Begin Again (17 page)

He stopped to talk to potential donors, checked out the drawings he’d done for the music hall, which were all fancied up now, and sighed when he noticed the trees where he and Paulina had made love. A stiff Scotch loosened him up, and he was glad to see his
father approach him. With a woman on his arm? Adam was surprised. His dad had dated, of course, but nothing had lasted very long
.

“Adam.” Andrew clapped his son on the back. “I’d like you to meet Sara Sanders. Sara, my son, Adam.”

“Hello, Adam. I’ve been asking to meet you for weeks.”

“Weeks?” He looked to his dad.

“Yes. Sara and I have been seeing each other since March.”

“I—” He caught himself. “Sara, nice to meet you. I’m sorry it wasn’t sooner.”

“Me, too. Perhaps Andrew will tell us why.”

“Soon, but not now.” A band in the corner began to play. “Let’s dance.”

Several couples went out to the floor. And Adam watched his father with a heavy heart.

Even his dad was getting his girl. And he hadn’t told Adam because of his circumstances with Paulina.
Hell, why hadn’t he heard her out yesterday?

Don’t go.

Have you changed your mind?

Not really. But I’ve been miserable. Maybe we can…

Adam’s gaze snagged on two people who went up to his dad. The man was Gerald Callahan, and the woman was Paulina’s mother. Fuck it! Donuta had a boyfriend, a man from Adam’s world. Donuta didn’t have problems with it.

“You look like you’re about
to bite somebody’s head off.”

Turning, Adam found Rafe Castle behind him. “Hello, Rafe. Nice to see you again.”

“You, too. You seem mad as hell.”

“I am in a bad mood.” He shook his head. “Let’s talk about something pleasant. How’s your work going?”

“I was invited to this shindig, too, and I have a show coming up at this gallery, so I was here already. I’m working on the details.”

“Great. I’ll be sure to come to see it.”

“I’ll send you an invite.”

“Hmm.”

Rafe tracked Adam’s gaze. “You keep checking out that table. Who are all those blondes?”

“Just a family I know.”

“I’ll let you go talk to them.” He nodded to Adam. “See you in a month.”

After Rafe left, Adam decided to bite the bullet and crossed to the Ludzecky family. There were ten of them
seated around the table, and he was reminded of the photo of women at the wedding. Minus one—Paulina.

“I came to say hello, and thank you for all your support of the gardens in the music hall."

“Hello, Adam,” Paulina’s twin said.

“Hi, Nia.”

Someone waved at him from the other side of the table. “Hi, Adam.” The lovely Caterina.

“This is my husband, Aidan O’Neil.”

“Ah, yes.
You donated a picture for the fundraiser where I met your wife.”
And I bought it.
Thankfully, the buyers remained anonymous.

Aidan gave him a small grin. “I heard you were acquainted with this family. Good luck, buddy.”

“Adam? As in Adam Armstrong?” a deep voice said.

Adam nodded and the guy stood. He didn’t hold out his hand to shake. He resembled the girls, but masculinity emanated
from his muscular build
.

“Luke Ludzecky. I heard all about you.”

Four blondes spoke simultaneously
.

“I didn’t.”

“Who is he?”

“Armstrong, the architect?”

“Ah, now it comes together.”

Hell, this was ridiculous. So he asked brazenly, “Where is Paulina?”

“She’s not here.” This from Nia.

“Why?”

“She’s sick. But it’s because of you.”

“It is?” Luke inched
up to him. “What’d you do to my baby sister, Armstrong?”

“I think you have that reversed. Now, if you’ll excuse me. I didn’t want to be rude and ignore your family.”

He was halfway across the room, headed toward the exit when someone touched his back. He turned to find Nia behind him.

“I’d like to talk to you alone, Adam. And no, you don’t have any choice.”

Her
pulse beating fast because she knew this was a powerful man, Nia nonetheless raised her chin and faced him down. “You’ll listen to me, Adam.”

“So you said.” Visibly trying to calm himself, Adam stepped back. “I won’t be rude to you, Nia, but I can’t handle a showdown right now with Paulina’s sister.”

