by Sarah Morgan
Fliss was sitting exactly where he’d left her, staring straight ahead.
Whatever it was her grandmother had said to her, it had certainly had an impact.
“Fliss?”
“What? Oh—” She blinked and took the bag of food from him, stowing it on her lap. “Sorry. I was miles away.”
He drove back to the house, parked, and then they walked with the picnic down to the beach beyond his house.
They sat on the steps that led down to the beach, and he handed her a sandwich. “Turkey, lettuce, tomato and bacon. Now tell me.”
She paused. “Maybe I should—”
“Tell me or I will strip you naked and drop you in the water. It’s freezing, by the way.” He took a bite of his sandwich. “Whatever is on your mind, just say it, Fliss. Maybe it won’t be as hard as you think.”
“My grandmother told me some things, that’s all.”
“Things?”
“About my mother. Things I didn’t know. I always assumed—”
He waited, forcing himself to be patient, reminding himself that to some people talking was like ice-skating. It was something that had to be learned, and you were bound to take a few falls along the way. “What did you assume?”
“She was pregnant when she got married. I always knew that. I assumed she married him because she was in love with him and that she hoped that it would be enough. Hoped that one day he’d love her back. Pretty straightforward.” She still hadn’t touched her sandwich. “Turns out that wasn’t what happened.”
“She wasn’t pregnant when she got married?”
“Yes, she was pregnant. But it wasn’t that my father didn’t love her. The problem was that she didn’t love him.” She stared at the water, her sandwich still untouched. “My mother was never in love with my father.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. When my father first met my mother she was in love with someone else. And they couldn’t be together. Wife and family,” she added, in response to his unspoken question. “Grams told me she was a mess after he went away. And then she met my father.”
“At a time when she was vulnerable.”
“Yes. And my dad was crazy about her. He was the one in love. I never suspected it. Not for a moment. How could I have got it so wrong?”
“Not that I spent much time with them, but your father didn’t behave like a man in love.” He thought about his parents’ relationship. The shared smiles, the laughter, even the fights had been infused with love and respect. From what he’d gleaned from Daniel, neither quality had been evident in the Knight household.
“When I first arrived here, Grams made a comment—she told me it was hard watching your daughter love the wrong man. I thought she was talking about my father, but she wasn’t. I probably shouldn’t be telling you this. I’m not even supposed to know.”
“Why aren’t you supposed to know?”
“Because it’s my mother’s secret.”
“She never discussed it with you?”
“No. And I wish she had. It might have helped me understand a few things. Grams says when she was eighteen, she fell in love.”
The same age she’d been when their relationship had become serious. “Did she tell you about him?”
“He was an artist. He moved here for six months to paint. He was married, although Mom didn’t know that at first. He used to eat all his meals at the café where my mother worked. She loved painting, so he helped her. Gave her advice. Even bought one of her paintings.”
“I didn’t know your mother painted.”
“I knew, but I didn’t realize she was so serious about it. Anyway, he stayed until January, and then he confessed that his wife and family were back in Connecticut. They were in the middle of a trial separation, but it was obvious they were still very much together. Grams said she thought my mother was going to break. He was her first love. In her heart, she’d painted a picture of their future together.”
Seth said nothing.
He knew all about painting pictures of the future.
He leaned forward and removed the sandwich from her fingers before she dropped it. “So he moved away, and what then?”
“My mother was devastated. She stopped painting. Grams was worried sick about her. And then one day my father walked into the café, and that was it. He’d come to the Hamptons with some friends for the weekend. Saw my mother and pursued her ferociously. She turned him down. She hadn’t recovered from her last relationship. She was vulnerable. My father was successful, charismatic and persistent. Older than her. He refused to give up. That was one of his traits. Never giving up.” She rubbed her palms down her calves, an anxious gesture. “I remember mealtimes at the brownstone in Manhattan. He used to lay into me in a verbal attack and he didn’t stop until the meal ended. We fought so badly there were times I wanted to hide under the table with Harriet.”
“But you didn’t.” He knew she would have forced herself to sit still and take whatever was thrown at her, to deflect his attention from her more vulnerable sister. “So your dad persuaded your mom to date him?”
“He wined her, dined her, and in a weak moment she slept with him. And got pregnant. My father was thrilled. Not because he wanted children, but because he loved her so much he was willing to do just about anything to keep her with him.” She sounded sad. “I always knew her life had been hard, but I misunderstood so much of the details.”
“Did your grandmother try to intervene?”
“Yes. She tried to talk her out of it. Told her my father could still be part of the child’s life without marriage, but Mom didn’t want that. She felt she owed it to the baby—Daniel—to give it a proper family. Grams asked her if she loved my dad, and all she would say was that he was a good man.” Fliss frowned. “And that seemed weird to me. I wanted to know what he was like back then. Was he as impatient? As angry? Grams says there were signs things weren’t right. The way he pursued her. He wasn’t thinking about what was right for her, just what was right for him. Grams thinks he really believed she’d fall in love with him over time.”
