“So Ben’s a no-show?” Cyrus asked.
“Yeah. His parents wanted him to spend the evening with them.”
He couldn’t tell how disappointed she was, since her expression was more wry than anything else. “Well, that’s normal, isn’t it? Most families want to spend Christmas Eve together.”
“Yeah,” she said with a sigh.
As ridiculous and irrational as it was, Cyrus couldn’t help but feel a little hurt that she wasn’t satisfied in spending the evening with just him as they normally did.
He’d finally gotten his life to a decent place. He had worthwhile work to do and was achieving some measure of respect for it. Things were going all right with his father. He was no longer constantly in the gossip columns for partying and one-night stands.
And he’d thought he had someone who felt like family, who would always like him and want to be with him no matter what.
“Sorry I’m only a distant second,” he said dryly, making sure to sound more teasing than reproachful, “when it comes to company for the evening.”
She made a squeaky sound, one that was evidently an objection. “You’re not a distant second!” She scooted over closer to him on the couch and leaned her head against his shoulder for a minute. “I wasn’t upset about him not being here. I was just thinking it would be nice to have parents who made sure you spent Christmas Eve with them.”
Suddenly understanding her mood—which had absolutely nothing to do with a crush on Ben—he felt a surge of empathy and put an arm around her to give her a half-hug.
“I miss my parents,” she said softly, snuggling against him as if she was glad for the comfort. “Sometimes I still sleep with my dad’s sweatshirt.”
Cyrus’s throat hurt as he felt for her, as he hurt for her. He understood her deeply. For many long, aching years, he’d missed having a father too.
After a minute, he cleared his throat. As Helen had gotten older, they’d been able to talk more, but it had always been companionable rather than intimate. He wasn’t used to dealing with the kind of naked vulnerability from anyone that Helen was sharing with him now.
It made him feel vulnerable too.
But it would hurt her feelings if he pulled away, and he wasn’t willing to do that. Instead, he said lightly, “Well, it’s not the same, but you’ll always have me. That’s better than nothing, I guess.”
She sucked in a breath and pulled away far enough to gaze up at him. Her eyes were soft and hopeful. “You mean it? You won’t forget about me when you get married to some gorgeous, sophisticated woman like Alicia Morse?”
“Of course, I won’t forget about you. And what do you know about Alicia?”
“Not much,” she admitted, “Just that you’ve been dating her for the last month or so.”
“You aren’t still reading that trashy site, are you?” he demanded, stiffening at the thought.
For the last two years, he’d given up almost all of his wild, reckless habits. It was partly getting out of school and investing in a real career, but it was also because he had trouble doing certain things when he knew that Helen was watching. If the bloggers wrote about it, Helen would find out.
He’d drunk too much and driven too fast and fucked too many women in some sort of futile attempt to feel alive, but he could no longer do any of those things without feeling guilty about how Helen might regard it.
“No, I’m not reading it. It got pretty boring after you reformed yourself anyway.” Her lips quivered as he rolled his eyes at her choice of words. “But I’ve heard a few rumors about you and Alicia. Do you think it’s serious?”
He felt a little uncomfortable with the direction of the conversation, but there was no reason not to answer honestly. He’d always felt safe with her, like she wasn’t a threat. Besides, she was still just a kid. He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“Oh. Well, you’ll eventually find a beautiful, elegant woman you want to marry. You won’t forget about me then, will you?”
“Helen, stop it,” he said, frowning because she sounded like she was really afraid he would. “I’m not going to forget about you. I know I’m not a brother or a cousin or anything, but I’m something. And I’m afraid you’re stuck with me.”
He knew he’d said the right thing when her face broke into a glowing smile. She hugged him hard around the neck and said, her voice muffled by his shoulder, “And you’re stuck with me too.”
That sounded about right to Cyrus. It felt safe, secure. He figured it was what family was supposed to be.
“Shall we watch the movie?” he asked, pulling out of the hug. “And we still need to try those sugar cookies.”
“Yes,” she said, beaming at him. “Turn it on, and I’ll go get the cookies.”
Cyrus did as she said. Then he stretched out his legs and let out his breath, finally relaxing. If his life kept going in this comfortable direction, things would be just fine.
It was a pretty good Christmas Eve after all.
Fifth Christmas Eve
three years ago
Helen was trying very hard not to eavesdrop.
Cyrus’s apartment did not have thin walls, and he’d closed the door to his office when the lawyer arrived. If she wanted to overhear the conversation, she would have to do something very obvious like press her ear against the door.
In a different situation, she wouldn’t have hesitated to do so, but she felt really bad for Cyrus and thought he deserved his privacy. She already knew more about his marriage and divorce than she should have, and the whole thing made her feel a little sick. So—even though she wanted desperately to know what his divorce attorney was telling him—she resisted the temptation and instead wandered into the kitchen.
His apartment wasn’t huge and ostentatious like Drake’s penthouse. It had an airy great room with a top-of-the-line, open-concept kitchen and a huge wall of glass doors leading out onto a wide terrace. The exotic hardwood floors, the classic furniture, and the expensive fabrics obviously testified to the expense, but there was only one bedroom, one office, and one full and one half bath.
