It’s like she can read my mind.
“Excuse me, Stella.”
She nods and returns her attention to the sauce while I make my way toward the study.
“Hello?”
“Weatherly, why must you be so willful?” Aurora O’Neal is usually much more circumspect. Her blunt disregard of pleasantries tells me just exactly how upset she really is.
“Hi, Mom. I’m great. How are you?”
“Don’t be obtuse, Weatherly. You know I’m concerned about you. Always. That’s why I’m positively baffled by your reaction to this merger.”
“That’s the problem, Mother. I don’t want a merger. I want a marriage. To someone I at least like.”
“Michael is a kind, intelligent, very handsome man. How could you not like him?”
“He’s fine, Mom, but I . . . I . . .” Michael is fine. For a friend. Or a business associate. Or one of my father’s cronies. But I want more from a marriage.
“You can learn to love him, Weatherly. Just like I learned to love your father. Now I can’t imagine my life without him.”
“I’m glad it worked out so well for you, Mom, but this is not the way I want my life to go. I want to fall in love the natural way.”
“And risk meeting the wrong kind of man? The kind who might break your heart?”
“Who’s to say Michael won’t break my heart?”
“This merger is a large part business. He would never.”
I can’t help sighing. “Maybe I want someone who will be good to me because he loves me and wants to keep me happy, and not because it might mess up some big financial deal that a bunch of rich men have cooked up at the country club over sixty-year-old scotch.”
“Weatherly,” my mother begins again, her voice laden with all the patience she can muster, like she’s trying to reason with a difficult child. “Take time if you need it. Just don’t take too long. Your father loves you, but he is convinced this is the best thing for you and the family. Don’t push him on the trust fund. He will take it. And seeing that would break my heart. But this business with Randolph Consolidated is—”
“Why is everyone’s happiness and financial stability my responsibility? How did that happen?”
“You’re an only child. If I could’ve given your father another heir, this wouldn’t be so important. You’d be free. There would be another option. But it didn’t work out that way, sweetheart. Can’t you just trust me that this is for the best? Because I promise you that it is.”
“Maybe I know what’s best for me, Mom. Did anyone consider that?”
“You’re not a selfish woman. You never have been. I know you’ll make the right decision.” Her tone is certain, so certain it sets my teeth on edge. Is everyone so convinced that I’ll succumb? That I don’t have the intelligence or the backbone to figure out another way? That I can’t devise a plan to keep the family intact without prostituting myself?
Well, to hell with that! To hell with them! I will find another way. I just need time. And maybe the nerve to call my father’s bluff.
“Maybe it’s time to be selfish, Mom. Maybe it’s finally time. I’ll talk to you later.”
I hang up before she can say anything else and I immediately put my phone on silent. If I’m to get anything at all accomplished on this reprieve, I’ll have to avoid talking to my parents. At least until I have some inkling of what I’m going to do.
I head back inside, making my way to the kitchen once again. I’m surprised to find Tag rather than his mother dumping dry pasta into a pot and tasting the red sauce. His hair is wet, the ends just long enough to curl around the collar of his loose white button-up shirt, and I can smell the clean scent of his soap above the spicy notes of oregano.
“You looked much different a few minutes ago,” I say from the doorway, leaning one hip against the counter.
“Shorter? Older? Nicer?” he asks as he licks tomato sauce from his full lower lip.
“Definitely shorter and older, but I’m not sure yet about the nicer part.”
“Oh, I think you are,” he says with a wicked little half smile.
“Are you trying to tell me that you aren’t nice?”
He shrugs his big shoulders as he sprinkles a pinch of something into the pan and gives it another stir. “I guess it depends on how you define nice.”
“And how do you define nice?”
He turns his smoky-gray eyes back to me. “I don’t think the thoughts I’ve been having about you could, in any way, be considered ‘nice.’”
My mother and my current troubles are forgotten as heat creeps into my core like the lightest of caresses. It makes me feel careless. Daring. A little wild. “I suppose it would be rude of me to ask about those thoughts.”