FLISS WASN’T THE only one who had a sleepless night.
Seth did, too.
He’d been called in to operate in the early hours of the morning. A dog had been hit by a car. Summer people, driving too fast on unfamiliar roads, buoyed by good spirits, both the sort that came from spending summer at the beach and the sort that was served at the beach bar. That side of it wasn’t his business.
His responsibility was the dog and the owner, because when an animal was involved there were always two patients.
It was a reminder of the grim side of his job, but also the good parts.
He thought the animal stood a good chance.
By the time he was satisfied he’d done what he could, the sun was rising and it hardly seemed worth going home, so he sat in his office with strong coffee and tried not to think about Fliss. Instead he tackled a mountain of paperwork, reasoning that doing it now would give him the time he needed to devote his weekend to his new home.
Home.
It didn’t feel that way yet, but hopefully in time it would.
He stared at the lab report, but instead of numbers he saw Fliss’s face, streaked with tears, and felt her fingers clutching the front of his shirt. Even then she’d tried to hide her emotions, but he’d felt them, and he’d shared them.
The door opened and Nancy, one of the vet techs, stood there. “You had a busy night.”
“I did.” He stood up and stretched. “What time is it?”
“Ten minutes until clinic, and it’s going to be a busy one.”
“Thanks. All I needed was strong coffee and a little good news.”
“Hey, you’re in demand. That’s good news. And I can manage coffee if it would help.”
“Thanks, but I can make it myself.” He’d always done everything himself, a legacy from a time when people’s first response to him was to assume he was wealthy and entitled.
The wealth was a privilege, he knew that. It had also been a lens, a filter, through which people viewed him.
It was one of the reasons he’d chosen to study veterinary medicine. Here he was mostly judged on his ability to deal with animals. When a couple brought in their family pet, bleeding and broken, they didn’t give a damn who his father had been.
And, as a vet, he’d learned that what enriched a life was the many small everyday things that so many took for granted. He’d seen a child’s face crumple with emotion when given a first pet. He’d seen a millionaire broken over the loss of a dog.
For a while he’d worked with large animals, then very sick animals, and he’d ended up here, running a small animal practice. Part of the community.
It felt right.
“Rufus is looking good, Mrs. Terry.” He checked the wound he’d sutured a week earlier. “It’s clean and healing well. Can’t have been easy keeping him out of mischief this week. You’ve done a good job.”
“I’m so relieved. We’ve had him since he was weeks old. Billy found him abandoned on the side of the road. The kids have grown up with him. I don’t know what we’d do without him.”
“Fortunately I don’t think you’re going to need to worry about that today.” Seth handed the dog back to his owner.
Losing a pet was hard. He understood that. He found it hard, too. It was the part of the job he hated.
He worked his way through a busy clinic and then stopped at the store on the way home. Crusty bread, heirloom tomatoes, mushrooms—he almost cleared the shelves of produce, adding in a couple of steaks at the last minute.
The steaks earned him a curious look as Della, the store owner, bagged his items. “Either you and Lulu are eating well, or you have company tonight.”
“We always eat well, Della.” He handed her his card, hoping that would be the end of it. He didn’t mind being the subject of discussion, but he wasn’t sure Fliss would feel the same way.
“You’re a good cook, Dr. Carlyle, just like your mama. She used to come in here and pick out everything individually. She had an eye for the best. We miss seeing her around. You send her my love when you talk to her next and tell her we’re all thinking of her.” She returned his card and Seth picked up the bags.
“I’ll do that.”
She winked at him. “Whoever you’re feeding tonight is in for a treat.”
He kept his smile polite, and left the store and Della with all her questions behind him.
Preparing and sharing meals had been an important part of his upbringing. Everyone was expected to participate, and the big family kitchen in Ocean View had been the heart of their home. Food had been fresh, healthy and colorful. Bell peppers, their skins charred from the grill, piled in colorful heaps, glistening with olive oil. Fat olives, which always reminded him of the one vacation they’d taken to Italy, exploring the family roots. Every meal was a work of art, his mother’s skills as an interior designer showing even when plating food.
The easy conversation over good food was the thing he missed most since his father had passed. Now each gathering was suffused with sadness and the undeniable fact that something was missing.
His mother had kept going, trying to fill a gap that couldn’t be filled with other things. Nothing had fitted. Seth knew that gap was always going to be there. The best they could hope for was that they would eventually adjust to it. The family was a different shape now. They had to get used to that.
He unpacked the food in his new kitchen, filling the shelves of the empty fridge. He didn’t know if Fliss was going to join him, but if she did he didn’t want to be forced to go out. He wasn’t going to run the risk of someone derailing their conversation. He knew she’d snatch whatever excuse she could not to talk, and he was determined not to hand one to her.
With the last of the food safely stowed, he grabbed a beer from the fridge.
The place was finally starting to feel lived in. It didn’t feel like home, but hopefully it would feel that way in time.
He took his beer out onto the deck, Lulu by his side.
This was privilege. Owning your own place, close to the water, with nature as your closest neighbor.
Even this close to the ocean it was still stifling, the air refusing to release any of the warmth that had built up during the day.
The deck wrapped itself around the back of the house. Light danced across the wooden boards, creating shadow and shade, and he leaned on the railing, staring out across the dunes to the ocean. The only sounds were the plaintive call of a gull, the whisper of the wind and the faint rush of the waves on sand. From here he could appreciate the beauty of the sunset over the Peconic Bay, his only companions the swans and osprey.
And Lulu.
Her ecstatic barking announced Fliss’s arrival even before he heard the wheels of her car crunch on gravel, followed by the slam of a car door.
Moments later she appeared around the side of the house, Lulu running circles around her feet.
She stooped to make a fuss of the dog, teasing her, murmuring words Seth couldn’t quite hear but which sent Lulu into tail-wagging ecstasy.
With a last tickle of her fingers, Fliss straightened and looked at him.
All sounds faded. It was as if the world had shrunk to just the two of them.
He wanted to reach out and haul her close, but he forced himself to keep his free hand on the railing.
He’d thought it was a good idea to ask her to his home, but now he wondered if a restaurant full of people might have been easier. Or maybe nothing about this meeting was ever going to be easy.
He watched as she took the steps up to the deck where he was waiting.
His heart pounded, but seeing her in shorts always did that for him. These skimmed her thighs and showed off the long, tanned length of her legs.
