Chapter Seven

Delilah’s fingers hovered uncertainty over the keypad of her cell phone, every sensible, logical impulse she possessed urging her to go ahead and send the text - the one she should really, really send to Finn with the sole purpose of cancelling their date this weekend. For the life of her, she still couldn’t even begin to explain what insane impulse had convinced her to agree to such a thing. After all, she’d known from the very first time she had seen her handsome manwhore of a neighbor that Finn McManus was bad, bad news.

She set her phone down on her desk, pushing it slightly out of reach, and sighed for perhaps the tenth time this morning. She had made it one of her main goals in life, ever since she’d begun dating at the tender age of fifteen, to steer clear of men like Finn - men who reminded her all too well of the one man who’d not only broken her heart but her spirit as well. And in the thirteen plus years since that awful time in her life, a time when the hits had just kept coming one after the other, Delilah had been diligent about avoiding men who liked to flirt just a little too much, or the ones who had a different woman every week, and definitely the ones who never seemed to take much of anything seriously. The fact that her annoyingly persistent neighbor fit all three of those descriptions should be setting off warning bells in her brain right now, screaming “Danger! Danger!” at full volume.

But she still had a soft heart deep down, despite the cool, no-nonsense, and controlled image she presented to most of the world. Desiree, her older sister and oftentimes surrogate mother, liked to scold her about worrying too much about hurting people’s feelings, and chided her about the need to toughen up and protect her emotions - especially from known heartbreakers like Finn McManus.

Delilah shuddered to imagine her sister’s reaction when she learned about this upcoming date with Finn. Desi would shriek and lecture and nearly go off the deep end, as she so frequently did when it came to protecting her little sister. And there was no point in lying to Desi, or keeping the news from her. As Delilah had come to realize over the years, her sister had an uncanny knack, some hidden sixth sense even, about finding certain things out. Delilah had grumbled more than once over the years that Desi should have been a private detective or a spy instead of an investment banker.

And if Delilah was discriminating about what type of men she dated, being extremely careful to only the date the ones she was supremely confident she could control, then Desiree was on a whole different level entirely. She’d acquired such a reputation as an infamous, ruthless ballbreaker that it was rare for her to even get a date nowadays. Delilah didn’t consider herself anywhere near as tough as her sister, even if her pain-in-the-ass PA Calvin frequently called her a maneater.

Delilah snickered now as she tried to imagine the horror-stricken look that would have appeared on her sister’s face if Desi had seen the way Finn had looked on that very first morning - unshaven, his longish dirty blond hair uncombed, bare chested, barefoot, and wearing only a pair of ripped, faded jeans that had rested low enough on his hipbones to make it apparent he was commando beneath the denim. He’d had that sleepy, sexy look in his eyes, that dreamy grin that more or less advertised the fact that he had just tumbled out of bed, and that he hadn’t done so alone.

And then, of course, there had been the alluring, raven-haired beauty who’d been clinging to Finn for dear life. Delilah had thought derisively that there was no way in hell she would ever be that needy or possessive over a man, would never give one the satisfaction of mooning over one as Finn’s pretty bedmate had done that morning. She knew without having to ask that he’d never seen that woman again, largely because he had had a completely different female hanging all over him the next time she’d run into him, but also because he simply wasn’t the sort of man who actually had relationships.

‘But then again, Delilah, neither do you,’ she told herself. ‘You date - sometimes the same man a few times as long as he doesn’t get too pushy or clingy. You have sex - on occasion, and nowhere near as often as that twit Calvin thinks you do. But let’s face it, girl - you’ve spent far more late nights with your sewing machine than you ever have with a man. So who are you to judge Finn for his lifestyle when you’re just as much of a commitment-phobe as he is? Probably even more so.’

And while she had zero idea about Finn’s background or family, save the fact that they owned a construction company, and even less idea about why he shied away from long term relationships, she knew very, very well why she and Desiree had always done the exact same thing.

