by Sandra Field
Seth nodded. “He and Marise hit it off right away.”
“You know he’s left me. He’ll never forgive me. The child all those years ago. And now keeping his grandchild a secret from him the last eight years.”
“You could meet Marise, if you wanted to.”
“I never thought he’d leave me!”
In the morning light coming through the tall windows, Seth could see his mother had aged in the last few weeks. Or was it simply that she’d lost some of her formidable self-control? “It came as a surprise to me, too,” he said.
Eleonore bowed her head, twisting her fingers with their array of diamonds. “I—I miss him.”
“He’s changed,” Seth said. “He’ll never take orders from you again.”
“I realize that, Seth,” Eleonore snapped. “I’m not in my dotage yet.”
“So what are you going to do about it?”
Eleonore fiddled with the diamond-studded bracelet of her watch. “I’m afraid to contact him. He might say he wants a divorce. That he’s finished with me.”
“He told me about your childhood, how—”
“He had no business telling you that!”
“Yes, he did,” Seth said forcibly, “because it helped me understand you. You were never loved as a child—not as you should have been. You were beaten and abused instead. So you’ve been protecting yourself from love ever since. Refusing to give anyone else what you’d been so brutally denied.”
But wasn’t he speaking of himself? For years he’d been protecting himself in just the same way.
“Love’s a trap,” his mother retorted. “Let it in, and it destroys you.”
“The lack of it is destroying you now,” Seth said. “I can see it in your face.”
Eleonore’s mouth thinned. “How dare you talk to me that way.”
But both of them had heard the quaver in her voice. “Phone Dad,” Seth said gently. “I don’t think he’s ever stopped loving you…why don’t you see if I’m right?”
“If you’re wrong, then I’ll make a complete and utter fool of myself.”
“If you don’t get in touch with him, then you’re a coward,” Seth said grimly; and once again knew he was talking to himself.
“After I ran away from home, I swore I’d never be afraid of anyone again,” Eleonore said haughtily.
Seth held out the portable phone. “Prove it to me.”
“It would seem I’ve misjudged you, Seth—you’ve inherited more than your share of my pushiness.”
“I believe you’re right,” Seth said, and punched in his father’s number. After passing his mother the phone, he walked out of the room.
He had a phone call to make, too, he thought. To Lia. Although he had no idea what he was going to say.
He could start with I’m sorry. For hiding behind the past. For allowing it to dictate his life. For hurting her.
Five minutes later, Eleonore joined him in the kitchen, where he was gazing sightlessly into the garden. She said stiffly, “Your father and I are meeting in fifteen minutes on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum. We’re going for a walk in Central Park, then he’s taking me out for lunch.”
“A date,” Seth said naughtily.
She sniffed. “I guess I should thank you.”
“I guess you should.” He grinned, picked her up and whirled her around; she was lighter than he’d expected. “Have fun. Eat big globs of whipped cream. Don’t forget to tell Dad you love him.”
“Seth, put me down!”
She looked so scandalized, Seth started to laugh; and saw, to his great satisfaction, that Eleonore was smothering a smile. “Do you want me to call a cab?” he asked.
“I shall walk,” Eleonore announced. “Years ago, your father used to give me a single yellow rose every month on the anniversary of our wedding. I might buy him one. On the way.”
Seth kissed his mother on both cheeks. “I think that’s a fine idea,” he said thickly.
Staring at his shirtfront, she said rapidly, “I did a terrible thing—the abortion, I mean. But when I was a little girl my mother went through pregnancy after pregnancy, and each one dragged her further down…I should never have destroyed those letters, either. It was very wrong of me.”
Her eyes were wet. Seth said huskily, “Sometimes tears can be more precious than apologies, Ma.”
She looked him right in the eye. “I’ve wasted a great deal of my life, Seth. Don’t do the same. I’d prefer to be called Mum, not Ma.” Then she marched out the front door and down the steps.
Her advice was stunning in its simplicity.
All he had to do was take it.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
AS SETH went back inside, his cellphone started ringing. He took it out of his pocket, afraid it might be Allan saying he’d changed his mind.
“Seth?” Lia gasped. “Oh, Seth, is that you?”
His heart closed with terror. “What’s wrong? Lia, what’s the matter?”
“I’m in a terrible—just a minute.”
He heard garbled voices in the background. Then she came back on. “I don’t know—”
“Marise—has something happened to her? For God’s sake, Lia, answer me.”
“I would if you’d stop interrupting! Marise is fine, she’s staying at Suzy’s. Seth, I was so upset by the reviews that I left my violin on the back seat of a cab.” Her voice wavered. “My priceless violin. My Strad.”
In a great surge of relief that it was only a violin, Seth said, “Where are you?”
“I’m in another cab. Going to a pawnshop. That’s where the first cab went after it let me off.” Quickly she gave him the address.
