“It beats me-but you were right in the thick of it all. I think you made a bigger mess than they did. That seems like headline news to me. In fact, if Bunny were still alive, I could call her, put it in the infamous Eastwick Social Diary. No one would believe this huge a scandal unless they saw it in print.”
His eyes narrowed. But he hadn’t moved, didn’t seem to mind her pinning him with her hands. “You’ve got an evil side to you, Emma Dearborn.”
“Oh, thank you. That’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to me in years and years.”
She wasn’t sure how it happened, but somehow she’d ended up in his arms again. In fact, he’d seemed to quite arrogantly lean against the shady side of her van and nestle her right into the V of his thighs. “You want to hear nice things?” he questioned.
She sobered, because he’d suddenly dropped the easy, teasing tone. Her eyes softened. “What I want…is for you not to regret last night.”
“That’s my line, Em. When you woke up this morning, I was afraid you’d think I took advantage of you.”
“The way I remember it, I jumped you. So I should get the credit for taking advantage, not you.”
But he wasn’t buying that. And though he was holding her close, his gaze kindled more than desire. “You’d just been through a really emotional situation. You were upset, vulnerable. I came over because your lights stayed on so late… I just got worried, thought you might need someone to talk to, vent on. But I swear, I wasn’t trying to cause an awkward complication in your life.”
She said quietly, honestly, “Garrett, you are a complication for me. You have been ever since you came home.”
He went still. Wary-still. A car pulled into the center’s parking lot. Noisy kids spilled out. He never noticed, never looked away.
She took a nervous breath. “I think a lot of people would judge my making love with you yesterday as wrong. Wrong because I was so recently engaged, wrong because it looked like a rebound thing. But I want you to know…it wasn’t like that. What you’ve done since you came home was bring out feelings in me that I didn’t know I had. All kinds of feelings. Not just sexual ones. If I’d married Reed, it would have been wrong. That’s the truth.”
“You sound very sure.”
“I’m absolutely positive. I love Reed the way you love a wonderful close friend. But I never loved him…sexually. Intimately. To be totally honest, I thought the feelings I had for him were all there was. For ages I just thought I’m not a particularly sexual person-”
“You can’t be serious.”
She felt his thumb nudging a strand of hair on her cheek that had loosened from its chignon. His touch was so tender she wanted to shiver. “I’m very serious. It was always easy for me do the celibate thing. In principle, for darn sure, I never wanted to be courted because I was an heiress to the Dearborn money, didn’t want to be part of some merger. But now, I realize that it was easy to hold tight to those principles…because I was never really tempted.”
“The guys growing up here used to be so smart. They must have gotten a lot stupider in the years I was away.”
She smiled because he wanted her to. “You’re going to think this is mighty Pollyannaish, but…”
“But what?”
“But I wanted making love to be beautiful or I never wanted it at all. In the grand scheme of things, I realize beauty doesn’t rate up there as seriously important. It’s hardly world peace or curing world hunger or anything. But I always felt…beauty does matter. It can make a difference. Beauty around us can give us peace and hope and…” She started to laugh at herself…“And all that nonsense.”
“That’s not nonsense, Emma.”
“Well, I realize it’s hardly a realistic view of the world. Which, God knows, my family is always telling me. But I’m just trying to say that last night was beautiful. For me. It was what I’d held out for. And I’m glad I did.”
She raised up again and kissed him. Not a kiss of enticement. Just…she wanted to give him something sweet and honest. So her lips brushed his, softer than a whisper. More fleeting than a promise.
She didn’t know what he wanted from her. What he felt. There’s no way she would have asked. It was crazy to think he could possibly care as fiercely and deeply as she did-not this soon. Not in this short a time. But her heart was filled to brimming over with emotions and choices and wonder that she hadn’t expected to feel.
Right or wrong, crazy or not crazy-impossible or not impossible-she knew she’d fallen in love with him.
Eight
Late-afternoon sun poured through the windshield as Emma turned into her parents’ driveway. As she shut off the engine and climbed out, she took a long, bracing breath.
This visit was going to be difficult, but it had to be done. She owed her parents a more extensive explanation about Reed and the broken engagement. And this afternoon was the best possible time to handle this, because she felt a rare surge of strength-not the poise she put on in public but darn near something real. She actually wanted to have this talk with her parents, wanted to be honest with them. It amazed her.
She knew Garrett was the catalyst for that boost of confidence. Darn it, at her age, she shouldn’t need somebody else to validate her. But he had. He’d made her feel accepted and wanted for who she was-not who others wanted her to be. And as she hiked to the front door, she felt an easiness on the inside she hadn’t experienced in a month of Sundays.
Pausing before entering, she glanced up. She loved this house, always had. Dearborns had built it a century before. With its four chimneys and multiple roofs and gothic turrets, it wasn’t quite a castle but almost. As a young girl she’d fantasized about beauty and perfection, formed by the gorgeous home surrounding her. The house itself had always given her a sense of security, especially when real life hadn’t been that easy when she was a kid.
She let herself in, calling, “Mom! Dad! I’m home!”
