“You are.” I reached for her hand, turning it over as a diamond-and-sapphire ring sparkled in the overhead light. “Pretty ring. Where’d you get it?” If she told me another man had given it to her, that would set me off again, so I didn’t know why I’d even bothered to ask.
“It was a graduation gift from my parents. Why?”
I brought her hand my lips without answering. I couldn’t tell her I wondered about the other men she’d dated, whether she’d ever felt about any of them the way she felt about me. “Just curious.”
“I’ve never accepted a piece of jewelry from a man,” she said as though she sensed my need to know.
“Why not?”
“It’s always seemed too personal, too intimate.” She swallowed as she slipped her feet in and out of her high heels. “One time in college, my boyfriend tried to give me a ring for my birthday. In hindsight, I’m really glad I didn’t take it. He turned out to be a real jerk.”
The edge in her voice caught my attention. I knew there was a story there, one I’d never heard, that might give me more insight into the beautiful enigma beside me. I wanted to know everything she’d been afraid to tell me before. I needed reassurance that we were getting closer, that with every passing day, we were charting new territory, moving closer to a real relationship. “What did he do that was so terrible?”
“He used me.” She spit the words before shuddering and using her free hand to draw the wrap around her.
I put my arm around her, pulling her closer. “Tell me about it.”
“We dated for a while.” She sighed as she rested her head on my shoulder. “I thought I was in love with him. Turns out he was just using me to get a job with my father’s company when he graduated. He was sleeping with his ex-girlfriend the whole time he was seeing me.”
I heard only resentment in her voice, no pain and, thankfully, no tears. She’d buried him in the same place I’d buried my wife’s infidelity—in the deep recesses of her mind. It would resurface every now and again, reminding you to question whether someone was trustworthy, but other than that, you lied to yourself and everyone else by pretending it didn’t affect you.
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m not.” She curled her hand around my thigh, making my heart beat just a little harder. “It was a good lesson. It taught me to be a lot more cautious with men.”
“That’s why you always have your guard up. It makes sense now.”
She looked at me, her lips forming a reluctant smile. “I spent years questioning whether every guy I dated was after my family’s money.”
I kissed her gently, without heat or passion. I wanted to reassure that I was with her for all the right reasons.
“With you, I don’t have to wonder about that because you’re so successful in your own right. It’s nice, not having to worry about that.”
I kissed the top of her head. “But we have other issues.”
“Yeah, I guess we do. How did it go with your girls after I left last night?”
“I had a good talk with them.” Good from my perspective. At least now they knew I wouldn’t tolerate any more of their nonsense. “It gave me some insight into what’s going on with them. Turns out they miss their mom a lot more than I realized.”
“What are you going to do about that?” she asked, lifting her head from my shoulder so she could look me in the eye.
“I guess I’m going to have to go see Karen, figure something out. The last thing I want is to hurt our kids. None of this is their fault, and they don’t deserve to be punished just because we couldn’t make our marriage work.”
“For what it’s worth, I think you’re making the right decision.”
“Your opinion is worth a lot to me. I hope you know that.” I was impressed she wasn’t one of those women who felt intimidated by me spending time with my ex. I felt compelled to tell her the truth even though I still wasn’t sure where we stood. “I told the girls I may be able to supervise their visits so they could spend more time with Karen. That would mean I’d have to go to her place or she’d come here. Maybe we would all have dinner together or something once in a while.”
“I’m sure Elsie and Emily would like that.”
“Would you be okay with it?” I held my breath, waiting for her response. If she told me she couldn’t care less or felt she had no cause for concern, it would tell me I was much more invested in her than she was in me. “Me and Karen spending more time together with our girls?”
“If it meant your kids were happier, how could I not be?”
That wasn’t the answer I’d been hoping for, but it was the one I should have expected. Any woman who truly knew me would expect me to put my kids first, but I didn’t want her to think that meant she was last on my list of priorities. “It may take a little more time for us to sort things out. Think you can be patient with me?”
She drew circles on the leg of my jeans. I could tell she was buying time, planning her next words carefully, and that made me nervous.
“I don’t think we should be making any promises to each other right now,” she said. “I came back here because I was hoping for a second chance with you, but you’re in no position to offer anyone anything until you decide how to handle things with your daughters. It’s obvious they don’t want me to be a part of your life—”
“But what about what I want?” I released her so I could turn to face her. I needed her to look into my eyes when I said this, and I hoped she could see what was in my heart. “Doesn’t that matter?”
“Of course it does, but right now we have to be selfless. What they want matters more.”
I knew when I became a parent it would involve sacrifice, but I’d never imagined a sacrifice like this. “Sweetheart, it doesn’t have to be an either/or proposition. I really believe I can have you and my daughters.”
She smiled, stroking the stubble on my cheek. “I hope you’re right. But I’m still not convinced. Only time will tell whether they’ll accept me. If they don’t…” She shrugged. “I don’t know. But I refuse to make their lives, or ours, miserable. Do you have any idea the kind of stress that would put on all of us, if your kids hated me?”
