Chapter 8
DAREK
The drive back to the estate was quiet except for Liza’s apologetic murmuring from the passenger seat.
She had been apologizing for the last twenty minutes.
She vacillated between apologizing for the champagne incident to insulting Sasha in such a “low-class” and “undignified” way.
Those were her words. Not mine. I thought it was funny as hell. My little nerd had claws.
“I’m really sorry,” she said again, staring out the window at the dark coastline passing by. “I know tonight was important and I completely screwed it up.”
“You didn’t screw anything up.”
“I dumped an entire tray of champagne on an old lady.”
“Mrs. Cavendish will survive. She’s been through worse. Her first husband left her for the pool boy back in the nineties. A little champagne is nothing.”
Liza let out a weak laugh, but I could tell she was still beating herself up about it. I wasn’t mad at her. How could I be? It had been an accident. She was trying to remove herself from a horrific situation. Sasha had pulled her usual bullshit. She loved making a scene.
But even as I tried to soothe her feelings and promised her that nobody would remember it in a week, I couldn’t help wondering, had I made the right choice with Liza?
She wasn’t polished like the people at the yacht club.
She didn’t glide through social situations with practiced ease or know how to deflect catty comments with a smile and a cutting remark.
She was genuine and clearly a New Yorker with those quick comebacks.
But genuine didn’t always play well with people who had spent their lives perfecting their masks.
Liza was not from our world. And honestly, I felt like she might be too good for us. Not the other way around.
I should cut her loose. End this stupid thing. It was unlikely to really help. It was just going to cause both of us more stress.
Then again, she looked damn good in that dress. I had felt like a king walking into that party with her on my arm. I noticed other men’s eyes follow her across the room. And Sasha was jealous. I loved that Liza intimidated her.
If only Liza could avoid drenching poor Mrs. Cavendish with champagne again, we’d be fine.
“Your ex is really something,” Liza said after a long stretch of silence.
I laughed, genuinely amused by the diplomatic understatement. “You can just say she’s a monster. I won’t be offended.”
“Okay. Your ex is a monster.” She turned to look at me. I could see the confusion on her face. “How did you two ever end up together? You seem like… I don’t know, like you would want different things.”
“We did want different things. I just didn’t realize it until it was too late.
When I met her, she was charming and fun and seemed genuinely interested in boats, in what I was building.
But it turned out she was interested in the lifestyle, not the work.
The parties, the travel, being on yachts, not building them. ”
“And then you had Daisie.”
“And then everything changed for her. Motherhood wasn’t the adventure she’d signed up for. It was hard and messy and required actual sacrifice.” The old bitterness crept into my voice. “So she left.”
“She talked to me like I was beneath her. Like I wasn’t good enough to be there.”
“That’s because you’re real. Sasha hates anything real.
She only cares about winning. Her life mission is to be better and prettier than everyone else.
If you got a new car, she’d get a new SUV.
If you got a ring, she’d get a necklace.
Everything is a competition. I’m guessing you picked up on the fact she’s shallow. ”
She snorted. “You don’t say.”
I laughed. “I’m guessing her need to one-up me and everyone else is why she’s dating Grant.”
“Is he richer than you?”
I scoffed, slightly offended, but then remembered she didn’t know our world.
“Grant is not richer than me. Not even close. But he’s older, established, and owns the yacht club.
She probably thinks being with him gives her status.
It certainly gives her access to the same social circle she had when we were married.
” I paused. “Plus, he’s apparently willing to put up with her bullshit, which is more than I was by the end. ”
“She’s had a lot of work done, hasn’t she?”
I burst into laughter that felt strange. I usually only laughed when I was with Daisy and it was for entirely different reasons. Talking shit about my ex wasn’t something I indulged in with anyone. But Liza was safe because she was under contract.
“You noticed that?” I said.
“Hard not to. Her lips looked like they were about to pop, and those definitely weren’t the breasts she was born with. Even when she was trying to glare at me, her eyes barely moved.”
“She’s had so much work done since we split that she’s barely recognizable as the woman I fell for back in the day. New nose, new lips, new everything. I think she’s trying to become someone else entirely. Erase the parts of herself that were married to me and the woman that gave birth to Daisie.”
“That’s really sad, actually.”
“It is,” I agreed, and I meant it. As much as I resented what Sasha had done to our daughter, there was something tragic about a person who hated themselves so much they’d rather become a plastic imitation than be themselves.