Funny, but she’d been sleeping so often at Color that she’d practically forgotten this was technically still her address. Her mom rushed out of the living room, her heels clattering on the parquet floor. At a glance Emma could see she was sober, which was both a relief and a surprise. But Diana was usually impeccably groomed, and today her white linen slacks and top looked slept in, her hair in disarray. “I called and called you. Why didn’t you answer?”
“But I did, Mom. I left a message that I’d be here this afternoon. I knew you’d be upset over the breakup, but it also wasn’t something we could discuss in a quick phone call. I had a meeting this morning and then I had to have lunch with Felicity to start calling off all the wedding arrangements-”
Her mother waved a frantic hand, clearly expressing that those were unnecessary details. “You have to get Reed back. Right now, today. Immediately. You have to marry him. David!” she called, although she never took her eyes off her daughter. “Emma, you have to listen to us!”
Emma stiffened, losing some of the sureness she’d felt walking in here. Her time with Garrett suddenly seemed a million hours ago. “Mom, I know how fond you are of Reed. And I know how much you wanted to have the wedding here, but I’ll take care of canceling all those arrangements and details-”
“It has nothing to do with the arrangements or expense, you foolish, foolish girl. David!”
Her father showed up in the doorway. She got a quick hug. Very quick. They got just close enough for her to feel his poker-straight spine, to see the tight lines around his eyes. “Honey, you don’t realize what you’ve done.”
“Of course I do. I called off an engagement.”
“You threw away a fortune,” her mother said furiously. “Now come in here and sit down. After we talk, you can call Reed and make it up to him.”
Something was wrong. Nothing they were saying was making sense. The serenity she’d walked in with completely deserted her. “What on earth are you talking about?”
They flanked her going into the living room. Unlike a normal afternoon in th
is coral-and-cream room, though, there was no decanter of scotch on the priceless Chinese mirrored coffee table, no TV on broadcasting the news, no fancy hors d’oeuvres to munch on. In fact, the room was so still, it resembled a showpiece.
“Sit,” her father ordered.
They all did, but it was her mother who started talking. “You’ve thrown away millions of dollars,” she said dramatically.
It was her mom’s mom, the Soule side of the family, who’d come over on the Mayflower. Her dad had married into that old aristocracy-and old money. His side was hardly poor, and heaven knew, he’d made his own fortune. But it was the old Soule money that added up to a piece of the rock. At least, the Dearborn rock.
“Come on, you two. Fill me in. I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”
“Emma, you claimed for years that you had no interest in marrying. Your grandmother was afraid you meant it. So were we. And there’d be no one to pass on the whole Dearborn legacy unless you married and had children. So your grandmother made it a condition of your trust…that you had to marry before the age of thirty to get the money.”
For the first time Emma started to believe that her parents weren’t just giving her attitude and dramatics. “Wait a minute,” she said quietly. “Just slow down. No one ever told me any of this before-”
“We didn’t think we had to, honey. Because once you started seeing Reed, we both could see that relationship was becoming serious. If you just go through with the wedding, everything will be fine. I know you hadn’t set a firm date, but it was always going to be at the end of July or early August. Definitely before your thirtieth birthday. So all you have to do is follow through-”
“Whoa. Just hold on.” Emma stood up, still trying to grasp this.
She’d been a teenager when her grandmother died, and that was the first she’d been told about the trust-and the considerable size of the trust. That security had affected every choice she’d made as an adult. “Grandma didn’t know I didn’t plan to marry. I was just a kid-”
“But you always talked that way, Emma. The only time it was different was when you were with the Keating boy. But as a child-and after you and Garrett split up-you always sang the same tune. About not wanting to marry. Not needing to marry. And your grandmother-”
Emma heard that out. “All right-but if the trust doesn’t go to me, who does it go to?”
“Your grandmother made a list of charities and causes, if you failed to marry. It’s all legal. Of course, you could fight it, but the attorneys told us frankly that you’d have no legal ground-”
“There’s nothing I’d want to fight,” Emma said quietly. “If that’s what my grandmother wanted, it would seem she made her choices.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Emma,” her father said heavily. “Just call Reed. Whatever rift you had, I’m sure it’s mendable. You’re both reasonable people, hardly children anymore. Everyone has arguments. I can’t imagine either of you doing something that wasn’t redeemable.”
Her dad’s voice seemed to fade, as if he were talking from a distance. She saw his lips moving, saw her mother’s lips moving.
They were both talking to her at the same time, quickly and urgently.
Emma had the sudden foolish feeling that someone had just smacked her upside the head. No one had, not physically. But the shock of it all finally sank in.
If she didn’t marry before her thirtieth birthday, she’d lose everything. Color. She knew how much money she owed on the gallery, knew it still wasn’t paying for itself-not the way she’d chosen to run it. All this time, she’d thought she could indulge her belief that the gallery was for the community’s benefit instead of for chasing a profit. She’d wanted to expose Eastwick to new artists and new ideas, to all kinds of art and beauty, even if those choices didn’t pay her back financially. She could have run the gallery differently, but she’d been so positive she had that massive trust fund coming to support it and herself.
And all this time she’d happily volunteered with troubled teenagers through Eastwick Cares and the little kids through the grief center. Because of her financial security, she’d been able to give her time without worrying about getting paid.