“Neither could she handle one with you, which is why she didn’t come to the fundraiser.”

“You said she was
sick
because of me.”

“She’s heartbroken.”

“She didn’t seem so yesterday.”

“If you’d looked more closely, you would have seen it.” Nia folded her arms over her chest. “As it was, you weren’t nice to her. She tried to reach out to you.”

“Too little, too late, Nia.”

Nia shook her head. “God, if I didn’t think she was really into you, I wouldn’t give you the
time of day. So I’ll just say this. Give her a break, Adam. We both had an unspeakable thing happen to us. And you’re the first”—here, she poked him in the chest—“the only guy she’s dated since then. I’d think you’d be more understanding.” She stepped back for effect. “Perhaps it’s best you broke it off. You’re not the man I thought you were.”

Paulina lay in bed long after
Nia left, watching the sun set, watching the leaves that had filled in outside her window. And she was alone. Very alone. When Donnie died, there had been a hole in her heart the size of Texas. With each passing year, it dwindled and finally had settled into a tiny corner of her being. It was there and always would be. She didn’t ever want it to go away. However tonight, there was a new, acute pain
right alongside her loss of Donnie.

Getting up, she did something she hadn’t done in months: she took out a photo album of Donnie and her. They’d kept one for each of the kids, the family, but also a private one that no one else had ever seen but the two of them.

Page one—them kissing at their wedding ceremony, at the reception, as they left family and friends. Then there were two on a
single page: first of her in bed, sheets up to cover her breasts, a satisfied smile on her eighteen-year-old face. Then him, sexy as hell, bare chested, his hips just covered by the sheet. The pages continued through their too-short life together.

“Oh, Donnie,” she said, her eyes damp. “Why did this happen?”

An accident, honey. Nothing more than that.

Since she’d made up the answer
to the question, she asked another, hoping to find an antidote to the new pain inside her. “What am I going to do about other men?”

A long pause. Then her mind told her,
It’s time, love. You can’t live your life alone.

All right, one last thing. “Is it Adam?”

Who knows? You won’t know unless you give it a shot.

A few tears streamed down her cheeks, one dropping onto the old album
page. She wiped it off with her fingertips
.

She was still sitting there with the book in her lap when she got a text from Nia.

FYI, Adam left the fundraiser. I bumped into him as he was leaving. He didn’t feel well and was going home. Remember what I said, sis!

Paulina scrubbed her face with her hands and took a deep breath. She might always cry when she saw that album, and she would
always have that feeling of loss. But she didn’t have to be alone. That was her choice, under her control
.

So what are you waiting for, baby?

Bolting off the bed, she called a cab, shook out her hair, put on some makeup and the lovely blue dress. She was out the door in twenty minutes, just as the taxi arrived.

“Where to, Miss?”

“Fifty-seven west one-sixty, in the city.” As the
cab driver started away, she added, “And hurry.”

“Hey, boss, she just got in a cab!”

“What?” Adam had left the window down between him and Joe and came to the edge of the seat.

“Right ahead. That yellow cab.”

“What the hell is she doing? Nia said she was home sulking.”

“Must be she got over it.”

“I’m going to find out why. Follow the taxi.”

Joe stayed
close and it didn’t take Adam long to figure out where she was headed. He sat back in the car. “I’ll be damned.”

When Paulina got out of the cab—God, she had that beautiful dress on that she’d bought for the casino weekend—he asked Joe not to pull right behind her. He let Paulina walk up to his building and ring the bell. Once, twice, then he came to the front of the house. “I’m right here,
Paulina.”

She whirled around. Stared at him a minute. He stilled. Then she closed the distance between them and threw herself into his arms. He caught her and held her tight. “Oh, Adam, I’ve been so miserable.”

“Me, too.”

“I had to come. I thought you’d be home by now. Nia texted me…”

“I went to
your
place. You were just getting into the cab.”

“And you followed me?”

“At
first, I didn’t know where you were going.”

She hugged him tight, then realizing he was holding her up, she slid so her feet were on the ground. “We have to talk.”

“I know, love.”

Hand in hand, they went into his place. She gestured to the room on the right. “Can we sit in here?”

