“Exactly. Even more reason why you should definitely keep this piece. Think of the fabulous history behind it.”
Bridget stared at the brooch. “Someone gave me that on one of the darkest nights of my life. There are too many bad memories attached to it for me to ever want to look at it again.”
With that, Bridget jumped to her feet and bolted out of the closet.
Aching with worry, Venus waited, wanting to give Bridget time before she followed her. She’d encountered this kind of momentary emotional shutdown in her clients before.
Hoping she’d given Bridget enough time but too worried not to go to her, Venus rose slowly to her feet. Clutching the jewelry case, she walked out of the closet and into the bedroom.
Bridget stood gazing out the window.
“Maybe we should take a break, Bridget,” Venus said softly, wanting to make this easier. “Revisiting the past can be tough.”
Bridget turned to her. “I’m sorry, Venus, after I promised not to be sentimental. I’m sure you’ve had your share of other closet criers with all the society ladies takin’ their walks down memory lane.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard a lot of stories. Of heartbreak. Tragedy. Triumph. Deception. But most of all about sweeping, awe-inspiring, fairy-tale-worthy recollections of every possible kind of love.”
The pain on Bridget’s face suggested something so sad it made tears of sympathy burn behind Venus’s eyes. Sensing looking at the brooch was painful for Bridget, Venus snapped the lid of the black velvet box closed. “Are you absolutely sure you don’t want to keep this? This is a book piece. Highly, highly collectible.”
Bridget took such a deep breath she seemed to shudder. “The truth is, there are certain hurts that leave a lingerin’ sore point, no matter how long ago they happened. I bet I sound like a hypocrite to you after askin’ you to forgive Connor’s sins. But I had my doubts about why and how I got this gift, so I never felt right wearin’ it. And I still don’t. Will you sell it for me and give the money to charity?”
Venus held the box close to her breasts, knowing she could never part with it if Bridget didn’t want it. The instant she’d gazed down at the mermaid it seemed to belong to her. Maybe because she’d grown up listening to her father’s stories about her namesake, the goddess Venus, being born of the sea. Rising out of the water. In her childish mind she’d asked, “So I’m like a mermaid, right, Daddy?”
Her father had always been magic to her. Now he seemed broken because of his so-called crime against the Clayworths. And she knew Connor’s betrayal hurt him the worst.
She took a long, deep breath, more determined than ever to get the truth from Connor no matter what it cost her.
“Bridget, if you’re absolutely sure you don’t want the brooch, I’d like to buy it for myself.”
Bridget shook her head. “I’d give it to you but I’ve always had the crazy notion this brooch is bad luck. I don’t want it to rub off on you.”
Venus laughed and gave her a quick hug. “It won’t be bad luck for me. It reminds me of happy times when I was a child. Please, please, will you sell it to me?”
Bridget seemed to be studying her, looking for something. “No, I won’t sell it to you. I’ll give it to you.”
“No way.” Venus stood firm. “I can’t accept such a gift. This copy is worth twenty-five hundred dollars, at least. I’ll write you a check for that amount. Once I research it a bit more, I’ll pay any difference. I won’t feel right about it any other way. Honestly.”
The tiniest of smiles curved Bridget’s mouth. “I’m not takin’ your money, Venus. If you want to do somethin’, donate the money to Connor’s Golden Gloves boxin’ gym he built for juvenile defendants and we’ll call it even. The brooch was a gift from Tony.”
She’s giving away a gift from Tony?
“Bridget, my mother always told me never to give away a gift from…” Venus stopped. I can’t say husband like Mom did. Should I say lover, paramour, what?
“… a close loved one,” Venus decided sounded right. “Won’t Tony’s feelings be hurt if you sell the brooch to me?”
Bridget patted Venus’s shoulder. “Don’t worry yourself. Trust me, men don’t care about this sort of thing. Tony probably won’t even remember he gave it to me.”
Chapter 3
The door opened on Connor O’Flynn’s boxing gym in Lakeside and he looked up from adjusting the Velcro on Gregori Prozument’s bag gloves.
Holding hands, Bridget and Tony walked in.
