“You made the best decision you could at the time, and you didn’t make it on your own. We all did it with you.”
Ivy held out the documents to him. “I don’t need this.”
“Keep it.”
“I guess you already made a copy for yourself?”
“Don’t I always?” He grinned sideways. He so rarely smiled, it surprised her. Why didn’t he smile more? He should definitely smile more.
She tucked the file into her purse.
“Come on, let’s go before Mother gets upset and castrates me for making her hold dinner for us,” he said.
“She would never castrate you. You know you’re her favorite because you remind her of dad.”
He smiled again, which made her happy.
Chapter Sixteen
Lucas had the distinct impression Cyrus didn’t like him. The guy looked at him as if he thought he’d run off with the silverware, and his distrust irked Lucas. He resigned himself to the thought that it was probably just brotherly protectiveness and focused on his surroundings.
Sunday dinner at the Johnsons was quite the affair. The servants served the meal in the formal dining room at a table that seated ten and had two chandeliers hanging overhead.
Constance sat at the head of the table. Lucas, Katie, and Ivy sat to her left, and Cyrus and Trenton across from them. The delicious feast started with a first course of white bean soup with wild mushrooms, followed by a mixed green salad with apples and what tasted like homemade buttermilk dressing. The main entrée, a slow-roasted prime rib accompanied by roasted fingerling potatoes and candied carrots, practically melted in Lucas’s mouth.
“Adelina’s an excellent cook,” he said halfway through the meal. Since he hadn’t received the grilling he’d expected, he’d relaxed considerably.
“I don’t know what I’d do without her,” Constance said.
“Anybody home?” A male voice boomed from near the front of the house, and everyone looked up from their plates.
“Uncle Xavier!” Katie said in an excited whisper. She rushed out of the room, followed by the rest of the family. Lucas pulled up the rear in time to see his daughter leap into her uncle’s arms.
Lucas remembered Ivy talking about her older brother, the one right behind Cyrus, but Xavier Johnson was not what he expected. The more he learned about this family, the more he recognized the uniqueness of each member. The way he was dressed, no one would ever guess Xavier was worth billions. A red, gold, and green dashiki covered the upper half of his tall frame, and a pair of worn jeans encased his legs. He had a head full of dreadlocks pulled back from his face and secured with a leather strap. He’d dropped an olive-green army duffel bag to the floor when Katie ran to him.
“You’ve gotten big,” he said. “I can barely lift you.”
Katie giggled. “What did you bring me?”
“Nothing. Except this.” Xavier pulled out a small figurine, ash gray in color.
Katie took it from him. “What is it?”
“It’s called the ‘Thinking Man.’ I thought it would be perfect for my very smart niece. It’s made of Kisii stone.”
Katie ran her fingers lightly over the abstract design. “Kisii stone,” she repeated.
“That’s right. It’s named after the Kisii tribe in Kenya. They hand carve all kinds of objects, but I thought this one would be perfect for you. Take good care of it, okay?”
“I will,” Katie said solemnly. Lucas knew she would by the way she clutched the object to her chest.
Xavier let her slide down and his eyes swept over his family. They rested briefly on Lucas, a question in them before he embraced Trenton, Adelina, Ivy, and then his mother. The hugs he gave the women lasted much longer, and they clearly enjoyed them, laying their heads against his chest with smiles of contentment on their faces.
Constance patted his cheek. “It’s good to have you home.”
She turned around and introduced Lucas. When Lucas shook Xavier’s hand, he noted not only the strength in his handshake but the roughness of his hands, verifying he was no pampered billionaire. He worked with his hands and worked hard.
If Xavier was surprised to learn Katie’s real father had shown up for dinner, he didn’t let on. “Welcome,” he said to Lucas.
“I’m surprised I got the opportunity to meet you,” Lucas said. “From what I understand, your work keeps you in Africa most of the time.” Xavier was an ambassador of sorts, working with various nonprofit organizations. They brought attention to the plight of Africans in underdeveloped regions and shined the spotlight on how the continent’s resources were being exploited without the financial benefits trickling down to ordinary citizens.
