So he had heard. And he was throwing it in her face. She jerked back as though it was a physical object striking her in the nose.
“Don’t you dare act as if I’m the only one using someone!” She clenched her fists. “You only brought me here so you could look like the rest of them! I set my expectations very low. I’ve never had any other choice, but don’t ask me to marry you just so you have a child to take to the family picnic.”
“Because I’m that shallow,” he said, throwing himself onto his feet, naked and furious, striding past her to walk out and find his pants in the lounge. Jamming his legs into them, he shouted, “You know what you want, Natalie? For me to be as self-involved and unreliable as your dad and your husband so you can tell yourself we’re all alike and push us away. You can’t count on others if you never do, you know. But you just love being responsible for everything, don’t you? Well, good news, sweetheart. This one’s all on you.”
He slammed out of the suite.
* * *
Someone sat down beside him at the bar.
Nic.
Demitri silently swore. Things were just getting better and better.
Nic caught the bartender’s eye and motioned to the drink in front of Demitri, indicating he wanted the same.
“Take mine. I don’t want it,” Demitri said, sliding it over a few inches. All his old coping strategies were shot and he hadn’t found new ones beyond talking things out with Natalie, and he was so furious with her...
And so hurt...
End up divorced. Fantasy.
Nic didn’t touch the drink. Didn’t say anything. Only settled onto the stool, forearms on the bar, key card rotating on its edge between his fingers and thumb against the mahogany. His tuxedo jacket was gone along with his bow tie, his shirt untucked.
“Come to tell me you didn’t like my talking to your wife behind your back?” Demitri guessed.
“No,” Nic said with a measure of surprise, click-clicking the card against the glossed wood. “I didn’t like it, but that’s not why I’m here. Natalie called our suite. She wanted to come get Zoey— It’s okay,” he said at Demitri’s curse, holding up a hand. “Ro talked her into letting the kids sleep till morning. She was inviting her over for a glass of wine when I left. I figured there weren’t too many places a man goes when he’s had it out with a woman. Found you on the first try.”
“And why would you want to, Nic?” Demitri asked tiredly. It was late, Demitri was thinking. Far too late for this.
Nic pursed his mouth in thought, profile not unlike Theo’s. Something in his features reminded Demitri of an old photo Adara had of their maternal grandfather. It was so odd. Made him feel less as though Nic was a complete stranger, even though he was.
“You didn’t have to go behind my back, you know. You could have come to me,” Nic said.
Demitri snorted, shook his head, baffled by the whole thing. He thought of Natalie telling him he had a right to his confusion and had to ask, “Why would I expect you to help me? Can I ask you something, Nic? And be honest. Do you remember me? Because I’ve got nothing.”
Nic flinched, making Demitri feel as if he’d accidentally run over the guy’s dog.
“Why would you remember me? You were a baby,” Nic said, picking up the untouched drink and smelling it. Sipping once. “Yeah, I remember you. You liked to take your clothes off. Made us laugh.”
Demitri choked on a chuckle. Couldn’t help it. True to form, he thought, and immediately wanted to repeat the story to Natalie. It was the sort of thing that would make her laugh.
God, he loved her laugh. Loved her. Hell.
“Does Natalie know about any of that? What we came from?” Nic asked.
“She’s the only one I’ve ever talked to about it.” Something twisted in his chest, reaching out to her across the walls and floors, trying to get to her. He’d thought she understood him. Accepted him.
Nic’s thumb worked the edge of the glass, nodded. “Yeah, it looked as if you two were pretty close. What happened?”
“Man, you really are an investigative journalist, aren’t you?”
“Just trying to help,” Nic said, turning his head and looking disturbingly sincere. “She seems like a good person. I don’t think you would have walked out on the family business over a woman you didn’t love. Did you tell her?”
The word was like a knife to the heart. “She said it wasn’t enough,” he said, feeling the blade twist in his chest. He was a fantasy. Not real. A vehicle for pleasure, not a man of substance—exactly what he’d always portrayed himself as, so he probably deserved this heartbreak he was suffering, but he couldn’t stand it. He didn’t know how to live without her. Not anymore.
Nic swore under his breath. “She does not look like the kind of woman who would dice up a man when he laid it out like that.”
As Nic’s words penetrated, Demitri frowned. Eyed Nic. “No, that was something she said when she was talking about why she never wanted to remarry. I didn’t actually tell her...”
He sounded like an idiot even to himself. He’d been so busy trying to protect himself, he’d left her hanging with her own declaration.
“I screwed up, didn’t I?” For once not deliberately.
“Kinda sounds like it.” Nic scratched under his chin. “Did you propose?”
Demitri winced. Longed for the days when he messed up and didn’t care. Didn’t feel it like broken glass coursing through his veins.
“Not with a ring. Not properly,” he admitted.
A big breath expanded Nic’s chest. He blew it out slowly. “I’m no advice columnist, but I’ve proofed a few,” he said drily. “Here’s the thing I do know. If you want to win a woman, you have to go all in. Give her everything you’ve got. Pride. Self-worth. Heart. Soul. All of it. Nothing held back.”
“I wish it was that easy,” Demitri said, thinking of how hard it was to get Natalie to accept anything. That last accusation of his, about her always wanting to be responsible for everything, not counting on anyone, had been true. In his experience, women expected men’s wallets to be opened on their behalf. He had never understood Natalie’s deference and protests and putting of others first.
I set my expectations very low...
He’d heard that differently, thinking she was referring to him, too furious about the fantasy remark to process anything properly, but as he thought about why and how she’d become such a little soldier about responsibility, he saw a girl who’d been pressed into service and neglected in her own way. He wondered how many times she had wanted to go to the movies with friends, or continue her ice dancing, and her mother had had to say no. Not by choice, but because Natalie was needed. She didn’t resent it, he knew, but life had cheated her so many times. Even her young-adult years of pursuing her education and making mistakes with boys had only lasted one night. Long enough to get pregnant, grow up and never do anything for herself again.
Except steal a few days in France. Other than that, she probably hadn’t had a selfish moment in her life. Even her heart, her love, had been given away without her daring to ask for something in return.
Of course she loved him. Of course the words would mean something to her, if they were said with sincerity. The way she loved her daughter, her dead family, was fierce and enduring. She would love him, Demitri, until the end of time, and he was privileged, honored, to realize she’d come to feel such an emotion toward him.
“Thanks, Nic,” he said, slapping his brother on the shoulder as he rose, hardened with purpose. “I know what to do.” Throwing a few bills on the bar for the drink, he added, “Don’t let her leave with Zoey before I get there.”
* * *
Natalie wanted to shrink away and die, but Zoey had misplaced her bunny somewhere in Nic and Rowan’s suite and refused to leave without it.
Rowan had urged Natalie to sleep on things last night, but when Natalie had dragged her sorry, unrested body out of bed, the suite had still been empty. Now she just wanted to collect her daughter and head back to Canada on whichever transport her credit card could afford.
But it wasn’t happening.
And she was starting to see why Demitri found the Makricosta collective so annoying with their inclusive remarks and their cheery engagement with all the children. Everyone showed up for a brunch that Rowan insisted Natalie share with them. Demitri’s absence was explained as “having run out for something,” and her daughter was being treated as if she’d been born into their ranks.
Natalie mumbled something about too much champagne to explain her sullen mood and hid behind the challenge of cutting up enough waffle to keep the boys busy with their blunt plastic forks.
All she wanted was to be gone before Demitri showed up—not that she really expected him to turn up here. If he did, he certainly wouldn’t be coming to see her.