This was a date. Never mind that Channing hadn’t called with an invitation, hadn’t made a reservation, hadn’t bothered to change from her stonewashed jeans and bulky black sweater. To Lark, it still counted as a date. Especially since Channing had enveloped her in a long silent hug the moment she walked through the door of the tiny apartment.
“Let’s push this closer,” she said as she scooted the coffee table toward the couch where Channing sat. Her tiny space wasn’t ideal for dinner guests, but Channing had insisted she hardly cared about an elaborate meal. It was the company she wanted.
Lark situated herself on a stack of throw pillows. “Hope you like chicken jalfrezi.”
“Brilliant. What’s a little acid reflux as long as there’s wine?” Channing kicked off her tan flats, shoes so plain they could have passed for bedroom slippers.
“It’s from Curry King. Everything on the menu is totally worth the aftereffects.”
She noted also that absent her usual makeup Channing looked more girl than woman. There was a vulnerability about her, the same look Lark had seen in the airport lounge just before they boarded. At dinner on Sunday, Channing had predicted a tough week ahead, with difficult decisions about the estate.
“Any progress on Penderworth?”
“I’ve been up to my arse in spreadsheets. Kenny put me in touch with a property inspector who’s advising me on what absolutely must be done versus what I should leave for the buyer. It’s silly to pour money into custom renovations someone else will rip out.” As they ate, Channing groused about her financial state and the issues with getting Penderworth ready to sell. “I still can’t get over Poppa hiding this from me. He had to know what a headache it would be.”
“I have to hand it to Ma. The best thing she ever did for us was leave all her worldly possessions to Roger. They’d been living together for fourteen years, so it wasn’t like he swooped in and stole our inheritance. It wasn’t worth all that much anyway. Chloe and I both were glad not to have the hassle.”
“This would be maddening if I had to sort it with squabbling siblings too. It’s bad enough that I feel eternally obliged to Maisie and Cecil.” She blew out a frustrated breath. “That sounded cruel. They’re practically family and I love them dearly.”
Lark caught herself smiling at how relieved both Channing and the Brownings would be when they finally sat down for a heart-to-heart and discovered they wanted the same thing.
“Does my suffering amuse you?”
“No…I think it’s sweet you worry about them. If you were half the ogre you pretend to be, you’d have no friends at all. I think your bitchy act on the plane was just that—an act.”
“Underestimate me at your peril, Dr. Latimer. If you’d heard me on the phone with Payton today, you’d know what a first-class bitch I can be.”
“You finally talked to Payton?” That, more than her financial issues, better explained why she’d wanted company tonight. “I never said you didn’t have it in you. I thought you weren’t taking her calls.”
“She tricked me into answering by going through another number. She’s always had a dodgy streak. I should have hung up, but no—I fell into my usual Payton trance. She knew I would.”
“It’s hard to imagine you being under someone else’s mind control.”
“We all have our weaknesses. Except mine isn’t Payton, actually. It’s my fatal need to have the last word, to argue with someone incessantly until they finally surrender and admit that I’m right.” Wineglass in hand, she leaned back on the couch and tucked her bare feet beneath her. “And I’ve an amazing knack for humiliating myself. I assumed she was calling to persuade me to come back to Albright. Quite the opposite. She begged me not to. She’s convinced they’re all whispering about our affair since I left, that if I come back they’ll notice the chill between us, soiling her pristine reputation. And mine too, I suppose. The annoying part is that she’s probably right. It does me no favors if I go back to a promotion and my colleagues all think I earned it between the bedsheets.”
“I don’t suppose it occurred to her that she should be the one to leave?”
“So you’re a standup comic now?”
“Come on, the woman’s got a pair of cojones.” Having studied the headshot on Albright’s website, she had no trouble picturing Payton Crane working behind the scenes to manipulate Channing into doing whatever she wanted. Women didn’t get to be executives by letting others push them around. “In fact, I’m willing to bet you used to like that about her.”
Channing laughed softly before fixing a blank gaze at the floor. “I suppose I did. She’s the woman we all want to be. Strong and smart, and she works extremely hard. And takes guff from absolutely no one. The most astonishing thing about our relationship was seeing her relinquish control. Not just sexually…she could be quite vulnerable whenever we were alone. Payton never let down her guard anywhere else. That’s when I knew what we had was something extraordinary. I felt like the most privileged person on earth because I got to see her like that.”
Lark could have done without Channing’s reference to her sex life with Payton, since it jolted her with an irrational sense of jealousy. Nor was she especially happy to see the subtle smile, the first from Channing when she talked about Payton. Was it a pleasant memory tucked away or a longing to feel it again? Before giving in to her feelings, she needed to peel this part of Channing back and see what lay beneath it.
“How did it happen, your affair?”
Channing wagged her empty glass. “If I’m to tell that story, I’ll need more wine.”
