But he had taken it on. Because no one else had.
She was his responsibility, because she didn’t have anyone else. His reward was those happy moments.
“I would like to bring Heather by tomorrow for a visit. You two can discuss the wedding.”
“I suppose she has changed since she was the housekeeper’s daughter.”
“Yes, Mother. It’s been quite a few years since you’ve seen her.”
“Tea. Yes. That will be good.”
“Yes, it will.”
His driver took him back to the hotel, and when he walked through the door of the room, he was greeted by Heather, standing there in the brilliant, emerald-green dress he had sent to the suite.
“You look beautiful,” he said.
It was freeing, to say that. To simply admit that he found her to be stunning. To have there be no subtext, no other meaning or emotion behind the words.
She was beautiful.
Her cheeks turned pink, and the pleasure that he saw there on her face ignited something inside of him.
“Really?”
“Yes.”
He held his arm out, and she took it, tentatively. Slowly.
“How was your conversation with your mother?”
“It was good. Overall. She’s happy about the baby. I made arrangements for us to have a visit with her tomorrow.”
“Good,” she said. “That will be…good.”
“She wants for us to have the wedding in Vienna.”
“Oh. Well, that’s fine, I suppose.”
“Thank you. I know you probably barely remember her.”
They got in the elevator, and rode it down to the lobby. They walked through the ornate, gold space, and through the gold revolving door out to the street, where his car waited for them.
He held the door open for her, then got into the driver’s seat. Tonight, he preferred to be behind the wheel.
“Yes, I think I was away most of the time they were still married. And she was often gone.”
“Yes. I do know that my parents had marital problems before your mother arrived. I told you, I lived in a war zone. And that is one thing that I won’t accept for our child. Whatever differences we have, we cannot tear each other down in front of our children.”
“I agree.”
“And we can never make it our child’s job to build this back up.”
“I agree with that too. I suspect your father wanted you to build him back up, and as much as I love him, that’s not fair.”
He hadn’t even been thinking of his father. But he supposed in a way that was true. He hadn’t reached out, had never asked his father to do it, but the relationship with him hadn’t mended because Romeo hadn’t made amends with him. Hadn’t taken back the things that he had said. Some of which had been cruel and unfair, but some of which had been true.
They’d had years of difficult conversations, the fallout of the divorce working itself out over the course of years. And never as fully as Romeo might have wished.
