Sapphire Attraction (The Drakes of California)

by Zuri Day

  “There she is! Honey! Sound the bugles. Queen Quinn has arrived!”

  “Hello, Mr. Corrigan.” She fell into his outstretched arms for his famous bear hug. He was a big man, around six-three, with a growing paunch and more gray than she remembered, but otherwise still the same man.

  “Let me look at you. My goodness, how long has it been?”

  “Five years, at least?”

  “That long? Come on in. The wife’s around here somewhere, probably getting the cook to whip up something decadent that none of us need. Sit down. Take a load off.”

  Instead Quinn was drawn to the large picture window. “What an incredible view! You can see forever. The bridge, downtown—this is stunning. The entire home, in fact.”

  “Yeah, my bank account said the same thing.”

  “Now, Phillip, let’s not ruin a girl’s fantasy with the details. Hello, dear.”

  “Hi, Mrs. Corrigan.” They hugged.

  “It’s so good to see you. I have a Swiss treat being prepared, just in case you want to nibble.”

  They settled into the beautifully appointed living room.

  “So tell us, Quinn. What’s going on in your life?”

  For the next two hours, Quinn caught them up-to-date. She left without discussing Global 100 but had piqued Mr. Corrigan’s curiosity about Ten Drake Plaza. The thought of helping the Drakes secure financing was exciting. But she’d learned her lesson and would share this development with no one until Mr. Corrigan was fully on board and ready to meet with Ike.

  Quinn gazed at the passing scenery on the way to her father’s town house in the tony area of Presidio Heights. Purchased after downsizing two years ago, it would be her first time to his and Viviana’s new home. The thought of Viviana led to unpleasant memories, and to Quinn wondering how life would be if her mother was alive. She vanquished the thought before it could form fully. The visit would already be hard enough.

  They reached the Taylor residence. Quinn paid the car service and walked with the driver to the front door, where he deposited the carry-on he’d insisted on handling, made a last flirty comment and left. Quinn took a breath and rang the bell. She was expecting her father, but instead Viviana opened the door.

  “Hello, Quinn. Come right in out of the cold.”

  “Hello.” Quinn reached for the luggage handle and rolled it inside.

  “Just leave it there, dear. The staff will deliver it to your room. You can leave your coat as well. Remove your shoes and choose a pair of booties from the chest.”

  Quinn did as instructed. “Is Dad here?”

  “Not at the moment. He was called away unexpectedly but wanted me to assure you that he’ll be back soon. In fact, we have dinner reservations for six thirty. In the meantime, we can get you settled, prepare a snack if you’re hungry, or perhaps you’d like to take a nap—whatever you need.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Let’s adjourn to the informal living room, shall we? I was just having a cup of tea. May I have one brought to you?”

  “That’s okay. I can go to the guest room and get settled in.”

  “Actually, Quinn, I’d very much like to speak with you, if I may. It needn’t be long. Just five or ten minutes, maybe?”

  “Okay.”

  “Are you sure I can’t talk you into joining me for tea? I first received it as a gift, and after finishing the box began ordering it on my own. It is the most divine blend of citrus and spices. I’ve become quite addicted.”

  Even her laughter was cultured. Not even a laugh. A titter. Soft and melodic, perfectly pitched, delivered through unmoving lips. Quinn would have much rather retreated to the guest room and social media, but it was obvious Viviana was trying. So she’d try, too.

  “Sure. I’ll join you.”

  “Perfect.” While Viviana spoke to the maid, Quinn sat in one of two empire chairs. After rattling off a list of instructions, she sat in the other one and offered what Quinn felt was a sincere smile.

  “So...how was your flight?”

  “Uneventful.” True answer, but Quinn knew it was not a proper one. If her social graces instructor back in Switzerland could hear her, she would be very disappointed. “That was a good thing,” she continued after clearing her throat, “because there is a cold front sweeping across Denver that has caused cancellations.”

