“Thank you, my lord.” She turned to set the box on her vanity table. “If there is nothing else . . .”

Her politeness was a cold draft in the room. He wanted the heat back, the one that had scorched between them before he’d let his pride douse it with a single, reckless misunderstanding. Benedict once again closed the distance between them. “Please, my love. I beg you to give me a chance to make this right.”

Her lashes fluttered as her pupils dilated. “To what end, Benedict?”

“A long and happy life together.”

Her slim, elegant throat worked against a nervous swallow. “I don’t believe in such things anymore.” She brushed past him and crossed the room to stand beside the bed. “I told you I would do my duty, and I will. I will give you an heir as soon as possible. And then I and the child will away to the country so you can be free of me.”

“I don’t want to be free of you,” he growled.

“My lord, two weeks ago, you accused me in front of the most vicious viper of the ton of arranging for us to be caught in a compromising situation to force you into marriage for your title.”

“And I have since learned the truth.”

“Yet the damage has been done.”

“Then let me fix it.” He rushed forward in words and steps. “Please, Irena.”

Her lips parted. Perhaps it was the use of her name. Or perhaps it was the strain of his voice, heavy from carrying the weight of an apology he would never stop repeating. Not until she believed it.

“I cannot change what I’ve done or the horrible things I said. All I can do is try to prove the depth of my regret for what I have done and the sincerity of my feelings for you. If you will let me.”

There. A flutter of something other than disdain lit up her eyes. It dissipated immediately, but it had been there, and that mattered.

“Irena—”

“It’s too late,” she whispered.

“It’s never too late. Not for love.” He raised her hands to his lips, taking time to kiss each knuckle before meeting her shocked gaze. “And I do, Irena. I love you.”

A brittle smile met his words as she tugged her hands away. “Love isn’t enough, my lord.”

“Benedict,” he said, tracing his finger along the delicate line of her jaw. “And you’re wrong. Love is all that matters. And I will do whatever it takes to prove that to you.”

The arched eyebrow returned. “And how, daresay, do you plan to accomplish such a thing?”

“I am going to court you.”

Irena snorted in a particularly unladylike way. “Don’t be absurd.”

Her laughter made him stand tall, the idea taking root as its brilliance bloomed with certainty. “My love,” he said, “we are going to start over.”

CHAPTER FOUR

“I am so disappointed in you.”

Thea jumped at the sound of Liv’s voice behind her. Her hand slipped on the dustpan, and the entire pile of dust and debris from the wall landed back on the floor. She glared over her shoulder. “Why?”

“I leave you alone with a perfectly good bottle of wine, and you ignore it to clean?”

It was Sunday night, and Liv had offered to put the girls to bed so Thea could apparently stare mindlessly, but Thea didn’t have time for navel-gazing. She had to clean up the mess from the wall before the girls and the dog decided to play in it. Thea dumped the dirt in a trash can as Liv opened a bottle of Riesling chilling in the fridge. She poured two glasses, handed one to Thea, and plopped down on the couch. “Where’s the fun in getting divorced if you can’t use it as an excuse to get drunk?”

“I haven’t found any part of getting divorced to be fun yet,” Thea said, taking the opposite end of the couch.

“Hence, the wine,” Liv said, stretching her legs out until her feet rested on Thea’s lap. The fact that her legs were long enough to do that didn’t help Thea’s mood. How had Liv gotten lucky enough to get their father’s tall, lean build, and Thea got stuck with the stature of a Smurf? Anytime Thea complained about being short, though, Gavin always said she was perfect because he could prop his chin on her head when he held her.

“You look like you’re having second thoughts,” Liv said.

“I’m not.”

Liv tilted her head and narrowed her eyes, as if she didn’t believe Thea’s denial. “You’re making the right decision.”

“I know.” Thea took a small sip to cover the twinge of guilt about all the things she hadn’t told Liv. And wouldn’t. Thea pointed at the pockmarked wall to change the subject. “This might have been a bit impulsive.”

“I know. That’s what I love about it. The feisty version of Thea clawed its way out with a roar.”

Thea raised her eyebrows. “The feisty old Thea?”

“Yeah. Remember her? The one who went through a phase of painting naked and once handcuffed herself to a bulldozer to protect a tree on campus? I’ve missed her.”

Thea stared at the wall and the small progress she’d made. “So have I.”