* * *
She’d told no one, not even Kenny, the dramatic story of how she and Payton had fallen into each other’s arms, into each other’s beds. The details were deeply personal, and they carried consequences to this day.
“You must promise me you’ll never repeat a word of this.”
“Who do I know that cares one way or the other?”
“Perhaps Kenny and Oliver…anyone really. It must remain completely private.”
“Of course.” Lark refreshed their glasses and returned to the pillows on the floor.
“Before we got involved, I admired Payton so much, respected her. She’s just the sort of example we need in the business world, women who prove it really can be done. She was extraordinary. And fit in that attractive older woman kind of way. I liked thinking I was looking at myself eighteen years in the future…which seems to be something I do. But it was never that sort of vibe that comes when you start to fancy someone. Do you know the one I mean?”
“Absolutely.”
“We did a lot of traveling, just the two of us. Overnights for client meetings and all. Our territory was the entire eastern region. Miami, Atlanta, Philadelphia, New York, and everything in between. Albright’s very big on sitting down face-to-face with clients. From the very start I saw that Payton had a fierce work ethic. On the airplane, in the taxi—her head was always working. But once we sat down to dinner in the evening, she was done for the day. All it took was that first sip of wine and it was as if she’d slithered out of her corporate skin.”
The memory of those early evenings stirred a sense of nostalgia for what had been a warm mentoring relationship. Had they stayed that course, Channing likely would have been heading her own division by now. Instead she’d allowed their affair to dampen her ambition.
“I got the feeling she was starved for conversation, that she and her husband never talked. She was wicked smart, knew all about politics, books, film. She’d go on about her daughter in college, all the headaches of planning her wedding. Or her son, who played varsity basketball. I was happy just to listen, but she’d also prod me into sharing personal things. She loved hearing about Poppa and Penderworth, what it was like to grow up in England. Sometimes she’d grill me about the women I was dating. I always looked forward to our trips together.”
“Sounds like you were falling in love.”
“Hmm…it never felt that way. We were mates.”
“Obviously something changed.”
“It was Philadelphia, the Four Seasons Hotel. We were having our ritual wine and dinner in the hotel restaurant. She’d seemed out of sorts all day, distracted. I don’t know why but I was anxious about it. I thought she was cross with me over something. Perhaps I’d botched the figures or said the wrong thing to our client. So I finally got up my nerve to ask what was wrong. She began crying. Not misty eyes, mind you—sobbing. Finally she blubbered out that she was pregnant.”
“Whoa…I didn’t see that coming.”
“Nor did she. Forty-five years old, on the executive track for VP. And her youngest is a senior in high school, right? A baby is the last thing she wants.”
“I have a feeling I know where this is going.”
She studied Lark’s expression for signs of disapproval. Many long-time Bostonians were staunch Catholics with pro-life beliefs. She’d totally forgotten Lark saying her mother had given birth to two children while in her teens.
“For Payton, it was never a question of what she’d do about it. What bothered her most was the guilt over not telling her husband.” She sat up straight to push back against a possible objection. “No, imagine what’s going through her head. They’re Catholic as well. Not terribly devout, but still. What if Ben had come out against it? She couldn’t bear to take that chance.”
“Right there should have told you she couldn’t be trusted to consider anyone’s interests but her own.” She held up a hand to head off Channing’s protest. “Not that I think she was wrong, but that’s a huge thing to keep from your husband.”
“Obviously their marriage was no pillar of strength. Anyway, she’d already made the appointment for herself at a clinic in New Hampshire. Surgical, because it was too late for the pills by the time she realized she was pregnant. She’d planned to go alone, which I thought was tragic, so I offered to take off work and drive her. We do that for our mates, right? I booked the hotel and paid for both rooms so Ben wouldn’t find out.”
Channing did that quite a lot over the next two years whenever they’d tack on an extra night out of town. They couldn’t bill Albright, but Payton couldn’t risk it showing up on her credit card bill either. Besides the emotional damage, the affair also had cost Channing thousands and thousands of dollars, including not only the expenses for their illicit trysts, but lost salary and bonuses. That was when she thought she had the Hughes fortune at her fingertips.
“After her procedure, we sat together on a love seat in her room. Hardly talking, but she was shaking so I held her. For that moment I was the most important person in the world to her, and I relished it. I’m not even sure how it started. She turned…our lips were close…I kissed her.”
Lark sat riveted to her story, hugging her knees to her chest.
“I don’t know which of us was more shocked. Or more terrified, frankly. The situation called for self-control, obviously, which is never as easy as it sounds. I laid beside her all night, my arm around her. I was so overcome I could hardly sleep.”
Talking about it triggered old emotions, among them a fierce sense of protectiveness. She’d taken care of Payton in so many ways.
