“So after a while, after I realized that he felt guilty but not repentant, I told him I didn’t forgive him. I returned to college … and unfortunately Mom went back to him.” I looked up from our hands, tears stinging my eyes as that familiar hurt clawed at my gut. “She put him before me from that moment on. It was always my fault that there was a rift. Never his. I saw her only a couple of times over the last few years, and there was this wall between us we couldn’t breach.” I swiped at the tears sliding down my cheeks. “And then one day she went out on her friend’s boat and a storm hit and that was it. She went overboard and by the time they found her body she was gone. She’s gone and I never made it right. But neither did she.” And it hurts.

“Oh, sweetheart,” Mrs. F sighed. “I’m so sorry.”

“I … I keep remembering when I was a kid and it was just the two of us. She was my whole world, you know. I’ve never loved anyone the way that I loved her back then. And now I’m just so goddamn mad at her. And I guess when I walked onto that photo shoot weeks ago and saw Caine, it was an opportunity to focus on something, anything, but the fact that my mom is dead and the most powerful feeling I have toward her is anger. I’m just scared that forgiveness and acceptance might never come.”

Without another word, Mrs. F got up from her seat and came around to me to pull me into her arms, and for the first time since Mom died, I really and truly let it all out.

A bunch of tissues and two more cups of tea later, I smiled gratefully at Mrs. F. “This is going to sound weird, but thank you.”

“For what, sweetheart?”

“For listening.” I shrugged. “I feel lighter somehow, like it helped just to admit my anger out loud. I tried to talk to Grandpa about it a while ago, but he just got so mad and then he let slip Caine’s name and everything else was shoved to the side at that revelation.”

“I’m sorry you didn’t have a good shoulder to cry on at the time.” Mrs. F actually looked mad about it. “But you can come to me anytime, sweetie. Everybody needs somebody.”

“Very true. I’m glad Caine has you.”

Curiosity entered her gaze. “You really do want him to be happy, don’t you?”

The way she asked it made me wary, like my answer held more meaning than I wanted it to. Finally, though, I nodded.

“Good. Maybe with two of us on the job we’ll get it done.” She glanced over at the clock. “Oh, look at that, it’s dinnertime. And I know the number for a great Chinese. Join me? I have wine.”

I laughed. “I would love that.”

“Fabulous.” She stood up. “Oh, and, Alexa?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re allowed to be mad at your mom, sweetheart.”

Before I could swallow past the sudden lump in my throat long enough to thank her, Mrs. F strode away, caftan fluttering behind her, into the hall. I heard her on the phone before she appeared less than a minute later clutching her cell and a menu.

She thrust the menu at me. “Choose what you want. Caine’s already told me what he wants.”

Um … “Caine?”

“Yeah.” She grinned impishly. “He just finished a squash game at the gym and is hungry, so he’s going to be joining us.”

I did not have a good feeling about this.

I narrowed my eyes on Mrs. F. “He doesn’t know I’m here, does he?”

“Nope.” She pointed at the menu. “Now choose.”

Looking down at the menu, I wondered if I should choose something with peanuts in it and then fake a peanut allergy so I could escape the situation I now found myself in. Then again … it would be a chance to see Caine interact with Mrs. F. I sighed and decided to face his wrath in order to appease my curiosity. “I’ll have the moo shu pork, and a little less matchmaking from you.” I handed her the menu and she burst out laughing. “Mrs. F,” I warned, “you know with our history it’s never going to happen.”

“Call me Effie, dear. And yeah, I thought that too, about your history, I mean,” she admitted, “but you and Caine don’t get what this is all about. He thinks he gets it and you think you get it, but really that’s not why.”

I stared dumbly at her. “That made no sense.”

“It made sense to me.”

Panic transformed into nervous flutters in my stomach. “Please don’t do this.”

Effie patted my shoulder in reassurance. “I would never do anything to make either one of you uncomfortable or upset, but from what I’ve learned from both of you, you’re both dancing around each other and you haven’t really learned a thing about each other that means something. A little time together outside of work will do you both good.”

“He’s very scary,” I pointed out.

She snorted. “To you maybe. To me he’s a sweet, sweet boy.”

My jaw almost dropped at the double use of that adjective. “Sweet? Caine? No, I don’t think so.”

She smiled almost smugly to herself. “You’ll see.”

The minute I heard Effie’s door open, my pulse stopped for a second, and when it restarted it was suddenly going a hundred miles an hour. Effie grinned at me and looked over my shoulder as heavy footsteps drew into the main room from the hall.

They suddenly stopped.

“Effie?”

Huh, so it wasn’t just my name Caine used that warning tone with.