Family Matters (DiCarlo Brides book 4) (The DiCarlo Brides) (10 page)

“I don’t mean that,” Cami said.

“No, but you don’t know what you’re saying,” Delphi said. “You’ve never felt like a second-class citizen because Dad wouldn’t acknowledge you in public. You never had to be his dirty little secret, and have visits with him, but not be allowed to go places with him where someone might know you, because then someone might find out and ruin his life.”

“You weren’t...” Cami seemed to reconsider what she was saying. “You felt like that?” She looked at the four half-sisters. As one of George DiCarlo’s legitimate offspring, she hadn’t dealt with the same issues as the rest of the girls.

“Not often,” Sage said, “but sometimes.”

“A lot.” Rosemary nodded.

“All the time,” Delphi said.

“I knew he loved me, but yeah, I felt it. I couldn’t tell anyone, couldn’t tell my friends about my fun trips with him and had to make excuses when he came to town for why I couldn’t do stuff with them. Everyone else just said they were hanging with their dads for the weekend,” Jonquil said. “If I’d said that, people would have wanted to meet him, so... lie, lie, lie.”

Cami and Lana looked at each other in dismay. Apparently this hadn’t occurred to them at all. They hadn’t known any of the others existed until the reading of George’s will and definitely hadn’t experienced any of it themselves.

“Wow, now I feel like an obtuse idiot,” Lana muttered.

“Serve me up some of that.” Cami leaned back in Vince’s arm. “And then he announced it to the world after he was dead so he wouldn’t have to face the questions.”

“Yeah.” Rosemary shifted in her seat. It had been a weak and selfish thing to do, but as much as Rosemary resented that fact, she still loved him.

“That said, Cami’s not entirely wrong, either,” Delphi said.

Rosemary glared at her. “What do you mean?”

“Cleo just lost her parents—the only ones she’s known. She’s always known you, but it’s not like she’s had time to adjust to the fact that you’re her birth mom, and you moved her halfway—more than halfway—across the country to start a new school. Maybe she doesn’t want to tell anyone yet. You should let her decide whether or not to spread the word.”

Rosemary couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “But I’ve spent the past nine years having to keep this secret and I don’t want her to feel like I don’t care, like I don’t want her.” How could Delphi say that?

“This isn’t about you. This is about her.” Delphi’s gaze was direct, her voice low. “Let her decide. Tell her you want to be open about your relationship, but that she gets to control who knows and when. You’ve had choices in this, Rosemary. They may have been really awful options, and the situation was crap, but you were an adult and you had options when you gave her up. Dad would have helped you out if you decided to keep her, we both know he would have. She needs options now so she can feel in control of something.”

Rosemary felt her jaw twitch as she held her tongue, trying not to spew her anger. Trying to take a moment to consider what Delphi was saying. She thought of how devastated Cleo was, and how she would feel if it were her—could she even guess how Cleo would feel? Finally she nodded. “Okay. I’ll make it her choice.”

It grated on her to agree with Delphi about anything, but Cleo did need some control, and this one wouldn’t kill Rosemary—she’d still get to have her daughter living in the house with her full time. That’s what mattered, right?

Cleo listened from the balcony that overlooked the open kitchen, dining and great rooms. She’d thought from the way they joked earlier that they were all good friends; she didn’t realize they had arguments and fights too. And they were fighting about her. She was relieved that Rosemary would let her tell people when she was ready, but was afraid they would get sick of her and send her away. Her Uncle Mike said she was a pain—would Rosemary think so too? She got rid of her once before, even if she
said
she didn’t want to. What if Cleo never wanted people to know and Rosemary got sick of keeping the secret?

When the subject changed to something about the hotel, Cleo returned to her bed, sliding in soundlessly. She liked it here—not as much as home, but it was better than living with one of her uncles. These people seemed nice, mostly. She decided to be extra good so they would let her stay.

Cleo looked nervous as they sat at the island the next morning eating muffins and orange juice. Well, Cleo was eating muffins and orange juice, Rosemary was having a cup of coffee, black, and half a wheat English muffin. She hated them, but it was fewer calories and she had to stick to her diet.

Sage came breezing in the door to the garage, her dark curls springing out all over her head. “Hello, I hoped I’d catch you before you left for school.” She helped herself to one of the muffins and poured hot water for tea.

“No food at your place?” Rosemary asked, amused. This was why Harrison thought he could still just drop into the house randomly, even though his sister hadn’t lived here in over two months. They did tend to have an open-door policy for family and friends.

Had he been right? Were they some sort of friends? After their dinners together in DC, she thought they might be and wasn’t sure how to feel about that.

“No, actually, I came to give Cleo a bit of good news.” She filled the tea ball full of her favorite tea mix—which she blended herself—making them wait while she fiddled with everything.

“Yes,” Rosemary said to Cleo’s questioning look. “She’s always like this. You get used to it. Give her a minute to finish playing with her drink and then maybe she’ll have enough attention left over to share with us.”