He lowered the bottle he was holding, even though his mouth felt as dry as dust. “You found the place with no problem?”
“One wrong turn. Almost landed the car in a ditch. You’re hidden away down here. You managed to find the one patch of land that isn’t crowded with summer people.”
“That was the idea. The land borders the nature preserve. This cottage used to be owned by an artist. He converted the top floor into an incredible studio. North light.” He watched the way the sunlight danced over her hair. She’d always had the most beautiful hair. Silver in some lights. Pale gold in others. If the artist who had owned the cottage were still living here, he would have whipped out a canvas and a brush. “I wasn’t sure you’d come.”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“You’ve been going to considerable lengths to avoid me.”
She gave a casual shrug. “It’s not the first time I’ve pretended to be my sister.”
“I know you turn hide-and-seek into an art form, but surely even you can’t expect me to believe all that had nothing to do with avoiding me.”
“I really don’t—”
“I saw you, Fliss. That day outside the clinic when you were hovering, making up your mind whether to come in or not. I was on my way outside to talk to you when you dropped to the ground. I was about to dial 911, and then I realized you’d done it to avoid me.”
“I lost my balance.”
If he hadn’t been so exasperated he might have laughed.
Instead he pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose and forced himself to breathe slowly. “Fliss—”
“Okay! I wasn’t totally excited about seeing you. And yes, I snatched the opportunity to get away from Manhattan so that I didn’t bump into you, and then I bumped into you anyway, which just proves that karma is an insensitive bitch.”
He let his hand drop. “Why was it such a big deal? You couldn’t just have said, ‘Hi, Seth, how are things?’”
“If I could turn the clock back that’s probably the approach I’d take, but at the time I thought I’d killed your dog and then I heard your voice and you sounded—” she snatched in a breath “—and I saw you and you looked—It flustered me.”
Flustered was good. He could live with flustered.
Her gaze slid to his, and he saw the flicker of something there before she looked away again.
“So you decided to pretend to be Harriet.”
“If I’m honest, there wasn’t a whole lot of planning behind that strategy. It was more of an impulse. A conditioned response.”
“The conditioned response being to avoid me?” He waited, refusing to allow her to dodge it and finally she scowled.
“So I wasn’t comfortable seeing you. Turns out I’m clueless when it comes to ex etiquette.”
“That exists?”
“I don’t know! But I didn’t know how to handle it.”
“So you pretended to be Harriet, which made it a different conversation.”
“That was the idea. A different conversation was exactly what I wanted. Goal achieved.”
“But you’re here now. As yourself. And this time we’re having the conversation I want.”
“Yes. So let’s get it over with.” The expression on her face suggested she was about to be dragged off to a torture chamber. “If there are things you need to say, although I can’t imagine why there would be after all this time, then you need to say them. Go right ahead.”
You need to say them.
What he really wanted was for her to talk to him, but he knew that wasn’t going to happen in an instant. You couldn’t change the habits of a lifetime overnight, and Fliss had been keeping things to herself for her entire life. He needed to be patient. And persistent. Last time he’d given up and walked away. This time he wasn’t doing that. Not until he’d explored what might have been. If losing his father had taught him one thing it was that life was too precious to waste a single moment doing things that didn’t matter with people who didn’t matter.
Fliss mattered to him. She always had.
He knew that now. What he didn’t know was why it had taken him so long to follow up on it. There had been plenty of reasons why walking away from it had seemed like the right thing. They’d been too young, it had all happened too fast—the list was long, and topped off by the fact that she’d never returned his calls. Nothing on that list had explained why he hadn’t been able to leave her behind.
She hovered, wary, her weight on her toes. She reminded him of a deer, alert for danger, ready to run at a moment’s notice.
And he wasn’t going to give her a reason to run.
“Do you want a tour?”
“A tour? Of your house?” She relaxed slightly, as if she’d been given a reprieve. “Sounds good. Great idea.”
“You’re my first visitor, apart from Chase, and he doesn’t count given that he’s had eyes on the place every week since the project started.”
“Have you spoken with him?”
“Yes. He flew back last night the moment I called him.”
“The advantage of helicopter travel.”
“He’s with Matilda in the hospital, but I think she’ll be coming home today.”
“I wondered. I would have texted her, but of course she dropped her phone. And I didn’t want to get in the way by showing up at the hospital.”
He wondered if that was all it was. The image of her face when he’d walked into the room and seen her with Matilda’s baby was welded into his brain.
“I doubt they would have minded.” He picked up the empty beer bottle and strolled through to the kitchen. “He’ll be calling you. To say he’s grateful would be an understatement.”
“Why would he be grateful? I didn’t do anything.”
“You did plenty. If it weren’t for you, Matilda would have been on her own.”
“Hero takes the credit for that. He came to find me on the beach. That dog is supersmart.”
“You stayed with Matilda through the whole thing.”
“Believe me, if there had been anyone else within shrieking distance I would have been out of there.” She made it sound like a joke, but he knew she wasn’t laughing.
“But you stayed. And it must have been hard for you.” He was probably the only one who had any idea how hard. He could imagine how it must have ripped open wounds she’d carefully sealed and exposed feelings she’d kept hidden.
“Not hard at all.”
He thought back to the way she’d sobbed on him the night before and felt a rush of frustration. “Fliss—”
“Obviously I don’t know anything about delivering babies, but Matilda seemed to manage that part just fine by herself. I was little more than a cheerleader. All I had to do was say, ‘Yay! Go you! Wow, a baby!’ That kind of thing.”
It was like trying to crack his way through a reinforced steel wall. She had defenses that would have been the envy of any security force in the world.
The fact that he understood her reasons didn’t make it easier to handle.
“So last night on the beach when you were drenching my shirt, sobbing as if your heart was going to crack—which part of cheerleading was that?”
“Witnessing the beginning of a new life is an emotional thing.”
Last night he’d caught a glimpse of the feelings she was keeping locked inside, and it hadn’t been pretty.
He wanted to ask if she’d slept, if she’d shed more tears, but the answer to that was visible in the bruised shadows under her eyes, and he knew that the emotional events of the night before had stolen her sleep in the same way they had his.
She paced around the kitchen, admiring, touching, and gave a low murmur of approval. “Nice.” She ran her hand over the countertop and glanced at him. “Chase did this?”
