Great-Aunt Sophia's Lessons for Bombshells

by Lisa Cach

  “The last thing you need is one of these people in your ear all night, yammering at you,” she’d said.

  To which a grateful Grace had answered, “Andrew asked me to marry him.”

  Sophia’s gaze had sharpened with interest. “And?”

  “I don’t know. There’s so much going on, I can’t think straight.”

  “This is where I’m supposed to say that you make this decision with your heart, isn’t it?” Sophia said. “But we both know better than that. This is a decision to be made with both head and heart together. Anything less invites disaster. Too many women have destroyed their lives by following their hearts against their own better judgment.

  “Look at Darlene. Do you think she would be so bitter now if she hadn’t been a flighty romantic young girl who chose her mate based on dashing good looks and grand gestures, and ignored it when her head pointed out that he was a drunk?”

  Surprise had made Grace blink. “Darlene, flighty and romantic?”

  “It shows you what disillusionment can do to a loving heart.”

  As Grace stood alone now in her bedroom, though, she didn’t know what either her head or her heart was telling her. There was too much internal noise, too much confusion, too much emotion. Andrew’s proposal; the crash; the revelation that Sophia and a Russian (maybe) lion tamer were her great-grandparents; the arrival of Professor Joansdatter, her mother, Cat; the acknowledgment that under the influence of Sophia and Declan she had lost sight of her moral center and become … someone else.

  She took a deep breath of pine-and sea-scented air, wishing it could clear her soul of confusion as easily as it cleared her lungs.

  Someone rapped softly at her door.

  Grace cursed under her breath. “Leave me in peace, will you?” she muttered to the night.

  The rapping came again. “Grace? It’s me,” Declan’s muffled voice said. “I know you’re in there.”

  Grace closed her eyes for a long moment. Before she could see clearly enough to give Andrew an answer, she had to end her affair with Declan. Her heart didn’t want it, but the head did: he was bad for her. Continuing with him, when he so clearly didn’t love her, was killing her. Love wasn’t supposed to hurt like this.

  A moment of clarity hit her, striking like sunlight through her clouds of confusion. It wasn’t really Declan she had to break up with, it was her own childish fantasies that she had to let go of. It was time to grow up and be an adult. She could no longer live with the Grace who pretended to be Declan’s sexual toy. She had to break up with herself.

  If she was strong enough.

  She strode across the room.

  On the other side of the door, Declan waited impatiently for Grace to open it. He had a terrible sense that this day, which had started so well, with so much promise of excitement, had tumbled toward irretrievable disaster. Everything had gone wrong, and in the gap between morning and now, when he had been away from Grace, people had stepped into her life and, he feared, ushered her back into the cage of who she used to be.

  But maybe they hadn’t succeeded. Maybe she was still free.

  Maybe she was still … his.

  If she ever had been. His stomach turned with fear.

  The door opened a crack, and Grace peered out. “Declan, I—”

  He pushed through the door and shut it firmly behind him, then stalked into the room. “Sophia told me about the ‘intervention.’” He laughed. “Good God, I’d have loved to have seen that!”

  Grace crossed her arms over her chest, holding herself.

  Declan caught the movement, then looked at her strained face. His eyes narrowed even as his gut twisted. “They didn’t get to you, did they?”

  “I’m sorry I missed you going by in the race,” she said flatly. “I tried to get away in time to wave to you, but I was too late.”

  “No one told you? I wasn’t even in the race. The damn car wouldn’t start! If I didn’t know he had an alibi, I’d suspect Andrew of sabotage.”

  “But you spent all that time making sure it ran,” she said, puzzled, her arms dropping to her side.

  “I know. Suspicious, isn’t it?”

  “So it never could have been you,” Grace said softly, wondering.

  “Excuse me?”

  She shook her head. “You heard about the crash? It was a blue MG just like yours.”

