Chapter Nine
“What is it that has you upset?” Romeo asked, when he arrived at his mother’s bedside. It was never a good sign when she wasn’t getting out of bed.
“I feel like I haven’t had the chance to properly grieve your father. Because I don’t hate him. I love him. He was the love of my life.”
Romeo clenched the back of his teeth together. It was difficult when she was like this, because it wasn’t true. He knew that. She had hated his father for more years than she had ever loved him. But now that he was dead she was wailing as if they had been lovers only yesterday.
He wanted to get back to Heather. And that was a strange thought indeed. She had been beautiful on the plane. And his body still echoed with the satisfaction of their earlier coupling.
He wanted her again. Tonight in that suite. And he knew that she wouldn’t resist him. Of course she would.
She wanted this as badly as he did. They wanted each other equally.
“It just feels pointless going on. All of these years without him have been like wandering in a desert and there is no more purpose.”
“I do have good news for you,” he said.
She looked at him, her eyes filled with tears. “What is it?”
“You’re going to be a grandmother.”
Just like that, it was as if a light had turned on; the sun shone upon her.
He got an adrenaline rush, a fiery, intense feeling that he only ever caught otherwise when he was closing a business deal.
A sense of triumph. Of winning. He had found the magic combination to fixing her this time.
This was how it always was. She was devastated. And only he could fix it.
He had fixed it. Now he just had to break the news to her that Heather was the mother.
Because of course his mom had hated Lisa more than just about anything. That she had been left for a housemaid, one who was inferior to her in every way, had been galling for her self-esteem, and he truly did believe that she had been heartbroken on top of it.
She had carried ill will for Lisa all these years.
It was one reason that Romeo had never been able to find a way to have a good relationship with his stepmother, even though, the truth was, she had been a kind woman.
Even though, he knew, his father had had a more peaceful life with Lisa that he ever would have with Carla.
“Yes. And I’m getting married.”
“That is wonderful news,” she said. “You must have a big fabulous wedding. And you should do green. I look wonderful in green, and the mother-of-the-bride dress will be stunning.”
“Yes. Of course there will be a big wedding. One fit for our family.”
“You will get married in Vienna, not in Italy.”
“There is no reason we can’t have the wedding in Vienna.”
It was beautiful here. And it would make a fine venue for a wedding. He could see no reason that Heather would object to the idea. They had enough money to fly all the guests here. And besides, he owned an airline.
“And who is she?”
And this was where it would be difficult. “Heather. Gray.”
The shock on his mother’s face nearly blotted out the earlier win.
“I am sorry if you find that difficult. I found it surprising. But…”
“You love her?”
He didn’t know what the right answer was here. Couldn’t quite grasp what she was looking for.
“Of course I do. I wouldn’t marry her if I didn’t.”
She nodded. “Of course. There is something about those women, I suppose. Something about them that is quite irresistible.”
“I don’t know about that. But in the grief over the last few years, Heather and I found ourselves bonding.”
He was lying. But if it smoothed things over, then so be it. It wasn’t a problem. It needed smoothing over. “I’m pleased about the baby,” she said. “A darling little child, one that I can dress up and hold and… That is good news.”
She was trying to rally; he could see it.
When she was happy, she was the loveliest woman in the world. The most fun. She could be a great mother.
She could also be the most cutting, vindictive person that Romeo had ever known, and it was difficult to know which version of her he was going to get.
But he had taken it on. Because no one else had.
She was his responsibility, because she didn’t have anyone else. His reward was those happy moments.
“I would like to bring Heather by tomorrow for a visit. You two can discuss the wedding.”
“I suppose she has changed since she was the housekeeper’s daughter.”
“Yes, Mother. It’s been quite a few years since you’ve seen her.”
“Tea. Yes. That will be good.”
“Yes, it will.”
His driver took him back to the hotel, and when he walked through the door of the room, he was greeted by Heather, standing there in the brilliant, emerald-green dress he had sent to the suite.
“You look beautiful,” he said.
It was freeing, to say that. To simply admit that he found her to be stunning. To have there be no subtext, no other meaning or emotion behind the words.
She was beautiful.
