Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
K ate
I drive up the long road to the King house and can’t help but remember the first time Ronan brought me here to meet his family. I was so nervous. Probably about as scared as I am right now, even though Ava was thrilled to hear from me and loved my idea of coming over to see her. She has to know I’m really hoping to see Ronan, but she’s still kind to invite me to her house.
As I shut off the engine, I see the woman Ava told me about walk out the kitchen door. What was her name? Something witchy. Blair? No, that doesn’t sound right. What’s another name that seems like a witch would have it? Samantha? No, that’s not it either.
She stares at me as I get out of the car, and I wish I could remember her name. Whoever she is, she’s pretty. Blond hair and although I can’t see what color her eyes are, I’d bet a hundred bucks they’re blue. She actually looks like a stereotypical babysitter Hollywood might cast.
I walk in her direction while I rack my brain to remember her name. Nothing.
“Hi! Are you looking for Ava?” she asks in a perky voice absolutely fitting for a babysitter. “She’s inside with little Theo in the kitchen.”
Sensing my opportunity to have her tell me her name, I extend my hand to shake hers and say, “Hi, I’m Kate.”
“I’m Sabrina,” she chirps.
Sabrina! That’s the name Ava told me. I seriously need to work on remembering people’s names better from now on.
“Hi, Sabrina. It’s nice to meet you. Ava’s in the kitchen? I’ll just scoot on in and say hi,” I say in my schoolteacher voice.
She smiles, and I can’t help but notice she’s really quite pretty. Even more, I was wrong about her eyes. They’re deep brown, not blue, and they resemble Ronan’s. Something about her reminds me of the girls I went to high school with. Not the ones I hung out with since I was a nerd, but the cheerleader type. I sort of want to ask her if she went to the same prep school Ronan and I did, but I stop myself.
Eleanor is just inside the door when I poke my head in, and she brightens up the moment she sees me. “Kate! Come in! Ava just went upstairs to put Theo down for his nap. I tell you those two boys keep us on our toes here. Thank God she hired someone, or I’m not sure we’d be able to handle it. I’m not as young as I was when Ronan and his brothers were little boys.”
I point toward the kitchen door and nod. “I met Sabrina outside. She seems very nice. I hope she works out because two little boys so young are a handful.”
The housekeeper rolls her eyes. “I’d forgotten how much work babies are. Between the two of us, it was like we never got to rest. Matthias has tried to help too, of course, but he’s busy running King Industries again, so he has to spend much of his time with that. Would you like a soda or some iced tea?”
Pulling out one of the kitchen chairs from under the table, I smile at her offer. “Oh, I would love an iced tea. It’s so hot already today, and we haven’t even gotten to the heat of the afternoon.”
As I sit down, I notice a plate with food and a can of soda sitting on the far end of the table. The meal looks like it might be a turkey sandwich with corn chips on the side.
“I didn’t interrupt your lunch, did I, Eleanor?” I ask, immediately worried I’m bothering her.
She looks at me oddly for a moment before noticing I’m staring at the food. “Oh, no. That’s not mine. It’s Ronan’s.”
Eager to have the chance to see him again, I ask, “Would you like me to take it up to him? It would be no bother, and it would give you a chance to sit down and rest for a bit.”
I watch her shake her head before she sets my glass of iced tea down in front of me. Taking a seat beside me, she leans toward me slightly and whispers, “We’re not taking his food up to him anymore. Ava told me yesterday that from now on we aren’t to go to his room at all, unless he asks us to. So he had to come down for breakfast this morning, and I’m assuming he’ll come down for lunch at any time now. I have to say I’m having a hard time not running it right up to him, though. Old habits die hard.”
Assuming Ava is trying to help Ronan by forcing him to come down to the kitchen for meals, I nod at what Eleanor says, even as I try to temper my disappointment at not having the opportunity to see him alone. Hopefully, he’ll come down for his lunch while I’m here and I can try to talk to him then.
Ava walks in just as the housekeeper finishes talking and sits down across from me looking exhausted. “I have no idea how Matthias’s mother did this. She had two kids close together and then had another one and then a couple years later had two more close together. I’ve only got two, but I swear Theo and Matty are more than I can handle. Thank God for Eleanor here and now Sabrina.”
“How about a nice cold soda full of caffeine for you?” Eleanor says with a chuckle. “It’s just what you need to keep yourself awake.”
Relieved, Ava smiles. “Better make it a double, bartender.”
Eleanor hurries away to the refrigerator to get the soda, and I say, “I met your new helper outside as I was arriving. I’m glad you have someone to assist you. My mother says having two kids back to back was the hardest thing she’d ever done. There’s only a year between my sister and me, so she had it like you do now.”