She looked exhausted, but he decided there was no point in asking more questions she would evade.
“Not personally. He has a good team.” He opened the fridge, forcing himself to be patient. Haste had destroyed the fragile roots of their relationship last time. He wasn’t going to let that happen again. “Drink?”
“Please. Something cold. Nonalcoholic, as I’m driving. I need to keep my eye out for dogs who lie down in the middle of the road.” She gave Lulu a pointed look. “How do you train a dog to play dead? Maybe that’s a way we could expand. Dog training.”
“You’re looking to expand?”
“Yes. We practically own dog walking on the east side of Manhattan. I’ve decided we need something else. I was thinking maybe dog grooming, or even boarding.”
“Do you have premises?”
“No. That’s the downside.” She shrugged. “But also the upside because I’m tired of falling over paperwork in our apartment.”
“You share with Harriet?”
“Yes, of course. We live in Manhattan. An apartment to yourself is the stuff of dreams. And we’re in tight quarters. Harriet hates paperwork or anything to do with accounts, so she pushes it into a corner and pretends it isn’t there. Before I can process it, first I have to find it.”
“You can’t run the business online?”
“A lot of it is online, but there’s still paper.”
“Do you have to expand? Why not just keep the business small?”
“Now you’re starting to sound like Harriet. She’s happy the way things are. I handle the accounts and the clients, she handles the animals and the dog walkers. So maybe dog training might be the way forward. Heaven knows, we’d have enough clients who would benefit.”
“Do you ever refuse to walk a dog?”
“In theory, but in practice I’ve never met a dog Harriet couldn’t handle. She’s a wizard when it comes to animals. That’s probably another reason why we should expand our offerings to include training.”
“But Harriet couldn’t train every dog.”
“Are you trying to burst my bubble?”
“No. I’m presenting a strong counterargument. If you can’t challenge me, maybe it’s not a sound business proposition.”
“The weakness is in needing new premises. That increases our fixed costs and our risk.”
“You’ve never been afraid of risk.”
“No, but this business means a lot to me, and it’s not just mine. It’s Harriet’s, too. I know how much this job means to her.” She glanced at him. “She started off studying veterinary medicine just like you.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“I think you inspired her. But she hated the way some owners behaved toward their pets. After this one guy told her there was no way he was going to throw away good money having his dog put down when he could die for free if left alone, she lost her temper.”
“Harriet?”
“You don’t believe me?” Fliss’s eyes gleamed. “You want to see my twin’s steely side? Mess with an animal.”
He took a can of soda from the fridge. “What happened?”
“She gave up. Probably the best thing that could have happened, although she didn’t see it at the time. I’d just finished business school, so I decided we should do something together. I did all the things she hated—paperwork, phone calls, face-to-face with strangers, that kind of thing. She did all the things she was great at—dealing with difficult animals, recruiting dog walkers, convincing clients that no one cared about their pets more than we did. And it was true. We were doing pretty well, getting by, and then about a year ago Daniel heard about this start-up. Urban Genie. Three women offering concierge services. Turns out there’s a lot of demand for dog walking. He recommended us. We’ve had almost more business than we can handle ever since.”
She’d set up the business as a way of protecting her sister.
“And now you want to be even more busy.”
“What can I say? Making money, growing, being a success—it gives me a thrill. Winning new business is my adrenaline rush.” She paused by the island, looking at the neat heaps of chopped vegetables. “When you said you’d take care of dinner, I wasn’t expecting this. What would you have done if I hadn’t showed up?”
“Eaten alone. Put some in the fridge for tomorrow. Maybe invited the neighbors.” Dealt with his disappointment and frustration. “I’m a Carlyle. We like entertaining.” He handed her the Coke. “Do you want a glass?”
“No, this is good. Thanks.” She snapped open the can and drank. “You have neighbors? I didn’t see any. The nearest house is back up the lane.”
“The Collins family. He runs a boat business, she’s a teacher. Two children, Susan and Marcus. And they keep two ponies.”
“Wow. You’re a real pillar of the community, Dr. Carlyle.”
“That’s the point of living somewhere like this. It doesn’t have to be anonymous.”
“I like being anonymous.”
“Why?”
She took a slug of her drink and watched while he cooked. “It’s easier when people don’t know your business. I walk into a store in Manhattan and no one knows who I am. I like that. Maybe it’s just me. I prefer to keep my life private from strangers.”
She preferred to keep her life private from everyone.
Including him.
“Sometimes it’s good to have connections. And everyone who isn’t family is a stranger until you let them in.” He cooked without consulting a recipe, confident enough in the kitchen to be able to keep the focus on her.
“As we both know, I’m not great at letting people in. Dogs, no problem. Humans—that gives me more of a problem.” It was the first time he’d heard her admit it.
“Not everyone is out to get you.”
“Maybe not.” She scanned the food. “So all this food is just for us? Because it looks as if you’ve invited the whole of the Hamptons.”
“I may have overcatered. It’s a family trait.”
A smile flashed across her face. “I remember being in your kitchen with about eighteen other people. Your mom didn’t even flinch. Your house was always full of people, and the food kept coming.”
“Blame the Italian blood. Food has always been central to family life in my house.”
She eyed the food on the countertop. “And you’re continuing that tradition. I didn’t know you liked to cook.”
There were a lot of things she didn’t know about him and plenty he didn’t know about her, but this time he was determined things were going to be different. Last time they’d rushed their way through most of those small, subtle things that fed a relationship and made it grow and deepen. They’d bypassed some aspects altogether in their race to satisfy raw sexual attraction.
It was like having arrived at a destination without having taken the time to enjoy the journey. Only now was he realizing how much he’d missed.
If he’d understood her better, would they still be together?
“My mother always insisted that we sat down at the table at least once a day. Breakfast could be taken on the run, but dinner never was. It didn’t matter what we were doing, we were all expected to be there. Eating those meals, talking over food, was something that glued us together as a family. If it hadn’t been for that we might not have spent time together.” And he instantly felt a flash of guilt because the one thing he did know about her was that mealtimes in her house had been an incendiary affair. “I guess that happens a lot in a family with divergent interests. Given the choice, Bryony would have spent her whole time at the stables with the horses and Vanessa would have been with her friends.”
“How are your sisters?”
“Bryony is teaching first grade and loving it, and Vanessa is married and determined to see everyone else in the same blissful state.”
She smiled. “You two used to fight all the time.”
