by Nora Roberts
Undoubtedly she would come to her senses once she’d picked up the threads of her own life again and slipped back into a comfortable, familiar routine.
However miserably dull that seemed just now.
She took the time to brush her wet hair back from her face, to carefully cream her skin, adjust the lapels of her robe. If she couldn’t quite take full advantage of her breathing techniques to compose herself, it was hardly any wonder, what with the drag of the hangover.
But she stepped out of the bathroom with her features calmly arranged, then walked into the parlor, where Phillip was just pouring coffee from the room service tray.
“I thought you could use this.”
“Yes, thank you.” She carefully censored her gaze to avoid the empty champagne bottle and the scatter of clothing that she’d been too drunk to pick up the night before.
“Did you take any aspirin?”
“Yes. I’ll be fine.” She said it stiffly, accepted the cup of coffee and sat with the desperate care of an invalid. She knew she was pale, hollow-eyed. She’d gotten a good look at herself in the steamy mirror.
And she got a good look at Phillip now. He wasn’t pale at all, she noted, nor was he hollow-eyed.
A lesser woman would despise him for it.
As she sipped her coffee and studied him, her muddled mind began to clear. How many times, she wondered, had he refilled her glass the night before? How many times had he refilled his own? It seemed to her there was a wide discrepancy between the two.
Resentment began to stir as she watched him generously heap jam on a piece of toast. Even the thought of food had her shaky stomach lurching.
“Hungry?” she said sweetly.
“Starving.” He took the lid off a plate of scrambled eggs. “You should try to eat a little.”
She’d rather die. “Sleep well?”
“Yeah.”
“And aren’t we bright-eyed and chipper this morning?” He caught the tone, slanted her a cautious look. He’d wanted to take it slow, give her some time to recover before they discussed anything. But it appeared that she was recovering rapidly.
“You had a little more to drink than I did,” he began.
“You got me drunk. It was deliberate. You charmed your way in here and started pouring champagne into me.”
“I hardly held your nose and poured it down your throat.”
“You used an apology as an excuse.” Her hands began to shake, so she slammed the coffee onto the table. “You must have known I’d be angry with you, and you thought you’d just ease your way into my bed with Dom Perignon.”
“The sex was your idea,” he reminded her, insulted. “I wanted to talk to you. And the fact is, I got more out of you after you were buzzed than I ever would have otherwise. So I loosened you up.” And damn if he was going to feel guilty over it. “And you let me in.”
“Loosened me up,” she whispered, getting slowly to her feet.
“I wanted to know who you are. I have a right to know.”
“You—you did plan it. You planned to come in here, to charm me into drinking just a little too much so you could pry into my personal life.”
“I care about you.” He moved toward her, but she slapped his hand away.
“Don’t. I’m not stupid enough to fall for that again.”
“I do care about you. And now I know more, and understand more about you. What’s wrong with that, Sybill?”
“You tricked me.”
“Maybe I did.” He took her arms, keeping a firm grip when she tried to pull back. “Just hold on. You had a privileged, structured childhood. I didn’t. You had advantages, servants, culture. I didn’t. Do you think less of me because until I was twelve I ran the streets?”
“No. But this has nothing to do with that.”
“No one loved me either,” he continued. “Not until I was twelve. So I know what it’s like on both sides. Do you expect me to think less of you because you survived the cold?”
“I’m not going to discuss it.”
“That’s not going to work anymore. Here’s emotion for you, Sybill.” He brought his mouth down on hers, dragging her into the kiss, into the swirl. “Maybe I don’t know what to do about it yet either. But it’s there. You’ve seen my scars. They’re right out there. Now I’ve seen yours.”
He was doing it again, making her weaken and want. She could rest her head on his shoulder, have his arms come around to hold her. She only had to ask. And couldn’t.
“There’s no need to feel sorry for me.”
“Oh, baby.” Gently this time, he touched his lips to hers. “Yes, there is. And I admire what you managed to become despite it all.”
