- -
- 100%
- +
“I wish I’d seen him,” her mother said.
Lena sighed, recalling how much her mother and Bahru had seemed to enjoy bickering over tea recipes. Mom was a top-notch herbal-tea maker. Bahru was no slouch. But that was before…
“He says I’m named in the will, or the baby is, or something. Anyway. The funeral’s tomorrow. He made me promise that I’d be there.”
Selma’s still-auburn eyebrows pressed against each other. “Do you think that’s wise, honey? To travel that far, this late in the pregnancy?”
“It’s only a few hours’ drive. I can handle that.”
“It’s not just the drive I’m worried about. He’ll be there. Can you handle that?”
She meant Ryan. Of course. “I’m sure I can. I knew this day would come, Mom. I have to face him sooner or later. He has a right to know.”
“You could tell him later. After the baby’s here.”
“Keeping it from him this long was wrong. And you know it. And I know you know it, because you’re the one who raised me never to lie.”
“You didn’t lie to him.”
“And you’re also the one who taught me that omissions of this magnitude are the same things as lies.”
Selma pressed her lips together. “Damn thorough, wasn’t I?” She ran a hand over Lena’s hair. “You sure you can handle him?”
“I’m sure.” So why did she feel compelled to avert her eyes when she said it? Lena wondered.
“Okay, if that’s what you want to do. You want me to go with?”
“Mom, I’m not six.”
Selma smiled and nodded, her spiral curls—even tighter than Lena’s longer, looser waves—bouncing with the motion. “What’s that you have there?” she asked, nodding at the box in Lena’s lap.
“I don’t know. Bahru said Ernst wanted me to have it.” Lena stroked the box. “I got lost in thought and forgot about it.”
“Memories?”
Lena nodded and tried to ignore the hot moisture in her eyes.
“You really loved him a lot. It hurts. I know, honey.”
She wasn’t talking about Ernst, but that didn’t need to be said. They both knew what she meant. Flipping open the tiny latch, Lena lifted the lid as her mother leaned over her from behind.
An old, very tarnished chalice lay inside the box, nestled in a red-velvet-lined mold that fit its shape perfectly. Frowning, she lifted it out, held it up, turning it slowly so she could see the dull stones embedded around the outer rim.
“I think that’s silver,” her mother said. She hustled to the kitchen, and returned with a bottle of tarnish remover and a soft cloth. Then she took the chalice and went to work. Leaning forward in her chair, Lena watched the tarnish being rubbed away, the heavy silver gleaming through. Her mother sat down in the matching rocker on the other side of the fireplace, rubbing and scrubbing and polishing. “It’s real silver, all right. Heavy. It must be worth a small fortune. Where on earth did he get this?”
“A street vendor in Tibet. Bahru said the stand was mostly junk, with this just mixed in with all the rest. He said Ernst took one look at it and knew it was meant for me.”
Her mother sighed. “Never knew a rich guy as decent as that one.” And then she paused and held the chalice up. The firelight made it gleam and wink in what Lena now saw were semiprecious gemstones: amethyst, topaz, citrine, quartz, peridot, three others that she thought might be a ruby, an emerald and a blue sapphire.
“It’s old,” her mother said. “And if these stones are as real as this silver is, and I think they are—I know my rocks—”
“I know you do.” Most of the jewelry her mother wore, she had made herself.
“Lena, this cup could be worth thousands. Maybe tens of thousands.”
“It’s worth a lot more than that,” Lena said very softly.
Her mother frowned at her. “What do you mean?”
“Remember when I was little, Mom? My first attempt at scrying? The vision I had?”
“The one where you saw your handsome prince. The one you later thought looked just like Ryan.”
“Didn’t look like him. Was him.” She reached for the cup, and her mother handed it to her. “And do you remember the cup I saw in that vision? The one I described to you?”
Selma seemed to search her daughter’s eyes. “Lena, you don’t think—wait. Just wait here, I’ll be right back.” She was out of her chair and up the stairs, heading, Lena had no doubt, to their temple room on the second floor, where they kept their altar and all their witch things. Herbs, oils, books. It was their own sacred space. The house’s chapel, so to speak. Lena studied the cup while she was gone, wondering what on earth all this could mean.
