Finally Ginny said, “It’s time to put it all behind us. This is a new beginning for me, and a new beginning for my marriage. I see no reason why it can’t be a new beginning for us, as well.”
“If you really mean that…” Sonya paused; tears made her eyes glisten. She lifted a fine lace handkerchief to dab at her eyes, a graceful gesture that was oddly touching.
“It’s time to bury the past. Let’s not resurrect it again. It’s too defeating.”
Maybe it really was time to bury the past, Ginny thought as she mounted the stairs to the senator’s study. My father, she reminded herself. It’s so hard to think of him as anything but my father.
Brandon was sitting in a huge wingback chair, with wire-rim spectacles perched on the end of his nose as he perused a sheaf of papers in one hand. Ginny paused in the open doorway to study him a moment before he took notice of her, and the familiar mask dropped over his features.
He’d aged in the last three years, more so than she had first thought. Now, seeing him in the bright morning light that streamed through the window, she noted the sagging jowls, the deeper creases in his face and around his eyes. His hair was thinning on the top, yet still thick, and sprinkled with gray at the temples. A handsome man still, now showing his age for the first time.
A lump formed in her throat. Regret? Sorrow for what had never been, would never be, perhaps?
“Good morning,” she said briskly, and entered the room with a smile pasted on her face.
The senator looked up, obviously startled. Immediately, he crumpled the papers in his hand, folding them over in a clumsy bundle. “Virginia! My dear, I did not expect you this early. Weren’t you to come later this afternoon?”
“Yes, but it was such a lovely morning I decided to ride out on my own.”
“On your own?” A brow rose. “A rather foolhardy act these days.”
“Not exactly all on my own. I’m well aware of the inadvisability of a woman riding alone, even in the city. No, I had an escort.”
Brandon tucked the papers he’d been reading into a book and put it on the floor beside his chair. “Your husband, I presume.”
Ignoring his sour tone, she managed a light shrug and reply. “Steve is not the only escort available.”
“I do hope you’re not up to your old tricks again, Virginia. It can be damned embarrassing.”
“Well, I can see that you’re in no mood for my company, so I shall take my leave now. We’ll be departing tomorrow for Mexico, so I shan’t see you again before I go.”
As she turned to leave, the senator said, “Please, I didn’t mean to sound so offensive. I just worry about you. And I fear my mind was elsewhere when you surprised me.”
Ginny turned, green eyes clashing with her father’s as she faced him fully. “I’m not the foolish young girl I once was. I’ve learned some bitter lessons in the past years, and now that I’m a mother, I’ve realized there are many things more important than being worried about what someone else thinks of me.”
“That includes me, I suppose.”
“Perhaps especially you. I’ve never lived up to your ideal of what I should be, have I? You’ve made that clear enough. I suppose in some ways I deserve your low opinion, but at least you cannot say I’ve been a hypocrite. What I’ve done in my life, I’ve done. Not all of it was my choice, but I survived because I had to. Tell me, did you ever love me?”
“Virginia…my God.” The senator sounded aghast, and he squirmed in his chair, scowling. “I’ve always loved you. Why do you think I would not? Christ, it must be something in the water around here. No, don’t look at me that way. Sonya asked me the same thing. Don’t either one of you understand what I’ve had to do to survive as well? Do you think I’ve done all I have just for myself?”
“Yes, in a way, I do think that,” Ginny said frankly. “I don’t believe that you would never have run for your seat in the Senate or acquired a fortune if I didn’t exist. Nor does Sonya. But you’re a man accustomed to power, a man who enjoys power and wealth. Sometimes I think that’s all you really do care about. Is that why you didn’t stay with my mother?”
Scraping a hand over his jaw, her father sat quietly for a long moment. The sunlight picked out silvery strands of hair, gleamed brightly on polished mahogany furniture and the gold rims of his spectacles.
“The truth of the matter,” he finally said calmly, “is that your mother did not love me. Before we met, she loved another man, as you now know. I thought I could make her love me, my sweet, sad Genevieve, but nothing I did made her happy. I felt so helpless. Do you know what it is to love someone and not have that love returned, to have your insides twisted into knots all the time, and know that nothing you ever do will be enough? You—you were the only happy thing that came out of our marriage, and while I may not have been the best of fathers, I tried my best to give you all I could. Apparently, it wasn’t enough.”
Ginny stared at him. Hadn’t she said just a few minutes ago that she intended to start over? That it was a new beginning for all of them? Yes, and if she was to be honest with herself, she had to admit that she hadn’t always been a daughter who was easy to know. After all, she hadn’t seen him while she was growing up, not until coming to America when she was twenty-one. They’d both missed out on so much.
“You were—are—a good father,” she said, and saw his face change from guarded to cheered, a subtle shift