“You’re not to go there on your own—that’s a really rough area of town. Stop the cab now, Lia, and I’ll catch up with you.”
“No way! I could never replace that violin, its tone is gorgeous. Indescribable. Plus it’s worth a ton of money—I’ve got to find it.”
His fiery Lia was back, in full force. “Give me the address of the pawn shop, I’ll be there as soon as I can. Wait for me there—that’s an order.”
“Huh,” she said, sounding slightly less upset. “It’ll depend whether I get the violin back or not.”
He was stuffing his wallet in his pants pocket and going out the door as he spoke. “My car’s at the garage. I’ll have to take a cab. Hell’s teeth, Lia, don’t put your life at risk—it’s only a violin.”
“Only?” she repeated incredulously.
“You’re a thousand times more important to me than any violin—do you hear me? I can see a cab, I’ve got to go.”
He flagged the cab down and tersely gave the address of the pawn shop. “An extra fifty bucks if you can get me there in fifteen minutes.”
Settling back in the seat, Seth punched in Lia’s number on his cell phone. An impersonal male voice said, “Your party is unavailable at this time. Please try again later.”
Cursing under his breath, Seth jabbed the numbers again, only to get the same recording. She’d turned her cell phone off.
Or had someone done it for her, against her will? Had she run into trouble at the pawnshop?
As the cab whipped across two lanes of traffic, Seth was thrown sideways in the seat. Two words were drumming through his veins. Too late. Too late.
What if he was too late? What if something had happened to Lia?
He couldn’t bear to lose her. His life would be meaningless without her.
Bathed in a cold sweat, he tried her number again. He could get to hate that guy’s voice, he thought viciously, not as much as blinking as the cab squeezed between a garbage truck and a bus. Where was Lia? She had to be safe. She had to be.
In exactly thirteen minutes, the cabbie drew up outside a seamy little shop on an even seamier street. “You want me to wait?” he asked. “This don’t look so great.”
“Yeah…I’ll be right out.”
Seth ran for the door, which was weighted with heavy metal bars. He went inside and knew
instantly that Lia wasn’t there. He said to the proprietor, a man of indeterminate age who looked as though he’d been exposed to every vice humanity was capable of, “A woman was just here, looking for a violin. Where did she go?”
“What’s it worth to you?”
“If I had more time, you and I could have a fascinating discussion on that subject.” Seth banged his fist on the counter. “Tell me where she went.”
“Okay, okay.” The proprietor named a street in a nearby Puerto Rican neighborhood. “Some fella bought the violin. Real quick turnaround.”
“If she’s not there,” Seth said pleasantly, “I’ll be back. You’d better hope she’s there.”
The cab was still waiting. Seth gave the new address, bracing himself as they screeched around corners and edged through gaps that looked far too narrow. The vehicle jerked to a halt near the end of a street. “This is it,” the cabbie said dubiously.
Seth got out. Over the racket from a construction site and the shrill voices of kids playing on the street, he heard, unmistakably, the sound of a violin. He said to the cabbie, thrusting some money through the window, “Another fifty if you’ll wait.”
“Sure thing.” The cabbie leaned back, tipping his hat over his eyes.
Seth ran down the street. The passionate lilt of a Spanish dance echoed among the buildings, with their rusted fire escapes and cluttered sidewalks. He rounded a pizza joint, and saw Lia standing in front of a blue metal Dumpster, wearing a flowered skirt and a scoop-necked T-shirt, her beloved violin tucked under her chin. A small crowd surrounded her: men, women and children, stamping their feet, dancing and singing.
Briefly he sagged against the nearest wall, his breath rasping in his throat. She was safe. She hadn’t been mugged, raped, murdered or kidnapped: any of the dreadful fates that imagination and terror had been conjuring up in his mind.
Who else but Lia would play her heart out on a windy street corner for people who probably couldn’t afford even the cheapest of seats for one of her concerts?
Straightening, he walked toward her. She saw him coming, gave him a gamine grin and, with a grandiloquent flourish, finished the dance. The crowd burst into cheers and clapping.
When he reached her, she was still smiling. “Hi, Seth,” she said. “I got my violin back.”
“So you did.” Holding her gaze, Seth got down on one knee on the grimy sidewalk. Her toenails were now painted a vibrant pink, to go with her fuchsia-colored shirt.
A fascinated silence fell, in which he heard, like faraway birds, the cries of the street children. He said formally, “Lia d’Angeli, I love you. Te quiero. Te amo. I’ve loved you ever since that night in Paris eight years ago. I love you with all my heart and all my soul. I loved you yesterday, I love you today, and I’ll love you for all our tomorrows.”
Lia had lowered her violin. She said blankly, “You’re kidding.”
“I’ve never been more serious in my life.”
“Then you’ve lost it.”
“Stop arguing—or I might change my mind.”
“But you said you’d never fall in love.”
