The Stanislaskis ( Books 1-6). Nora Roberts

      “Oh.” Try as she might, she couldn’t picture the holidays without family.

      “We never ate at home on Thanksgiving. We always went out, were usually traveling.” His memories of his childhood were more of places than people, more of music than words. “When I was married to Angela, we usually met friends at a restaurant and went to the theater.”

      “But—” She caught herself and fell silent.

      “But what?”

      “Once you had Freddie.”

      “Nothing changed.” He shifted onto his back to stare at the ceiling. He’d wanted to tell her about his marriage, about himself—the man he had been—but had put it off. For too long, he reflected. How could he expect to build, when he had yet to clear away the emotional rubble of his past? “I’ve never explained to you about Angela.”

      “It’s not necessary.” She took his hand again. She’d wanted to invite him to a meal, not dredge up old ghosts.

      “It is for me.” Sitting up, he reached for the bottle of champagne they had brought back with them. Filling both glasses, he handed her one.

      “I don’t need explanations, Spence.”

      “But you’ll listen?”

      “Yes, if it’s important to you.”

      He took a moment to gather his thoughts. “I was twenty-five when I met her. On top of the world as far as my music went, and to be honest, at twenty-five, very little else mattered to me. I had spent my life traveling, doing exactly what I pleased and being successful in what was most important to me. I don’t believe anyone had ever told me, ‘No, you can’t have that. No, you can’t do that.’ When I saw her, I wanted her.”

      He paused to sip, to look back. Beside him Natasha stared into her glass, watching bubbles rise. “And she wanted you.”

      “In her way. The pity was that her attraction for me was as shallow as mine for her. And in the end just as destructive. I loved beautiful things.” With a half laugh he tilted his glass again. “And I was used to having them. She was exquisite, like a delicate porcelain doll. We moved in the same circles, attended the same parties, preferred the same literature and music.”

      Natasha shifted her glass from one hand to the other, wishing his words didn’t make her feel so miserable. “It’s important to have things in common.”

      “Oh, we had plenty in common. She was as spoiled and as pampered as I, as self-absorbed and as ambitious. I don’t think we shared any particularly admirable qualities.”

      “You’re too hard on yourself.”

      “You didn’t know me then.” He found himself profoundly grateful for that. “I was a very rich young man who took everything I had for granted, because I had always had it. Things change,” he murmured.

      “Only people who are born with money can consider it a disadvantage.”

      He glanced over to see her sitting cross-legged, the glass cupped in both hands. Her eyes were solemn and direct, and made him smile at himself. “Yes, you’re right. I wonder what might have happened if I had met you when I was twenty-five.” He touched her hair, but didn’t dwell on the point. “In any case, Angela and I were married within a year and bored with each other only months after the ink had dried on the marriage certificate.”

      “Why?”

      “Because at that time we were so much alike. When it started to fall apart, I wanted badly to fix it. I’d never failed at anything. The worst of it was, I wanted the marriage to work more for my own ego than because of my feelings for her. I was in love with the image of her and the image we made together.”

      “Yes.” She thought of herself and her feelings for Anthony. “I understand.”

      “Do you?” The question was only a murmur. “It took me years to understand it. In any case, once I did, there were other considerations.”

      “Freddie,” Natasha said again.

      “Yes, Freddie. Though we still lived together and went through the motions of marriage, Angela and I had drifted apart. But in public and in private we were…civilized. I can’t tell you how demeaning and destructive a civilized marriage can be. It’s a cheat, Natasha, to both parties. And we were equally to blame. Then one day she came home furious, livid. I remember how she stalked over to the bar, tossing her mink aside so that it fell on the floor. She poured a drink, drank it down, then threw the glass against the wall. And told me she was pregnant.”

      Her throat dry, Natasha drank. “How did you feel?”

      “Stunned. Rocked. We’d never planned on having children. We were much too much children, spoiled children ourselves. Angela had had a little more time to think it all through and had her answer. She wanted to go to Europe to a private clinic and have an abortion.”

      Something tightened inside Natasha. “Is that what you wanted?”

      He wished, how he wished he could have answered unequivocably no. “At first I didn’t know. My marriage was falling apart, I’d never given a thought to having children. It seemed sensible. And then, I’m not sure why, but I was furious. I guess it was because it was the easy way again, the easy way out for both of us. She wanted me to snap my fingers and get rid of this…inconvenience.”

      Natasha stared down at her own balled fist. His words were hitting much too close to home. “What did you do?”

      “I made a bargain with her. She would have the baby, and we would give the marriage another shot. She would have the abortion and I would divorce her, and make certain that she didn’t get what she considered her share of the Kimball money.”

      “Because you wanted the child.”

      “No.” It was a painful admission, one that still cost him. “Because I wanted my life to run the way I’d imagined it would. I knew if she had an abortion, we would never put the pieces back. I thought perhaps if we shared this, we’d pull it all together again.”

      Natasha remained silent for a moment, absorbing his words and seeing them reflected in her own memories. “People sometimes think a baby will fix what’s broken.”

      “And it doesn’t,” he finished. “Nor should it have to. By the time Freddie was born, I was already losing my grip on my music. I couldn’t write. Angela had delivered Freddie, then passed her over to Vera, as though she were no more than a litter of kittens. I was little better.”

      “No.” She reached out to take his wrist. “I’ve seen you with her. I know how you love her.”

      “Now. What you said to me that night on the steps of the college, about not deserving her. It hurt because it was true.” He saw Natasha shake her head but went on. “I’d made a bargain with Angela, and for more than a year I kept it. I barely saw the child, because I was so busy escorting Angela to the ballet or the theater. I’d stopped working completely. I did nothing. I never fed her or bathed her or cuddled her at night. Sometimes I’d hear her crying in the other room and wonder—what is that noise? Then I’d remember.”

      He picked up the bottle to top off his glass. “Sometime before Freddie was two I stepped back and looked at what I’d done with my life. And what I hadn’t done. It made me sick. I had a child. It took more than a year for it to sink in. I had no marriage, no wife, no music, but I had a child. I decided I had an obligation, a responsibility, and it was time to pull myself up and deal with it. That’s how I thought of Freddie at first, when I finally began to think of her. An obligation.” He drank again, then shook his head. “That was little better than ignoring her. Finally I looked, really looked at that beautiful little girl and fell in love. I picked her up out of her crib, scared to death, and just held her. She screamed for Vera.”

      He laughed at that, then stared once more into his wine. “It took months before she was comfortable