His expression dropped and he placed a hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make it sound like I’m ungrateful to have Sienna. I know it’s heartless of me to say something so dumb to you.”
“Don’t worry about it. Just because I lost Amy doesn’t mean that I don’t feel happy for you.”
He nodded, and I downed the rest of my drink. “Come on,” I said. “You’re not an old man yet, and to be honest, you’ve certainly had your fair share of fun up until now.”
He grinned. “I have indeed,” he said. “I guess I’m just sad that I have to grow up and that it all has to come to an end.”
“No more scotch for you tonight,” I said. “It’s making you far too serious.”
There was a buzz coming from the house, and it reminded me of the times my brother and I would escape to the garden simply to get away from the boredom of entertaining. It seemed different now, to know that I was the one who’d thrown the party, and I was the one to go and mingle with my guests, thanking them for coming.
We decided there was no need to head back too quickly, though, so we took the long route, around the pool house and down past the orchard. Tom grinned as we approached the brick building, its blue door firmly shut.
“Plenty of good times were had in there.”
“And you can have plenty more,” I assured him. “Marriage doesn’t mean the end of romance and excitement.”
“I know,” he said. But he still looked so crestfallen, as though the realization of marriage was only now beginning to dawn on him. It was time to get him back to the house.
Rejoining the party, I kept an eye out for Noah. He was on my mother’s lap, leaning against her as she talked to her friend Tanya, his eyes were heavy with sleep. I looked at my watch. It was nearly eleven and long past my son’s bedtime.
Lucinda saw me approach and stood up. “Would you like me to take him to bed, now?” she asked, but Noah sat up and protested.
“I don’t want to go to bed!” he cried. “See, I’m wide awake!”
I ruffled his hair. “You’re falling asleep there, Champ. Let Lucinda take you to bed and I’ll come by and say goodnight in a little while.”
He didn’t put up any more of a fight, and he slid off my mother’s lap, took Lucinda’s hand, and left the room. I sat beside Mom, in the chair Lucinda had vacated. “Are you alright?” I asked.
She smiled softly. “I’m fine,” she said. “I think I’m getting a little tired myself. But it was a beautiful party, and you gave such a wonderful speech.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Nothing too embarrassing for him. It’s his night, after all.”
“It doesn’t seem like more than a few months since we threw your engagement party,” Mom said, and she patted my hand. “How are you feeling? I imagine tonight hasn’t been easy.”
“Why does everyone seem so concerned about me?” I asked. “I’m fine. Really.”
“Well, I’d better go and see how your father is,” she said, standing up. “I don’t like to think of him being up there with the nurses while we’re all having a good time down here.”
She stroked my face and left. I sat alone for a while, watching the guests mingle. A waiter came and offered me another glass of champagne, but I declined. I thought about requesting a scotch but decided against it. Even though it was Sunday the next day, I still had plenty of work to do.
It was strange that both Mom and Tom had brought up Amy within just a few moments of each other, but I guess that milestones within the family have that kind of effect. Besides, it’s not like the thought of Amy hadn’t crossed my mind at least once in the course of the evening. And yet, it wasn’t painful to think of her anymore. At least, not as bad as it had been for many years.
She and I had danced in this very room together, eight years ago, celebrating our own engagement. She’d looked beautiful that evening, and unlike Tom, I hadn’t been the least bit concerned about settling down with her and having children.
Our time together was too short, but we’d known all along that that could very well have been the case. Even holding her in my arms that fateful evening, she’d felt like the most beautiful, delicate little flower that could break if I held her too tightly.
But she’d borne us the sturdiest, cheekiest, most lovable little boy we could ever have hoped for. I couldn’t help but smile to myself at the thought of how proud she’d be of Noah. As per her request, I now stood up and made my way upstairs to his room to say goodnight. Saying goodnight to Noah every single night was the one thing she’d insisted on before she died and so far, I’d kept my promise.