As had been the case for as long as he could remember, seeing them together brightened his mood. Laughing, he shook his head. “This is great. I didn’t expect to see you today. What are you two up to?”
“Surprisin’ you. We’re takin’ you for a steak dinner before your mother arrives in Chicago for her yearly visit and wants you to eat organic tofu for the next ten days.” Bridget waved. “But no hurry. Don’t stop on account of us. We’ll wait in the office until you finish.” Bridget shot Gregori her the truth and nothing but the truth look, which never failed to get answers. “Good to see you here. You keepin’ yourself out of trouble?”
The teenager shifted from foot to foot as he did when boxing. “I’m cool here,” he shouted back.
Tony gave him a thumbs-up, grinned, and draped his arm around Bridget’s shoulders as they strolled through the open office door.
Watching them, Gregori kept swaying with pent-up energy, circling the mat. “Your Aunt Bridget’s been real cool since she busted me for boostin’ at Clayworth’s Department Store. My mom says she’s the best thing to ever happen to me ’cause it got me here to Golden Gloves.”
Gregori motioned toward the mirrored walls and the four-rope ring with its stained white canvas flooring where two other teenagers were in full gear and sparring.
“The judge says you been with Golden Gloves awhile. That why you started this club, Mr. O’Flynn?”
He’d always been honest with the kids in the program. “Yeah, that’s how it started. In college I got into trouble for not being able to control my anger. Got into a fistfight over a girl.” Over Venus Smith, of all people. “The guy pressed charges.”
“Whoa!” Gregori’s eyes grew wider. “How come a rich dude like you couldn’t get out of it?”
The sharp image of his parents’ disappointment and the pained look in Bridget’s eyes flashed through his head and again he heard her voice, You did it. You own up to it.
Connor shook his head. “Didn’t try to get out of it. My grandfather Clayworth was on the Park District Board when they started Golden Gloves to get kids off the street. I chose to volunteer with the program as my community service. And I’ve never stopped, because it works.”
“Fuckin’ works for me. Got me out of the gang, didn’t it.” Gregori knocked his gloves together. “Now I fight fair. By the rules.”
“That’s the idea. So show me your stuff. Let’s drill some combinations first.” Connor slipped on red focus mitts and held his hands up at shoulder level. “I want you to aim at the white dot in the middle of these targets. Left lead jab to a right rear cross. Ready?”
Connor circled, moving into position. From the beginning Gregori had been a quick learner. The kid took an orthodox left-lead stance. Jabbed with his left. Then his right.
Nodding, Connor absorbed the impacts. “Just like that. Keep it going.” He heard his aunt’s and uncle’s voices coming from his office but tried to ignore them to concentrate on Gregori getting his rhythm. “Great. Now give me more.”
“Cara, how could you sell Venus the brooch I gave you for your twenty-fifth birthday?” Tony’s deep voice roared through the gym.
Tony never yells.
Hot with shock, Connor turned toward the open office door. At the same instant he felt a sudden sharp pain along his right jaw.
“Dude, you moved!”
Hearing the panic in Gregori’s voice, Connor swung his head back. The kid’s face looked as white as the stenciled O’Flynn’s Golden
Gloves Gym blazoned across his black tank top.
Wanting to reassure him, Connor grinned. “It’s not your fault I dropped my guard.” He stripped off the targets to rub his throbbing chin. “Nice cross. Now finish up the circuit yourself. Two-minute jump rope. Three minute round shadow boxing. One hundred crunches. I’ll be back.”
Connor sprinted across the gym to his small office and pulled the door closed.
Instead of standing close, arms around each other, as they had when they entered the office, Bridget and Tony now stood at opposite ends of the room, each gazing up at the flat-screen TV on the wall.
Venus, her apricot-colored hair tumbling around her shoulders the way it had in Bridget’s closet, her body poured into a vee neck black dress with a brooch shaped like a mermaid pinned on the high curve of her left breast, was frozen on the screen.
“What’s going on?” Connor asked, carefully studying his aunt’s and uncle’s tense faces the way he observed jurors in the courtroom.