Her mother returned, a Book of Shadows in her hand. An old one. Goddess knew they had filled many over the years, Selma more than Lena, of course. She was flipping pages as she walked. “I remember, I had you draw what you’d seen. You were only eight, but—here. Here it is.” She came to a standstill in front of Lena’s rocker, blinking down at the page, and when she looked up again there was no more doubt in her eyes. Just astonishment.
Turning the book toward Lena, Selma showed her what her eight-year-old hands had drawn in crayon. The shape was the same, the color—well, she’d used the crayon marked “silver,” though what resulted was a pale shade of gray. But most interesting were the gemstones, because they were each a different color and a different shape.
And they matched the ones on the cup.
“They’re even in the same order, at least the ones that show,” her mother whispered, staring at her as if she’d never seen her before. “My Goddess, Lena, it wasn’t your imagination. It was a true vision you received that day.”
“Looks like,” Lena said. “The question now is—what the heck does it all mean?”
“I don’t know.” Selma moved closer, hugging her. “I don’t know, baby. But we’ll figure it out.”
That’s what I’m afraid of, Lena thought.
Ryan McNally sat in the front pew, and felt small and insignificant inside the magnificent cathedral. But it was fitting that his father be memorialized here. He’d been bigger than life, too. Until his wife’s death had brought him to his knees.
When his mother died, Ryan thought, the best part of his father had died with her. He’d loved her so much that losing her had all but demolished him. Ryan had been eleven, and even then he’d known he would never let that happen to him.
He was seated near several of his father’s closest friends—old men, all of them—and Bahru, who had added a black sash to his red robes today, and who looked as if he’d been crying. His eyes were red-rimmed and puffy, his cheeks even more hollow than usual.
Seeing the old guru like that almost made Ryan rethink his twenty-year belief that the man was nothing but a con. But only until he reminded himself that Bahru had spent a lot of time around actors, prior to latching on to a broken and grieving widower. He’d probably learned a few tricks of the trade, like tears on demand.
Ryan had to give the eulogy. He’d spent a lot of time on it, yet when the priest nodded at him to come up, he found his knees were locked and he couldn’t quite force himself to move.
Bahru put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s all right,” he said. “I promise you, it’s all right.”
He didn’t like or trust the man, even resented him—and yeah, that was mostly because Bahru had been closer to his father than Ryan had been himself. Not Bahru’s fault, though. “Of course it is.”
“Would it help to focus your mind elsewhere?”
“Not much could accomplish that today, Bahru.”
Bahru met his eyes. “Magdalena is here.”
He could have sucker punched him in the gut, Ryan thought, and it wouldn’t have distracted him more. Lena had come. He hadn’t thought she would. He’d figured she would send flowers, maybe call, but he hadn’t expected her to come.
He rose easily, moving up to the front, taking his place at the podium and scanning the magnificent cathedral from a brand new angle. The stained glass, the architecture, the statues—the place was more beautiful than a museum, and it touched him. Beautiful things always did, especially art and architecture.
The sacred place was filled to capacity. No press—they’d been asked to remain outside, where the hearse was waiting and the black stretch limos were lined up around the block.
That thought drew his gaze to the fabric-draped coffin that held his father’s remains. And suddenly his throat closed up so tightly that he didn’t think he would be able to force a word through. His father was inside that box. His father. Lifeless. So hard to believe. He was suddenly awash in regret that his old man’s time had run out. He supposed he had always expected they would make things right between the two of them again before it came to this. And now… now he was just gone. Hell.
Someone cleared their throat, and he lifted his head and looked out over the somber crowd, taking in the men in their black suits, the black dresses and even hats on the older women. White tissues flashed like flags here and there. Sniffles and clearing throats echoed from one direction and then another. People he knew, people he didn’t want to know. A few genuine tears, more phony ones. But even with all of that, his eyes found hers without trying. He looked up and right into them. They were wet, and her tears were genuine. She was genuine. Had been all along, but he’d ruined it. Somehow. She was in a pew toward the back, probably hoping to make a quick exit without running into him. But she was staring right at him, and he got lost in her eyes for a second as their gazes locked. He felt her sympathy, her caring, and wondered yet again why the hell she’d left him. Certainly not because he hadn’t been ready to offer her forever after only six weeks. She wasn’t that unreasonable. She wasn’t unreasonable at all.