Taking the can of soda from the housekeeper, Ava chugs a few gulps and then lets out a huge burp. Embarrassed, she blushes and shakes her head. “Sorry. I’ve gotten so used to kids being able to belch that I’ve forgotten my manners.”
I laugh, not bothered at all that she’s so down-to-earth. “It’s not worth mentioning. You’re in your own house, so you can do as you like.”
That seems to make her feel better, and she sinks back against the chair like this is the first break she’s had all day. “Matthias says that all the time, but nobody cares when men walk around burping and acting like pigs. When a woman does it, she gets looks and people wonder what’s wrong with her.”
I wave away her worries. “I say do as you like in your own home. If anyone has an issue with it, they can leave, right?”
“Right!” she says, raising her can of soda. “But if I’m being honest, I’d love it if I was the kind of mother who always looks so put together and never burps or makes any weird noises. I don’t know why I’m not like those Instagram moms. I guess I just don’t have the perfect girl genes.”
“Forget Instagram,” Eleanor chimes in from across the room at the sink. “All of that’s fake anyway. Instagram, Facebook, TikTok. All phony. None of those mothers are actually like that. And anyway, what kind of person uses their babies as props like they do?”
Ava and I look at each other, and I smile at Eleanor’s on-point criticism of social media. “She’s right, you know. I say you’re doing great. Forget those Instagram moms.”
“Thanks. That’s what Matthias said when I mentioned it the other day. He’s never on there, so he has no idea what I’m talking about, but as far as he’s concerned, we’re doing fine with the boys. We could use a little more sleep, but other than that, they’re healthy and happy little boys.”
Curious if my guess about where Sabrina attended high school was correct, I ask, “Sabrina reminded me of girls from where we all went to school. Did she go there too?”
Ava shakes her head and takes another gulp of soda. “I don’t think so. I don’t remember seeing the name on her application. I think she went to a different school further upstate. She’s not from around here. I think she’s from near Albany. Then again, my memory doesn’t seem to be as good as it used to be, so I could be wrong. Mommy brain fog.”
“That’s the lack of sleep. It’ll do it to you every time.”
Footsteps coming down the hall make my heart skip a beat, and a few seconds later, Ronan appears in the kitchen. Dressed in black shorts and a white t-shirt, he looks like he just showered before coming down to get his food. He still has that horribly bushy beard that desperately needs a trim, but he looks much better than he did when I saw him the other day.
But I also notice he’s hiding his right arm behind his back.
He glances at me before turning his attention to Ava. “I didn’t know you two were friends.”
An edge under his words make me worry he’s angry I’m here, but Ava quickly puts me at ease when she says, “We weren’t until recently. Would you like to join us? We’re just sitting around talking and burping.”
She throws her head back and laughs, and Eleanor and I chuckle along with her, but Ronan doesn’t even smile. Maybe if he knew what she was referring to he would, so I attempt to clear it up for him.
“The soda made Ava belch really loudly. That’s what she means by us talking and burping.”
My explanation falls flat, and he doesn’t even seem to listen as I speak. Turning his attention to the plate and soda at the other end of the table, he asks, “Is that mine?”
Eleanor can’t stop herself from those old habits, so she picks up the plate and soda can and walks it over to where he’s standing. “It is. I made you a turkey sandwich and put some of those corn chips you like on the side. I didn’t put any mayonnaise on because I didn’t want to make the bread soggy since I know you don’t like that. I can put it on now since you’re going to eat it soon. Would you like me to?”
He listens to her kind words that show she’s trying so hard to be considerate and thoughtful and then turns on his heel to leave with his lunch. “No. It’s fine.”
And that’s it for our time with Ronan. Not exactly a positive step in any good direction, unfortunately.
The three of us don’t say a word for nearly a minute before Eleanor finally breaks the silence. “It practically tears my heart out to see him hurting like this. I miss the happy person he always was.”
Ava and I look at each other, and she says, “I bet no one misses that guy more than you. You and he were closer than anyone in this world for years.”
Nodding, I want to say so much, but I simply agree and quietly answer, “He was my best friend in addition to my boyfriend. I could tell Ronan anything. I couldn’t have gotten luckier than to have him as my first real boyfriend.”
It sounds silly saying it like that now that I’m a grown woman in my mid-twenties, but that’s what Ronan was to me. We weren’t just dating. We were there for one another through thick and thin. I thought we’d be like that forever.
Reaching her hands across the table, Ava takes mine in hers and gives them a sympathetic squeeze. “I know he was crazy in love with you. Theo used to tell me how you two were together constantly.”