Walking the long, quiet corridor upstairs towards his room, I looked out of the window and saw the bright lights of a car slowly making its way up the drive. It was strange for a guest to be arriving so late. I thought it might be a cab coming to pick up one of the guests, but it turned toward the stables.
“Ah,” I thought. “Dennis Evans probably has a visitor.”
I thought nothing more of it that evening and had no idea just how much that cab’s passenger was going to turn my whole world upside down.
Chapter 9
________
RACHEL
Eight hours on a plane is a real drag. Luckily, in recent years I’ve been able to treat myself to a little luxury when it comes to travel. So, having slept nicely for five hours on the flight, it meant that I wasn’t too tired to sit up and talk with Dad for a little while once I arrived home.
The place hadn’t changed all that much in the past ten years, although I noticed in the well-lit courtyard that there had been a new extension built on the side of the house. I mentioned this to Dad once he’d taken my luggage into my old room and had set the kettle on the stove to brew a pot of tea.
“Alexander had that place built about a year ago,” he explained, opening a cupboard and reaching for two china cups. “When I first saw the plans I was a little concerned. I thought it was going to be a real eyesore. But I like what he’s done with it, and he sourced the same bricks that built the original house.”
“What on earth does he need it for?” I asked. “That place must be full of empty rooms.”
“It’s for Noah,” he said. “It’s got a high-tech, state of the art play area in there, and a classroom for private tutoring. Apparently, there’s a music room in there too for the lad to learn to play the piano.”
I raised one eyebrow. “So, between all this extra learning and piano-playing, does the kid ever have any fun?”
The kettle whistled. Dad took it off the stove and poured the steaming water into the cups. “You’d be surprised,” he said. “He’s the happiest little thing I’ve ever seen, and he’s cheered the place up, let me tell you.”
“I imagine that the Dark Lord of the manor has him standing by his bed in his pajamas by seven-thirty sharp, making him drop and give him twenty before he’s allowed to go to bed.”
Dad looked at me, surprised. “Not a fan of Alexander, I take it?”
I gave a little shrug. Perhaps I’d gone too far. Dad had never liked me to say anything bad about the Maitlands. I’d never once heard him utter a negative opinion about any of them. Chastened, I lowered my head and said nothing more until Dad pushed the cup of tea toward me. I dunked the teabag up and down in the water, watching the leaves swirl around and turning the water darker and darker.
He sat down opposite me and sipped his tea. “He’s a good man,” he said. “He’s held everything together for the last few years, and how he’s done it while grieving over his wife, I’ll never know.”
I nodded, slowly. Perhaps I was being too hard on Alexander. After all, I hadn’t said two words to him for the last ten years, but that didn’t stop my mind from replaying, yet again, that night near the orchard, where he’d grabbed me and kissed me, only to walk away. Even as I’d driven up in the cab, I couldn’t help but drag it up from the recesses of my mind.
“How’s Beau doing these days?” I asked. “Has the therapy helped?
”
“It’s been relatively effective,” Dad said. “He’s walking around the garden in the daytime, but he gets cold very quickly, even on the hottest of days. I believe it’s common with the kind of stroke that he had. With any trauma to the brain, the body has difficulty regulating temperature. So he spends a lot of time indoors.”
“Did he really give up the whole business?”
“Everything,” Dad said. “I think he would have held onto it more firmly if he’d known it wasn’t going to end up in such good hands. But Alexander’s had his head screwed on right since he was born, and I think Beau decided that life’s too short to spend it behind a desk when you never know when you might be about to draw your last breath.”
It was certainly a sobering thought. “He’s been a little sick lately,” Dad went on. “Chest infection. Again, it’s a side effect from the stroke. When you have limited mobility, it’s harder for the body to fight infection.”
“All that money,” I said, more to myself than to anyone else. “And they’re still fallible.”
