Page 86 of Keeping Kaitlyn

After aiming a small bow in her direction, the waiter moves away from the door to make room for another tuxedoed attendant, this one carrying a bottle of wine. I recognize the label and have to fight off another wave of laughter. This isn’t my father being generous. This is my father showing off.

As soon as the wine is poured—a crisp, white chardonnay with a sticker price that rivals that of a good, used car—the waiter reappears with a promise that our first course will be out shortly before leaving and closing the door behind him.

Kait and I are alone again.

Rather than pick up the conversation where it left off, I leave it alone all together. I have a lot I want to say but this isn’t the time or place. What I have to say can wait. “He was gracious enough to accommodate me?” I say, parroting back the tail end of her lie with a barely suppressed smile.

Pulling her hand away from mine, Kait gives me a sheepish shrug. “I’ve spent the last year listening to Henley speak to everyone from Backbay contractors to Wallstreet investors,” she explains while lifting her glass to take a small sip of wine. “I’ve learned a few things.”

“Yeah?” Resisting the urge to reach for her hand again, I sit back in my seat with a grin. “Well, I’d still rather put horse shit in his pillow.”

Returning my smile with one that looks equal parts both amused by me and relieved that I’m willing to let our previous conversation rest, Kait sets her glass down on a soft laugh. “Where’s Two-tone when you need him?”

When she mentions her horse, I sober instantly because it’s a reminder that I made my brother a promise. One I don’t want to keep. “Speaking of Two-tone…” Tilting my wine glass, I watch the pale, golden liquid climb and cling to the sides of the glass. “Damien called me yesterday. He was looking for you.” When I look up, it’s to find her watching me with an equally sober expression and I’m suddenly angry. Not at her. At the fact that Kait and I can’t seem to catch a break. That the two of us were never allowed to be happy without someone or something smashing their way through it.

“You?” She looks around like she doesn’t understand what I’m saying. “Why would he call you looking for me?” As soon as she says it, the confusion melts away because she knows. He thinks we’re still married. “Oh.”

“Don’t worry.” Tilting my glass again, I lift it to take a drink. He might be an insufferable asshole but my father has excellent taste in wine. “I didn’t tell him the truth.”

“Okay.” It’s on the tip of her tongue to saythank youbut she manages to swallow it before it pushes its way out. “Is everything okay?” Forehead crumpling, she suddenly looks like she’s going to be sick. “Abbey?”

“No.” I shake my head, feeling like an asshole for worrying her. For not telling her sooner. “It’s your father. He’s sick. He’s?—”

“Dying.” She looks away from me to pin her bright blue gaze to a spot directly to my right. I know what she’s doing. Trying to figure out how it’s her fault. What she did, even thousands of miles away, to cause her father’s death. “How?” Looking back atme, Kait licks her lips like her mouth is suddenly dry while her chest heaves slightly like she can’t breathe. “Did Damien say…”

“Cancer.” I don’t tell her that he was diagnosed before she left. That he was sick when he came to take her home because I refuse to give her a reason to blame herself. “Damien says he’s asking that you come home.” When all she does is give me a helpless nod, I dive in without thinking. “Fuck him, Kait. Seriously,fuck him.” Reaching across the table, I grab her hand. “You don’t owe him a goddamned thing,” I remind her, my tone so hard her fingers flinch against mine. “You don’t have to go anywhere you don’t want to go.” When I say it, she gives me another helpless nod. One that tells me she’s already made up her mind. Her father’s called her home again, and this time she’s going.

“Okay…” My thumb brushes against her bare ring finger and the feel of it tightens my jaw because I hate it. I hate the way it feels. What should be there but isn’t. “We can leave whenever you want—as early as tomorrow morning. I can call my pilot and schedule a?—”

“We?” She says it carefully. Like she’s hoping she heard me wrong.

“Yeah.” Cocking my head ever so slightly, I give her a terse nod. “We.” Because if she thinks I’m going to let her step one foot in that valley without me right beside her, she’s crazier than I am.

“You’re doing it again.” She whispers it on an angry headshake while pulling her hand from mine.

“Doing what?” I might be crazy but I’m not stupid. I know what she’s saying. I just don’t like it.

“Rescuing me.” It comes out hard, like an accusation. I don’t like that either. Not one fucking bit.

“That’s not what I’m doing,” I tell her, unsure of how we got here again so quickly. “I’m not trying to rescue you. It’snever beenabout?—”

Before I can finish, there’s a brief knock on the dining room door before it slides open. Sure it’s yet another waiter, bringing us something else we didn’t order, I feel my jaw tighten and my stomach clench when I look away from Kait to see my father standing in the open doorway.

Fuck.

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” my father says, flashing Kait a full watt, Davino Fiorella smile. “But I haven’t seen my son in months. I couldn’t let such a rare opportunity pass me by.”

“No need to apologize.” Standing up, Kait teeters on her sky-high heels for a moment but when I reach out to steady her, she pulls herself out of my grip. “Excuse me. I need to use the ladies’ room.”

With that, Kait’s gone before I can stop her.

FORTY-EIGHT

KAITLYN

My father is dying.

I wish I could say that hearing Went say it made me sad. Hurt me somehow but it didn’t. I’m not sad. I’m not in pain. I feel the way I always feel when I think of him.

---