The two sisters had grown up not far from San Francisco in Orinda, an affluent suburb about fifteen miles east of the city. The public schools they had attended had been among the highest rated in the state. The family had lived in a spacious, elegantly furnished house complete with its own pool, and their parents had employed both a housekeeper and a gardener. Desiree and Delilah had never wanted for anything, had been indulged and spoiled and treated like little princesses. They had taken not just piano lessons but also ballet, gymnastics, and art classes. The girls had been treated to extravagant, professionally planned birthday parties, vacations in Hawaii, Disneyland, and the Caribbean, and their socialite mother Marina had bought all of their clothes from only the most exclusive children’s shops. The sisters had had an almost idyllically happy childhood, carefree and completely absent of any sort of worry or trouble. And if their pretty but fragile mother could oftentimes be a little high strung or nervous, then their handsome, charming father would be there to smooth things over and make everything happy again.

Daniel Ferris had been a very successful corporate attorney, the senior partner at a well established law firm in San Francisco, and everyone who’d met him - male and female alike - had been irresistibly drawn to his good looks, charismatic personality, and larger than life presence. He had always been immaculately groomed, his dark hair perfectly cut and styled, his nails neatly trimmed and buffed, his face clean shaven. He’d had an extensive wardrobe of designer suits, coordinating shirts and ties, and dozens of pairs of shoes. Even his more casual attire had still been carefully chosen and coordinated, whether he’d been hosting a barbeque at his home, playing a round of golf at the private country club he belonged to, or swimming in the pool with his beloved daughters.

Delilah’s earliest memories of her adored father had been of a tall, strong man who loved picking up and cuddling both of his daughters, and who always smelled of some sort of tangy aftershave or cologne. He had represented comfort and love and laughter to Delilah and Desiree, especially when their mother would develop one of her headaches or other ailments and retreat into the privacy of her bedroom for hours at a time. The girls had eagerly anticipated their father’s arrival home from his office every evening, waiting for him at the front door, and squealing with delight when he’d spun them around in a circle and given them a kiss hello.

He had always traveled a great deal for work, though most of his trips had been relatively short in duration, and he had never failed to bring both of his daughters some small gift home. Holidays had been celebrated with great fanfare, especially Christmas, and the girls had been thoroughly spoiled with all of the gifts they’d received.

Delilah wasn’t quite sure when their seemingly perfect, happy life had begun to unravel a little at a time - one exposed lie at a time. She had probably been around eight or nine years old when she’d first noticed that Daddy was arriving home a little later each night from work - often missing dinnertime, and sometimes getting there too late to kiss her and Desiree good night and read them a bedtime story, as he had done since they were very small girls. The frequent business trips that had previously only lasted a few days or a week at the most were now two weeks at a time or even longer. Whereas before Daniel had rarely if ever missed one of his daughter’s piano or ballet recitals or a school play or teacher conference, he gradually began to skip more and more of them.

And while Marina had always been more than a little on the fragile and emotional side, she looked increasingly sad and could frequently be found with tears in her eyes. She had always been fashionably slim, but now her slight frame had become almost emaciated. Pride had dictated that she continued to dress fashionably, make sure that her hair and makeup and accessories were perfect, but there was a hollowness in her gaze, an emptiness in her expression that had alarmed Delilah, even though at her young age she had no real idea of what was wrong with her mother.

Desiree, however, had always been the more perceptive of the two sisters, and certainly the bossier and more controlling of the two. At the age of eleven, she had been well aware of the reasons behind both Daniel’s increased absences and Marina’s deepening despair and bouts of depression. And despite her own tender age, Desiree’s maternal instincts had obliged her to shield her younger sister from what was really going on in their previously happy home, as well as tend to their mother, soothing Marina as best as she could.

But Delilah had been persistent, wanting to know what was going on, and annoyed that her older sister was keeping secrets from her, was overprotecting her and pretending that everything was fine - when even an innocent eight-year-old like Delilah knew better. It wasn’t until Delilah was nearly ten years old, however, that an exasperated Desiree finally told her the truth - a truth that had broken her heart, and forever altered her previous impression of her father.