“Of course they are,” Dad said. “There are two things money can’t buy. That’s health and happiness. But they’re a strong family, and they’ve rallied through every tragedy they’ve ever known. Even those that didn’t need to concern them.”
I knew he was referring to the way we’d been taken in after my mother’s death. I knew that I should have been eternally grateful to them and, in a lot of ways, I was. Yet, I couldn’t bring myself to think of Alex Maitland as some kind of beneficent god that everyone had to think only good thoughts about. From the very little I’d seen of him, he’d always been nothing but arrogant and self-serving.
Coming home and seeing Dad again had made me so happy, though, that I didn’t want someone as trivial as Alex to bring me down. So, I changed the subject. “Looks like there’s a big party going on tonight,” I said. “Did they decide to change the Fall Bash into a Summer Soiree this year? I would have thought it stopped after Connie died.”
“No, they didn’t,” Dad said. “It’s always been in the fall and this year will be no different. Tonight is Thomas’s engagement party.”
So much for changing the subject. I was pretty sure that I’d only served to make myself feel even worse than before. “Oh?” I croaked. “I didn’t know he was engaged.”
“Yes. To a beautiful young lady named Sienna Parker. It’s a good match in a lot of ways, really. Good for business and she seems like a nice girl, too.”
“Right,” I said. Suddenly I longed to be back in Madrid. My good mood seemed to have evaporated simply by discussing the two brothers. This time, when I changed the subject, I moved it away from the Maitlands altogether.
“Are you busy on Thursday?” I asked. “I have a meeting in the city.”
“Already? I thought you were taking a little time off. It’s been so long since you’ve been home.”
“I know. Only, a couple of people heard I was coming home and now I’ve got an appointment with Kate Rose. She’s head of Elemental Design.”
Dad grinned and shook his head. “I’m afraid you may as well be speaking another language, my dear,” he said. “I have no idea who that is.”
“She’s basically the head of one of the largest design house in New York right now,” I replied.
“Ah. Celebrities and such?”
“More like big corporations. Huge business chains. Remember the Greenleaf Hotel where I stayed for Alice’s wedding? Well, she designed that whole scheme. She has the most beautiful taste, so, when she said she wanted to meet, I wasn’t about to turn her down.”
“Well, I might have a little time to play with on Thursday,” Dad said. “It’s been a while since I’ve been to the city.”
“Great,” I said. “I’ll confirm the time of the appointment and then we can have lunch.”
We stayed up talking for a little while, as Dad asked me about Lois and the rest of the family. I told him about how my cousin was still teaching English to Spanish students in Madrid, and that she didn’t seem any closer to settling down. Forever free-spirited and mysterious, even though we’d been the best of friends for the past five years, there was always someone exciting in Lois’s life, and yet we never ended up meeting him before it was over.
I knew that Dad wanted to ask me about Mathias, but he also knew that I wasn’t in the mood to talk about what had happened. Calling him two years earlier and telling him that I was engaged had already come as a big shock, and I had the feeling that he wasn’t too pleased about his future son-in-law. When he came over to Madrid to meet him, Dad spent a lot of time asking me whether I was really sure that Mathias was the one for me.
And, of course, I’d reassured him time and time again that he was. That I was madly in love, wildly happy, and nobody could ever hold a candle to my fiancé. But I guess Dad saw through Mathias even before I did.
“He seems to have a glint in his eye and a wandering one at that. I don’t trust that one,” Dad had said after he met Mathias for the first time. “He’s a smooth talker, but I don’t know if he’s right for you, my girl.”
So blinded by Mathias’s dark and dangerous good looks was I, that I brushed off Dad’s comments with a laugh. “He’s perfect for me,” I protested. “And he’d never dream of looking at another woman.”
They say a mother’s intuition is the most finely-tuned instrument in the world, but nobody could hold a candle to my father. He could smell bullshit in the colon of a cow from a mile away, and with Mathias, it was no different.
