The One In My Heart

“Your mom doesn’t care. You could release a sex tape at this point and it wouldn’t faze her.”


“I don’t have a sex tape—shocking, I know.”

“Color me staggered. As for your dad, he might be all right too if he took my advice and saw the exhibit.”

Bennett arched a brow. “You recommended that they go see my bare ass?”

“I recommended that they ignore your bare ass and look at the other pictures.”

“You were looking at other pictures? My ass couldn’t hold your attention?”

I flicked him on the front of his coat. “You’ve always known that deep down I’m a pervert who would rather look at your face than your ass.”

His expression was one of mock horror. “My God, are the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse already running loose in Times Square?”

“Would you notice if they were?”

He smiled, kissed me on the cheek, and started down the front steps. But then he turned around. “There’s something you want to say to me?”

There were indeed things I wanted to say to him—Bennett was ever perceptive this way. “I worry that you and your dad have come to an impasse. The pattern is becoming clear. Your mom and I arrange these meetings. You and your dad show up—and proceed to make absolutely no progress.”

But his making no progress with his father was what kept us going, said a part of me. What if he actually took my advice and succeeded? What would happen to us then?

I pressed on. “You can keep meeting like this, but unless one of you comes right out and says those words—’I missed you. I’m sorry. Can we be a family again?’—I’m afraid nothing more will happen.”

His scarf whipped in a gust of wind. “And you don’t think he’ll ever say those words.”

“I don’t know. I’m not in his confidence. In fact, I can’t even be sure whether he meets us because he wants to or because your mom drags him along. I only know that you want this reconciliation. A lot. So you need to ask yourself, if you can’t have it on your terms, do you still want it?”

He was silent a long moment, and then he raised the collar of his coat. “Let me think about it.”


“I GAVE BENNETT THE FELLOWSHIP of the Ring to read,” Zelda told me when I came back into the living room.

“Peddling your drug of choice again, I see.” I gave her a rub on the shoulder as I passed her on the way to our fireplace. The chill outside had been arctic and I was in need of warmth.

“I told him once he’s done with all three books, he can join us for the marathon.”

Our annual The Lord of the Rings movie marathon fell on Black Friday. We didn’t really do Thanksgiving—it wasn’t a holiday that Zelda had grown up with. But for the movie marathon we pulled out all the stops: breakfast, second breakfast, elevenses, and so on, in honor of the food-mad hobbits.

“That’s planning really far ahead,” I said. “Black Friday is nine months away. How do you know Bennett and I will still be going out by then?”

“Well, he gave you a ring.”

So she had been talking to Frances Somerset, as I’d suspected. I gave the ring a turn. “It’s not an engagement ring.”

“But it’s an important ring—Frances told me a good bit. In the family, it’s referred to as the Tremaine ring. Bennett’s great-great-grandfather, who was the Marquess of Tremaine before he became the Duke of Fairford, gave it to his fiancée. The marriage didn’t begin well—they were separated for ten years. But eventually they reconciled and had a long and happy life together, so the ring is considered lucky.

“For years, Bennett’s grandmother had the ring. But after she died, nobody knew where it was. Until now.”

“Still, it’s just a ring.”

But even as I spoke those dismissive words, my heart, which had been everywhere this weekend—blocking my airway, down in my toes, or just plain careening about—settled back in place.

My hypothesis was not wrong. And while Bennett might not have proposed, this was nevertheless a significant pledge on his part.

We were together and we would continue to be together.

“And I still have doubts about the movie marathon.” I smiled at Zelda, my heart as light and airy as the world’s most perfect soufflé. “After all, you told him he had to finish the books first. That could take him years.”





Chapter 15





THE MEDIA STORM STARTED TO taper off a few days into the week—Moira was already dead, Bennett wasn’t himself a celebrity, and these days nude pictures were a penny a gross. Bennett reported that his colleagues mostly took it easy on him—it helped that he’d already been at the hospital eight months and proved that he wasn’t a flake. He also reported some wackier outcomes, like getting offers to show his junk, to star in actual porn, and to peddle a line of high-end dildos—though not at the same time.