The Winner Takes It All (A Something New Novel) (7 page)

It just made Cecilia feel that much more alone.

She left the kitchen and her confusing exchange with Shane behind, trekking upstairs to knock on her mother’s bedroom door. She needed someone on her side. “Mom, it’s Cecilia.”

A moment of silence before her mom called, “Come in.”

She entered the room—one Maddie hadn’t gotten ahold of. Like her own room, it was still in her grandma’s old style. The nostalgia of the décor eased some of the tension in her shoulders. “This reminds me of Grandma.”

Her mom sat on a faded green brocaded wingback, looking out the window, a book on her lap. “I asked Maddie not to change it.”

Cecilia walked over to the bed and her eyes filled with unexpected tears, which she blinked quickly away. “Is this her wedding quilt?”

“Yes, we found it in the attic.”

Ivory from age, the cotton quilt was embroidered with intertwining tulips symbolizing the circle of a wedding ring. “When we used to visit I’d spread it out on the floor and roll myself up in it like a cocoon.” It was a memory from out of nowhere, one she hadn’t thought of in so long it seemed like it belonged to someone else. “Then Grandpa would pick me up, cuddle me on the couch, and tell me the story of how he met Grandma. How he knew he’d marry her from the second he saw her.”

The window was open and a breeze blew in, sending Charlotte’s expertly highlighted champagne-colored hair flying. “They were very much in love.”

Once, Cecilia questioned if that kind of love really existed. She’d convinced herself she’d imagined the way her grandparents looked at each other. Romanticized her childhood summers until they were something magical and beyond her reach. But, like the rest of her illusions, it was wiped away every time she witnessed her brother gaze at his bride. He had that same look her grandpa used to wear.

She ran her hand over the fabric, soft and worn, but the fibers were still strong. “Maybe some people aren’t destined for great love. Maybe we’re only destined for one thing and we have to make sacrifices along the way.”

“I don’t believe that,” her mother said flatly.

Cecilia took a chair from the secretary’s desk and brought it over to sit next to her mom. She stared out the window, overlooking the idyllic yard full of ancient, timeless trees, roses, and plush green grass still new from spring.

She wondered if her mom had loved her dad that way. If once upon a time they’d had a fairy-tale love. She wanted to ask, but didn’t dare. The wounds were too fresh and the hurt too deep. Instead, she said, “Won’t you please understand?”

There was a long pause. “No, I can’t. Everything about this is wrong. I won’t pretend you’re not making a huge mistake.”

“Mom,” Cecilia said, her voice a bit pleading, “I have so many factors against me. And this is something I can control.”

Charlotte’s fingers tightened, turning her knuckles white. “You will regret this, I promise you.”

“I’m not losing anything I believe in.” She knew what life had in store for her.

“You’ve always been stubborn. Even as a young girl you never listened to me.” Charlotte turned to look at her with sad eyes. “I’m wasting my breath trying to change your mind, aren’t I?”

The question filled Cecilia with shame because it was true. She’d only valued one opinion, and even now, with all her disillusioned bitterness toward her father, she believed he was right. Believed his words over her mother’s. She had doubts, but she’d never admit them to anyone, least of all Charlotte. She’d take them as a sign of hope. And Cecilia refused to be cruel. She shook her head. “I have to do this.”

Charlotte pressed a fingertip briefly to her lips before saying, “When you were a little girl and your dad was around, you’d come home from school and line up all your work on the dining room table. As soon he walked in the door, you’d take him by the hand and make him look at what you’d done in school that day. At first I was proud of how diligent and hardworking you were, but after awhile I became concerned.”

Cecilia looked down at her manicured hands. She remembered doing that. Remembered her desperate need for approval. How she’d hang on his every praise and be crushed by every criticism. “I was an overachiever. Isn’t that a good thing?”

“You were so obsessed with being perfect,” Charlotte said, her voice soft. “If he corrected you, you’d do it over and insist you’d never make the same mistake again. It was too much pressure.”

“I don’t like mistakes.” She tried to make the words light but failed miserably.

“After a month, I told him to stop correcting you. You just wanted his approval so much. And I hated watching you try so hard.”

