Wanting Cat back in his life.
Just plain wanting Cat.
Cat told Adam the day after she got back to San Francisco that she couldn’t marry him.
He’d come over after work, delighted that she’d realized it was time to come home, less delighted when she gave him back his ring.
“It’s not you. It’s me,” she assured him.
And being Adam and totally confident in his own appeal, he believed her. He even smiled faintly. “I thought you were having second thoughts when you dragged your feet looking for a dress. You knew the society life wasn’t for you.”
Was that what had done it? Hadn’t it been Yiannis at all?
It was a comforting thought. Cat hoped that Adam knew her better than she knew herself.
“You’ll still come to the ball with me, won’t you?”
She blinked. “You still want me to?”
“Well, you have a dress now, and I don’t have a date.” He spread his hands and gave her a hopeful smile.
And Cat, surprised but also surprisingly rational, decided she could do that. “I’m not changing my mind—”
“I understand.”
“—and if you’re sure you want me to.”
“Of course. Why not?”
Indeed, why not? She had nothing else to look forward to. And it gave her something to talk to Gran about when she called her on the phone in the evening. She didn’t mention breaking the engagement. There would be time for that when she saw Gran in person.
She didn’t think Gran would be that surprised. Or unhappy.
She wasn’t unhappy herself. Not about breaking things off with Adam.
It was Yiannis she was unhappy about, Yiannis whom she couldn’t get out of her mind day or night. Three years ago when she’d left after he’d declared he had no interest in marriage, she’d done her best to move on as quickly as possible, to not let herself think about him, to resolutely put him out of her mind.
“How’d that work for you?” she asked herself sardonically now.
Well, it hadn’t.
So now she faced the emotions squarely. She let herself wallow in her misery. She dragged out every memory and played it over and over in her mind. She remembered the laughter, the loving. She remembered the tears.
Maybe, if she wallowed long enough, she’d get fed up, get over it. But she suspected she wouldn’t. She feared that she’d be spending her life missing Yiannis, unless God somehow granted her amnesia.
It was a good thing she had the kids at the library story hours. There was no way you could be miserable around kids. They were so relentlessly in the moment that she had to be, too. And if the two-year-old boy called Jackson in her Wednesday morning story hour reminded her of Harry so much that she got a lump in her throat every time she looked at him, he also made her laugh.
But she was afraid, as she sat the next evening on the sofa beneath the window, sipping her tea and watching old Mrs Wang on the porch across the street combing her cat, that in another fifty years that would be her.
It wasn’t a comforting thought.
His parents’ marriage was not his problem.
Yiannis tried telling himself that all night. But as much as he tried to make himself believe it, he didn’t.
He’d taken them for granted his whole life. They were the ones who had given him the love and support—and family—he had always depended on. Cat had envied him—and he hadn’t understood why. Until now.
Now he felt he owed it to her—as well as to them—to do whatever he could to bring them together again.
But they didn’t make it easy for him.
His mother denied that she was throwing away her life. “I’m getting my life,” she said. “I’ve spent the last forty years living your father’s.”
“You don’t love him?” He felt ill. And talking about love unnerved him. But somehow it was important to ask. Important to know.
“Of course I love him, the stupid old goat! But I don’t love his businesses. And I don’t love him being so selfish that he does what he wants without caring how it affects anyone else! I love him, but I’m going to lose him.” She blinked furiously and swiped at her eyes.
“You’re not going to lose him. You’re divorcing him.”
“Because I refuse to sit by and watch him kill himself.”
“It’s better to leave?” He couldn’t see that.
“Yes,” his mother said firmly. “It is. Staying is killing me a little bit every day.”
The whole debacle was killing him, Yiannis thought grimly by the next night when his father still hadn’t called and his mother had shown no signs of weakening.
But the more he listened, the more he understood her feelings. She and Cat had a lot in common. They were both loving, giving women—until pushed beyond the breaking point. Which meant that he had a lot more in common with his father than he wanted to believe. They were both selfish, blind, stubborn men.
He didn’t want to call his father. They hadn’t had much to say to each other in years. His father was, as his mother said, all about business. And once Socrates had determined that Yiannis was not going to be the child to pick up the reins of the family business and allow his father to run not only the business, but his life, he’d largely ignored him.
But he’d been there. Both his parents had been there for him and for his siblings so completely that he’d never ever given their support a thought. He owed them.
“I’m going to call Dad, Ma,” he said.
It was just past seven o’clock Thursday night, past ten in New York provided his father was there. Time enough for him to finally get home from the office if he was coming. As the hours passed his mother had looked sadder and more depressed than ever.
Now she looked up at him, her mouth pressed in a thin tight line. Her face was bleak. She didn’t say a word.
“If you don’t want me to, you’re going to have to tell me no now,” he said, not sure if he prayed she would—or wouldn’t.
She sighed, then bent her head over her clicking needles. He thought he heard her say, “I don’t know what good it will do.”