When was the last time she’d done anything impulsive? Of course, being impulsive was partly to blame for how she got here. One throw-caution-to-the-wind romp in the back seat of Gavin’s car was all it took for sperm to meet egg. And just like that, the mistakes of her own family were repeated. An unplanned pregnancy. A shotgun wedding. A move to the suburbs. A husband who was never home.

Speaking of . . . “You RSVP yet?” Thea asked. Their father was getting married for the fourth time in December.

Liv snorted. “What’s the point?”

Thea nodded. “I’m thinking about writing maybe next time on the card, but that just seems mean.”

“Which makes it perfect.”

“What the hell is wrong with these women? How does he convince them to totally ignore his track record?”

“He shows them his bank account.”

It really was the only thing that made sense. No woman in her right mind would look at his pattern of chronic infidelity and think, Oh, yeah, husband material.

Liv downed the rest of her wine. “She’s thirty-two.”

“Who?”

“Our new stepmother-to-be.”

Thea’s mouth dropped open. That was only six years older than her. “Oh, Mom is going to love that,” Thea said with a snort.

“Speaking of our lovely mother,” Liv said, “she called me twice today.”

Thea straightened. Neither she nor Liv had talked to their mother in months, each for their own reasons.

“I haven’t called her back,” Liv added.

“Think she knows about the wedding?”

Liv shrugged and took a drink of water. “No idea, but I am not going to be the one to tell her.”

Thea winced. Yeah, that wouldn’t be pretty. But neither would the alternative explanation. “Maybe she heard about Gavin and me.”

“Doubt it. She would’ve said something about it in her voicemail.”

“Or called me directly.” Nothing would have made their mother happier than the failure of Thea’s marriage.

All your years of judging me, but you’ll see. You think you’re so in love now and that nothing will ever go wrong. But someday he’ll break your heart, and you’ll have to apologize to me.

That had been her mother’s advice on Thea’s wedding day.

Thea let her head fall back against the cushion, eager to change the subject. “How’s Alexis coming with the café?” Liv was helping craft the menu for a friend who was opening a cat café and coffeehouse.

Liv gave her a knowing look but played along. “Good. She’ll be open sometime in late January, I think.”

“Have you decided if you’re going to let her use Gran Gran’s sugar cookie recipe?”

“Not yet. Part of me still wants to save them for . . .” She shrugged. “You know.”

Her own restaurant. It had always been her dream.

Well, always was a stretch. There were several years when the only thing Liv dreamed about was finding new and inventive ways to rebel. Bad grades. Bad attitude. Bad boys. Liv reveled in them all during her teenage years. Restless like a man chasing a worm with a bell on it, as Gran Gran used to say. Which, honestly, Thea never quite understood but figured it meant Liv was in search of something that didn’t exist.

And that was really something to which Thea could relate. Neither one of them had emerged from their messed-up childhood unscathed. They’d just hidden from their scars in different ways.

But no matter how much Liv wanted to open her own business, she had repeatedly turned down Thea’s offers for a loan. Liv did things on her own or not at all, even if it meant enduring the hellish abuse of her tyrant boss.

“Thank you for being here,” Thea said, rolling her head to look at Liv.

“You don’t have to thank me. You were there for me more times than I could ever repay you for.”

“That was my job. I was your big sister.”

“You were a child.”

Thea finished her wine and then stood with a sigh. “I think I’ll go to bed.”

Liv caught her hand as she walked by. “Everything is going to be fine, Thea.”

“You and me against the world, right?”

Liv smiled softly and squeezed her hand.

Upstairs, Thea crept into the girls’ rooms to check on them. She bent over Amelia’s bed first and smoothed her hair back to drop a soft kiss on her forehead. Then she crossed the room to Ava’s bed and repeated the gesture, but she lingered over Ava. Even in sleep, she was more serious than Amelia. She clutched her favorite stuffed animal tightly against her chest, and her tiny pink lips formed a tight line. It was as if the one-minute age difference between them officially made her the big sister with all the big-sister responsibilities.

Thea crept back out of the room and shut the door. With a soft snap, she called Butter to follow. She changed quickly into a nightgown and then went into the bathroom to do the nightly face-teeth-hair thing. On the way back to the bed, she stopped at Gavin’s dresser. A tug of regret pulled her heart from its normal rhythm. He’d left almost everything here—most of his clothes and shoes, his collection of baseball caps. On the top of the dresser was a small dish full of the myriad things that he’d emptied from his pockets—loose change and gas receipts and a pack of orange Tic Tacs.