“I was wrong, I was a fool. Bufón. Idiota. I came to my senses this morning.” His voice cracked. “Tell me I’m not too late. That you still love me and you’ll marry me, be the bride of my heart.”
A satisfied sigh emanated from the crowd. Lia was now blushing. “You’ve fallen in love with me—you’re sure about that?”
He grinned, shifting his knee. “I’m as sure that I love you as this sidewalk’s hard. Try not to keep me in suspense too long, huh?”
“You deserve to be kept in suspense,” she said severely. “I’ve been very unhappy ever since I agreed to marry you.”
He reached for her hand and raised it to his lips, kissing it with all the love in his heart. “I swear I’ll do my utmost to make you happy every day of my life.”
Her blush deepened. “What made you realize you loved me?”
“My mother came for a visit this morning. She was all shook up…different than I’ve ever seen her. She actually said she was sorry for what she’d done, she had tears in her eyes…and when she left, she was planning to buy my father a yellow rose. If she can do that, I can smash the barriers I’ve been hiding behind. I have smashed them. But then when you phoned, I thought something terrible had happened to you, and that I was too late. That I’d never be able to tell you I love you.”
An elderly woman in a long black dress, a black headscarf over her hair, sighed softly, “Te amo.” A young man put his arm around his heavily pregnant wife. Lia gave a sudden rich chuckle. “The audience is on your side, Seth.”
“I need all the help I can get.”
She pulled him to his feet. “I long to be your wife, querido. To be your beloved.”
“Finally we’ve got it right,” Seth said, kissing her passionately and at some length.
It was Lia who broke free. Her eyes were blazing with happiness, her hair swirling in the wind. “I think they deserve an encore,” she said, and launched into a fierce flamenco dance. As the elderly woman lifted her arms, clicking imaginary castanets, Seth began to dance with her.
Had he ever been as happy as he was right now?
The dance ended as wildly as it had begun. Seth bowed to the black-clad woman. Lia said breathlessly, once the applause had died down, “This gentleman had bought my violin from the pawnshop, for his daughter.”
The little girl was gazing up at Seth with big, dark eyes that were very like Lia’s. “We’ll buy her another violin,” Seth said.
“And I’ll give her lessons,” Lia promised.
“In the meantime, dearest Lia, I have a cab waiting to take you home,” Seth said. “I wish it was a pure white steed.”
She put her violin back in its case, gave the little girl’s father her card and wrote down his phone number. Then, hand in hand, she and Seth started off down the sidewalk. Lacing her fingers with his, Lia said, “A cab is fine. A steed of any color would take longer.”
“Are you in a hurry?” he said innocently.
“Yes,” she said, “I want to go to bed with you.”
Abruptly he turned to her, tracing the soft line of her lip with his fingertip. “I’m so sorry I caused you pain—I was so convinced I couldn’t fall in love.”
“Just as well,” she teased, “at least it kept you from falling in love with anyone else.”
“Maybe, deep down, I knew you were waiting for me.”
“Oh Seth, we’re going to be so happy!”
“I suspect my mother and my father will come to the wedding. Together. I’ll warn her not to call you a fiddle player.”
“If she does, she might find out that I’m more than her match. You’ve forgiven her, haven’t you?”
“Forgiven her. Let go of that night in the library. Opened my heart to the most beautiful woman in the world. It’s been quite a morning.”
Lia laughed. “Here’s the ultimate test—Marise’s idea of a flower girl seems to involve throwing daisies and snapdragons at all the guests. With Suzy egging her on. Can you handle that?”
“Sounds like fun. How about in the fall we host a very big party at the hotel in Paris where we met?”
“That sounds like fun, too.”
“But first things first,” he said firmly. “Bed.”
The cabbie was still behind the wheel, snoring loudly. Seth took the opportunity to kiss Lia again. Then he tapped on the window, and they climbed in the back seat. Seth gave his address. “No rush this time,” he said. “I found her. The woman I’ve been waiting for all my life.”
“I should get an extra big tip for that,” the cabbie drawled.
“You will,” Seth said.
Twenty minutes later, the cabbie drove away looking very pleased with life. Seth unlocked his front door, then picked Lia up, violin and all, and carried her over the threshold. “Getting in practice,” he grunted, locking the door behind him.
“So that’s why you want to tak
e me to bed—just to stay in practice?” she asked, wide-eyed.
“I’m taking you to bed because it feels like forever since I’ve had my arms around you. Because you’re gorgeous and sexy and I love you to distraction.”
She laughed, a cascade of pure delight. “I love you, too, darling Seth. And you know what they say—practice makes perfect.”
Seth cupped her face in his palms, such a wealth of love in his eyes that Lia’s heart melted in her breast. “You’re perfect already,” he said.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-5892-5
HIS ONE-NIGHT MISTRESS
First North American Publication 2005.
Copyright © 2005 by Sandra Field.
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
® and TM are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.
www.eHarlequin.com