  He was glad of the distraction, glad to avoid a deeper subject. “Yeah, it looked almost the same to a layperson, but it was a completely different car.” Then a light dawned in his head. She’d been worried about him! A shot of hope eased the clenching in his gut. “You thought for a minute that I had crashed?” He laughed. He came forward and wrapped her in his arms and stroked her hair. “Were you worried about me?”

  “No,” she said into his chest, her body stiff and unyielding.

  Obviously she had been worried.

  Feeling reassured, he kissed her cheek and released her, then dropped onto her bed and leaned back on his elbows. He grinned at her. “Hey, pretty lady, wanna take a ride?” he joked.

  Grace’s lips tightened.

  Uh-oh.

  “Declan,” she said, “I don’t want to see you anymore.”

  His grin faltered, a sense of unreality coming over him.

  Her arms crossed over her chest again, and she gripped her elbows so hard her fingers dug into her flesh. “We’ve had fun, but it’s time to move on.”

  He sat up, flushes of heat and cold going through his body. For a moment the room spun. Then the fear and disbelief were burned away by a blind, unreasoning anger. “Time for you to move on to Andrew now—that’s what you mean, isn’t it?”

  “Andrew’s got nothing to do with it.”

  Declan sprang to his feet. “Like hell he doesn’t!”

  Grace shook her head. “Ending this has been inevitable. You know it, and I know it. People like you and I were never meant to be together; we’re too different.”

  “Says who? That group of ninnies who came after you today?”

  “One of those ninnies is my mother!”

  “They want you to be with Andrew, don’t they? They probably sat around discussing what a nice young man he is, so perfect for you, so intelligent, a doctor.”

  “They didn’t say a word about him. It was all about how I’ve changed.”

  Declan approached her, and lowered his voice. “Yes, you’ve changed. You’ve freed yourself from that goddamn ivory tower you’d locked yourself away in. You would have withered away into a sexless old hag if not for me.”

  Grace snorted. “You don’t know the half of it.”

  “What don’t I know?”

  Her gaze slipped away from his. “Never mind. None of this matters. Maybe I have changed, but I don’t think it’s for the better. Being with you hasn’t made me a better person, Declan. I’m not happier or kinder. I haven’t pursued my goals. Being in lo—Being with someone should make you want to be a better version of yourself, don’t you think? It should make your heart feel bigger, and make you feel that anything is possible. But with you …”

  His throat was dry and tight. She wasn’t joking around. This wasn’t just sex she was talking about. She was talking about something deeper, and she was saying that she found him lacking. “With me, what?” he asked hoarsely.

  “Playing these sex games with you, I’m less than myself and less than I could be. I’m less than I want to be. It was fun, it was an experience, I learned some things, but it isn’t enough anymore. I need more. I need something … more meaningful.” Her big sea green eyes gazed at him, a question in their depths.

  Was she asking if he understood?

  Fuck, yes, he understood. The sex had been great, but hey, buddy, time’s up, out you go. You were only good for one thing to me.

  She’d never liked him or respected him. So what had he expected? That screwing her six ways from Sunday would change her mind, and make her think him worthy?

  Yeah. Maybe he had thought so.

>   He nodded to her, his jaw clenched. He would not humiliate himself in front of her by betraying how badly he hurt. He accepted his fate even as he felt the searing pain of something breaking loose inside him, as if a dagger had been dragged through his guts. “Okay. Yeah. It’s been great, but summer’s almost over. It’s time to go back to the real world, isn’t it?”

  The question in her eyes died. She blinked, then looked down. “Yes. Thank you for being so reasonable about this.”

  Reasonable? He wanted to throw her on the bed and make love to her until she changed her mind. He wanted to shake her and tell her not to be a fool. He wanted …

  He wanted her.

  But she didn’t want him. Raging against that one incontrovertible truth would gain him nothing and only hurt her. He went to her and gently lifted her chin with his fingertips. “Be happy, Grace,” he said, using every ounce of his control to make it sound like a parting between friends, nothing more.

  Tears shimmered in her eyes, and her lips trembled. “Andrew asked me to marry him,” she whispered.