“Still do.” He decided not to elaborate on what the biggest cause of their discord was. “We’re not as close as you, Dan and Harriet.”
“And your mom?” Her gaze skated to his. “Losing your dad must be hard on her.”
“It is. They were together for more than forty years. She’s lost her soul mate. But she’s doing better than she was. Having grandchildren helps.” He saw the question in her eyes and realized how much of each other’s lives they’d missed. “Vanessa has two children. A girl and a boy, age six and eight. Vanessa works part-time as an accountant and Mom takes care of the kids when they’re not at school. I reckon it helps her as much as it helps my sister.”
“So you’re Uncle Seth. And I bet you’re good at it.” She leaned against the counter. “Beach games, hide-and-seek, you’re a hands-on type of uncle. Six and eight. I’m guessing lots of sport. Taken them surfing yet?”
“As it happens, yes.”
“I bet they loved it.”
“Tansy loves it. She’s the eight-year-old. It’s hard to get her out of the water. Cole would rather dig in the sand for dinosaurs.”
“Which you’ve conveniently buried?”
“Sounds about right. How about your family? How’s Harriet?” He forced himself to ask the question. Not that he didn’t care about Harriet, but he cared more about finding out as much as he could about Fliss. “Does she know you’ve been impersonating her?”
“Yes.” She paced the kitchen, on edge, and then spun to face him. “Okay, I thought I wanted to avoid this but it turns out I can’t, so can we just get it over with?”
“Which part? The part where we update each other on the parts of our lives we’ve missed, or the part where we enjoy dinner?”
“The part where you say whatever it is you feel you need to say. Just do it. Give it to me straight. I hate suspense and tension. At least, I love it in movies and books, but I hate it in real life so let’s just get this done. You’re mad at me. Ten years is a long time to store up anger, so just let it out and then we can move on.”
“Fliss—”
“Don’t feel awkward about it. You think I don’t know? I messed up, Seth. I messed up in a giant, huge way. Mega mess-up. And you suffered for it. I wrecked your life, and I’m sorry.” She pressed her fingers to her forehead and muttered something under her breath. “That didn’t sound sorry, did it? But I am. Jeez, I am so bad at this. Are you going to speak?”
“You said the same thing the other night.” And he’d thought of very little else since. He couldn’t make sense of it. “Why would you think that? Why would I be mad at you?”
“You want a list?”
She had a list?
“Yes. Let’s hear it.” He wanted access to everything going on in her head. Even more so now he’d been given a glimpse.
“It was all my fault.”
“The fact that you got pregnant? I was there, too.” And he remembered every detail. Small things. The softness of her skin. The crash of the waves. Touch and sound. The way she’d felt and tasted. Nothing in his life had ever felt so right. “How could it have been your fault?”
“We wouldn’t have had sex at all if it hadn’t been for me.”
Did she really believe that?
“Fliss—”
“Can we stop pretending and remember how the whole thing went down? You tried to stop me ripping your clothes off. I have a distinct memory of hearing you tell me it wasn’t a good idea and that we shouldn’t do it.”
“Because I was worried about you. Not me. You were upset that night. You didn’t talk about it, but I knew you were upset. Your father had arrived unexpectedly. He’d said something—you wouldn’t tell me what. Whatever it was made you cry.”
“He didn’t make me cry.” Her tone was fierce. “He never made me cry.”
“You mean you never let him see you cry. But I saw it, Fliss. I saw what he did to you. How his words made you feel.” And he’d wanted to step through her front door and confront her father. He would have done it if he hadn’t been sure she would have been the one to bear the consequences.
There was a long silence, and then she lifted her chin and looked at him. “I have a confession. Something I probably should have told you a long time ago.”
He could hear the crash of the waves through the open doors.
“I’m listening.”
“I told you I was protected. Taking the pill.” She looked away and stared at the food instead. “It was a lie. I wasn’t. I said it because I—I was afraid you might stop. And I really, really didn’t want you to stop.”
He waited. “That’s your big confession?”
“I lied to you, Seth.”
“I know. I always knew.”
Shock flashed across her face. “How?”
“You were pregnant. It was pretty easy to figure out. And if there was blame, I share it, too. I should have used a condom.”
“You didn’t think you needed to.”
“I should have used one anyway. The reason I didn’t is the same reason you lied about taking the pill. Neither of us was thinking much about that side of things. Our relationship was always a bit like that, wasn’t it? It was like trying to hold back a storm.” And he knew instinctively that part hadn’t changed, that if he touched her they’d reach flash point as fast as they had the first time.
“I trapped you.”
“That’s not how it felt.”
“Oh, come on.” She paced to the doors, and for a moment he thought she was going to walk out. Then she paused. “One crazy summer, that’s what it was. Sex. Hormones. A teenage rebellion moment.”
“Seriously? You’re pretending it was teenage rebellion?” He saw her cheeks darken with color.
“It was never supposed to end up the way it did. We never should have gotten married.”
“It was the right thing to do.”
“Mr. Good Guy.”
He gave a harsh laugh. “I don’t think so. I got you pregnant.”
“That wasn’t your fault.”
“Why are you always so determined to take the blame for everything?”
“Because it was my fault! I hurt you. Vanessa said—” She broke off, and he stilled.
“Vanessa? My sister spoke to you about it?” Why had that possibility not occurred to him? What had happened to his thinking?
Her gaze slid from his. “Forget it.”
“Tell me.”
“Why? It’s all history now. It’s not going to help.”
“I want to know what she said.” He stood firm, in this instance every bit as stubborn and immovable as she was.
“Nothing I didn’t already know. That I wasn’t the right person for you. And a few other things.”
Knowing Vanessa, he could imagine what those other things might have been, and he tucked the anger away and made a mental note that next time he spoke to his sister he was going to leave subtle at the door.
“My relationships are not my sister’s business.”
“She had your best interests at heart.”
“Maybe, but that still doesn’t make it her business.”
“She cares about you and didn’t want to see you hurt. And I hurt you.”
“You were hurt, too.”
“I was fine.”
Something inside him snapped. “Were you fine? Because I wasn’t. I wasn’t fine, Fliss! And I’m willing to bet you weren’t fine either.”
