by Susan Meier
Because if she let herself stop too long, she’d feel the pain in her bleeding heart, and she didn’t have the strength for that.
She’d lost enough already in her still-young life, suffered enough. Being widowed, having her son alone, raising her son alone—
She just wanted to go home.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
KNOWING SALLY WAS in town, Hugo phoned her and requested her presence at the hotel. Then he called Jay and told him the same thing, making it sound like hotel business that needed to be discussed, not something personal.
Aware that Erin was buzzing around, working on last-minute details as if her life depended on it, he shoved down the self-loathing at hurting her by reminding himself it was for the best. One way or another, his family situation would resolve itself over his Christmas cards. He simply wanted it done. So he could go back to being a hotel magnate. Someone who found his sense of purpose by making other people happy.
Refusing to even let himself think about Erin, he waited for his brother and sister in the penthouse. When the doors opened on Jay, he asked him if he’d like some coffee or a drink, and though Jay chose coffee, Hugo poured himself a glass of bourbon.
Sally arrived a few minutes later, glowing and wearing a ring on the third finger of her left hand.
“I see congratulations are in order.”
She gleefully said, “Yes!”
Hugo hugged her, his spirit lifting. He’d been a strong big brother when she needed it. He had to continue behaving that way.
Sally and Jay sat on the sofa and Hugo lowered himself to the chair across from them. He picked up the manila envelope from the coffee table and slowly poured out the Christmas cards.
Jay said, “What’s this?”
“Christmas cards. Addressed to you and Sally. All are postmarked, which proves I didn’t desert you.” He met Sally’s gaze, then Jay’s. “I tried to keep in touch.”
Sally glanced at the red and green envelopes, then looked up at Hugo.
Jay rummaged through, finding the cards addressed to him and pulling them out. “There are so many cards here.”
“I didn’t give up until my cards started being returned by the post office.”
Sally murmured, “That was probably when we were sent away to school.”
A shaft of pain pierced Hugo’s heart. It was no wonder it was so difficult for him to get through to them. They’d been as betrayed as he had been.
Jay laughed nervously. “Do we get to read these?”
Hugo leaned back in his chair. “Yes, but I need you to understand that I was lonely and missing you too. If I sound weak, that’s why. But trust me, I’m back to being the big brother you knew. I had a few rough years, but I used them to make myself strong.”
Sally quietly said, “You want us to read them now?”
His confidence fully in place, he met Sally’s gaze. “No. You can take them home with you, if that would be more comfortable for you.”
Having scooped his up, Jay said, “Okay.” His smile was warm when he said, “I can’t wait.”
Hugo laughed. “Remember I was just a kid when I wrote some of those cards.”
Jay laughed. “I know. I know. You’re back to being big brother Hugo now.”
But Sally shook her head. “You think sending us a few cards absolves you of everything?” She took a disgusted breath, squeezing her eyes shut. “All this talk about you being weak? When were you ever weak? You seemed pretty strong when you left us! Left our mum. If you truly believed that Nick was so bad, you should have stayed!”
She stormed to the elevator. Because the little car had just brought her up to the penthouse, it opened the minute that she tapped the button. Before Hugo could say anything, she was gone.
But Jay stayed behind. His hand hovered above Sally’s cards.
His eyes rose and he caught Hugo’s gaze. “You sent us a card every year?”
“Yes. And I didn’t leave. I was pushed. Nick fabricated evidence that I’d stolen from the hotel.”
“Young as I was, I still remember the whispers about money being missing.”
“Nick took it.” Hugo sucked in a long breath. As long as Jay listened, he intended to talk. “I’d found the evidence and confronted him. I gave him time to come clean with Mum. I never thought the bastard would use the time to frame me.”
“So, you did nothing wrong?”
“I did nothing wrong.” Hugo waited a few seconds then said, “Go ahead and take the ones addressed to Sally. She might not want them this very minute, but in a day or so she might have a change of heart.” Strong, honest, he smiled at Jay. “You have a better chance of getting her to read them than I would.”
After Jay left, Hugo strode to his office, his head swimming. Part of him still couldn’t believe his mother hadn’t given his Christmas messages to his brother and sister. The pain of it rose again and tried to weaken him but he refused to let it. All those years he’d waited for even a simple acknowledgment of the cards and mourned when he didn’t receive so much as a thank-you. But no response had come because his mother hadn’t given the twins his cards.
And now Sally wouldn’t read hers and was still hurt and angry. Not that he blamed her. She had been a kid, left by her big brother, living in a house filled with tension.
Alone in the office, he looked at the outdated filing cabinets that lined the right wall, fighting back his anger with Nick. Death had taken his father, then grief had stolen his mother. Only a shell of herself, she’d married because she’d needed help, needed a partner. And what had she got? A thief. A thief so clever he’d edged out the only person who really knew him.
