Losing Control - By Robyn Grady Page 0,54

long time ago."

"I'd hoped that you two would get married," Taryn confessed.

"I'd hoped for that, too. Marty was a wonderful man, married before with three children all around your age."

"What went wrong, Vi? What was the argument about?"

"Marty was a family man. He would've liked nothing more than to have made his family with us."

"And he loved you."

"I believe he did. I most certainly loved him."

Taryn held her swooping stomach. "It wasn't because of me, was it? The reason you broke up."

Vi laughed and crossed back over. "You were an angel. Still are. Marty said often what a good girl you were. That you and I were lucky to have each other. It tore him up that he could only see his own children every other weekend."

"So his wife hadn't passed away."

"They were divorced. He said it was the hardest thing in the world to pack his bags and know that from that moment on his family would be forever fractured. We'd been seeing each other for six months when he asked his children if they'd like to meet a special lady and her niece. They'd innocently told their mother. Suddenly she wanted him back."

"So no one else could have him."

"He didn't contact me for a few days after that. Then, that night you remember, he tried to explain how cornered he felt. I didn't understand. Or didn't want to. If he loved me, he wouldn't consider going back to live with another woman, even the mother of his children." Vi's eyes began to glisten. "I couldn't bear the thought of his sleeping in the same bed with her, of her kissing him good-night when I was the one who loved him, not her."

Feeling sick for her all these years later, Taryn reached up to hold her aunt's hands. "But you said you'd wait for him, right?"

"I told him that if he was even considering that, he could go now. Or he could do the decent thing and tell me, then and there, that he was staying where he was, with us." She sighed. "He left. I was so upset. As far as I could see, he mustn't have loved me. Or, at least, not enough."

"Maybe you did the right thing."

Vi's resigned look returned. "Three months later, his ex kicked him out again. I saw his photo in the back pages of a paper three years later. He'd married a woman with a big bright smile. I wondered if they'd be happy together. I wondered if she loved him as much as I still did."

Taryn slowly got to her feet. "I never knew."

Never had any idea. Vi was a person who rolled up her sleeves and got on with things. But she was also a woman, with emotions, passions, like everyone else.

When her aunt inhaled deeply, Taryn knew she was willing back tears.

"So, you see," Vi said, "you can't force someone to stay. You have to let them make up their own mind. And there are no rules to say that decisions that might seem easy for one aren't incredibly difficult for another. When I look back now, if I'd been him, I would have gone back to her, too."

Taryn thought about that, but it was obvious. "Because of the children."

Muffin let out a loud meow and Vi brought herself back. "I think she's telling us dinner is long overdue."

Wanting to cry for her, Taryn wrapped her arms around her aunt. "I'm so glad you came today. So thankful you've always been there for me."

Vi hugged her back, stroked her hair. "I wouldn't have had it any other way."

* * *

Cole glanced at the time on his laptop screen then rubbed a hand over his stinging eyes. He was beat. Time to knock off. Time he ate. But he still had so much to do trying to figure out how to shuffle the figures in L.A. so Hunter Productions could enter the next season as strongly as possible.

What he'd much rather do is drop by Taryn's place and take her out to dinner. Only, like the rest of the East Coast, given the time, she would already have eaten. And, besides, he wasn't good for her right now. Or was that she wasn't good for him? Either way, a man could only have one mistress, and his was Hunter Enterprises. He couldn't let the company - his family and mother's memory - down again. Not for a woman. Even a woman like Taryn.

His cell phone buzzed. Cole read the ID.