The Sparkling One

She rose and started toward the kitchen. “Are you hungry?” she asked before she could stop herself. Dear God, she was turning into her grandmothers.



“No.”



She collected a bottle of Marcelli Cabernet, an opener, and two glasses, then returned to the living room.



Zach had settled back in the seat, looking male and completely out of place in a house of floral prints, candles, and too many pillows. He half rose when she entered the room. She waved him back to his seat.



“Here, I’ll let you wrestle with the cork,” she said, handing him the bottle.



He studied the label. “Must be nice to have an in with the owner.”



“A family perk.”



While he opened the wine, she seated herself across from him. He poured, then handed her a glass, took one for himself, and held it out toward hers.



“To our complicated relationship,” he said.



She touched the rim of her glass to his and nodded.



“Your place is really nice,” he said.



She glanced around at the dollhouse-size proportions of her house, at the feminine furnishings and the pastel colors. “I doubt it’s much to your liking.”



“Agreed, but it suits you.”



He set his glass on the coffee table between them.



He’d obviously come straight from the office. He still wore his suit slacks and a white shirt. The jacket was gone, as was the tie. Stubble darkened his jaw and his eyes looked weary.



Zach reached for his wine, then dropped his hand to his lap. “I’ve been his father for eighteen years. You’d think I’d do a better job of parenting.”



She frowned. “I was just thinking I happen to know you’re a terrific father.” It was one of the things she liked about him, when he wasn’t making her want to kill him.



“Not lately.” He grimaced. “I was scared to death when he was born, but excited and happy. He was so damn small. Ainsley was useless. She barely got out of bed for the first two weeks, then claimed to always be too tired to take care of him. She didn’t want to try breast-feeding. So it was up to me to do the bottle thing. My mom helped out when she had time.”



Katie couldn’t imagine a woman turning her back on her newborn…or any child, for that matter.



“Weren’t you still in college?” she asked.



“Yeah. And working. Money from my trust fund really helped with things like rent and medical insurance, but it didn’t cover everything.”



He glanced at her. “None of that mattered. David was worth it.”



She leaned toward him. “Then why are you beating yourself up? You obviously love your son. You’ve made countless sacrifices, you’ve always tried to do the right thing. That’s what matters. Grammy M is always telling us that we can only do our best. No one can expect more. The rest is in God’s hands.”



“It’s not that simple.” He straightened slightly and reached for the wine. “A couple of days ago David told me he wanted to talk about transferring to a different college.”



“I thought he really enjoyed UCLA. Why would he want to do that?”



Then she knew, but before she could say anything, Zach spoke.



“Nothing against your sister, Katie. She’s a great girl with a lot of potential. She knows what she wants in life, and while I respect that, I think it’s wrong for David to have to give up his dreams to follow hers.”



Katie didn’t know what to say. Mia’s plans had been set for years. But David was two years behind Katie, and when she graduated, the choices would be either not being together or one of them giving up what he or she wanted. Katie knew her sister had never been very good at compromising her own plans.



“They’re so damn young,” he muttered. “Why can’t he see that? Why can’t he see that he’s potentially screwing up his entire life?” He drank some wine and looked at her. “Unfortunately, that’s what I said to him. I pointed out that I knew exactly what came from taking on responsibility too early. He thinks I blame him for screwing up my life.”



“Ouch,” she said sympathetically. “That can’t have gone over well.”



“You’re right. The hell of it is, I didn’t mean it that way. I don’t regret David or anything that has happened because of him.” He shrugged. “With the possible exception of marrying Ainsley. But he didn’t stick around to hear that. Instead he took off and I haven’t heard from him since.”



Suddenly the dark lines and exhaustion made sense. “You’ve been worried about him,” she said, making it a statement rather than a question.



He nodded. “I’m not worried that something happened to him, but I hate us not being in contact.” He returned his wineglass to the coffee table. “He’s just a kid.”



“So they’ll grow up together. My parents did. They fell in love in high school and they’re happy.”



“We can’t all live in Fantasy Land.”



“It beats your constant pessimism. You could be wrong about this, you know. They may be blissfully happy for the next seventy years.”



His mouth twisted. “Right. Or they could just screw up their lives in four months and have seventy years of regret.”



She’d been basking in the warmth of having him confide in her, but as usual, Zach’s cynical attitude chilled the happy right out of her.



“Not every marriage ends in disaster. Yes, a lot of marriages fail, yes, a lot of young marriages don’t make it, but maybe, for once, you could give your son and my sister the benefit of the doubt.”



“Why? If you see a car coming, don’t you step out of the road rather than get hit?”



She gritted her teeth. “You’re assuming. You don’t know anything for sure.”



“I know David’s seeing someone else.”



