“The man lives in Texas.”
“He’s still a good guy with his first grandson and he’s retired, so the man’s at my house more than he’s in his fishing boat.”
“Honey, please don’t take out your frustrations that your in-laws are far too in your business on me. Especially Harry’s mother, which is what this is really about. As I’ve said before, all you have to do is find a way to tell them to back off, or better, find a way just to let it go. Betty does not know better when it comes to Crosby. Let her speak her piece, then just do what you do. She’s got no choice but to let you do what you do since you’re the boy’s mother. In the end he’ll grow up to be the only thing you and Harry can make, a good man, and it’ll all be fine.”
“Stop manipulating the conversation around to my problems,” she demanded. “Are you falling in love with this woman or not?”
He looked her directly in her eyes.
“Yes.”
Those eyes he was looking into started getting wet.
So Stellan turned his to the ceiling.
“Oh my God, this is so awesome,” she whispered.
He looked back at her.
“Sue,” he said quietly, “we’ve had one date.”
At a gladiator pit.
Where she climaxed on contact.
In other words, the perfect first date.
“But you’ve known her for years,” she said.
“I have.”
“And she’s a fixer. She’s not a dud, like, I don’t know … a socialite or something. She’s exciting. She’s Olivia Pope in leather. I love that for you.”
Jesus.
“If I see one bridal magazine anywhere near your desk, I’m sacking you,” he warned.
“Can I pick out her engagement ring?” she requested.
He was offended she’d even ask.
“Yes,” he agreed.
Her entire body twitched.
Then she burst into tears.
His eyes narrowed.
Susan was a crier, but this …
“Are you pregnant?” he demanded to know.
She was sniffling, her breath hitching, her eyes leaking, then her head started bobbing.
“Y-y-yes.”
Stellan’s chest grew light.
“You’re expecting?” he whispered.
She nodded. “But I’m still, like, super happy you’re falling in love.”
“Who knows?” he asked.
“Well, Harry, obviously.”
He smiled and murmured, “Obviously.”
“And you.”
Stellan had no reply to that.
He just held her watery gaze.
“That’s all,” she whispered.
And that was when Stellan’s throat grew tight.
He also shoved his hand in his pocket and pulled out his handkerchief.
He tossed it across the desk, and she reached out, picked it up and dabbed her eyes.
She got herself together and focused on him.
“Just so you know, Harry’s still not over the trust fund you set up for Crosby,” she shared.
“How far along are you?” he queried.
“Almost three months.”
“Then he has just over six months to get over it because another one is coming.”
“Stellan—”
“I take care of the ones I love,” he said softly.
She closed her mouth, and more wet hit her eyes.
“I’m happy for you,” he shared. “You and Harry and Crosby. I’m so fucking happy for you, sweetheart.”
She took in a broken breath and snapped, “Stop making me cry.”
“If the last one was anything to go on, you have just over six months to cope with that because your pregnancy hormones run havoc with your tear ducts, and I have nothing to do with it.”
“I know,” she agreed. “Sucks. I burst into tears at the YouTube video of the ‘Sad Cat Diaries.’”
“Christ, why would you watch something like that at all?” he asked.
She shook her head, a tremulous grin on her lips. “It’s supposed to be hilarious. And it is. They just picked a bunch of cats who look sad to illustrate the hilarity. You totally have to watch it. If you’re not pregnant, which you’ll never be, it’s a scream.”
“And I totally am not going to do that.”
She kept shaking her head. “Stell, my man, you need to enter the age of social media.”
“On my gravestone it will say, ‘His proudest achievement: He never tweeted.’ And if I manage that colossal feat, it will indeed be my proudest.”
She dissolved into laughter again.
And Stellan again looked on indulgently.
When she sobered, she said, “I suppose I should go back to work.”
“That is why I pay you.”
She shot him a fake annoyed look that didn’t work due to the massive smile on her face.
She also got up and started the long walk to the door.
She stopped halfway there.
He braced.
She turned back to him.
“If you give it to her, she better be worth it,” she declared.
“She is, or I wouldn’t give it to her,” he returned.
“One date and you’re sure?”
“No, but I am sure I want to explore if I can be sure.”
“You’re handsome and you’re rich and you’re exciting and you’re generous and you’re kind and you’re funny and she wears leather and has ugly history and is a fixer. I’m not trying to be offensive. What I’m trying to say is that you deserve the best, someone who gives all that, or something else worth just as much, right back to you.”
“Sometimes, Susie,” he said gently, “love is not about give and take. There are loves that are only about giving. And with Simone, who was born with nothing and to protect herself carried on keeping it that way, it might be high time she had the opportunity to take all she can get.”
“Then she found the perfect man,” she replied, suddenly not sounding happy about it.
“Perhaps,” he allowed.
“Definitely,” she retorted, slightly lifting her chin but absolutely straightening her shoulders. “Even with what you just said, I’ll say it again. If you give it all, Stellan, she freaking better be worth it.”
Delivering that, considering she was a last-word type of woman, something he and Harry had commiserated about over drinks on more than one occasion, he knew she needed it to be done.
So Stellan made no reply as she turned and walked the rest of the way to and through the door, closing it behind her.
four
Sangria
SIXX
Sixx drove up the wide semi-circular drive to the large, two-story, sprawling, southwestern-adobe home that could be defined as nothing other than a mansion.
Not a McMansion.
No, it was older. Unique. Settled. Refined. And time had made it at peace with the landscape around it.
It was also bigger.
There were a number of cars in the sweeping drive.
This was because she was late. Only by twenty minutes, but she was still late.
In normal circumstances, it was not rude to be late to what amounted to a pool party. People would come, they would go, and fun was to be had whoever was there, or not.
But she had a feeling Stellan would not be pleased she was late.
She reached to the passenger seat and nabbed the black handles of her white Henri Bendel weekend duffle.
She did not intend to spend the weekend, however pool time to dinnertime in a Phoenician mansion required sitting at a table for dinner in something other than the t-shirt dress you’d arrived in or the bathing suit and sarong you’d spent the afternoon in.
So she’d come prepared.
And although she was highly apprehensive about what was happening with Stellan—most especially imminently after not calling as he’d told her to and showing late—he was Stellan, and although she’d never in her life dressed to impress anyone but herself, it was worth a repeat.
He was Stellan.
She felt slightly ashamed, slightly elated about the fact that she’d even gone shopping.
Frigging shopping.
For Stellan.
This, she told herself, was why she didn’t chicken out. If she did, and considering the fact she wasn’t going to haunt the Honey anymore, where would she wear her new threads?
She also didn’t chicken out for the sole reason that she was not a woman who chickened out.
In other words, she’d waged an internal battle up to and through the last minute.
And now she was late.
But she’d come prepared.