“Usually,” Xavier confirmed, “but I have to come home every now and again to spend time with the family.”
“Every time you come home you’re so skinny,” Adelina said, shaking her head.
“I don’t have access to your delicious meals over there.” Xavier patted his stomach. “Something smells good, though, and I’m tired of eating antelope.”
Katie gasped, eyes wide. “Antelope?”
“Yeah, it’s good, but after a while, it gets old.”
“What does it taste like?” she asked.
He paused, screwing his face into an exaggerated scowl of deep thought. “You know, it tastes like chicken.”
“No it doesn’t!” She laughed.
“You have not been eating antelope,” Trenton said with a shake of his head. “Every time you come back you’ve got a crazy story to tell.”
Xavier looped his arms around his mother and Ivy. “Sure I have. Away from the city, we eat whatever’s available, and antelope was available in abundance.”
“What else did you eat?” Katie asked, walking backward so she wouldn’t miss a word as they made their way to the dining room.
“Depends on where we were. Sometimes fruit, other times bugs.”
Katie’s eyes widened. “Really?”
Xavier shrugged. “Sometimes that’s all we had. Other times we’d go hunting and roast whatever we could find. Sometimes we ate rattlesnake, sometimes anteaters.”
Katie wrinkled her nose. “What does anteater taste like?”
“Katherine dear,” Constance said, “we’ll save the conversation about bugs and anteaters until after dinner, okay?”
“Okay, Grandma.”
“I’ll tell you everything you need to know when we’re done with Adelina’s good food,” Xavier promised with a wink.
They were back in the dining room, and it was then that Lucas noticed Cyrus had remained seated at the table. He was the only one who hadn’t gone out to welcome his brother home. The two men barely looked at each other as Xavier sat down beside Lucas.
“How long are you staying this time?” Ivy asked.
“About a month or so. If that’s all right.” He looked at his mother.
“You know you’re always welcome.” The pleased expression on her face left no doubt of her sincerity.
Adelina placed a table setting in front of Xavier. “You all right, bro?” he asked.
Cyrus sliced into his prime rib. He placed the morsel into his mouth and calmly chewed. “Perfect. You?”
It was impossible to miss the tension that descended on the room.
“Boys,” Constance said.
“I’m good, Mother,” Xavier said. “I suspect my dear brother would have preferred if I were eaten by a lion out on the plains.”
“We can’t always have what we want,” Cyrus said.
“Enough,” Constance said. “Not at my dinner table and not while there’s a child present.”
Cyrus continued, as if his mother hadn’t spoken. “Isn’t it great how some of us can go gallivanting around the world while the rest of us stay here and work our butts off?”
“Because what I do isn’t important?” Xavier demanded. Seated beside him, Lucas felt the coiled tension. “Bringing attention to the underprivileged and marginalized of the world isn’t w
ork? Because you can’t see a return on investment on a financial statement for the work I do, that makes it irrelevant?”
“Xavier, Cyrus, please,” Ivy begged.
Trenton didn’t say a word, choosing instead to watch his brothers, his gaze lobbing back and forth between them like he was watching a tennis match. Adelina stepped back from the table with her arms crossed in front of her as if she expected an explosion to erupt at any minute.
“I know you think you’re some kind of hero,” Cyrus said, “but running from your responsibilities doesn’t make you a hero. It makes you a coward.”
Xavier shot up from his chair.
Cyrus paused with a fingerling potato in the prongs of the fork halfway to his mouth. He didn’t flinch. “I dare you,” he said.
“Xavier, sit down!” Constance’s voice sounded shrill and strained.
Xavier’s chest heaved as he tried to regain control. He shot daggers at Cyrus, and for a split second Lucas wondered if he’d ignore his mother’s command and leap across the table. No one moved, and after a long, taut silence, he slowly lowered into the chair.
