by Nora Roberts
she realized, looking for something less. And something more.
"But I meant cooking you dinner. You and your children."
"Cooking? For all of us?"
"I'm a very good cook," she informed him. "And it's a rare thing for me to have a kitchen to myself. You have a nice kitchen. But if you think it'd be awkward, or your kids would be uncomfortable with the idea, the inn would be fine."
"Cooking," he said again. "Like at the stove. With pots." He lifted her off her feet for a kiss. "When do we eat?"
We're getting a home-cooked meal tonight. Pilar's cooking. I don't know what's on the menu, but you will like it. Be home by six. Until then, try to pretend you're human children and not the mutants I won in a poker game.
Love, Dad.
Maddy read the note stuck on the refrigerator, grimaced. Why did they have to have company? How come she didn't have a say in who got to come over? Did he really think she and Theo were so brain-damaged they'd believe a woman came over and fiddled around in a guy's kitchen just to cook?
Please.
Okay, she amended. Maybe Theo was brain-damaged enough, but she'd fix that.
Taking the note, she jogged upstairs. Theo was already in his room, already on the phone, already ruining his eardrums with the music up to scream. He didn't need to hit the kitchen for fuel after school, she thought with a sniff. He, in direct violation of house rules, kept enough junk food stockpiled in his room to feed a small country.
She had that information tucked into her get-back-at-Theo file.
"Ms. Giambelli's fixing dinner."
"What? Go away. I'm on the phone."
"You're not supposed to be on the phone until after you do your homework. Ms. Giambelli's coming over, so you'd better get off. She might tell Dad you're screwing off again."
"Sophia?"
"No, jerkweed."
"Listen, call you back. My sister's being a pest, so I have to kill her. Yeah. Later." He hung up, stuffed taco chips in his mouth. "Who's coming over, for what?"
"The woman Dad's sleeping with is coming over to fix dinner."
"Yeah?" Theo's voice brightened. "Like, on the stove?"
"Don't you get it?" Disgusted, she waved the note. "It's a tactic. She's trying to squeeze in."
"Hey, anybody wants to squeeze into the kitchen who can actually cook is fine with me. What's she making?"
"It doesn't matter what she's making. How can you be so slow? She's pushing it to the next level. Cooking for him, for us. Showing him what a big, happy family we can be."
"I don't care what she's doing, as long as I get to eat. Get off it, Maddy. I mean get—off—it. Dad's entitled to have a girlfriend."
"Moron. I don't care if he's got ten girlfriends. What are we going to do if he decides he wants a wife?"
Theo considered it, crunched on more chips. "I dunno."
"'I dunno'," she mocked. "She'll start changing the rules, start taking over. That's what happens. She's not going to care about us. We're just add-ons."
"Ms. Giambelli's cool."
"Sure, now. She's sweet and nice. When she gets what she wants, she won't have to be sweet and nice and cool. She can start telling us what to do, and what not to do. It'll all have to be her way."
She turned her head as she heard the kitchen door open. "See, she's just walking right in. This is our house."
Maddy stomped to her room, slammed the door. She intended to stay there until her father got home.
She made it an hour. She could hear the music from downstairs, the laughter. It was infuriating to hear her brother's horsey laugh. The traitor. It was more infuriating that no one came up for her, or tried to talk her out of her sulks.
So she'd show them she didn't care, either way.
She wandered down, nose in the air. Something smelled really good, and that was just another strike against Pilar in Maddy's mind. She was just showing off, that was all. Making some big, fancy dinner.
When she walked into the kitchen, she had to grit her teeth. Theo was at the kitchen table, banging on his electric keyboard while Pilar stood stirring something at the stove.
"You need to add lyrics," Pilar said.
He liked playing his music for her. She listened. When he played her something that sucked, she said so. Well, in a nice way, Theo thought. That kind of thing told him she was paying attention, real attention.
Their mother never had. To much of anything.
"I'm not good with the word part. I just like doing the melody."
"Then you need a partner." She turned, set down her spoon. "Hi, Maddy. How's the essay going?"
"What essay?" She caught Theo's warning hiss and shrugged, not sure whether she was furious or grateful that he'd covered for her. "Oh. It's okay." She opened the refrigerator, took her time selecting a soft drink. "What's this gunk in here?"
"Depends. There's cheese gunk for the manicotti. The other's a marinade for the antipasto. Your father tells me you like Italian food, so I figured I was safe."
"I'm not eating carbs today." She knew it was mean, and didn't need Theo's glare to tell her so. But when she made a face at him behind Pilar's back, he didn't respond in kind as he usually did. Instead he just looked away, like he was embarrassed or something.
