Everything I Need, page 21
“It won’t be worth living without a little fortification anyway,” Tony said darkly, retrieving a silver flask from the breast pocket of his dark custom suit and taking a healthy swig.
Anthony hated to be nosy but, given his father’s track record with women, it seemed prudent to ask.
“You and Mrs. Brompton never, ah…”
Tony looked startled. “What? No. Of course not. She’s a good twenty-five years older than me.”
“As if age differences have ever stopped you before,” Anthony said, irritated by his father’s late display of romantic standards. “Although I suppose your moral code only applies when the women are older than you.”
“Shots fired,” Tony said, raising a brow and taking another swig from the flask. “Didn’t take long.”
“Sorry.” Anthony sat in the nearest armchair. “Did you prefer to be the one to break the peace today?”
“There’s no peace when your son hates your guts.” Tony looked somber as he helped himself to a scone and sat on the sofa. “How’s Miss Melody? She’s had a rough morning, hasn’t she? She sounded a little shaky when I talked to her.”
When he—what?
Anthony hesitated, torn between his desire to answer his father’s comment with another shot and his desire to talk about Melody, the topic most on his mind at the moment.
“You talked to her?” he asked sharply. “When?”
“Little while ago,” Tony said blandly, now swiping scone crumbs off the front of his starched shirt. “When she was on her way in from the airport.”
“And what did you say to her?” Anthony snapped, wondering why Melody hadn’t mentioned their conversation and also if he had his father to thank for Melody’s sudden reluctance to move to London. “If you’ve ruined my chances with her…”
Tony grimaced. “Ruined your chances with her? Why would I do that when you and I both know she’s the best thing that’s ever happened to you? Stand down, boy. If you can figure out how to do that around me.”
Anthony relaxed marginally, caught squarely between his implicit and lifelong suspicion of anything having to do with his father and his flare of hope that he might have an unexpected ally on his side.
“What did you talk about?” he asked, forcing himself to be calm.
“I told her not to make my mistakes,” Tony said, staring him in the face and giving Anthony a glimpse of the kind of emotional pain he’d never suspected his father could feel.
His driving curiosity got the best of him.
“What mistakes are you—”
Without warning, the door swung open. In swarmed his grandmother’s pack of beagles, now joined by several puppies who had evidently already learned all they needed to know about yapping.
“What have I missed?” The Queen followed them in, clipping her syllables with a hedge trimmer. Today’s twinset was a pale lilac colored one that turned her blue eyes more of an indigo shade, and she’d traded in her pearl necklace for a glittering diamond pin on her shoulder that probably cost more than the GDP of some of the world’s smaller countries. She wore a black skirt and the chunky black heels she often favored. A particularly boxy and ugly black bag dangled from the crook of her elbow. “All the good gossip, I expect.”
The men leapt to their feet.
“You’re late, AJ,” she said, offering him her hand.
“Your Majesty.” He took it and gave her a kiss on each cheek before nodding sharply and kissing her hand. “I’m not late. I’m never late.”
“You were late for tea when you were eleven.”
“No, I wasn’t. You’ve done something with your hair.”
“You’ve done something with your hair,” Tony said at the same time.
The men frowned around at each other. Then Tony focused on the Queen.
Her expression was narrow-eyed and flinty as she regarded her former son-in-law, but Anthony thought he detected a glimmer of amusement in her eyes as she stared up at Tony.
“It’s customary to wait until one is addressed before speaking,” she said, extending him her hand and letting him kiss her cheeks. “But of course you’re a Texan. No more manners than my dogs here.” She used her free hand to indicate one of the larger puppies, who wore a navy collar, had his paws on the table and sniffed hopefully at the bottom layer of cakes on the tray.
“Anna Regina,” Tony said, flipping that hidden internal switch that activated his twinkling eyes, toothpaste commercial grin and dimples whenever a woman entered the room. Even his spray tan seemed to glow a little brighter. He nodded and kissed her hand. “Twenty years later and you’re still the prettiest monarch I’ve ever met.”
