Clara pushed her bowl away. “Yeah. This is it.”
“Dear Lord. I need more ice cream. You?”
“I’ve had enough. But help yourself.”
So Rory got up and got more—including another giant scoop for Clara, who insisted she didn’t want it, but then picked up her spoon again and dug right in.
Rory said, “All right. I’m ready.”
Where to even begin? “Remember when I went on that two-week Caribbean vacation last August?”
Rory was nodding. “Of course. Your thirtieth birthday getaway. I kind of suspected it might have happened then.”
“You know how I was feeling then...”
“I remember. You were talking about burnout, that all you did was work. You really needed that vacation.”
Clara had opened her restaurant, the Library Café, almost six years before. The café was a success by any standards. And she’d put in a whole bunch of seven-day workweeks to make it so. “I wanted a little glamour and pampering, you know? I wanted to reward myself for a job well done.”
Rory suggested softly, “And maybe a little romance, too?”
“Oh, yeah. I had this fantasy that I might end up meeting someone amazing.”
“And indulging in a crazy, fabulous tropical affair?”
“Exactly.”
“And so your fantasy came true.”
Clara smiled, feeling wistful. “That’s right. I met him the first night. His name is Dalton. Dalton Ames. And just the sight of him—he’s tall and fit, with black hair and piercing blue eyes. I felt like the heroine of the juiciest romance novel you ever read. I mean, you know how I am. You joke that I’m hot and all. But come on.”
“Clara.” Rory licked her spoon. “You are hot. Accept it.”
Clara pulled her bowl back in front of her and took another melty, chocolaty, amazing bite. “ I don’t feel hot. I feel like I’m the solid one, the level-headed one. The family peacemaker. Guys tend to like me as a friend.”
“A hot friend.”
A snort of laughter escaped her. “Stop.”
“Seriously, Clara. I know whereof I speak.”
Clara purposely did not roll her eyes. “Anyway, when Dalton looked at me...I cannot tell you. It was like a sizzling shiver went all through me. He saw me as hot, I could see it in those heart-stopping baby blues of his. The sexual chemistry was immediate, unexpected—and like nothing in my life before. We danced and flirted. He said he was from Denver.”
“Ah. Both of you from Colorado.”
“Yeah.” Seriously, what an idiot she’d been. She ladled on a little irony. “Like it was meant to be.”
“Don’t make less of it,” Rory chided. “I can tell from the way you talk about him that it was beautiful and special, that you felt a real connection with him.”
“Ha.”
“Tell me the story, Clara—and stop judging yourself.”
Clara sighed. “He told me the trip was a getaway for him, that his work was demanding and he wanted a chance to live in the moment for a change.”
“Just like you.”
“Um-hmm. I told him that I was ready for an adventure, to live out a fantasy, to forget reality for a while. He said that sounded great to him.”
“Okay, now I’m wondering...”
‘What?”
“You weren’t suspicious that it was all just a little too perfect?”
Clara shrugged. “Yeah. But only a little. The resort was like a tropical fairy tale, the beaches pristine, miles and miles of gleaming white sands. Not a cloud in the sky and the ocean went on forever. It all seemed so magical. And then I met this dreamboat of a man. I was kind of swept away—but at least I did have sense enough to ask him if he had a wife at home.”
“Good for you. And?”
“He said he was recently divorced—and then he wanted to know if I had someone special. I told him there was no one. And then, feeling beautiful and wanted and thrilled to be getting a taste of exactly what I’d been dreaming of, I went to his suite with him and spent the night.”
“Bold.”
Even with all that had happened since then, the memory of that first night—of all the nights on the island—remained wonderfully sweet. “I thought so, yes. And it was the best, that night with him, better than anyone or any time before. In the morning, we agreed to spend the next two weeks together. We decided we would live completely in the now and not talk about our ‘real’ lives. And when the fantasy was over, we would go our separate ways.”
Rory was chewing her lower lip. “Reality always intrudes, though, doesn’t it?”
“Sadly, yeah,” Clara admitted. “But for two incredible, perfect weeks, we were lovers. We were open and tender and passionate with each other—in the moment only, I mean. Mostly, we managed to keep our real lives out of it. The sex was just beautiful. And we climbed a volcano, went parasailing and scuba diving. Even bungee jumping. At night, we danced under the stars by the light of the moon. By the end, I knew I was falling in love with him.”
Rory asked in a whisper, “Did you...tell him?”
Clara put her hand on her belly, rubbed it slowly and gently, feeling the love well up, the gratitude, in spite of everything. Her baby might not have a daddy. But she would be a good mother. Clara would make sure her child had a great start in life, with love and happiness to spare. “On the last night, I finally worked up the nerve. I told him I wanted to keep seeing him when we got back to Colorado...”
“Oh, my darling. And?”
“My fantasy crashed and burned.”
“Oh, no...”
“Yeah. He told me that he’d had a beautiful time with me and he would never forget me, but he would only mess things up if we tried to have more.”
“Mess things up? But why? I don’t get it.”
“He said it was different, that he was different, there with me, on the island. He said he wanted to remember me that way, remember us that way. That his marriage had ended not that long before, and it was his fault. And he wasn’t ready to try again. He didn’t think he’d ever be ready. He wanted to stick to the agreement we’d made.”
“That’s just so sad.”
“Believe me, I wanted to argue. I wanted to ask him why he couldn’t at least give it a try. But then, I was pretty much reeling that I’d put myself right out there for him—and gotten instant and total rejection. Plus, well, he was right that we did have an agreement. It wasn’t as if he owed it to me to change everything up just because I’d decided I wanted more. So I went home and tried to forget him. Unfortunately, a few weeks later, I realized I was having his baby. I agonized for another few weeks.”
“You should have called me. I would have come running.” At the time, Rory was still living in her family’s palace in Montedoro on the Cote d’Azur.
“I couldn’t. I felt that I should tell him, tell Dalton, first of all, before anyone else.”
“Well, fair enough. I can understand that.”
“So I started trying to figure out how best to reach him...” Clara stared out the breakfast nook window. It was already dark. All she saw was her own reflection, a reflection that blurred as pointless tears rose. She swallowed,