“I was drinking too much,” she said quickly. “I made my parents sound cold and unfeeling.”
“Did either of them ever tell you they loved you?”
She opened her mouth, then sighed. “We simply weren’t a demonstrative family. Not every family is like yours. Not every family shows their feelings and touches and . . .” She trailed off, hearing the trace of panicked defense in her own voice. For what, she wondered wearily. For whom?
“No, neither of them ever said that to me. Or to Gloria, as far as I know. And any decent therapist would conclude that their children reacted to this restrictive, overly formal, and demanding atmosphere by choosing different extremes. Gloria chose wild behavior as a bid for attention. I conformed in a bid for approval. She equated sex with affection and power and fantasized about being desired and forced by men in authority, including her legal and her biological fathers. I avoided intimacy in sex out of fear of failure and selected a field of study where I could safely observe behavior without risk of emotional involvement. Is that clear enough?”
“The operative word, I’d say, is ‘chose.’ She chose to hurt, you chose not to be hurt.”
“That’s accurate.”
“But you haven’t been able to keep it up. You risked being hurt with Seth. And you’re risking being hurt with me.” He touched her cheek. “I don’t want to hurt you, Sybill.”
It was very likely too late to prevent that, she thought, but she gave in enough to rest her head on his shoulder. She didn’t have to ask for his arms to come around her. “Let’s just see what happens next,” she decided.
TWENTY
Fear, Sybill wrote, is a common human emotion. And being human, it is as complex and difficult to analyze as love and hate, greed, passion. Emotions, and their causes and effects, are not my particular field of study. Behavior is both learned and instinctive and very often contains no true emotional root. Behavior is much more simple, if no more basic, than emotion.
I’m afraid.
I’m alone in this hotel, a grown woman, educated, intelligent, sensible, and capable. Yet I’m afraid to pick up the phone on the desk and call my own mother.
A few days ago, I wouldn’t have termed it fear, but reluctance, perhaps avoidance. A few days ago I would have argued, and argued well, that contact with her over the issue of Seth would only cause disruption in the order of things and produce no constructive results. Therefore, contact would be useless.
A few days ago, I could have rationalized that my feelings for Seth stemmed from a sense of moral and familial obligation.
A few days ago, I could, and did, refuse to acknowledge my envy of the Quinns with their noisy and unstructured and undisciplined interactive behavior. I would have admitted that their behavior and their unorthodox relationship were interesting, but never would I have admitted that I had a yearning to somehow slip into that pattern and become part of it.
Of course, I can’t. I accept that.
A few days ago, I attempted to refute the depth and the meaning of my feelings for Phillip. Love, I told myself, does not come so quickly or so intensely. This is attraction, desire, even lust, but not love. It’s easier to refute than to face. I’m afraid of love, of what it demands, what it asks, what it takes. And I’m more afraid, much more, of not being loved in return.<
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Still, I can accept this. I understand perfectly the limitations of my relationship with Phillip. We are both adults who have made our own patterns and our own choices. He has his needs and his life, as I do mine. I can be grateful that our paths crossed. I’ve learned a great deal in the short time I’ve known him. A great deal I’ve learned has been about myself.
I don’t believe I’ll be quite the same as I was.
I don’t want to be. But in order to change, truly, to grow, there are actions that must be taken.
It helps to write this out, even though the order and sense are faulty.
Phillip called just now from Baltimore. I thought he sounded tired, yet excited. He had a meeting with his attorney about his father’s life insurance claim. For months now, the insurance company has refused to settle. They instigated an investigation into Professor Quinn’s death and held off paying the claim over the suspicion of suicide. Financially, of course, it put a strain on the Quinns with Seth to provide for and a new business to run, but they have doggedly pursued legal action over this issue.