  The blood left his head, and for a crazy moment he thought he would faint. He held himself rigid and took a deep breath. He’d kill the bastard. Kill him! But Grace was still gazing up at him, taking in every nuance of his expression. He swallowed hard. “The world is yours for the taking, Grace. Don’t exchange one ivory tower for another. You deserve more than that.”

  A small frown pinched her brow, but before she could say anything more, he dipped his head and gently kissed her, feeling the petal softness of her lips for the last time. “It’ll be okay,” he whispered against her mouth, and only realized as he turned away that it was himself he was trying to reassure.

  As he opened the door, the sound of glass smashing came from the marble staircase down the hall, then a shriek of pain and surprise, cut off short.

  Declan bolted down the hall, his heart in his throat, Grace on his heels. When he reached the head of the stairs he saw Sophia sprawled halfway down the staircase, a shattered decanter of Scotch sending its alcoholic fumes through the foyer.

  “Sophia!” Grace shrieked, and rushed toward her.

  Declan grabbed her arm and shoved her back toward her room. “Call nine-one-one! Call nine-one-one!” She raced away, her face white.

  Declan ran down the stairs to the woman who had been like a mother to him for his entire adult life. There was blood on her forehead, seeping into her white hair, and her limbs were canted at an unnatural angle.

  He crouched down beside her, his world breaking apart. “Oh God, Sophia. What have you done?”

  CHAPTER

  25

  Five of them sat tense and silent in the small waiting area down the hall from Sophia’s hospital room: Grace, Alyson, Darlene, Declan, and Andrew. Andrew had tried several times to get information for them on her condition but had been shut down by claims of confidentiality, the hospital staff inexplicably uncommunicative with Sophia’s primary care physician. They’d taken information from him but offered none in return, leaving him to hunker, ignorant and embarrassed, with the nonmedical peons.

  “I still can’t believe it,” Alyson said quietly to Grace. “My grandmother. Your great-grandmother. It explains so much, but I still can’t believe it.”

  “I know,” Grace agreed. “Does it make you think any differently about yourself? About who you think you are?”

  Alyson slowly shook her head. “I couldn’t say. It makes me understand my mother a little better, though, and some of her attitudes. She must have always known. And I suppose I understand Sophia a little better now, too. I used to hate her, but now I feel more sorry for her than anything else. What a lonely life of regret she must have led.”

  Grace felt a twinge of doubt on that, but kept quiet.

  A nurse appeared. “Grace?” she asked the group.

  “That’s me,” Grace said.

  “Sophia would like to see you.”

  “She’s awake?”

  The nurse started to answer, then stopped. “Room 322,” she said, and left.

  Grace exchanged a puzzled look with the others and got up. Behind her, Darlene and Alyson decided to go in search of coffee.

  She walked down the carpeted hall with its wide oak chair rail, beige pink paint, and medical supply carts. The muffled sounds of televisions came through partially opened doors, with patients, white sheets, and railed beds half visible inside.

  The door to room 322 was ajar, leading into a small foyer formed by a pastel curtain mounted to a track in the ceiling. Grace came around its edge prepared to see her aunt—her great-grandmother—hooked up to tubes and machines, with a monitor softly beeping along with her heartbeat.

  Instead, she found Sophia with the head of her bed raised, a small bandage on her brow, and Ernesto sitting beside the bed, holding her hand. No tubes. No monitors. Just a remote control on the rolling bedside table, and a pitcher of water.

  Sophia looked the worse for wear, however. Her skin was tinged with gray, her lips bloodless, and her eyes and cheeks seemed to have sunk into purple shadows. She looked a half hour from death.

  Seeing Grace, Ernesto murmured something to Sophia in Spanish and kissed her hand, then left them alone.

  “Grace, darling,” Sophia said weakly, and raised her hand toward her.

  Grace rushed forward to take it, sitting where Ernesto had been. “Sophia! Are you okay? What did the doctors say? No one will tell us anything!”

