“His family owns a big department store chain in the Midwest, so at least I know he’s not after my money.”
Cyrus’s eyes were focused straight ahead, on the road ahead of them. “Just because his family has money doesn’t mean he does.”
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing. I was just making a comment. You always have to be careful. There are plenty of men who would just marry you for your inheritance.”
Helen stiffened, her hands tightening on the steering wheel. “I know that. I’m not an idiot, you know. Two guys have proposed to me just this fall, and I wasn’t stupid enough to fall for them. I was just saying that I don’t have to worry about that with Ethan, since his family has plenty of money. It helps.”
“Just be careful,” Cyrus murmured. He still wasn’t looking in her direction.
Her gut suddenly dropped. “What do you know? Do you know something about Ethan?”
“I couldn’t even recall his name, remember? Just always be careful with men.”
She felt strangely upset. “I am careful with men. I always am.”
It was true. Other than Ben, she’d never dated anyone seriously. She hadn’t even had sex yet because she was always so hesitant about sharing that much of herself when she wasn’t absolutely sure she trusted a man.
“Is it serious with Ethan, do you think?” Cyrus asked. There was an odd note to his voice she couldn’t quite recognize.
She gave a half-shrug, feeling strangely self-conscious, although she didn’t know why. “Not yet. We’re still just going out. Not exclusive or anything. He’s not about to propose so he can run off with my money.”
Her inheritance was held in trust until she was twenty-one, even if she married before that age, so it was still a few years before she would have to worry about that anyway.
“I wasn’t implying your money was the only reason a guy might be interested in you,” Cyrus added.
“I guess you would know what it’s like.”
“Yeah.” He let out a sigh. “That I do.”
* * *
After dinner, Helen went upstairs to change into something more comfortable for the rest of the evening. She hesitated briefly but then pulled on a pair of soft deep-red cashmere lounge pants and a matching cardigan over a white top.
She’d bought the outfit on a whim a month ago because she’d loved the color and the soft fabric, but she felt kind of silly wearing something like that around the college dorm—when everyone else hung around in flannel pants and sweatshirts—so she’d never actually worn it before.
But the color was festive, and the Owen men would often lounge around in highly unloungeable clothes, so she felt it was finally a good time to wear it.
She brushed out her hair down her back and stared at herself in the mirror. The deep red color made her skin, lips, and eyes look very fresh and vivid, and she liked the way the soft fabric followed the dips and curves of her figure.
She felt very pretty and mature and was quite pleased with herself as she went downstairs. Of course, no one would actually see her except Cyrus and maybe a stray bodyguard or two, but it was still nice to look so pretty.
When she got to the media room, where they normally watched the movie, she frowned to see it was empty. She wandered around a bit until she found Cyrus in the library.
He was slouching on the leather couch in front of the fireplace. A fire was roaring, burnishing his face and brown hair with an orange-gold glow. With the exception of the jacket, he still wore the clothes he’d worn to dinner—tailored trousers and dress shirt—but he’d undone an extra button on the shirt and pushed the sleeves halfway up his arm.
He was staring at the fire and holding a half-drunk glass of Scotch in one hand.
He looked exhausted, lonely, wounded.
“Are you okay?” she asked, walking over to him in concern. He’d seemed to take his divorce in stride—always matter-of-fact and professional about the realities—but she knew it had hurt him.
She hated for him to hurt like that.
He jerked, as if in surprise, and shifted his eyes in her direction, although he didn’t really seem to be seeing her. “Of course. You ready for the movie?”
She sat down beside him on the couch, the leather warm from the heat of the fire. She tucked her legs up under her hips and leaned toward him, putting a hand on his arm. “How many glasses of that have you drunk?”
He gave a half-shrug. “Not many.”
She wasn’t sure about that. He’d had a couple of glasses of wine with dinner. She’d had one herself, since Drake had insisted ceremony was more important than arbitrary drinking age laws. But Cyrus must have had more than one glass of Scotch since dinner. He smelled of it strongly, and his eyes and voice were a little glazed.
“Are you really okay, Cyrus?” she asked, squeezing his arm.
He turned to look at her for real. “Yeah.”
“I know you loved her.”
“I thought I did.” He gave a strange little laugh, no more than a breath. “I was wrong.”
She wasn’t sure what to say about that. Part of her was relieved to know he hadn’t really loved her—since Rose Marie wasn’t worthy of Cyrus’s love—but he still seemed broken somehow, and she had no idea how to fix him.
“I wish…” He trailed off, staring again at the fire. Then he leaned over and refilled his glass from the decanter on a side table.
Helen sucked in her breath. “What do you wish?”
Cyrus wasn’t the kind of man who shared his feelings often or easily, so she always took it very seriously when he did.
He took a couple of long sips of the Scotch. Then closed his eyes for a moment. “I wish I could make at least one relationship work.”
She sucked in a breath again—this time for another reason. “You can make relationships work, Cyrus. Rose Marie just wasn’t the right person.”
He let out another of those same breathy laughs. “Yeah.”
