She gave Sophy one more encouraging smile, then checked her beeper and hurried down the hall.
Sophy stood there with her overnight bag and her briefcase and realized she didn’t have a home to go to.
Home was three thousand miles away.
On the other hand, why shouldn’t she go home? What was keeping
her here? George had clearly dismissed her. As far as he was concerned, she needn’t have bothered to come in the first place.
And she certainly wasn’t going to come back this afternoon. She’d done her duty. “Payback,” he’d called it.
And he’d rejected it. Consider it paid, he’d said.
That was fine with her. Shooting one last glance toward his room, she turned and wheeled her overnight bag down the hall to the elevator and pressed the button and waited, trying to keep her eyes open and stifle a yawn.
She was in the midst of the latter when the elevator door opened. There were several people in it, but only one, a young, dark-haired, very pregnant woman, swept out, then stopped dead and stared at her.
“Sophy?”
Sophy blinked, startled. “Tallie?”
“Oh, my God, it is you!” And before Sophy could do more than close her gaping mouth, George’s sister, Tallie, swept her into a fierce delighted hug. “You’ve come back!”
“Well, I—” But whatever protest she might have made was muffled by the enthusiastic warmth of Tallie’s embrace. And Sophy couldn’t do much more than hug her back. It was no hardship in any case. She’d always adored George’s sister. Losing the right to count Tallie as her sister-in-law had been one of the real pains of the end of her marriage.
Before she could say anything, a firm thump against her midsection had Sophy jumping back. “Was that the baby?” She looked at Tallie, wide-eyed.
Tallie laughed. “Yes. My girl likes her space.” She rubbed her burgeoning belly affectionately. “This one’s a girl. But more about her later. It’s so good to see you.” She gave Sophy another fierce hug, but was careful to move back before the baby kicked again. “George should get run over by trucks more often.”
“No.” Even for the pleasure of seeing Tallie again, she didn’t want that.
“Well, not really.” Tallie laughed with a shake of her head. “But if it brings you home—” She beamed at Sophy.
“I’m not ‘home,’” Sophy said quickly. “I’m just…here. For the moment. I got a call from the doctor last night. When George was unconscious they needed his next of kin’s permission for any medical procedures, and because we’re not officially divorced—yet—that was me. And so—” she shrugged “—I came.”
“Of course you did,” Tallie said with blithe confidence. “Besides, it’s about time. How is he?” Her smile faded a bit and she looked concerned. “He wouldn’t let me come see him last night.”
“He looks like he’s been hit by a truck,” Sophy said. If Tallie hadn’t seen him yet, Sophy wanted to prepare her. “Seriously. He’s pretty battered. But coherent,” she added when Tallie’s expression turned worried.
“He flat-out refused to let us come last night. Well, there’s only Elias and me around. Mom and Dad are in Santorini. And none of the boys—” her other brothers, Theo, Demetrios and Yiannis, she meant “—are here. So he was safe. He probably wouldn’t have contacted me at all if he hadn’t needed someone to take care of Gunnar.”
“Gunnar?”
“His dog.”
George had a dog? That was a surprise. “Did he rescue it?” Sophy asked.
Tallie frowned. “I don’t think so. I think he got him as a puppy. Why?”
Sophy shook her head. “Never mind. I was just—never mind.” She could hardly say, Because George rescues things. Tallie wouldn’t understand.
George’s sister shoved a strand of hair away from her face. “He said to go to his place and feed Gunnar, put him out and absolutely don’t come to the hospital. He didn’t need me hovering.” She shook her head.
“George is an idiot,” she went on with long-suffering sisterly fondness. “As if I would hover. Well, I will. But at least I waited until this morning. I’ll go annoy him for a few minutes, just to let him know he can’t push me around. And because the rest of the family will fuss and worry if someone hasn’t set eyes on him in the flesh. But now you’ve come, you take the keys.” She dug in the pocket of her maternity pants and thrust a set of keys into Sophy’s hand.
“Me?” Immediately Sophy tried to hand them back. “They’re not mine,” she protested. “I can’t take George’s keys!”
“Why not? Because you and George are separated? Big deal.”
“We’re not separated! We’re divorcing. I thought we already were,” Sophy said. “Divorced,” she clarified.
“But you’re not? Good. Easier to work things out,” Tallie said with the confidence of someone who had done just that and was living happily ever after. “Elias and I—”
“Were not married when you went your own ways,” Sophy said firmly. “It is not the same thing. And I can’t take George’s keys.” She tried to hand them back again, but a yawn caught her by surprise and so she ended up covering her mouth instead.
