One Summer Night

by Caridad Piñeiro

  “Daydreaming again?” his father asked as he strolled in, smiling.

  He’d been smiling a lot lately, making Owen wonder how it was that his misery could make his father so happy. Something snapped loose inside of him with that.

  “How can you be so cavalier? How can you enjoy seeing my pain?”

  In the blink of an eye, his father’s entire demeanor changed. Hands clenched, he charged Owen’s desk, surprisingly swift and seemingly stronger.

  “Pain!” he yelled and pounded his own chest with his fist. “You don’t know the first thing about pain or loss. You don’t know what it is to lose the love of your life. Not once, but twice.” He emphasized it by putting up two spindly fingers that he almost shoved in Owen’s face.

  The shock that filled Owen was quickly followed by an epiphany. He now understood why his father had said that Maxwells and Pierces didn’t belong together.

  Images raced through his brain of his father smiling at Maggie’s mother as they’d run into each other on the beach. Of his father giving excuse after excuse for not going to the Sea Kiss house after Maggie’s mother had died.

  His father had loved Elizabeth Maxwell, Maggie’s mother.

  “The feud? Losing Maggie’s mom was what it’s really been about all this time, isn’t it? Not the properties. Not the betrayal.”

  Like a balloon with a pinhole, his father deflated before his eyes and dropped into the chair wearily, hands hanging loosely at his sides. With a feeble bob of his head and a voice made rough by his agony, his father said, “Bryce Sinclair and I had been friends since childhood. It was only natural we go into business together, and as we grew more and more successful, we began to move in higher social circles. That’s where we met Elizabeth Maxwell.”

  His father paused and sucked in a rough, almost violent breath before pushing on with his story. “I fell in love with her the moment I met her, but I knew I had to be richer, more successful, for someone like her to consider someone like me.”

  Owen wanted to say that life was about more than riches and success but knew it would only add salt to a wound that hadn’t healed in nearly forty years. Instead, he came around his desk and sat on its edge. He laid a hand on his father’s knee and offered a supportive squeeze.

  “What happened?” he asked, although he could guess. While his father was busy working and making money, Bryce Sinclair had been wooing Elizabeth.

  His father gazed up at him, his gaze shimmering with pain. “Sinclair beat me to her, and after, he gifted her some properties we had been working to acquire for our business.”

  “So you broke off your partnership with Sinclair and married my mother,” Owen supplied, needing to hear the entire story.

  “I couldn’t continue to work with a man I couldn’t trust. As for your mother…” His father looked away and shook his head. “I was wrong to marry her on the rebound. I didn’t love her the way she deserved.”

  Again, it was all Owen could do to hold back from saying that they’d deserved better from him. That they’d deserved more love and less bitterness. Less judgment.

  “You said you lost love twice,” he said.

  A halfhearted shrug met his statement. “I never stopped hoping Elizabeth would be mine, even after Maggie was born. But it didn’t happen, and I contented myself with just knowing she was there, right next door. Right across those hedges I put up to try to keep their happiness out of sight.”

  But Elizabeth Maxwell Sinclair had died in childbirth nearly eight years after Maggie’s birth, and the more Owen thought about it, that was when his father’s acrimony had really taken a turn for the worse. Without his saying a word, his father must have realized Owen needed to know more.

  “Elizabeth had a difficult pregnancy with Maggie. She was told not to try having another child. The doctors warned her she’d risk her life if she did, but Bryce let her do it anyway,” his father said in softer tones. But a second later, he pounded his thigh with his fist and grew agitated again. “Bryce should have protected her. Kept her safe. Instead, he let her get pregnant, and he let her die.”

  Since Owen assumed Maggie was a great deal like her mother, he knew that if Elizabeth had wanted to do something, very little would keep her from accomplishing her goal. Which only disheartened him, because it seemed like Maggie was dead-set on ending their marriage. But for now, he needed his father to understand what he wanted more than anything.