Daniel had apparently been a serial cheater - a man who loved women just a little too much, women other than his wife, and who found it far too easy to attract as many willing women as he desired. He’d slept with both employees and clients of his law firm, with women in their neighborhood and members of the country club, and likely with whomever he met on his increasingly frequent business trips. Early on in his marriage, and while the girls were very young, he’d been more discreet, though Marina had always suspected he’d been unfaithful.

But as the years had gone by, as his daughters had grown older, and his disenchantment with his fragile wife increased, Daniel had become bolder, more brazen, and hadn’t seemed to care who knew about his numerous infidelities. It was as though he was living a separate life now from his wife and daughters, coming and going exactly as he pleased, and not seeming to care that he was a married man.

Of course, at the innocent age of ten, Delilah wouldn’t have been able to understand much of the truth about her philandering father, wasn’t quite ready for any sort of formal sex education. Desiree, therefore, had couched the truth quite a bit, merely telling her little sister that Mama was sad because she had found out that Daddy was kissing and hugging other women, and spending time with them instead of Mama. Delilah had asked her sister if this meant their parents were going to get a divorce, like several of their friends’ parents had done, but Desiree had simply told her not to worry about it.

Delilah would learn later that the main reason Daniel had never seriously pursued divorcing Marina was because of the financial implications involved. In a community property state like California, a divorce would have meant handing over half of his assets to his wife, as well as continuing to pay her alimony and child support since she had never worked.

And when Delilah did learn more about sex, she realized that her father was doing far more than simply kissing other women or taking them out to dinner - he was sleeping with them, having affairs, and consequently putting more and more of a distance between himself and what had once been his happy family of girls. Desiree still tried to shield her from the worst of it, but Delilah was both intelligent and resourceful, and by the time she’d turned fifteen she was as revolted by their father’s actions as her older sister had been for quite some time.

And her fifteenth year was also the one when everything finally came to a head - when everything had begun to spiral downwards at an alarmingly fast pace, so fast that Delilah’s head had spun from the cruelty of fate. Daniel had fallen in love with his most recent mistress - this one a twenty-four-year-old blonde who also happened to be pregnant with his child. The young woman had set her foot down, insisting that he divorce Marina and marry her, and Daniel had shockingly capitulated – willing to give up half of his wealth for the sake of his mistress and unborn child. Marina had been in hysterics at the rather casual announcement, while the girls had cried and pleaded with their father not to break up their family.

But it had been to no avail, and Daniel had taken very little time to pack up his belongings and move into the condo he’d bought for his mistress in San Francisco. Marina had been inconsolable, vacillating between bouts of depression so deep that she hadn’t emerged from her bed for a week at a time, and crying jags that went on and on until she literally made herself ill. Desiree and Delilah were at a loss as to how to help their mother, while at the same time dealing with their own sadness at their father’s betrayal.

And then their lives had gone from bad to worse in the space of a few hours. Delilah had been the one to find her mother’s cold, lifeless body, sprawled facedown on the bed her soon-to-be ex-husband no longer shared with her. The bottle of sedatives that the doctor had prescribed to help calm her down had been empty, and even while Delilah had called 9-1-1 with a trembling hand she had already known her mother was dead.

Their aunt Meredith, Marina’s younger sister, had come to stay with her nieces for a couple of months, helping them to get through the worst of their grief and shock. Daniel had been too caught up in settling in with his mistress and preparing for the arrival of their baby to be of much help to his daughters, and since they had blamed him for Marina’s death anyway, relations between them were strained at best. He had rather grudgingly permitted them to remain in the big house in Orinda rather than selling it outright, given that it was Desiree’s senior year of high school. But that had been only a temporary arrangement, given that Meredith’s career as an artist wouldn’t allow her to stay away from her studio in Laguna Beach indefinitely.