“But that didn’t happen.”
“No. And he grew more frustrated. Bitter.”
“Why didn’t they divorce sooner? Did she talk about that?”
“He refused. He knew she’d married him because of Daniel, and then Harriet and I came along, and he used the three of us as a weapon. He told her that if she divorced him, she wouldn’t be taking us. I already knew that part, but I see now that it was another way of keeping her. He couldn’t get her to love him, so he was willing to use any other means at his disposal. Daniel always said it was because she couldn’t afford a lawyer, but Grams told me if it had been a matter of money she would have sold the cottage in a heartbeat. In the end she waited until we’d left for college.”
“And Daniel helped her find a lawyer.”
“Later. Much later.” She stared at the ocean. “Maybe that’s why he was so angry all the time. He knew my mother didn’t love him. Not that I’m excusing him, because there are no excuses, but it helps to understand a little. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I almost feel sorry for him. And up until now I think I only thought about my parents in relation to me. I saw them as my parents, not as individuals with their own hopes and dreams.”
“I would think that’s pretty common. And parents often hide things from their kids anyway.”
“And sometimes they hide the wrong things. I wish she’d told me.”
“Why do you think your grandmother told you this now?”
“Because I was comparing what happened with us to what happened with my mother. I thought she got pregnant and married a man who didn’t love her.”
It took a moment for her words to sink in, and when they did he felt a lurch in the pit of his stomach.
“You think I didn’t love you?”
She shot to her feet. “I shouldn’t have said that. I don’t know why I did. Forget it.” She sped down the steps to the beach an
d was halfway to the water by the time he caught up with her.
“Wait!” He grabbed her shoulder. “It seems to me that you didn’t only misunderstand your parents’ relationship, you misunderstood ours.”
“Seth—”
“It’s my turn to speak. And if you run off now I’m going to be following you, so don’t waste your energy. I didn’t marry you because you were pregnant. The only thing that the fact you were pregnant influenced was the time and the place.”
“But—”
“The truth is I never got over you. I tried. Believe me, I tried. Over the years there have been women, I’m not denying that, but none of them has gone anywhere, and do you know why? Because none of them were you. I didn’t marry you because you were pregnant, Fliss. I married you because I loved you.” He tightened his hands on her shoulders, forcing her to look at him. “I loved you.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
FLISS STARED AT HIM, mute. He’d loved her?
No, that wasn’t possible.
She remembered something he’d said that night she’d gone to his house for the first time.
Maybe I didn’t want to let you go and the baby provided a convenient excuse.
“That’s not true. It can’t be true.”
“I told you. I said those words to you.” There was a note of frustration in his voice. “You know I did.”
“You said them when you knew I was pregnant. Not before.”
He cursed under his breath. “Then that was bad timing on my part, but it didn’t make the words any less than the truth.”
“But can you understand how it might have seemed to me? I tell you I’m pregnant, and you tell me you love me and that we should get married?”
He was silent. “Yeah,” he said finally. “I can see that.”
“I thought you were saying it to make me feel better about the fact I’d trapped you.”
His mouth tightened. “I don’t think communication was the best feature of our relationship, but we’re going to change that.”
She felt her throat thicken and her eyes sting.
He’d loved her? He’d truly meant those words?
Oh God, if that was true then she’d thrown that away. She’d held the very thing she wanted in her hand, and she’d crushed it without ever knowing it could have been hers.
She sniffed and gave him a little push. “Your timing sucked, Dr. Carlyle.”
“It did. It definitely did. But my timing has improved with maturity.”
“It’s too late. Whatever the truth was back then, it’s history. I’m not good at relationships, Seth. All that opening up and trusting—that’s not me. I want to, but I can’t.”
“You can. All you have to do is trust me. And this time I’m going to prove to you that you can. I’m going to prove I’m not your father. I didn’t spend enough time dealing with those issues. I didn’t understand how deeply everything he said had affected you. I judged your actions based on my own experiences of family, not on yours.”
She felt the warmth of his hand stroke her back. “You make it sound so easy, but it isn’t.” Her voice was muffled by his shirt. “I’m not good at laying feelings out there.”
“Because you’re afraid someone is going to tread all over them in heavy boots.” He smoothed her hair. “I get that. And we’ll work with it.”
“How?”
He eased her away from him. “Same way you get better at anything. Practice.”
“You want me to practice telling you things about myself? I’m five-four, have a black belt in karate and bench-press one-twenty.”
“Those are facts. I want feelings. Tell me how you’re feeling right now.”
“A little bit sick? A whole lot terrified?”
“Because you’re afraid you’re going to end up hurting the way you did last time, but that’s not going to happen.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I’ve told you how I felt about you back then. Maybe it’s time you told me how you felt.”
Until recently, she’d never revealed the extent of her feelings for him to anyone.
Her grandmother probably suspected. But that didn’t mean she was ready to share how she’d felt with anyone else. Especially not Seth.
