CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
HE SHOULDN’T HAVE BEEN NERVOUS. There was nothing Serena could tell him that would make Malcolm feel differently toward her, but still he felt the twinge of apprehension as he pulled into his drive, just feet away from where Serena was putting her children into bed. He walked into his home, where Kylee was watching television in flannel pajamas and fuzzy slippers.
“So how was meeting the family?” she asked in a singsong voice.
Malcolm chuckled and dropped onto the sofa. “It was fine. What did you do?”
“No homework tonight, so this. Well, I worked on a new song too, but that doesn’t count.”
“Can I hear it?”
“It’s not done yet. I’ll play it for you once I get the bridge right.”
Malcolm took a deep breath. “I wanted to talk to you about something. You know your grandmother is in Glasgow. If you’re going to uni there—”
“There’s no reason for you to come with me and leave Serena,” Kylee finished with a knowing smile. “It’s okay. I know you’re in love with her.”
“What? I—”
“Oh, come on, Uncle Malcolm. Girls know these things. I can tell. It’s okay. It’s only, what, five hours away? Close enough to come home over a long weekend. And yes, Grandmum will be there if I need her. So it’s fine. Really.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure.” Kylee smiled and gave him a bump with her shoulder. “You keep looking at your watch. Let me guess, she invited you over for more dessert?”
Something in Kylee’s tone made Malcolm wonder exactly what she thought he was doing when he went next door for his nightly visit, but there was no way he was going to have this conversation with her. If he’d misunderstood, she’d be too embarrassed to talk openly to him again. And this wasn’t really the time to get into the issue of sex and why she should absolutely plan on never having it. At least not while he was still alive and responsible for her. He prayed Nicola had covered all that with her a long time ago. So far he’d been lucky that she was far more focused on music than boys.
“No dessert tonight,” he said finally. “I’m stuffed. Just tea.”
“Do you want me to wait up?”
“If you want. I’m not sure how long I’ll be.”
As soon as the hand on his watch ticked off thirty minutes, he pulled on his coat and wandered next door. When Serena opened the door, she looked as nervous as he felt. “I just put the tea on. Come in.”
“They’re asleep?” He followed her inside and shut the door behind him.
“They are. But maybe we should talk outside. I don’t want them to overhear this. Some things children shouldn’t know about their parents.”
Malcolm retrieved a thick wool blanket off the sofa while she poured their tea, and they went out on the back steps. He wrapped her up in the wool and gave her knee a squeeze of encouragement.
He thought she’d changed her mind until she finally said, “Edward and I were separated when he died.”
He reached for her hand, their fingers intertwining automatically. “But Em didn’t know that?”
“Not until a few months ago. She goes to school with the daughter of one of Edward’s colleagues, and I guess the little girl overheard something she shouldn’t have.”
“What happened exactly? I mean, what went wrong?”
“Nothing went wrong. I’m not sure things were ever right to begin with.” She glanced at him, and even in the dark, he could see her expression was pained. “When I met him, I was twenty-five and a curator at a contemporary gallery in Edinburgh. The gallery often rented out its space for events, and his company held a Christmas cocktail party there.”
Her voice softened. “I was taken with him immediately. He was polished and handsome, a little older than the men I had been dating. He flirted with me all night and then, before he left, said that he would like to take me to dinner. He gave me his business card, which I thought was very respectful of him, letting me make the next move. Now I know that was calculated.
“I was young and stupid and I fell hard. I was taken by the fact he was a VP at such a young age and that he got so serious about me so quickly, like some fairy-tale whirlwind romance. I just didn’t realize that when he said he wanted a wife and children, that didn’t necessarily mean me.”
“I don’t understand.”
“He was ambitious. He knew because he was so much younger than his colleagues, he needed to appear dependable and settled, responsible. That meant getting married. He met me, learned I was well educated and had extensive connections because of Mum’s family. He figured I would make the perfect trophy wife.”
“Surely that wasn’t the only reason he married you,” Malcolm said softly. Maybe marriage was still seen as an alliance in some circles, but he had a hard time believing that any man could spend time with Serena and not fall in love with her.