She hitched up her chin, a harder nut to crack than Mrs. Brompton had been.
“Yes, and you still fancy yourself Don Juan, I see. Have you found your fifth ex-wife yet? Recognizing that it’s still early in the day, of course.”
Tony’s lips twitched. “Not yet, but I’m open to introductions if you know anyone.”
The Queen glared at him.
“You’ve eaten one of my smoked salmon sandwiches. And you’ve been drinking. Some of your favorite Kentucky bourbon, I believe?”
Tony shrugged, unrepentant as ever. “A drink seemed indicated for this little soiree.”
“You’re right. You may pour me whatever is left in your flask. Use the tumblers over there.”
Tony obligingly headed for the drink cart. “You got it, boss.”
Anthony checked his watch and felt the strong urge to be the adult in the room.
“It’s ten-thirty in the morning,” he called after his father, outraged. “Am I the only one who’s going to be forced to drink coffee?”
“Do sit down, Anthony,” she said, perching on the edge of the sofa, divesting herself of her bag and snapping her fingers at the dogs, who collapsed at her feet. “I hear the cat is out of the bag with your Doctor Melody.”
“Yep,” he said, dropping into a slouch in his chair.
“The press office is helping you?”
“Yep.”
“And how is she doing?”
“Not great,” Anthony said, drumming his fingers on the chair’s arm.
“How else would she be doing?” Tony came back, sat on the sofa and passed the Queen her drink. “Her whole life just blew up on account of her association with you folks. You think that’s easy on a person?”
“Well, it was certainly more than you could handle, wasn’t it?” she asked, sipping delicately.
Tony stared her down, some of his charm slipping away.
“Not everyone is cut out for having their face splashed all over the tabloids every day.”
“Not everyone is cut out for marriage, either,” she said pointedly.
Anthony listened with half his brain, indifferent to the snark. He had to be, didn’t he? How else would he have survived that dark time before his parents’ separation, when screaming, slammed doors and smashed china and crystal were the order of the day? Still. It was a wonder how they managed it without driving themselves to insanity. Funny how people who’d been apart for twenty years could lapse into old patterns and pick up in the middle of their last conversation, wasn’t it?
“Was I supposed to stay married to a woman who didn’t want me?” Tony asked her, his twangy voice turning loud and brittle.
“Not at all, dear.” The queen poured a cup of coffee from the heavy silver pot, her brows doing a slow creep toward her hairline while her voice dropped down into the range of a hissing cobra in a velvet pouch. She added a splash of cream. “I simply expected you to fight a bit longer and harder for—what did you call her? It was such a touching sentiment. Ah, yes. Your soulmate. These things often take longer than a cricket season. I’m sure that’s what threw you. You’re not used to that level of commitment.”
“If my marriage to your daughter meant that much to you,” Tony said, nostrils flaring, “seems like you wouldn’t have signed off on the divorce back in the day.”
“I disagree. If people are determined to self-destruct, who am I to stop them?” She gave Tony a poisonous smile before turning to Anthony. “Drink your coffee, AJ. Have a scone. That’ll cheer you up.”
Anthony leaned forward and took the cup and saucer from her, secretly longing for those simpler times when a good tea service with cakes had, in fact, cured most of the things that bothered him. Then he re-slouched with his drink carefully resting on his belly, putting his head on the chair’s back and crossing a leg over his knee.
“I don’t think I can expect Melody to move to London for me,” he said quietly, frowning, the idea fully forming just as he spoke it. “It’s too much to put on a person.”
“Self-destruct?” Tony snarled at the Queen. “Hard to self-destruct when you never had a chance to begin with, isn’t it, Annie? Sort of like you accusing an elephant of self-destructing when the big game hunter’s got his sights set in the middle of the dumb bastard’s forehead.”
“You said dumb bastard, dear.” The Queen kept her eyes lowered and sipped her bourbon again, dabbing her mouth with a linen napkin. “Not I.”
