Having sent two sisters through Ivy League colleges, yes, she knew. Even with scholarships, it had cost a fortune. Every week there was some new thing that cost money, some new thing that wasn’t covered.
“We needed money. A lot of it. I didn’t know how to get us out of the hole, so I called Mom’s brother.”
“Jimmy.”
“Jimmy. He and Dad had had a fight years before, when they got married. Jimmy thought Mom could do better than some Brooklyn firefighter. They hadn’t spoken since. I’d never even met him. But I was desperate, so I called. And he came. He got the creditors off Mom’s back with a phone call.”
“Why didn’t he just pay off her debts? Sounds like he could have afforded it.”
“This is the guy who celebrated an eighty-year-old woman’s stroke because he stood to gain something from it. Jimmy doesn’t believe in charity. But he does believe in providing people with opportunities.”
Gemma could see all the pieces falling into place, the mysterious forces that had suddenly driven Brendan away from her all those years ago. She untangled her hands from his. “And that’s what he did for you. He made you an offer you couldn’t refuse.”
“He was offering me a chance to earn more money in a year than I would have earned in five if I stayed here. Gemma, I didn’t want to leave you, but I had no choice.”
“Why didn’t you tell me the truth? You just ended things and said you were leaving. No explanations. Like you and I...like what we had...was nothing.”
Up until the moment the words had come out of his mouth, her trust in him had been absolute, her belief in their future together unshakable. In one shocking moment, her whole world had crumbled, and the boy she’d loved so completely had become a stranger. The pain of it still had the power to leave her breathless.
“What would you have done if you’d known?”
She threw up her hands. “I don’t know. Fight—”
“Fight who? Jimmy? My mother? Fight what? The debt we owed? There was no one to fight. No way to win.”
“So you just left. I deserved to know the whole story. It was my life, too, Brendan. I’m not like your mother. I don’t need to be protected from the world. Jesus, I spent years wondering what happened, what I might have done to drive you away—”
Brendan winced as if she’d struck him. “Gem, you were perfect. You were everything I’d ever wanted, and I had to let you go, and I didn’t know how to do it. I was eighteen and stupid and overwhelmed.”
“So you decided how it was going to end. We’d been talking about spending the rest of our lives together and you figured you’d handle this on your own.”
“I’d been handling shit alone since I was twelve. I didn’t know how to do it any other way. Gem, I couldn’t see a way out that ended with us together. More than anything, I wanted to take you with me, but I knew it was impossible. I thought a clean break might be easier. I thought—I hoped—that we’d both get over it and move on. I know now that I was very wrong about that, because I never got over you. I am so sorry.”
She blinked against the sudden burning in her eyes. “There was no way I could leave Brooklyn. I had my family.”
His eyes were full of regret. “I know. You had to stay for your family. And I had to leave for mine.”
Her throat felt tight. Goddamn him. Damn him for using the one example sure to evoke her sympathy. Who knew, better than her, what you sometimes had to sacrifice for family? If the situation had been reversed, if she’d had to give up Brendan for her family, wouldn’t she have done the same?
In her heart, she still felt bruised and angry, frustrated at having had no control over something so devastating. But in her head, she understood his point. Nothing she could have said or done would have changed anything. The girl she was at sixteen wouldn’t have accepted that. She’d have fought losing him until her last breath, and then she’d have lost him anyway. Because leaving hadn’t been possible for her. What she hadn’t understood at the time was that staying hadn’t been possible for Brendan.
If she’d loved him a little less, he might have been right. She’d have nursed her broken heart for a while, then met someone else and moved on. But she had to finally admit it to herself—she’d never really gotten over him, either. They wouldn’t be sitting here in a dark park having this conversation if she had.
So what was she supposed to do with all of this? His mistakes, her anger, a love that had never quite died for either one of them? Damned if she knew the answer.
“You’re making it really hard for me to hate you right now,” she whispered.
She felt his hand on the side of her face, his palm cupping her cheek. “I really hope you don’t hate me. In the end, I can’t regret leaving. I didn’t have a choice. But I never stopped being sorry for it. And I’m so sorry for what I did to you. I’m sorry I ever made you doubt yourself. I’m sorry I let you believe I didn’t want you. That was never the case.”
When she opened her eyes again, he was right there. Not the Brendan from fourteen years ago. That boy and the mistakes he’d made had been lost forever. There was no getting that boy back or undoing his choices. He’d been replaced by this man. This man who had all of that boy’s innate goodness inside, this man who’d done his best in impossible circumstances. Yes, he’d made mistakes that had hurt her deeply, but not out of spite. Not because he didn’t care. If anything, he cared too much, about everybody in his life.
“I don’t hate you,” she said. She’d tried that for fourteen years, but it just wouldn’t take.
His eyes were still sorrowful, but the corner of his mouth tugged with a smile. “I’m glad.”
“But fourteen years is a long time to be mad at you.”
“I know I can’t fix it overnight, but I’d like to try. I knew I was coming back to Brooklyn to build and make amends, but what I didn’t realize until I saw you again was that I’d come back for you, too. I want another chance with you, Gem, if you’ll give me one.”