How anyone could hate Catia was unfathomable to me. If my kids knew her like I did, they’d see that she was sweet and funny and the kind of woman who would put the happiness of children she didn’t even know above her own. For me, that sealed the deal.
“I’m not gonna lose you,” I said, resting my hand against her jaw as I drew her in for a kiss. My tongue traced the soft fullness of her lips thoroughly, as though I feared it might be the last time we enjoyed this kind of intimacy. With that thought, desperation and fear claimed me, and the kiss became deeper and more persuasive.
When I tried to pull her into my lap, she pushed on my chest, resisting my silent request with a shaky laugh. “We can’t do this here. We have neighbors, remember?”
I didn’t give a damn about the neighbors. The only thing I cared about was walking away from this evening with the reassurance that she still wanted to be mine. “Come inside with me then.”
“Aren’t the girls asleep?”
“Yeah, we’ll have the downstairs to ourselves.”
When she shook her head, I turned my attention to the crook of her neck. Licking the sensitive hollow, I whispered, “Come on, baby. I need a little more time with you tonight.”
“I want that too,” she said, gripping my hair so she could tug my head away from her neck. “But I can’t. Not with your girls asleep upstairs. What if they come down for a glass of water or because they have a bad dream?” She shook her head defiantly. “No way, I’m not gonna risk that. Not after the way they reacted to me the other night.”
She stood, and I took her hand, forcing her to stand between my open legs. “I don’t want you to go.”
“I don’t want to go either,” she said, stroking my face. “But I have to.”
I raised her hands, lowering my head to rest on them as I tried to
find a solution we could live with. “It won’t always be like this, you know. They’ll come around eventually.” They had to.
“I hope you’re right,” she said with a disbelieving smile. “Maybe I’ll see you at work tomorrow?”
“Count on it.” If that was the only place we could have some alone time, I’d lock her in my goddamn office and take her on my desk if I had to.
***
My mother paid me an unexpected visit just before lunch the next day. I hadn’t seen her since she’d met Cat because my father had dropped the girls off at my house the previous night after he’d taken them to their dental appointment.
“Hey,” I said, smiling when I caught sight of her. “This is a nice surprise. Come on in.”
“I was in the neighborhood and thought I’d stop by.” She glanced at the blueprints laid out on my desk. “But if you’re busy—”
“Never too busy for you, Mom. Come on in. Sit down.”
“It’s not always easy for us to chat with the girls around,” she said, clutching her purse in front of her as she sat in the guest chair. “And I wanted us to have a little privacy for this conversation.”
“Okay,” I said, trying not to fear the worst. Since she’d been spending almost as much time with the girls as I had the past several months, I knew she had to be concerned about their behavioral problems.
“First, I wanted to thank you for suggesting I work with Catia. She’s a lovely lady, and I forgot how nice it is to work with someone older who isn’t taking lessons just because their parents are forcing them to.”
“I’m glad it’s working out.” I smiled, imagining how difficult it must have been for Catia’s parents to force her to do anything as a child. Like my girls, she had a mind of her own. And it meant the world to me that my mother had a positive first impression of Catia.
“It’s obvious you’re very important to her.”
“It is? Why?” I asked, leaning forward. “What did she say about me?”
“It wasn’t so much what she said but how she said it.”
I hated when my mother said that. I preferred forthright to vague and expected everyone to communicate the same way I did. “Meaning?”
“She wants what’s best for you and the girls.”
“I know.” I ran a hand over my hair as the soft words she’d spoken last night came flooding back. “But what if what I want and what they want are two different things?”
“I got the impression they gave Catia a hard time.”
“You can say that again.” Covering my face with my hands, I said, “Come on, honestly, what woman is gonna put up with two kids who aren’t even her own treating her like the enemy? How long before she decides it’s not worth the aggravation and cuts me loose?”
“She doesn’t strike me as the kind of woman who gives up on something she wants without a fight, honey. And unless I’m way off base, she wants you.”
Hearing that helped, but I needed Catia to tell me nothing my kids could say or do would make her want to give up on me. That was the only thing that would ease this ever-present ache in my chest.
“I was thinking maybe I can help.”
“How?” The last thing I needed was for my mother to get involved in my love life.
“Maybe Dad and I could keep the girls tonight? We could take them out for a pizza and a movie and they could spend the night. You know they would love that, and maybe it would give you some time alone with Catia.”
I’d have to check if Cat was available, but I would have given anything to get her alone for a few hours with no distractions. “You really wouldn’t mind?”
“Mind?” My mother lit up with a smile. “It would be our pleasure. You know how much we love spending time with our granddaughters.”
“Even when they’re being little divas?” I asked, rolling my eyes.
“To tell you the truth,” my mother said, sounding hesitant, “they’ve been great with us. No trouble at all.”