Cyrus paid for his place out of his own earnings, although Helen knew his father had offered him a much grander Owen property. Helen figured Cyrus’s reasons were similar to her own reasons for insisting she live in a dorm room for her freshman year in college instead of the high end apartment Drake had offered her.
She’d finished her final exams after her first semester in college more than a week ago, but she’d stayed in D.C., since there was more to do here and no one would be at the house in Clarksburg until Christmas Eve anyway. She’d arranged to ride back with Cyrus to Clarksburg this afternoon, but he hadn’t quite been ready to go when she’d arrived.
To distract herself from the temptation to eavesdrop, she started to rinse off some of the dishes in the sink and put them in the dishwasher. Cyrus was used to having a domestic staff who immediately picked up behind him, the dishes had piled up over the holiday. Helen had been that way too until she’d started living on her own in the dorm.
She loaded the dishwasher and then began to hand wash the stemware.
She hoped Cyrus was all right.
It had to suck to sign divorce papers on Christmas Eve day.
She knew he wanted to get it over with—that even the good memories from his marriage had turned bitter—but that wouldn’t make it any easier to have the relationship end.
Helen had never liked Rose Marie. She’d been worried when Cyrus started to date the gorgeous brunette with a lithe body and startlingly pale blue eyes, and she'd been even more worried when it turned serious. Rose Marie knew how to play up to a man better than anyone Helen had ever seen, but Helen had immediately pegged her as shallow, superficial, and selfish at heart. Time had only confirmed this first impression.
Cyrus hadn’t seen it, though. He’d fallen hard for Rose Marie, and Helen had tried her best to be supportive, since she didn’t want to alienate him.
She’d been
almost relieved, however, a couple of months into the marriage, when Rose Marie started to show her true colors and Cyrus began to recognize that his wife cared more about herself than she would ever care about him.
It had been about the same time Helen had moved to D.C. to start college. Because they were, for the first time, living in the same city, Helen had seen Cyrus more often than ever before. They started to have lunch every week or so, and Helen had really appreciated the familiarity and security of hanging out with Cyrus, since starting college had been hard. Somehow, the rumors had started around campus almost as soon as she’d arrived about the fortune she’d inherit when she turned twenty-one. Trying to make new friends when people either labeled you a spoiled princess or tried to suck up in the hopes of being connected to money and power was a very difficult task.
At least Cyrus understood.
Rose Marie, however, had not understood. Whenever Helen happened to encounter Cyrus’s wife, the other woman had treated her with increasing condescension and contempt.
Helen vividly remembered one evening, when her roommate was having a sex-a-thon in their dorm room and Cyrus had said she could come over to his place to watch movies or do homework. She and Cyrus had just been hanging out in the living room—both working on their laptops, her on a paper and him on some sort of business report. Rose Marie had been at a museum board meeting until late, and she’d gotten home a little before midnight.
She’d looked stunning in a pink, fur-trimmed suit, with her dark hair piled up on her head, but she’d completely lost it when she saw Helen, demanding that she get out of her house immediately and not come back.
Helen had been too shocked and horrified to even respond, but Cyrus had snapped into fury. Without speaking, he’d taken Rose Marie’s arm in an unyielding grip and walked her back into the study. Helen was able to recognize the anger in his eyes, on his tense face, and in his stance.
She could well imagine what they’d been discussing in the study, and soon she didn’t have to imagine at all since Rose Marie started to yell.
Rose Marie berated Cyrus in loud, shrill tones for not appreciating her, for working all the time, for hoarding his money and never giving her any, for treating her like she was silly and stupid.
“You’d rather spend time with that child than with your own wife,” Rose Marie had shrieked. Helen knew instinctively the “child” being referred to was her. “And I’m not going to put up with it. You have to decide. It’s me or her.”
Finally, Cyrus raised his voice enough to be heard through the closed door. “You know I’ll never accept such an ultimatum. She’s my family.”
“She is not your family! You’re not even related. I’m your family.”
“Then for once try to act like family and think of someone besides yourself. I’m not going to stop seeing Helen. To even ask such a thing of me is appalling.”
“Then that’s it. I’m leaving. You can have your little Helen, since she's obviously more important to you than me.”
That had been the last straw for Helen. She jumped up, gathered her stuff together, and hurried out of the apartment, just as she heard Cyrus tell Rose Marie that she was absolutely insane.
Rose Marie and Cyrus had separated soon after that evening, and the divorce proceedings had been completed remarkably quickly, thanks to the Owen money and the skill of his lawyer.
This afternoon, it was finished, just over a year since Cyrus and Rose Marie started dating.
Helen was wiping down the sink and counter when Cyrus and his attorney emerged from the study.
She scanned Cyrus anxiously. He was a little paler than usual, and there were shadows under his eyes. She was pretty sure he’d been working too hard and hadn’t been sleeping, but he was as well-dressed as normal, in black trousers and a black dress shirt. With his five o’clock shadow and lean, strong body, he looked masculine and sophisticated both.
She always felt pleasure and familiarity when she looked at him. But, for the first time—ever—Helen also felt a surge of attraction. It was like she wanted him in a way she never had before.