We pulled into the estate’s driveway, the security lights illuminating the familiar landscape. I parked in the garage, and we walked inside without a word.
“Thank you,” Liza said at the bottom of the stairs. “For being cool about tonight. For not being angry that I embarrassed you.”
“You didn’t embarrass me.”
“I really did. But I appreciate you pretending otherwise. I’ll do better next time. I promise.”
“You were fine. Better than fine. You were real, and that’s what I need. Not someone who can play the game perfectly. Just someone who gives a damn.”
She smiled, and even exhausted and mortified, she was beautiful. “Okay. I’ll try to remember that.”
“Get some sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Goodnight, Darek.”
“Goodnight.”
I watched her walk down the hall to her suite.
It would work out. One little hiccup was not enough to make me throw in the towel.
Saturday morning, I woke up to silence, which was unusual. Daisie was typically an early riser on weekends. The quiet made me check my watch and I discovered it was a quarter to eight. It was late for me. I was surprised I slept so late.
I got up, threw on jeans and a T-shirt, and headed downstairs to start breakfast.
That was when I heard it. Crazy sounds coming from the kitchen. Low, mournful wails that rose and fell like music, like nothing I’d ever heard in my house before.
“What the hell?”
I walked in to find Liza and Daisie huddled over Liza’s laptop at the kitchen table, both of them completely absorbed in whatever was on the screen. Neither of them noticed me standing in the doorway.
“This one is the sound of a whale calling for his friends,” Liza said. “See? You can hear them answer back. Listen.”
The whale song played from the laptop speakers, haunting and strange and oddly beautiful.
Daisie leaned closer, her eyes wide with fascination. “What are they saying?”
“Well, we don’t know for sure. But I like to think it’s something like…” Liza lowered her voice, making it deep and goofy. “Hey, guys, wait up!”
Daisie giggled.
Liza changed her voice, making it higher. “Over here, dude!”
Daisie laughed harder. The sound filled the kitchen. I stood there watching them and felt my heart filling with warmth. This was what I had wanted for Daisie. She needed a mother figure to laugh with and learn from. There was a very real feminine bond that I could never recreate.
But it was also dangerous. Daisie was already getting attached. I could see it in the way she leaned against Liza’s shoulder, completely comfortable and trusting. And if I had to guess, Liza was getting attached too.
They finally noticed me, both turning at the same time.
“Daddy!” Daisie beamed. “Liza is showing me whale songs! Did you know they sing to each other?”
“I did not know that.” I walked over and kissed the top of her head. “What else are they saying?”
Liza grinned. “Feed me, I’m starving,” she said in her whale voice.
I laughed and shook my head. “You know you can help yourself to the pantry and fridge.”
“I do know that, but Daisie told me you made pancakes on the weekends. I didn’t want to step on any toes.”
I appreciated that. I liked that she respected my traditions. “I’ll get started.”
They continued listening to whale songs. The sounds filled the kitchen along with Daisie’s laughter and Liza’s terrible voice impressions and my own occasional commentary. It felt easy. Natural. Like we’d been doing this for years instead of days.
“This one’s a mother calling to her baby,” Liza explained. The sound that came from the laptop was different. “Baby whales can get separated from their mothers in the ocean, and the mothers will call and call until they find them.”
“What if they don’t find them?” Daisie asked, her voice suddenly became small. “The ocean is so big.”
“They almost always do. Mother whales are very determined. They don’t give up on their babies.”
Unlike some mothers, I thought but didn’t say. Unlike Sasha, who walked away without looking back.
I plated the breakfast and brought it to the table. We ate together while whale songs played in the background. Liza and Daisie kept up a running commentary about different species. It felt like a real family having a real Saturday morning together.
And that was when the warning bells started ringing in my head.
It felt too real. Too much like something I could get used to, something Daisie was already getting used to.
I needed to be careful. I had to make sure Daisie understood that Liza was temporary. In a few weeks, we would go back to just the two of us. I couldn’t let my daughter get so attached that losing Liza would feel like losing her mother all over again.
But how did I maintain boundaries when everything felt so easy?
I really did want to be a good father for Daisie.
The best father I could be. I was willing to work twice as hard to make up for having a crappy mother who’d abandoned her.
But part of being a good father meant protecting her from getting hurt again, and I was starting to wonder if bringing Liza into our lives was going to do exactly that.
I just needed to play this fake relationship situation right. Keep the boundaries clear, maintain the fiction without letting it become real.
The problem was it was already starting to feel just a little too good.