“Seth—”
“I understand why you hide your feelings. You don’t want to make yourself vulnerable. You’re afraid of being hurt. I know how much your father hurt you. He virtually trained you to keep every damn feeling inside. I get that. What I don’t get is why you would hide your feelings with me. Why you wouldn’t talk to me. And why you won’t talk to me now.”
The color drained from her face. “I am talking. What else do you want me to say?”
“I want us to talk about what happened. Really talk. Not gloss over the emotion. Last night you came close to falling apart and you won’t even admit it.”
And he wanted her to be honest. He wanted her to peel back those layers of protection that kept him from understanding her.
“I’ve told you it was a long day, and I’m not a midwife and—”
“Dammit, Fliss—” He crossed the kitchen in two strides. When she tried to sidestep he planted an arm on either side of her to block her escape. “Do not run.”
“I don’t know what you want from me.”
“The truth. Let’s start there, and I’ll go first. Losing our baby hurt. It hurt more than I could ever have imagined possible. People talk about a miscarriage as if it’s nothing, as if a baby is replaceable. But it didn’t feel like nothing. Not to me, and I’m guessing not to you either. We hadn’t told anyone you were pregnant, so there was no one I could talk to and share my feelings with, except you. And you were determined not to talk. I couldn’t get near you. I don’t even know what happened that day you lost the baby. I went to sleep and you were in my bed and I woke up and you were gone. Then I got that call from Harriet saying you were in the hospital.”
She stared at him for a long moment and then lowered her eyes so that she was staring at his chest. “I woke early and went for a walk on the beach. I had this horrible pain and I knew I was bleeding. I panicked and called Harriet.”
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“She’s my sister.”
“This was our baby, Fliss. We were married! You should have called me right away.”
“I was hoping I wouldn’t have to.”
“What does that mean?”
“I was hoping they could do something.” Her voice cracked. “I hoped they might perform a miracle. Something, anything, that would make our baby stick. That’s what they said to me when they tried to make me feel okay about it. They said some babies just don’t stick and there isn’t always a reason they can find. Maybe that’s true, but to me it felt like karma. I’d got you into this situation and now I was being punished. I felt as if I deserved it for ruining your life.”
“Seriously? That’s what you believed?”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t think to ask me what I felt about it all?”
“I didn’t need to. I knew that without the baby, there was nothing left.”
He was so shocked it took him a moment to process what she’d just told him. “So you thought the baby was central to our relationship? That by losing it, we’d lost whatever we’d had?”
“Yes.” She lifted her gaze to his. “You want honesty, Seth, so let’s be honest. If it hadn’t been for the baby, we wouldn’t have got married.”
“Maybe not then, but—”
“We wouldn’t have got married.” Her tone was firm. “What we shared would have ended up being a steamy summer affair. I would have returned to Manhattan. You would have gone back to college. That would have been it. And maybe one summer in the future we would have met up on the beach and had another fling for old time’s sake, I don’t know, but I do know it wouldn’t have had a happy-ever-after.”
Outside, beyond the glass, the sun was setting, sending golden light flowing across the kitchen. For once, Seth didn’t care about the sunset.
“I had no idea you felt that way. Our marriage was real, Fliss.”
She gave a choked laugh. “We got married in Vegas.”
“It was real.”
“Seth—”
“Were you happy that day?”
She looked startled by the question. “I—this isn’t—”
“Were you?”
“Yeah.” Her voice was a croak. “I was happy. It was fun. There was that crazy dress we rented and that crowd of tourists taking photos. Harriet was terrified our dad would guess what we were doing and show up. Most of the photos we took have her looking over her shoulder into the crowd.”
He didn’t tell her that he’d had the same thought. He didn’t tell her about the security firm he’d employed to keep a discreet presence in the background.
“I was happy, too. And I was afraid that if we waited and asked permission, your father would find a way to stop it. I was worried he’d guess you were pregnant.”
And make her suffer.
“You married me to protect me. Vanessa kept telling me you were a knight in shining armor. A gentleman.”
If his sister had been given access to his thoughts at that moment she would have been forced to rethink that belief.
“She wouldn’t have thought that if she’d seen me ripping your clothes off behind the sand dunes.” He thought about the night they’d had sex on the beach and knew she was thinking of it, too.
“I unleashed your bad side. I trapped you.”
She really thought that? It explained so much. “I never once thought you’d trapped me.”
“We got married because I was pregnant. That’s the truth. And I’m still shocked you took me to Vegas. I always saw you as more of a Plaza-in-June kind of guy.”
“Ouch.” He took her face in his hands. “Do you really know so little about me?”
“Are you trying to convince me you’ve always dreamed of marrying in Vegas?”
“Guys don’t tend to dream of weddings. I was more interested in the woman than the setting.”
And he was still interested in the woman. More than interested.
“Not all girls dream of weddings either. After watching my parents in action, it wasn’t something I was in a hurry to emulate. But I bet you thought you’d do it some day. Pretty girl. White dress. Big family wedding. I deprived you of that.”
“The wedding was for us, not my family. We were the only two people who mattered. In fact I’d even say you spared me a big family wedding. For that, I’ve been forever grateful. Vanessa’s wedding almost gave my mother a nervous breakdown. I had no idea choosing a dress and a few flowers could be so stressful. I always thought a wedding was supposed to be a happy occasion.” He hesitated. “Ours was. Whatever came after, that day was happy.”
“Yes. And then we told people and suddenly it didn’t seem quite so shiny.” She looked tired and defeated. “Your mom was devastated when we told her what we’d done, although she hid it well. She was always very kind to me.”
“She likes you a lot.” He paused, wondering, asking himself questions he never had before. “Would you have wanted that? The Plaza in June?”
“No.” She shook her head. “That stuff doesn’t matter to me.”
“I remember Harriet trying desperately to add some romantic touches to our wedding. She was the one who found the flowers—”
“She did that to satisfy her own image of what a wedding should look like.”
“Why didn’t you turn to me?” His emotions were too raw to be contained. “When you lost the baby, why didn’t you tell me how you felt?”
She was silent for a long time.
“I couldn’t. I felt so raw and exposed. As if my insides had been ripped out. It was the most terrifying thing that had ever happened to me. For the first time in my life I didn’t know how to handle my feelings, and that made me feel vulnerable. Talking to you would have made me more vulnerable.”
He knew she believed it. And knew that was the root of their problem. “I’m glad at least you were able to talk to Harriet. At least you weren’t alone.”
There was a long pause. “I didn’t talk to Harriet either. Not about that.”
