That had to be the reason. With his mother’s funeral and everything else going on, he’d put off his sex life. As soon as he got home, he was going to have to do something about that. “But he’s not your father.”
“Yes. I know.”
A man just shouldn’t put off something like sex. Especially when he wasn’t used to going without. He raised his glass to his lips and polished off his scotch. “As a kid, I used to wonder.”
“If I knew Leo wasn’t my father?” She laughed, a breathy little sound of amusement, and took a step toward him. “Yeah. I knew. The term ‘serial cheater’ was invented for my father. Every time I visited him, he had a new woman. Still does, and he’s seventy.” A shaft of light cut across the darkness and lit up Clare’s cleavage but left her face in inky shadow.
The memory of her naked except for a tiny pink thong flashed in his head and got all mixed and confused with the woman standing in front of him. Desire crawled down his belly and tightened his groin. He pulled his gaze from her cleavage and looked behind him. The very last thing he needed to complicate his life was Clare Wingate.
“He still thinks he’s quite the lady’s man,” she said through a breathy laugh.
He turned and moved a few feet toward a wrought-iron bench sitting beneath a pruned dogwood tree. If it hadn’t been painted white, it would have been undetectable in the darkness. “I don’t even know if my father has a girlfriend or a special woman in his life.” He sat and leaned back against the cool metal.
“He’s had a few. Not many.” Dusty’s soulful voice drifted on the warm night breeze.
“I always wondered if there was anything going on between your mother and my dad.”
Again she gave a breathy little laugh. “Nothing romantic.”
“Because he’s the gardener?”
“Because she’s frigid.”
That he could believe. One more thing mother and daughter did not have in common.
“Aren’t you going to rejoin the party?” she asked.
“Not yet. If I have to listen to Lorna Devers for one more second, I’m afraid I’ll grab one of the torches and set myself on fire.” Mrs. Devers was only one reason he didn’t plan to rejoin that party for a while. The other reason wore a blue and white dress and was stalking him.
“Ouch.” Clare laughed and moved in front of him.
“Believe me, it’ll be less painful than listening to her silly stories about Missy and Poppet.”
“I don’t know who is worse, Lorna or Rich.”
“Her son is an idiot.”
“Rich isn’t her son.” She sat beside him on the bench, and Sebastian gave up, resigned himself to his tormented fate. “He’s her fifth husband.”
“No shit?”
“No shit.” She sat back and the night almost swallowed her. “If I hear my mother tell one more person that I write women’s fiction, I’m afraid I’ll grab one of the torches and set
“What’s wrong with her saying you write women’s fiction?” Moonlight filtered through the dogwood and cut across her nose and mouth. Her fantasy of a mouth that made him wonder if she tasted as good as she looked.
“It’s the reason why she says it. I embarrass her.” The corners of her lips rose in a smile. “Who else should we throw on the pyre? Besides Lorna and my mother?”
He leaned forward and placed his elbows on his knees. He set his glass on the ground and looked through the darkness before him. He could just see the outline of his father’s house and the porch light above the red door. “Everyone who has taken the time to point out to me that my relationship with my father sucks.”
“Your relationship with Leo
He glanced at the hypocrite across the iron bench. “Hello, pot? This is the kettle calling.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“That before you start giving me advice, you should take a good hard look at your relationship with your mother.”
Clare folded her arms beneath her breasts and looked across at the man beside her, the white stripes of his shirt the most visible thing about him. “My mother is an impossible woman.”
“Impossible? If there is one thing I’ve learned over the past few days, it’s that there is always a way to compromise.”
She opened her mouth to argue, then closed it again. She’d given up on compromise years ago. “There is no use trying. I can’t please her. I’ve tried my whole life, and my whole life I’ve disappointed her. I quit the Junior League because I didn’t have the time, and I don’t belong to any other charitable organization anymore. I’m thirty- three, single, and haven’t produced a grandchild. To her, I’m wasting my life away. In fact, the only thing I’ve ever done that she approved of was my engagement to Lonny.”
“Ah, so that’s the reason.”
“What?”
“I’ve been trying to figure out why a woman would choose to live with a gay man.”
She shrugged and the other strap of her dress slid down her arm. “He lied to me.”
“Maybe you wanted to believe the lie to please your mother.”
She thought a moment. It still wasn’t the ah-ha epiphany she’d been waiting for, but there was some truth in it. “Yeah, maybe.” She pushed both straps back up. “But that doesn’t mean I didn’t love him and that it hurts less because he wasn’t unfaithful with a woman.” She felt an appalling sting in the backs of her eyes. She hadn’t had a good soul-cleansing cry all week, and she certainly couldn’t allow it to happen now. “It doesn’t mean that all the hopes I had for a future suddenly go away and I feel relieved, and I think, ‘Wow, dodged that bullet.’ Maybe I should, but-” Her voice broke and she rose to her feet as if someone had yanked her up.
Clare walked farther from the party and stopped beneath an old oak. She placed her hand on the rough, uneven bark and stared out through rapidly blurring eyes at the outline of wild growth beyond. Had it only been a week? It seemed longer, and yet…it also seemed like yesterday. She rubbed beneath her eyes and wiped away her tears. She was in public. She didn’t cry in public.
Why was the crying jag hitting her now? Here, of all places? She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Perhaps because she’d kept herself busy. Worrying about the HIV test and planning Leo’s party had taken a lot of mental and physical energy. Now that she didn’t have those worries blocking her emotions, she was having a breakdown.
And it was damn inconvenient.
She felt Sebastian move up behind her. Not touching, but so close she could feel the heat of his body.
“Are you crying?”
“No.”
“Yes you are.”
“If you don’t mind, I just want to be alone.”
Of course, he didn’t leave. Instead he placed his hands on her shoulders. “Don’t cry, Clare.”
“Okay.” She wiped the moisture from her cheeks. “I’m fine now. You can rejoin the party. Leo’s probably worried about where you are.”
“You’re
She looked down at her feet, her pedicured toes barely visible in the dark. “I know you think because I don’t have the right equipment that I shouldn’t take it so hard, but you don’t understand that I loved Lonny. I thought he was the person I’d spend the rest of my life with. We had a lot in common.” A tear rolled down her cheek and fell on her chest.
“Not sex.”
“Yeah, except for that, but sex isn’t everything. He was very supportive of my career and we took care of each other in every way that really matters.”
His warm, rough palms slid up her arms to her shoulders. “Sex matters, Clare.”
“I know, but it’s not the