Or hadn’t been—until that day.
She gave him a sad half smile and a “go ahead, you can do this” nod. He realized that he could, and began. He read his speech with very little emotion, talked about his father’s generous contributions to various causes over the years, the people he’d helped, the jobs he’d created. And then he stopped and shook his head, looked up from his notes and blinked back the first tears he’d shed since he’d heard the news.
“You know, I’ve always believed that most of my father died twenty years ago when his beloved wife, my beautiful mother, was taken from us by a drunk driver. He gave up everything after that. His businesses, his friends… his son. I don’t blame him. Her death destroyed him. And ever since she left us, my father has been on a spiritual quest, traveling the world with Bahru by his side, trying to find the answer to one question. Why?”
He closed his eyes momentarily to compose himself, then nodded and went on. “I’m not a religious man. But I don’t think it ends like this. I would like to think my father is finally getting the answer to that question. And I don’t think we should be sad about that. Because I want to believe he’s getting it straight from my mother.”
He looked at the coffin, pressing his lips together hard to try to stop their trembling. “Yeah. That’s what I want to believe.”
He stepped down as numerous heads nodded in agreement. And then he sat again, and just tried to block it all out and hold himself together. He felt an emotional storm brewing, and he damn well didn’t intend to let it break out in public.
So he thought about Lena instead. She wouldn’t really leave without seeing him. Would she? What was he going to say to her when he saw her again? After all this time, would she finally tell him why she’d left? It had been—almost seven months now.
Seven months without a word. She owed him an explanation.
He couldn’t imagine what it would be, though he’d tried a thousand times. He’d seen it all play out in his mind, had invented lines for her, none of which had ever made any sense. He couldn’t think of a thing that would explain her walking away when they’d been so damn good together. But right now there were a lot of speakers waiting to say a few words about Ernst McNally, most of them hoping to find the ones that would ingratiate themselves with his heir. He had time to kill, and listening to all that insincerity would only make him angry, and he didn’t want to be angry when he saw her again. So instead he forced himself to relax in the pew and thought back to the night he’d first set eyes on her.
“Who is that?” Ryan asked softly, staring past the beautifully dressed elite filling the Waldorf Astoria ballroom, all of them there to honor his father as Now Magazine’s Man of the Year, to the woman who stood chatting with his dad and Bahru. Even among the wealthy, his father stood out. He had a charisma that lifted him head and shoulders above the others. His steel-gray hair was still thick and wavy, his beard just long enough to qualify as “dignified-eccentric” without crossing the border into “aging hippie.” And Bahru was always easy to spot, with his endless graying dreads, leathery skin and his red-and-white robes.
But she was different. She stood out for an entirely different set of reasons, some of which, he sensed, went beyond her appearance. She was beautiful, yes. Piles of dark red hair spiraling and twisting like satin ribbons. A perfect porcelain face. But there were plenty of beautiful women in the room that night. Actresses, models, women who made their living by their beauty. He’d banged many of them.
But this one… this one called to him somehow. Once he spotted her, he couldn’t look anywhere else. “God, what is she doing with the old man?”
Paul, his best and pretty much only real friend, lifted his brows. “You’re asking me as if I’d know. I’m the outsider here, remember? I’m still not sure why you dragged me to this shindig, pal.”
“No, I’m the outsider. And I dragged you here because I had to come, and I didn’t want to do it alone. Remember, though, not a word about our potential venture to anyone.”
“Don’t worry. I don’t have a thing to say to any of these silver spoons types.” Paul blinked. “No offense.”
“None taken.” Paul was a family court lawyer, an entrepreneur, a freaking genius, and had taken to the streets with the 99% protestors a while back. He didn’t care much for the filthy rich. He probably would have lumped Ryan in with the rest if they hadn’t become best friends in college, before Paul had known who Ryan’s father was.
