“You wanted to have the upper hand?” Celine inserted, looking faintly amused and maybe a tad impressed. Although possibly that was wishful thinking on Crystal’s part.

“I had hoped it would make it more difficult to turn me away,” Crystal corrected before adding, “But a phone call would have certainly been easier, I think.”

Celine picked up her coffee and took a sip before leveling another direct look at her. “You’re here about what happened at Mark’s, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am,” she agreed without hesitation. “You see, I love your son and he loves me. But that scene with your husband was the catalyst that split us apart.”

The other woman swallowed audibly before picking up her cup once again with an unsteady hand. “I didn’t want to come that day. I tried my best to talk Marcus out of it, but as usual, he acted without thinking it through.” Looking at Crystal with eyes that seemed to plead for understanding, she continued. “I’ve loved Marcus for most of my life. We were best friends before he finally saw me as more. And since that moment, we’ve rarely been apart for more than a day. Loving him doesn’t mean that I’m blind to his demons. It’s because of them that I never planned to have children.” When Crystal gasped, Celine smiled sadly. “I love my son, but I realized early on that Marcus and I didn’t lead a life that would make us good parents. Unfortunately, though, sometimes things don’t turn out as you plan. One oversight on our part led to a surprise pregnancy, and nine months later, Mark was born.”

“What happened afterward?” Crystal prodded when the other woman paused as if lost in time.

“For a while, things were good,” Celine said. “Marcus wasn’t drinking as much and seemed to dote on Mark. Then as our son got older and turned into some kind of child prodigy, things went downhill. Marcus’s father picked up on Mark’s intelligence, and that turn of events signaled the end of the peace in our household. From then on, Marcus mostly ignored his son, but as he got older, they began butting heads. As that became a regular occurrence, Marcus’s drinking picked up as well. Then, when the DeSanto Group was left to Mark, that was it. Since then, I’ve watched the husband I love play a cat-and-mouse game with the son I’ve never known how to save.”

Crystal’s head was spinning as Celine finished the summary of Mark’s life. From the boy who was never wanted to the man who no one had ever stood up for. It broke her heart. He’d been defending himself since he was a child, and now he was trying to protect her in the only way he knew how. Oh, my love. Crystal didn’t think she had anything to lose by being completely honest with Celine, so she admitted, “Mark left me because he doesn’t want his father to inflict the same pain on me that he has on him. He’s afraid that I’ll grow to hate him after a while and can’t bear the thought.”

Celine gave up all pretense of drinking her coffee. For the first time, Crystal thought the woman probably looked close to her real age. There was a fatigue about her now that had little to do with sleep. She was a woman who had buried her head in the sand for years and was now having to face the consequences of her actions. “I don’t know what to do,” she murmured. “I’m tired of living this way, but Marcus would implode fully without me. We both have our own . . . lives at times, but we always come back to each other.”

“How about your son?” Crystal snapped, tired of hearing excuses made for the older man. Had anyone even considered some tough love where he was concerned? God knows giving her mother some of that was next up on her agenda.

“I can only help Mark by getting control of his father,” Celine hissed back. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but I need some time to make decisions. After what happened at Mark’s, I’ve already been attempting to put a plan in place.” Crystal wanted to argue when the woman got to her feet, but she could tell by the closed-off expression on her face that she’d said as much as she was going to for now. “I’ll get your number from Denny and call you when I’m ready.”

Crystal nodded. “I’d appreciate anything you can do.”

As they went to part ways in the lobby, Celine turned back to her and said earnestly, “I am sorry. You seem as if you really care about my son, and I promise you that I’m going to do everything in my power to help him.”

Crystal made it a few more feet to the plush sofa in the lobby before collapsing down on weak legs. She’d done it. She’d faced one of the obstacles in her path to Mark. She dearly hoped that in doing it, she wasn’t making things worse for the man she loved.

Chapter Twenty-three

Mark looked at his Twitter account for the first time in a few days as he sat in his office. Yeah, he had more important things to do than check his social media accounts, but as usual, lately his focus was shit just knowing Angel was somewhere in the building. They’d been apart for almost three weeks now, and he was still a mess. He was pretty sure he hadn’t gone this long without sex since his first time, and the sad thing was that he had no desire at all to do anything to remedy that dry spell.

He was scrolling through his Twitter stream, pathetically hoping for something from Angel when he saw a picture that had him yelling, “Denny!”

As usual, the other man took his time strolling into Mark’s office with a resigned “Yes?”

Mark flipped his iPad around, showing his cousin the picture of him kissing Margot at the charity event in Charleston a few weeks back. “Who in the hell posted this?” he asked, now in a panic. “What if Angel saw that? Oh God, do you think she has?” He frantically scrolled through the remaining posts to see if she had left him a message, but there was nothing.