Her clothes, her jewelry, the skiing week in Vail and renting a yacht in Italy…for sure, she’d lived indulgently. But there’d never been a reason to budget. Or to learn how to budget. If she hadn’t lived so darn extravagantly, maybe she’d have the money socked away to save her gallery and everything else. But she didn’t. Because she’d never thought she needed to.
She lifted a hand in a gesture asking her parents to stop talking. She couldn’t hear them anyway. She couldn’t seem to hear anything right now, except for the thudding drum in the pit of her stomach. “I need some time to think about this,” she said. “I’m going to go upstairs now.”
She didn’t wait for them to agree or not, just left the room. Until she reached the bottom of the stairs, she wasn’t aware her father had followed her. David touched her shoulder to make her turn around.
“Emma,” he said quietly, “I just don’t understand how you could be so selfish.”
“Selfish?” The accusation confused her, when she was the one who’d just had her whole life thrown in the wind. But of course, that wasn’t completely true. “Dad, I realize that calling the wedding off is upsetting for you and Mom. But the marriage would have been a terrible mistake. Neither of us was going to be happy.”
“Maybe you believe that. But if you can’t be happy with a good man, maybe you damn well better redefine happiness. No one gets everything they want in life.”
He sounded more like an army commander than a father. But then, he always had. And as always, she could feel her stomach knotting up. “I never thought that,” she said quietly and tried to turn away-but her father wasn’t through.
“We’ve supported you in everything you ever wanted. Your education. Your art gallery. Have you ever asked me for anything I didn’t willingly give you? And your mother. Were you even thinking of her? Mark my words, Emma. If your mother goes on another binge, it’ll be on you.”
This time it was her father who whipped around and strode away from her.
For the second time in two days she found her nerves jittery and her head pounding. She climbed the stairs, hoping that if she just sat alone, she’d get a better grip… A good theory, but it didn’t work worth beans.
Her suite of rooms was decorated in apricot and taupe. Several years before, her mother had surprised her by redoing the rooms. The furnishings were elegant and expensive and thoughtfully chosen. They just weren’t colors or furniture that Emma would ever have chosen. Yet she’d never objected, because who knew what was going to send her mom climbing back into a bottle.
Emma sank on the double bed, feeling disoriented…and unaccountably angry. All her life she’d been the peacemaker in the family. All her life she’d tried never to rock the boat, especially because the threat of causing her mother to drink was ever-present. She was on the fund-raising committee at the club because her mother wanted a Dearborn doing that prestigious job. She’d never moved completely out of the house because her mother claimed to need her, claimed she couldn’t bear up to David’s critical, judgmental attitude. Her father counted on her to be hostess for all the Dearborn social events because they were both wary of any pressure put on Diana.
Emma closed her eyes, feeling the thick humid air drifting from the west window. The frightening part was that the threats were always true. A hundred times Emma had told herself that her parents needed to resolve their problems between themselves. But the same thing happened over and over-when Emma failed to step in, didn’t intervene when her mother needed help or play diplomat between her parents, her mom did tumble down the alcoholic hill again.
In the last two days Emma had tried to do the wild thing and change roles. Take charge of her life. Stand up for herself. Redefine what was important to her.
The result seemed to be a complete shambles. Th
e latest-the loss of her trust fund-kept slapping in her mind like mini shock waves. It wasn’t wealth that mattered to her, but the trust fund had represented security. Independence. Freedom.
Now she opened her eyes, looked around the pale apricot walls and felt them closing in on her.
This morning she’d discovered the wonder, the joy of being wildly in love. But now those moments with Garrett seemed as if they’d taken place on another planet. Claustrophobia seemed to lock the air out of her lungs. She felt so trapped she could hardly breathe. She squeezed her eyes closed, trying to get a grip. Her world had just been completely tipped on its axis, so naturally she felt thrown. Only this was more than thrown.
She had no idea what to do next.
She only knew that she felt completely alone. And lost.
Before turning in the driveway of the Baldwin mansion, Garrett stopped at the roadside and used his cell phone to call Emma.
The first two times he’d called, he’d gotten Josh at Color. Josh had promised to leave a message for Emma on her desk, but he didn’t know her schedule. Nothing odd about that. Emma was a busy woman. But this was the third time Garrett had been unable to reach her.
He told himself it was idiotic to worry. It was just that this morning…Hell, he was still high from last night and this morning. Obviously making love with a woman right after she’d broken an engagement was terrible timing. But he’d never before felt euphoria like this. A connection like this. A kite-high, heart-soaring thrill of a feeling like this.
For a long time he’d believed that selfish, driven workaholics like himself were doomed to be single. What woman would want them? They were annoying personalities.
But damn, she hadn’t made him feel annoying. She’d made him feel like the most powerful, sexy lover in the universe-past and present. And no, he hadn’t gone plumb off the deep end and assumed she was ready to marry him.
But in his gut, that was on his mind. The M word. He’d never wanted it before, never felt the need or push. But suddenly he couldn’t get that hope out of his head, and Emma was the difference. Emma was…
The Soon-To-Be-Disinherited Wife Page 10