Yiannis didn’t know, either. He stood in the doorway watching her for a long moment. He told himself again that it wasn’t his fight. But that wasn’t true.
It was.
He loved his mother. He loved his irascible driven father. He loved all his siblings, his countless aunts and uncles and cousins—all his family, even the ones he wished wouldn’t drop in on him without warning.
He loved them without thinking, without ever contemplating what his life would be like without them. He couldn’t imagine life without them.
He would do this for all of them. And for himself.
And for Cat.
Because he was finally beginning to understand what drove her. He thought he knew now what she’d hoped he would say on Tuesday morning. And it had nothing to do with Adam. It had to do with Yiannis’s own growing realization of how much she meant to him, how much he loved her.
He wanted to tell her. Needed to tell her.
But he couldn’t. Not yet. Not until he’d stopped being selfish and at least made the effort to get his parents to talk to each other.
So he drew a breath, girded his loins, laid on all the emotional armor he could manage and went into his workshop where it was private, and called his father.
“Dad,” he said when Socrates picked up on the first ring and his father’s gruff voice barked, “Savas,” in his ear. “It’s Yiannis.”
There was a split second’s hesitation. Then, “Do you know where your mother is?”
Yiannis breathed again. “As a matter of fact I do.” Another breath. “She’s here.”
“In California?” His father sounded somewhere been gutted and relieved. “What the hell is she doing there? You sick?”
“No. She is,” Yiannis said, daring to be blunt because he knew his father. “Of you.”
There was a stunned silence. Then bluster.
But Yiannis knew that bluster. He’d done his own share.
“Stop being so damn selfish.”
“Selfish? I work sixty hours a week. More. I do it for her. For you!”
“Yes. And for you, too,” Yiannis corrected him. “It’s what you bring to the family, yes? It makes you feel worthwhile.”
“I am worthwhile,” Socrates said flatly.
“Of course you are. But not just for business. Mom loves you,” he said with quiet intensity. “Too much to watch you self-destruct. She won’t do that. You shouldn’t make her.”
“It’s all about me?” A bit of scornful bluster was back now.
“It’s about the two of you and the marriage you’ve made. Forty years, Dad. That’s a hell of a feat. I’m in awe. I never really thought about it before. Even if I had, I guess I’d have thought it just happened, that it came easy.” But it hadn’t. He knew that now. All the time he’d been talking to his father, he’d been talking to himself. “Don’t throw it away, Dad.”
“I’m not the one who left.”
“Don’t let her go. Don’t waste your chance at happiness. Give each other another chance.”
He didn’t know if it did any good or not. His father made no promises. He grumbled about Lena never understanding him. He blustered about kids who didn’t appreciate how hard he’d worked for them.
Yiannis let him talk. He listened. He heard the selfishness in his father’s words and the pain his father was refusing to admit, doing his best to disguise.
He’d been there himself—with another woman—just days before. A woman who had left him because he’d been too damned selfish.
A woman he desperately wanted to go after and ask her to reconsider. But he’d had his chance. Not once, but twice.
Three years ago, Cat had offered him her heart, her love, her life—and he had declined.
And again, two days ago, he’d had another chance. To love her. To admit that what they’d done that night had virtually nothing to do with Adam Landry and everything to do with how Yiannis felt about Catriona MacLean.
He loved her—and because he had been so sure he wanted nothing of the sort, that he had all the family he needed, he hadn’t really understood how much it meant to her.
Now he knew.
And he knew how much it meant to him. He knew how badly he wanted what his parents were in danger of throwing away. He wouldn’t take it lightly. He swore to himself he wouldn’t.
If he got another chance he wanted it all. Love. Marriage. Responsibility. Commitment. Children. Grandchildren.
Dear God, was he actually thinking in terms of grandchildren?
Yeah, he thought, rubbing a hand through his hair, he was. But he’d settle for a couple or three red-headed freckle-faced hellions of his own first. The notion made him smile at the same time it made his stomach hurt.
Because after the mess he’d made of things, it all came down to if Cat would have him.
It was a very big if.
The knock came just past noon on Saturday.
Yiannis had spent the morning trying to figure out how he could go to San Francisco and still be supportive of his mother. He’d finally figured out the answer by asking himself what Cat would do.
Take her with you.
He could hear Cat say the words, could envision the equable shrug, the “it’s obvious” look on her face.
The very idea made him wince. He abhorred the thought of baring his soul to his mother, explaining why he was dragging her off to San Francisco. Besides, he knew if he did, she wouldn’t do the polite thing and decline to come.
She’d want to meet Cat. She’d love to lay her eyes on the woman who had made her youngest son change his tune about marriage. He didn’t want to mention the word marriage to his mother. But if he had to, he had to—because more than anything, he had to talk to Cat.
The knock on the door grew more imperious.
Irritated, Yiannis yanked it open.
His father strode in, his gaze darting from side to side as if he might see his wife hiding behind a chair. “Where is she?”
Yiannis shut the door and regarded his bull-headed father. “Hello to you, too.”
