“I know.” He said it like he’d had this conversation before. With Elizabeth? With someone else? “But you needn’t be threatened.”
“I am not threatened by her! I’m threatened by your behavior toward her!” How dare he put this down to unfounded jealousy on my part. “I was secure in our relationship, until I found out you were making enormous life decisions with your ex.”
“She wasn’t a part of the decision at any point,” he asserted. “She knew about Emma’s inheritance and I invited her here tonight to tell her about it, so that it wouldn’t come as a shock to her if I did pass away.”
“But you were fine shocking the hell out of me and dropping some ridiculously huge amount of money in my lap when you’d be dead and I couldn’t argue with you about it? Jesus Christ, the taxes alone.” I pressed my fingertips to my temples. Then, after a cleansing breath, I tried again. “You made me look like a fool. You let Valerie break important news to me. She knew before I did. When I’m supposed to be closest to you. You just sent her a message that she’s more important to you than I am!”
“Now, that is absurd! I thought that by not telling you ahead of time, you would be absolved from any allegations of so-called ‘gold digging,’ which you seem particularly concerned about avoiding.” His voice rose a little. Normally, I would have closed the door, but I didn’t care if anyone heard this fight. I had run out of fucks to give.
“I don’t want your damn money!” I shouted back. “I don’t want to be in your will. I don’t want to make a profit off your death.”
“Then what were you planning to do, if I were to die?” He demanded.
“I don’t know, jump in the fucking river!” I threw my hands up. “I don’t really see a life after you. You’re the only person I’ve ever loved. If you died, I’m not going to be consoled by money. I’m not going to be concerned about what happens next.”
“You should be!” he barked. “The Sophie I fell in love with was a smart girl. Practical. She worried about her future and she wanted it to be a good one. Do you remember her at all?”
“Of course I remember! It was just a few months ago! But things got a little weird for me, okay? You came back into my life, I’ve had no time at all with you, and now I’m facing losing you again. Permanently. And you’re making plans for what will happen to me and my life after you’re gone, and you’re making these plans with your fucking ex-girlfriend. If Valerie is so goddamned important to you, you should be living with her, not me.”
I stomped toward the door, brushing tears from my eyes. What the hell was wrong with me? Neil was thinking about possibly dying, and I was throwing a temper tantrum out of jealousy.
“Sophie, don’t walk out!” he shouted, and I stopped in my tracks. When I turned, he said, calmer, “I don’t have the energy to chase after you.”
“I don’t like her, Neil.” My limbs trembled with the anger I felt toward Valerie. Anger I wasn’t even sure was entirely warranted. Neil had been the one who’d invited her here. All she’d done was show up.
“You don’t have to like her. I just work with her. She’s my business partner.”
“She’s your pseudo-wife.” I laid the allegation squarely where it belonged. “When you and Elizabeth separated, who did you go to, to talk about things?”
“Rudy, mostly,” he said, then, softer, “and Valerie, I suppose.”
“And when you wound up in the hospital and we were not talking. For those four days, who did you talk to?” I knew the truth already, and it hurt. When he didn’t answer me directly, something inside me crumpled up into a tight little ball of pain I could barely breathe through.
“Valerie and I have history,” he admitted. “That’s not something that goes away overnight. But I no more have romantic feelings for her than I do for Rudy. I trust her, because we’ve known each other for a very long time. We have a child together, and that forms a bond that we will always have.”
The last remark hit me squarely in the chest. I wondered if words could crack your ribs.
He knew instantly that it was the wrong thing to have said to me. “I didn’t mean—”
“I know you didn’t.” But not meaning to say it didn’t make it hurt any less. “You can’t use that justification to me. It’s not fair. I understand, she’s Emma’s mother, and you guys will always have that part of your lives together. But right now, it feels like you’re telling me that it’s an impenetrable wall, and that I’ll never be as close to you as Valerie is. Unless I give you a baby, which I think I’ve already made pretty damn clear that I’m not willing to do.”
