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“Yes. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love mymamaand my sisters.” Sloane’s face flamed with guilt, just like it always did at the implication that she and her father were closer than the rest of her family. “But mypapawas different. He didn’t push me to do things like anyone else unless I wanted to. Even when it turned out that I never wanted to.”
“I don’t have trouble seeing that,” Gavin said over a wry smile. “But isn’t it just a question of individuality?”
“Not when you buck tradition as hard and as often as I do.” A nagging voice deep in the folds of her brain whispered at her to shut up, that if she pinpointed all the ways she was different from everybody else, it would hammer home the fact that he should find someone better to take care of Bree. Not to mention someone better to spend the morning having sex with.
But all it took was one look into those melty brown eyes, and Sloane’s resolve was toast.
“It’s not just the little stuff. My career, my lifestyle, my personality, all of it is wildly different from everyone else’s in my family. It’s not that I don’t want to be like my sisters. They’re both smart and successful and happy. But what everyone in my family sees as the natural order of things, the way thingsshouldbe, just feels stifling to me.”
“You’re smart and successful and happy, too. I still don’t see how you’re so different. Not in that regard, anyway.” Gavin palmed his coffee cup to take a sip, the action so normal and soothing that she didn’t think twice about spilling her innermost vulnerabilities like marbles all over the floor.
“It took me ages to choose a career, and believe me when I tell you, I tried some doozies while I was figuring it out. The fact that I settled on something my mother finds socially unacceptable doesn’t exactly add to my blend-in factor. Never mind that writing romance novels is the only thing that I’ve ever really had a passion for.” Well, until lately, anyway. The idea of leaving for Greece twanged a path of unease up her spine, but she thrust it aside. She’d figure out a way to deal with the book she couldn’t write later.
Right now she had bigger fish to fry. Namely, airing her emotional laundry in front of a man who had already coaxed something physically astounding out of her and discovering the tell-all felt better than it should.
It felt safe.
Gavin reached out to touch the hand she’d wrapped around her otherwise untouched coffee mug, skimming her knuckles with his thumb. “Your mother doesn’t approve of you being a writer?”
She lifted an eyebrow. “Neither did you when I first told you, remember?”
His hand froze on hers. “I was wrong.”
God, he was too good to be real. Sloane gave a sardonic smile. “Don’t be sorry for your gut reaction. Reality is, some people don’t take what I do seriously.”
“They’ve never seen your Post-it collection. You work really hard, Sloane. You deserve credit for that.”
An ache migrated up from deep in her belly, lodging itself beneath her sternum. “Thanks. But the truth is, I could probably be president of the United States and mymamawould still think it’s a phase. She’s insistent that all I need is to get married and raise a handful of babies in the suburbs like my sisters, and that’ll cure me of my crazy lifestyle like it’s a disease. Marrying my father is what made her happiest in life. From the day I turned eighteen, the pressure’s been on for me to follow in the family footsteps.”
A look of shock splashed over Gavin’s face. “That’s kind of young, huh?”
Sloane shrugged. She was so used to the Russo legacy of getting married and having scads of babies that she was no longer fazed at how antiquated the notion was. “My oldest sister Rosie got married on her twenty-third birthday, and my other sister Angela wasn’t that far behind. It’s not like they had to or anything. But they both knew, beyond a doubt, that it was right for them, just like it had been for my parents. It only made me all the stranger for not doing the same.”
“The black sheep of the family,” Gavin murmured.
“Exactly. And no matter what I say, my mother doesn’t get that it’s not ever going to happen her way.”
“So, you don’teverwant to get married and have kids?” The tiny crease that emerged between Gavin’s eyes belied his calm tone, and Sloane had no choice but to lay out the rest of the truth.
“How could I ever have kids? I’m not even good daughter material, Gavin. Chances are pretty slim that I’d make anything other than a disastrous parent.” Sadness welled up from the dark folds of her chest, filling the fresh space her words had just carved on their exit path, and she put her hand over her breastbone as if it could cover the pang.
It wasn’t that she didn’t want a family. But she was a complete disappointment as a daughter, and she couldn’t even hold on to her beloved career with both hands.
Holding on to a husband and kids would be impossible.
“None of this makes you a bad daughter. Or a potentially disastrous parent,” Gavin said, and his eyes flashed like he was poised to argue.
But there was no point in arguing something she knew down to her marrow. “It doesn’t matter. I’m not cut out for that anyway. Like you said, I’m happy the way I am, even if I have to take flak for it.”
“Itdoesmatter,” he challenged. He pushed back from the counter so fast that she didn’t have time to react until he was right next to her on the other side of the breakfast bar, but by then it was too late for shock. “You’ve spent all this time believing something that’s just not true, and someone’s got to set you straight. You’re not unworthy just because you do things your own way. In fact, it’s the most beautiful thing about you. I just wish you knew it.”
In that moment, Sloane wanted nothing more than to deny his words with the fierce vehemence they deserved.
The only problem was, when he said she was worthy and beautiful, she believed him.
“I’ve felt like a failure as a daughter for so long, I don’t know anything else,” Sloane whispered, startled by the clarity of the confession. “No matter how hard I try or what I throw at it, I’m not going to be good enough.”
Her throat knotted, threatening to close over an unexpected sob, and she swallowed hard in a desperate act of defiance. But then Gavin gathered her into his arms, and all her sadness and vulnerability poured out. It emerged from her throat on jagged edges, making her shake against the solid plane of his body, and with each cry, he only held her tighter.