It was Desiree who had taken charge at that point, who had declared that rather than attend college at one of her top choices - Columbia, Georgetown, or Duke - she would remain local and enroll at St. Mary’s College in nearby Moraga instead. That way, she’d reasoned, Delilah could continue at the same high school, and wouldn’t have to be separated from all of her friends. Plus, she had pointed out, she and her sister could continue to support each other as they learned to cope with their new living arrangements.

Delilah had fought her sister tooth and nail on the matter, insisting that Desiree shouldn’t have to sacrifice her hopes and dreams, that it wasn’t fair for her to settle for something less. Meredith had agreed at first, offering to let Delilah live with her until she, too, was ready to head off to college. But the girls had spent enough time visiting their aunt in southern California to know that Meredith simply wasn’t suited to be a surrogate parent, kind and well-meaning as she was. Her life was her art, and she could lose herself in a project for days at a time, barely remembering to sleep and eat on a regular basis. Despite her assurances to the contrary, she wouldn’t have the time to devote to Delilah, and would likely end up resenting the intrusion into her carefully ordered life before too long.

Daniel had rather cold-heartedly talked about sending Delilah to some fancy boarding school back East, where she would not know a single person, but would at least be in closer proximity to wherever Desiree was attending college. Holidays and summers hadn’t been discussed, but Delilah knew there was no possible way she would ever consent to spending them with her father and homewrecker of a stepmother. Desiree, too, balked at the very idea of shipping her little sister off like unwanted baggage to a strange town in a part of the country where she had never lived, and had calmly taken matters into her own hands.

With Meredith’s support, Desiree had set out her demands to her father with a cold, no-nonsense precision that had belied her eighteen years - not only would he pay every penny of college and graduate school tuition for both herself and Delilah, as well as all of their other living expenses, but he would buy them a smaller house in Orinda where they could live, at least until Delilah turned eighteen. Neither of the girls had any desire to remain in the big house, where bad memories haunted them at every turn.

Daniel had agreed to his older daughter’s demands with a reluctant admiration, telling her that she should really consider a career in law instead of investment banking, given her skill at negotiation. Desiree had coldly retorted that she had zero desire to be anything like him, and that she’d rather clean toilets than ever share his profession. He’d had the good graces to look properly shamefaced at her reproach, and had mumbled over and over about how sorry he was that everything had turned out this way.

So despite Delilah’s continued protests that she wasn’t going to allow Desiree to give up her dreams for the sole purpose of looking after her little sister, that was exactly what happened. Desiree enrolled at St. Mary’s College, a truly beautiful campus with a fine academic ranking, but admittedly not in the same league as a Georgetown or a Columbia. Desiree brushed aside her sister’s worries and concerns, insisting that Delilah not feel even one ounce of guilt or remorse, and reminding her on a regular basis that the only person who should feel responsible for the situation they found themselves in was their father.

A father whom they gradually began to see less and less of as the months and years passed. He was far too wrapped up, it seemed, settling in with his new wife - whom he’d hastily married a scant month before she gave birth - and their baby boy. Since he lived in San Francisco now, he seldom made the half hour drive east to see his daughters, and they in turn felt unwelcomed by their stepmother - a woman who was less than a decade older than Desiree. The sisters preferred to spend holidays with Meredith, and by the time Delilah graduated from high school they were only seeing their father a handful of times a year at most.

Delilah’s guilt over Desiree’s change in college plans surfaced anew when it was time to choose a college of her own three years later. She’d known for more than two years that she wanted to study fashion design, and had initially decided to remain in the Bay Area to attend school. But it had been Desiree who’d pushed her to go to New York instead, insisting that the Fashion Institute of Technology was consistently ranked as one of the top schools in that field. Her ultimate decision to attend school on the East coast had been helped along by the facts that in doing so she would finally free Desiree from any obligation she felt to take care of her, and that Desiree herself - after finishing her undergraduate degree in only three years - would finally achieve her own dreams by attending graduate school at Columbia.