Just five months after the engagement, Mathias sent me a text that clearly wasn’t meant for me. For starters, it was in Spanish, and we only ever communicated in English. He brushed it off, saying he was trying to get me to learn more of the language, and I chose to believe him, despite what my heart was screaming.
Over the next twelve months, I chose to believe far too much of that bullshit before I finally realized that the man I thought to be the most perfect male specimen in all of Europe, was little more than a lying womanizing asshole. He never held down a job for very long, and there were rumors around town that he’d been seen in the company of more than one woman other than that of his fiancée’s. When I finally confronted him, his sheepish grin only looked pathetic to me, rather than sexy.
It didn’t mean that I hadn’t been heartbroken, of course, but once my tears dried, I knew I’d dodged a bullet. And once I pulled myself together and handed the sapphire ring back to him, I felt the need to return home, to the States. Europe would always hold a certain charm and appeal for me, but in all honesty, I wanted to be back in the place I’d missed most, with people I knew I could trust with all my heart.
The day’s traveling had finally caught up with me by the time my cup was empty. My body thought it was six a.m. although the clock on the wall of the kitchen said midnight. I couldn’t help but yawn loudly, and I rubbed my eyes.
“Come on, sleepyhead,” Dad said. “Get to bed. I’ll bring you breakfast at eight. How’s that?”
I groaned. “Come on! Eight? It’s not the first day of summer vacation anymore!”
“You need to let your body adjust to the time difference, and sleeping until lunchtime isn’t the way to do it.”
Of course, I couldn’t protest. No matter that I was twenty-eight years old; I was under Dad’s roof once more and back to being his little girl.
Chapter 10
________
ALEX
I counted the lines across the tiles. Ten lines meant fifteen more to go. I began to push myself harder and harder, regulating my breathing with each stroke. Eight more lines. Six. Four. Two. Then my fingers touched the edge of the pool, and I lifted my head and pulled up my goggles.
Breathing hard, I rested my arms on the side of the pool and looked up at the clock. Not too bad. Not a personal best, but I’d had a late night the night before and had yet to have my morning coffee. I decided to do a few more laps, only this time breaststroke, rather than crawl. Bac
k down came the goggles, and I pushed off once more to do another twenty-five yards.
Nothing clears my head like a morning swim. It’s as I push through the water that my best ideas come to me. I’ve read different scientific theories on how performing an action while thinking can result in greater problem-solving. Bouncing a balloon on the crook of an elbow while reciting aloud is a way actors remember their lines. Throwing a ball back and forth to a partner can help with learning a new language. I can attest to physical activity improving mental performance.
This morning, my mind was focused on the newest project at hand. It hadn’t left my thoughts for the past year and a half, but after last night, it now seemed that everything was going to move forward.
Tom had made a good choice. That was for sure. Sienna was stunning, and she was the first woman Tom had seemed truly settled with. But it wasn’t just her good looks and charm that made her an excellent partner; by putting a huge diamond ring on her finger, Tom had entered into much more than a romantic relationship.
Sienna’s father, Raymond Parker, certainly wasn’t going to have any trouble when it came to footing the bill for his youngest daughter’s wedding. The deal on the table was worth two hundred million, with the scope of return looking better every day.
It had taken plenty of hours on the golf course out here on Long Island to explain just how much Parker could be set to gain from allowing Maitland Development to look after things for him. I knew he was interested, but I had to make the offer irresistible. I lost count of the number of times I took the jet to Hawaii, but every time I went, I got hungrier and hungrier for the deal.
Thirty-six acres of some of the most beautiful, lush land I’ve ever seen, on a private island called Halii-Kai, just off Maui. It was the sort of investment that came along once in a century, and Raymond Parker had snapped it up for a song. I wasn’t about to let him go into business with any other development company, either. Tom and Sienna meeting and hitting it off was just the icing on the cake.
ELEMENTAL LOVE: A Second Chance Single Dad Romance Page 6