Great, so I was bearing the brunt of their bad attitude. At least they weren’t subjecting my parents to that. “They’re mad at me for not letting them spend more time with Karen. As a matter of fact, I’m going to go over there later and talk to her about revising the custody agreement.”
“You don’t mean unsupervised visitation?” she asked, looking alarmed. “After what she did, I think—”
“No, nothing like that,” I said, raising my hand to ward off her concerns. “I think I’d like to be the one to supervise their visitation though. If the girls felt like we were still a family and they saw that Karen and I don’t hate each other, maybe they’d cut me some slack.”
My mother offered me a sympathetic smile. “You’re a great dad. They’re going to thank you for that someday.”
I hoped the day would come when they would stop treating me like the bad guy, but for now, I’d take my lumps. “It is what it is, I guess. But if you’re serious about the sleepover, I’m not gonna lie, I’d love to have a little alone time with Cat.”
“Perfect!” My mother clapped, her eyes shining with enthusiasm. “I have a key, so I’ll just pop over to your house and pick up everything they’ll need before I go get them from school. And don’t worry about coming to get them early in the morning. I’m sure they’ll want to help me make chocolate chip pancakes for brunch.”
I rounded the desk to walk her to the door. I gave her a hug and whispered, “You’re the best, Mom. Don’t know what the hell I’d do without you.”
She patted my face as she blinked back tears. “I just want to see you happy and in love again. If Catia can put that smile back on your face, I’ll do whatever I can to help.”
“I love you,” I said, kissing her cheek.
“Love you too, honey.”
***
I passed by Karen’s house on the way home from work. My plan was stop after I left her place and grab a bottle of wine and a pizza to take over to Catia’s. I could have taken her out for a nice dinner, but I didn’t want to be interrupted by a waiter every five minutes. I wanted to talk to her… among other things.
Karen looked shocked when she opened the door to find me in her dimly lit hallway. “Chase! What are you doing here?”
“Can I come in?”
“Sure.” She stepped back, letting me inside her apartment. It was bright and spacious, hardly a hovel but nothing like the sprawling estate home we’d shared. “This must be about the girls since we have nothing else to discuss.”
“It is about the girls. Our visitation setup isn’t working for them, so we need to figure out a way to fix it. Obviously it’ll have to go through our lawyers, but I thought we could hammer out the details now so it’ll just be a formality by the time we go to them.”
“Okay,” she said, sounding wary.
“I’d like you to have more time with Elsie and Em, and I know they want that too.”
“Really?” Her green eyes, which had been her best feature years ago, sparkled again.
“Yeah.” I nodded. “We had a long talk the other night, and I realized part of the reason they’ve been lashing out at me so much is because they miss you. My intent was never to hurt them. We both made mistakes, Karen, but they sure as hell shouldn’t have to pay for them.”
She folded her arms over her slender frame. “You’re right. I feel terrible about what happened. I can’t believe I was stupid enough to go out and leave them alone like that.” A tear dripped down her cheek, and she brushed it away. “I still beat myself up about it every day. It’s hard for me to admit it, but you were right to take them away from me. I would’ve done the same thing in your position.”
Wow. I couldn’t believe my ex-wife and I were having a civil conversation without our lawyers to referee. “I really want to put everything that happened behind us. I’ll admit I was angry and bitter for a long time, but I’m tired of feeling that way. I just want to move on.”
“Move on?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. “With another woman?”
So much for civil. I knew any mention of another woman being a part of her daughters’ lives would send her into a tailspin. But I refused to make Catia my dirty little secret. If Karen didn’t like the idea of me dating, that was her problem, not mine. “I am seeing someone.”
“Who is she?”
I decided to fill her in before our girls could. “Her name is Catia Starkis. We worked together on a project last year before she moved back to Chicago.”
“She lives in Chicago?” she asked, sounding hopeful.
“She did. Now she lives here. On my street, as a matter of fact.”
“Sounds cozy,” she said, the light diming in her eyes as though I’d imagined it.
“She works for me too. As a project manager.”
Her eyes narrowed as though she’d suddenly had a lightbulb moment. “Wait a minute. Did you say her name was Starkis? Not the Starkis?”
Catia’s family was infamous for a variety of reasons: business acumen, philanthropic endeavors, wealth, and bad behavior. “Her father owns the restaurant I built here last year.”
“And her cousin owns Alabaster’s, right?”
Figured my ex would be well-acquainted with Deacon’s high-end lingerie company. “That’s right.”
“Oh my God, your new girlfriend is an heiress?” Nothing lit Karen up quite like dollar signs. “Her family has billions.” She whispered the word as though it was the holy grail of life achievements.
“They also happen to be decent, hard-working people.” Not that I expected that to make an impression on her. Karen had been raised in a working-class family that taught her that marrying up was her only hope of getting rich.
“Sure they are,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“You don’t even know them.”
“I don’t have to know them. People who are that rich are always crooked.”
Catia (Starkis Family #6) Page 9
