How to Bake a Perfect Life - Barbara O'Neal [94]
Dane joined the Gallagher Group as general manager. A tall, charismatic man with a failed marriage behind him in California and a cheery good nature, he almost immediately raised the profits in the company by 10 percent, and by the end of two years that number was 30 percent. But it was his personality that made him such a star. He counterbalanced the Irish furies and tempests generated by my family. He had a way of smoothing even the fiercest of disagreements, easing difficult chefs and my father with the grace of a medieval diplomat. I noticed this quality first, when he managed to defuse a furious clash between my father and a distributor he felt had done him wrong. I gave him a thumbs-up in the kitchen afterward. “Good work.”
He lifted a brow. “She speaks!”
“Very funny,” I said, but that was the start of it. Once he found my weak spot, he pursued me in a way that was flattering and heartening. His zest for life was practically irresistible, and I was as drawn to him as everyone else in the business was. He was like a cool, burbling fountain in the midst of our tropical passions.
He was good to me. Sofia adored him, as all children did, and he loved her in return. My parents approved. I liked him and I thought he was sexy, but here’s the thing:
We had sex. A lot of sex.
I was hardly a virgin, considering my status as a mother, but there I was in my mid-twenties, with every hormonal juice pumping through my system urging me to get physical and have a billion babies, and I just wasn’t.
Dane swept me into a deliriously sexual relationship. He was a terrific lover, as thoughtful and sensitive to the needs of a woman as he was to the emotional needs of chefs or distributors. There are some people who have a genius for giving you what you need, and Dane is one of them. He knew my grandmother loved to be flirted with. He knew my mother loved to be thought the most intelligent person in the room, that my father respected hard work and didn’t trust anyone who came from money.
We married when Sofia was almost ten, in a ceremony with lilacs filling the air with their heady perfume. Sofia was my maid of honor, and my mother, Stephanie, and Sarah were bridesmaids. It says something that my brother was one of his groomsmen. Liam didn’t care.
The only person who never approved was Poppy. She tried to keep it to herself, but when I announced we were going to marry, she sat me down and tried to talk sense into me. She all but said she suspected it would be impossible for Dane to be faithful, that he was not the kind of man who would make me happy for the long term, but I couldn’t hear her. I was swimming in a juicy fountain of great sex and had somehow won the approval of my family, as well. Not only that, Dane loved and cared for my daughter as his own and didn’t mind that I wasn’t interested in having more children at the moment.
We married.
We were happy.
Or maybe that’s a lie. Maybe I always knew, on some subtle level, that we had struck a bargain. His income helped create a good life for my daughter—buying clothes and trips and experiences that she could not have had if I had remained a single mother. He agreeably nourished my appetites for attention and good sex and facilitated the ease between my family and me.
In return, I never noticed that he sometimes disappeared for a very long time. That he took business trips rather a lot. That certain women seemed to dislike me for no real reason.
I don’t know. That sounds so cynical. Maybe I did just like being married. Maybe, as hard as it is to admit it, I honestly did love him.
No. I didn’t. I have never loved any man, not really. It’s my failing and my protection.
Either way, it turned out that Poppy was right. It was impossible for Dane to be faithful, as his first wife had discovered. One of his lovers—yes, there were evidently several over the years—would not let him go