“Oh, Ming.”
“It’s not as if I didn’t know how he feels.” Ming slid off her stool and looped her arm through Lily’s. She tugged her sister toward the stairs. “It just makes it that much more important for you to accept Evan’s proposal.” Closing her ears to her sister’s protests, Ming packed Lily an overnight bag and herded her into the garage. “One of us deserves to be madly in love.”
Fifteen minutes later, they pulled up in front of Evan’s house. The longing on Lily’s face told Ming she’d been right to meddle. She scooped up her sister’s overnight bag and breezed up the front walk, Lily trailing slowly behind.
“Are you sure about this?” Lily questioned as they waited for Evan to answer the door.
“Positive. What a horrible sister I would be to stand in the way of your happiness.”
Evan opened his door and leaned on it. He looked gray beneath his tan. “Ming? What are you doing here?”
“My sister tells me she turned down your marriage proposal.”
His gaze shot beyond Ming to where Lily lingered at the bottom of his steps, but he said nothing.
Not being able to fix what was wrong in her own love life didn’t mean she couldn’t make sure Lily got her happily-ever-after. “She claims she turned you down because she thinks I would be hurt, but I’m moving on with my life and I don’t want to be her excuse for not marrying you.” Ming fixed her ex-fiancé with a steely gaze. “Do you promise you’ll love her forever?”
“Of course.” Evan was indignant.
Fighting to keep her composure intact, Ming headed down the steps to hug her sister. Confident they were out of Evan’s hearing, she whispered, “Don’t you dare come home until you’ve got an engagement ring on your finger.”
Lily glanced at Evan. “Are you going to take your own advice and go talk to Jason?”
Ming shook her head. “Too much has happened over the last few days. We both need some time to adjust.”
“He’ll come around. You’ll see.”
But Ming didn’t see. She merely nodded to pacify her sister. “I hope you’re right.”
Finding Evan passed out last night had reaffirmed to Jason how much better off he was alone. After such a powerful incident, Ming was convinced he’d never change his mind.
*
“Hey, Dad.” It was late Sunday morning when Jason opened his front door and found his father standing there. “What’s up?”
“Felt like having lunch with you.”
From his father’s serious expression, Jason wondered what he was in for, but he grabbed his keys and locked the house. “Where to?”
“Where else?”
They drove to his dad’s favorite restaurant, where the pretty brunette hostess greeted Tony by name and flirted with him the whole way to the table.
“She’s young enough to be your daughter,” Jason commented, eyeing his father over the menu.
Tony chuckled. “She’s young enough to be my granddaughter. And there’s nothing going on. I love my wife.”
When Tony had first announced that he was marrying Claire, Jason had a hard time believing his father had let himself fall in love again. But he’d reasoned that fifteen years of grieving was more than enough for anyone, and there was no question that Claire made his father happy. But his father’s optimistic attitude toward love didn’t stop Jason from wondering what would happen if Claire left.
Would his father collapse beneath the weight of sadness again? There was no way to know, and Jason hoped he never had to find out. “So, what’s on your mind, Dad?”
“I spoke with Evan earlier today. Sounds like he and Lily are engaged.”
“Since when?”
“Since this morning. Apparently Ming dropped her sister off and told her not to come home until she was engaged.” Tony grinned. “I always loved that girl.”
“Good for Evan. He was pretty beat up about Lily last night.”
“He said you weren’t doing too great, either.”
Jason grimaced. “I found Evan on his living room floor, an empty bottle of pain pills next to him and I assumed…”
“That he’d tried to kill himself the way I had when you were fifteen.” Tony looked older than his sixty-two years. The vibrancy had gone out of his eyes and the muscles in his face were slack. “That was the single darkest moment of my life, and I’m sorry you had to be the one to experience it with me.”
“If I hadn’t you’d be dead.” They’d never really talked about what had happened. As a teenager Jason had been too shocked by almost losing a second parent to demand answers. And since Evan had been away at college, the secret had remained between Jason and his father while questions ate away Jason’s sense of security.