“My God, Mother, what are you doing?” She burst into tears, and the man with her discreetly headed down the stairs. He had instantly figured out what had happened, and decided to remove himself from the scene, a wise decision. “Are you insane?” And then she turned to Liam, sobbing, “What the fuck do you think you're doing in my father's bed? What are you both thinking? Don't you have any respect for Daddy?” she screamed at her mother. “How can you bring him here? How could you? Is this what you do when you're in Paris? You just run around screwing your artists?” Without thinking, for the first time in her life, shaking from head to foot, Sasha slapped her daughter, and Tatianna slapped her back, as Liam groaned and set down the poker. He was shaking, too, and ran into the bedroom to put something on. All he was able to find in the chaos of the moment were his jockey shorts, which wasn't a vast improvement, but it was better than standing there with his privates hanging out. He hadn't had time to put on clothes when he thought he was protecting Sasha from a burglar. He would have preferred to face a man with a gun than Tatianna.
“Everyone calm down… please…,” he urged both crying women, to no avail. Tatianna was still screaming at her mother, in a state approaching hysteria. “Just stop! Let's go downstairs and talk,” he said in the calmest voice he could muster. Neither of them listened, and then Tatianna turned on him again.
“Get out of my parents' house, you bastard! You don't belong here!” He was at a total loss for words, in the face of her fury. He had never been in a situation like this. Thank God Beth hadn't walked in on him with Becky, or it might have been worse, although he couldn't imagine anything much worse than this, being attacked by Sasha's irate daughter, and the horrified look in Sasha's eyes. It was awful.
“Don't speak to him that way,” Sasha was shouting at her. “He's my guest.”
“He's not your guest. He's your lover. And you're both disgusting.” She spat the words at her mother, turned on her heel, and ran down the stairs, and within seconds they heard the door slam, and the car she'd come in drive away. If she'd been planning a romantic weekend, she had gotten something very different, and so had Liam and Sasha. Sasha sat down on the stairs, put her face in her hands, and sobbed, as Liam put his arms around her. This was not the way she had wanted Tatianna to find out about them. She was devastated, and cried for hours.
“She'll never respect me again, Liam. She thinks I dishonored her father's memory, and I suppose I have,” she said, looking morbidly depressed and badly shaken. “She called me a whore and a slut. Oh my God…I can't believe this happened.” Neither could he, and there was very little he could do, except comfort her, to make it better. He thought Tatianna had behaved like a monster, no matter how surprised or upset she was. She had said things to her mother that could never be forgotten or taken back, even if Sasha chose to forgive her, which knowing Sasha, he was sure she would.
“This is none of her business,” he told Sasha firmly, once he got her back to bed, which took hours. He wasn't even sure if he should be in the bed with her, but she needed him, so he decided to stay. “You haven't done anything wrong. You're a grown woman, your husband has been gone for almost two years. You have a right to a life without him. You were in the privacy of your own home, with a man who loves you. You have nothing to apologize for,” he said, and kissed her gently. “She owes you an apology, Sasha. What she said to you was inexcusable.” And even if Sasha did, he had no intention of excusing it, or forgiving her, anytime soon. She had called him a piece of shit and a two-bit gigolo, which had cut him to the quick. He would have liked to slap her too, but of course he didn't. For Sasha's sake, if nothing else. There was no point adding fuel to a fire that was already blazing out of control. But they were both smarting from Tatianna's verbal attack on them, and her outrage at finding her mother with Liam, in what had once been her parents' bed.
“It's her house too,” Sasha said miserably. “She has a right to be here. I just didn't want her to know about us so soon, and not like this.” She felt like a prostitute who'd been caught entertaining a john. Her daughter had made her feel like the lowest of the low. They finally fell asleep when the sun came up, after talking about it for hours, ad nauseam. She cried herself to sleep in his arms, and they both woke up to the sound of the phone at nine-thirty. It was Xavier, calling from London. His sister had called him the night before, and told all. Her version was pretty ugly. She had said that Liam was strutting around the house naked when she walked in, and had obviously been screwing their mother. Xavier had been startled at first, particularly by the picture she painted. But when he calmed down, and thought about it for several hours after that, he wasn't entirely opposed to the match. In fact, not at all. He liked Liam. He was just sorry for everyone that it had come to light in the way it had. It was two-thirty in the afternoon for him when he called them. And his mother cried the moment she heard him on the phone. She was deeply remorseful.
