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and I were on the verge of a break-up, I mostly kept thinking that this would be the last time I would hang out with this wonderful family.

Andrea provided us with an equally distracting birthday/Thanksgiving meal. Terry and Seth had helped her, it turned out, but I still marveled that they had pulled it off while still managing the little ones. I said as much to Andrea.

"Parenthood makes you the ultimate multitasker," she informed me. "You'll see what I mean when you have kids."

I smiled back politely, not bothering to tell her there'd be no kids for me.

"Besides," Terry said with a grin, "we understand you're already sort of a superwoman. Seth was telling us about some crazy shindig you threw together at the bookstore?"

"Uncle Seth said it was cool," added Brandy.

"It was a fest," I corrected, glancing at Seth in surprise. I couldn't figure out at all what his feelings were for me. He'd invited me over and had apparently been singing my praises. None of that jibed with the fallout I expected from the Bastien incident, nor his initial stunned reaction to it.

Seth opened presents after dinner, the bulk of which were books and more contributions to his wacky T-shirt collection.

"Where's your present?" Kendall asked me.

"I left it at home."

We all hung out and talked after that, my apprehension mounting as I wondered where this evening would lead. When the party finally disbanded, Seth asked me if I wanted to go somewhere.

I took a deep breath. It was now or never. "Let's go to my place."

Once back there, we stationed ourselves on my couch - at a proper distance - and talked about everything except our relationship. I told him about my new position and got his congratulations. He told me about some interesting fan comments he'd received at the signing. When this had gone on for nearly thirty minutes, I couldn't take it any more.

"Seth, what's going on?" I demanded. "With us."

He leaned his head back against the couch. "I wondered when we'd get to this. Can't avoid it any longer, huh?"

"Well, yeah. This is a big deal. This isn't like a dispute over where to go for dinner...this is us. Our future. I mean, I...you know. You know what I did."

"I do." He studied my ceiling for a moment, then turned his amber brown eyes on me. In that moment, I almost understood why he always seemed to be staring somewhere else. When he turned his eyes directly on you, it was a hard and powerful thing. They were electric. "Aren't I allowed to forgive you?"

"Er...no. Well, I don't know."

This conversation echoed the one I'd had with Bastien earlier. He had said the same thing, and after weighing everything, I'd decided it wasn't worth being mad at him. Was it so easy to forgive the ones you loved?

"I won't lie, Thetis, it hurt. It still does. But, in some ways...well, it's only one step away from what you normally do."

"A big step."

He laughed. "Whose side are you on? Are you trying to turn me against you?"

"I'm just trying to make sure you stand up for yourself."

"You're always worried about that. Don't worry. I'm not a complete doormat."

"I didn't mean that. I just...I don't know. I'm not very good at this dating thing."

"I know that. Neither am I. I've done plenty of stupid things in my past relationships. I deserve a few karmic turnabouts. Of course, that doesn't mean I want this to become an ongoing thing, but one mistake...one mistake I can forgive. If I haven't had much practice dating, you've got to be even worse after, what, how many years of casual, uh, flings?"

"A lot," I replied vaguely. For some reason, I was reluctant to tell Seth my age.

He picked up on that, his eyes narrowing ruefully. "And right there. That's another thing. Almost worse than what happened. You're doing it again."

"Doing what?"

"You don't tell me things. Things about you. It's like you're afraid to show me who you are. But like I said, that's what love is. You open yourself up. I want to know you. I want to know everything about you. Sometimes I feel like no matter how strongly I feel about you...I still don't know you at all."

"I'm not very good at that part either," I said softly.

Seth pulled me into an embrace, crushing me against him. There was a fierceness in that motion, an unflinching sense of possession that stirred my blood. "You're my world right now, Georgina, but I