It was the last thing he’d expected to hear, and in that one sentence she revealed more than she’d ever revealed before and it made him realize that even he had underestimated the degree to which she protected herself.
“But she picked you up from the hospital—”
“She knew what had happened, but not the details. She tried to get me to talk, but I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.”
“I assumed—” He broke off, processing it. “I thought you told each other everything.”
“If I’d let her see how bad I was feeling, she would have felt bad, too. I didn’t want her to feel a fraction of what I was feeling.”
“That’s a twin thing?”
She gave a faint smile. “No. I’m not talking about some weird, spooky thing where we feel each other’s pain secondhand. I’m talking about how it feels to see someone you love in agony.”
“Losing a baby is an emotional experience.”
“It wasn’t just the baby. I knew, even as it happened, I’d lost you, too.”
And she’d talked to no one. Harriet hadn’t got any closer than he had. He didn’t know if that made him feel worse or better.
“So you’ve never talked about it? Not with anyone?”
“No. I dealt with it my own way.”
He suspected she hadn’t dealt with it at all.
Her gaze shifted to the door, and he decided that if he pushed her any more she’d be gone.
“Let’s eat.” He stepped away and picked up a couple of serving platters.
She eyed him. “That’s it? We’re done talking? Is it over?” The anxiety in her voice made his heart ache.
“You make it sound like dental work.”
Most women he knew loved talking. Vanessa did. Naomi had loved it.
Fliss made it sound as appealing as a visit to a tax attorney.
“We’re done.” For now. There was plenty more he wanted to say, needed to say, but it could wait.
“I’m not that hungry.”
“You will be when you’ve tasted what I’m cooking. It’s an Italian recipe handed down from my great-grandmother. A Sicilian caponata.”
“I have no idea what that is, but I’m sure it’s delicious.” On the outside she looked fragile. Her face was slim, her features fine and delicate. The outside bore no clues that she was as tough as Kevlar.
He threw steaks on the grill while she carried the rest of the food to the table on the deck. He’d positioned it to make the most of the sunset and planned to spend every free evening out here until the temperature dropped too low to allow it. He told her about the construction. The thought and work that had gone into transforming the house.
“The view is incredible.”
“I love it. Are you missing Manhattan?”
“Strangely enough no. It’s a pleasant change to wake to the sound of sea and surf rather than blaring horns and dump trucks.”
“You always did love the sea. I wasn’t sure how much of that was because it was time away from your father.”
She didn’t flinch. “That was an element, but it was more than that. I loved the feeling of being right on the edge of the land.” She took a mouthful of food and gave a moan of pleasure. “This is delicious. Do you remember that time we played beach volleyball? There was a crowd of us and we all tumbled into your house and your mom produced all this food. It was one of the things I envied most about your family.”
“The food?”
“Not the food exactly. More what the food represented. Family mealtimes. It was a time to spend quality time together. All those people. Laughing. All helping. Hand me the salt. Pass the sugar. Bryony, can you fetch the ham from the fridge? It was like choreographed happy families. I used to think about it when I was back in New York.” She spooned more food onto her plate.
“That’s what you thought? That we were the perfect happy family? I seem to remember Bryony and Vanessa fighting at the table over something most days, and my mother getting more and more exasperated with them.”
“I remember that, too, and it was one of the things that seemed so enviably normal to me. We never argued with each other at the table,” she said. “We never used to talk at all.”
It was the first time he could remember her ever offering a glimpse into her family life.
“Talking was considered rude?”
“No.” She paused, her fork in her hand. “Talking was considered a risk. Whatever you said, there was a chance it would set my dad off. None of us wanted to do that, so we sat in silence. Apart from my mom. She kept up a stream of false happy chatter that drove Dad insane. I mean I could literally see him boiling. His face would go from pale to puce in less time than it took her to serve a slice of pie. I wanted to tell her to stop talking, to leave him to simmer in his bad mood, but I was almost always in the firing line so there was no way I was putting myself there on purpose. But I could never work out why she tried so hard. I mean, why didn’t she just stay silent like the rest of us?”
“Maybe she wanted to keep trying.”
“That’s the conclusion I reached. She loved him. And no matter how much he made it clear he didn’t feel the same way about her, she just wasn’t willing to give up on that. No matter what he did, she stuck with him. Soothed. Placated. I guess some people would think that was good. Not me. Watching it drove me insane. I couldn’t work out where her pride was. He clearly didn’t love her, so why didn’t she just accept that instead of working so hard to please him?”
It was more than she’d ever told him before, and he wondered if it was because she was talking about her mother’s feelings rather than her own. Her mother’s marriage, rather than their short-lived car crash of a relationship.
“She never thought of leaving him?”
“In fact she did.” She hesitated, as if making up her mind whether to elaborate or not. “Daniel told me Dad threatened to take us. Which surprised me, frankly, because the way he acted made it pretty clear he didn’t want us around.
“Our mealtimes were so tense it was easier to cut the atmosphere than the food.” She finished her drink. “We weren’t allowed to leave the table until everyone had finished eating. The three of us ate so fast we used to give ourselves indigestion. Didn’t make a difference, because if my father hadn’t finished none of us moved. Mom was so nervous she invariably dropped something. That would set him off. There—” She sent him a look. “You say I never talk about things, and now I bet you’re wishing you hadn’t said that.”
That wasn’t what he was wishing.
“You never talked about this before.”
“I didn’t want people to know. I hated the thought of people talking about us, especially here, where we created our own little world every summer.”
“Would it have mattered?”
“Once people know where your weakness is, they can hurt you, so yes, it mattered.”
He wanted to tell her that not everyone was like her father. That there were still plenty of people out there who would have sympathized and supported. Maybe even restored a little of her faith in human nature.
She leaned back. “You’re a good cook. Your mom would be proud.”
“Your mom must be, too. How is she doing? They’re not still together?”
“No. They got divorced the year Harriet and I left home. Daniel helped her. She moved back here for a while to live with Grams. For a while I was worried about her. She seemed listless. I guess she’d been with my dad for so long it was hard for her to contemplate a life without him. But then suddenly she seemed to blossom. It was like watching a completely different person. She was full of the things she was going to do and the places she was going to see. She volunteered in Africa for a while. Earlier in the year she went to South America with friends she met at a support group she attended. Now she’s in Antarctica. It’s as if she’s trying to make up for lost time. How about your mom?”
