Arlo #4
“Of course,” he said, his smile faltering slightly, but he didn’t waste a second heading toward the room Amelia had disappeared into when we’d first arrived.
When he returned, Matilda didn’t miss a beat. “I’ve been told you’re the reason for the house’s decor. I must say that it’s absolutely beautiful. Your hard work has paid off perfectly, if you ask me.”
Eric looked a little surprised as he sat beside his wife. “Oh, well, thank you. It’s a rather expensive hobby, but it passes the time.”
“Well, it was time well spent if you ask me. Ward was telling me you also have a conservatory on the grounds?”
“I...we do,” he said, and I watched his gaze flicker toward his wife when he corrected himself. “It’s a hobby I picked up from my mother, who had quite the green thumb. I’ve had to work harder than she ever did, but it’s lovely out there.”
“I would love to see it,” she said earnestly. “The city has one, of course, but seeing a private one would be a special treat.”
“If there’s time after dinner,” Amelia said. I felt an internal twitch of displeasure when I saw the way Eric and Matilda deflated slightly at the obvious tone of dismissal.
“She fights with every inch of her being to keep plants alive to...uh, not so great effect,” I admitted to Eric with a smile. “But she loves to see other people’s work.”
I glanced at Ward, who hadn’t been watching his mother for once but his father, with a slight frown.
I didn’t know enough about their relationship, save that they barely had one.
The few times he’d mentioned his father, I felt he was neither fond nor unhappy with him, but simply ambivalent.
If anything, I had been struck by the feeling that he was almost dismissive of his father.
And while I didn’t think it was fair, I could see why Ward might come to that conclusion.
Obviously, they were not a power couple sitting at the table with us, or a marriage of loving equals as with Marcus and Matilda.
Amelia dominated their relationship in all aspects.
Even a chance for her rather meek husband to shine under someone else’s attention has been quashed in a heartbeat, ground under her expensive heel as if it were a particularly irritating bug.
The first round of food arrived on a cart pushed by the same small woman as before.
She ducked her head as she served the soup and then the salad to Amelia and Eric.
She looked up when Matilda thanked her for the food, but to me and Marcus, she kept her eyes averted.
She managed a small smile when Ward thanked her by name, but was back to her quiet self when she wheeled the cart out of the room.
“So, the two of you are together now?” Eric asked as he waited for Amelia to poke her fork into the greens on her plate. “I mean in a more official sense.”
Ward and I glanced at one another; the subject hadn’t been one that we’d discussed fully. His eyes searched mine for a minute before smirking. “I suppose you could say that, yes.”
“You suppose?” Amelia asked once she had chewed and swallowed. “I thought you were being more...dedicated this time.”
“We’re taking things as they come,” I said before Ward could bite out a response. “We’ve both discussed our situation enough to know that we’re interested in one another, and only each other. But we haven’t put any title or label on things yet.”
“Yet? So it’s inevitable.”
“It seems that way, to me at least.”
“And me,” Ward added.
Amelia leaned back. “Then why not simply cut out the waiting time and commit? It seems pointless to parade yourselves around like you were single but playacting at being in a committed relationship.”
“Oh,” Matilda said, chuckling after taking a drink. “That’s how a lot of people do things nowadays.”
“Yes, I’ve noticed, and some people take longer than others to make that commitment,” Amelia said coolly. “It certainly wasn’t how it was done when I was of an age to date.”
“Same as me,” Matilda said brightly. “But times change, and so does everything else. It’s hard to say what’s right and what’s not, but change happens, and I trust my children to get where they need to be.
Honestly, I was worried for the longest time that my children wouldn’t find someone, yet in the past couple of years, they’ve decided to prove me wrong.
In my experience, sometimes it’s best to let your children handle things.
It’s usually not how we would handle it, or choose for them to handle it, but it’s their way and that’s the path they need to follow, their own. ”
“If you wait too long, especially for particularly...difficult children, they will drive themselves into the ground so hard that they find themselves trapped in a hole that not even a parent can dig them out,” Amelia said.
I thought the only thing missing was an indignant sniff to show how truly irritated she felt by the idea of personal freedom for her son.
