Forever in Love (23 page)

“He’s overzealous from time to time, and it’s backfired on him before. I always tell him to take a step back, but I suppose it’s not easy to take his mother’s advice when he’s all grown up.” Stella took a big swallow of her sherry. “I’m sorry, dear. I haven’t been fair to you.”

“Please, you don’t have to apologize.”

“But I do. I knew something wasn’t right between you, Jacob and Gavin. I didn’t know exactly what it was, but if I’d been more honest with myself, I would’ve realized it was Jacob. He’s always been jealous of his brothers.” Bewildered disappointment etched tired lines on Stella’s face. “I thought he’d gotten over that once he took over the company and got married. He had you, and TLD was doing so well. He should’ve been happy his brothers were successful on their own.” She ran a hand over her forehead and sighed.

To Catherine’s surprise, Stella’s typically steady fingers were shaking. Her usually luminous skin seemed thin and brittle. For the first time, Catherine could see the age and frailty in her mother-in-law.

“It was easier to blame you than face the idea that I didn’t do something right with my oldest.” She closed her eyes briefly. “Thank goodness my husband isn’t here to witness the mess. He would’ve been furious.”

Catherine reached out and held Stella’s hand, finding it surprisingly cool. “It’s not your fault. Sometimes things just don’t work out. And sure, Jacob…has some issues. But you have other children who are wonderful, warm-hearted, honest and smart. You should be proud of yourself for having raised them. It’s not your fault Jacob is what he is.”

“Oh, dear.” Stella blinked away tears. “I was supposed to console you and tell you everything’s going to be all right and that we’re going to take care of you. And instead here you are, comforting me.”

“Let’s not dwell on the past. We can’t change any of it. Instead we should focus on now and the future.”

“Thank you, Catherine.”

“Thank you, Stella. And when I get a chance, I want to see your garden. I hear you redid it.”

Stella smiled. “That would be nice.”

* * *

Blaine eyed his half-brother on the other side of the jet. Dressed in a white polo shirt and khaki shorts, Mark had come onboard when the plane stopped briefly in L.A.

Mark was blue-eyed, brown-haired and had Ceinlys’s mouth—full and on the wide side. He tapped on his tablet and chuckled a bit, but hadn’t said anything since he’d gotten on the plane. Was he upset about Blaine? How much of a mama’s boy was he?

“What?” Mark said, looking up suddenly.

“What do you mean,
what?
”

“You’ve been staring at me since we left L.A.” Mark said, looking Blaine up and down.

Blaine gritted his teeth at the scrutiny, but bore it in silence. He wouldn’t let the rich kid bug him.

“Catherine saw you in Cooter’s Bluff, didn’t she? I know Dad sent her there to talk some sense into you.”

Blaine scowled. “Is that so?”

“Saying no to fifty million is pretty impressive.” Mark grinned.

The tension in Blaine’s neck and shoulders loosened a notch.

“And Catherine. Even more difficult to say no to.”

Blaine did his best to ignore the tension creeping back into him at the mention of her. “But not impossible.”

“Are you telling me you don’t find her attractive at all?”

He didn’t want to discuss Catherine. “Salazar was going to give the money to Ceinlys if I didn’t take it. I didn’t want that.”

Mark frowned. “You sure?”

“Yup.”

“That’s interesting. Dad never gives her a penny more than what’s in the prenup.”

“Huh. They got a prenup?”

“Of course. It’s a pretty standard Pryce prenup. Mom’s not from a rich family, and my grandmother wasn’t going to let her marry Dad without some protection.”

Rich people and their worries. “What’s in the prenup?”

Mark shrugged. “Stuff like her allowance and what happens if they get divorced. It doesn’t matter much now since I doubt they’ll ever get divorced. Everyone calls them The Eternal Couple.”

What the…? “If they’re that much in love—”

Mark burst out laughing. “Love?”

Blaine frowned. “
Eternal
sounds pretty romantic.”

“It’s not love. Mom doesn’t want to…start over, and Dad can’t be bothered. He doesn’t care so long as he can do what he wants.”

Meaning cheating on his wife because he couldn’t be faithful to any woman. “How long has it been that way?”

“Ever since I remember.”