“I’d like to believe he loved me at some point, but I really don’t know. What I didn’t realize at the time was that marriage with Edward had to be conducted on his own terms. He didn’t like the hours I worked at the gallery, so he gently ‘suggested’ that I would be happier quitting and doing charity work instead. I missed my job, but I liked that it left me with plenty of time to paint. But he thought that was a waste of my time. We needed to focus on starting a family, before I got too old.”
The picture she was drawing was getting clearer by the second. “Did you have any say in these decisions?”
“Of course I did. At least that’s what I thought at the time. He had an argument for every one of my objections, and he had a way of making me feel unreasonable if I didn’t agree with him. It took us a while to conceive Em, and I dreaded having to tell him each month that I still wasn’t pregnant. Things were getting tenser and tenser between us, as if I were purposely defying his plans. When I did get pregnant, I was so relieved. I thought he would be thrilled. But he only said, ‘Finally,’ like it was another item on his list that could be crossed off. He started spending less and less time at home, excusing his time at work by saying he had to support his growing family.”
“Do you think he was unfaithful to you?” Malcolm asked.
She shook her head. “I don’t think so. A mistress would have disrupted his plans.” She looked at him, her expression pained. “I don’t want you to think that there weren’t good times or that I didn’t love him, because neither of those are true. I just never knew which man I would come home to—the one who enjoyed spending time with me or the one who saw me as an item to be ticked off his to-do list.”
The resignation in her voice stirred up anger. She was such a vibrant, giving person, and now he could see how Edward’s control had stamped out her spark. “Did having Em change things?”
“For a while. But she, too, was an item on his list. He knew exactly how her whole life was going to play out, and our future children after that. Except there weren’t any more children. For years. It was like because he had no say in that, he became even more controlling. But things were good when he was happy, so I just went along with it. For far longer than I should have.”
Serena swallowed hard. Malcolm brought her hand to his lips and kissed her fingers in a show of silent support.
“The final straw was when Em was almost five. She began to get very nervous and insecure. Wouldn’t even pick out her clothes without making sure Daddy approved. At first I thought she just wanted his attention because he was gone so much, but then I realized she’d become deathly afraid of doing something wrong.
“And I realized she had learned the behavior from watching me. I had gone along with everything he dictated for my life, but now he was doing the same thing to our daughter. Teaching her to always seek others’ approval. So I started putting my foot down. And he lost it.”
“Did he . . . hit you?”
“No. But Edward was a master of manipulation. He knew I hated when he was upset with me and that I would do everything to prevent it. So he told me that clearly I didn’t care about his feelings or I would take his opinion into account.”
“But you didn’t budge this time.”
“No. Not when it came to Em. As things dragged on and I refused to give in, he must have decided it was time to punish me. He told me he wanted to separate to ‘think about what we really wanted out of marriage.’ It was outright manipulation. It wouldn’t do for him to be divorced. So I told him I thought he should get his own place for a while.
“We intended to tell Em, but we never got the chance. He left on a business trip and came back to his own flat. He had been there only a couple of days when he had a heart attack. His landlord found him after a neighbor complained that his alarm clock had been going off for hours.”
Malcolm scanned her expression to gain some clue of her feelings, but her face was blank, as impassive as her voice. “I’m sorry,” he said gently. “Even with your problems, that must have been a shock.”
“It was.” She turned to him, a film of tears glimmering in her eyes. “The worst part is, I felt relieved. I never wanted to be divorced. I saw how it tore my family apart, how my parents pitted my brothers and me against each other, even unintentionally. But I didn’t see a way out. Edward was so obstinate that he would never have given in. And I knew that if I caved, he would never let me forget it. I would have had to spend the rest of my life making up for what I put him through.”
Malcolm could hear the helplessness in her voice, but her tears still didn’t fall. “Serena, that’s all understandable. You were in an impossible situation. Of course you were conflicted once it was over.”
“I just wonder if anything would have been different if I’d told him.”
He blinked as he realized the one detail missing from the narrative. “Max. Edward didn’t know you were pregnant.”