He eased her closer. “All right, let’s try this a different way. In the ten years since we broke up, have you been serious about anyone else?”
“Why does that matter? There’s nothing there, Seth. Whatever we had was gone.” The flutter of her heart and the ache behind her ribs told her she was lying, but she wasn’t ready to tell him that. And maybe she never would be.
There was sharing, and then there was exposing. There was a difference.
To admit to him that she still had feelings, strong feelings, would be exposing. And her instinct to protect herself was more powerful than her desire to share.
“You’ve already told me more than you ever have before. For example I didn’t know your mom was pregnant when she got married. That explains a few things about the way you acted back then. Why you jumped to the conclusions you did. It shows me how much I didn’t understand. That’s going to be different this time.”
This time?
She pulled back reluctantly. “Why would you want to put yourself through this again? I’m trouble, Seth.”
“I know.” He gave a soft laugh. “It’s one of the things I like most about you.”
“My father would—”
“No.” He covered her lips with his fingers, his eyes darkening. “What your father thinks about anything has no relevance to us. Not ever.”
“It’s not just my father. Your sister warned you about me.”
“Then it’s a good thing I never listen to my sister.” He took her face in his hands, forcing her to look at him. “The only two people who matter are the two people in this relationship. That’s us. I can be patient. I can wait while you learn to trust that I’ll be careful with your feelings, but don’t ever let anyone else influence how you feel about us. There’s no one else.”
No one else.
He meant it. He really meant it.
And she was tempted. So very tempted.
How many times had she lain in bed under the protective curtain of darkness, wondering what would have happened if she hadn’t got pregnant that night? How many times had she wished for a chance to find out?
He was giving her that chance.
She thought about how hurt she’d been last time. If it all went wrong, could she survive it again?
* * *
“I HAVE SOMETHING to tell you.” Fliss lay on her bed in the attic, listening to the sound of the ocean through the open window as she talked to Harriet on the phone.
“Now I’m nervous. I’ve barely heard from you in the last couple of weeks, and whenever I don’t hear from you I get a bad feeling. It usually means you’re hiding something from me. Is Grams okay?”
“She’s good. Her friends are around here the whole time. It’s busier than Times Square in July.”
“She said you’d been busy, too.”
“Walking dogs.” Seeing Seth.
Yesterday they’d gone surfing on the beach. The day before that they’d spent the evening at the Beach Hut, eating lobster dripping with butter.
Just the two of them. Alone. She ricocheted between terror and delicious excitement.
“So what did you want to tell me?”
“You know how I mentioned expanding the business? What do you think about branching out to the Hamptons? Half our clients escape here in the summer months.”
“But they already have dog-walking services there that they use.”
“Not all of them. I remember Claudia Richards saying that she wished there was a company like ours based here.”
“That’s one person.”
“I’m already walking five dogs.”
“One of those is Charlie. Don’t tell me you’re charging Grams to walk her dog.”
“She insisted on paying.”
>
“Fliss! You can’t take money from our grandmother.”
“Try telling her that. She’s more stubborn than I am. Once she makes up her mind about something, she doesn’t budge.” She couldn’t believe how close she’d become to her grandmother over the past few weeks. “She says that I’m losing work because I’m here with her, and so she’s going to at least pay me for the dog walking. And her friends are paying me, too. At this rate I’m going to be walking half the dogs on the South Fork.”
“I can’t imagine you with pampered pooches. Are you charging double?”
It was a relief to hear her sister laugh. “No. And I’m not walking any pampered pooches. These are all real, down-to-earth dogs.”
“And you’re thinking of making this permanent?”
“Why not? I’ve run the numbers and I think we have a scalable business. If you agree, then we can make it official.”
“But how would this even work?” Harriet sounded anxious. “You’re going to be coming home soon. How would you manage it then?”
Fliss paused. She’d spent hours thinking about the best way to say this. “I was thinking I might stay on a little longer.”
“You said Grams was okay.”
“She is.”
“So why stay? If you stay, you’ll keep bumping into Seth.”
Fliss stared at the wall. “I’ve been bumping into him quite a bit in fact.”
“Oh. That must be awkward for you.”
“Not that awkward. In fact, mostly on purpose.”
There was silence on the end of the phone. “You mean you’ve been seeing him?”
“Well, I wouldn’t exactly—” Fliss transferred her phone to the other hand. “Yes, I’ve been seeing him.”
“How much of him?”
“So far he’s been clothed the whole time, so not much.”
“I meant, how often?”
“Which proves that although we look identical on the outside, our minds are entirely different. I thought you were asking me how much of him I’d seen in the flesh.” And the answer was not enough. Apart from that brief moment on the boat, he hadn’t even kissed her, and it was starting to drive her crazy. “I’ve seen him every day. Twice on some days.” There was another long silence, and Fliss frowned and glanced at her phone to check they were still connected. “Are you still there?”