The bastard was a liar and a thief who had caused the people in Hugo’s life to believe he was the thief. The people who should have known him best—
Erin knew him.
The idea tiptoed through his brain as soft as a feather. As real as warm summer rain.
He groaned. Erin was wonderful. But he couldn’t have her. He wasn’t himself with her—
But he’d liked the guy he had been with her.
The thought entered his brain softly again, as if afraid to form. And he knew why. Ever since he’d bought this hotel he’d been confused, trying to reunite his family and renovate a hotel so old a lesser man might have bulldozed it.
Yet he hadn’t been as preoccupied with the hotel as he should have been because he liked being with Erin so much more—
Fury burst like a volcano and he swept his arm along the cluttered top of the row of cabinets, sending papers flying.
Angry with himself for losing control when Erin could walk in any minute, he bent to pick up the debris. He had two armloads of unmitigated junk—stuff so dated it should have been tossed a decade ago—when his gaze fell to an old Harrington Park Hotel manila envelope.
He might have simply stacked it up and thrown it back to the top of the cabinets, except his name was scrawled across the front... Hugo.
Could there have been another Hugo associated with the hotel?
Maybe.
But his heart sped up as his curiosity piqued. The envelope was so old...
He rose and took the envelope to the desk. Using a letter opener, he sliced the seam and reached inside for the contents.
Ten cards tumbled out.
The first had his full name and one of his former addresses on it. He scrambled to read the others. Each had his name and one of his addresses.
His mother’s name and the hotel information had been scrawled in the return address space of the envelope.
He couldn’t breathe. His mother had tried to send him things?
His heart thundered, tightening his chest.
Fear tried to tell him that the contents of those envelopes might not be good. She might have sent him threatening letters, trying to get her money back—
> He shook his head, setting aside the fear. It wouldn’t matter if they were threatening letters. He already believed his mother hated him. They couldn’t do any more damage than that.
But if these were happy letters, Christmas cards, even letters expressing sadness that she hadn’t defended him, then he wanted to see.
No. He needed to see.
He ripped them open. And read the most wonderful words he had ever seen in his life.
She was desperate.
She was sorry.
She loved him.
He read each card, then read the more memorable ones again and again, his heart lifting with every swipe of his eyes across her brokenhearted words.
He wished for a moment that he could have had confidence enough to see her desperation and that he’d swooped in and rescued his family. But wishes to change the past were fruitless.
And he hadn’t been unloved.
He sat back on his seat, the whole situation of his leaving played before him, except differently. He saw his mother’s pain, saw her love for him.
Things could not have turned out any differently. As a seventeen-year-old without an education, he couldn’t have supported his family. His mother didn’t have skills enough to get a job that would pay her enough to support a family.
She’d had to let him go. And he’d done very well by himself.
He straightened in his chair.
He had done very well for himself. He’d educated himself, worked his way up the ranks of companies...
He’d created a wonderful life for himself, and now he could make it better by bringing in his brother and sister. Not as the superstrong older brother—
Just as their brother.
A strange relief filled him, along with thoughts of Erin. And Noah and even Marge. They’d never once wanted him to be anything other than what he was. And if his brother and sister wanted him to be something more, a superstrong brother for them to lean on...was that right?
Wasn’t the world supposed to be more like the one he and Erin had been creating?
The thought confounded him. Instinctively he knew it was right. But he’d spent his entire life believing otherwise. Believing he had to be tough and focused. Not made for the softness, the comfort, the ease Erin had brought into his life.
And this was his moment of truth.
He pulled his phone from his pocket and texted both Sally and Jay for another meeting, this one in his office.
Each came scurrying in, again thinking there was a crisis with the hotel. Jay immediately took a seat in front of his desk. Sally stopped cold when she looked at him, her distrust so evident he could finally see her pain.
But he’d been gone, out of the family, for seventeen years, and so young when he’d been forced out that he suddenly wondered how any of them could believe any of this was his fault.
Nodding for her to take a seat, he said, “Sally, I see that all this hurt you. Maybe even more than me. I was seventeen, old enough to plan a future and work my way into it. You were a scared kid.”
Looking at her hands, she said nothing.
Hugo took a slow breath and said something he never thought he’d say. “That’s why we need each other. Not as me being the white knight older brother who swoops in and fixes everything. I’m not that guy.” His shoulders relaxed as he said the words, and the relief that filled him rained down as if straight from heaven. “But I would love to have you both in my life as my brother and sister. Just simple family.” He picked up three of the cards, all of which contained heartrending letters from their mum. “These are from Mum. I’m going to leave you two alone to read these, to process everything.”
With that he left. If Sally didn’t understand after reading their mother’s letters, she never would. But at least he could let her go with a clear conscience.
He stepped out of the office, closing the door behind him. Erin approached, frowning. “I have stuff in there I need. I hope you didn’t lock it.”