“I didn’t tell him. I was afraid he would somehow use it against me. But now I wonder . . . would we have worked things out had he known? If he hadn’t been alone, if he had been home that morning, he might not have died.”
And they might still be married. Selfish as it was, Malcolm hated that thought. Not just for himself but because she’d been so horribly unhappy.
As if she guessed his thoughts, she said, “Maybe our marriage couldn’t have been saved. But Em and Max would still have their father.”
Malcolm shifted the blanket from her shoulders so he could wrap his arms around her. “I’m sorry. I know relationships can be complicated, but I don’t understand how he couldn’t look at you and thank God for every day you were in his life.”
She lifted her head, her lips parting in surprise at the words, naked vulnerability in her expression. He brushed his fingertips across her cheekbone and smiled. “I think now I understand why you reacted how you did when we first met.”
“I may have come on a bit strong. I hated the implication I wasn’t capable of making my own decisions.”
“Understandable, considering the circumstances. And I might have resented having my authority questioned by a vixen in designer jeans.”
“Vixen?” Her eyebrows arched upward.
“Oh yeah. From the first time I saw you, I thought you were gorgeous and sexy and much too good for me.”
Serena laughed. “You were so far outside what I was looking for, it annoyed me that I found you so attractive.”
“Is that right? You probably shouldn’t have told me that.”
She scooted closer. “And what exactly do you plan on doing about it?”
He shifted her onto his lap and took her mouth with his before she could say another word. But rather than the explosive demand of desire, the long, sensual kiss held the slow burn of both passion and promise. It was impossible to deny his feelings had gone beyond the physical. He wanted all of her—heart, body, and soul—forever.
She leaned back, her eyes half-closed. “You have no idea how much I want to ask you to stay.”
“But . . .”
She sighed. “But I can’t. Or won’t. You already knew that, though.”
“I did.” He kissed her again. “And Kylee’s already put me on notice that she’s watching me. I’d bet she’s waiting up.”
“I hate being a good example.”
“I hate you being a good example too.” He smiled wryly, knowing that wasn’t the real reason he would be leaving her on her back porch tonight. He scooped her up as he stood and set her on her feet again. Instead of saying all the things he wanted to say, all the things he felt but didn’t want her to think were just a way to get her into bed, he kissed her again, slowly and tenderly. “Good night, Serena.”
“Good night, Malcolm.”
Reluctantly he stepped off the porch and left her there, felt her watching him as he cut through her garden and stepped over the low fence that separated the properties.
He loved her. He wanted to marry her. It was time to find a ring.
Serena checked on Max and Em after Malcolm left, then climbed the stairs to her loft bedroom. She had expected to feel wrung out and exhausted after telling her story, but she felt fine. If she had been questioning whether she was ready to move beyond the shadow of her past, tonight had answered that in abundance.
She changed out of her sweater and trousers, pulled on her pajamas, and crawled into bed without removing her makeup. She’d been a breath away from inviting Malcolm to stay, but she knew if she had, she would have regretted it tomorrow. Call her old-fashioned, but until she could trust a man enough to marry him, she couldn’t trust him with her body and soul. It just didn’t stop her from thinking about it. She desperately needed a distraction.
Fortunately there were plenty of other demands crowding her mind. The planning for the hotel’s tour offerings, the grand opening of the gallery to the public, her permanent living arrangements on Skye. The latter she was delaying, partly because she loved her current proximity to Malcolm, and partly because she secretly hoped the next time she went shopping for a house, she’d be doing it with him.
True, they hadn’t discussed it, but everything she sensed from him was moving in that direction. Given all the complications inherent in dating a single mum with two young children, he wouldn’t still be around if he weren’t looking for a long-term commitment.
Her phone chimed beside her and she reached for it. A text message from Malcolm:
She replied:
Serena laughed aloud, and she was halfway through a reply of I love you before she caught herself and changed it to
She put aside her phone and let out a happy sigh. She loved him, and even if he hadn’t said the words, she was certain the feeling was mutual. He had once told her to lighten up and take things on faith. For the first time in years, she was beginning to believe love might work out for her in the end.