  “Isn’t this unseasonably cold weather dreadful? I’m a San Franciscan born and bred, but I’ve never gotten used to the cold. This year, spending the holidays in Marmorata. I simply can’t wait. We’ve only planned a month’s stay, and your father has obligations toward the end of January, but I just may have to extend my visit until spring.”

  Viviana tittered. Quinn returned a small smile. It was the best she do. Neither Viviana nor her father had an obligation to invite her along. They were married, she was grown and they all had their own lives. She probably would have declined, but having the invitation extended would have been nice.

  The maid brought in a tray of tea and finger sandwiches. A few silent minutes were spent flavoring their teas. Viviana took a sip and gently set down her cup.

  “Quinn, I know our relationship has not been ideal.”

  Not ideal? It’s been nonexistent.

  “I bear some of the blame for that. Never having had children or spent much time around them, I didn’t consider your feelings the way that I should have. I’m ashamed to say that to even look at the situation from your point of view never crossed my mind. I’d survived a horrendous marriage and a divorce worse than that. Meeting Glen was like seeing sunshine after an Alaskan winter, with no light at all, and I was like a flower that had survived a drought. He was—and still is, quite frankly—the center of my universe. Unlike any man I’ve ever met before. Back then, during our courtship and right after we married, I wanted him to be as consumed with me as I was with him. I wanted all of his attention and I made selfish choices that were to your detriment.”

  “No, you made selfish demands. My father made the choice to give in to them.”

  “In his defense, I can be quite persuasive—some would use less flattering terms—when I want to get my way. He wanted you here, Quinn, in San Francisco. I wore him down, and when you understandably began acting out, I offered the perfect solution. One where I’d have Glen’s total focus.”

  “You’re why I was sent to school in Switzerland?”

  Viviana nodded slowly. “I have friends who’d sent their children there and spoke of it highly. It’s a great school in a beautiful setting. But it wasn’t life with your parent, your father. I want to apologize, Quinn. I’m so sorry for coming between you and Glen, and for contributing to the breakdown in your relationship. I won’t ask now, but I hope that someday you’ll be able to forgive me, and that if we can’t be friends, that we can at least be friendly.”

  “Thank you, Viviana. It doesn’t change what happened, but your apology means a lot.”

  Glen came home two hours later, surprised to see Quinn and Viviana laughing and talking together as they sipped glasses of wine.

  “Hold it. No, stay right there,” he told them, reaching into his briefcase to pull out his cell phone. “I want to capture this happy moment between the two women I love most in the world.” He aimed his smartphone and quickly took at least a dozen shots. “All right, ladies, give me a moment to freshen up and we’ll head to dinner.”

  “Actually, dear, something’s come up and I won’t be able to join you.”

  “What is it?” Glen asked, concerned.

  “Nothing to worry about, Glen. You two go on and enjoy each other. It’s been a while since that’s happened. I’m sure there’s a great deal to share.”

  Viviana gave Glen a hug and kiss, then turned and hugged Quinn, a rarity. With a quick wink, she left the room.

  Quinn realized what she
’d done and was grateful.

  “Well, honey. It’s just the two of us. Shall we?”

  Quinn threaded her arm through her father’s and, for the first time since she was twelve years old, felt like daddy’s little girl.

  The restaurant was less than five miles away from Judge Taylor’s impressive zip code, straight down California Street. Traffic could be brutal on this popular road, but not tonight. They arrived at the restaurant ten minutes later and were seated right away. During the ride and for the first few minutes after sitting down, conversation was minimal. But the silence didn’t feel awkward. For both father and daughter, after so many years away of strained interactions, just sitting and basking in their mutual love felt better than any words could convey.