“She’s doing a little better, considering, but she’s lost a lot of weight—” he paused “—and most of all she has lost her smile. She used to smile a lot, and now you can tell she only does it to make an effort, to stop us worrying. It’s a huge adjustment. And it was a shock. Unexpected. It’s going to take a while for her to be comfortable in a life that doesn’t have my dad in it. It’s hard on her.”
“And hard on you, too.” She reached across and took his hand. The gesture was spontaneous, and he knew that if she’d thought it through she probably wouldn’t have done it because it revealed quite clearly that she still felt something for him. The warmth in her eyes thawed the places inside him that had felt frozen for months.
“It’s been very hard.”
“You’re the man of the house.”
“In a way.” He curled his fingers over hers, not wanting to lose the contact. “And talking of the house, we’re selling it.”
“Oh.” Her eyes darkened with sympathy. “That’s tough. I know how you love that place.”
“Yes. But it’s what my mother wants. There are too many memories there.”
“And you find those comforting, while she finds them distressing?”
He wondered how she could see that so clearly when people who were closer to him, his sister, for example, failed to understand.
“She’s trying to start creating a few positive memories that don’t have him in it. That’s the only way not to constantly view the world as if something is missing. It’s the reason the family aren’t joining me here this summer. They’ve rented cabins by a lake in Vermont.”
“Something different.” She nodded. “Have you spoken to a Realtor about selling the house?”
“Not yet. I was going to do that this week, but Chase thinks he may know a private buyer who is interested. Cash.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “Only Chase would have a friendship circle that includes someone who could buy that house for cash.”
“I get the sense he’s a business associate rather than a friend.”
She was silent for a moment. “I’m sorry, Seth. And I’m sorry I didn’t get in touch when it happened. If I’d known—”
“What? You would have pretended to be Harriet and called me?”
“Maybe I would have. I don’t know. I don’t know what I would have done, and whatever it was I probably would have messed that up, too. But for what it’s worth, I really am sorry. Your dad was a good man.” She pulled her hand away from his, and he resisted the temptation to snatch it back.
“And I’m lucky to have had him. Given what you’ve been through with yours, I shouldn’t be complaining.”
“Of course you should. You’ve lost something irreplaceable. Something truly special and valuable.”
“Are you in touch with your father?”
She dropped her gaze, her expression unreadable. “No.”
“Then you’ve lost something, too.”
“You can’t lose something you never had.” She stood up quickly. “I’ll clean up, and then I should go.”
“Wait—” He reached out and caught her wrist before she could pick up a plate. “Leave that. It’s a beautiful evening. Let’s walk.”
“Now? It’s dark.”
“That never used to stop you. In fact it used to be our preferred time for going to the beach.”
The look she gave him was loaded with memories. “That was then. This is now. We’re both a little old to be creeping around in the dark, climbing out of windows and meeting up in the sand dunes.”
“I had in mind walking out of the door and heading for the beach. There’s a full moon and we can take a flashlight. And since when has the dark ever bothered you?”
She laughed. “It doesn’t.”
“So if it’s not the dark that bothers you, then what does?”
“You. You bother me, Seth.”
“I’d rather you were bothered than indifferent. It means you still feel something.”
“Maybe it means you’re annoying. Were you always this stubborn?”
“Always. I used to hide it better.” He held out his hand. “So that you don’t trip in the dark.”
“I’m not Matilda.” She hesitated and took it.
They strolled on the sand, the dog at their heels.
At the edge of the dunes she bent to slip off her shoes. It was something about her that hadn’t changed at all. She did it without thinking, but this time he stopped her.
“Don’t. There might be glass or rubbish on the sand.”
“Older and wiser.” But for once she left her shoes on and carried on walking. She stopped at the water’s edge and tipped her head back. “I’d forgotten how much I love the place at night. Look at the stars.”
He looked at the twinkle of lights against velvet black. And then he looked at her.
He was tempted to throw control into the ocean and kiss her, but that was what he’d done last time, and unraveling the consequences hadn’t been easy.
This time he was determined to take a different path to the same destination.
This time they were taking it slowly.
“I’m going to ask you a question. And you’re going to answer me.”
“Am I? What if I don’t like the question?”
“You’re going to answer anyway.”
She made a murmur of irritation. “You come across as all calm and civilized, Carlyle, but it’s all a ploy. Stealth interrogation.”
“Some call it conversation.”
“When you prefix it with a warning, it becomes interrogation. I thought we were done. I thought the hard bit was over.” She sighed. “Go on then, ask.”
“What do you think would have happened if we hadn’t lost that baby?”
She stood there, strands of her hair blowing in the wind. “I don’t know.”
“I do. We’d still be together.”
She stilled. “You don’t know that.”
“I do. Because I wouldn’t have given up on us.”
“So why did you?” She anchored the strands of hair with her fingers. “If you really cared that much, why didn’t you come after me?”
“I called your number. Left about a thousand messages. You chose not to return a single one of them.” And that, for him, had been almost the worst part. Not just that she wouldn’t talk to him, but that she hadn’t thought, or cared, that he was hurting, too.
“That’s not true.” She shook her head, puzzled. “I didn’t get any calls.”
“Well, I know for sure I didn’t dial a wrong number.”
She was silent for a moment, thinking. “For the first few weeks after I left the hospital, I wasn’t very well.”
That thought hadn’t occurred to him. “Physically? There were complications?”
“Yes. I had an infection. My temperature was sky-high. I was out of it for a while.”
“You had to tell your family you’d lost the baby?”
“I didn’t tell them. The doctor who treated me kept it confidential. But it was the lowest point of my life. I’d lost you. The baby. And on top of that Dad used the fact that we’d broken up to remind me that I was useless and no sane person would want me. He said you’d obviously finally come to your senses.”
Seth felt the anger rip through him. “But when you recovered, didn’t you check your phone?”
“Yes, but there were no messages.”
Seth cursed under his breath. “He must have deleted them.” Why hadn’t that possibility occurred to him? The answer, quite simply, was that his own experience was so different he’d always been one step behind.
“He never told me you called, and I took the fact that you didn’t as confirmation of everything I already believed. That the marriage was a mistake.”
And behind the scenes she’d had her father endorsing that. There was a horrible logic to it all.
