Authors: Mary Campisi
Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Contemporary, #General, #Family & Relationships, #Death; Grief; Bereavement, #Parenting, #Single Parent, #Dating
The Way They Were (25 page)
She shrugged. “I couldn’t sleep.”
“Hungry?”
She worked up a small smile. “I’ll take a few chips and there’s dip on the second shelf. Want some?”
“Actually, that’s what I was hunting for when you snuck up on me.”
Julia pulled out the dip and lifted the lid. “Abbie and I ate some earlier but I think there’s still enough for you.”
He eyed the half-eaten dip. “I haven’t eaten this stuff in ten years.”
She dug out a handful of chips and plunged one in French onion dip. “You’ve been missing out.”
Rourke jabbed his chip in the dip, scooped out a hunk and plunked it in his mouth. “You’ve got that right.” They sat in silence, chomping on chips and dip. He began to relax and enjoy the companionable quietness of sharing a late night snack with his daughter.
His daughter.
He choked on a chip which sent Julia into panic mode.
“Rourke?” She whacked his back. “Rourke? Are you okay?”
Whack, whack, whack.
He raised his hand, coughing and sputtering. “Stop! Are you trying to kill me?”
“Sorry.” She backed away and perched on a stool on the other side of the granite island.
“Maybe I shouldn’t eat these things after all.” He peeked in the bag and grabbed another handful. “Oh, what the hell. What are you doing sitting way over there? Julia? What’s the matter?”
She swiped her hands across her face in quick, agitated jerks. “N-n-nothing. I’m f-f-fine.”
He tossed the chips on the counter and rushed to her. “What’s wrong?”
She said nothing, just shook her head again and stared at her hands.
He would rather face a boardroom of disgruntled stockholders than one upset female. “Talk to me,” he said, gently stroking her hair.
She bit her lower lip and he could tell she was trying hard not to cry. And then she opened her mouth and blurted out, “Are you going to marry her?”
Had Kate told her? “I—”
Julia’s silver eyes turned accusing. “You can’t marry her. I won’t let you.”
She didn’t have to worry about stopping him. Her mother had thrown a two carat diamond at him and walked out. Why couldn’t he have fallen in love with a woman who possessed a more agreeable disposition? “I don’t know what’s going to happen. Maybe in time we can figure out a way to make it work. Maybe you’ll get used to the idea. What do you think?”
She scowled. “Not in ten thousand centuries.”
“Do you hate me that much?”
“I don’t hate you.” She swiped both hands across her cheeks. “I hate
her
.”
“You hate your own mother?”
She stared at him like he’d just asked her to spit out silver dollars. “No, of course not.”
“Then who are you talking about?”
Her gaze narrowed on him and she crossed her arms over her almost flat chest. “Who are
you
talking about?”
“Your mother.”
“My mother?
My mother?
” Her shoulders relaxed and she uncrossed her arms. “Really?”
“Who were you talking about?”
Her small nostrils flared.
“Janice.”
“Janice?” Where did she get a crazy idea like that?
“I heard her talking to Greta. She told her the grout in the bathroom needed scrubbing and once she moved in, things would be different.”
He didn’t think he’d heard her right. “Once who moved in?”
“Janice.” Her dark brows pushed together. “Abbie and I call her Janice the Anus.”
No wonder Julia was upset. “Do you always call people names?”
“Only when it’s the truth.”
He couldn’t fault her for that. “I am not going to marry, Janice.”
Even if she is pregnant with my child.
“Promise?” Her eyes shone bright and half-hopeful.
He clasped her hand and squeezed. “Promise.”
She sighed. “Abbie will be relieved. We were all worried but Maxine said not to but I said—”
“Maxine? Abbie? What were you all doing? Taking bets on my love life?”
A dull pink smeared her cheeks. “More like betting against it.”
“Gee, thanks. What’s Maxine got to do with it?” For a woman who still refused to call him by his first name, she certainly had gotten involved in his personal affairs.
“Maxine said it wasn’t going to happen. ‘Not in the next two lifetimes’ is how she put it. I wasn’t sure and Abbie said she thought Janice would do something to blackmail you into it, like get pregnant.”
The oxygen swooshed from his lungs. Had Janice said something? Worse yet, had Kate?
“I told her that was crazy because Janice loved her body too much to turn it into playdough for nine months.”
He took a small breath. And then another. Julia didn’t know. Yet.
She giggled. “Can you imagine her trying to walk around on those spikes she wears with a pot belly hanging out?”
He smiled and shook his head. “No, I’m having a hard time with that visual.” But he could picture Kate pregnant, all soft and round and glowing. The image grew so vivid it felt real.
Julia’s giggle morphed into a full-blown laugh. “And those tight dresses, that would be a real picture for
People
.” Her face turned serious and he thought she’d make a hell of a prosecutor one day. “Were you really talking about my mother?”
“I…” He picked up a chip and studied it.
“Rourke?”
He could give her a damn convincing lie but she deserved the truth. “Yes. I was talking about your mother.”
“You love her, don’t you?”
“I do.”
Her lower lip trembled and her eyes glistened with fresh tears. “I knew it.”
“Look, Julia, I know you loved your father,” he stopped, “I mean, Clay. No, that’s not right either.” Christ, he’d turned into a babbling idiot. “The man who raised you loved you like a father. I’m like the quarterback who comes in during the fourth quarter when the team’s up forty to nothing.” She stared at him and he knew the analogy was lost on her. He tried again. “I never had a chance to be your real father, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have wanted to be.”
“I loved my father.”