Constance set her hands on the table and took a deep breath of relief. “I need the two of you to act like you have some sense, instead of like a bunch of uncivilized ruffians. Not at my dinner table.”
The dynamics of this family were getting more and more interesting. Lucas didn’t know what the hell was going on between Cyrus and Xavier, but whatever it was, the animosity ran deep. Constance placed a hand over her heart, as if her outburst had expended all her energy.
“We have a guest,” she continued. “And there is a child present.”
Katie clutched the Thinking Man replica, her little shoulders slumped, eyes trained on the plate in front of her. Ivy rubbed her back to comfort her, but the joy of seeing her uncle had long passed and been replaced by the discomfort palpable in the air.
“Adelina,” Constance said.
The housekeeper rushed forward. “Yes, Mrs. Johnson.”
“Please go ahead and serve Xavier.”
“Yes, Mrs. Johnson.”
Constance cleared her throat and smiled at Lucas. “Ivy said you’re a writer, and you offer relationship advice?”
Lucas nodded, wondering where the conversation was headed now that the tension in the room had calmed to a degree. One of the servants leaned over his shoulder and refilled his water glass.
“You’re an expert on women?”
He laughed. “No, and I don’t pretend to be. I’m an expert on men, because I’m a man and I understand how men think.”
“Surely you’re not saying all men are the same?” Constance sipped her wine.
Feeling all eyes on him, Lucas chose his words carefully. His typically blunt, in-your-face answers wouldn’t work here. “Not at all, but there are commonalities among us. To be honest, most of the advice I offer has more to do with how a particular woman might allow a man to treat her, thinking that somehow hanging in there or putting up with bad behavior would make a man love her. When really, it won’t.”
“Perhaps you can offer advice to the young women Trenton dates,” Constance said, casting a reproving look in her son’s direction.
All eyes turned to Trenton, who paused with his drink halfway to his mouth. “I don’t date. I have hook-ups,” he said.
“Language, Trenton,” his mother warned.
“Sorry, Mother.” He smiled broadly and looked completely unrepentant. He turned to Lucas and shifted the conversation back to him. “Do you ever have problems with the advice you offer?”
“Not often. Every now and again someone will write an article lashing out at me and my advice, but as my publicist always says, even bad publicity is good publicity.”
“Not for us,” Cyrus stated. “Bad publicity is bad publicity.”
Lucas sensed the change in the air. While he courted the media, this family didn’t. Intensely private, they wanted the emphasis to be on their restaurants and beer, but the reporters were always on the look out for scandalous stories.
Silence fell over the table, and only the sound of silverware clanking against the fine china could be heard. From the corner of his eye, he saw Ivy focused on her meal. Did his comment bring up painful memories? While he’d threatened her with revealing her wrongdoing to the press, in truth he wouldn’t have done it. By her own recounting of the story years ago, he knew how much she’d suffered as a teen from the sex tape fiasco.
“I did have one situation with a male reader a couple of years ago,” Lucas said, in an effort to lighten the room. “A man stood up at one of my workshops and accused me of being a no-name charlatan who didn’t have the credentials to offer counsel to anyone. He accused me of capitalizing on women’s fears and asked everyone present to ignore me and tell their friends to do the same. Then he made a pitch for his own book and rattled off a list of certifications and degrees that he said made him way more qualified than I was to offer relationship advice. He struck me as the kind of man who thinks the sun comes up just to hear him crow.”
Constance set her fork down. “My goodness, I haven’t heard that saying in a long time. My grandmama used to say that about people she thought were cocky.” She laughed quietly to herself, as if reminiscing about the past.
“I’ve got plenty more where that came from. I used to tell them to Ivy all the time.”
“Yes, you did,” Ivy said. A smile touched her lips.
Constance watched the exchange between them with a raised brow. “How did you handle the interruption from the audience member?”
“I told him this wasn’t the time or place for an advertisement and if he wanted to talk, we could do it after the event.”