He stared at her. If he hadn’t spent these past days with her, he would have seen his mother’s letters as vindication but still believed he somehow had to be more than he was, more than what Sally and Jay legitimately had a right to expect.
She was the first person in his life to let him be himself.
Love for her poured through him. He was pretty sure he’d loved her from their first night together. He’d simply been alone so long he hadn’t recognized it, and when he’d come close to seeing it, his past had filled him with fear.
He took a breath, ready to shout it from the rooftops, but he remembered that he’d hurt her—had broken things off with her—and he knew he’d have to make it up to her.
He might even have to win her back.
Seeing the stern expression on her face, he realized he’d definitely have to win her back. He just wasn’t sure how.
So when his mouth opened, he didn’t say, “I love you.” He said, “Sally and Jay are in there. The door’s not locked, but I would ask that you give them at least fifteen minutes of privacy.”
“Oh.” She frowned. “Something I should know?”
He laughed. “No. The celebration’s not going to blow up in your face. I’m not going to melt down. In fact,” he said, bending to kiss her cheek, “things are finally on track.”
* * *
Erin didn’t know if she should be insulted or heartened by Hugo’s kiss on her cheek. So she refused to think about it.
The next day—Christmas Eve—with a flight back to New York booked for that evening, Erin rushed to pack her remaining things before she could get her mom and Noah into a taxi to go to the airport.
Noah didn’t want to leave. He had it in his head that Santa knew he was in his new house and wouldn’t find him. He crossed his arms and sat on the sofa, refusing to move.
Her mom didn’t want to leave either.
“I finally feel like I’ve found my place in the world now that I’ve connected with my parents’ families. If anything, I think we should scrape together the cash to rent this place in January.”
Erin’s heart hurt. “I hear what you’re saying, and I love that you’re finding a place in the world.” She tossed the shirt she was folding onto the sofa and closed her eyes. “You were right about me and Hugo. We did start something, but he broke up with me the day before yesterday.”
Her mom scampered over. “Oh, Erin! I’m so sorry. He’s an idiot!”
“He’s not an idiot. When I moved into his office, I found some things. Things that more or less gave him a big piece of the puzzle to his past. It made him angry and he told me our relationship had gotten in the way of his plans for his family. As if what we’d shared had been me dragging him away from his purpose.”
Tears filled her eyes and her mom hugged her. “You always said he had trouble with feelings.”
She sniffed. “That’s why I want to leave before the party. How could I stay here, in love with someone who’d dismissed me so easily, once I’d discovered his secrets?” She pulled in a breath, all the feelings she’d been suppressing suddenly pouring out of her. “What is it about me that no one trusts me? That no one wants to share their secrets and dreams with me?”
“Oh, honey, that’s not it. You might have found some things about Hugo’s past. But you’ve told me a hundred times the man didn’t have feelings.”
He did have feelings.
Erin had seen them. She’d watched him go from being a man so careful that even his hellos were guarded to someone who let her take the lead in bed. There was something there. Something strong and precious. But he didn’t want to be that guy. He wanted to hold back part of himself.
The way Josh had.
Even if Hugo wanted her back, that was the real bottom line. He might be nothing like Josh, but they had a few similar beliefs. Beliefs she couldn’t live with.
Her mom heaved herself up from the sofa. “Come on. Let’s pack.”
“What about your relatives?”
“I can just as easily save some money to come back next summer.” She winced. “It’ll mean you’ll have to find day care for Noah.”
“Not a problem,” she said automatically because that was her thing. Just as Hugo could be cold and distant, businesslike when pain overwhelmed him, she became accommodating, not letting anyone see her hurt, upset or confusion.
Maybe it was time for that to stop. Maybe she was tired of being the one everybody counted on. Tired of being the one who always did the right thing.
And maybe that was the lesson in losing her husband. It was time to stand up for herself.
Her phone pinged with a text.
Where are you? I can’t find you. Someone said they thought you’d left.
Hugo.
He was probably looking for her because he’d decided he wanted more icing on the gingerbread cookies...or no icing...or more flowers...or fewer flowers. A detail that shouldn’t matter. But he was a fussbudget.
She debated not answering him.
But no matter what she decided about herself personally, he was still her boss. Her employer. She would do her duty.
I’m at home. We’re packing to leave.
Leave? You’re not coming to the party?
She took a second. She’d spent the past weeks working her butt off to make this the perfect Christmas Eve. Part of her had envisioned Noah chitchatting with Santa. Her mom had bought a beautiful party dress. She’d used Hugo’s shopper again to get a wonderful red velvet dress to wear. But every time she pictured herself at the celebration of Hugo’s greatest success, she saw him coolly greeting her, then shipping her and her family to a far corner. Because they weren’t anybody. The family of a subcontractor. Not even an employee.
No.
Erin! You have to come!
Not really. We’re homesick. Eager to be in our own space.