Had his approval always been false? Something to appease her?

Charlotte put her hand over Cecilia’s, her fingers cool but surprisingly firm. “Don’t do this to please him. To prove to him that you can succeed.”

“I’m not. I’m doing this to be free. To have something to call my own. Can’t you understand that? Since I was a girl, this is all I ever wanted.”

“But why?”

Cecilia blinked at the question. “What do you mean?”

Charlotte gripped her hand harder. “Why do you want to run for office?”

“Because the seat is open and I’m tired of waiting.”

“That’s not what I’m asking. Why do you want to be a congresswoman?”

Cecilia didn’t understand. “You know it’s all I ever wanted. This is the first step in achieving my dreams.”

“I know that’s what you’ve always said, but I don’t understand
why
.”

Clueless, Cecilia shook her head. Her answer wasn’t satisfying her mother. Instead, it seemed to distress her further. “I need to prove to
myself
I can do it.”

“Is that what you’ll run on? The need to prove yourself?”

The words stung. She brushed imaginary lint from her skirt. “I don’t have my campaign slogan yet, but I will. I just haven’t had a chance to think about it.” There’d been too many other details to take care of, but now that she had time to think, her message would come. “Please, Mom, I need your support right now.”

Charlotte sighed, a great weary sigh that sounded like it came from the tips of her toes. “Cecilia, you’re my daughter and I’ll support you and help you in whatever way I can, in all things but this.”

“Thank you,” Cecilia said. She should be relieved. The weight should lift from her chest, but it didn’t and she didn’t understand why. She’d gotten what she came for and, realistically, begrudging support was all she could expect.

All she could hope for.

But today, sitting in this room that reminded her of her grandma, she wanted more.

Chapter Five

Shane rubbed his gritty eyes in the silent, dark kitchen, illuminated by the screen of his laptop as he sent off another e-mail. Twenty-five more to go.

He glanced at the digital clock on the stainless steel microwave. Five after eleven. He’d been working through his e-mails for the last couple of hours and the list of problems from his battle with the new head of city planning was growing exponentially. He really should be in the office, dealing with the city contract from hell, but he refused to disappoint his sister. It wasn’t her fault she had to get married at the worst time.

He opened an e-mail from his VP of Communications. After the first sentence his eyes blurred and his mind drifted to other things . . . namely Cecilia.

Where had she disappeared to?

She’d gone upstairs after their interlude this afternoon and he hadn’t seen her since. It seemed unlikely she’d avoided him—Cecilia Riley wasn’t the kind of woman who tucked tail and ran at the first sign of a little challenge. So why hadn’t she shown up at dinner?

When Mitch asked Charlotte about her daughter’s whereabouts, the other woman just got a troubled expression on her face and said she didn’t know. Mitch shrugged it off and the conversation moved on.

Shane had wanted to probe but held his tongue. He wasn’t ready to explain his interest to anyone. He’d waited, none too patiently, for one of them to go find her, but neither of them moved from the dinner table and Maddie hadn’t seemed inclined to track down the missing Riley.

Didn’t they see something was going on with Cecilia? It was clear as day. But her family seemed unconcerned with her well-being.

It bothered him on some deep level he didn’t quite understand.

When she hadn’t shown up by eight thirty he’d lost patience and texted her, but unlike before, she hadn’t texted him back with one of her sassy remarks. While his phone cheeped, beeped, and rang at a steady clip all night, it had never once been her.

The sleek, gunmetal-gray Mercedes she drove still sat in the driveway and hadn’t moved.

As far as Shane could tell she’d locked herself into her room and hadn’t come out.

The question was: Why?

He pinched the bridge of his nose and squinted, wondering if he was going to need fucking reading glasses soon. He kept meaning to make an eye doctor appointment, or at least tell Penelope to make him one, but he conveniently kept forgetting until he stared at a screen for four hours straight.

It wasn’t that he cared about getting old; he didn’t. But his age reminded him everything else had aged too, and he didn’t know quite what to do with himself. It was like he was still going Mach 10 while the rest of the world had gone into slow motion.