Not that it had mattered. His dad had been long gone at that point. Physically and in every other way.
Ryan nodded in the direction of the woman, just as she laughed, revealing a wide, sexy mouth, perfect teeth. He wondered if it was a real laugh, or if she was faking it for his dad’s benefit. She wore her mounds of fox-red hair in a way that looked careless and pretended to be coming loose but wasn’t really. Her dress was a long black number that hugged her curves like a lover, with a plunging neckline that revealed cleavage to make his mouth water. He couldn’t take his eyes off the swell of her breasts until she turned just so and the slit in the dress parted to reveal a long, long leg and a thigh he wanted to trace with his tongue.
Damn.
“You’re like something out of a monster flick,” Paul muttered. “Perfectly nice guy transforms into a wolf right before my eyes.”
Ryan shrugged. “Call it a hobby.”
“I call it a lie, but you do what you want. I’m out of here. We still on for that meeting tomorrow?”
“Yeah.” Ryan jerked his eyes away from the woman and returned them to his friend. He hadn’t been looking for a friend back when they’d met, but Paul was one of those guys you couldn’t help but like. Salt of the earth, as honest as the day was long, just a purely decent human being. So few of those around these days. And he decided not to make him suffer another minute. “Paul, the meeting’s a formality. I’ve already decided. I’m going to fund the project. I think it’s amazing technology, and there’s no one I’d rather partner with.”
Paul just stood there blinking at him. He ran a hand over his bristly chin and blinked. Ryan thought there were tears forming in his eyes behind those Steve Jobs glasses he insisted on wearing.
“Just remember, not a word to anyone, okay? I’m a silent partner. Though I hope you won’t mind if I come around to watch your team in action. I’m as excited about affordable solar energy for everyday Joes as you are.”
“I don’t understand you,” Paul said softly. “I mean, yes, of course I agree to all of that, and thank you. Thank you a million times over.” He cleared his throat, looked down into the glass he held in one hand and had yet to sip from. “But why do you want to be so secretive about it? I mean, come on, Ryan. Wouldn’t it help your image to be known for funding a project to put solar energy within the reach of every American household?”
Ryan smiled. “Help it? It would destroy it.”
Paul blinked. “But—your image is that you’re a spoiled, self-centered, overly indulged, lazy playboy.”
“Exactly. And now, if you don’t mind, I’m about to go play that role to the hilt. See you tomorrow.”
Frowning and shaking his head in bewilderment, Paul muttered good-night, then turned and headed for the hallway and the curving red-carpeted staircase beyond.
Ryan watched him until he was out of sight, just to be sure he didn’t get waylaid by anyone demanding to know who he was and what he did. If his father found out, he would want in. Because though he’d ostensibly walked away from everything, he still had that profit-seeking missile inside him, and he could smell money to be made even from a mountainside in Tibet. He would just order his “people” to handle it—buy Paul out, make him an offer even he couldn’t refuse, and then Paul would see his beautiful, world-saving, idealistic notions slowly taken over by profit-seeking bottom-liners who would turn them into something ugly but lucrative.
Besides, Ryan needed to be part of a few projects where he could be his own man, completely free of his father’s shadow.
Once Paul was in the clear, Ryan made his way through the throng, pausing to return the greetings of all those in attendance, most of whom disapproved of him and made no secret about it, not that he cared, to his father, who stood out even in this crowd of standout individuals.
Ryan had inherited his height from Ernst, who was broad-shouldered and narrow in the hip. In a tux, the man could stop traffic and impose palpitations on female hearts of any age, race or, Ryan suspected, sexual orientation.
But he didn’t care. As far as he knew, Ernst hadn’t been with a woman since his wife, Sarah. Since her death twenty-two years ago, when Ryan had been eleven, Ernst had never been seen, photographed or even rumored to be dallying with any other woman. He must either have gone celibate or been impeccably discreet. Ryan didn’t see him enough to know which, because, as far as he was concerned, Ernst had also lost his mind at that time. His love for Ryan’s mother had been—all-consuming. Too strong. In the end it had destroyed him.
You wouldn’t know it to look at him. He was still a billionaire, still one of the most striking, fascinating men in the world, but a part of him had died that day. The good part.