His father jerked a curt nod in his direction, then raked his hands through his disheveled black hair. “Where’s your mother?”
“She went to the bakery. She should be back any minute.”
The words were barely out of his mouth when the front door opened again. “They were out of bagels so I got—oh!” Color rose in her cheeks as she stared at the man in the middle of the room.
Socrates stared back. Neither spoke.
And that was eerie in itself. Yiannis couldn’t remember a time when his parents had been at a loss for words. They always talked—too much, too loud, too often. Not now.
Now they just stared mulishly at each other. He wanted to bang their heads together.
“Right,” he said. He took the bag of whatever his mother had got at the bakery out of her hands and thrust it at his father. “Take this to the kitchen and make Mom a cup of tea.”
His father stared at him.
“The kettle’s on the stove. There’s hot and cold running water. It’s pretty self-explanatory.”
“Yiannis,” his mother began.
“Let him make you tea,” he said. “Then the two of you sit down and eat whatever’s in here and talk to each other. Listen to each other, too. And I hope to God you put this marriage back together. I’ve got to go.”
He turned on his heel, strode into his bedroom, threw some clothes in a duffel bag, grabbed his jacket out of the closet and headed for the door. Neither of them had moved.
“I can’t fix this for you,” he told them. “You have to do that yourselves. Wish me luck.”
“Luck?” his parents echoed.
“Why, Yiannis? Where are you going?”
He swallowed. “To lay my heart on the line.”
The ball was like a fairy tale.
Waterfalls of glass icicles on tiered chandeliers, gold-plated fixtures, floor-to-ceiling views out over the rolling green golf course near where Adam’s boss lived. Men in black tie and pristine white shirts, women in long sleek evening dresses that glittered and sparkled.
And for once in such a setting Cat didn’t look out of place. The dress was perfect as she’d known it would be. In it Cat actually felt beautiful. Even Adam thought she’d made the right choice. He looked pleased to be seen with her. They made a stunning couple. Adam was by far the handsomest man in the room.
It could be a fairy tale for real—except Cat’s one true love was hundreds of miles away living his life as a toad.
While the outside of Cat beamed and inside her brain she sang Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo, the truth was, life wasn’t a fairy tale.
You did what you could, and that was that.
She’d done the right thing breaking off her engagement. She knew it. Adam knew it. And even though she would be going into her apartment alone, she made an effort to enjoy the evening as much as she could.
There was no reason not to. It was all perfectly lovely—the food, the orchestra, the setting. The charitable cause that the ball was in aid of was one she believed in. She’d made as big a donation as she could herself.
And she drank everything in so she could call and tell Gran about it tomorrow. She knew her grandmother would be eager to hear all about it—the music, the dresses, the men she danced with.
Even though she’d come with Adam, she danced with others. Some of them were men whose photos she saw in the newspaper financial and society pages. They went out of their way to be charming.
Adam told her she’d impressed them. “You’re a success.”
He looked pleased. She was, too, on his behalf. She was glad she had come if it helped him, and glad she’d had the experience. And the dances.
She’d never danced with Yiannis.
There were so many things she’d never done with him. Would never do with him.
“Get
ting tired?” Adam asked, apparently noting the shadow that passed over her features.
Cat pasted a smile back on her face, but nodded. “A bit.”
“We can go if you want.”
“Whenever you want to.” It was his event. His decision. She would stay as long as he wanted. It didn’t matter to her. It wasn’t as if she had anything to come home to. The ball was a welcome distraction from the misery of her own company.
But Adam was ready to go.
He fetched her shawl. “You were right about that, too,” he said, smoothing it lightly over her shoulders. “It does look like starlight.”
Cat smiled. It was nice to be right about something—even if that something didn’t matter.
In Adam’s car, she closed her eyes on the way back to the city. Neither of them spoke. There was nothing to say. The night had gone well. Now it was over. This might even be the last time she would see him.
It was after one by the time they got back to the city and the car climbed the hill toward the narrow sharp-roofed, bay-windowed row house in which she lived. She’d left the light on in the front parlor of her third floor apartment. But the porch light was off. The family who lived on that level was already in bed.
“I won’t come in,” Adam said as he drew up in front of her house.
He didn’t even shut the ignition off. He just popped the locks so they would open and said, “Good night, Cat.” He leaned close and brushed a kiss across her cheek, then straightened abruptly. “Thanks for coming. Good-bye.”
Good-bye?
Just like that?
She stared at him, surprised. She was glad that he understood, that he knew it was over, too. She was glad he didn’t press. But she was a bit taken aback that he didn’t get out and see her to her door. He had always been that kind of gentleman before.
But before the thought had barely had time to form, the car door on her side opened abruptly.
“Good night, Landry.” The voice was hard, gruff and—
Yiannis?
Cat whipped around and stared up into the shadows that hid his face.
“I thought that was you when we drove up,” Adam said equably. “Good night, Savas,” he added as Yiannis took Cat’s hand and drew her, mind reeling, out of the car and onto the sidewalk. “Good luck.”
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