“That was nice of you, considering he interrupted your workshop,” Constance said.
“Well,” Lucas said, “my mama used to tell me, ‘Keep calm, say what you have to say, and move on. Don’t argue with idiots. They’ll drag you down and beat you with experience every time.’”
Constance laughed out loud and covered her mouth. For a second Lucas saw Ivy in her, the unabashed amusement, the eyes sparkling in her face. An uncanny resemblance, right down to covering her mouth with her hand.
Everyone else at the table laughed, too.
His gaze met Ivy’s over Katie’s head, and he read the unspoken message in her smile. He had more road to travel to be completely accepted by the family, but he’d already passed the first test.
Chapter Seventeen
Lucas inhaled deeply of the nighttime air. He’d been back in Atlanta for a few weeks and stood with his arms folded on the railing of the balcony of his high-rise condo in Midtown. Living in this part of town embodied everything he appreciated about the single life in the city. Within walking distance he had his pick of restaurants, nightclubs, and single, independent women no more interested in getting hitched than he was.
Many stories below, traffic moved along at a steady pace with the occasional car honking and pedestrians hurrying along to get home or to dine at one of the restaurants lining the avenue.
Priscilla’s arms wrapped around his waist from behind, and her warm cheek pressed against his bare back. “Sorry for the interruption earlier, but being the maid of honor is like being a doctor on call. I have to be available to handle all kinds of bridal emergencies.”
Lucas felt pretty sure ‘bridal emergencies’ were being unsuitably compared to medical emergencies, but he refrained from voicing his opinion. Priscilla took her duties very seriously and he didn’t want to belittle her role in her sister’s wedding.
“When’s the wedding again?” he asked.
She lifted her head from his back. “Do I need to enter the date into your phone? It’s an evening ceremony the first Friday in December. You haven’t forgotten, have you?”
Not a chance, since she’d brought it up several times. “I haven’t forgotten, but I wanted to make sure I had the date right.”
“Good.” She tightened her arms around him. “What’s goi
ng on, baby?” she asked. “You’ve been so distracted since you came back.”
“Have I?”
“Yes, you’re here, but you’re not here. You’re not yourself.”
“I’ve got a lot on my mind.” A light breeze blew across his skin. The September air wasn’t quite chilly yet. Somewhere between warm and cool, it was the perfect temperature. It was ten degrees cooler in Seattle. He knew because he’d checked as he fiddled with his phone earlier, wondering what Ivy and Katie were doing, wondering if he should call again. Was he calling too much?
“Anything I can help with?” Priscilla rubbed his back.
“Nah.” Her touch used to soothe him. Now it was a mild irritant.
“Come back to bed, then.”
Lucas turned around and slipped an arm around her waist. “You go. I’m going to stay out here a little longer, okay?”
She pouted. “You sure I can’t help?”
“It’s nothing you can help me with. If you could, I promise I would tell you.”
Priscilla sighed. “All right. I hope you’re able to work out whatever’s bothering you. I’m worried.”
“Nothing to worry about.”
Realizing she’d get nowhere with him, Priscilla pulled out of his arms. “Come back to bed soon, okay?” She squeezed his hand and then disappeared into the dark interior of the condo.
He felt a little guilty about the way he’d been distracted. After being on the road and spending those couple of weeks in Seattle, he’d been sure he would be ready to come home. Normally after an extended period away, he was. If he and Priscilla were back on, he welcomed her company. This time, though, he couldn’t shake a restlessness he’d never experienced before.
He pulled his cellphone from his pocket and punched in the seven digits for Ivy’s home in Seattle. It rang twice before she answered.
“Hi, Lucas,” she greeted him. “You missed her. She went to bed early tonight.”
Since he’d been back in town, calling and talking to Katie had become an almost nightly ritual. She told him about her day, her friends, and most of the time she did all the talking. All he had to do was listen, which was fine. Hearing her voice on a regular basis had become a welcome distraction from his nightly writing routine.
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