  Quinn studied Pabu’s diverse menu of tasty-sounding items. It was her first time at the restaurant, but its stellar food and drink list was not a surprise. Her father had always enjoyed the finer things of life and had passed this taste down to his daughter. As her mouth watered, Quinn realized why every item described sounded amazing. Besides the cheese fondue the Corrigans’ chef had prepared as an homage to Switzerland, and a few treats she’d enjoyed during Viviana’s afternoon tea, Quinn hadn’t eaten a thing. Tonight she would enjoy the company and the food.

  “Dad, how—” What Quinn saw when she looked up stopped her speech. Were those tears? She’d never seen her dad cry in her entire life. Not even at her mom’s funeral. “What’s wrong, Dad?”

  Glen smiled and allowed the tear that quivered at the side of his eye to run down his cheek. “Nothing’s wrong, baby. Your father’s just happy, that’s all. Tonight, everything feels right.”

  “Oh, Dad!” Quinn left her seat to come around and hug her father. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and laid her cheek on his head. His shoulders shook beneath her embrace as the dam holding back decades of tears crumbled and he allowed the tears to flow. Quinn felt her own eyes begin to water and ended the embrace. She returned to her seat, reached for linen napkin and dabbed the corners of her eyes. “I’ve never seen you cry,” she admitted to her father.

  “It doesn’t happen often.” With his emotions in control once again, Glen pulled a handkerchief from an inside suit pocket and wiped his face. “I can’t even remember the last time. Watching you just now took me back ten, fifteen years, to the times I saw your mother looking that exact same way.”

  “I always thought I looked more like you.”

  “You definitely have the more prominent Taylor features. Your body type, nose, eyes. But I see a lot of Brenda in you, too, especially your mannerisms—even some of your personality is like hers. In hindsight, I think that’s why I left you with Mom after she died. You were such a reminder of all I’d lost.”

  “I missed you so much then, Dad. I needed you. I was hurting, too!”

  “I know, baby. That’s why I’ve apologized and reached out to you so many times. But being like your father, you didn’t want to deal with it, either, didn’t want to revisit the past. So I finally left you alone to sort it out in your own way. But I always hoped for this moment, when we could find our way back to how it used to be.”

  “Viviana apologized today.” Judge Taylor nodded. “That meant a lot.”

  “I can’t tell you what it did for me to see the two of you together and actually getting along.”

  “I was pretty shocked.”

  Glen’s deep laughter bubbled up from his chest. He waved away the waiter as he sat back to hear his daughter out.

  “She took you away from me. That’s how I felt.”

  “That was my fault. When your mother died, when I lost Brenda, I went numb. Honestly, I didn’t know how to live without her. We’d begun dating in our teens. It was like she was always in my life. We had so many plans, big ones, and spent so much time working to make them come true—and looking back, not as much time together. Just enjoying each other, being a family.

  “I blamed myself for her death. Irrational, but that’s what happened. It’s why I took it so hard. I went through all of the coulda, shoulda, wouldas, and then I shut down. I was a broken man. That’s the other reason why I left you in Paradise Cove. It isn’t a way a father wants his daughter to see him.

  “When I met Viviana, I was still lost, burying everything beneath a crushing workload. She took the lead in the relationship, and without my even asking or telling her how, put order back into my life. She was my buoy in a sea of nothingness. I clung to her. And lost you in the process.”

  “I had no idea.”

  “I know.”

  “We were both hurting.”

  “Yes.”

  Quinn reached across the table. Glen squeezed her hand.

  “I love you, Dad. I hope we can do this again, you know, every now and then. Just you and me.”

  “We can do it whenever you want, baby. I want us to have a lifetime of moments like these.”

  Chapter 24

  Instead of the in-and-out twenty-four-hour trip she’d planned, Quinn stayed at her father’s house for three days. It would have been longer, except her grandmother developed a nasty cold and Quinn wanted to be there for her.

