Page 9 of Best Kept Vows (Savannah’s Best #6)

Lia was gorgeous, beautiful—any man would want her. She was forty-four and didn’t look a day older than thirty. That thought sent shards of jealousy through me. The idea of Lia being close to any other man was a hot poker through my heart.

“He’ll be a dick about it… and so will everyone else,” I reminded him.

He shrugged with an easy confidence. “Yeah, I know what people will say or are already probably saying. She’s a bit older and has a grown kid and all. But you know what? She’s fucking awesome, and I have never been more in love.”

The easy way in which he was telling me about his love life, when I wasn’t a close friend, said to me that this relationship was important to Diego.

“I’m happy for you,” I said sincerely because I was. Diego seemed content, and at the end of the day, wasn’t that what everyone was chasing? Genuine emotions in a world of pretenses.

I used to be in love with Lia like that…hell, I still was, but twenty-two years of being in a marriage definitely took the luster out of it.

My phone beeped, telling me I had fifteen minutes to get to my next meeting, which I couldn’t delay. It was going to be a long day because, after work, I was going to see my father, and then I had dinner with a client.

Diego and I made plans to meet over drinks before he went to his office, and I went to mine.

But I kept thinking about him for the rest of the day.

He was a man in love, and I’d felt a prick of jealousy, hadn’t I, because the first blush of love for Lia and me was in the rearview.

The present sucked, and because of it, the future looked bleak.

Exhausted after interminable discussions about increasing revenue, I drove toward my parents’ estate, located on the outskirts of Savannah.

It was a sprawling testament to Boone family wealth, influence, and power—all of which had been diminishing steadily in the past thirty years or so, if I went by the annual statements of Boone Metals.

Pulling through the iron gates, I felt that suffocation I always did when I came here. The perfectly manicured grounds, pristine white columns, and elaborate fountains seemed designed not for comfort but to impress and intimidate.

Inside, the house was eerily quiet.

The housekeeper who greeted me informed me that my mother was at a party and Mr. Abraham was in his suite.

Hendrix, my father’s nurse, opened the door to my father’s suite when I knocked. “Hey, man.” He shook my hand.

Hendrix was a large black man with a kind face and a patient demeanor, which contrasted with my father’s rigid temperament.

“How’s Dad?” I asked him as I walked into the living room of my father’s suite. It was spacious. Two bedrooms, a living room, a small kitchen, and two bathrooms. Hendrix lived here with Dad—and even joined us for dinner on Sunday nights when Dad was up to it.

Mama had all but abandoned my father since the stroke.

But then, they’d never loved each other, so even though it made me feel sorry for my father, it didn’t surprise me.

My father hadn’t been kind to my mother—and their marriage had been on paper only.

I knew my father had affairs, and I had a feeling so did my mother.

They were just two people being held together by a legal document—a marriage certificate.

I hadn’t wanted that for myself. When I fell in love with Lia, I knew that would not be my fate.

My parents wanted me to marry a Savannah society princess, but then I’d be where my parents were—in marital hell.

I just might be anyway, considering my wife and I were not doing any better than my parents right now.

“He’s having a good day,” Hendrix remarked politely.

I smiled. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Hendrix nodded. “Lia came by earlier, and that always cheers him up.”

I frowned. “Lia came by?”

“She comes a few days a week for lunch.”

Before I could formulate words to ask more questions, since Lia had never told me she saw my father so often, I heard my father’s slurred voice call out, “Sebastian?”

I went to his bedroom, following his voice.

“Hello, Dad,” I greeted him quietly.

My father, the great Abraham Boone—once Savannah’s industrial king—sat slumped in his wheelchair, a half-empty gaze drifting toward the window. The stroke had taken more than his physical strength; it had stolen his voice and much of his dignity, though his mind remained sharp and frustrated.

He grunted in acknowledgment, turning his head slightly to glare at me with a familiar impatience. He couldn’t speak properly anymore, his left side entirely paralyzed. Yet behind those narrowed eyes, I still saw the same man who’d judged me harshly my entire life.

“How…is the…company?” he asked, the words coming out slowly, slightly slurred.

“It’s good, Dad,” I lied. “We closed the Xanthi deal.”

He gave me a half smile. “Good….good.” He then took a deep breath and exhaled, his eyes drooping. “Bry…ce?”

