* * *
Lucaand I wait down in the hotel lobby for Tara that night, and I watch the horse races on one of the big-screen TV sets all around the place, picking who I’d back based on names alone.Endless Love.He’s The One.Mr. Forever. And then the whole lobby seems to turn as one, a little wave of sighs flows around the room, and I swivel in my chair to see what’s going on.
What’s going on is Tara Fincher Donovan. She’s older than me, but at thirty, she still has a fae-like timelessness about her. Childlike, though not childish.
Tonight I can see her power as a woman. The floating, fiery hair that stands out like a beacon; the carmine lips and mere touch of mascara that only make her blue eyes more striking; the pale skin shining like the marble surrounds of the lobby. She’s like one of the old Irish sprites walking among humans, and her magic makes it impossible for us to look away.
“Wow,” Luca says. “Your sister’s hot.”
I thump him. “That’s mysister, man. Andyou’remyhusband.”
He grins. “Just saying. That Donovan charm, it really is a thing.”
“Oh, that’s not Donovan charm. That’s ourmother’scharm.” Because I see Mom reincarnated in Tara as she smiles and waves and makes her way over to us, oblivious-but-not of the attention she draws in her golden, gossamer-thin slip dress and strappy heeled sandals.
Luca and I stand up as she reaches us, and it feels like the rest of the lobby gives a groan of disappointment that Tara hasn’t deigned to bestow her presence on them instead.
“Howie,” Tara greets me, leaning in to kiss my cheek.
Luca takes her hand and kisses it, making her giggle. Suave bastard. “You’re lovelier than the moon this place is named after,” he says.
“What, in this old thing?” she laughs, holding out her skirt and swaying so her skirt swirls around her knees. “It’s something, isn’t it? I bought it this afternoon.”
“It ain’t the dress, sister,” I tell her, then hook my arm through hers. Luca takes her other arm, and we walk together through the lobby, deeper into the hotel, as scores of people turn to stare. So much for keeping a low profile—though I suspect most of the attention is on Tara, rather than us.
“I’m so happy to be here,” she tells me, smiling up into my face.
“Vegas is a lot more fun than I thought it would be,” I agree.
“No, silly. I mean I’m happy to be here withyou. Despite the circumstances.”
“You realize the only thing you’d have to do is show up to a board meeting looking like this, right?” I ask. “You’d have them eating out of the palm of your hand in no time.”
She laughs. “That would make everything much simpler, wouldn’t it?” she says. “Although I think it’d be the money that swayed them in the end.”
“Money sure does make the world go ’round,” I agree, steering her towards the hotel restaurant. We’ve booked a table in a private part of the room, and just as well, because otherwise we’d be fending off endless advances and drinks from the hungry-eyed packs of men who seem to be in Vegas for their bachelor parties.
Over dinner, Tara and I finally have a chance to catch up.Reallycatch up. I hear all about her college boyfriend who cheated on her (Luca makes a half-serious offer to “take care of him”) and then dating a minor British royal while she studied for an MBA at the London School of Economics. Tara gets to hear all about my drug-taking and clubbing.
“Your life has been so much more interesting than mine,” she says wistfully.
“You’re kidding, right?”
“I’ve been sheltered. Well, as much as any of us Donovan kids have been sheltered.” A silent understanding passes between us. Pops might have tried to move the family out of shady dealings, but our childhoods were lived under shadows, even if we didn’t know it at the time.
“Excuse me for a moment,” Luca says. “There’s a race running now that I had a little flutter on.”
I’ve never known Luca to bet on horses, so I figure it’s just a polite way of leaving me and Tara alone. Sure enough, he seats himself at the bar with a drink and begins to fiddle with his phone, not even glancing up at the horse races running on the TV.
“He’s lovely,” Tara says, watching him as well. “Not at all like…”
“Like what?”
“Like Pops described him,” she says, rolling her eyes, and I find myself laughing with her. But her laugh dies away and her mouth twists. “I can’t help loving him, even after everything he did.”
“Whatever else he was, hewasour Pops. I get it.”
“And you know, Howie, towards the end, he really did regret how things were between the two of you.” She puts her hand on my hand and her big blue Donovan eyes well up.