“Kinda shitty for you.” At least Blaine’s mom hadn’t been in an unhappy marriage with a guy who didn’t care about her. For the first time in his life, he felt a smidgeon of pity for Ceinlys.

Mark shrugged. “It wasn’t that bad. We had great nannies.”

Blaine searched for any hint of sarcasm or lies, but Mark seemed pretty serious. Good lord. Was that how rich kids lived? This kind of stuff was normal?

Was this how Catherine had been raised as well?

“Don’t look at me like that,” Mark said. “It’s the way things are in Pryceland.”

“You don’t resent me showing up out of nowhere?” If Blaine had been in Mark’s shoes, he would’ve been furious his dad decided to bring his by-blow home and hurt his mom.

“Why should I? All of us know about Dad’s affairs. When people play around, they sometimes make babies. I’m surprised there’s only been one.”

“Doesn’t bother you at all that your dad wasn’t faithful?”

Mark pressed his lips together and shrugged. “What could we have done? Mom didn’t want to rock the boat so long as she could stay married. And interfering in Dad’s sex life would be…” He shuddered. “A bad idea.”

But that wasn’t true, was it? Ceinlys had resented her husband’s cheating ways. She’d come to Cooter’s Bluff when Blaine was a child to warn Georgia Love away from her husband…like a naive country girl would know how to take Salazar from somebody like Ceinlys. Blaine remembered how coldly calculating and sophisticated she had seemed. She thought nothing of ruining someone else’s life to get what she wanted.

Blaine’s stay at the Pryce’s vacation home wouldn’t be all polite smiles and happy “let’s get to know each other better” stuff. He didn’t have to be a psychic to know it.

Amandine’s eyelids drooped, and her breathing deepened. Catherine watched her cousin fall asleep as Humphrey Bogart said some sharp words to the love of his life on screen. Some things never changed. Lovers holding a grudge after an affair gone sour was one of them.

Catherine checked her watch. Wow, eleven already? She turned off the movie and went upstairs, leaving her cousin to rest. Stella had left to see Barron after breakfast to go over the final details of the wedding, but she hadn’t returned yet.
Poor Kerri and Ethan
, Catherine thought. They didn’t seem to get a vote on how their wedding ought to be. But then it probably wasn’t easy to fight the combined wills of Stella and Barron.

“Where’s Amandine?” Gavin asked from the office as Catherine went by, his hands stilling on his laptop keyboard.

“Napping in the movie room. Not even
Casablanca
could keep her awake.”

He nodded. “Jeremy was up and down all night long.”

And that meant Amandine had gotten no sleep, and Gavin probably hadn’t gotten much either. “Why don’t you get some rest while he’s asleep? Fern’s watching him right now.”

“Yeah, I probably should.” He stretched, yawning.

Leaving Gavin in his office, Catherine put on a wide-brimmed straw hat and went out of the house for a walk. She’d heard about Lou the Communal Elephant—a gentle thing that liked to munch on bananas from the trees planted along the vacation homes—and if she got lucky, she might be able to spot him.

The late morning sun in Thailand was hot and bright. The ocean air cleared some of the humidity from the beach and teased the short hem of Catherine’s thin yellow dress. Carrying her sandals, she walked slowly, enjoying the warm water and silky sand between her bare toes.

She stopped when she spotted a familiar profile limned against the sun. The fancy designer shirt and cropped pants couldn’t hide the rough-around-the-edges look she’d found so compelling even before she’d met the man. He stood facing the endless blue water, as though waiting for someone to return from a foreign land.

What a silly thought. Who would he be waiting for here? Her? She shook her head inwardly. Not after what he’d said to her in Cooter’s Bluff. Once he’d realized who her friends and family were, he’d had no problem lashing out. All those sweet nothings he’d whispered to her in bed had been exactly that—
nothing
.

She wanted to pretend she didn’t see him and turn back, except that would be immature and ridiculous. She wasn’t some ingénue who’d been tricked into an affair with empty promises. Besides, this part of the beach belonged to her in-laws—since Stella had been so kind, Catherine was actually starting to feel like one of the family again—so it was Blaine who should be leaving.

He swiveled his head her way, and from his lack of reaction she realized that he’d known she was there all along. “Hi, Catherine. I was beginning to wonder if you’d ever come out of that house.”