“We’re watchin’ Rebecca’s show, Talk of the Town. She’s doin’ a segment on all the gowns that have been bought at Pandora’s Box for White House events in Washington since the last election.”
His aunt sounded calm, but the pained look in her eyes turned Connor icy cold. He knew this look, although thank God he’d seldom seen it. Why in the hell is she so upset?
Looking for an answer, he turned to Tony, who pointed to the DVR frozen Venus on screen.
“Cara, that is my brooch, is it not? Why would you want to part with it?”
Bridget seemed to be studying her black shoes instead of responding to Tony’s normally deep, soft voice cracking around the edges. “I didn’t think you’d remember or care, Tony.”
“Remember? Cara, I gave the brooch to you the night I proposed to you. The night I told you I loved you.”
At last Bridget looked up at Tony. The powerful intensity of their locked eyes made Connor feel like a voyeur. He backed up one step and his gym shoes creaked.
They both stared at him, all emotion stripped from their faces. He knew these looks, too. They were the ones used when Connor was growing up and his aunt and uncle were trying to protect him from being hurt.
Now, like then, Bridget smiled too brightly, forcing it for his benefit. “Enough of this nonsense. Ready, Connor? You must be starving. I know I am.”
Narrowing his eyes, he studied both of them. “We’re not going anywhere until I get some answers. I’ve never seen you guys fight.”
“That you haven’t seen it doesn’t mean it never happens.”
He met his aunt’s stern stare, refusing to back down. “You’re avoiding the question, Aunt Bridget. Tell me what’s going on.”
“Now don’t you be givin’ me your lawyer look and tone of voice, Connor Clayworth O’Flynn. This is a little misunderstandin’ between me and your Uncle Tony. Nothin’ for you to worry about or try to make right.”
“You could make it right, cara, if you bought the brooch back from Venus.”
With a sharp gasp, she swung to Tony. “I’d never ask Venus such a thing and you know it. I don’t go back on my word.”
Something raw flashed between them.
Connor stepped closer, wanting to break this tension he didn’t understand. There’s more to this than the brooch. “You two taught me to talk through a problem until it’s solved. Let’s do that now.”
Into their silence the door creaked open. Sweating, Gregori stood, looking at them. “I’m done, Mr. O’Flynn.” He glanced toward Venus, still frozen on screen, and whistled. “Man, that chick’s smokin’ hot!”
Frustrated at not getting answers, Connor sucked in a deep breath.
Before he could answer, he heard Tony’s short, hard laugh. “You’re a discerning young man, Gregori.”
The kid grinned. “If that means I’d like to get it on with that hot chick, then damn straight.” His eyes darted between the TV and Connor. “You look kinda upset, Mr. O’Flynn. I mean if she don’t belong to you.”
“Mine? Far from it,” he muttered, staring at Venus in all her glory. The brooch that seemed to mean so much to Tony winked at her breast.
I need answers.
He nodded to Gregori. “Good job today. If you’re finished with your circuit you’re done.”
“Cool. See you Monday for clean-up.” Gregori nodded to Bridget and cast one last lustful teenage stare at the TV screen before he disappeared out the door.
“There’s hope for that boy.” Bridget chuckled. “He knows a beautiful woman when he sees her. And I know when I’m starvin’. Let’s go.”
“Not before we talk.” Connor glanced from his aunt’s set face to Tony’s stricken one. “C’mon, tell me what’s wrong so we can work it out.”
“Maybe at dinner.” Bridget clutched Tony’s hand. “Go shower and close up the gym, Connor. Meet us at Gibson’s in about an hour. I’m in the mood for one of their steaks plus their frozen ice cream pie. You need to fortify yourself for your mom’s idea of cookin’.”
Bridget pressed a quick, warm kiss on Connor’s cheek and pulled Tony out the door before Connor could stop them.
He’d been outmaneuvered. No way would they discuss anything personal at the busiest restaurant in the city where they’d probably know half the people in the dining room.
Concern and frustration gnawing at him, Connor fumbled with the remote. Venus, lush, her stubborn spirit sparkling through the still frame, stared back at him.