“That isn’t my intention at all.” He sighed in frustration and wiped his palm across his forehead. “I just wanted to make this... I wanted to make it easy for you. I wanted to protect you from the unpleasantness of discussing my possible death.”
“Do you think I haven’t thought about any of this?” I went to the sofa and sat down. With neither of us talking, the room was too quiet. “I think about it all the time. I’m constantly making plans for what I’ll do after you’re gone. And yeah, maybe it’s not practical, but when I think about it, money is pretty low on my list of concerns.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. I worry more that if you die, I’ll never feel love for any other man ever again. I worry that I’ll be alone, and that I’ll never get over you. I worry that I’m not strong enough to handle that. Because right now, I really don’t feel strong enough to handle it.” When he didn’t say anything after a long moment, I continued. “You’re not helping. I know I’m supposed to be here for you, helping you, but you have to give something back. You have to at least let me feel like I’m important to you as more than just some woman you have sex with. You have to trust me, the same way you trust Valerie. Or else... you need to be with Valerie.”
“I don’t want to be with Valerie.” It didn’t take him any time at all to respond. If he’d hesitated, maybe I wouldn’t have believed him, but he stated it so forcefully, I couldn’t take it as anything other than genuine. “I want to be with you. I had no idea you felt this way. And I am deeply ashamed of my behavior, now that I see how much I hurt you. I took it for granted that you knew how I felt about you.”
“I know you love me,” I sniffled. “But I don’t know how much. I don’t know how replaceable I am.”
“You aren’t,” he said firmly. He sat beside me and put his arms around me, pulling my head to lay against his shoulder. “You have been here for every blood test, every late night sick spell... and that’s terribly unfair to you. I thought I might be able to spare you some unpleasantness if I left all of this to the people who are used to giving me advice about financial matters.”
“But that’s the problem.” I sat back. “You won’t let anyone in your life be themselves. You decide how you want a person to be, and then you assign them their part. It’s like you’re the casting director for everyone else’s life. You decided that this was too much for me, so you sent me away to shop and mindlessly spend money, because that’s what you wanted me to do. That’s unfair, too.”
“Well, when you put it that way,” he conceded. “It sounds so... malicious.”
“I know you don’t mean to do it to hurt people. But you do. Your actions tonight didn’t just hurt me. You hurt Emma and Valerie, too.”
“I’ll atone for that,” he said with a wry chuckle. “But I don’t ever want you to feel that you’re replaceable. For god’s sake, Sophie... I loved you almost from the very instant I met you. And not because I’d cast you in a role. I think I fell for you because I couldn’t see a way that you could fit into my life. You may be right, I may have a destructive tendency to pigeon-hole people. But it was never something I was doing consciously. I would never want to do that to you.”
“I’m sorry I snapped at Valerie.”
“No, you aren’t.” He rejected my apology with humor, at least. “I’m very aware of how Valerie treats the women in my life. I don’t like it, and it has been a point of contention between u
s.”
“Emma said it was between Valerie and Elizabeth, too.” I shrugged. “I don’t need everyone in your life to like me. I don’t need everyone in my life to like me. But I heard what she said to you at Christmas. She’s going to keep this shit up, until I’m gone.”
“It will never happen,” he stated firmly. “At least, not because of anything she does. I love you, Sophie. Even when we don’t see eye-to-eye, I love you.”
“I love you, too, but you’re infuriating.” I pushed my hair out of my face and took a deep breath. I didn’t want to talk about Valerie anymore. “How about this? If you’re so eager to give me something in your will, give me enough money to buy an apartment and enough savings for a year. And let me keep the jewelry you’ve given me.”
“You could sell it for a fair price,” he said, his mind snapping into business mode.
“That’s not why I want it.” It probably wouldn’t be fun to eat Ramen noodles every night, knowing I had three-point-six million dollars’ worth of diamonds in my bedside drawer, but I couldn’t imagine ever selling the collar.