Beside Ernst, as always, was Bahru, his “spiritual advisor.” He always wore red-and-white robes, was bone-thin, and both his hair and his endless beard of thick, dark dreadlocks had puffs of white showing through here and there. His age was impossible to determine, but for the first time Ryan thought he was showing signs of aging.
Ryan nodded at Bahru, who gave him a pressed-palm “namaste” bow in return. Then he extended a hand toward his father. “Congratulations, Dad.”
“Thank you, Ryan.” His father took his hand in a firm shake and lifted his free arm as if to embrace him, but then sort of eased off and settled for a shoulder pat right at the end.
Awkward. But that was just how things were between them. His father had abandoned him, motherless and eleven, to go off with his guru. He’d put a gulf between them, and it had only widened since.
Then Ryan turned his attention to the actual reason he’d crossed the room to begin with. The gorgeous female. He didn’t look her in the eye but let his gaze stay lowered while he clasped her hand and brought it to his lips. “Ryan McNally,” he said, before he kissed the back of that hand.
Then he straightened and met her eyes.
She stared at him, her big green eyes getting even bigger. She looked at him almost as if she recognized him, but he was damn sure he’d never seen her before. That he would have remembered. “It’s you,” she whispered, and then she jerked her head to the left, as if someone standing next to her had said something.
But no one was standing there.
She tugged her suddenly cold, suddenly trembling hand free of his and said, “Um, I— Lena. Magdalena Dunkirk. I have to go.”
Turning, she hurried away, then stopped and looked over her shoulder. “I’m so sorry. It was lovely to meet you.”
Then she was gone, hurrying through the ballroom in heels that should have made speed impossible, while Ryan kept his eyes on her ass the entire way. The dress hugged it tight enough to show what a really nice ass it was.
“Was it something I said?” he asked, turning back to his father only after she was out the door.
“Maybe your reputation preceded you,” Ernst said. “But that’s just as well. She’s a nice girl. I wouldn’t want you breaking her heart.”
“I don’t really want anything to do with her heart,” Ryan said.
I should have known right then that she was trouble, he thought. Should have steered clear of her at all costs.
But how could he have known that she would be the one to break his heart? For the first and only time in his life.
She had run away after a nearly-two-month-long relationship that had been sheer fire because he hadn’t become serious about her fast enough for her liking. At least that was the explanation he’d constructed in his mind as he’d tried to figure out what had happened. He’d always gone out of his way to be very clear with every woman, right from the start, that he was not the getting serious type. He’d tried even harder to play the playboy for Lena’s benefit. The more she got under his skin, the harder he played the role. Apparently she’d realized she was making no progress and walked.
The ironic part was, she was the one woman he’d ever been with who might have had a shot at making him want to get serious. If she’d waited around, maybe…
But in the end, he knew it was for the best. He never wanted to find himself mired in grief the way his father was. To love someone so much that he fell apart when she left. Hell, he’d had a taste of it, the sleepless nights, the recriminations, the missing her, the getting sappy every time any TV show or radio song or meal reminded him of her. If it had been that bad after two months, he’d definitely been heading for trouble. Doing exactly what he’d sworn he would never do.
It was good that she’d left. Now he was back on track again, cool and free, and not caring. Playing the playboy. It was easier to maintain that image without her.
The crowd of people filling the pews of St. Pat’s were muttering, which was his signal to stop reliving the past and start paying attention again to his father’s funeral service. It didn’t matter anyway. She’d dumped him and run away. It was over. She had come here to pay her respects to his dad. It was the decent thing to do, and she’d always been decent.
The priest had finished, and the pallbearers were moving up to take their places beside the coffin. Bahru and Ryan were the lead pair, so he had to get in gear. Reaching the front, where the casket rested on a stand, he took hold of the brass handle. It was cold to the touch, and the coffin wasn’t as heavy as he would have expected it to be. Then again, there were six of them. The other four were all on his father’s board of directors.
Fine showing at the end of a life. An estranged son, a Hindi con man and a handful of business partners as pallbearers. That said a lot. Said it all, really.