“He was a good man. I can’t replace him, and I don’t want to. I don’t know what’s going to happen between your mother and me, but that doesn’t change the way I feel about you or the fact that I want you in my life.”
“She won’t talk about you.”
“I didn’t think she would.”
“She won’t tell me what’s wrong either. If she doesn’t tell me, how can I try to make it right?”
“That’s not your job.”
She looked away. “Sometimes I wonder if I even know her.”
He touched her chin and coaxed her to look at him. “You mean since you found her journal?”
She nodded. “Everything just kind of exploded in my head. I mean, here’s my mother, but when I’m reading that stuff, she’s not really my mother then. She’s some other person who’s in love with somebody who’s not my father.” She blinked hard. “Well, not the father I thought was my father.”
“It’s a lot for me to understand, too.”
“All these years she’s kept it bottled up inside. If my dad hadn’t died, maybe I’d never have known about you or any of that stuff,” her voice drifted off, “almost like she had another life, separate from the one she had with us.”
What could he say? She was right.
“This is so screwed up.”
Right again.
His daughter heaved a big sigh and pinned him with eyes so like his own. “So, since you two obviously love each other, you’re going to have to figure out a way to get her to marry you.”
Chapter 29
“
Life passes by those who refuse to get on the train.”—Rourke Flannigan
“Let me see if I understand this correctly, you want me to draw up a trust for the daughter of the man who was killed in the Syracuse accident,
and
you are willing one half of your estate to her?”
Rourke clasped his hands behind his head and nodded at Miles. “Correct.”
“Need I advise you this is absolutely ludicrous and considering my capacity as your legal counsel, I cannot in good faith or otherwise, permit you to do so without making you fully aware of the consequences of such actions?”
Rourke hid a smile. Miles could get so huffy when someone veered outside his interpretation of legal parameters. “You don’t need to remind me. I’m of sound mind and possess all of my faculties as I ask you to draw up this agreement.”
“You’re already paying the woman an exorbitant amount of money.”
“I’m talking about the child here.”
Miles cleared his throat. “I had no idea you held such an affinity for children. Had I known, I’d have asked you to sponsor a scholarship or two for the underprivileged.”
Rourke ignored Miles’s sarcasm. “Next year, tell Dexter to put it in the budget.”
“Why are you doing this?” Miles worked his temples with the tips of his fingers. “This makes absolutely no sense.”
“I’m sure you find it confusing.”
“Confusing?” Miles closed his eyes and continued to massage his temples. “I find it insane.”
“What if I told you the child in question was my daughter.”
Miles’s eyes shot open. “What?”
“If Julia Maden were my daughter, then it would make perfect sense to have these provisions for her, wouldn’t it?” For the first time in all the years Rourke had known Miles Gregory, the man with the golden tongue and thousand dollar words, was speechless. “A man does right by his child, doesn’t he, Miles, even if he never learns of the child’s existence until years later? Years after another man has been raising that child as his own? And if the discovery comes as a result of a horrible, unfortunate accident in which the real father is indirectly responsible for the death of the surrogate father, imagine the guilt and need for recompense that would generate?” Rourke kept his gaze fixed on Miles, who remained speechless. “Yes, well, that would make an interesting case, wouldn’t it?”
“Are you saying,” Miles reached for a handkerchief and blotted his forehead, “are you saying the child is yours?”
Rourke nodded. “So it would appear.”
“But,” he stared at Rourke as though he couldn’t assimilate his words. “How could that be possible?”
Rourke lifted a brow.
“No, that’s not what I meant to say.” He dabbed his forehead with increased effort. “But how
can
that be?”
Rourke had toyed with the poor man long enough. Miles was a man of contracts and litigation and codicils. Emotion was like an algebraic equation written in Hindu. “Kate and I knew one another when we were teenagers.” Now for the blast. “Her mother was driving the car that hit my mother.”
“Good God.”
“Exactly. Diana flew to Montpelier, scooped me up and dumped me at Princeton before I realized what was happening. At the time, I hardly knew my aunt, but she was so efficient and so damned authoritative, I never thought to question her.”
“That’s Diana,” Miles said. “I’m sure she abhorred the publicity.”
“That’s the thing, there wasn’t any.”
“Ah. She must have called in quite a few favors to keep that quiet. I was working here at the time and never heard a word. I never knew she had a nephew until you showed up for work.”
“That was a long time ago. The old bird’s softened a bit, wouldn’t you say?”
Miles lifted a brow. “I’m afraid I must abstain from answering on the grounds that I may incriminate myself.”
“Okay, okay, I got it. But she’s on the verge of softening.”
“Any century now.”
Rourke saw the soft side of his aunt, not often and not for long stretches, but it was there, no matter how much she tried to hide it.
“So you broke off with Mrs. Maden and never knew she was pregnant?”
“More or less.” No sense telling him she’d found his replacement mere weeks later.
“And you never knew?”
Rourke shook his head. “Not until recently, no.” He thought of the journal tucked safely in his briefcase next to the file on Kate. How ironically appropriate.
“Good Lord, this is a shock.”
“Now do you understand?”
“Yes, now it all makes sense. But
half
, Rourke? Do you know how much money that is?” Rourke didn’t bother to answer. “Of course, you do, that’s not what I meant. But isn’t there another relative, perhaps a distant cousin?”
“This is my daughter we’re talking about, Miles.”
“What does Diana have to say about this?”
“She doesn’t know.”
Miles cleared his throat. Twice. “I wouldn’t want to be you when she finds out.”