Since his dad had died he’d been working his ass off. From the second he’d received the call about the car crash he’d been in crisis mode, fixing the mountains of problems left behind by two ill-prepared people, taking care of his siblings as his mother focused on Maddie’s recovery and struggled with her grief, paying off debt after debt. He’d barely breathed all those years. Barely thought. He’d just put his head down and bulldozed through every obstacle that came into his path.

Then one day he’d finally looked up and realized he’d done it. He’d saved them all. His mom would never have to work a day in her life. His brothers and sister were grown. And, somehow, after all his years of being a slacker, a fuck-up, he’d built a company that employed thousands of people with a bottom line that still staggered him.

Everyone was finally safe. Finally secure. If he died tomorrow they’d be taken care of. He’d made sure what happened before would never happen again.

Only, he couldn’t seem to break out of panic mode. That feeling of being one step from disaster still plagued him.

He frowned, not liking the direction of his thoughts.

He had a company to run, a contract to straighten out, and e-mails to answer. This wasn’t the time to turn introspective. He refocused on the message from his VP, shot off his comments and opened the next e-mail.

Twenty-four to go.

The kitchen door swung open. He expected Mitch or Maddie, but instead it was Cecilia.

She screamed, her hand flying to her chest as she pulled a silky robe tightly around herself. “Are you trying to give me a heart attack?!”

He grinned. Instantly the vague unease troubling him disappeared. “Sugar, I was here first. You walked in on me, not the other way around.”

She tied the sash around her waist, cinching it far too tight than he thought necessary. “Don’t call me sugar, that’s despicable.”

He chuckled, wondering what she had on under those clothes. “Where have you been hiding all night?”

Her shoulders squared. “I haven’t been hiding, you arrogant ass. If you must know, I fell asleep.”

“And woke up on the wrong side of the bed, I see.” He stretched his legs and watched her with avid interest, wishing for much better light so he could see more of her.

“What are you doing?” she asked in a haughty tone, taking another couple of steps into the kitchen.

He waved at the computer. “Answering e-mails.”

“Oh,” she said, tugging the lapels of the robe closer together. “Don’t let me disturb you. I just came for some water.”

He gestured toward the cabinets. “Third door on the left.”

She moved across the floor with the practiced, studied grace of a rich girl.

Coming from a humble background, he’d never thought that was something he’d be attracted to, but she made it work. He’d bet dollars to doughnuts she’d taken years of ballet.

She reached for a glass, her back arching, her calves flexing as she stood on tiptoes to grab what she wanted. The moonlight streamed in from the window, casting her in its glow, and his breath caught. In the pale light her face was still soft from sleep, her hair rumpled, and she lost all that polish.

Goddamn, she was beautiful. His cock stirred. It was more than her face; there was something about her, something that reached inside of him and squeezed.

One day in her presence had rid him of all his delusions that he could keep her at arm’s length. She was a mystery that had gotten under his skin and now he had to figure her out.

He wanted her and intended to have her.

She moved to the fridge and filled her water from the automatic dispenser before lifting it to her lips and taking a long drink. The delicate cords of her neck worked and he remembered earlier this afternoon when her pulse had hammered under his thumb, belying her cool nature.

When she was done, she turned and looked at him, one hip cocked. “You’re staring.”

He’d thought a lot about his strategy with her, and in the end, he’d decided brutal honesty would be most effective. He shrugged. “You’re a gorgeous woman, of course I’m staring.”

Her brow furrowed, as though the statement perplexed her. “Even though you don’t like me?”

He flipped the lid of his laptop down. “Maybe I misspoke earlier. I don’t know you well enough to like or not like you. I think you work damn hard to keep yourself at a distance, and until now, it’s worked.”

She glanced at his computer, then took another sip of her water and placed the glass on the newly installed granite. “Don’t you need to get to your e-mail?”

He gave her a slow, easy once-over. Gaze skimming down her body, over the swell of her breasts and curve of her hips covered in powder-blue silk. “What are you wearing under that robe?”

She laughed, shocking him. It was full and throaty, matching that porn-star mouth of hers. The sound vibrated straight to his balls, sending a jolt of powerful lust through him. “As if I’m going to tell you.”