Tony made a strangled sound of outrage.
“The thing is,” Anthony continued, “her entire community is there. Job. Friends. Family. I mean, think about it. It’s one thing when one lives in, say, Connecticut, and the future spouse lives in New York. Adjustments can be made. There’s no great sacrifice. On either party’s side.”
Tony shot a quick glance at Anthony, who was frowning up at the ceiling now, leaned toward the Queen and lowered his voice.
“I guess dumb bastard’s the right term for a husband who doesn’t ask too many questions about his wife’s whereabouts. Dumb bastard’s the term for a husband who says his I dos expecting that his wife means her vows as much as he means his.”
The Queen set her tumbler onto the silver tray with an angry clink.
“Dumb bastard is exactly the term for a man whose stubborn pride forces him to let everything he needs in life slip through his fingers without putting up a fight, then spends the rest of his life foolishly marrying women half his age and pretending none of the aforementioned bothered him.”
Tony goggled at her, his face turning purple.
“Oh, I’m sorry, dear. I keep forgetting you don’t like big words. Let me put it in Texan for you.” She cocked her head and thoughtfully tapped her lips with her index finger. “What is the phrase? Yes, I have it.” She cleared her throat and adopted a credible drawl that would be right at home anywhere in the Lone Star State. “You’re so dumb, you carry your brains in your back pocket.”
Anthony cracked his knuckles and chewed the inside of his cheek. “But I don’t want her coming here and, I don’t know, maybe starting to resent me—”
Veins popped in Tony’s neck. “How dare you?”
“Oh, I dare,” the Queen said icily.
“—one day when she misses her parents or her sister or her friends too much.” Anthony took another sip of his coffee. “And what about when we have children? A woman needs her mother nearby for—”
“You think this is a joke? Your precious daughter took my heart and walked all over it with her spiky heels and you think this is a joke?” Tony demanded of the Queen.
“—advice and whatnot. And I’m an American citizen, aren’t I?” Anthony nodded grimly. “I can live there as well as here. Perhaps better, to be honest. No one on that side of the pond snipes quite like we do over here.”
“No,” the Queen told Tony, a tinge of sadness creeping into her expression. “It’s a tragedy. Because my daughter was as big a fool as you were when it came to doing the right thing by her marriage. Yet she never loved anyone the way she loved you.”
Bitter snort from Tony. “That’s the biggest load of bullshit you’ve ever tried to shovel in my direction, Annie.”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” the Queen muttered, now angrily breaking up her scone and tossing bits to the dogs. “Like I said, you’re your own worst enemy, Tony. You make it impossible for me to reach out to you no matter how much I might like to. For Anthony’s sake, if nothing else.”
At the sound of his name, Anthony felt the first flare of annoyance. He sat up straight and set his cup and saucer on the table. “Has anyone heard a word I just said? Because I could use a bit of advice here.”
Evidently they hadn’t heard what he’d said, because all their attention and venom remained laser-focused on each other.
“Oh, you want to talk about Anthony?” Tony looked slightly unhinged, with a wild-eyed sneer solely for the Queen’s benefit. “By all means. Let’s talk about how you’ve always been determined to control the boy’s life. How about that? Let’s talk about how you forced him to go to boarding school over here—”
“I didn’t force that boy,” the Queen cried, outraged. “He made his own choice. Which I supported.”
“That boy is right here,” Anthony said, his stretched nerves making him louder than he’d meant to be.
“Thirteen-year-olds don’t make their own choices,” Tony said with a derisive snort. “They’re not capable.”
“Yours was,” the Queen said coolly. “Which you would have known if you’d been half the father—”
With that, Anthony slammed headfirst into the limits of his patience and control.
“That is enough!” he roared, smacking his palms on the table and making the coffee service jump. “Do you think I want to be trapped in this room while you two take each other’s heads off over things that haven’t mattered in twenty years?”
Ringing silence with two stunned faces turned in his direction.
Hell, he’d even surprised himself.