Katie stiffened, then sucked in a breath. “What?”



Zach swore and reached for his wine. “Forget I said that.”



She leaned toward him. “I can’t. What do you mean he’s seeing someone else?”



“I don’t know. There’s this girl. Julie. She’s in one of his classes. She was at the house with a bunch of his friends celebrating the semester break. They looked cozy. Later I saw them kissing.”



Cozy? Right. Zach was a smart, smarmy lawyer who would do anything to win his case. She’d wondered why he’d stopped by and now she knew. He would do anything to end the engagement.



“Why don’t you just hire some digital photography studio to doctor naked pictures of David in bed with the entire cheerleading squad?” she demanded. “Wouldn’t that be easier? It’s much more a sure thing.”



His gaze narrowed. “You think I’m lying?”



“You bet. You told me once you’d do anything to keep David and Mia from getting married and you’d do anything to convince me. I figure this is just part of the show.”



He stood and glared at her. “I’m not lying. I haven’t lied about anything. I told you David and I had a fight. He didn’t call me back, so I went to see him at his dorm.”



Katie stood and glared right back. “Let me guess. You found them in bed together. Like I believe that.”



“I found them in the rec room. They were kissing and it looked damned friendly to me.” He raked his fingers through his hair. “Do you think I wanted it to end like this? I like Mia. If David were older and more together, I’d be grateful he’d picked her. I don’t want her hurt.”



Zach’s sincerity and his concern about her sister made Katie wonder if he might be telling the truth. And if he was…then what?



“What did he say when you confronted him?” she asked.



“I didn’t. I left and drove around. Eventually I ended up here.”



She didn’t know what to think or what to believe. If Zach were any other man…if he didn’t love his son quite so much…if he hadn’t told her he would do anything to stop the wedding…



“What are you going to do?” she asked.



“I don’t know. I thought you might have some ideas.”



She looked at him and tried to read the truth in his blue eyes. “You won’t tell her?”



“She’d think what you do. That it’s just a ploy.”



“Would you blame her?”



“No, and I don’t blame you, either.”



He reached out his hand toward her, then shoved it in his pocket.



“I’m gonna head home,” he told her.



She watched him walk to the door and let himself out. When she was alone, she sank back onto the sofa and drew her knees to her chest.



Just when she thought things couldn’t get more complicated, they took a turn for downright confusing. Was David cheating on Mia? If Zach was lying, then he was a worse weasel than she’d thought and she should get herself sanitized after having intimate contact with him. If he was telling the truth, then he was even better than she could have hoped and letting him walk out of her life made her fourteen kinds of stupid.



The worst of it was she didn’t know if sleeping with her had been a spontaneous response to passion, or just one more part of his master plan.



The trick was separating fact from fiction. So where was a crystal ball when she really needed one?



14



M ia sat on the floor in David’s dorm room and watched him pace the small space from the desk to the door.



“I can’t even remember how it started,” David admitted, then crossed to the opposite bed and flopped down on his back. “Then we were just arguing.”



Mia had a feeling that David remembered exactly how the fight with his dad had started, but for some reason he didn’t want to tell her. The fact that he was keeping it a secret bothered her. It wasn’t as if she was going to go all hysterical and start screaming or something. That so wasn’t her style. She also wasn’t pleased that David had taken nearly a week to tell her what was wrong.



She’d known instantly there was a problem, but he’d denied it for the first three days and had refused to talk about it for the next three.



“He said that he didn’t want me screwing up my life the way his life had been screwed up,” David admitted miserably.



Mia crossed to kneel next to the narrow bed. She placed one hand on his chest. “You know what he was trying to say. He’s worried that we’re getting married too young. He wasn’t telling you that you’d ruined his life. David, your dad loves you. Everyone can see that. He’s happy when you’re with him and he’s proud of you.”



“I know.” He turned his head toward her. Tears glistened in his eyes, but he blinked them away. “It hurt right then, you know. But I’m okay with it now. The thing is I kinda thought he was coming around. About the wedding.”



“But he’s not,” Mia said flatly, wondering why she hadn’t figured that out before. Now that David said the words, she realized it was so incredibly obvious.



For a second she thought about getting mad. It was totally insulting in a way. But she knew in her heart David’s dad wasn’t mad that David wanted to marry her—he would have gone ballistic about David marrying anyone.



“What happened when you talked to him later?” she asked.



David sat up and cleared his throat. “What time is it? Are you hungry?”



Mia stared at him. “You haven’t talked to him, have you?”



David wouldn’t meet her gaze. “I’ve been busy.”



She rolled her eyes. “Has he tried to talk to you?”



“I think he might have called. I don’t remember.”



Translation—Zach had been trying to get in touch with his son for days. Mia felt frustration bubbling to the surface.



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