  “I love Maggie. She is the love of my life, and I don’t want to lose her. Can you understand that?”

  His father raised eyes shimmering with tears. “Forget about her, Owen. Get on with your life. Don’t be like me.”

  He had never wanted to be like his father, unhappy and unpleasant. Seemingly angry at the world for the state of his life. Longing for the impossible, he now knew. Only getting Maggie back wasn’t impossible. Difficult, but not impossible.

  “I won’t give up, Father. I want her to be my wife. I want to have a family with her. I want to grow old with her.”

  His father shook his head. “You’re more like me than I thought, I guess, and I pity you for that.”

  Owen didn’t know how to reply to that or to his father’s pain, but he knew it was time for the feud to end.

  “It’s not too late to change, Dad. It’s not too late for the two families to have a future together. A happy future, and I’m going to try to make it right with Maggie. Maybe you should think about making it right with Bryce Sinclair.”

  He’d expected the anger he’d gotten in the past, but this time, he only got a tired “I’m not sure that’s possible any longer.”

  “Try, Dad” was all he said.

  With a slight incline of his head to give his assent, his father rose woodenly from the chair and walked out.

  Owen wasn’t sure what his father would do, but he had to follow that same advice and try as well.

  He loved Maggie too much not to give it his best shot.

  Chapter 34

  After making sure Connie was in a cab and on her way home, Maggie headed home herself, but all the while, she kept asking herself why Owen was trying to delay the inevitable. She couldn’t stay with a man she couldn’t trust, and she could no longer trust Owen, even if deep inside, she still had feelings for him. The fact that he still roused her emotions warned that she wasn’t over him, but how could she be? It was barely over a week since she’d overheard his conversation with his father. Less than that since Connie had reluctantly had him served with the divorce papers.

  Her friend’s reticence had surprised her, as had Connie’s belief that maybe Maggie was being too hard on him. That maybe she should really give him a chance to explain what had happened. She even suspected that, given the chance, Connie might have orchestrated a way for the two of them to talk at today’s meeting, but of course, Owen hadn’t bothered to show up.

  She was so lost in her thoughts as she approached her brownstone that she didn’t notice the figure sitting on her front stoop. She stepped back, worried that she was about to become another crime statistic, but as the person rose from the shadows, her front porch light illuminated his features.

  “Owen,” she said aloud as relief of one kind filled her, only to be replaced by another emotion. “What are you doing here?” she said, her tone curt and no-nonsense.

  “I came to talk,” he said and shifted to allow her to reach her door.

  She opened it and stepped inside but barred his entry. As she did so, the brighter light from inside bathed his features, letting her see the misery on his face. The dark circles under his eyes and sharp lines around his mouth and eyes seemed to have been etched there overnight. His pain moved her, but letting him inside was too risky for her heart.

  “We have nothing else to say to each other, Owen.”

  “Please listen to me, Mags,” he pleaded, hands outstretched before him.

 
“Only my friends call me Mags, and right now, you’re not a friend. To tell the truth, I’m not really sure what you are other than a liar,” she said a little more forcefully as anger awakened within her.

  Seeming resigned to accept that name, Owen nodded and said, “I did lie. To my father. It was the only way I could think of to keep him off my back so that we could explore what was happening between us.”

  “You lied to me every day we were together, Owen,” she said and tapped her chest for emphasis. “Every day that you let that lie continue…” She paused to take a breath and fight back the tears welling up in her eyes. She would not cry in front of him. She would not let him know just how much he’d hurt her.

  “I never wanted to lie to you, Maggie. I love you. I want to be your husband. It’s why I did what I did,” he said, his entire body drooping. His features looked worn-out and defeated.

  In some part of her, sympathy rose up, but it wasn’t strong enough to overcome all the hurt and anger and disappointment roiling in her heart. “I’m not sure I can believe you anymore, Owen. I’m not sure I can stay in a marriage based on a lie.”