“And I was hurt that you wouldn’t turn to me. That you were keeping me at a distance. Trust, closeness—those things are fundamental in a marriage. The fact that you didn’t turn to me told me you didn’t trust me. That you didn’t feel close enough to be able to share your low moments with me.” And he’d let his own stubborn pride and grief stop him thinking clearly. He’d allowed people to persuade him that the best thing was to move on. He’d allowed other people to influence his decisions.
“Even if we had talked, the truth is I didn’t know how to open up. Even if I’d known, I probably wouldn’t have dared do it.”
“If you didn’t trust me, then that was on me.”
“No, it was on me.” She sounded tired. “I don’t know how to have the sort of relationship you just described. I don’t recognize it. You learned about trust and love by watching your parents. Want to know what I learned from watching mine? How to protect yourself. How to make sure I was never exposed. I learned that if I kept my feelings to myself, no one could use them against me. I learned that emotions make you vulnerable, and that expressing them makes you even more so. I didn’t learn how not to be hurt, but I learned how to hide the fact that I was hurt.” She paused. “You were right about that night at the beach, when we had sex. I was upset.”
“Because your father had shown up unexpectedly.”
“He said some pretty awful things, and I ran out of the house.”
“You’re implying I was a bandage? That we never would have had sex if you hadn’t been upset?”
“No, but you’re an honorable man, Seth. You always were. And then when I told you about the baby and you told me that getting married was the only solution, I took advantage of the fact that you were honorable. I should have said no.”
“You assume I was being honorable. Maybe I was being selfish. Maybe,” he said slowly, “I didn’t want to let you go and the baby provided a convenient excuse.”
She stared at him for a long moment, as if that possibility hadn’t occurred to her. “Whatever it was, it’s all history now.”
Not to him. “Did you miss me? This last ten years, did you think about me?” He’d put her on the spot. Cornered her, and he saw the brief flash of panic in her eyes and heard the uneven snatch of her breath.
“Ten years is a long time. I barely thought about you.”
“You think you’re an expert at hiding your feelings, but you’re not as good as you think, Felicity Knight.” Or maybe he knew her better than either of them thought. He had a feeling she might find that knowledge scarier than his question.
“I don’t see the point on dwelling on the past.”
“Agreed. Which is why we’re going to focus on the present.”
She relaxed a little. “Good plan.”
Deciding he’d spent too much of his life giving her space, he pulled her against him and took her face in his hands so that he could look into her eyes.
Her eyes, he’d discovered, were the only way he stood a chance of understanding what she was thinking, and right now they were wide and shocked.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m focusing on the present.” Step by step, he told himself. Slow and easy. “Come sailing with me tomorrow, Fliss. Just the two of us. The way we used to.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because—” she gave a helpless shrug “—first you say you want to focus on the present, and now you want to wind back the clock?”
“No. I don’t want to re-create what we had back then. I want to discover what we have now.” He saw the anxiety in her eyes turn to panic.
“We don’t have anything now. Whatever we had is in the past!”
“Is it? Have you been serious about anyone since me?”
“What?” Her lips parted. “Well, I—I don’t—”
“I haven’t either. There’s been no one.”
“Are you telling me you haven’t dated for ten years? Because I’m not going to believe you.”
“I’ve dated.”
“Me, too. I’ve been on plenty of dates since you and I broke up. I live in Manhattan! Part of the most exciting city in the world. New York has more hot guys than you can throw a stick at.” The sass was back, and he held back the smile.
Because it was getting harder and harder not to kiss her, he let his hands drop. He lowered them to her shoulders, but that didn’t help ease the ache, so he released her.
“I think you might be getting the guys mixed up with the dogs. Are you telling me you’ve dated every man in New York?”
“Not every guy. There might be a couple of guys in Brooklyn who haven’t had that good fortune.”
“And yet here you are—single.”
She scowled at him. “What are you suggesting? You think the fact I’m single has anything to do with you?”
“Does it?” He had the satisfaction of seeing her flustered.
Her mouth—that mouth that he couldn’t stop thinking about—opened and closed. “Definitely not. Marriage just isn’t on my bucket list, and you’re letting the whole ‘I’m a veterinarian’ thing go to your head.”
“Who said anything about marriage? I’m single, too.”
“Are you blaming me for that? Are you saying I damaged you for life?”
“Not damaged, no. But when you’ve had something really good, it can be hard to settle for less.”
The sound of her breathing mingled with the soft sound of the ocean.
“What we had was pain.”
“What we had was good. And we let circumstances, and other people, damage what we had. You talk about blame, but I blame myself for that.”
“You’re starting to freak me out. Stop looking at me like that.” She stepped back, hands raised. “I’m bad news, Seth.” With that, she turned and strode back along the beach toward the house.
I’m bad news.
He wondered who had told her that. Her father or his sister? Had Vanessa in her tactless, interfering way somehow scraped against feelings that were already raw?
He caught up with her by the car.
“If you’re bad news, then you’re my type of bad news.” He braced his arm against the door so that she couldn’t escape until he moved. “I have the afternoon off tomorrow. I’ll pick you up. We’ll take a picnic.”
“That’s ridiculous. I—”
“Does two o’clock work for you? I should be done by then. The wind and tide will be perfect.”
“It doesn’t matter! I’m not going to—”
“Dress casual. You know the score.”
“Dammit, Seth! We can’t just—this is ridiculous—” Her voice came to a stuttering halt. “Grams is having friends over for lunch.”
“So she doesn’t need you there.”
“I promised to walk Charlie.”
“I have a clinic in the morning, so you’ll have time to do that before I arrive.” He held out his hand. “Give me your phone—”
She sighed and then handed it over.
He entered his details into her contacts. “Text when you’ve finished doing whatever you need to do for your grandmother. I’ll work on the house until I hear from you.”
“If I did come, and I probably won’t because I’m going to be busy, where would we go?”
“Sailing in Gardiner’s Bay, the way we always used to.”
And she would come, he was sure of it. Fliss loved the water too much to say no. The first time he’d taken her and her sister out on a boat was the only time he’d seen Fliss speechless.
She’d stood in the bow, her hair streaming out like a pennant, legs braced against the roll of the boat.
A repeat of that, he hoped, would be enough to tempt her.
Without giving her more time to conjure up more excuses, he whistled for Lulu and strolled back toward the house.
Generally he wasn’t given to keeping score, but if he did he definitely would have won that round.