LITMIR.BIZ

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but went by very slowly for Mary. Afterward, everyone came to the Duvall mansion for the wake. In the midst of the crowd and condolences, Mary retreated to Grandfather David’s study for a few moments of solitude. She sat in his big leather chair that smelled faintly of the tobacco he’d always smoked. She inhaled deeply, wrapping her senses in her grandfather’s memory.

      There was a knock on the door, and Mary knew the interruption signaled she’d been gone from the wake long enough. She answered the summons to find Emma, Caroline and Lily standing there.

      “We thought we’d find you hiding out,” Emma said, closing the door firmly once they were all inside.

      “I’m not hiding,” Mary said. Though she suspected her friends knew that she was lying, they’d never call her on it. And she needed time away from the pressure of making nice to all those people. After she was forced to be her society self for too long, she felt an itching deep inside to do something bold and crazy. To shake things up. She had no idea how her friends could survive the daily grind that was society life.

      “Not even from Channing? God, that man is an ass,” Caroline said.

      “Maybe. Is he looking for me? Is that why you came to find me?” Mary asked.

      “No Felicity and Vanessa are running interference with Channing, and Abby cornered Lorette. We’re here to find out more about that dreamy man with the British accent.”

      The last thing she wanted to talk about was Kane. She didn’t even know where to begin or what to say to her good friends. “That couldn’t wait until the next Debs lunch?”

      “Who knows when we’ll have time for the next one with everyone getting engaged and planning weddings,” Caroline said, her eyes glittering with that effervescent joy she brought to everything.

      “There’s really not much to tell. I met him when I was in London.”

      “When?” Emma asked.

      “My second week there. I was working in Harrods,” Mary said. She remembered the way he’d stopped at the display of women’s scarves and lingered for almost thirty minutes, never once pretending he was going to buy one but just flirting with her.

      “And that’s it?” Caroline’s voice held a disbelieving tone. “That was ten years ago. The man today looked like he was more to you than a customer.”

      “He was. We had an…affair,” Mary said because she thought her friends would understand that better than knowing that she’d lived in an apartment he’d paid for and that she’d made herself available to him whenever he’d wanted her. She’d been a kept woman.

      “I knew there was more between you,” Lily said. “There was something about he way he looked at you. And that kiss…”

      Mary’s lips still tingled, but she was trying very hard to forget that. To forget everything about Kane except the fact that he was no longer a part of her life.

      “I haven’t seen him in almost three years.” To be honest, she didn’t want to remember the last time she’d seen Kane.

      She’d been so hurt and angry that she’d said something she never should have. When she’d returned to Eastwick, Grandfather had said that her behavior had caused pain to others and herself, and she’d immediately thought of Kane. If she’d had the comportment then that she had now, maybe things would have turned out differently and she would still have her son…alive today.

      “He definitely looked like a man who wanted to rekindle the relationship with you,” Caroline stated.

      “I can’t. Not now. I have too much going on.”

      “Sure you can,” Lily said. “You could at least explore the possibility.”

      Mary shook her head. Kane wasn’t going to be a part of her life again. He was her weakness, and she knew if she allowed him back into her life, she’d have to face her past and the lies she once told. Lies that still haunted her.

      Two

      Kane was up early the next morning, jogging along the beach of Long Island Sound. He’d spent a restless night trying to come up with something he could use to force Mary back into his life. He knew that it was going to be hard to convince her, but he wasn’t a man who was used to failure.

      He’d left the family import business when he’d had his marriage to Victoria annulled. His relatives had been appalled that he hadn’t done his duty and stayed married to the woman, even though their marriage had been strained from the beginning. At his family’s response, Kane had realized that he meant nothing more to them than his role as heir. He’d taken that opportunity to make a complete break with them.

      He’d been living in Manhattan for the last year and a half, where he’d taken a small investment firm and turned it into one of the up-and-comers in the financial world.

      He glanced at the horizon, gauging how much farther he’d run before turning back, when he spotted a familiar figure—Mary. She was sitting on the sand and staring out at the ocean. He slowed his pace to a walk to get his breathing under control before he got to her.

      “Good morning, darling.”

      “Morning, Kane,” she said, tipping her head back to look up at him. The sun left her face in shadows but brought out the warm highlights in her dark hair. Her locks whipped around her face in the breeze, and in that moment she strongly resembled the woman he’d once known. No longer buttoned-up and perfectly coiffed.

      “What are you doing here?”

      He put his hands on his hips, standing over her. “Jogging. I’m afraid I’m a bit sweaty. Do you mind if I join you?”

      “Would it matter if I said yes?”

      “It would.” He was a man used to having his way. Things happened for him because he refused to take no for an answer. But with Mary, this time he wanted to be more accommodating. If she didn’t want his company, he’d leave.

      She rested her chin on her drawn–up knees, staring once again at the ocean and its endlessly cycling waves. “It’s a public beach, I can’t stop you from sitting.”

      He dropped to his haunches in front her, his eyes meeting hers. “I’m not interested in the beach, Mary-Belle. I’m interested in your company.”

      “Why? I thought we hashed this all out years ago,” she said, her hands going to her hair and trying to pull it out of her face.

      “We didn’t,” he said, shifting to sink to the sand next to her.

      She sighed and the wind carried the sound away from them. He wished that the breeze could as easily clear away their past, yet at the same time he wouldn’t give up those years they’d spent together for anything. Just the ending. If he could change the way things had ended he’d be a happier man.

      “I can’t go back to what we once had,” she said.

      “I’m not asking you to.” He couldn’t return either. He was no longer the man he’d been when he’d kept her as his mistress. Now he wanted…hell, he wasn’t sure what he wanted aside from Mary back in his bed.

      “Oh, well, that’s—Why are you here, Kane?”

      “Because you are.”

      “Don’t say things like that.”

      “Even if they are true?”

      “Especially if they are true. My life is complicated now. I have family obligations.”

      “To whom?”

      “Grandfather’s estate.”

      He rubbed the back of his neck. It was ironic that now that he was free of family responsibility, she wasn’t. “What kind of obligations?”

      “It’s complicated. I want to use my inheritance to establish a foundation

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