“You can make them work,” she insisted, pulling the mostly full glass out of his hand and setting it on the coffee table. She didn’t want him to drink anymore. “All these years, you’ve made a relationship work with me.”
He turned and looked at her with something dazed, almost confused in his eyes.
“I know it’s not the same as a marriage, but it’s something. Isn’t it?”
He reached an arm out and pulled her against his side, giving her an almost clumsy half-hug. “Yeah. It is. Of course it is, kid.”
She snuggled against him, wrapping an arm around his belly so she could hug him back. Part of her liked how he called her "kid"—it felt comfortable, familiar, like an old friend. But part of her resisted it.
She wasn’t a kid anymore.
This wasn’t the time to object, though. She just pressed against him more snugly and squeezed his middle in the only kind of comfort she could offer. They weren’t usually touchy-feely with each other, but it seemed right at the moment and he seemed to need it.
He still felt broken. She wanted desperately to fix him.
He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t pull away.
That sat that way in silence for a long time. Cyrus’s body was hot against hers. Hot and strong and familiar. Her cheek was pressed up against the side of his chest, and her arm was draped over his flat belly.
She liked how firm he felt under his clothes. She liked that she could feel some kind of tension coiled inside him. It was intangible, but she could sense it, and it gave her a pleasant clench in her stomach.
Maybe it was the glass of wine, but she felt like she was in a dream—like the room, Cyrus, everything was slightly fuzzy around the edges.
His arm was still around her, and his hand had ended up tucked under one of her arms, spanning the curve of her rib cage. There was nothing inappropriate about its location, but she liked how it felt there. And, when she shifted, the side of her breast brushed against it.
She shifted again, and she felt one of he
r nipples skim lightly against his side. Her breathing quickened a little, and the tension in her belly tightened even more.
Cyrus let out a long sigh and seemed to relax a little, as if her presence was helping him. She felt even better, even more right.
Slowly, like he wasn’t consciously doing it, Cyrus’s hand started to stroke down the length of her loose hair. Gently, leisurely, his palm slid from the back of her head to her shoulder to her back, as if he just liked the way it felt.
She sighed as he did it again. The light gesture triggered a number of different nerve endings. She shifted against him to get more comfortable, very slightly rubbing against him. “That’s nice,” she murmured. “It feels good.”
He made a wordless sound, half-murmur and half-grunt, and stroked her hair again.
She looked up at him, suddenly worried about him. She was enjoying the snuggling, but he might still be suffering. “Are you okay, Cyrus?” she asked again. She’d lost count of how many times she’d asked him.
He gazed down at her, his expression glazed over but soft and not wounded anymore. “I’ll be all right.”
She reached up to cup his cheek, her heart aching with tenderness. “I want to help.”
“You are.”
Since she’d liked how it felt when he stroked her hair, she slid her hand up to stroke his jaw. The skin was rough with his bristles, and the sensation caused ripples of pleasure to run through her. She could feel that tension she liked intensifying in his body.
He let out a breath that was mostly a soft, thick groan. The sound was strangely intoxicating.
She leaned forward to kiss his cheek. This was Cyrus, whom she knew, loved, trusted more than anyone else in the world. And she wanted to make sure he knew it—make sure he knew it as surely as she did.
After she’d kissed his cheek, she pressed her lips against the skin on his jaw line, enjoying the scratchy sensation. She'd just started pulling away when he suddenly turned his head toward her.
Her lips landed on his without warning. A surge of pleasure overwhelmed her as his mouth brushed clumsily against hers. His tongue darted out to tease the line of her lips, and one of his hands moved to cup the back of her head.
The other hand was spanning her ribs, then moving up slightly to delicately brush the underside of her breast.
She moaned into the kiss, stroking his jaw as she let feeling and sensation overwhelm her.
It felt good. It felt right. As if this was what she’d always wanted. Cyrus. Always, only, just Cyrus.
Then suddenly it all ended with a jarring move.
Cyrus jerked away from her, pushing her off him in a clumsy rush and jumping to his feet.
Helen stared up at him, dazed and disoriented.
“What are we doing?” he gasped, rubbing his flushed face. “We can’t—we can’t ever—do that.”
“Oh.” She blinked, trying to get her mind to work when her feelings were still so intense. “I’m sorry. I just…I don’t know what happened.”
“I know.” He’d been staring at her, but something like horror flashed over his face and he turned away. “I was completely out of it, but I shouldn’t have let it happen.”
“It’s okay. I thought…” Her cheeks started to burn as she realized what had happened. She’d come on to Cyrus—to Cyrus. He’d been hurt and wounded, and instead of comforting him she’d tried to make a move on him. “I mean, you seemed to…”
She couldn’t finish. It had seemed like he was responding to her, but he clearly hadn’t been thinking. Now that he was, he was appalled by the very idea.
It had felt right to Helen, but it obviously didn’t feel right to Cyrus.
She felt a full-body cringe overtake her, and she prayed she hadn’t ruined their entire relationship. “I’m sorry,” she said, a little wobbly. “I didn’t mean to.”
“I know you didn’t.” He rubbed his hands over his face again. “I’d drunk too much. But we can’t ever do anything like that again.”