  There’d been one other rather significant change in plans. Instead of using her return ticket, Quinn drove the roughly 120 miles between San Francisco and Paradise Cove in the surprise gift her father had presented the night before—a fully loaded Corvette Stingray convertible, with a custom pearl-white body and burgundy top. Heads turned as she entered Paradise Cove, her music blasting, her foot on the gas, pushing the boundaries of the posted speed limits. She pulled into Maggie’s driveway exhilarated from the drive and, more, from time with her father. The woman who’d left Paradise Cove was not the same woman who returned. Quinn had boarded the plane with a hole in her heart that had now been filled with forgiveness and love.

  Along with the carry-on, her sole outbound luggage, Quinn entered her home with three pieces, two filled with new clothes.

  “Kristin Quinn!” Maggie was lying on the couch under an afghan but sat up when she heard the door open. “It looks as though you bought out all of San Francisco.”

  “Not hardly,” Quinn replied, sitting in the Queen Anne chair and pulling the luggage closer. “But I did go shopping. With Viviana.”

  The whoop from Maggie was the reaction she’d expected. “My heavens, child. Was that at gunpoint?”

  “Ha! Anyone who knows our history would think that a reasonable response. This visit was different. It was unlike any other time I’ve spent with her, or with all of us, including Dad.”

  “When you called to say you’d extended the trip, I knew there was a story behind it.”

  “I didn’t realize how much I missed my father until we were back together. You were right. About everything. Talking about Mom has helped me heal. The exact opposite of what I thought would happen, of what seemed to occur in the past. And about reaching out to Dad. Letting go of past hurts. Practicing forgiveness. The change was amazing and happened so quickly. It’s almost as if it began the moment I decided to forgive Dad, even before it actually happened.”

  Maggie’s eyes beamed. “Yes, dear. That’s how it works.”

  Quinn shared the initial conversation she’d had with Viviana, and how she’d acknowledged her errors and apologized.

  “I’d never thought about asking for an apology. But it felt good to get one. What totally floored me was when she excused herself from dinner so Dad and I could go alone.”

  “She did?”

  “I couldn’t believe it, either. She said something had come up but then winked at me when Dad wasn’t looking. So I know she did it for me. I can’t believe I’m saying this, Grandmother, but she and Dad have been married ten years. By their fifteenth anniversary, I might even like her.”

  “Quinn...”

  “J
ust teasing, Grandmother. I don’t think we’ll ever be best buds. Being cordial and able to share a room without tension is huge enough.”

  “It’s a place to start.”

  “I also visited the Corrigans, Trent’s parents.”

  “That had to have been nice.”

  “It was. I hadn’t seen them in years.”

  “Discuss anything interesting?”

  “Just caught up on each other’s lives,” Quinn responded before changing the subject once again.

  “In case you were under the misimpression that my shopping was all self-centered—” she pulled out one of the larger boxes “—this is for you.”

  “Quinn, you’re such a sweetheart. You shouldn’t have gone to the trouble.”

  “I absolutely should have, and I loved every minute.”

  Maggie was thrilled with the dresses, scarves and jewelry Quinn had chosen. “I think these gifts have healing powers. I feel all better.”

  Quinn felt better, too. But one matter prevented her complete happiness—her part in the failed purchase of Ten Drake Plaza. If that situation could be turned around, and she and Ike could get back the feelings they’d shared the weekend of the masquerade ball, her world would be perfect and all of her dreams would have come true.

  * * *

  Ike resisted the urge to slam down the receiver. He gripped it tightly, let a couple seconds pass and then placed it gently back on the cradle. It was the third time he’d attempted to speak with Bernard. Obviously the businessman had been offended at what Ike’s comments implied. But his reaction was over-the-top. Ike wanted to know why.

  Pushing back from his desk, he walked over to his door and closed it. He went to the window, a place where some of this best thinking occurred. He watched as PC residents went about their normal lives, unaware and unconcerned that Ike’s had been shaken off its foundation. This was unfamiliar territory. It hadn’t taken Ike long to realize that it was a position he didn’t care for and didn’t handle well.