I put my hand on my father’s. “He’s doing fine.”

Dad cackled. “Too…dumb to.”

I chuckled. Dad never liked my sister’s husband, and who could blame him? But he gave him a job so he could care for Coco.

“Lia….” He struggled to speak. “She…M…B…A.”

“Yeah, Dad, she got an MBA. She was top of her class.” And I missed her graduation ceremony.

His whole body bobbed in acknowledgment. “She…is…good.” He closed his eyes and then opened them again. “She is…right for you.”

For a man who had nothing but complaints about Lia, he had certainly changed his tune. We talked for a while, and then he lifted his hand and motioned to Hendrix.

“I think your father’s tired,” Hendrix said gently.

“Goodnight, Dad.”

“Night,” my father mumbled .

“I’ll get him into bed,” Hendrix told me.

I looked at my watch. “Ah…I’d like to talk to you after you’re done.”

It took Hendrix a half hour, during which time I went through urgent emails on my phone. We’d just lost another customer due to delays, and that would hit us hard next quarter. Every time I thought we moved forward, something would take us three steps back.

Hendrix sat across from me in a chair. “He’s sleeping.”

I hesitated before asking quietly, “How’s he doing…you know, overall ?”

Hendrix contemplated my question before answering. “He’s stable physically. But recovery is difficult without strong family support.”

I raised my eyebrows in query.

“Your mother is busy, not around as much as your dad might need.”

I let out a humorless laugh. “And if she were, trust me, he’d be in worse shape. There is literally no love lost between them.”

Hendrix’s expression turned sympathetic. “Your sister visits on Sundays for like five minutes, and that hurts him. He tells me she used to be Daddy’s little girl.”

I gave the slightest shake of my head. “Coco can’t take care of anyone…that’s not who she is.”

I sighed, running a hand through my hair. “I’m not around enough, either.”

Hendrix paused, looking uncomfortable, before finally saying, “Your wife is here often.”

“Right, you said that.” I wanted details, but I would sound like a downright jerk for not knowing what my wife was doing. But then Hendrix had been with Dad for three years, and I doubted much escaped his attention. “It’s surprising to me since Dad never approved of her.”

Hendrix smiled warmly. “Well, he adores her now. She has lunch with him because he hates eating alone, and he gets sick and tired of eating with me. She plays cards with him—and lets him win. She reads those old Louis Lamour westerns to him.”

A knot formed in my throat. I’d known none of this. Lia had never mentioned it.

“She takes him outside to get fresh air,” he continued. “Your father laughs with her—I never see him laugh otherwise. Ada comes by with Lia sometimes, and those days, he’s giddy with excitement.”

My father adored my children. He struggled with Birdie, making his dislike for her clear, and calling her a waste of space to her face, but he had always treated Tristan and Ada like royalty.

“As you can see from my face, I didn’t know. Not about Lia or Ada,” I admitted.

“I figured,” he agreed with good humor. “Lia is an empathetic person, as you know, and she has experience with someone who had a stroke.”

My wife was empathetic, kind, generous. Here, I was, oblivious to my own family’s lives, wrapped up in myself and the company, while Lia, despite everything, quietly cared for the man who’d made her feel unwanted and inadequate for years.

What the fuck was I doing hurting her by not giving back all that she gave me?

“Her grandfather had a stroke,” I recollected. “He lived with them until he passed.”

“She told me it taught her patience.”

He walked me out and then went back into the suite.

I stood outside, in the lavish hallway of my childhood home, and once again recognized how cold and sterile it was—staged like a model house. It was the antithesis of the home Lia had made for us.

Our place was warm and cozy—lived in. Whenever my parents came over, my mother would look down her nose at the table decorations being too simple or the art on the walls not being originals but rather quirky French café posters that Lia had framed.

Lia used to have problems with Mama’s disapproval in the early days, but I told her to ignore my mother, which she did at times, though she wasn’t always able to.

I had tried to get my mother to stop criticizing Lia, but that got us nowhere.

Now, I didn’t think anything my mother said registered with my wife, and she avoided talking to her.

I tried to get them in the same space so they’d get along, but it was a losing battle.

As I stood looking at this house with no happy memories, I couldn’t remember why it was so important that my absent mother and loving wife got along.