  Owen looked away, and his full lips thinned into a sharp line. He ran a hand through the tousled waves of his dark hair and, with a shake of his head, faced her again, determination alive on his face.

  “It’s not a lie. I married you because I love you. I never lied about that. Maybe we should have talked more about the feud before the marriage. Talked about why our fathers were fighting.”

  “We don’t know why,” she reminded him.

  Owen nodded and said, “Earlier today, my father told me the real reason for the feud, and it wasn’t the properties that caused the fight. He was in love with your mother and wanted to marry her, but she was in love with his best friend and partner. When she died, he lost her again and blamed your father, because he knew that her having another child was very risky.”

  He paused for a moment to let it sink in.

  The revelation surprised her, although it explained the intense rancor that his father had for the Sinclairs while her own father’s anger had been more easily resolved. But that didn’t explain one thing.

  “Why are you telling me this now, Owen? What does this have to do with us?”

  “It has everything to do with us, Maggie. If it hadn’t been for that feud, you and I…we would have happened long before now. Without lies. But more importantly, I won’t be like my father, old and bitter and pining for the love of my life because I let her get away. I won’t let you go, Maggie. I love you, and I’m going to fight for you.”

  Before she could react, he kissed her, hard. Demanding. Letting her know just how badly he wanted her. For a moment, one crazy, illogical moment, she responded to his entreaty before pushing him away.

  “I have one more thing to say to you, Maggie. I love you, and I always will.”

  With that, he turned and walked away, leaving her standing at her door, watching him disappear into the dark autumn night.

  She closed the door and leaned back against it. Laid her fingers on lips that felt almost bruised from the force of his last kiss. His last kiss, she thought, and the ache in her heart came again, making her wonder how she could live without him. Without the passion they shared. And the humor. And having him as a sounding board, because he just seemed to get her in ways no one else ever had.

  Only she had been utterly truthful when she told him she couldn’t believe him and that she couldn’t stay in a marriage based on a lie, even if it had been a lie told so they could be together. A lie told to satisfy an unreasonable father.

  From what little she knew of Robert Pierce, life with him hadn’t been pleasant for the boys. She suspected that every day for Owen had been a difficult one because of their relationship and his father’s expectations. A part of her felt for Owen and could even maybe understand the reason for the subterfuge. He had stood to lose all that he’d known in his life. His father. The business and everything that went with it.

  But did that justify lying to her?

  That she was as confused as she was maybe confirmed Connie’s opinion that she needed more time to think about everything. To get over the hurt and anger, to be able to deliberate more rationally. To not let hurt and anger overwhelm her the way it had overtaken Owen’s father.

  Moving away from the door, she dropped her keys into the dish on the foyer table, and the bowl of seashells on the table beside the couch caught her eye. It reminded her of that first night here with Owen and the cracked shells and broken glass strewn across the floor. She had worried that night about how her life could shatter into pieces if she became involved with Owen and it went wrong. Sadly, her worries had come to fruition, she thought and sank into the cushions of the couch. She laid her head back and thought about all that Owen had just said. About his not giving up on her.

  Could I ever forgive him? she wondered, and the little voice in her head urged her to forgive and forget. To listen to his pleas and apology and move on with their relationship. But she was still hurting too much to consider it at that moment. The problem was, she wasn’t sure if that hurt would ever go away.

  Worse, she didn’t know what to do if it didn’t.

  * * *

  Owen had offered her his apology and promised to fight for her, but he also understood that she needed time away from his constant presence to think about all he’d said.

  By the time Wednesday rolled around, Connie was still pressing his attorney to set up a meeting, and Owen was beginning to lose hope. If there was one ray of light in his life, it was that they’d settled the lawsuit with the other Realtor, and the Upper East Side project was back in operation. With that resolved, he decided to take a break from Manhattan and go lick his wounds in the peace of their Sea Kiss home.