They sat on the plush taupe leather couch. She was so close, he could smell the scent of her shampoo
and some perfume. Reaching over, he grasped her hand again. “I’m sorry I was rude to you yesterday.”

She clutched at his fingers. “No, I’m the one that’s sorry. For being an idiot.”

He watched her, the little frown between her brows, the way she bit her lip. “What does that mean?”

“I was stupid to run from you because you said things had changed for you.”

“Wow, I didn’t expect
that.”

“I realized things had changed for me, too, that I was more involved in our relationship than I admitted.”

Letting go of her hand, he slid his arm around her and tugged her to him. She went willingly. “Tell me why.”

“I was afraid. We
are
different. There’ll be challenges.”

Oh, thank God. She was talking about the future. “I know.”

“And I always did picture myself with
somebody like Donnie.” He stiffened. “No, don’t take that wrong. Why wouldn’t I, Adam? I dated him since I was fifteen. I’ve never been with anyone but him until you. It was normal for me to feel that way.”

“I suppose it was.” Though it knocked at his male pride. But there was a lot at stake here, and he’d learned from what Nia had told him, so he’d tread lightly. “And now?”

“Now I think
my feelings were normal, but you came along.”

He held on to her words
.

Lovingly, she touched his face. “I care about you so much, Adam. What happened was I tried to deny that my feelings were natural. And very powerful. But I’m not denying them anymore.”

Kissing her head, “I can’t tell you how glad I am to hear that. Are you done?”

“Mostly. Why?”

“Because I want to apologize
for pushing too hard. My dad was right. I
have
been falling in love with you. But I should have been more patient. Let you come to what’s between us and what could be between us, well, naturally, like you said.”

“Will you give me time to do that now?”

“I will. If you want it.”

“I do.”

He smiled down at her. She was beautiful in this light, with that dress making her eyes glitter.
“So, you don’t need a Lifetime TV ending tonight?”

“Nah, I don’t
need
that.” Then she said dreamily, “But I always did want to be scooped up and carried off by a handsome man in a fit of passion.”

Adam chuckled. “Well, then.” He stood abruptly and slid his hands behind her back and under her knees. Lifting her, he cuddled her close. “You want passion, baby, you’re going to get it in spades.”

“Oh, good. I can’t wait.”

He stopped and kissed her nose. Then he said meaningfully, “I can, Paulina. I promise. I can wait.”

I’ve been fascinated by the Ludzecky sisters
since I first wrote about them in PROMISES TO KEEP. Seven girls all younger than the book’s hero, Luke. What would it be like to live in their house? Do sisters really get as close as these seven seem to be? How would this kind of love and support affect your future?

During the course of writing PROMISES TO KEEP, the sisters started to take on personalities, especially the youngest one, Elizabeita.
And, of course, I returned to them in the second O’Neil book, CLOSE TO YOU, featuring Caterina, who followed in Luke’s footsteps to join the Secret Service. Then the six girls and Luke appeared in her book. And in other O’Neil books. So it seemed natural to write their stories.

The six stories are built around a tragedy that happened three years before the first book opens. It isn’t easy to
inflict such an awful event as the death of the twin guys on such nice people, but I wanted to show what can happen after such a great loss, what are the effects on the widows and on the rest of this close-knit family.
Matka
foreshadows this in the prologue of BEGIN AGAIN.

I chose Paulina to go first because her story was easiest for me to write. I created her to be a woman who could recover
from the loss, who could go on to live a full life, though it wouldn’t be without complications. And of course, if she’d found someone other than Adam, more similar to who she is, she wouldn’t have had such a difficult time. Truthfully, I think I’d be wary of trying to fit into Adam’s world since I came from a background similar to Paulina’s (Italian family, though, and only 4 sisters and a brother).
So to me, everything she experienced seemed realistic.

As for Adam, if you’re familiar with my other novels, you know I like to write about heroes from all walks of life, including those who have drivers and earn millions a year. The challenge with him was to make him likeable and down to earth enough for Paulina to care about him. Ultimately, his flaw is his assumption that he’ll get his
own way, and he does—he gets the girl!—but man, does he have to work for it.