“I know, but he won’t admit to anything stronger than friendship.”
“A friend he wants to sleep with.” Lily’s smile was wry.
“We have some pretty fabulous chemistry.” The chuckle that vibrated in Ming’s chest was bittersweet. “But he won’t let it become anything more.”
“Oh, Ming.”
“It’s not as if I didn’t know how he feels.” Ming slid off her stool and looped her arm through Lily’s. She tugged her sister toward the stairs. “It just makes it that much more important for you to accept Evan’s proposal.” Closing her ears to her sister’s protests, Ming packed Lily an overnight bag and herded her into the garage. “One of us deserves to be madly in love.”
Fifteen minutes later, they pulled up in front of Evan’s house. The longing on Lily’s face told Ming she’d been right to meddle. She scooped up her sister’s overnight bag and breezed up the front walk, Lily trailing slowly behind.
“Are you sure about this?” Lily questioned as they waited for Evan to answer the door.
“Positive. What a horrible sister I would be to stand in the way of your happiness.”
Evan opened his door and leaned on it. He looked gray beneath his tan. “Ming? What are you doing here?”
“My sister tells me she turned down your marriage proposal.”
His gaze shot beyond Ming to where Lily lingered at the bottom of his steps, but he said nothing.
Not being able to fix what was wrong in her own love life didn’t mean she couldn’t make sure Lily got her happily-ever-after. “She claims she turned you down because she thinks I would be hurt, but I’m moving on with my life and I don’t want to be her excuse for not marrying you.” Ming fixed her ex-fiancé with a steely gaze. “Do you promise you’ll love her forever?”
“Of course.” Evan was indignant.
Fighting to keep her composure intact, Ming headed down the steps to hug her sister. Confident they were out of Evan’s hearing, she whispered, “Don’t you dare come home until you’ve got an engagement ring on your finger.”
Lily glanced at Evan. “Are you going to take your own advice and go talk to Jason?”
Ming shook her head. “Too much has happened over the last few days. We both need some time to adjust.”
“He’ll come around. You’ll see.”
But Ming didn’t see. She merely nodded to pacify her sister. “I hope you’re right.”
Finding Evan passed out last night had reaffirmed to Jason how much better off he was alone. After such a powerful incident, Ming was convinced he’d never change his mind.
*
“Hey, Dad.” It was late Sunday morning when Jason opened his front door and found his father standing there. “What’s up?”
“Felt like having lunch with you.”
From his father’s serious expression, Jason wondered what he was in for, but he grabbed his keys and locked the house. “Where to?”
“Where else?”
They drove to his dad’s favorite restaurant, where the pretty brunette hostess greeted Tony by name and flirted with him the whole way to the table.
“She’s young enough to be your daughter,” Jason commented, eyeing his father over the menu.
Tony chuckled. “She’s young enough to be my granddaughter. And there’s nothing going on. I love my wife.”
When Tony had first announced that he was marrying Claire, Jason had a hard time believing his father had let himself fall in love again. But he’d reasoned that fifteen years of grieving was more than enough for anyone, and there was no question that Claire made his father happy. But his father’s optimistic attitude toward love didn’t stop Jason from wondering what would happen if Claire left.
Would his father collapse beneath the weight of sadness again? There was no way to know, and Jason hoped he never had to find out. “So, what’s on your mind, Dad?”
“I spoke with Evan earlier today. Sounds like he and Lily are engaged.”
“Since when?”
“Since this morning. Apparently Ming dropped her sister off and told her not to come home until she was engaged.” Tony grinned. “I always loved that girl.”
“Good for Evan. He was pretty beat up about Lily last night.”
“He said you weren’t doing too great, either.”
Jason grimaced. “I found Evan on his living room floor, an empty bottle of pain pills next to him and I assumed…”
“That he’d tried to kill himself the way I had when you were fifteen.” Tony looked older than his sixty-two years. The vibrancy had gone out of his eyes and the muscles in his face were slack. “That was the single darkest moment of my life, and I’m sorry you had to be the one to experience it with me.”
“If I hadn’t you’d be dead.” They’d never really talked about what had happened. As a teenager Jason had been too shocked by almost losing a second parent to demand answers. And since Evan had been away at college, the secret had remained between Jason and his father while questions ate away Jason’s sense of security.
“Looking back, I can’t believe I allowed myself to sink so low, but I wasn’t aware that I needed help. All I could see was a black pit with steep sides that I couldn’t climb out of. Every day the hole seemed deeper. The company was months away from layoffs. I was taking my professional worries out on your mother, and that was eating me up. Then the car accident snatched her and Marie away from us. I was supposed to have driven them to the dress rehearsal for Marie’s recital that night, but I was delayed at the office.” Tony closed his eyes for a few seconds before resuming. “Those files could have waited until morning. If I had put my family first, they might still be alive. And in the end, all my work came to nothing. The job we’d bid went elsewhere and the company was on the verge of going under. I was to the point where I couldn’t live with my failure as a husband, father or businessman.”
So, this was the burden his father had carried all these years. Guilt had driven him to try to take his life because he’d perceived himself a failure?
And just like that, Jason’s doctrine citing the dangers of falling in love lost all support.
“I thought you were so desperately in love with Mom that you couldn’t bear to live without her anymore.”
“Her death was devastating, but it wasn’t why I started drinking or why I reached the point where I didn’t want to go on. It was the guilt.” His father regarded Jason in dismay. “Is that why you and Ming never dated? Were you afraid you’d lose her one day?”
“We didn’t date because we’re friends.”
“But you love her.”
“Of course I love her.” And he did. “She’s my—”
His father interrupted to finish. “Best friend.” He shook his head in disgust. “Evan had another bit of news for me.” Tony leaned his forearms on the table and pinned Jason with hard eyes. “Something Lily told him about Ming.”
Now Jason knew why his father had shown up at his house. “She’s pregnant.”
“And?”
“The baby’s mine.”
So was Ming. His. Just as he’d told her the night of Max’s bachelor party. He’d claimed her and then pushed her away because of a stupid pledge he’d made at fifteen. Had he really expected her to remain his best friend just because that’s how it had always been for them?
And now that he knew the truth behind his father’s depression, Jason could admit that he wanted the same things she did. Marriage. Children. The love of a lifetime.
But after he pushed her away last night, would she still want those things with him?
Jason’s chair scraped the floor as he got to his feet. He threw enough money on the table to cover their tab and gestured for his father to get up. “We have to go.”
“Go where?” Tony followed his son out the door without receiving an answer. “Go where?” he repeated, sliding behind the wheel of his BMW.
“I have an errand to run. Then I’m going to go see Ming. It’s way past time I tell her how I really feel.”
*
Ming swam beneath the pool’s surface, stroking hard to reach the side before her breath gave out. After leaving Evan’s house hours earlier, she’d been keyed up. After cleaning her refrigerator and vacuuming the whole upstairs, she’d decided to burn off her excess energy, hoping the cool water would calm both her body and her mind.
The exercise did its job. By the time she’d completed her twentieth lap, her thoughts had stopped racing. Muffin awaited her at the edge of the pool. As soon as Ming surfaced, the Yorkie raced forward and touched her nose to Ming’s. The show of affection made her smile.
“What would I do without you?” she asked the small dog and received a lick in response.
“I’ve been asking myself the same question since you left last night.”
A shadow fell across her. Ming looked up, her stomach flipping at the determined glint in Jason’s blue eyes. Relief raced through her. The way their conversation had ended the previous night, she’d worried their friendship was irrevocably damaged.
“Luckily you aren’t ever going to find that out.” She accepted Jason’s hand and let him pull her out of the water.