  Jonathan had been in Sea Kiss for weeks thanks to his staycation and plans to develop a facility in that area. Owen worried about intruding if Jonathan had someone female there with him, but he took a chance. He needed to get away, and he could count on Jonathan to be supportive and offer him advice on what to do about Maggie.

  Speed-dialing him, Jonathan answered on the very first ring.

  “How’s my favorite brother doing?” Jonathan said lightheartedly.

  “I’m your only brother,” Owen reminded him, deadpan. “If you’re done sharing the house with your harem, I was hoping to come down later.”

  “Dudley’s a boy, so I’m not sure he counts as a harem. Besides, I’ve been staying at a local inn to avoid any issues with our father. How is it going with Maggie? Any developments?”

  Owen had talked to his brother right after the blowup, but other than a couple of texts, he hadn’t said much more on the subject. “Nothing, Li’l Bro. It’s why I want to get away. I need to think about what to do. How to handle the possibility she’s really serious about going ahead with this divorce,” he confessed.

  “Is Connie still pushing your attorney?” Jonathan asked, and the chill in his voice at the mention of Maggie’s friend couldn’t be missed.

  “I thought you and Connie had patched things up? You sure looked friendly enough the night of the wedding.”

  A strangled cough greeted his statement before Jonathan clumsily changed the subject. “What time should I expect you?”

  “I’m assuming you’re still busy being domestic, so I hope a nice dinner will be ready when I get there. Probably around seven. I’m not expecting much traffic.”

  “I’ll risk father’s wrath to have dinner ready for you at the house. See you later, Big Bro.”

  “See you later,” he repeated and packed up his briefcase with the few papers he might or might not get to while he was in Sea Kiss. But as he gathered the materials, the envelope with the divorce papers and his lawyer’s memo with the copy of the prenup caught his eye.

  Cautiously, like a snake charmer taming a cobra, he reached fo
r the documents. He picked them up and juggled them, pondering whether to bring them. If Maggie didn’t answer his next entreaty or return one of his many calls, it was time to consider setting her free. Not that he’d be free of what he felt for her, but maybe, just maybe, with enough distance and time, she’d change her mind and come back to him.

  He tucked the papers into his briefcase and grabbed it. He turned on the out-of-office message on his email program and advised his secretary that he’d be gone for a few days and didn’t want to be disturbed.

  In half an hour, he was home and tossing clothes into a small duffel. He locked up and headed to the garage to get his car. When the attendant wheeled it around, grinning at being able to drive the unique prototype, Owen forced a smile at the young man, not wanting to spread misery the way his father did. He tipped the attendant, slipped into the driver’s seat, and dropped his briefcase and suitcase onto the floor of the passenger area.

  Eagerly, he pulled out of the lot and headed toward the tunnel, praying that it would be a speedy trip, because he needed to get to a place where he could reflect and maybe even heal a little. His refuge during both difficult and good times had always been the house in Sea Kiss.

  His happiest memories were tied to that place.

  Building sand castles with Maggie.

  Summer days spent surfing with Jonathan.

  Memorial Day parades and fireworks on the Fourth of July.

  His first kiss with Maggie.

  Marrying Maggie.

  Would it still be a refuge with so many memories of what he’d lost through his stupidity? he wondered.

  Hands clenched on the wheel, he fought back against that negativity and drove, eager to get to the one place, other than with Maggie, that had always felt like home.

  * * *

  Maggie fell into bed exhausted. The sleepless nights and days filled with obligations were taking their toll. Luckily, with the arrival of Santa in their Winter Wonderland on Fifth Avenue and all the suburban locations, her last major appearance for Maxwell’s was done. Now, it was just a matter of waiting to see how November went before their huge Black Friday events. Hopefully, it would all be enough, because if it wasn’t, she didn’t know how she would fulfill the terms of the prenup in order not to lose any of the suburban locations to Owen and, after, the shore home and town house. Although Connie had done a wonderful job of making sure the terms would be fair even if the marriage failed, something that none of them had envisioned, a deal was a deal.