Her cheeks turned pink, and the pleasure that he saw there on her face ignited something inside of him.
“Really?”
“Yes.”
He held his arm out, and she took it, tentatively. Slowly.
“How was your conversation with your mother?”
“It was good. Overall. She’s happy about the baby. I made arrangements for us to have a visit with her tomorrow.”
“Good,” she said. “That will be…good.”
“She wants for us to have the wedding in Vienna.”
“Oh. Well, that’s fine, I suppose.”
“Thank you. I know you probably barely remember her.”
They got in the elevator, and rode it down to the lobby. They walked through the ornate, gold space, and through the gold revolving door out to the street, where his car waited for them.
He held the door open for her, then got into the driver’s seat. Tonight, he preferred to be behind the wheel.
“Yes, I think I was away most of the time they were still married. And she was often gone.”
“Yes. I do know that my parents had marital problems before your mother arrived. I told you, I lived in a war zone. And that is one thing that I won’t accept for our child. Whatever differences we have, we cannot tear each other down in front of our children.”
“I agree.”
“And we can never make it our child’s job to build this back up.”
“I agree with that too. I suspect your father wanted you to build him back up, and as much as I love him, that’s not fair.”
He hadn’t even been thinking of his father.
But he supposed in a way that was true. He hadn’t reached out, had never asked his father to do it, but the relationship with him hadn’t mended because Romeo hadn’t made amends with him.
Hadn’t taken back the things that he had said.
Some of which had been cruel and unfair, but some of which had been true.
They’d had years of difficult conversations, the fallout of the divorce working itself out over the course of years. And never as fully as Romeo might have wished.
“I think we both want to do better. And I’m sorry. I’m sorry that you had such a difficult relationship with him.”
He looked at Heather out of the corner of his eye, where she was resting her elbow against the window, looking out at the city.
“He loved me in a way that my own father never did. I never even knew him. My mother marrying him gave me things that were so wonderful, but I never wanted to look at the cost of it. I just ignored that they had an affair. I really did. Because I didn’t want either of them to be wrong.
It changed my life in such good ways that I didn’t want any of it to be wrong.
And you had made everything so miserable for me at school. ”
“I am sorry about that,” he said.
Now, with years of perspective, he couldn’t fathom why he had done it. Except that he had been angry. At everything. And she had made him feel things that he didn’t want to feel, and it had felt like a convenient target for all that rage.
It had felt like an easy thing.
He had really, truly wanted the easy thing.
The bandage for the wound that seemed to be festering there in his chest.
“Thank you,” she said. “I lost myself there for a little while too. I got wrapped up in what it felt like to be one of you. To win. So a lot of the things that I did to you when I was in high school, that was all because I was angry, and I wanted to get back at you. Later, though I…”
“You wanted me.”
“I did. It confused me. I also realized that it wasn’t a new feeling. But again it was confusing because…”
“Because I wasn’t nice to you,” he said.
“No. You weren’t.”
“And you really couldn’t want anyone but me?”
“No.”
“Even that idiot that you almost had sex with at that house party?”
“Even him. I just wanted to not feel like something was wrong with me. Like I was different. Because I was so tired of feeling different. You made me feel so different. It’s funny that you were so mad about that party.
About me and that other guy, because you pushed me there.
You’re the one that made me feel like I needed to do something extreme to fix myself.
So yes, I am sorry for some of the things, but you are no small part of my insecurity. ”
He tightened his hand on the steering wheel, looked straight ahead. “I’m sorry. That’s inexcusable of me. I have been…a bad person.”
“No. You did some bad things, I think. Or I don’t know. You’re not altogether bad though, is the thing. You really aren’t. Which is part of the annoying thing about you. Part of the reason that I could never fully hate you, and it isn’t just because you’re gorgeous.”
“What good thing have you ever seen me do?”
“You were always there for your father, even though your relationship wasn’t easy. And you love your mother. I have always understood that a lot of the reason you didn’t like me was because you loved her so much.”
“I suppose we do know each other, a little bit.”
“A little bit.”
He was still grappling with the things that she had said when they pulled the car up outside of the restaurant, and he gave the keys to the valet.
They were ushered into the small building into a private dining room, where it was luxurious and quiet.