“Hello, Blaine.” Thank god she hadn’t turned back. “Why didn’t you just come over?”

He shrugged. “I didn’t want other people around when I saw you again.” They stood looking at each other for a moment. “Guess things are okay with your in-laws now?”

“Yes.” She winced at how stilted they sounded. They might as well have been strangers stuck on an elevator, except for the fact that she didn’t feel indifferent about Blaine. What was it with her and men who didn’t think highly of her? At least Blaine hadn’t asked her if she was sleeping with every available Lloyd and Sterling and Pryce to snare one of them in marriage.
I guess that’s progress
.

“Look, about what I said before you left—”

She shook her head. There was no point in talking about what had happened. His accusation had been unfair, but what still hurt the most was that he’d thought her so low. Plenty of people found her lacking in one way or another, but nobody thought she was capable of selling people out for money. “So you’re making peace with Salazar?”

A small frown creased his brow. “Wouldn’t quite call it that. He threatened to give the fund he’s set aside for me to his wife.”

“How are things with the rest of his family?”

“The ones I’ve met seem all right. I haven’t had a chance to see Ceinlys alone, but she tolerates my presence in the house.”

“Well, good. Enjoy your time in Thailand,” she said briskly and started to turn around.

“Catherine, wait.”

“What?”

“I want you to have lunch with me.”

“Lunch? You mean today? Now?”

“Yes.”

She cocked her head. What would be the point? But the determined set of his jaw said turning him down wouldn’t solve anything. He’d only become more insistent. “Fine. But I only have an hour.” She texted Gavin to let him know she was eating out with a friend. “Where are we going? To the Pryce house?”

“Uh, no. I saw an Italian restaurant about a ten-minute drive away from here. I already checked out the menu, and it’s got everything you might want.”

“You have no idea what I want,” she murmured, but she walked with him to where a black Mercedes was parked and let him drive her to the restaurant. He seemed at home in the expensive sedan, just like he’d been in his truck. “How did you find the place anyway? Have you been here for a while?”

“Mark recommended it.”

“Then everything should be excellent.” Mark knew food the way she knew art.

The restaurant was as upscale as any in New York City or L.A. The seating area was a wide space that overlooked the ocean, open to the intense blue sky. A smiling staff member greeted them in excellent English and led them to a table on the shaded balcony. Catherine gave Blaine a sidelong glance. “You have a reservation.”

“Yup.”

After they were seated, she asked about the specials and ordered the buttered scallops and pasta.

Blaine frowned over his menu. “They have salads.”

“I’ve decided I don’t want to eat like a rabbit anymore. Life’s too short for chopped lettuce, and if a few pounds can change a man’s mind about me, I don’t want him.”

He looked at her with the strangest expression, his eyes dark and unreadable, his lips twitching.

“What?”

“I think that’s the hottest thing I’ve ever heard you say.”

“You’ve got to be joking.”

“Seriously. I like this side of you.”

Her insides gave a funny leap at that.
Don’t read too much into it
,
girl
.
Men will say anything to get what they want
. “Wonder if you’ll feel the same after I gain some weight.”

“I don’t mind a little shape on a woman. Just more of you to love, baby.”

* * *

Catherine dropped her gaze as her cheeks flushed, making Blaine wonder. Hadn’t anybody ever complimented her? Not the usual superficial crap, but
really
complimented her?

A woman this gorgeous…and she was reduced to a lump of insecurity because of her horrible mother and ex-husband—or whatever he was. What they’d done to her was criminal, and Blaine wished he could give them what they really deserved.

Their waiter brought their food and drink. Blaine took a bite of his pasta and swallowed a
wow
. The sauce was amazing, the tuna perfectly seared…and pasta itself made him realize that noodles could actually taste good all on their own.

A sublime expression crossed Catherine’s face as she ate her scallops, as though she was having a spiritual experience. Which it just might be, since she’d denied herself so many pleasurable things in life. And watching her like this was making him hard. Well, she made him hard just by being her, but this…

Down
,
boy
. They needed to talk, and getting distracted like this wasn’t going to help.

“Hey, listen,” Catherine finally said. “You shouldn’t reconcile with Salazar unless that’s what you really want. Don’t do it for the money.”

“What are you talking about? I thought that was what you wanted. Reconciling, I mean.”