“I know.” He looked to the flickering gas flames in the fireplace, and the tiny points of light made the thin rim of tears on his lower lids glisten. “I’d rather think of my practical Sophie selling them, than my actual Sophie clinging to the only tangible memory I left her. And perhaps I am casting you in a role there, but you have to allow me that fantasy. When I think of dying, I think of how hurt you’ll be, how hurt Emma and Rudy and m-my mother... I know you would be shattered. But I need to pretend that you won’t be.”
I put an arm around his back and leaned my head on his shoulder. “You’re tired. Let’s get you upstairs.”
I wasn’t tired, but I had to be away from Neil at the moment. If he needed the fantasy that it wouldn’t matter to me when he died, then I would give it to him. But I wasn’t a good enough actress for the part, yet. I got him settled in and snuggled down with him. He tried to make a bit of conversation, but I shut him down. “I love you, baby. But I’m still really mad at you. Can we just... not? Can we just lay here and remember why we love each other?”
“I think that’s an exceptional idea.”
When he was asleep, I slipped from the bed and put my clothes back on. I went down to the kitchen and made a pot of coffee. Then I went to the liquor cabinet and found something good to drink.
It was going to be a long night.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Unable to summon up the enthusiasm to produce another video, I found myself in the study, wrapped in a cashmere throw, glass of whiskey in my hand. It was my third, actually, and I was reeling from the effects. I had a book open in my lap, but even The Mists of Avalon couldn’t draw me out of my thoughts. I just stared into the fireplace, at the little gas flames there, and listened to the loud tick of the clock on the mantel.
“Sophie?”
I turned, and gave the room a second to catch up. “Hey, Emma. Everything okay with your mom?”
“Not as such.” She came in, swinging her arms slightly, the sleeves of her cardigan pulled down over her hands. “I wanted to make sure you were okay. After all of that.”
“I am.” I sat up and brought my legs down, so there was room on the couch. “I told your dad that I didn’t want any of your money. He won’t listen to me, of course, but I think I got him to come down in price a bit.”
Emma nodded, her shrewd eyes narrowing a little. “I hope you don’t think that matters to me. I don’t think you’re after my dad’s money.”
“Well, that’s three people in the world who feel that way.” I knew it wasn’t polite of me to indulge in my self-pity, but I was drunk and tired and feeling generally wretched. “I’m sorry. I just feel so completely alone here.”
“You’re not completely alone. You’ve got dad,” Emma said with a surprising amount of sympathy. “Is everything all right between you two?”
“Yeah, everything’s fine with us. It’s just... there is so much stuff that’s bothering me that I can’t talk about with anyone. My best friend and I used to talk all the time, but she’s in this new relationship, and her career is taking off, and the time zones... we just seem to miss each other’s calls. I’m really starting to be afraid that the best part of my life ended three months ago.” I snorted. “I’m sorry, you don’t want to hear about all this.”
“No, it’s all right,” she said quickly. “It’s nice to talk to you, even if it is because you’re drunk.”
I looked down at my glass and frowned. “Oh. Well, you caught me. But you could talk to me any time. I just thought you wanted me to keep my distance.”
“Maybe I did, in the past, but I don’t know. I’ve always felt like you were... not resentful of me, but perhaps slightly inconvenienced by my existence. I got the feeling that you didn’t like me around.” She paused. “Like I made you uncomfortable somehow.”
“You made me uncomfortable?” That absolutely flabbergasted me. “No, Emma. I felt like I was making you uncomfortable. Because your dad was dating me, and we’re the same age, and the way we first met—”
“In hindsight, that’s quite funny.” She shook her head. “Or at least, Michael tells me it is.”
I laughed. “I have no problem with you at all. I actually like you, a lot. I don’t know how you’re getting through all this without totally freaking.”
“I was going to say the same about you. If it were Michael who was so sick...” she did a full body shiver. “Look, I think we’ve both had enough grim contemplation for one night. How about a midnight swim?”
“I’m really drunk,” I pointed out. “People die like that.”
