Perfectly Unmatched (31 page)

He looks at me and smiles, his eyes crinkling at the sides. “Go ahead, sweetheart. Anything you need.”

“Cormac is completing his internship--”

“I’m sorry about that. Hear me out. I just saw the stress he was under, and I know how sometimes, especially for a guy who’s a little, you know, a little less assertive, it can be a hard thing
to say no. But I should have asked. That’s on me. I’m glad he’ll finish that book thing. And it should be done in time for him to travel to Sweden with me this winter? I’m looking at taking over a factory there. Do you think he speaks Swedish by any chance?” My father’s face is free of lines, relaxed and sure for the first time in such a long time.

There’s a huge temptation to let this ride, to let
Cormac do the work he’s not even complaining about, to let Ithaca and Colt bite their tongues for one more short year.

But I can’t.

I can’t do it. I pick up the bow and pull back.

“
Cormac won’t go to Sweden,” I say firmly. “He’ll be accepting a temporary assignment at Stanford. I’ll travel back and forth between California and Georgia while he’s there.”

My father’s smile melts and hardens. “What’s this all about? California? You can’t spend your first year of marriage jetting back and forth like that. And he needs a real job so you can have a home like you need. It will be time for the two of you to have kids before you know it.”

“Papa, listen.” But just those two words open up a vat of indignant fury. My father isn’t good at ‘listening’ to anyone. “Cormac and I are going to have a longer engagement. We want to wedding to accommodate his family, too, and they need time to make arrangements--”

“I can pay for anything that needs paying for,” my father insists, going back to the cajoling peacemaker.

“It’s not money, Pop. It’s...choice.” I have a very tenuous hold on this conversation, but I’m determined to grab on. I need to pull the damn bowstring back.

“Not the money?” He barks out a short, hard laugh. “What’s not about the money,
Benelli? Be an adult here for a minute. What’s not about the money?”

I don’t like my father’s tone, and I realize that now is the time where we’re going to push past the positions we’re both comfortable in. I’m not going to be his little princess, and he’s not going to be my all-powerful, all-knowing father. We’re about to look eye to eye, and it’s not going to be pretty.

I set my arrow and draw back, taking dead aim.

“Winch walked away from the money.
Abony took it. Look at how things went with him. And with her. So think about it. Is it all about money, Papa? Really?”

My words fly and shoot straight into the heart of this. His face purples with rage and he moves his jaw, slicing his teeth back and forth as he wrestles with his next words.

“What has Abony been telling you while you two are enjoying your time under the roof I pay for?”

“The truth,” I say. “And stop with the money. I love you, but I don’t always love what you’ve done. Or why you’ve done it.”

His blue eyes flash at me. “You don’t love what I’ve done? I’ve taken care of all of you! All of you!” He pounds the flat of one hand on the counter.

I put a hand on his arm. “You did your best. But it’s time to do things differently.”

He shakes his head at me. “You think this is so easy? You think running a family, a business, is so simple. You’re a little girl. You’ve been taken care of your entire life. You’ve never faced the realities even your brothers have, and that’s because we decided to protect you.”

“I didn’t ask for that.” I keep my voice strong. “I never asked for any of that. I’m asking now, though, for something. I’m asking for you to respect me.
To respect this family. And to make some changes. Big ones. Hard ones. And to make them before we self-destruct. Because you know that’s what’s going to happen, Papa. You know that.”

He shakes his head. “Your marriage
was
the change, Benelli, and Cormac. He was the change, and it was working.” He rubs a hand over his heart, and I feel a jab of concern, worry, for this man I love in spite of his arrogance.

“There is no marriage.
And Cormac isn’t part of this. There’s just me. And if I’m not enough, if I’m not the answer, you need to let me go.” I clear my throat, because I feel choked with tears that I’m not about to shed in front of him. “But I don’t want to go. I don’t want to abandon this family. I want to be here for all of us and see us through this change.”

I put my hand on his shoulder. My heart is thundering in my chest. I’ve shot every arrow in my quiver, and I may have failed anyway. It feels like I may have. But I did what I had to do.

“I love you. Think about this, please.”

I turn from my father, who may very well disown me for this. I walk past my family house, where the people I love and grew up with may judge me and ostracize me. I walk to the
apartment where the window swings open and Cormac pokes his dark head out, his thick glasses on, his mouth curved up in a smile.

“How goes it, my warrior? Did you conquer?”

I look up at him and let my mouth smile despite my leaden heart. “Maybe? Maybe not. Maybe he’ll listen to what I said. I just don’t know right now.”

“Come up here to me,” he urges, and I do, right up to the arms of the man who will love and support me no matter what, through every obstacle.

And I realize how lucky we are to have found each other. How we fit together so well. How we’re perfectly unmatched.

***

Six months later

“That interpreter was rather lazy, wasn’t he?”
Cormac asks, his face so handsome in the flicker of the fireplace, my heart swells and beats fast. How can just looking at him still do this to me, all these months later?

“He was,” I agree and kiss him, so glad he’s here with me, in my bed, for days on end. “But that’s what you get when you hire some dreamy professor on his winter break. I should have used one of those placement agencies.”

“He did help you negotiate a very decent deal, though,” he whispers, catching my earlobe between his teeth.

“
Mmm. That remains to be seen. We may own the rights to a fish pickling enterprise or something, based on his shoddy Swedish.” I laugh when he blows a raspberry on my neck.

“Well, at least he was open to your wanton seductions.” He kisses down my neck, along my breast, and pulls one nipple into his mouth and sucks softly, making me moan.

“That is one really nice part,” I agree as his head dips lower under the blankets.

We haven’t been able to keep our hands off each other
since he flew back to help me negotiate the deal in Sweden my father signed over to my care.

