“I wasn’t relieved, Martine,” her mother said in a low voice. “What a terrible thing to say. Of course I wasn’t relieved. I still had hope that you’d give him up for adoption, because I did not see how you could have any kind of future with a baby holding you back. When he passed away . . . I admit . . . my first thought—and I’m not proud of myself for this—but my first thought was that we no longer needed to worry about convincing you to give him up.”
“Jesus, Mom,” Smith said, his voice disgusted, and Tina, without looking up, could sense that her other brothers and in-laws were equally disturbed by her mother’s words.
Harris’s hand was squeezing her thigh so hard that Tina knew he would leave bruises.
“I would never have given him up,” Tina stated vehemently. Harris’s other hand appeared in front of her face, this one clutching a white linen handkerchief, which she gratefully took. Wiping her face and then blowing her nose indelicately.
“Harrison, I’m so sorry you had to witness all of this; what must you think of us?” her mother apologized, her voice faint and her eyes still fixed on Tina’s face.
“I’m thinking you should appreciate your amazing daughter more,” he said, and every eye at the table swiveled to his face.
“Why are you here tonight, Harris?” Smith suddenly asked. “You don’t seem surprised by any of our family’s dirty laundry. Why is that?”
“I’m . . .”
“Harris. No,” Tina said, a warning note entering her voice. Tonight was enough of a train wreck without him exacerbating the situation. He squeezed her thigh and leaned toward her.
“It’s not your burden to bear alone,” he said, the words meant for her ears only. “Not anymore, Tina.”
He lifted his gaze to meet Smith’s and took in a deep, bracing breath.
“Fletcher was my son.”
Chapter Fifteen
“You foolish man,” Tina chastised him two hours later, sitting cross-legged on a sofa in Harris’s apartment and holding a steak to his swollen eye. “Tossing a bombshell like that in a roomful of my brothers? What the hell did you think was going to happen? You’re lucky only Smith went for you.”
“Only because Kitty was physically holding Conrad back—she’s quite strong for a woman who had a baby three months ago—and I’m pretty sure Dumi and Kyle were trying to pull Smith off me because they both wanted a turn. In fact, I’m sure I felt Dumi’s elbow in my ribs.”
Tina snorted, then compressed her lips. She shouldn’t laugh; it wasn’t a laughing matter. It had been awful. The evening had devolved into chaos seconds after Harris’s revelation.
Smith had called him a “motherfucker” and had practically leaped across the table to get to him.
“I-I keep seeing . . .” A snigger escaped, and she clapped a horrified hand over her mouth as she tried to get herself back under control. She attempted to speak again. “I-I keep seeing m-my mother snatching the Lalique candleholders from the table! Never mind that Smith was trying to k-kill you. She needed to get those—” Another chortle. “Those damned . . . oh God. Those damned candleholders to s-safe . . .” She couldn’t stop herself; she knew she was borderline hysterical. It had been an extremely trying evening, but she could not stop laughing.
Harris watched her closely, the corners of his lips canting upward as he enjoyed her laughter. He wanted to commit every lovely nuance of that laugh to memory. He reached up to remove the steak from his eye and placed it on a plate on the coffee table. She was still helplessly laughing, her arms folded over her stomach. He knew this was another one of her little coping mechanisms. And understood that if she weren’t laughing right now, she’d be crying. It upset him that she was this disturbed by the evening’s events, but he could not find it in him to regret his confession at dinner.
His hands moved, and he brought them to cup her jaw, sliding beneath her hair until his fingertips met at the nape of her neck. His thumbs tilted her head up, and the laughter faded from her eyes. Leaving her looking much too vulnerable. Her own hands flattened against his chest and then curled into the fabric of his shirt.
“I’m sorry you had a fight with one of your best friends. I know it’s my fault.”
“Nah,” he dismissed carelessly. “It’s my fault. I messed with my friend’s baby sister. I’d beat the shit out of me, too, if I were him.”
“‘Messed with me’? Is that what the kids are calling it these days?” she asked, latent laughter still adding a lilt to her voice.
“That’s what I’m calling it. And I desperately want to mess with you again,” he said, his eyes dipping to her lips.