“It’s okay.”
“No. It’s not.” She shook her head angrily. “This is what always happens with people when I try to talk to them. Nobody’s tragedy is as terrible as mine so nobody really talks with me.”
He turned around again. His face scrunched in confusion. “That’s ridiculous.”
“No, it isn’t. Look at you. You won’t tell me about your mom.”
He busied himself with arranging the items on the changing table.
“See!”
Still occupied with powders and lotions, he casually said, “There’s not really a lot to tell.”
“But you said you were alone.”
“That was a slip. A way to show you that you’re not the only one who’s suffered a loss.” He shook his head, but didn’t face her. “I shouldn’t have compared my situation and yours. Our losses were totally different. Plus, I’m lucky. I might have two half-brothers who intend to ignore me, but I still have a baby brother, and if I raise him he’ll be in my life for at least eighteen years. I have a family.”
She glanced down at Gino. “You know, if you really wanted to have a family you should bring your brothers together. You shouldn’t hang back, waiting for the right time for them to come up and meet Gino. You should take the bull by the horns and invite them now. Get them involved with him now.”
He faced her.
“The longer you wait, the more distance you put between yourself and them, and between them and Gino, and the less chance they’ll accept your invitation.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “And you’re the expert?”
She shrugged. “Lawyers counsel people. We sometimes can’t see what’s in front of us in our own lives, but we have this uncanny ability to think really clearly about the lives of our clients.” She glanced down at Gino, then back up at Darius and smiled slightly as she caught his gaze. “You’re not really a client, but I’m sort of new to your life, so it’s easier for me to see the obvious.”
“And you think I should invite my brothers here?”
“Yes. I think you need a chance to bond.”
He snorted out a breath. “Bond. Like a bunch of girls at cheerleading camp?” He shook his head. “That’s ridiculous.”
“No. Bonding is finding a common denominator. Something all three of you care about. So that you can relate to each other.”
The baby spat out his bottle and Whitney burped him. But when she tried to sit him on her lap again he squirmed and squealed.
Without hesitation Darius walked over and hoisted him up, into his arms. “You look like a guy who wants to play.”
Gino giggled. Darius hugged him and headed for the toy box. Whitney’s chest tightened and her heart squeezed. He loved Gino so much. And his reasons for wanting Gino in his life were good. He wanted a family. This time, the guilt she felt had nothing to do with her past and everything to do with right now. This minute. She’d mistrusted him, accused him without knowing anything about him.
Maybe the same was true of his brothers?
Maybe they didn’t so much hate the eldest Andreas son as much as they simply didn’t know him well enough to like him?
Darius opened the toy box and pulled out four big plastic blocks. He sat Gino on a brightly colored striped rug and lowered himself beside him.
The way Darius so easily, so naturally played with Gino tugged on her heartstrings, and once again she thought of his brothers, of how wrong it was for them to dislike their oldest brother.
“I’m not going to drop the idea that you should invite your brothers here.”
Preoccupied with trying to get Gino to take a block, Darius said, “I’ve already told you I don’t want to ‘bond.’”
“So don’t look at it as bonding. Look at it as getting a chance to talk about the company, about your dad, about the things you have in common.”
“And you think talking will fix everything?”
“No. I don’t know for sure that there’s a way to fix your family. But I think it’s a start. And I think you owe it to yourself and Gino to try.”
He shuffled the blocks in front of Gino, who batted at them before he picked up the yellow one and inspected it.
When he didn’t answer, guilt from their argument in the kitchen rose up in her again. At a point when he would have spoken about his mom, she’d been so wrapped up in her own troubles that she hadn’t reached out to him. Every day they’d been here, he’d reached out to her. She owed him.
“If you can get your brothers to come up for a weekend, I’ll stay here with Gino until the Monday after that weekend.”
He glanced up sharply. “Their schedules aren’t going to be any easier than mine. It might take eight or ten weeks before they can come.”
“I’m fine with that.”
He studied her for a few seconds. Finally he said, “I guess I do have enough room here that we could easily invite my brothers for a weekend.”
Darius spent the first few hours at work on the phone with his brothers. He didn’t actually speak with each of them all that time. He used most of it calling various numbers he had for them before reaching secretaries who could have given him Cade and Nick’s private numbers, but didn’t. Each opted to have her boss return Darius’s call. Luckily, and somewhat unexpectedly, both did. Immediately.
Though Nick and Cade were reluctant to accept his invitation, he reminded them of their childhoods without their father. He asked them if they really wanted the fourth brother to be raised that way—never really knowing the rest of his family. And suddenly the tones of the conversations were different. Both brothers agreed that Gino needed to know his half-brothers and both agreed to spend a weekend.
He hung up the phone satisfied, happy that his brothers would be at the house in three weeks, until he realized that not only did he have to spend three days with two brothers who hated him, but also that Whitney would be spending three days with them.
Cade the rich, rebellious cowboy and Nick the brooding Southern gentleman.
Jealousy speared him.
He actually stopped walking.
He’d never been possessive of a woman before, never been jealous. Plus, he’d already figured out he was all wrong for Whitney. He had to get over this.
Before he could take his thoughts any further, his phone rang. His first impulse was to ignore it, then he remembered Whitney would be interviewing nanny candidates that morning and he’d promised to spend five minutes with each of them to determine which of the four would get interviews at the house, with Gino.
He picked up the receiver. “Yes.”
“I’m sitting here with Mary Alice Conrad,” Whitney said happily. “If you have a few minutes, I’d like you to meet her.”
* * *
After Darius’s five minutes with Mary Alice Conrad, Whitney had a very good idea of the kind of nanny Darius envisioned for Gino. She didn’t invite him in on any more of the interviews and simply chose Liz Pizzaro and Jaimie Roberts for interviews at the house.
On the drive home that evening, Whitney informed Darius that the following night they’d be conducting the home interviews with Liz and Jaimie. So, Thursday night, they set themselves up in the den. When Mrs. Tucker escorted Jaimie in, Darius sat behind the big desk in the corner. Gino chewed on a block in the playpen and Whitney stood by the double-doored