I don’t think I realized until today how vital it is to them to win this battle. Not for the money, as I originally assumed, but to clear any shadow on their father’s name. I don’t believe suicide is always an act of cowardice. I once considered it myself. Had the proper note written, the necessary pills in my hand. But I was only sixteen and understandably foolish. Naturally I tore the letter up, disposed of the pills, and put the matter aside.
Suicide would have been rude. Inconvenient for my family.
Doesn’t that sound bitter? I had no idea I’d harbored all this anger.
But the Quinns, I’ve learned, considered the taking of one’s own life selfish, cowardly. They have refused all along to accept or to allow others to believe that this man they love so much was capable of such a singular selfish act. Now, it appears, they will win this battle.
The insurance company has offered to settle. Phillip believes my deposition may have swayed them toward this response. He may be right. Of course, the Quinns are, perhaps genetically, ill-suited to settlements. All or nothing, is precisely how Phillip put it to me. He believes, as does his attorney, that they will have all very shortly.
I’m happy for them. Though I never had the privilege of meeting Raymond and Stella Quinn, I feel I know them through my association with their family. Professor Quinn deserves to rest in peace. Just as Seth deserves to take the Quinn name and to have the security of a family who will love and care for him.
I can do something to ensure that all of that happens. I will have to make this call. I will have to take a stand. Oh, my hands shake just at the possibility. I’m such a coward. No, Seth would call me a wimp. That’s somehow worse.
She terrifies me. There it is in black and white. My own mother terrifies me. She never raised a hand to me, rarely raised her voice, yet she shoved me into a mold of her own making. I barely struggled.
My father? He was too busy being important to notice.
Oh, yes, I see a great deal of anger here.
I can call her, I can use the very status that she insisted I achieve to gain what I want from her. I’m a respected scientist, in some small way a public figure. If I tell her I’ll use that, if I make her believe I will, unless she provides a written statement to the Quinns’ attorney, detailing the circumstances of Gloria’s birth, admitting that Professor Quinn attempted several times to contact her for verification of Gloria’s paternity, she will despise me. But she will do it.
I only have to pick up the phone to do for Seth what I failed to do years ago. I can give him a home, a family, and the knowledge that he has nothing to fear.
“SON OF A BITCH.” PHILLIP wiped sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. Blood from a nasty but shallow scrape smeared over his skin. He grinned like an idiot at the hull he and his brothers had just turned. “That’s a big bastard.”
“It’s a beautiful bastard.” Cam rolled his aching shoulders. The turning of the hull meant more than progress. It meant success. Boats by Quinn was doing it again, and they were doing it right.
“She’s got a fine line.” Ethan ran a calloused hand over the planking. “A pretty shape to her.”
“When I start thinking a hull looks sexy,” Cam decided. “I’m going home to my wife. Well, we can score her waterline and get back to work, or we can just admire her for a while.”
“You score her waterline,” Phillip suggested. “I’m going up and running the paperwork for the draw. It’s time to hit your old racing pal up for some cash. We can use it.”
“You cut the paychecks?” Ethan asked him.
“Yeah.”
“Yours?”
“I don’t—”
“Need it,” Cam finished. “Cut one anyway, goddamn it. Buy your sexy lady some bauble with it. Blow it on some overpriced wine or lay it on the throw of the dice. But cut your check this week.” He studied the hull again. “It means something this week.”
“Maybe it does,” Phillip agreed.
“The insurance company’s going to fold their hand,” Cam added. “We’re going to win there.”
“People are already changing their tune.” Ethan rubbed a layer of sawdust off the planking. “The ones who wanted to whistle lies under their breath. We’ve already won there. You worked the hardest to make sure we did,” he said to Phillip.
“I’m just the detail man. Either one of you tried to have more than a five-minute conversation with a lawyer . . . well, you’d nod off from boredom, Ethan, and Cam would end up punching him. I won by default.”
“Maybe.” Cam grinned at him. “But you skated out of a lot of the real work by talking on the phone, writing letters, zinging off faxes. It just comes down to you being secretary. Without the great legs and ass.”