“Oh goodness,” Matilda said with a laugh.
“I thought the same thing about one of my oldest, Mason. I thought he would spend the rest of his life hopping from bed to bed, playing games, and driving all of us crazy. And then came Jace. I’ll never understand how they work, but what matters is that they do.
And now Jace is a part of the family, to be a father to his son, Micah, and with him came Kayden. ”
“Who is Kayden?” Amelia asked, sounding at least mildly interested.
“Jace’s partner on the police force before Jace decided on a new career,” Matilda explained.
“And his best friend. He and my daughter, Moira, hit it off in a way that delights me. She can be so serious, that girl, sometimes too serious as she helps run the hotel and raise Micah. But Kayden is good for her; he adds that spark of life that everyone needs. The spark that reminds you that you aren’t just your career or a mother, but a person who is worth being loved, and enjoying the life you have.
He brings that for her, and I’m so glad. ”
Amelia’s head tilted, and I repressed the urge to stop the conversation before it went on. “Micah...is her son? I thought he was Jace’s son.”
“Oh,” Matilda said, blinking as if realizing what she had said. “Well, he is. He’s their child, biologically. He’s a little bit of everyone’s kid in their own way. That boy has more family than he knows what to do with, and his uncles have been just as good with him as his parents.”
That wasn’t strictly true, and I felt a twinge of guilt.
Mason and Dom were both pretty active when it came to Micah, when they were around anyway.
I had never been as attentive to him as he grew up, and now I realized it.
I suppose it had been easy to ignore, considering he had plenty of attention.
Even more so now Kayden was in the picture.
Not only had he taken to being a stepfather like fish took to swimming, but he had made sure to devote plenty of time and energy to getting Moira out of the house and enjoying herself.
That meant Micah spent more time around the rest of the family, not just Jace.
Lately, even Elijah and Milo had been spending more time around the hotel and with Micah.
Everyone was pitching in, it seemed...except for me.
“Which means, your daughter’s ex-boyfriend,” Amelia said slowly, and I braced, “is dating your son? That seems—”
“Awkward as hell,” Ward finished with a snort. “I thought the same at first. It’s an odd thing, that’s for sure.”
“Not the oddest,” Matilda began with a grin, and I tried my hardest not to react to what I knew was coming. “My youngest and Marcus’s son are now an item. That took me by surprise when I learned about it, let me tell you.”
Amelia stared, glass frozen in her hand. “Your...sons? Are...in a relationship?”
“Matty,” Marcus muttered in a low voice that I barely caught, but I could hear the regret.
“My biological son and his biological son,” Matilda explained quickly.
“There’s not a drop of blood shared between them.
I don’t even know if that would have mattered much to them, or us in the end.
Those two...from the moment they met, they were inseparable.
I’ve never seen two people who just...work.
We all teased them so much about how they were always around one another and did everything together.
But it was more than that; it wasn’t just that they could finish each other’s sentences, but the way they always knew what was going on with each other, not just in their minds, but in their hearts.
Even when they didn’t know exactly, there was always an understanding between them.
And now...now they work even more than before. ”
“I...see,” Amelia continued in that slow voice as if she was searching her own internal data bank to figure out what should be said in light of that news.
“Again,” Ward said in an even voice. “It threw me off the first time I heard about it. Did I make a porn joke by chance?”
“You didn’t,” I said with a smirk. “And while I can’t recall if I thought it then, I wouldn’t have been surprised if you had.”
Amelia took a deep breath. “And why would a porn joke be appropriate?”
“Appropriate in the context you’re thinking? Not in the slightest,” Ward said, cocking his head as the serving woman came back and began gathering up the plates and bowls. “But, and you wouldn’t know this, but there was a time when step-sibling porn was a popular ‘theme’ for porn websites.”
“And why do you know this?” Amelia asked, unable or unwilling to hide the criticism in her voice.
“For professional research,” he said dryly. “Surely you know of my holdings and investments.”
I glanced at him, amused. “You invest in porn?”
“Why not? Even with the yearly discussions of banning or regulating it, porn will continue to generate revenue. There are many things about humanity that you can control or strangle, but you’ll never stop horny people from getting to what they want.”