  “They don’t know yet what happened, what’s wrong,” Sophia whispered, and took a deep breath, as if exhausted by the effort. “It could have been a stroke, a heart attack, a brain tumor …”

  “They don’t know?”

  Sophia patted her hand. “They’ll figure it out eventually. I don’t want you to worry about that, though. I want you to do something for me.”

  “Anything,” Grace said, her heart feeling as if metal bands were squeezing it tight.

  “Tomorrow evening is the gala.”

  “We have to cancel it.”

  Sophia shook her head. “No. After all my hard work? I want you to take over my role. I want you to hostess the party.”

  “Me?”

  “Who better?” Sophia said with a faint smile. “Darlene knows all the details. She’ll fill you in. You’ll wear my green dress, of course.”

  “It’ll never fit.”

  Sophia ignored her. “There’s a tableau vivant you’ll be in, and you’ll be led out onto the dance floor in an opening dance. And of course you’ll need to welcome everyone. You can do that, can’t you?”

  Dread grew in Grace as each duty was spelled out, and she imagined herself trying to step into Sophia’s shoes—literally—as the grand dame of the fête. “Maybe one of the other women who organized the gala would be better—”

  “You, Grace.” Sophia squeezed her hand. “I have taught you all I know. Consider this your final exam.”

  Grace bit her lip, uncertainty washing over her.

  “For me, Grace. Do it for me. It may be the last thing I ever ask of you.”

  Grace sucked in a breath as tears stung her eyes. “Of course. Don’t worry, I’ll make you proud.”

  Sophia smiled and closed her eyes. “Thank you.” She was silent for a few minutes, and Grace started to wonder if she’d fallen asleep. Then her eyes opened a slit and she spoke again. “You can send Ernesto back in. And then tell Declan I’d like to talk to him.”

  “Okay.” Grace moved to leave, then looked back at Sophia with a half smile. “Ernesto is devoted to you, isn’t he?”

  “Stubborn old fool.”

  “Stubborn for loving you?”

  Sophia’s eyes opened fully. “Stubborn for never marrying me. He thinks I have too much money to ever respect him as a husband. He insists on being my lover, but nothing more.” Sophia laughed hoarsely. “Don’t look so shocked, darling. One’s love life doesn’t stop at eighty.”

  Grace blinked, and went to fetch Ernesto, who was waiting just outside t
he door.

  He read the surprise on Grace’s face, and his eyes crinkled with amusement. “She doesn’t really want me to marry her,” he said softly. “My power comes from being unattainable, and that excites her. We are both happier this way.”

  Grace nodded dumbly and watched him slip back into the room. She’d known there was affection and flirting between them, but never suspected how deep their emotions ran. She’d thought Sophia alone, but right under Grace’s nose she had a lover devoted to her, who valued their bond above a chance at millions.

  Still stunned and amazed, she wandered back to the waiting area, only coming back to herself at the sound of Declan’s voice.

  “You goddamned greedy prick!” he cried.

  Grace came around the corner just in time to see Declan’s fist connect with Andrew’s nose. Andrew yelped and stumbled, and fell on his butt. Blood flowed from his nose, his hands going up to staunch it.

  “Declan!” Grace screeched. “What the hell are you doing?” She rushed forward and dropped down beside Andrew, who was feeling the bridge of his nose, testing it for breaks. “What the hell?” Grace demanded, glaring up at Declan.

  Declan’s face was red with anger, his breath heaving, his fists clenched at his sides, but he didn’t answer. Alyson and Darlene hadn’t returned from their coffee quest, so there was no one to explain what had happened.

  “She wants to see you,” Grace told Declan harshly. “Go. Get out of here.”

  Declan and Andrew locked glares.

  “Sophia’s waiting,” Grace said.

  Declan’s hot stare went from Andrew to her, and then he tore himself away.

  When he’d gone, Grace started to help Andrew up. “What happened?”

  Andrew shook his head. “He’s a menace. I mentioned you, and he went ballistic.”

  “What did you say?” Grace asked, intensely curious.

  He shook his head, feeling his nose. “I should press charges.”