Fathers and Sons (Harlequin Super Romance) by Carolyn McSparren Page B

the wild times and the tender times and the crazy experiments where we wound up on the floor laughing our heads off. All of it, Katie. Sometimes nearly a whole day goes by when I don’t remember and I think, I’m over her. And then it all floods back and I know I’ll never be free of you. There’s not an inch, a molecule, an atom of you that I don’t remember and want.”
    She clenched her fists and crossed her arms over her breasts. “Then why wasn’t I enough?”
    “You were more than enough.”
    She slipped out of his grasp. As much as she wanted to run, maybe it was time to have this out between them. She strode to the fireplace and braced her hand against the rough-hewn mantel. “If I’d been enough, if you’d loved me, you wouldn’t have needed anyone else.”
    He followed her, and she raised her other hand to stop him five feet away. He sighed deeply. “I could never convince you that I loved you. God knows I tried. When you found out about Melba, you weren’t surprised. You were mad as hell and never wanted to see me again. You walked away without a backward glance, never gave me a chance to explain or to apologize. But you weren’t surprised, because you’d always expected it. I thought then it was because of your father and what he put your mother through, but it wasn’t that, was it?”
    She looked at him squarely now and tried to keep her voice steady—the voice she used on judges and juries. It was important to stay in command. Now that confrontation was unavoidable, she wanted everything clear between them. Then maybe she could do her job without thinking about David, being aware of him. “Maybe I wasn’t surprised,” she said carefully. “I knew someday you’d see what a mess I was, how unworthy I was of you. That’s why I tried so hard to make myself indispensable, to do everything I could to help your career, to be the perfect helpmate.”
    “You were perfect, Kate. That’s the real reason I went to bed with Melba.”
    “What on earth are you talking about? You’re blaming Melba on me? Because I did too much?” She heard her voice rise and fought to keep her anger under control. “My God, David, I thought I’d heard every argument in the world from husbands in court. ‘If only she hadn’t folded the towels wrong, Your Honor, I wouldn’t have broken her jaw. If only she hadn’t gotten the wrong brand of beer, Your Honor, I wouldn’t have knocked her down the stairs.”’ She laughed. “This is the first time I’ve ever heard of a man sleeping around because his wife was too perfect.”
    “I didn’t sleep around, Kate.”
    “Once is all it takes. So, please, do tell me how my being too perfect caused you to go to bed with another woman. I’m fascinated.”
    “I’ve never told anyone this. I couldn’t tell you. All those plans we had when we got married, I was going to set the acting world on fire...”
    “And you would have. You had everything.”
    “You know what it’s like never to fail, Kate?”
    She blew out her breath. “Hardly, I spent most of my life failing everything from kick ball to ‘plays well with others’ to differential calculus.”
    “Lucky you.”
    “Yeah, right.”
    “No, I mean it. You learned early. You failed, you picked yourself up, you dusted yourself off, and you either tried again or went on to something else. You learned it wasn’t the end of the world. I never failed at anything before we went to New York.”
    “Don’t I know it.”
    “Listen to me, I’m trying to tell you something here.”
    She stared at his anguished face a moment, then she said quietly, “All right, I’m sorry.”
    He went to the back windows and stared out at the pines. She could barely hear his voice when he started, but the more he spoke, the more he seemed to find the strength to go on.
    “My mother taught me I was the golden boy. She put me right on top of that pedestal, and I liked it up there. What I wanted I got, whether it was starting