CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Alec wasn’t surprised when Harry walked into his office that afternoon. “I already told you, just because I didn’t make it to your place last night doesn’t mean I’ve bailed on cooking for Dad’s party. I’m still holding up my end of the bargain.”
“I’m not here about the party,” Harry said.
Now Alec was surprised. “What’s up, then?”
“You tell me.” People often mistook Harry for a soft touch. But beneath that brilliant academic exterior, Alec knew his brother could be hard as nails.
“Just business as usual,” Alec replied, though it was as far from the truth as things got. Not only was he working on an exit plan from his company, but Cordelia was never far from his thoughts.
“What about Cordelia? Was she just business?”
How could his brother think that? A rush of fury had him answering before he could stop himself. “You know she wasn’t.” No, he wouldn’t let her be past tense. Not yet. “She isn’t.”
“If I knew,” Harry said, “I wouldn’t be here asking you to explain what the hell you’re playing at with her.”
Alec got up from his desk, walked over to the drinks cabinet, poured himself a double shot, and threw it back. He almost never drank in the middle of the day, but at this point he didn’t give a damn about normal. All he wanted was to make it through. Without baring his soul to his brother. And without breaking down and calling Cordelia, begging her to forgive him for being an ass again. Because he knew what she’d expect if he called—she’d want to talk more about his father, want to dig deeper into a mess that was better left untouched.
He put down the glass, then turned to face his brother. “Gordon’s death—it changed everything. Especially when I found out about Cordelia. Even more when I met her.”
“Because you liked her?” Harry asked in his typically insightful way.
“What’s not to like?” Alec knew there was no point in lying about that—not liking Cordelia would be akin to not liking butterflies or rainbows. “That first week, we were both just trying to figure things out. I helped her, she helped me. But now that we’re over the hurdles, we’re getting our normal lives back on track.” He shot his brother a look. “I know you were all wondering what was wrong with me these past couple of weeks, what had happened to the brother you’ve known all these years. Well, those two weeks were a weird blip that’s over now. It’s time to get back to reality.”
“A reality that doesn’t include Cordelia?”
Harry’s words were like a jousting lance straight to Alec’s heart. Just the way he’d won that time Alec had gone up against him in the field. “We’re friends.”
“Friends is good. Although,” Harry had to add, “I’ve never seen you look at a friend the way you look at her.”
“She’s beautiful.” Another thing Alec wouldn’t try to pretend wasn’t true. “Of course I look.”
“You’ve got your pick of beautiful women. Women you couldn’t care less about.” Harry wouldn’t let it go. “But Cordelia means something to you. And I know you must mean something to her, or she wouldn’t have gone to you last night.”
“She’s got a misguided notion that Dad and I are going to make up after all these years,” Alec told his brother. “That’s why she came last night, to try to hammer a heart into me where there isn’t one.”
“She knows about what happened when we were kids?”
“She knows. And she still thinks things can change for me and Dad.”
Harry finally sat, as though the wind had just been taken out of his sails. He took off his glasses and rubbed a hand over his eyes. “You know what drives me crazy about studying history? Everyone always thinks they can look back at the past and say how they would have done things better. How they would have avoided making mistakes. When the truth is, everyone in the past was doing the best they could in the circumstances they were dealing with. Even the people who totally blew it.” He put on his glasses. “I’m not going to say that what Dad did, or how he behaved, was okay. I’m not even going to say that you should forgive him. Neither of those things is up to me. But I can’t leave here until I say something about Cordelia.”
Few people could command Alec’s attention the way his brother could, so he didn’t look away, didn’t move behind his desk. He simply waited.
“She has nothing to do with the past. She didn’t know our mom and dad. She didn’t know you as a child. And yet I still think Cordelia has seen more of the real you than any of us have since you were a kid. Suz and Drake might have been too young to remember what you were like before Mom died, but I remember who you were before everything went dark. Somehow, Cordelia sees that. She sees you. And she’s not someone you can scare away.” With that, Harry got up and headed for the door, but before he left he turned, as though he had one more thing to say. “From where I’m sitting, the past looks a hell of a lot less interesting than the future. Especially if you’re lucky enough to share that future with a woman as great as Cordelia.”
* * *
Cordelia had all of the five-hour drive to the Adirondacks to figure out what she was going to say to William Sullivan. And yet, here she was, standing on his front porch, ringing the doorbell, and she still hadn’t figured it out. She had to stop herself from wiping her sweaty palms on her jeans.
When William opened the door, she was instantly struck by the resemblance between Alec and his father. She hadn’t been with it enough at Gordon’s service to take in very many details about William when Suzanne had pointed him out in the crowd, so she felt as though she were meeting him for the first time.