“Anthony Thomas Scott,” Granny said in her most imperious voice. “You will apologize.”
But Anthony wasn’t fifteen years old anymore, and that realization had fully hit him for the first time.
“The pair of you should apologize to me,” Anthony said, thumping his chest for emphasis. “My personal life is circling the drain, which I just confided in you, yet my two remaining parental figures are too busy hating each other to take a moment and listen to what I’m saying, let alone help me figure out how to make things work with Melody. I mean…Wasn’t the purpose of this bloody coffee to make peace before tomorrow? For my benefit?”
The Queen and Tony exchanged a guilty sidelong look.
“And what is the point of this sniping?” Anthony continued, glaring at each of them in turn. “Do you even know why you’re arguing, or is it just habit? Is it going to rewrite history? Is it going to save your marriage to my mother? Is it going to prevent her from skiing into that tree after the divorce and resurrect her from the dead?” He paused to catch his breath. “Or maybe you think it’ll ease your consciences. Well, let me help you with that. By all means.”
He turned to his father.
“You and Mum did the best you could at the time, but you were both shit at being married to each other. It didn’t work out. It’s over.”
He turned to his grandmother.
“Granny, you did the best you could to talk them into giving their marriage another chance, but they were stubborn. It didn’t work out. It’s over. None of this matters anymore. It hasn’t mattered in ages. Now will the pair of you kindly stop flagellating yourselves and each other? It’s bloody exhausting.”
His grandmother and Tony exchanged another sidelong look, wary now.
“Why not take a moment to realize that you both love horses and dogs and me? What have you got to lose? Another twenty years of bitterness? Just let it go. For God’s sake,” Anthony concluded.
Tony recovered first. “Let it go? What, like you let go of all your hard feelings toward me for cheating on your mother? Like that?”
Anthony cringed. Nothing like being shoved face-first into irrefutable evidence of your hypocrisy.
Well, why not own it?
He smirked. “Actually, my most recent hard feelings toward you have to do with you denying me my trust fund. In fairness, I haven’t had time to get over that yet, have I?”
But Tony wasn’t having it. “Don’t try to gloss this over! Why deny it? You think I cheated on your mother and broke her heart, and you draw a straight line between that and her death. You always have. You think I was a shit and she was a saint. Bottom line. Why not be honest?”
Sudden pain and loss gave Anthony a big whack in the chest, making it hard for him to speak. Staring into his father’s bleak expression, he felt a wave of nostalgia that insisted he remember the good times they’d shared when he was younger. The fishing, skeet shooting and horse riding they’d enjoyed at the ranch. The times Tony had sworn him to secrecy before letting him drive the Jeep up and down the gravel roads. The music festivals in Austin. Their joint love of spicy barbecue and spicier Mexican food.
Anthony glimpsed his father’s heartbreak over the loss of his son’s love.
He didn’t want to see it, but he did.
“Mum wasn’t a saint any more than you were,” he said tiredly. “But she was my saint. You made her cry herself to sleep. That’s not easy for me to get over.”
The Queen pursed her lips.
Tony ducked his head and swiped his eyes.
“On the other hand…” Anthony cleared his hoarse throat. “On the other hand, she took up with her riding instructor. I imagine that’s not easy for you to get over.”
“You knew about that?” his grandmother and Tony both asked, looking astonished.
Anthony nodded. “I saw them kissing in the barn before one of my lessons. They didn’t know I was there.”
Tony wiped his eyes again, murmuring something indistinct.
With an aggrieved sigh and thinning lips, Granny shook out a napkin and handed it to Tony, who used it to blow his nose.
“Look,” Anthony said, studying his hands as he slowly rubbed them together. “Maybe we’ve all been living in the past. Focusing on things that no longer matter. And on that note, Granny…”
“What?” the Queen snapped, glowering at him. “If this is about your investiture tomorrow, you can just forget it. You’re not weaseling out of it. You’ve given your word and I’m holding you to it. One’s word means something.”
