"Will you come to school sometime? So the kids can see you're real?"
He fought back the sting of tears. "Of course. Anytime you want and as often as you want."
"Okay."
The child looked as though she, too, was on the verge of tears. Seth pushed back his chair, paid for lunch and led the way out of the café. On the sidewalk he said calmly, "Lia, I'll talk to you soon. Bye for now, Marise."
Then he watched as Lia drove away. Marise didn't wave.
He was exhausted, he realized, getting behind the wheel of his beloved red Porsche. It was easier to merge two corporations than to make contact with a seven-year-old who didn't want to make contact.
Would he ever reach her?
Lia, he was almost sure, hadn't been pleased when he'd suggested she bring Marise to Manhattan; certainly he'd given her no chance to argue.
Too bad, he thought heartlessly. If he wanted to make contact with Marise, didn't he also want more from Lia?
If only he knew what.
He was going back to his brownstone and spending the evening listening to Lia's CDs. If that was a maudlin and generally useless thing to do, so what?
The dazzling pyrotechnics of a Paganini violin concerto were rollicking through his living room when the phone rang. He picked it up. "Seth Talbot."
"Good taste in music," Lia said.
"The best." Discovering he was grinning like a mad fool, he added, "What's up?"
There was a short silence. "I didn't want you blaming yourself for what happened today," she said stiffly.
"What didn't happen, you mean. I'll admit to feeling godawful as I drove home. It'll take time, Lia. That's all."
The silence was longer this time. Then Lia said in a rush, "Would you like to spend next weekend at Meadowland?"
Once again, she'd taken him completely by surprise. Wishing he could see her face, he croaked, "You mean that?"
"Yes."
"What made you change your mind?"
"I can't keep you and Marise apart-it would be wrong of me to even try. I never realized how desperate she was for a father figure … I feel so guilty, Seth."
"I'm the one who should feel guilty."
"No, you're not. Your mother should."
"Good luck," he said.
In a low voice Lia went on, "I watched you today with Marise. You were trying so hard to reach her, yet you never overstepped her boundaries. You'll make a very good father."
For the second time in one day, Seth felt the prick of tears. "Thanks," he said gruffly. "I wish Marise agreed with you."
"Maybe if you come here, it'll help."
"Marise and a big wad of guilt-are they the only reasons you're inviting me?"
"I-I don't know."
"Come clean, Lia."
Sounding thoroughly exasperated, she said, "Every time I see you, I see more layers. More depths. When I was partway plastered, I said you confused me. You still do. But you also intrigue me-I want to know what makes you tick. I shouldn't even be telling you this, my tongue has a nasty habit of running away with me … but I really like you, Seth."
Something moved in his chest, physically, as though a weight had been lifted. "I like you, too," he said huskily.
"Since we're Marise's parents, it's just as well, don't you think?" she said, a new lightness in her tone.
"So are we going to stop fighting?"
"Providing you always do what I tell you."
"What are the odds on that?"
"Extremely low," she said cheerfully.
"I wish you were here right now," he said. "I'd take you to bed. Show you how much I like you."
Her heart was triphammering in her breast. "Obscene phone calls are illegal."
"Chicken."
"Yep. But Seth, at Meadowland we won't-"
"Then I'll have to inveigle you to my brownstone. My bedroom has skylights and French doors onto a roof garden."
"Does it have a bed?"
"You do go for the essentials. When should I arrive on the weekend?"
"I won't be able to spend much time with you," she said hurriedly, "I have to practice for the recording sessions."
"That's fine," he said equably. "What time?"
"How about Saturday morning? As early as you like."
He was supposed to be in Texas on Saturday morning. "Nine-thirty," he said promptly.
"The coffee'll be on." Her voice suddenly faltered. "I hope … I mean, I wish … darn it, I don't know what I mean."
He felt precisely the same way. Although he, unlike her, wasn't about to admit it. "I'll see you Saturday," he said and put down the receiver.
How could one woman and one small girl make him feel so ludicrously unsettled?
Dammit, he was still in control of his life.
Scowling, he cut Paganini off in the middle of the adagio and substituted Louis Armstrong. First thing Monday morning he'd get on the phone to Texas.
By two o'clock on Saturday afternoon, Seth was beginning to wonder why he'd come. Meadowland was beautiful, a beguiling combination of unkempt woodland and wild gardens, the house itself welcoming, comfortable and pleasantly cluttered. It was the nanny's weekend off; Lia had greeted him at the door, holding a mug of coffee in front of her like a bulwark. She looked strained and tired, he thought, and forbore to say so.
Marise was polite and as far away as the rain forests of Borneo. As difficult to reach, too, Seth thought, striving to hit the delicate balance between showing her he cared, without pushing her too hard. Then, as he was sitting out on the patio in the afternoon sun, he overheard his daughter's raised voice from an open window overhead. "But I want to go for a swim, Mum."
"I can't stop yet, Marise-I've got the rest of the sonata to go through."
Sulkily Marise said, "You'll be forever."
"No, I won't. I'll be another hour."
"An hour's forever."
"Why don't you ask your father if he'll go for a swim with you?"
"I bet he doesn't have a swimsuit."
"Ask him."
"I don't want to!"
Lia sighed. "Then you'll have to wait for me."
Five minutes later, one of the French doors opened behind Seth. Marise trailed across the slate patio stones toward him. He looked up and smiled at her. "Hi, there. What's up?"
She was industriously chewing on her bottom lip. "Do you want to go for a swim?" she mumbled.
"Love to. Give me a couple of minutes to change-why don't I meet you out here?"
Her face had lightened perceptibly. "Neat."
He ran upstairs, wondering if he was a fool to regard Marise's request as a small victory. Throwing on a T-shirt and his blue trunks, he went back to the patio. She was already there, wearing a bright pink swimsuit and laden with an assortment of inflated toys. "Let's go," he said.
He unlocked the gate to the pool, threw his towel over the chair and peeled off his shirt. "Last one in's a rotten egg," he said. "Or don't kids say that anymore?"
But Marise was gazing in fascination at his chest. "Who did that to you?"
The scar over his ribs was still an angry red furrow. "I-it was an accident."
"Sometimes Suzy and I watch cowboy movies. Did a bad guy shoot you?"
"Yeah … he did."
"Was there a stagecoach?"
Seth sat down on the edge of the pool and patted the cement beside him. "It was in Africa."
"Wow," she said, "were there lions?"
Striving to censor the truth yet hold her interest, Seth began to talk. She kept interrupting him with questions, her little feet splashing in the pool, and gradually Seth shifted into telling her about some of the children he'd met on his third world trips. She edged a little closer to him, laughing at some of his jokes, big-eyed when he did describe a near-encounter with a lion, and how he'd once followed a small herd of elephants. She said with a contented sigh, "You tell good stories."
Feeling as though he'd been awarded the Nobel Prize, Seth said, "Lots more where those came from. Should we go for a swim now?"
"I can show you my backstroke," she said with a shy smile.
"I'd like that," he said with huge understatement, and slid into the water.
From the upstairs window, where she'd been trying to concentrate on a Beethoven sonata, Lia watched father and daughter cavorting in the water. She'd also watched them sitting side by side talking to each other, Seth's blond head bending to Marise's brown curls, Marise's face lifted confidingly to Seth's.
Change, Lia thought. So much change.
Seth and Marise were beginning to forge a relationship. She was happy about that, of course she was. But she wasn't blind to the consequences. Her daughter would, from now on, be shared between herself and Seth.