Always Valentine's Day

Gabe smiled broadly. “I’m thinking somewhere inside you there’s a blonde.”

Chapter Two

“So how did you manage to get them to let you on?” Larkin asked Carter as a white-jacketed waiter appeared from behind them to top off their wineglasses. The main dining room filled the stern of the ship. Chandeliers hung from the high ceiling, crystal gleamed by candlelight. A wall of windows ran around the edge of the room, revealing the rocks and pines of the Alaskan coast in the preternatural 9:00 p.m. daylight.

“How did I get on? I had to run for it. Paid a couple of stevedores a day’s wages to carry my bags. A bargain, if you ask me.”

“And they let you through security and customs?”

He raised his glass. “Amazing how a few tips will grease the skids. I paid, we all ran and I got there just as they were starting to pull the gangway in.”

It was impossible to miss the gleam in his eyes. “You enjoyed it.”

“Anyone can do things the easy way,” he said by way of answer as their waiter set appetizers of saffron langoustine in puff pastry before them.

Larkin’s lips curved. “So where were you coming from this time?”

“Shenzhen, China. There’s a factory out there I wanted to get a look at.”

“A factory? I thought you worked the market.”

He forked up a langoustine. “I’ve been dipping into a little bit of venture cap activity the past few years. I’m looking at funding a company with operations out there.”

“You’re dealing with actual companies now? I thought you said hands-on stuff was for suckers,” she said, cutting into her puff pastry.

Carter shrugged. “Everything gets boring after a while, even making money.”

Fork in hand, Larkin stared. “Wait a minute, you can’t be my father. You must be an impostor.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I still like working the market. That’s never going to go away. But I need a change of pace. Something different.”

“And was the factory different?”

“That’s one word for it,” he said in amusement.

“I take it you’re going to hold on to your money for now.”

“You take it right.” He took a swallow of wine. “Speaking of money, I talked with Walter a couple of weeks ago.”

At the name of her father’s lawyer—and her trust-fund administrator—Larkin glanced up. “Is that how you knew where to find me?”

Carter nodded. “He tells me your fund is getting pretty low. Says you’ve been tapping into the principal.”

She flushed. “Not much. I’m doing all right.” Okay, maybe that was overstating the case a little. The fund she’d come into when she’d turned eighteen hadn’t been enormous, and she could have been smarter in the way she’d managed it. She’d spent the better part of her early twenties living in one city after another, until one day she’d realized that she wasn’t looking for a home, she was looking for herself. That hadn’t made what she was looking for any easier to find, but it made it easier to stay in one place.

“You need more money?” Carter asked.

“I seem to remember you telling me once I needed to get a job,” she said. “I got one.”

“I heard. Modeling, right? I had the impression you were dabbling more than anything.”

“I’m happy to dabble for a thousand dollars an hour.” She gave a faint smile. “There’s a certain cachet to being the daughter of somebody who shows up on the power lists from time to time.”

“Nice to know I can be helpful,” Carter said dryly.

For a few moments they just toyed with the food on their plates. Larkin was the first to jump.

“So what made you pick up the phone?”

“Outside of the fact that we haven’t spoken in over five years?”

She looked down at the tablecloth. “I never wanted that to happen.”

“Neither did I.” Long seconds went by. “I suppose you heard that Celine and I split up.”

Larkin didn’t say anything.

“It’s killing you, isn’t it?” Carter said.

“What?”

“Not saying ‘I told you so.’”

She looked at him directly. “That was never what it was about.”

“What was it about?”

“Not wanting to see you make another mistake. Wanting you to be fair to yourself for once, to look at a wife as closely as you did a stock.” She stopped, aware she’d gone too far—and far too soon. “I’m sorry. This isn’t the place or the time…”

He watched her, eyes steady. “You’ve grown up.”

“Five years will do that.”

“I’m sorry I missed it.”

“You could have called sooner.”

“So could you.”

“Celine,” she said simply.

He sighed and looked out the window at the shoreline, white sand broken up with the dark lines of beached logs.

Bitter words, bitter times, hard to get past. Larkin remembered staring at the invitation written on handcrafted linen paper, announcing Carter’s impending wedding to a woman she’d distrusted on sight. Don’t do this, she’d pleaded. Give it time, for once. The argument had escalated, somehow turning back on her. Suddenly it wasn’t about Celine being after his money; it was about Larkin. For every point she’d taken Carter to task on, he’d returned a barb that had unerringly struck home. She had no business accusing him of being rash and impulsive when she’d never once finished anything. Who was she to talk about Celine when she’d never done anything constructive herself?

The battle had reverberated through both of their lives long after the echoes of the words had faded away. She hadn’t expected it to last, but somehow the years had worn on. And now, it appeared, bridging the gap wasn’t going to be as easy as either of them had hoped.

The silence stretched out as the waiters removed their plates and set out their entrées, chateaubriand for Carter and butter-poached lobster for Larkin. In the background, the pianist played “Blue Moon.” Across the room there was a burst of laughter from a large table, the enormous family she’d seen that afternoon. That was how it should be, she thought. Not silence but joy.