“Oh, yes, sorry.” Sage set the cup of tea beside her plate and looked at Cleo. “I have the strongest feeling that today is a day of change for you, but that good things are coming your way. I know you’re going to make a super friend today.” She beamed at them both as if that said it all, then took a bite of muffin.

“Well, then, you’re bound to have a great start at your school, just like I was saying,” Rosemary said to Cleo.

Cleo wore a look of total disbelief. Not surprising seeing as how she’d never been exposed to Sage’s astrology readings—which weren’t actually astrological, but some other thing she attributed to the stars. “What about Rosemary? What’s her day going to be like?”

“Oh, I don’t know about her. Sometimes things come to me, and I know stuff, but not for her, not today. You’re the one the stars have aligned for.” Sage took a sip of her tea, then checked her watch. “Shouldn’t you be heading out by now?”

“Yes. You’re right.” Rosemary downed the end of her coffee and wished the English muffin had been a little bit bigger. “Grab your backpack and off we go.”

Cleo dragged herself from the island after finishing her juice. She slid into her coat, grabbed her bag and snatched the end of her muffin to finish in the car. When they were on the road, she turned to Rosemary. “Sage’s what you were talking about when you said everyone is insane, right? Who really believes in the stars?”

“Almost everyone, when Sage tells us things. I have no idea where she gets it all from, but she’s right a lot, like a real-life fortune teller.” Sage used to hide her predictions by mixing them into horoscope readings from the newspaper, but she’d given up on that before Christmas.

“How much is a lot?”

“Always. She is so accurate it’s spooky. I don’t mean like once in a while she’s right, or most of the time you can
twist
it to be right, I mean every single time she says something like that, she’s right on target. The day of the bombing, she came to the kitchen to tell me that there was going to be a tragedy, but that it would bring amazing opportunities too. And here you are.”

Cleo looked uncertain at best. “You think I’m an amazing opportunity?”

“Yeah, I do. I’m not saying that being in charge of you doesn’t scare the beejeebees out of me, because it does, but even though I would way rather have your parents alive,” Rosemary fought to keep her voice level, but heard it crack, “I’m really glad that you were able to live with me, since you had to live with someone.”

“I’m a problem to you,” Cleo said solemnly. “Someone to worry about getting from one thing to the next. I heard you talking about it with the others this morning, trying to figure out who would pick me up and where I would go after school today.”

Rosemary hadn’t realized Cleo had been able to hear. “You’re not a problem. Circumstances could be easier, but you’re never a problem. It’ll be all good, and Jonquil will pick you up from school this afternoon.” She wanted to shift the focus of the subject. “So, Sage has blessed your day with smiles and new friends. All will be well.”

“Right.” Cleo still looked doubtful.

Harrison glanced out in the parking lot at the end of the workday and noticed Rosemary’s car was still parked out there. He was surprised, considering this was Cleo’s first day of school. Why wasn’t Rosemary home with her daughter?

He walked to the kitchen and stuck his head into the office where Rosemary was bent over her desk, her blond hair braided down her back and a cup of coffee sitting beside her. He wondered if she had totally forgotten that it was there and if it was cold. When she reached out absent-mindedly and picked it up, sipped, then pulled a face and put it down again, he knew his guess was correct.

A shuffling noise to his right had him peeking around the door to see Cleo huddled over a book at a make-shift desk, an annoyed expression on her face.

“Hey, kiddo.”

Rosemary didn’t react at all to his voice, as if she’d known he was there, but Cleo smiled in greeting. “Harrison, what are you doing here?” She glared at Rosemary. “She keeps saying we’re going home soon. But she never leaves the computer. She keeps flipping through papers and swearing, then typing like crazy.” A dimple appeared in one cheek and her lips quirked when she lifted her voice. “When we got here, she said everyone was insane. Was she talking about herself, too?”

Rosemary whipped around and glared at Cleo, but it was only half serious.

Harrison nodded. “Yeah, she’s as crazy as the rest of them. I’m sorry you have to live there, but it’ll never be boring.”

“Well
this
is boring. I finished my homework a long time ago, and the book I got at school is for babies. I read it in second grade.”

“I’m almost done. I promise. I just have to catch up on paperwork after being gone all week,” Rosemary said. She looked at Harrison with impatience. “What are you doing here? Did I forget some paperwork?”

“No. I just popped in to see what was going on. How about if I take Cleo around the hotel and show her the cool stuff while you finish that up? Then you can take her home.” He tried to keep the censure out of his voice, but her scowl said she’d caught it.

“Please?” Cleo stood quickly, sticking a bookmark between the pages of her chapter book.

“That’s fine. I’m sorry, bug. I didn’t mean to be here so long.” Rosemary sighed, then explained to Harrison. “Jonquil was supposed to take her home, but this afternoon they rented the presidential suite for tonight, so she’s been doing all new flower arrangements for it.” She shifted her attention back to Cleo. “I promise, when Harrison brings you back, no matter what I’m in the middle of, we’ll go, okay?”