“Okay.”
He left the room in long, quick strides, and Helen was left alone on the leather sofa. She curled up in a ball, feeling young and childish and foolish and utterly humiliated.
And desperately scared she’d ruined everything between them.
After a few minutes, she got up and went to the media room, where they had always watched White Christmas.
She was on the verge of tears, but she didn’t let herself cry. If things were messed up, they were messed up. Eventually, everyone left her anyway—especially those that she loved.
She got the movie ready and then went to sit down in a big chair, pulling a fuzzy throw blanket up over her.
She just waited, staring at the blank television screen.
Last Christmas Eve, she’d had waited too—while Cyrus had a long phone conversation with Rose Marie, whom he'd just started dating. She hadn't been sure he would hang up in time to watch the movie with her at all, but he had at last.
This evening, she waited almost thirty minutes, but Cyrus finally walked into the room.
His skin was a little pale now, rather than flushed, and his collar was slightly damp, as if he’d thrown water on his face.
His expression was sober as he walked over to sit on the sofa adjacent to her chair. He leaned forward, clasping his hands on his lap and obviously ready to say something.
She was suddenly terrified that he was going to say they couldn’t hang out anymore. She sat up straight and said in an anxious rush, “I’m really sorry, Cyrus. It didn’t mean for that to happen. I mean, I wasn’t thinking and it just…I mean, it just happened. It won’t happen again. I'm so sorry.”
He shook his head. "It's not your fault. It's my fault. I was the one who…I should have done better. Can you forgive me?"
"Of course," she exclaimed, a wave of relief overtaking her. If Cyrus thought it was his fault, then he wasn't thinking she was some silly little girl who was trying to make a move on him. "There's nothing to forgive. It doesn't have to happen again."
“It can’t, Helen. I never should have…It won’t happen again.”
“Okay,” she said, nodding and starting to feel a little more hope. “So we’re agreed. We can go back to being being…us. I don’t want to lose you, Cyrus.”
He let out a breath, and his face seemed to relax. “I don’t want to lose you either. Let’s just chalk it up to temporary insanity and forget it ever happened. Do you think we can?”
She nodded again. “Yes. Yes. It was just craziness or something. We’ll go back to being us again.”
“Okay.” He smiled at her, although it seemed tired and worried at the edges. “Do you want to start it?” He nodded toward the television set.
She pressed play. and the opening chords of White Christmas filled the room.
She stared at the credits blindly, trying to work everything through in her mind.
It was fine. It was really fine. It was just a fluke. She and Cyrus would be okay. They needed each other. Something so out of the blue wouldn’t really ruin a relationship that had lasted through the highs and lows of eight years.
It was fine that Cyrus didn’t want her that way. Other men found her attractive. Other men wanted her. Ethan wanted her—she was pretty sure of that.
She and Cyrus were about something else. And that was good. That was the way it should be.
Just because kissing him had felt right didn’t mean that it was.
After several minutes, she’d talked herself into feeling satisfied with things, and she no longer felt like dying of humiliation every time she remembered kissing him.
If she could keep that memory tucked away in a secret, undisclosed corner of her mind, eventually it wouldn't bother her anymore.
That was the way Cyrus wanted it. That was the way it should be.
“You all right, kid?” he asked, after several minutes. He was studying her with faint anxiety.
It actually helped—to know he was anxious too. She smiled at him. �
��Yeah. I’m all right.”
“Good,” he said, smiling back. “Me too.”
So everything was fine. They were back to normal, and soon the weirdness would be forgotten as they went back to being who they'd always been.
What they'd always been was really great.
It just took a little bit of self-convincing for her to believe it was a pretty good Christmas Eve after all.
Sixth Christmas Eve
two years ago
Cyrus and his father had been debating corporate strategy for over an hour.
It wasn’t just an academic argument. The stakes were real and affected thousands of people. The fact that his father was taking Cyrus’s opinion under advisement at all, instead of simply making an executive decision, was a sign of the progress they’d made in the last two years.
“All right,” his father said at last, leaning back in his chair.
Cyrus blinked. They were facing each other in chairs in front of the fireplace in the library, instead of talking in the office, as a gesture toward its being Christmas Eve and thus technically vacation. “All right what?”
“All right. I concede the point.”
For a moment, Cyrus’s mouth dropped open in absolute shock. Not once—not in all his life—had his father ever admitted to being wrong when his son was right. “You concede it in argument or in reality?”
“Is there a difference?” It was obviously a rhetorical question since his dad leaned back in his chair with a strangely sly smile. “No merger.”
“No merger,” Cyrus repeated, still dazed with this inexplicable development. “Excellent.”
Drake glanced at his watch and his eyes widened, as if he hadn’t realized it was so late in the afternoon. “Helen and the Barnacle should be here by now.”
“I’m sure they’ll arrive soon.” Cyrus stood up, stretching his back and picking up the coffee cup he’d been drinking from earlier. “And dinner might be less tense if you would try not to openly insult him.”
“He’s not intelligent enough to recognize he’s being insulted.”
Eight Christmas Eves Page 8