“Darling, I'm so sorry…I couldn't…I thought… it wasn't the way it looked to Tati …oh God… what am I going to do?” She was sure her relationship with her daughter was destroyed forever, and she had never felt so ashamed in her life. No affair was worth destroying her family over. She loved Liam, or she thought she did, but her children still came first. And she was terrified Xavier would be angry too.
“First, you have to calm down,” Xavier said sensibly. He had said the same thing to Tatianna, when she called him at six in the morning his time, screaming and crying hysterically, and calling their mother a whore. He had told her to shut up immediately, and she had. They had talked for hours. He had assured her that Liam was a nice guy, a good friend of his, and he had introduced them, although he hadn't expected this to happen. In fact, it had never occurred to him. But he thought their mother had a right to happiness, with whomever she chose. It was not up to them. She had obviously been discreet about it, as he pointed out to Tatianna, since no one seemed to know. Even he hadn't figured it out when he saw them together. And she certainly was no “whore.” She was a lonely woman with a lover who happened to be a few years younger than she was, which was none of their business.
“How can she do that in Daddy's bed? That's disgusting!” Tatianna had wailed. She had worshiped him and still couldn't believe he was gone. And now to add to her misery, someone had taken his place and was sleeping in his bed.
“Tati, it's her bed too. Where do you expect her to go? We're lucky she lets us use the house. She doesn't have to. Dad left it to her.”
“She could go to a hotel.”
“That would be sordid. She has the right, Tat, and I promise you he's a decent guy. I know him well.”
“Like hell he is. He's a starving artist, and he's after her money. Our money,” she reminded her brother, hoping to pit him against his friend. It didn't work. Xavier knew Liam better.
“I don't think so,” Xavier said thoughtfully. “I really don't. I think he likes her.” At least he hoped so, which was what he wanted to know when he called his mother. “Is this serious, Mom?” he asked her honestly, and she hesitated. She didn't know what to say, or what to call it. They loved each other, but they hadn't figured the rest out yet. That's what they were doing now.
“I don't know.” Sasha answered her son honestly. She was always honest with her children. She hadn't lied about Liam. She just hadn't told them. It was a sin of omission, but not commission, which she knew was splitting hairs.
“How long has it been going on?” he asked then, hoping it wasn't a one-night stand, or an irresistible impulse, which would make a liar of him to Tatianna, when he had said his mother didn't do things lightly and this was probably important to her. Which only made Tatianna cry more. She didn't want her mother marrying some ridiculous young artist. That would have been just too embarrassing. And too much for her to swallow. She wanted her mother to mourn her father forever, childish though that was.
“It's been going on for six months. On and off since January,” Sasha said miserably. Liam was listening, lyi
ng next to her in bed, and decided to leave her alone to talk to her son. He got up and went downstairs to make coffee.
“Are you going to marry him?” Xavier asked her.
“Good lord…I don't know…I keep telling him this is impossible. I think Tatianna proved that last night. I'm not going to do anything that alienates me from either of you. Liam and I haven't figured out where this is going to go, if anywhere. It may not.”
“It won't alienate you from us, Mom. Nothing could do that. We love you. She'll get over it. She was just surprised. We want you to be happy.” He spoke for both of them, which Sasha knew was not the case. Or at least not at the moment.
She groaned ruefully then at the memory of the scene the night before, with she and Liam naked and everyone screaming at each other. Tatianna had described it fairly accurately to her brother. “It was pretty awful. We thought she was a burglar. Liam went out into the hall with a poker, and no clothes on.”
“So she told me,” he said generously. He was two years older than his sister, which made a difference. And Liam was his friend, so he was not an unknown to him. His mother's affair with him had surprised him too at first, but at least he knew he was a decent person. Tatianna knew nothing about him. “It's a good thing he didn't just take a swing and hit her in the dark.”
