Page 66 of The Playboy and the Widow
Cliff didn’t need Diana piling on any more guilt than what he already had. It wasn’t as though he’d deliberately gone out of his way to disappoint Joan. He certainly would rather have spent the night with Diana’s daughter than cooped up in a stuffy, smoke-filled office.
“I know a banquet with an eleven-year-old girl isn’t high on your priority list...”
“Diana, that’s not true—”
“No... you listen to me. You want to break a date with me, then fine. I’m mature enough to accept it. But I can’t allow you to hurt one of my children. I absolutely refuse to allow it.”
Cliff ran his fingers through his hair and angrily expelled his breath. “You’re making it sound like I deliberately planned this meeting just so I could get out of the banquet.”
“All I know,” Diana said, holding in the anger as best she could, “is that if it had been Stan, he would have been here!”
Stan’s name hit Cliff with all the force of a brick hurled against the back of his head. He reeled with the impact and the shock of the pain. “Are you going to throw his name at me every time something goes wrong?”
“I don’t know,” she murmured. “All I know is that I don’t want you to hurt Joan and Katie.”
“You’re making it sound like I’m looking for the opportunity.”
“I’ve had all night to think about what I want to say,” Diana confessed, dropping her gaze, unable to meet the cutting, narrowed look he was giving her. “All of a sudden I’m not so sure marriage would be the best thing for me and the girls.”
Cliff knotted his hands into tight, impotent fists. “Okay, you want to call off the wedding, then fine.”
His willingness shocked her. “I don’t know what I want.”
“Well, you’d better hurry up and decide.”
A horrible silence stretched between them like a rolling, twisting fog, blinding them from the truth and obliterating the love that had once seemed so strong and invincible.
“I’ll give you a week,” Cliff announced. “You can let me know then what you want to do.” With that, he turned and walked out the front door.
Thirteen
“Are you making poached eggs again?” Joan whined when she came down the stairs for breakfast.
“Yes,” Diana said. “How’d you know?”
“Oh, Mom, honestly.” The preteen plopped down at the kitchen table and shook her head knowingly. “You always make poached eggs when you’re upset. It’s a form of self-punishment—at least, that’s what I think. Katie says it’s because you still haven’t made up with Cliff.” She paused to study her mother. “Katie’s right, too. You know that, don’t you?”
Mumbling something unintelligible under her breath, Diana cracked two raw eggs over the boiling water. A frown gently creased her forehead. “Just how many times this week have I served poached eggs?”
“Three,” Joan came back quickly. “Which is exactly as many days since you and Cliff had your big fight.”
“We didn’t have a big fight,” Diana answered in a calm, reasonable voice.
Joan shrugged and took a long drink of her orange juice before answering. “I heard you. You and Cliff were shouting at each other—well, maybe not shouting, but your voices were raised, and I could hear you all the way upstairs.” She paused as though considering whether to add a commentary. “Mom, I think you were wrong to talk to Cliff that way.”
Diana groaned and scraped the butter across the top of the hot toast. “This isn’t a subject I want to discuss with you, Joan.”
“But I saw Cliff when he came into my bedroom, and he felt terrible about missing the banquet.”
“I thought you were asleep!”
“I wasn’t really... I had my eyes closed and everything, but I was peeking up at him through my lashes. He felt really bad. Even I could see that.”
Diana wielded the butter knife like a sword, waving it at her daughter. “You should have said something then.”
Looking guilty, Joan reached for her orange juice a second time. “I was going to, but you started talking and saying all those mean things to Cliff, and I was glad because I was still angry with him.” She paused and sighed. “Now I wish I’d let him know I was awake. Then maybe I wouldn’t be eating poached eggs every morning.”
Diana served her daughters breakfast, but she didn’t bother to eat any herself. She didn’t need a week to decide if she wanted to marry Cliff. Within twenty-four hours after their argument, she recognized that she’d behaved badly. Joan and Katie were far more than willing to confirm her suspicions about the way she’d acted. Diana was forced into admitting she’d been unreasonable. More than anything, she deeply regretted throwing Stan’s name at Cliff. Beyond whatever else she’d said, that had been completely unfair. She owed Cliff an apology, but making one had never come easy to her—the words seemed to stick in her throat. But if she didn’t do it soon, she’d have a mutiny on her hands. Already Katie had hinted that she was going to move in with Mrs. Holiday if she had to eat poached eggs one more morning.