And because she didn’t know what to do with what he was feeling, any more than she knew what to do with what she was feeling, she did what she couldn’t seem to help but do when she was around Brendan—she kissed him. But this time, it wasn’t a violent clash of lust and hormones. She leaned in and pressed her lips against his, long and lingering. Her lips said what she didn’t have the words for yet.
I’m sorry you had to grow up too soon. I’m sorry for everything we had to give up. I’m sorry for thinking the worst of you all these years and forgetting the best of you.
It didn’t fix anything, but for the first time, she felt like she could set down the burden of her anger. What might replace it was still unknown.
His fingers slid back into her hair, pulling her closer, as his lips urged hers apart. This kiss, unlike the ones that had come before, felt like a longed-for homecoming. It felt like his apology, his reassurance that she’d always been enough, always been the one he’d wanted.
But as right as this homecoming felt, the fourteen years were still there, and that was a lot to bridge. Those teenagers, dreaming of a happily ever after together, were gone. And happily ever afters in the real world were hard to come by.
Tonight, though, Gemma didn’t care about the ever after. Tonight was enough, all on its own. She’d worry about the ever after when the sun came up.
Chapter Twenty-Four
When Brendan realized he’d been staring at the same email for ten minutes without reading a word of it, he decided his day was pretty much shot. Considering he’d spent much of the night before having lots of very enthusiastic sex with Gemma, he felt he could hardly be blamed for his lack of focus.
Things were...better. They were...something. She still hadn’t spent the night with him or gone public about their relationship, but she’d stopped pretending all they had was sex. This was a relationship now. Fragile and new, but real. He was hopi
ng with time and patience, he could earn her trust. Maybe eventually her love.
His phone rang and he scrambled for it, hoping, pathetically, that it was Gem. The sight of Mom flashing on the screen did a lot to throw a bucket of cold water on his filthy thoughts.
“Hi, Mom, is everything okay?”
“Well, this morning there was some water on the floor upstairs and something’s hanging off the front of the house. I was going to call that man whose number you gave me—”
“No, never mind, Mom.” He sighed. “I’ll be right over to take a look.”
* * *
The problem was apparent right away. The front gutter had come loose from the edge of the roof. It hung perilously from one end, banging against the brick wall in the breeze. Inside, his mother followed him upstairs to the bedroom that fronted the house, twisting her hands together anxiously. She hadn’t made a move to clean up the puddle of water that had leaked in.
“Okay, your homeowner’s insurance probably covers this. I’m going to go dig out the policy and make a call. Why don’t you grab an old towel and mop up the water?”
“Oh,” she said, blinking in consternation. “Yes. An old towel. I can do that.”
While he left her busy digging through the linen closet, he went downstairs to the desk in the corner of the dining room, where all her official papers were stacked haphazardly. He should just take over her bills, instead of sending her money to pay for them, he thought, flipping through junk mail four years out of date. Even with the funds in her account, she’d undoubtedly missed a dozen deadlines in this mess.
In one overstuffed drawer, he found the folder that looked like her official papers related to the house. It did not, he noticed, contain the letters from the banks notifying her that he’d paid off the loans against the house. Who knew where she’d squirreled those away? At some point, he’d have to track those down, but not today.
Near the back of the folder, he found the deed and the title to the house, which was useful. As he flipped them over, he noticed another document paper-clipped to the back. It was a photocopy of something. Unfolding it, he scanned it. Then he went back and read it through again. Slowly. His blood ran cold as its meaning sank in.
It was a document transferring ownership of the house—his mother’s house, left to her by his father, handed down by his grandfather—to Jimmy Walsh, dated from the same month he’d graduated high school, when they were in the middle of that crisis. When Jimmy had swept in to save the day.
Jimmy owned this house. All these years, as he’d worked his ass off in Chicago, scrimping and saving, paying off first one, then the second mortgage she’d taken against the property, thinking he was doing it to save his mother’s house, he’d been saving fucking Jimmy’s house.
“I got the water up, but the floor looks a little warped in that corner—”
He spun around, holding the letter aloft. “Mom, why did you sign this?”
She squinted at it, puzzled. “What is that?”
“It’s a transfer of the deed into Uncle Jimmy’s name. You signed it fourteen years ago.”
She laughed nervously. “No, I didn’t. Why would I do something like that?”
“I don’t know, Mom. That’s what I’m asking. Why did you sign this?”
“There were so many papers back then.” Her hands fluttered helplessly in front of her. “Just legal stuff. Jimmy said he’d take care of everything. He just needed my signature on the paperwork so he could take care of all those awful creditors.”
No, Brendan had done that, paying out over half his paycheck every month to keep the debt collectors off her back and the house out of foreclosure. “But this...”
Shaking her head, she squeezed her eyes closed, as if turning away from the unpleasant memory. “We had all those money troubles, and Jimmy sorted it out for us. That’s all.”