“Cordelia, I’m glad you called.” He gave her a smile, one tinged with obvious concern. “Come on inside. Or, if you’d like, we can sit on the porch.” He gestured at the vista before them. “It’s a perfect Summer Lake day.”
“The porch would be great.”
“Iced tea work for you?”
She nodded gratefully, her throat feeling parched. God, she was nervous. Nervous about butting into Alec’s life. Nervous about saying the wrong thing. Nervous that she’d read things wrong and that William would end up being just as resistant as Alec to fixing things between them.
He brought out a pitcher and two glasses, and they sat in two Adirondack-style rockers. She decided not to beat around the bush. “You must be wondering why I came.”
“I’m glad you did. I was sorry about what happened to Gordon. And I can only imagine the shock it must have been to find out he was your birth father after all these years.”
She took a large gulp of iced tea. “It was sad. Surprising. But if he hadn’t named me in his will, I wouldn’t have met your son.”
“Alec is the reason you’re here, isn’t he?”
She nodded. “We’ve become friends.”
“Just friends? I know you can’t always trust the press, but from everything I’ve read, it sounds like the two of you are a couple.”
She realized William didn’t know about the plan they’d made for the press conference. He was the only family member who hadn’t been at her cottage the morning the news of her inheritance had hit Page Six. “Alec wanted to pose as my boyfriend to scare off the fortune hunters. I wasn’t sure we should do that, but everyone agreed.”
“Everyone?”
Ugh, she was already putting her foot in it. “Your other kids.” Just as she’d expected, he looked hurt at being left out. “They were all nearby when the news broke that Gordon had left me everything. I’m sure that if you’d been there—”
“You don’t have to pretend for my benefit, Cordelia. I’m left out for a reason.”
She sighed, knowing he was right—there was no point in her having come all the way to Summer Lake if she was going to paint a picture that didn’t exist. “Honestly, I’m not totally sure why I’m here. More than anything, I just wanted to meet you.”
“I wanted to meet you too. Any woman who can claim my eldest son’s heart must be special. Less than five minutes with you and I can see that you are.”
“I haven’t claimed his heart,” she clarified again. “That’s just for the press.”
He didn’t argue with her, but said instead, “He’s claimed yours, hasn’t he?”
She felt her cheeks go hot. “I’m not good at lying, and something tells me you could see through me even if I were, so I won’t try to tell you that he hasn’t.” But she needed him to know the truth. “We’re just going to remain friends. He doesn’t want more, and I would never ask him for it.”
“You drove five hours to meet with me. So why wouldn’t you apply the same determination to winning my son’s heart?”
She knew she had to pick her words carefully. It was one thing to admit that she’d fallen for Alec—and that she would give anything to win his heart. But she didn’t want to hurt William any more than he already was by telling him that he was the reason Alec didn’t believe in happily-ever-afters.
“Some people expect love to be waiting at the end of the rainbow. But for others…” She shook her head, not knowing how to put it any other way. “Others can’t see the rainbow, so they don’t believe there’s a prize waiting for them.”
“It’s my fault,” William said in a grim, guilty voice.
Darn it, this was exactly what she hadn’t wanted him to take away from what she’d just said. “I’m not saying that.”
“You don’t have to. I already know it. I’ve known it for a long time. After my wife died, it took me far too long to climb out of my grief, my shame, to see how big my kids had grown. That they weren’t kids anymore, but adults. And by then, I was so far to the outside of their lives that it seemed impossible to get back in. So I didn’t try. Not really. Not the way I should have.”
“Grief does strange things to people,” she said, wanting to comfort him. “My behavior at Gordon’s service attests to that firsthand. I can’t imagine how difficult it must have been to lose your wife, the mother of your children.”
“I couldn’t keep her here,” William told her in a voice made raw with emotion. “I couldn’t keep her with them. I swear I tried, but no matter what I did or said, no matter how much I pleaded with her, she just kept drifting farther and farther away from us all.” From the look on his face, it was as though time had rewound thirty years and he was back with a wife whose sadness pervaded everything. “For three decades, I’ve tried to wrap my head around what happened. But I still can’t.”
“I’m so sorry, William. I didn’t mean to drag up painful emotions. Forgive me.” She stood. “You’ve been so nice to meet with me. I should go.”
“Please, at least stay for lunch.” She watched as he worked to shake off his grief. “We don’t have to dredge anything else up. But we could still get to know each other better, I hope.” He gave her another one of those smiles that reminded her of Alec’s.
She was never able to resist Alec when he turned on the charm. It turned out she didn’t have much luck resisting his father either. “Okay, that would be nice.”
They went inside and made sandwiches, and though they didn’t talk about anything serious again, the stories William told her about Alec and his siblings playing on the lake, goofing off at school, and clowning around with their cousins, were enough to tell her everything she needed to know.
William Sullivan wanted the very best for Alec. Happiness. Success.
And, most of all, love.