And that stung.
"Anyway, I made plans to go to a friend's house for dinner."
"Oh, that's too bad." Casually Pilar got out a bowl to begin mixing the filling for tiramisu. "Your father didn't mention it."
"He doesn't have to tell you everything."
It was the first directly rude comment the girl had made to her. Pilar calculated the barriers were down. "He certainly doesn't, and as you're nearly fifteen you're old enough to know what you like to eat, and where you like to eat it. Theo, would you excuse Maddy and me for a minute?"
"Sure." He grabbed his keyboard, sent Maddy a disgusted look. "Who's the moron?" he muttered as he walked by her.
"Why don't we sit down?"
Maddy's insides felt sticky, her throat hot. "I didn't come down to sit and talk. I just came to get a drink. I have to finish my essay."
"There isn't any essay. Sit down, Maddy."
She sat, sprawled, with a look of deliberate unconcern and boredom on her face. Pilar had no right lecturing her, and Maddy intended to make that very clear after the woman had blown off steam.
Pilar poured herself a demitasse of the espresso she'd brewed for the tiramisu. She sat across from Maddy at the table, sipped. "I should warn you I have an advantage here as I not only was a fourteen-year-old girl, but was once the mother of one."
"You're not my mother."
"No, I'm not. And it's hard, isn't it, to have a woman come into your home this way? I'm trying to think how I'd feel about it. Probably very much the way you do. Annoyed, nervous, resentful. It's easier for Theo. He's a boy and doesn't know the things we know."
Maddy opened her mouth, then shut it again when she realized she didn't know how to respond.
"You've been in charge a long time. Your men wouldn't agree, would likely be insulted by that statement," she added and was pleased to see the faint smirk curve Maddy's lips. "But the female force, a smart female force, usually pushes the buttons. You've done a good job keeping these guys in line, and I'm not here to take your control away."
"You're already changing things. Actions have reactions. It's scientific. I'm not stupid."
"No, you're smart." Scared little girl, Pilar thought, with a grown-up brain. "I always wanted to be smart, and never felt smart enough. I compensated, I think, by being good, being quiet, keeping peace. Those actions had reactions, too."
"If you keep quiet, nobody listens."
"You're absolutely right. Your father… he makes me feel smart enough and strong enough to say what I'm thinking, what I'm feeling. That's a powerful thing. You already know that."
Maddy frowned down at the table. "I guess."
"I admire him, Maddy—the man he is, the father he is. That's powerful, too
. I don't expect you to throw out the welcome mat for me, but I'm hoping you won't lock the door in my face."
"Why do you care what I do?"
"Couple of reasons. I like you. Sorry, but it's true. I like your independence, and your mind, and your sense of family loyalty. I imagine if I wasn't involved with your father, we'd get along very well. But I am involved with him, and I'm taking some of his time and attention away from you. I'd say I was sorry about that, but we'd both know it wasn't true. I want some of his time and attention, too. Because, Maddy, another reason I care what you do is I'm in love with your father."
Pilar pushed her cup away and, pressing a hand to her stomach, rose. "I haven't said that out loud before. That habit of keeping quiet, I suppose. Boy. Feels strange."
Maddy shifted in her chair. She was sitting up now, ramrod straight. And her own stomach was jumping. "My mother loved him, too. Enough to marry him."
"I'm sure she did. She—"
"No! You're going to make all the excuses, all the reasons why. And they're all bullshit. All of them. When it wasn't just exactly the way she wanted, she left us. That's the truth. We didn't matter."
Her first instinct, always, was to comfort. Console. There were a dozen things she could say to soothe, but this little girl with wet, defiant eyes wouldn't hear them.
Why should she? Pilar decided.
"No, you're right. You didn't matter enough." Pilar sat again. She wanted to reach out, to draw this young girl close. But it wasn't the way, or the time. "I know what it's like not to matter enough. I do, Maddy," she said firmly, laying a hand over the girl's before she could jerk away.
"How sad and angry it makes you feel, how the questions and doubts and wishes run through your head in the middle of the night."
"Adults can come and go whenever they want. Kids can't."
"That's right. Your father didn't leave. You mattered to him. You and Theo matter most to him. You know that nothing I could say or do or be will change that."
"Other things could change. And when one thing does, others do. It's cause and effect."
"Well, I can't promise you that things won't change. Things do. People do. But right now your father makes me happy. And I make him happy. I don't want to hurt you because of that, Maddy. I can promise to try very hard not to hurt you or Theo. To respect what you think and what you feel. I can promise that."