“Not only is that sexist, but I do have great legs and a terrific ass.”
“Oh, yeah? Let’s see ’em.” He moved fast, diving and taking Phillip down onto that reputedly terrific ass.
Foolish scrambled up from his nap by the lumber and raced over to join in.
“Christ! Are you crazy!” Laughter prevented Phillip from rolling free. “Get off me, you moron.”
“Give me a hand here, Ethan.” Cam grinned, swearing as Foolish lapped eagerly at his face. Phillip struggled halfheartedly when Cam sat on him. “Come on,” he urged when Ethan merely shook his head. “When’s the last time you pantsed somebody?”
“Been a while.” Ethan considered as Phillip began to struggle in earnest. “Maybe the last time was Junior Crawford at his bachelor party.”
“Well, that’s ten years ago, anyway.” Cam grunted as Phillip-nearly succeeded in bucking him off. “Come on, he’s put on some muscle the last few months. And he’s feisty.”
“Maybe for old time’s sake.” Getting into the spirit, Ethan evaded a couple of well-aimed kicks and got a firm hold on the waistband of Phillip’s jeans.
“Excuse me,” was the best Sybill could manage when she walked in on air blue with curses and the sight of Phillip being held down on the beaten-wood floor while his brothers . . . well, she couldn’t quite tell what they were trying to do.
“Hey.” Cam avoided a fist to the jaw, barely, and grinned hugely at her. “Want to give us a hand? We’re just trying to get his pants off. He was bragging about his legs.”
“I . . . hmmm.”
“Let him up now, Cam. You’re embarrassing her.”
“Hell, Ethan, she’s seen his legs before.” But without Ethan lending his weight, it was either let go or get bloody. It seemed simpler, if less fun, to let go. “We’ll finish up later.”
“My brothers forgot they’re out of high school.” Phillip got to his feet, brushing off his jeans and his dignity. “They were feeling a little rambunctious because we turned the hull.”
“Oh.” She shifted her attention to the boat, and her eyes widened. “You’ve made so much progress.”
“It’s got a ways to go yet.” Ethan stu
died it himself, visualizing it complete. “Deck, cabin, bridge, belowdecks. Man wants a damn hotel suite in there.”
“As long as he’s paying for it.” Phillip crossed to Sybill, ran a hand down her hair. “Sorry I got in too late to see you last night.”
“That’s all right. I know you’ve been busy with work and the lawyer.” She shifted her purse from hand to hand. “ Actually I have something that may help. With the lawyer, with both situations. Well . . .”
She reached into her purse and took out a manila envelope. “It’s a statement from my mother. Two copies, both notarized. I had her overnight them. I didn’t want to say anything until they’d arrived, and I’d read them to see . . . I think they’ll be useful.”
“What’s the deal?” Cam demanded as Phillip quickly skimmed the neatly typed two-page statement.
“It confirms that Gloria was Dad’s biological daughter. That he was unaware of it and that he attempted to contact Barbara Griffin several times during a period from last December to this March. There’s a letter from Dad written to her in January, telling her about Seth, his agreement with Gloria to take custody.”
“I read your father’s letter,” Sybill told him. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have, but I did. If he was angry with my mother, it didn’t show in the words. He just wanted her to tell him if it was true. He was going to help Seth anyway, but he wanted to be able to give him his birthright. A man who worried that much about a child would hardly have taken his own life. He had too much to give, and was too ready to give it. I’m so sorry.”
“ ‘He just needs a chance, and a choice,’ ” Ethan read when Phillip passed the letters to him, then cleared his throat. “ ‘I couldn’t give one to Gloria, if she’s mine, and she won’t take it now. But I’ll see that Seth has both. Whether he’s mine by blood or not, he’s mine nonetheless now.’ It sounds like him. Seth should read this.”
“Why did she agree to this now, Sybill?” Phillip asked her.
“I convinced her that it was best for all concerned.”