The house they’d occupied in Orinda since their mother’s death had been sold, and the bulk of their furnishings and other belongings put in storage as they had headed to the East coast. Even though both sisters were attending schools in New York City, they had agreed to live separately, especially since Delilah would be residing in on-campus housing for her freshman year. But they made it a point to meet up for dinner or brunch at least twice a week, and having her older sister just a short subway ride away had made leaving home and getting used to life in a new city much easier for Delilah.

Two years later, however, when Desiree had completed her masters degree, she made the decision to return to the San Francisco Bay Area where she’d received a job offer too lucrative to pass up. She’d worried and fretted over leaving Delilah on her own in New York, even after Delilah had dryly pointed out numerous times that she was twenty now, not fifteen, and had been living here for two years. Secretly, she’d been all too glad for the separation, having found her sister’s intense overprotectiveness more than she could handle, and had heaved a sigh of relief to finally be on her own. Living on separate coasts, however, hadn’t stopped Desiree from checking up on her younger sister on a daily basis - at least until Delilah had firmly set her foot down. They’d had something of a blow-up, their first really big fight, but Desiree had somewhat reluctantly backed off and agreed that Delilah didn’t need a keeper any longer.

Delilah had remained in New York for about a year after completing her degree, working first at a small fashion design firm, and then at a high-end boutique specializing in petite attire, before making the decision to return to California. She missed her sister and her aunt, and wasn’t sure she could handle even one more East coast winter, not to mention the hot, humid summers. Delilah had used the money left to her in trust from her mother’s family to start her own design firm, and to buy a tiny one-bedroom condo, having gently but firmly refused Desiree’s offer to room with her or buy a place together. As much as Delilah loved her sister, and as grateful as she would always be for everything Desiree had sacrificed after the breakup of their parents’ marriage and their mother’s suicide, she had come to cherish her privacy these past couple of years, and living under her older sister’s too-watchful eye wasn’t something that appealed in the least.

Maintaining separate residences, however, hadn’t prevented Desiree from continuing to overprotect or give unwanted advice to her little sister even to this day. And that advice more frequently than not involved the men in Delilah’s life. She couldn’t count how many times Desiree had drilled it into her to be careful who she trusted, to really get to know a man before she let him get too close, and, of course, to never, ever date someone who was too much like their notorious womanizer of a father.

This, of course, was all advice that Delilah had never needed to be given, not by her sister or by anyone else. She’d learned those painful lessons all on her own, having observed first hand the anguish her mother had suffered because of her father’s constant cheating, had lived through the breakup of their family and the destruction of their once-happy home. Since she had begun dating back in high school, she had always been careful, always been discriminating about the men in her life, never letting any of them too close, and certainly not permitting any of them to control her in any way. And, sadly, she had never allowed herself to fall in love with any of them, because it was her firm belief that doing so would only leave her vulnerable and exposed, the risk of having her heart broken or her love betrayed too high to consider.

And up until now, she had been extremely selective about the type of men she dated - preferring well-educated, well-mannered, well-groomed men who were neither too aggressive, talkative, or flirtatious, and who seemed more than content to let her lay down the ground rules in their all-too-brief relationships. Delilah had admittedly broken more than a few hearts over the past several years, had probably even earned - at least to a degree - the “maneater” moniker that her sassy PA had bestowed upon her. But at least her own heart had remained protected, her own emotions intact, and she had kept good on the promise she and Desiree had made to each other more than thirteen years ago - to never, ever let themselves fall so deeply under a man’s spell that they would be left vulnerable and needy, the way their mother had been during her marriage to Daniel Ferris, and how she had been so completely devastated when he had finally ended things. It was the main reason that - up until now, at least - Delilah had never given the time of day to any man who reminded her even a little of her philandering father.

And it was the reason why she should really, really send that text to Finn McManus and cancel their upcoming date. Because she’d known the moment their eyes had first met that he had the potential of breaking her heart into even tinier pieces than her father had once done.