“What about New York, though?” Daisy insisted again. “What about the Tiffany’s magic Mum talked about?”
“Sweetheart…”
“And if you say you’re happy just being my dad, then why are you so sad all the time?”
Ethan was slightly taken aback by her perceptiveness. “What makes you think I’m sad?”
She rolled her eyes. “Dad, I am not an idiot.”
Perhaps she was right. Lately, he was indeed down in the dumps.
The ache of Jane’s absence seemed to have returned, this time stronger than ever, and as each day wore on, he wondered how long it would be until these feelings faded and got lost to time.
How long would it be until he was truly happy again?
He didn’t know, and he wondered if he would still be thinking about Jane when he was ninety years old, wrinkled and alone.
And he sorely wished that if—as Daisy insisted—his beloved had been intervening from above to set things right, he understood what she was trying to say.
Back at the town house, while Daisy was in the shower, he set about making dinner. He gathered together all the ingredients for her favorite, chili con carne, but it was a light meal on its own, and Ethan knew he’d need some kind of accompaniment. Either that or he would end up gorging himself on chocolate and ice cream later, and he knew that wouldn’t go down well with Daisy.
He opened the freezer and rummaged around the back of it for the frozen garlic bread he kept for situations just like this. Then he paused, spotting the purple wrapping he was almost too familiar with by now. A bread loaf from Gillini. He hadn’t put it there, so he deduced it must have been Daisy who’d brought it back from Dublin that time.
Taking it out, Ethan couldn’t help but think that bread seemed determined to haunt him.
Just when he thought he’d left all that behind, the place had reared its head again.
Still, however it had ended up here, there was no denying that it was amazing, and it would go nicely with tonight’s meal.
As he took Rachel’s olive bread out of its wrapper, the words struck him.
A woman to bake you bread…
Ethan raised his gaze skyward.
“Thank you,” he whispered with a smile. “NowI get it.”
Chapter 56
It was a crazy Sunday lunchtime, and Rachel sorely wished she hadn’t so readily agreed to swap shifts today.
But she had little else to occupy her these days. Her and Gary’s disastrous romance was very definitely finished.
Like Terri said, she deserved better, and despite his pleas, she was unwilling to let him off the hook for his deception. Especially as it seemed this wasn’t the only secret Gary had been keeping from her. He’d admitted how his business had practically gone bankrupt, how the debts kept building up, and perhaps most embarrassing of all, that he was back living with his mother and had been for some time.
Which completely explained Mary Knowles’s shock and annoyance when faced with Rachel’s lavish diamond on the night of the engagement party, she recalled wryly.
So by all accounts, that ring brought Gary about as much luck as it did her.
But for some reason, she found herself thinking more and more about Ethan and that dinner they’d shared before everything went sideways.
She felt a bit guilty about being so hard on him that day it all came out for being less than forthcoming with the truth when he was merely trying to spare her feelings. Pretty touching considering what was at stake.
And while she’d first believed that perhaps she’d made yet another character-judgment error, pouring her heart out to another man who truly couldn’t care less, Rachel recalled that it wasn’t all one-sided either. Ethan had opened up to her too about his own—and as it turned out equally ill-fated—relationship.
So much for the famous Tiffany’s magic.
Then there was Daisy, a little girl so serious and literal that Rachel could understand why he was so keen to give her some stability. The poor thing was terrified of losing her father, understandable given what had happened to her mum.
