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Gia was still talking, but her voice sounded like it was coming from the bottom of a well. “For years, when people would ask Harry what he wanted to be when he grew up, he’d reply, ‘a husband.’ He was the only one of us to cry at Nathan and Maren’s wedding, you know.” She raised a finger and wagged it. “Do not tell him I told you that.”
Rowan swallowed hard and sank down a bit in her chair, weakly pantomiming a zipper across her lips.
Now her memories took her to the night of Patrick and Mercedes’s wedding. How Harry had looked in his tuxedo. The tuxedo that had ended up, in part, in a pile on the floor of her room at the lodge. The first night they’d made love.
“We can just enjoy each other’s bodies.”
No. It had always been more.
Gia was relentless. “Harry took the red-eye twice from Los Angeles to meet Alice and Grey right after they were born. He was still in medical school then, so he had to fly back to California later in the same day. Hours and hours in airplanes and airports so he could hold those new babies. Just for an hour or so.”
“If you walk away from this, I want it to hurt.”
“Did you know he sings ‘Happy Birthday’ to each of the babies he delivers?” Gia asked.
Rowan’s knuckles were as white as the ceramic mug they gripped. “I think we should get ready to go,” she croaked.
“Rowan.” Gia’s tone grew firmer, almost strident. “Harry looks at you the same way my William looked at me through that floristería window.”
She opened her mouth to respond, but Gia held up a hand, setting her mug down on the table with a purposefulthunk. “Don’t say anything yet.”
Oh, god.None of this was the casual, fond chatter of a mother about her son.
Gia Brady had come to teatime with an agenda.
“I’ve seen you two sneaking back and forth between each other’s places for the last few months. Do not think for a moment a mother misses that kind of thing.”
Oh, shit.Rowan’s ears began to burn and she shrank inward, bracing for the scold. The“how dare you.”The withdrawal of affection.
The shame.
It never came. Instead, Gia pulled three photos from the back pocket of her jeans. “I brought something to show you. Then we’ll leave for the airport. Okay?”
She slid a photo across the table. The others remained facedown in front of her. Now it felt like they were playing a high-stakes card game, and Rowan was fresh out of aces.
The photo’s corners were rounded, and it was orangey with age. Gia looked to be no older than twenty, laughing at the camera with an incandescent grin that looked remarkably like Arden’s. She was radiant; her billowy-sleeved off-shoulder crop top revealed gleaming golden skin. Her hair was parted down the middle, sleek black silk falling to her bare navel.
Beside her, Will was virtually Harry’s identical twin, bornthirty years apart. One of Will’s hands tucked into the pocket of his snug-hipped, quintessentially seventies jeans, and the other was wrapped around the waist of the tiny woman beside him. He looked down at Gia as she laughed into the camera.
Thefeelingsin the photo were palpable. Joy, lust, love—Rowan recognized it all, as surely as if she were the one standing there experiencing it.
“Tell me my son doesn’t look at you the same way William is looking at me here, and I’ll never bring this up again.” Gia sat back in her chair like she knew she’d laid a winning hand.
Rowan felt like she’d been flung down a dark flight of stairs.
“I can’t,” she said, unable to look away from the photo.
“You can’t what?” Gia prompted.
I can’t do this.
Gia reached over and squeezed her hand.
“What if I denied it?” Rowan said. “Would you really never bring it up again?”
Gia narrowed her eyes. “Darling, I know you. Well enough to know you’re too proud to deny anything. But—a mother is always prepared.” She turned over another photo and slid it across the table with one finger.
It was the photo she’d watched Frankie take back in March, as she’d arrived for Patrick and Mercy’s wedding carpool. She’d captured the moment Rowan had entered the kitchen that morning. Harry stood, hands confined away in his pockets, a silent acknowledgment of her presence.