I thought we might be
together in California the day after I spoke with my father. He didn’t look at me again for a week, and, since Cormac had finished his internship, he convinced me to end the summer with his family in England instead of being ignored by the man who named me and cared for me in Hungary.

We left, his family was lovely and welcoming and refreshingly drama-free, and I was set to move with him to California when my father called me int
o his office as I was packing so he could ask advice about a business account.

One tiny
, cautious question led to another.

And another.

And another, until we were in the midst of restructuring Youngblood enterprises.

Cormac was the one who told me to stay, to see if I could enact some small changes, slowly, that would help legitimize our companies and save our failing businesses.

Each small change I pressed for netted my father success, and each success allowed him to give up a little more control.

Cormac’s head pops back up from the covers. “You are slowly eroding my male pride, love. What are you thinking about other than the gorgeous, sexually adventurous man in your bed?”

“I’m sorry,” I say, communicating my sincere apology with my hands and lips.

He groans and pulls back. “Faker. I know you’re thinking about something other than me, unbelievable as that is. Spill, love. Just so I can do a good job listening and get rewarded with the full force of your passionate attention.”

I laugh hard. “You are such a dork. I thought going to California would make you cooler, but I think it made you even dorkier.”

He nibbles my neck. “I got a nice tan, though. And I stood on a surfboard twice. That kind of makes me a surfer, right?”

“Definitely.”
I giggle. “I was
thinking
that things are getting better with my dad. Slowly. And I’m glad.”

“
Then I will be happy with you and not at all freaked out to be talking about your father right at this moment.” He ducks back under the covers, and I poke at him while he kisses parts of me that don’t seem interesting to anyone but Cormac. I love the way he manages to make even my elbows feel sexy.

“Ithaca wrote me.
She’s loving her new school. And she said Colt has ten different scholarships to choose from. I was twice the student he is, and I had maybe three. That’s football for you, I guess.” I run my foot up and down along his leg, loving the naked slide of our bodies against each other.

“So life is good with the
Youngbloods?” Cormac asks, his voice muffled by the blankets and the fact that he’s trailing kisses down my ribs and onto my hips.

“It’s okay. For now, it’s just fine.”
I lift the covers. “I cannot talk to you while you’re down there.”

He scoots back up and pulls me close. “Here I am. What are we talking about?”

I kiss his bottom lip. “Life being good.”

“So damn good,” he agrees.

“What’s the plan now that your Stanford contract is up?” I ask.

“I was thinking of finding work closer to you, because I missed you like crazy. And I could be home waiting for you, having cleaned up the little place we get together that maybe has a decent bay window and some mid-to-high-end IKEA furniture. I’ll have a nice hot meal on the table every night for my hard-working, high-powered business tycoon woman.” He takes my hand and kisses my knuckles. “I was also thinking of making that ring on your finger more than just an ornament. You know how the thought of making you my legal wife gets me all kinds of giddy. Then I was thinking I’d take you on a long, excruciatingly boring tour of Greece on our honeymoon. Ancient relics and sunburn by day, wine and sex by night. Or, you know, I’m open to other suggestions.”

In the flickering light of the fire, I look at his face, so full of love and wonder, and I know that any suggestion, every suggestion will be the right one as long as he’s with me. And our goals and desires won’t always match, but our love for each other will. And that’s why we’re going to be together until the end. We’ll always find our way back to each other. We’ll make Odysseus and Penelope look like slackers. And we’ll stay, forever, completely in love, totally committed, and perfectly unmatched.

Acknowledgements:

This is the coolest section in a book, because it’s where an author gets to give smooches to all the people who helped her along the way and let those people know how appreciated they are! I’m very smoochful, and know how lucky that makes me.

Thank you to my husband and daughter. I always promise I’m going to write during school/work hours and be fully present at all other times. I break that promise daily, and they love me anyway. And feed me and nudge me towards the shower and help with the chores I always mean to do but forget because my characters are distracting me! They are my heart, and I don’t know what I’d do without them.

Thank you to my amazing fam who always pitch in to cheer me on, act like I’m more famous and wealthy than I’ll ever be, and give me crazy help and advice anytime I need it. Or don’t. But that’s the beautiful thing, isn’t it? Especial love to my sister and sister-in-law, who brought/are bringing two more awesome, crazy women into our family this winter…there are never enough of us! I love them more than I can express. And I’m a wordy, expressive girl!

To my sweet, loving friends who read and tell me what’s good and/or crazy in my
book. Particular love to Steph, who has to put up with me because I won’t go away, who keeps it real, and inspires a ton of the love I write about.

A huge, colossal, ever-loving thank you to the group of authors who are my herd of wild, magical, talented unicorns.
They have showered me in glitter to celebrate my successes, given me virtual smooches when I’m down, and been my inspiration along every step of this amazing journey. So much love, beauties. So much love.

And huge, enormous, all-consuming love to the community of readers, bloggers, and other authors who support, inspire, share, and encourage the writing and reading of every kind of book. I’m honored to be included in the ranks of such a passionate, loving, supportive group of people who share my love of stories that transport and beautify.
You. All. ROCK!

Biography:

I’ve been interested in writing since I rewrote the ending of
Romeo and Juliet
and killed them all off…every last one! My teacher loved it, and my inner writer came out kicking and screaming. My writing passion is YA/NA, the more verbal sparring, melodrama, and steaminess, the better! In my “real life” I love my gorgeous daughter who makes me laugh and dries my insane, my awesome husband (who is the inspiration for many of my best bad boys…shh!), all the rest of my crazy family and friends, plus travel, great books, good food someone else cooked, movies, and laughing. Laughing is my favorite.