“You’re exhausted,” Tallie said. “How long have you been here?”
“Not that long. A couple of hours. I got into LaGuardia before dawn.”
“You took a red-eye? Did you get any sleep at all?”
“Not really,” Sophy admitted. “But I’m hoping I will on the way home.”
Tallie looked appalled. “On the way home? What? You’re going home now?”
Sophy shrugged. “He doesn’t need me here. Or want me here. He made that quite clear.”
Tallie snorted dismissively. “What does he know? Besides, it doesn’t matter if he needs you or wants you. I do.”
“You? What do you mean?”
“You, my dear Sophy, are going to save my life,” Tallie told her, taking her by the arm and steering her to a pair of chairs where they could sit.
“Don’t you want to see George?” Sophy said hopefully.
“In a minute. First I want to get you on your way.” The CEO Tallie had once been came through loud and clear. “I need your help.”
“What sort of help?”
“George, bless his heart, thinks that I can simply drop my life and take over the running of his. And admittedly, there might have been a time I could have done it,” Tallie said with a grin. “But that time is not now. Not with three little boys, a baby due in three weeks, a homemade bakery business that has orders up the wazoo, orders I need to get taken care of before the arrival of my beautiful baby girl—” Tallie rubbed her belly again “—not to mention a husband who, while tolerant, does not consider sharing me with a dog for more than one night to be the best allocation of my time.
“Besides,” she went on before Sophy could say a word, “he has to go to Mystic for a boat launch this afternoon. He took the kids to school, but I need to be home to get Nick and Garrett from kindergarten and Digger from preschool. I was planning to bake today before I had to go get them. And I’d take Gunnar home but he doesn’t get along with the rabbit, er, actually vice versa. So—” she took a breath and gave Sophy a bright, hopeful smile “—what do you say? Will you save me? Please?”
Sophy was even more exhausted just thinking about it. She swallowed another yawn.
“And you can sleep while you’re there,” Tallie said triumphantly.
“George won’t like it.”
“Who’s telling George?” Tallie raised both brows.
Not me, Sophy thought. She should say no. It was the sane, safe, sensible thing to do. The less she had to do with George or any of his family before the divorce was final, the less likely she was to be hurt again.
But life, as she well knew, wasn’t about protecting yourself. It was about doing what needed to be done. “Payback” wasn’t always what you thought it would be. It didn’t mean you had a right not to do it.
“All right,” she said resignedly. “I’ll do it. But as soon as George can come home, I’m leaving.”
“Of course,” Tallie said, all grateful smiles. “Absolutely.”
Sophy hadn’t let herself think about where George might be living ever since he’d walked out of her life.
If she’d wanted to guess, she’d have picked some sterile but ext
remely functional apartment where he’d be called upon to do as little interaction with his environment as possible.
She couldn’t have been more wrong.
George had a brownstone on the Upper West Side. Not just an efficient studio in a brownstone or even a complete floor-through apartment. George owned the whole five-story building.
And while most of the brownstones in the neighborhood had long since been subdivided into flats, George’s had not.
“When he came home he said he wanted a house,” Tallie told her. “And he got one.”
He had indeed. And what a one it was.
Sophy stopped on the sidewalk in front of the wide stoop and stared openmouthed at the elegant well-maintained facade. It had big bay windows on the two floors above the garden entrance, and two more floors above that with three identical tall narrow arched windows looking south across the tree-lined street at a row of similar brownstones.
It had the warm, tasteful, elegant yet friendly look that the best well-kept brownstones had. And to Sophy, whose earliest memories of home were the days spent in her grandparents’ brownstone in Brooklyn, it fairly shouted the word home.
It was exactly the sort of family home she’d always dreamed of. She’d babbled on about it to George in the early days of their marriage. He’d been preoccupied with work, of course. Not listening. At least she hadn’t thought he was listening…
No, of course he hadn’t been. It was coincidence.
All the same it wasn’t helpful. Not helpful at all.
At least, she thought as she climbed the steps, the sound of a ferocious dog barking his head off on the other side of the front door belied any homey feelings that threatened to overtake her.
So that was Gunnar.
He sounded as if he wanted to have her for brunch.
“He’s lovely,” Tallie had said. “Adores George.”
But apparently he wasn’t keen on rabbits—except perhaps for meals—and the jury was still out on what he thought of her.
Good thing she liked dogs, Sophy thought, fitting the key in the lock and putting on her most upbeat, confident demeanor. She had no idea if it would convince Gunnar. She just hoped she convinced herself long enough to make his acquaintance.
Hired by Her Husband Page 3