CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Mick and Roz showered together quickly as Mick’s butler answered the door and allowed the children in. But just as they were dressing, Mick received a business call he had to take. Which meant Roz had a choice: either meet the children without Mick, or wait for Mick and let his children wait even longer. Roz took the harder path and chose to go downstairs. They had waited, she felt, long enough.
As Roz made her way down the staircase, she had the ability to see them before they saw her. And she stopped momentarily on the stairs and took them in.
All five of them were present: three grown sons, one grown daughter, and the ten-year-old. The daughter and one of the grown sons sat on the sofa, with the ten-year-old in the daughter’s lap, while the two other sons, presumably the two oldest, sat in the flanking chairs. Roz was surprised to see that one of the children, the daughter, was biracial black and white, but she was only surprised because Mick never mentioned that he had a black child. But then again, Roz thought, Mick rarely mentioned anything about his children at all. Except for Shane, the little one who was not his biological child, she didn’t even know their names.
What Roz also noticed about the five children was how different they looked from each other. The two oldest boys were extremely attractive. They both favored Mick heavily, even down to the cleft chin on the face of one of them. And the biracial daughter, who was a tall, thin, gorgeous young lady, also favored Mick. But the youngest of Mick’s children, the one who appeared to still be in his teen years, did not favor Mick at all. Mick had brown hair and green eyes, as did his three older children, while the younger one had black hair and appeared to have very dark eyes as well. Unlike Mick’s other three biological children, there was nothing on the teenager’s face that reminded Roz of Mick. Not that it mattered, she thought, and continued down the stairs.
She had planned to dress casually, in jeans and a blouse, until she saw that Mick was going to wear a suit. She reversed course quickly and was now dressed in a form-fitting white dress and heels, with her hair in that half up-do with curls down her back look that Mick found sexy. And when she saw how formal the children were dressed, all in their Sunday best, she was pleased by her own choice.
But that didn’t make this night any easier. She took a deep breath, gathered up her courage and tamped down her nerves, and walked across the room to where they were sitting. “Hello everyone,” she said with a grand smile as she approached.
They all stood up, even the daughter and the ten-year-old, as she approached.
“Good evening,” the young man who looked to be the oldest said.
“I’m Roz Graham. A friend of your father’s. He sends his apologies, but he had to field a phone call. He should be down soon.”
They all nodded their understanding.
“Perhaps you can introduce yourselves so that I can have some names to go with your beautiful faces.”
They all smiled. Their smiles along made Roz feel better.
What none of them knew was that Mick was also present. He was at the top of the stairs, on the second floor landing, looking down at his children and his lady. His long eyelashes seemed to stand guard over his expressive eyes, shielding them, as he stared down. He held onto the railing, and stood like a man either in full control, or on the verge of losing it, as he watched.
“I’m Adrian Sinatra,” the oldest said. “And this is my brother Teddy.”
Teddy extended his hand. He was the one who was the spitting image of Mick, even down to the cleft chin, and seemed the most sociable. “Nice to meet you, Roz,” he said as they shook.
“How are you?” Roz asked.
“I’m excellent!”
Roz smiled. “Now that’s how you say it,” she said, and the children laughed. She could tell it was nervous laughter, but they laughed.
“You have very pretty dimples, ma’am,” Teddy said.
“And a charmer too,” Roz added, with her dimpled smile. “Okay!”
Teddy and his siblings laughed.
And then suddenly Roz remembered Mick saying one of his sons was named after Teddy Stefani, one of his associates. “Your father has an associate named Teddy,” she said. “Were you named after him?”
“Teddy Stefani,” Ted said with a nod. “Yes, ma’am. Dad named me after him.”
“So are you and Teddy close?”
“No ma’am. Dad doesn’t take us around his associates.”
Roz could feel the pain in his voice.
Then Adrian turned to his sister. “And this is our sister Gloria Sinatra,” he said, and Roz and Gloria shook hands too.
“Very nice to meet you, ma’am,” Gloria said with a beautiful smile.
Roz saw a lot of Mick in this one too, but she also saw what had to be a very beautiful mother in her.