I smile, remembering how frustrated his brothers’ opinions on our closeness made Ronan. “He hated that they teased him about us. I used to tell him they just weren’t used to seeing their baby brother with a girlfriend.”
She takes a deep breath in and lets it out as a heavy sigh. “Theo was probably the worst at teasing him.”
With a chuckle, I correct her. “Actually, it was your husband who gave him the hardest time.”
“Of course!” she says, laughing. “Matthias was the world’s biggest hater of anything regarding romance or love back then. Thank God he’s changed, or I’d be married to a very miserable man.”
That right there gives me hope that maybe things can change for Ronan too. Matthias used to be a real bastard, but now he’s a wonderful husband to Ava and doting father to their two little boys. Can that change happen for Ronan?
I don’t know, but I can hope. The problem is if I don’t ever get the chance to talk to him, I’m not sure I’ll get to be a part of that change I want to see for him.
“Even though it’s none of my business, and feel free to tell me exactly that, I’m wondering what happened to break you two up,” Ava says.
If she or anyone else asked me that right after I broke up with Ronan, I would have burst into tears. He had no idea how he broke my heart when he cheated on me. I couldn’t even hear his name without feeling like I’d lost my entire world.
Thankfully, I can talk about it now with at least a little detachment. It still hurts to think about, but I forgave him a long time ago.
Not wanting to paint him as a son of a bitch, I choose my words carefully as I answer her question. “I think he and I grew apart because we were going to different colleges. He went far enough away that I couldn’t see him as much as I used to. People drift apart, and he ended up with someone else.”
It’s taken me years to master the ability of saying that instead of blurting out the oh-so-painful words he cheated on me . That may be the truth, but he’s got enough to deal with now. He doesn’t need anyone looking at him and judging a mistake he made years ago.
But Ava sees right through my attempt at being diplomatic and says, “He cheated on you? Of all the people in the world, Ronan is one of the few men I’d say would never do that to someone he loved, and I know he loved you.”
Well, now that it’s out there for everyone to know, I guess I don’t have to act like I’m working for the U.N. I don’t want to bash him, though. I understand what happened. It still makes me sad, but I understand.
“We were young. He was away and on his own for the first time in his life, and he was having a good time. I guess that good time went a little too far one night.”
I stop, unsure I should mention who he cheated with, even though her name is practically tattooed on my mind. It doesn’t really matter now, but since Ava and I attended the same school and she was just two years ahead of Ronan and me, she might be curious to know.
“It was Amanda Isaacson,” I quietly add.
A look of instant recognition fills Ava’s expression as she stares at me like she can’t believe I just said that very name. “Amanda Isaacson? The girl who got the nose job and who bragged about it constantly? As if having an operation was anything to brag about. That girl?”
I nod as all those feelings from back then come rushing back. “Yep. Do you know when Ronan and I first started dating she told me she’d wanted him for a while? Who says that to someone?”
“A petty bitch. I wish my friend Eden was here. She could tell you chapter and verse about Miss Amanda Isaacson. They had a habit of liking the same guys in school, and it irritated Eden to no end that some underclassman always thought she had a chance with guys our age.” Ava stops for a moment and smiles. “Actually, it’s good she isn’t here because she’d have nothing nice to say about her.”
“Well, I forgave Ronan. He was young, away at school, and it never surprised me that other girls liked him. He was Ronan King. All the things that made me crazy about him were obvious to everyone, so why shouldn’t they want him?”
That sounds far more secure than I’ve ever been, but it’s true. I knew how good I had it when he was mine. Maybe somewhere deep in my mind I knew he’d eventually end up going with other girls. I was just little old me, Kate Abbott. Other than making great grades, I wasn’t anyone special.
He made me feel like I was, though.
“You guys have talked since you broke up, right?
“Yeah, a few times. I made sure to call him when his father and Theo passed. We fell out of touch, though, after that. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought about what if I’d been around and called him that night of his accident. Maybe he wouldn’t have been on that particular stretch of the Taconic. Maybe we would have been hanging out at that coffee shop we loved catching up on old times instead of him driving that night.”
Again, Ava reaches over and touches my hand to give it a squeeze. “You can’t think like that. It was an accident that should have never happened, but you didn’t do anything to make it happen. Nobody did but that damn drunk driver, who of course, walked away from the accident with barely a scratch.”
Across the room, Eleanor says, “Matthias told me the lawsuit against him is going well. I hope they get the bastard. Pardon my French.”
Ava agrees with her but adds that getting money from the guy isn’t going to change things. The Kings have billions. A few million more isn’t going to make Ronan’s hand reappear. It’s just money, and when all you want is something money can’t buy, winning some lawsuit doesn’t really matter much.
I wish so much I could do something to help him get back what he lost.