The feeling startled and upset her. When she'd been younger, she hadn’t even thought Cyrus was handsome. Now, of course, she recognized he was, but she’d never really thought about him that way. To be hit with that kind of visceral response to him completely out of the blue was quite disorienting.
And it was almost certainly wrong.
She shook it off and focused on what mattered, the fact that signing the divorce papers would have been very hard for him.
He noticed her look of anxious scrutiny and gave her a tired smile.
“Good afternoon, Ms. Coleman,” the attorney said with a friendly grin. “You’re getting prettier every time I see you.”
Helen smiled at the man, smoothing down her dark-red corduroy jacket over her jeans. He had always been nice and had sounded like the compliment was sincere and not because he wanted something from her. “Thank you. I hope you have a merry Christmas.”
“You too. Merry Christmas, Mr. Owen. I hope your New Year is a good one.”
Cyrus returned the greeting and walked his lawyer to the door as Helen finished wiping down the kitchen counter.
“You didn’t have to do that,” he said, returning to the kitchen once the other man had left.
Helen shrugged. “Just killing time.”
“Sorry you had to wait. Things took longer than I expected.” Cyrus ran a hand through his hair and closed his eyes momentarily.
“So it’s done?”
“Yes. Officially divorced.”
“Well,” she said, feeling a little awkward and self-conscious. “At least it’s over.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m really sorry, Cyrus.”
His blue eyes had been unfocused, but he shifted them quickly to her face. “What are you sorry about? It wasn’t your fault.”
“I know. I just meant I’m sorry it happened at all. But I know I…I mean, I know it didn’t make things easier that I was around…I know she didn’t really…” Helen trailed off, her cheeks flushing deeply. She wanted to say something to acknowledge her part in all of this—that she appreciated Cyrus standing by her and not dropping her because his wife had been territorial and insecure—but she couldn’t figure out a way to say it.
“Helen,” he said, taking a step closer to her. He took the dish cloth she’d been using out of her hand and put it on the counter. “What happened had nothing to do with you.”
She just nodded, swallowing hard.
“She would have found something to accuse me of, whether you were around or not.”
“I know.”
His eyes held hers intently. “She didn’t like anyone or anything that distracted from her. It wasn’t anything personal about you. It was just the way she was.”
Helen dropped her eyes. “I’m still sorry—if my being around made things worse.”
“You don’t make anything worse, Helen.” His voice was low and a little hoarse, and he ran one hand very lightly down the long length of her hair. She’d been growing her hair out now for years, and it was almost to her waist.
Some tension in her chest and belly eased, since it had sounded like he really meant what he said. She looked up at him again. His eyes were poignant and exhausted. “Are you okay, Cyrus?” she asked in almost a whisper.
“I’m fine. I…”
When he trailed off, she prompted, “You what?”
“I really tried to love her. I thought it could work, but maybe I was wrong from the start. She just couldn’t seem to love me.”
“It wasn’t you,” Helen said quickly, immediately riling to his defense. “It was her. She—” She broke off the words, suddenly remembering that it was wisest not to say anything negative about another’s spouse, either during the marriage or after it ended.
“She what?”
Helen swallowed. Decided, since he seemed to really want to know, it was worth risking it. “Maybe I’m w
rong, but it always seemed to me like she never really wanted to be loved. She wanted to be worshiped.”
Cyrus stared at a spot over her shoulder for a long time. Then he let out a slow breath and admitted, “Yeah. That's about right.”
* * *
The drive to Clarksburg was quiet but not awkward or unpleasant. Since Cyrus seemed so tired, Helen volunteered to drive and—when she kept nagging—he finally let her.
Helen loved driving Cyrus’s Aston Martin—one of the ludicrously expensive cars he owned. She was having a grand time when she glanced over at him in the passenger seat and saw he was watching her with a faint smile.
“I’m doing fine,” she said, a little defensively.
“Of course you are. Why would you think I was implying differently.”
“You looked like you were laughing at me.”
“I wasn’t.”
She shot him another quick look and assured herself this was true.
After another few minutes of silence except for the sound of the engine and the wind against the car, Cyrus asked idly, “So how’s Ben?”
“He’s fine. He went back to Clarksburg last week to spend the holiday with his parents.”
“Is he still dating…what’s her name?”
“Julie,” Helen replied. “Yes, they’re still dating, and it seems to be going well, I guess.”
Helen and Ben had dated for about a year in high school. There had been plenty of reasons for them to break up, but Helen had still been devastated when they had. It had taken a long time for her and Ben to get to be real friends again.
They were now, though, and Helen was happy he was in a good relationship with someone else.
“What about you?” Cyrus asked. “Things still going well with…”
He’d trailed off as if he couldn’t remember the name of the guy Helen had recently been dating either. “Ethan,” Helen finished for him. “Yes. It’s early yet, but I like him. He flew back to visit his family in Chicago over Christmas.”
Helen had met Ethan in Biology lab. He was a senior, and she’d loved his dark, rakish appearance and his flirtatious attitude. He’d made her feel like she was the most desirable girl in the world, which was not a feeling she normally experienced.
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