“I know what I’m looking at!” He couldn’t help shouting as the enormity of what had happened sank in. “This paper you signed turned the house over to Jimmy. He owns it now. He has for fourteen years.”
“No, I’m sure you’re wrong. It’s just the paperwork from when he took care of all that financial trouble for us.”
“No, Mom, I did that. Jimmy didn’t spend a dime to get us out of trouble. I did. I’ve spent the last fourteen years of my life working my ass off to pay off that debt so you’d still have this damned house...so that one day Tim and I would have it...and the whole time, that bastard had stolen it from you right from the start.”
“Don’t you talk about Jimmy that way!” Her eyes sparked with the heat that only an attack on her beloved big brother could generate. “He’s my brother. He’d never do something like that to me. He took care of us when things were bad.”
“No, Mom, that was me. It’s always been me.” He felt the fire go out of him. Gone. The house was gone. The money to pay off Tim’s med school loans, to pay for his mother’s upcoming care...all gone. Stolen by Jimmy fucking Walsh, just because he was an opportunistic bastard and he knew he could. And there she stood, defending him to her dying breath. He understood it, but he didn’t have to fucking accept it.
He thrust the evil document in her face. “He stole this house from you, Mom. Which means he stole it from me and Tim, too. It was our legacy from Dad, and he took it from us.”
“Don’t you say such terrible things about him—”
He held up his hands to cut her off. “Mom, I’m going. I’ll call the insurance people in the morning to sort out the gutter, but I can’t stay here right now.”
Storming out when she looked so fragile and upset was a dick move, but he couldn’t help it. He’d spent his whole life wrapping his mother in cotton, doing his best to make sure nothing could hurt her. And here she’d dealt her sons an irreparable blow out of blind loyalty to some asshole who hadn’t done a tenth of what he had for her.
He had to get out of there before he said things he couldn’t take back, so he just left. And left his mother alone to shut out what she’d done to her sons for the sake of her worthless brother.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Elin Lang Catering wasn’t just fancier than the places Gemma had visited for Kendra, it was like an entirely different class of business. Kendra had been up against a wall, and there had been few options available so last minute. In theory, Dan and Mariel, getting married in less than a month, should have been in the same situation. But as Gemma was learning, Dan’s name and money opened all kinds of doors. Places that would have laughed Kendra and her deadline off the phone were scrambling to have tastings prepared for Gemma the very next day.
When Gemma had offered to vet the caterers and help choose a menu for Mariel, she’d just been doing her a favor, trying to help her out when she was overwhelmed. She hadn’t expected it to be such an enjoyable and eye-opening experience. Elin Lang Catering, headquartered in a fancy new building in far west Chelsea, was turning out to be the best one so far, and she hadn’t even tasted the food yet.
A woman in a crisp sky-blue suit met her at the door and introduced herself as Tara. If they went with Elin Lang, Tara would be their point person for the entire event. Next, Tara ushered her into a meeting room that felt like a fancy dining room in someone’s home. It was small and comfortable, with soft green and gold striped wallpaper, a plush patterned rug on the glossy hardwood floor, and a dining table in the middle of the room set for six. Through the wall of windows on one side lay a sweeping view of the Hudson River.
“Have a seat,” Tara said, motioning to a chair. “Let’s talk about your event.”
“Oh, it’s not my event. I’m just helping out the bride and groom, because they’re so short on time.”
Tara glanced at her clipboard. “Ah yes, Daniel Drake and Mariel Kemper. Yes, a month isn’t much time at all.”
“Will that be a problem?”
Tara smiled in a way that
told Gemma nothing would be a problem when Dan Drake was the client. “Not at all. We’ve worked extensively with the Plaza, so the event should be fairly seamless to put together. Now tell us what the bride and groom are looking for.”
“It’ll be a sit-down dinner for three hundred. Beyond that, they’ve kind of left it up to me.” Gemma laughed softly to herself, looking around at the opulent little room. God, she hoped she didn’t make a hash of this.
“Well, let’s taste a few hors d’oeuvres and see if we can’t make a start there.”
“Sounds great.”
The first thing they brought out, served by one of the chefs in a white jacket and everything, was a tray of appetizers. But these were nothing like the antipasti platters Gemma threw together to keep the wolves at bay until her big family dinners were ready. There were tiny crisp spring rolls with a rich, dark dipping sauce, and succulent pieces of what looked like duck, wrapped in paper-thin slivers of radish, glistening pink pearls of caviar and crème fraîche nestled in perfect little puff pastry shells, green apple and brie, stacked on a thin wafer of lavash and sprinkled with toasted pistachios... It was all so perfect, so elegant, so utterly delicious.
“Usually for an event this size, we’d choose six to eight of these to pass during the cocktail hour before dinner.”
“The only problem I’m going to have is narrowing it down. They’re all so good. Is that kaffir lime I taste?”
Tara’s eyebrows shot up. “Yes...in the gingered salmon bites, I believe.”
“We have to have this one. And the duck. And those shishito pepper shrimp.”
“I believe we have another tray of options still for you to try,” Tara said with a smile.
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