He couldn’t deny Gregori had said what every healthy male must feel when he looked at Venus. Connor had always thought that the fact she didn’t seem to get her sensuality only intensified her impact on men. Somehow it gave her the kind of honest-to-God power that could wring a sexual response from a rock.
Hell, she actively disliked him, yet whenever they were in the same room he felt a kick in his gut. As he had yesterday at the café, until she deliberately turned away from him. Since the trouble with her dad, they avoided each other whenever possible, which was a logical course of action given the circumstances.
As he shut off the TV, the mermaid brooch gave one last wink.
Why was Venus wearing his aunt’s pin? And what did the pin have to do with the pain he’d seen on his uncle’s face?
He’d talk to Tony man to man and find out. But first he had to get out of here.
He locked up after the last kid signed out, took a quick shower, and was headed to Gibson’s within the hour.
The traffic on Rush Street inched along slower than normal. Hot with impatience, Connor glanced at his watch. “Damn it, move,” he muttered and pressed the horn.
Reminding himself to stay cool, he sucked in a deep breath. Growing up with his parents’ rigid rules, he’d learned to hide his feelings, but sometimes it felt wrong to always be in such tight control, particularly when it involved someone he loved. And God knew he loved Tony and Bridget too much to not find out what was wrong and fix it.
He tried to be patient, waiting his turn to pull up in front of Gibson’s, toss his keys to the valet, and work his way through the crowd coming and going through the revolving door.
Inside, dozens of businessmen and a few women spilled out of the large bar fondly called the Viagra Triangle by locals. One guy, his tie hanging loose and his face flushed, leaned against the wall, hitting on Kathleen, the hostess, who handled him with her legendary tact and charm.
Once he drifted back into the bar, she looked at Connor and shrugged. “One of those nights. Tony and Bridget are already here. Sorry, I couldn’t give them a better table. They’re sitting next to a table of ten celebrating a birthday.”
“C’mon, Kathleen, I know they requested to be in the middle of the action, didn’t they?” He laughed, trying to accept that his aunt had her own plan for tonight. Which without a doubt did not include telling him anything he wanted to know.
“You know I’ll never drop a dime on Bridget and Tony.” With an apologetic smile, Kathleen handled him as smoothly as she had the
tipsy customer. “But if you can wait, I’ll find a better table.”
“Thanks. That would be great.” Determined to get some answers, he headed to where Bridget and Tony sat between a table of eight men and the birthday party of women laughing uproariously as one opened gifts.
As usual the restaurant hummed with conversation, every table full of customers, come for the great food and the atmosphere of energy generated by the city’s power players who dined here nightly.
Fresh from hosting her show, Talk of the Town, live, Rebecca sat in her usual booth with her husband, David, and their best friend, Kate Carmichael.
Disappointment stung him.
If Venus was with them I might have had an opening to question her… she might have given me some clue to why the brooch is so important to both Tony and Bridget.
Rebecca looked up, saw him, and blew a kiss. He turned toward their table to say hello but was stopped by an alderman and a judge on their way out, but wanting to discuss the new mayor’s job performance with him.
As Connor had predicted, he knew half of the diners and had to hide his impatience, shaking hands, until at last he reached his aunt and uncle.
Tony was standing, waiting for him at their table.
“Ah, Connor, at last.”
Tony’s pale face sent a shiver of fear through Connor. He gripped his uncle’s shoulder. “Are you all right?”
Lines crinkled Tony’s wide forehead. “Headache.”
“Kathleen will get us a quieter table. You can’t hear yourself think sitting here.”
A wistful smile curling the corners of Tony’s mouth, he dropped heavily back into his chair. “As your aunt always says, often our thoughts aren’t worth listening to in the first place. That’s her motto for tonight.”
A full glass of red wine rested in front of Tony, and Bridget stared down into her glass of white.
Concern burned hotter in Connor’s gut. “Do you want to stay here or go somewhere quieter for dinner? We should talk, Aunt Bridget.”
At last she looked up but didn’t meet his eyes. She tilted her head and stared around him.
All I Want Is You Page 3
