had said, “I do trust you.” But then he’d had the grace to look guilty and say, “Well, maybe I haven’t always. But I will. I will trust you, Neel’.”
It was, she thought, the first time he’d actually called her anything but “Robson.” It touched her heart, and yet she’d forced herself to look him straight in the eye and challenge him. “Yeah, right. Prove it.”
Now her guilty face must have betrayed her because Vangie gave a little bounce in her chair and said, “I knew it! I was sure you were the reason he came through.”
“What Sebastian did or didn’t do was entirely his own doing,” Neely insisted.
“Sure. Of course. Whatever you say,” Vangie agreed, all smiles. She stood up, beaming, and when Neely stood, too, Sebastian’s sister threw her arms around her. “Thank you. Thank you so much!”
“I didn’t do anything,” Neely protested.
Vangie just shrugged happily. “You’ll come to the rehearsal dinner with Seb, won’t you?”
“I—”
“Of course you will.” Vangie overrode any objections before she could even make them.
Truth be told, Neely didn’t want to object. She wanted to go to the wedding. And anyway, Vangie was looking very much like a steamroller en route to getting exactly what she wanted. Besides if, when he discovered the invitation, Sebastian decreed that she shouldn’t go, well, she wouldn’t.
But she dared to hope he would want her there.
“Of course it’s what I want,” Vangie said airily. “And what the bride wants, the bride gets.” Waggling her fingers in farewell, she sailed out of the office.
And Neely stood watching her, wondering if she should be worrying or rejoicing that Sebastian had, against all odds, taken her advice.
He didn’t say a word about seeing his father that evening.
They had a late-afternoon meeting with Danny and Frank and the rest of the project leaders for Blake-Carmody, to make sure that everyone was on the same timetable and all the pieces were in place.
While they were all together, Sebastian told them about her meeting with Roger and Steve on Friday. He congratulated her publically for having so successfully promoted the entire design package. His smile was as warm as she’d ever seen it at work. She tried not to think about the way he looked at her when he wanted her. It wasn’t the best means of keeping her mind on the job.
She acknowledged everyone’s congratulations and good wishes as they were leaving the room. She hung back, thinking he might say something to her then. But Danny stopped him with a question, and she couldn’t really just stand there obtrusively and wait.
So she went back to her own office and rang Max as she had promised she would. Sebastian could come and tell her, she decided. He knew where her office was.
Max answered the phone on the first ring. He was home, but not in a walking cast, and not especially good with his crutches. He was going crazy, he told her. But not entirely because he couldn’t get out. Mostly because of who was in his house with him.
“Your mother is driving me nuts,” he complained now.
“Is she.” Neely didn’t make a question. She was staying out of the Max and Lara drama. She’d been doubtful when Lara had insisted on picking Max up at the hospital and taking him home. But no one else had volunteered.
So Lara stepped in. Or rather, showed up.
What happened after that wasn’t precisely clear. She may have told Max a few of the home truths she’d threatened to tell him if she could ever get him tied down. He wasn’t precisely tied down, but he was on crutches and that seemed to suffice.
Whatever had happened after that, they were still speaking—or yelling—and that was fine with Neely. She had problems enough of her own. The biggest one never came to say he was going out with his father at all. But when she drifted past his office at a little after five, it was to find the door shut and the lights off.
“He already left,” Gladys told her.
“Did he say where he was going?”
The older woman shook her head. “He was total Iceman.” She cocked her head. “I really thought he was getting over that.”
“Not…entirely,” Neely said. Under some circumstances she suspected he could be very much The Iceman still.
But he’d made the effort. He’d contacted his father. They were meeting for a drink. She smiled and crossed her fingers. Please God, let it be all right.
She went straight home, wanting to be there when he arrived. Lara called and invited her to come have a meal with her and Max.
“You can referee,” her mother said.
“Thank you, no.” Neely was adamant about that. She stripped off her work clothes and pulled out a pair of jeans. “I have other things to do.”
“I thought you wanted your father and me to get together.”
“I never said that!” Next thing you knew she’d be being blamed for everything in the world. “I simply said I was coming to work out here so I could meet him. I never said you had to take up with him again.”
“I wouldn’t call what we’re doing ‘taking up with,’” Lara said tartly.
“What would you call it?”
“Discussing.”
“Arguing,” she heard Max correct loudly in the background.
“Going over past history,” Lara went on as if he hadn’t spoken.
“Throwing plates,” Max’s voice echoed through the phone. He didn’t sound too upset, almost…amused.
“You didn’t!” Neely said, aghast.
“Only one,” Lara said guilelessly. “And not at him. Sure you won’t come for a meal?”
“Quite sure, thanks.”
Though it might have been entertaining to watch her parents coming to terms with each other—or not—after all these years, Neely wasn’t leaving. She even resisted taking Harm for his usual nightly run, instead sticking close to home, where she could see Sebastian’s car the minute he pulled in.
But he didn’t come.
And didn’t come.
Six-thirty turned into seven and seven into eight, and still he didn’t appear. At first she worried, but then she told herself not to be silly. Sebastian’s not appearing immediately was actually a good thing.
Certainly one drink together would have been enough for him and his father to have discussed Philip’s appearance at Vangie’s wedding if things were tense. But if they weren’t—if father and son had actually hit it off—then one drink could have led to more than one. It could have led to dinner.
Which was probably exactly what it had done, Neely realized when it turned nine and still Sebastian hadn’t appeared.
They’d probably decided to have dinner together catching up, and right this very minute they could be chatting over cups of coffee doing some long-delayed father-son bonding.
Maybe Sebastian had even taken his father over to his penthouse so Philip could spend the evening with the entire family.
All of his brothers and sisters had arrived in Seattle for the wedding. The last of the brothers, a university student called Milos, had come in yesterday afternoon. They’d all been eager to spend time with him. She smiled, thinking how wonderful it would be if his father got to be there with all of them, too.
She wished she could be there to witness it. Unlike her own parents’ reunion, she doubted anyone at Sebastian’s