“He turned the lights on, which made it worse, when she saw us.” This time Xavier laughed.
“Well, Mom, you've been outed. But if you're happy, that's all I care about. I'll talk to Tatianna later. I told her to take a Valium and go to bed.”
“Does she take Valium?” Her mother sounded shocked. Neither of her children had ever been on drugs, that she knew of.
“No. But I'm sure someone she knows has some. She sounded like she needed it last night. You should have turned a fire hose on her. She was half out of her mind when she called.” And by then, she'd had a stiff drink, and sounded slightly drunk. She was a total mess, and he told her to get some sleep and call him later. “Can I talk to Liam?” Sasha went to find him in the kitchen. He handed her a cup of coffee, and she handed him the phone. Xavier chuckled as soon as he heard the familiar voice. “So do I call you Dad now?”
“That's a lot better than what your sister called me. Hey man, I'm sorry. I really am. I didn't mean to create this mess. I wouldn't do that to your mother for anything, or to you.”
“Don't worry about it. Shit happens.” Xavier stepped into his role as head of the family then, defending his mother's interests. “Do you love her?” he asked soberly. Xavier hoped he did, because he was a good guy, and Xavier wanted to believe he was behaving honorably, and not just on a whim. He didn't want his mother taken advantage of, especially by his friend.
“Yes, I do,” Liam said loud and clear, glancing over at Sasha, who was slumped in a seat at the kitchen table, still looking upset. She felt utterly humiliated.
“Is it too soon to ask your intentions?”
“Probably. We're both still trying to figure that out. It's a little early. It's taken me a lot to convince your mother that this was a good idea. I don't think last night helped a lot. And I'm not even divorced yet.” Then he asked Xavier a question. “If we ever got there, would you approve?”
Xavier hesitated for a long moment, thinking about it. This was new to him, too. “I guess so, if you think you can make each other happy. It's not what I expected, but life takes funny turns sometimes. Maybe this could work. I'll let you two figure that out. I'll take care of my sister while you do.”
“I appreciate it a lot,” Liam said with a tremor in his voice. What he appreciated was his friend's blessing on their relationship, more than his help with his irate sister, although that was useful, too, and would mean a lot to Sasha, who still looked distraught. Liam handed her back the phone then and went outside to stand on the porch and look at the beach. It was a foggy day, which seemed appropriate to him.
Xavier tried to calm his mother when she got back on the phone. She was crying softly, and he felt sorry for her. He could easily sense how awful it had been for her. “Mom, try to relax. I'll talk to Tat. Just try to have a decent weekend. She'll get over it. So will you. He's a good guy. He says he loves you. That's all you need to know.”
“I love him, too,” she sniffed, “but I'm not willing to lose my children for him.”
“You won't. She'll yell and scream and stomp around for a while. She'll be a diva. That's how she is. You have a right to this, if that's what you want. You have my support. And if you stick with it, and it works, you'll get hers, too. If not, chalk it up to experience and we'll all laugh about it one day.” But no one was laughing yet. Xavier was being incredibly mature and generous, far more so than his sister.
She thanked him profusely, they talked for a few more minutes, and then they hung up and she went out to find Liam on the porch. He was looking out to sea and thinking, and turned as she sat down on the swing next to him.
“I'm sorry, Sasha. I didn't mean to make a mess for you.” He looked genuinely sorry it had happened.
“You didn't make a mess. It just happened. They were bound to find out sooner or later.” Others would, too. This was just not the way she wanted their affair to come to light, to say the least. Neither did he.
They spent the rest of the weekend quietly, and went back to the city Sunday night. She had tried to get through to Tatianna several times on her cell phone, and it was always on voice mail. At her apartment, all Sasha got was the answering machine, and left several loving messages for her. Liam hated to hear her crawling, but he knew how much her daughter meant to her. He thought Tatianna should be spanked, but he said nothing to Sasha. How she handled it now was up to her.