“I’m not drunk, I’ll watch out for you. Come on. Do you need a suit?”
I hadn’t really thought to pack a bathing suit for a trip to London. “Yeah, do you have one that will fit me?”
Emma was about my height, but smaller than I was, with a totally different body type. I was slender, but curvy, with a little extra padding in the rear, and she was slim and graceful and delicate. She probably wore cool triangle top bikinis that looked totally awesome and sporty on her.
“I’m sure. Come on.”
I’d never been in Emma’s room before, but it was exactly as I would have pictured the childhood room of Neil Elwood’s daughter. The walls were pale pink, striped with darker pink, like the nursery in the pop-up book of Peter Pan I’d had as a kid. The floor was carpeted wall-to-wall in dusky rose, and a tall canopy bed with frilly white curtains stood in the far corner.
“I was kind of a Barbie girl when I was younger,” Emma said, almost as though she were ashamed.
“My mom hasn’t changed my room since I was living at home,” I told her, in solidarity. “I think she’s holding on to it so I won’t feel bad or something... but I would really rather she take down the Nick Lachey posters.”
“Ew, yeah.” Emma headed to the closet. She came back with a simple black tankini. “Here, try this.”
I went into the en suite bathroom and tried it on. It fit well enough, and I was checking out the rear-view in the mirror over the sink when I noticed the ovulation predictor box on the vanity.
At first, I thought it might have been mine. Directly after the abortion, I’d been hyper-vigilant about my fertility, so we wouldn’t have any accidents in the gap in my birth control. But I’d never been in Emma’s room, and definitely not her bathroom. Plus, if I’d left something like that where she could see it, she would have most definitely confronted me or her father about it.
Stepping out of the bathroom, I weighed the chances of ruining my tentative friendship with Emma against the possibility that we might be close enough at this point that we could discuss such a thing. “Um. This is going to sound... There’s something in your bathroom.”
“Like a spider?” Emma charged toward the door with huge eyes. “I hate those bastards!”
“No.” I waited until she flipped on the light. She went very still, her hand lingering on the door.<
br />
When she turned around, she said, “Don’t tell my dad.”
She said it like I had caught her with cigarettes in the fifth grade or something.
I shrugged. “I won’t. One, because I think it would actually kill him to have some kind of proof that you and Michael are having sex, and two, because it’s really none of his business. You’re an adult.”
“Oh.” Emma blinked at me in surprise. “Well, I would appreciate it. I don’t think he’d be happy that his daughter was trying to conceive out of wedlock.”
“Can I ask why you are? Not that I’m making a moral judgment or anything. I’m just wondering why you’d make wedding dress fittings a nightmare.” I laughed at my own joke before I saw how sad Emma looked.
“It’s not something I tell a lot of people, but I’ve got issues with my fertility. My doctor said she wants me to try for at least a year before going on any hormone treatments. And we want children so badly. Michael suggested we start now, in the hope that it will save us some time after the wedding. I may walk down the aisle pregnant, but it’s a risk we’re willing to take.”
“That’s exciting!” I really did hope Neil wouldn’t find out. This was far too private an issue for him to try and control his daughter’s decision. “Emma, really, I think it’s great.”
It struck me then that Neil was going to have a hard time letting go when Emma married. He was going to flip out when he was no longer the most important man in his daughter’s life. In a way it was cute, but mostly it was just frustrating. I had a suspicion that Neil, for all his progressive leanings, would not have been so protective of a son.
“I hesitate to ask, but do you and my father plan on having children?” Emma asked with feigned casual interest as we got into the elevator. She pushed the button for the basement. “You heard about my step-mother, I’m sure.”
“Yeah… I don’t really know where your dad stands on that. He says he doesn’t want any more children, but I got this weird feeling...” I mentally put on the brakes, to keep from revealing too much. Then I thought of all the other embarrassing shit she’d been privy to, least of all the fight with her mother today and, to borrow an expression I’d heard Neil use before, in for a penny, in for a pound. “Can I be totally upfront with you about something?”
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