“Over breakfast the next day we talked about it. Both of us thought it best not to pursue anything. We could have written it off to hormones and returned easily to a work relationship. Then two weeks later we flew together to Miami for another meeting. Three hours from home…I took some papers to her room after dinner. That was it. We both were absolutely electric with desire.”
* * *
It was an incredibly touching story, and it gave Lark a clearer picture of the sort of person Channing was. No matter how dismissive or uncaring she tried to sound, at her core she was a nurturer. Lark had a similar streak, a trait she’d developed as a counterweight to her mother’s poor parenting. It was why she’d gone to medical school in the first place, and why she’d dropped out to play caretaker.
From what Channing had told her, she too had grown up without the attention of her mother. Perhaps it made her more sensitive to the needs of others.
“That’s an amazing story, Channing. The way you describe it, I can see exactly how it happened.”
“Perhaps you can explain it to me,” she said blithely.
“You said it yourself—you liked who you were with her. You relished feeling strong and protective, and she let you do that.” It also explained why she was having such a hard time telling the Brownings about the sale of Penderworth.
“And you’re not put off about what she did?”
“Speaking personally, I’ve always been a little conflicted over the issue, seeing as how I’m the product of an unplanned pregnancy. But I support anyone’s right to choose—period.”
“Just remember that you promised to keep it secret. She’d be mortified to know I’d told a soul.”
“No worries, ever.” In fact, she had a similar secret of her own, one she wouldn’t breach on the chance that Channing might someday meet her sister. Lark had cut class in high school to go with Chloe to the women’s clinic in Waltham. Even fifteen years later the memories were visceral.
“Lately I’ve wondered if she regrets it,” Channing mused. “Maybe it got to her and I remind her of it.”
For Lark, sitting through details of the affair with Payton had the unintended side effect of making their evening feel less like a date. It was almost as if there were a third person in the room. But since they were on the subject…
“Didn’t it ever bother you that Payton was married?”
Several seconds of icy quiet followed, after which Channing reached for her shoes.
“No, wait. I didn’t mean for that to sound judgmental…honest.”
“Then why do I feel that I’m being asked to defend myself?”
“I’m sorry, you don’t have to.” She swallowed hard, realizing her only way out of this was some version of the truth, the gist of which probably was judgmental. “I was curious about how you dealt with it, is all. On the plane you said something about not deserving anyone’s sympathy, that you considered yourself a home-wrecker. It must have bothered you at some level.”
Her words hung interminably until Channing relaxed and tucked her feet again. In a noticeable departure from her earlier candor and ease, she was defensive, more guarded. “I wasn’t proud of myself but they were her vows, not mine. She felt she’d gotten her life all wrong, that she was always meant to be with a woman. She loved her family though… That’s a lot of guilt to process once you realize the life you should have had was one in which your children might never have been born. Whatever remorse I felt, it was canceled out by knowing I was giving her something she needed and not making her feel ashamed about it.”
“Because you loved her.”
“I certainly thought so.” There was an unmistakable tinge of anger in the set of her jaw. “It’s hard to look back now and not feel that I was played for a fool. Who knows if anything she ever said was true?”
“She must have loved you, Channing. A person can’t fake that.”
“I don’t know what to believe.” The tension over Lark’s question had dissipated with Channing’s obvious need to talk. “Once we both realized our relationship was serious, I asked her to divorce her husband. She understood that it wasn’t fair to me, but she asked me please to wait a year until her son left for university. So what did he do? The little bastard picked Boston College because he didn’t want to leave home. Spoiled dolt…he can’t even dress himself. So we reset the countdown. She promised to end her marriage by my thirtieth birthday or else. One way or the other I needed to get on with my life. We didn’t make it that far.”
That’s what Bess had said when Lark’s “couple of months” with Ma went on and on with no end in sight. No wonder she’d lost patience. “It’s bad enough that you waited so long, but then you came away empty-handed.”
“If I were being mature about it, I suppose I’d be grateful for the experience. It was good when it was good.” Her slumped shoulders and sad eyes said what her words would not—Payton had broken her heart. Or maybe it was the rejection itself. There was only so much a woman of pride like Channing could take. Being prepared for the outcome wasn’t the same as being ready.
“It’s Payton’s loss if you ask me.” Lark had been hugging her knees to overcome the impulse to reach out physically to Channing. “Love’s more than just the right two people finding each other. They have to find each other at exactly the right time. That’s lightning in a bottle and then some.”
“Mmm…it’s a bit of a miracle that it happens at all.”
Lark had never believed much in miracles, nor in fate if she were honest. It was pure luck that she’d missed her flight, that Jeremy had plopped her in the seat next to Channing, that Niya had suggested meeting at the Crown and Punchbowl. If what Channing said was true, she had only a tiny window in which to learn if they were the right people at the right time.