"He was my father first," Maddy said in a fierce whisper.
"And he'll be your fattier last. Always. If I wanted to change that, if I wanted for some reason to ruin that, I couldn't. Don't you know how much he loves you? You could make him choose. Look at me, Maddy. Look at me," she said quietly and waited for the girl's gaze to lift. "If it's what you want so much, you could make him choose between you and me. I wouldn't have a chance. I'm asking you to give me one. If you can't, just can't, I'll make an excuse, clean this stuff up and be out of here before he gets home."
Maddy wiped a tear off her cheek as she stared across the table. "Why?"
"Because I don't want to hurt him, either."
Maddy sniffled, frowned down at the table. "Can I taste that?"
Pilar lifted a brow at her cup of espresso, then silently slid it toward Maddy. The girl sniffed it first, wrinkled her nose, but lifted the cup and tasted.
"It's horrible. How can anybody drink that?"
"An acquired taste, I guess. You'd like it better in the tiramisu."
"Maybe." Maddy pushed the cup back across the table. "I guess I'll give it a chance."
One thing Pilar was sure of: No one had a problem with her cooking. It had been a long time since she'd personally prepared a family dinner. Long enough for her to be outrageously pleased at the requests for second helpings and the cheerful compliments between bites.
She'd used the dining room for the meal, hoping that thin layer of formality would be less threatening to Maddy. But the formality had broken down the minute Theo had the first bite of her manicotti and announced it "awesome grub."
Theo did most of the talking, with his sister watching, digesting, then occasionally skewering through with a pointed question. It made her laugh, then it warmed her heart when David used a sports metaphor to illustrate an opinion and Maddy and she shared female amusement over the male mind.
"Dad played baseball in college," Maddy told her.
"Really? Another hidden talent. Were you good?"
"I was great. First base."
"Yeah, and he was so worried about his batting average, he never got past first base with the girls." Theo snickered, and easily ducked David's swing.
"A lot you know. I was a home run…" He trailed off. "Any way I play that, I'm in trouble. So instead I'll just say that was an amazing meal. On behalf of myself and my two gluttons, I thank you."
"You're welcome, but on behalf of your two gluttons, I'd like to point out you outate the table."
"I have a fast metabolism," he claimed as Pilar got to her feet.
"That's what they all say."
"Oh no." He laid a hand over hers before she could stack the dishes. "House rule. He who cooks, cleans not."
"I see. Well, that's a rule I can get behind." She lifted her plate, offered it to him. "Enjoy."
"Another house rule," he said over Theo's whoop of laughter. "Dad gets to delegate. Theo and Maddy will be delighted to do the dishes."
"Figures." Maddy heaved a sigh. "What do you get to do?"
"I get to work off some of this excellent meal by taking the chef for a walk." Testing the waters with his kids, he leaned in and kissed Pilar warmly. "That work for you?"
"Hard to complain."
She went with him, pleased to be out in the spring night. "That's a lot of mess to leave two teenagers to handle."
"Builds character. Besides, it'll give them time to talk about how I lured you outside for a make-out session."
"Oh. Have I been lured?"
"Sure hope so." He turned her into his arms, drawing her closer when she lifted her mouth to his. A long, slow thrill rippled through him at the way she sighed against him. The way she fit. "Haven't had much time to be together lately."
"It's hard. So much going on." Content for now, she rested her head on his shoulder. "I know I've been hovering around Sophie. I can't help it. Thinking of her being attacked, right in our own home. Knowing someone walked in and out of her room, and mine, and my mother's… I've caught myself lying in bed at night listening for sounds the way I never have before."
"I look out my window some nights, across the fields, and see your light. I want to tell you not to worry, but until this is settled, you will. We all will."
"If it helps, I feel better when I look out my window and see the light in yours. It helps knowing you're so close."
"Pilar." He drew her away, then lowered his forehead to hers.
"What is it?"
"There're some problems in the Italian offices. Some discrepancies in the figures that have turned up during the audit. I might have to go over for a few days. I don't like leaving now." His gaze shifted past her, back to the house with the kitchen lights bright in the window.
"The kids can stay at the villa while you're gone. We'll take care of them, David. You don't have to worry about that."
"No." Tereza had already decreed that his children would be guests of the villa during his travel. Still, he would worry about them. About everyone. "I don't like leaving you, either. Come with me."
"Oh, David." There was a rush of excitement at the thought. The Italian spring, the balmy nights, a lover. How wonderful that her life had taken this turn, that such things were possible. "I'd love that, but it won't do. I wouldn't feel right about leaving my