Xavier left his sister several messages, and she called him back in London. But she was intransigent when he tried to reason with her, and furious with him for endorsing Liam.
“You're as nuts as they are. For chrissake, he's about twenty years younger than she is. How crazy is she?”
“She's not crazy, Tat. She's lonely. And he's only about eight or nine years younger than she is,” Xavier said quietly, trying in vain to reason with her.
“He looks like a kid.”
“In some ways, he is. He acts like one, but he isn't. He's an adult. He says he loves her. And I think she loves him. Whether we like it or not, she has a right to be with whoever she wants. And I'd rather it be him than some uptight prick we really hate, or some guy after her money.”
“This is sick, Zav. And he probably is after her money.”
“I don't think so. All he cares about is art. He's a decent guy who was married for twenty years and has three kids.” He didn't tell her that the marriage had broken up because he had slept with his wife's sister. “You just have to trust her on this one. Maybe they'll get over it. They're not hurting anyone.”
“She'll look like a fool, and so will we, if anyone finds out, or she goes out with him.”
“I've done a lot worse, believe me. And so have you.” He knew all her secrets, and there were a few affairs she wouldn't have wanted to publicize, either. And Sasha was certainly not making her relationship with Liam public. On the contrary, she was keeping it a secret, and hiding out in the Hamptons. But even if people found out, there was nothing disgraceful about Liam.
“She's our mother!” Tatianna raged at him again. She wasn't giving an inch on this one. And when Tatianna dug her heels in, as a rule wild horses couldn't budge her. Not for a while at least.
“That's the point here. Give her a break, Tat. Be decent to her. She needs it. She was miserable when Dad died. I want her to be happy.”
“Not with him.” Tatianna had declared war on both of them, and intended to keep it that way. She wanted to get Liam out of her mother's life, whatever it took. She was determined to save her mother from herself, for her father's sake if nothing else.
They argued about it for nearly an hour, and Tatianna never relented. She told Xavier that she wouldn't rest until Liam was gone. From the sound of what s
he said, Xavier believed her. He thought it was a shame. All he could do now was hope Liam was tougher and more tenacious than his sister. Tatianna was relentless once she set her sights on something. And she had.
Chapter 14
Sasha looked morbidly depressed when she got to the gallery on Monday. Karen, the manager, noticed it, and Marcie asked her gently if everything was all right, when she handed Sasha some more reviews from the show the week before.
“Are you okay?” she asked solicitously, as Sasha looked up at her with tears in her eyes. Tatianna hadn't returned a single call, and that morning at her office they had told Sasha she was out. She didn't want to stalk her, but Tatianna absolutely would not take her calls.
“I had a problem with Tatianna over the weekend,” she told her assistant cryptically. She couldn't have begun to describe the scene of Liam standing in the bedroom doorway naked with a fireplace poker, while Tatianna screamed insults at them both. Every time Sasha thought of it, she cringed, and started to cry again. It had been too awful.
“Is she all right?” Although she'd never had children of her own, nor been married, Marcie was the ultimate nurturing mother, which was one of the things Sasha loved about her. She was not only good at what she did, but loving and kind, and wonderful to Sasha.
“I don't know. She won't talk to me. We had a terrible fight. Worse than I can describe.” Marcie knew that hadn't been unusual when Tatianna was younger, but in recent years mother and daughter seemed to get along fine. Until now.
“She'll get over it,” Marcie reassured her. The question now was, would Sasha?
“I'm not sure she will,” Sasha said, as she blew her nose and wiped her eyes on one of her lace hankies. She had acquired the habit from her mother of always carrying a handkerchief. It was one of the tender memories of her she cherished. Sasha always had one in her bag. “It was terrible,” Sasha reiterated while Marcie clucked over her, and came back with a cup of tea, a glass of water, and some cookies, as Sasha looked up and smiled. “Thank you, Marcie.” Her assistant seemed to hesitate before she left, and then asked Sasha if there was anything she could do to help. She didn't want to pry. “I wish you could, but you can't,” Sasha answered, and then started to cry harder. Marcie couldn't stop herself then, she came back into the room and gave her employer and friend a hug.
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