Hmm, she hadn’t noticed. “Sienna was the good child. Graceful. Compliant. Understood the unsaid rules of being a member of the Fox family.”
“And you weren’t and didn’t?”
“No. But that didn’t mean she and I didn’t get on. We did and do.” She sat forward again and forked some pasta. “It’s weird in a way, because sometimes I felt like we were cheating the system.”
Seth raised a brow. “How’s that?”
“We should be natural enemies, being opposites, but it’s more like both of us understood the way things were going to play out and decided we’d still like each other.” If she was honest, she’d wanted more, but asking would mean upsetting a finely geared machine, tilting it off kilter. “I love her. I know she loves me. We catch up at the café or on the weekends with her kids often enough. Lance is a nice guy.” Harper lifted a shoulder. “We’re not close confidants, but that’s more because I steer clear of the lifestyle she’s embraced.”
“You don’t share things or tell each other secrets?”
“Like you do with your brothers?”
A shadow passed over his face. Maybe not. And if the tenseness she’d witnessed in Seth’s office was anything to go by, maybe not for a while.
Seth shrugged, which spoke volumes.
“No, I guess I never wanted to make Sienna choose if it came down to a question of loyalty to Mom and Dad, or me.”
Her tone was matter-of-fact. Hey, what else could she say? That was the dynamic of her family, and one she’d become used to from an early age as the kid that simply doesn’t fit in. Heck, even finding friends at her snooty private schools had been hard. The debutante-to-be daughters of her father’s friends didn’t want to associate with the class klutz.
There’d been some late-night discussions with Sienna about boyfriends and broken hearts, but they usually involved Sienna as the focus, not Harper. She’d lie in bed afterwards, and the loneliness would envelop her in a cold, sterile cocoon, reinforcing her isolation. It wasn’t until years later, with Jinx, that she had felt free to fully share.
“I’m curious. Since I’m guessing your mum didn’t slave over a stove each day, who taught you to cook?”
Harper coughed on her mouthful of wine.
Seth leaned over and rubbed her back. “You okay?”
She swallowed and waved away his concern. “I’m fine.” After clearing her throat, she said, “Sorry, it’s just the idea of my mom entering the kitchen for anything other than giving instructions to our housekeeper is hilarious. Greta’s been our housekeeper for longer than I’ve lived on this earth. She shared all her secrets with me.”
“Took you under her wing, huh?” He forked another bite of pasta into his mouth.
“Some of my first memories are of hanging out with Greta, watching her bake cakes, roll dough for bread, making those ribbon sandwiches my mother loves for her committee meetings.” As a little girl, she’d loved sitting up so high on the kitchen stool. Greta had smiled and opened the drawer where she kept personal things. ‘Let’s get you your own apron, angel’. Greta had sewn one for her. Pink gingham with wooden spoons and a bowl stitched on each pocket. A treasured gift. Now wrapped in tissue paper in a box in her wardrobe. “In the end, she simply handed me a bowl of my own and started giving me instructions. It was an instinctive thing for both of us.”
“Did your mum mind you hanging out in the kitchen?”
Harper’s laugh was dry, humorless. “I don’t know if either of my parents minded so much as Greta wasn’t someone you argued with. She kept the house running without drama. That pleased Dad, which, in turn, reflected well on Mom.”
“Greta still working for your family?”
“No.” Harper couldn’t hide the note of melancholy. “Greta retired a year ago. She lives with her sister in Florida. I call her every month, just to check in.” She sank against the high back of her chair. “But it’s not the same as sitting with her and sharing fresh-baked cookies over a glass of milk.”
That had him smiling. “You still do that, cookies and milk?”
She levelled him with a look. “You’re never too old for warm cookies and cold milk, mister.”
He gave her a lip twitch at her rebuke. “I’ll give that a try sometime.”
Try it? “You’ve never had cookies and milk?”
“Nope. My birth mother wasn’t the cookie baking type. When we moved here Aurora baked cookies, but she never served them with milk. Hell, she likely guessed Adam and Zach would burn from the inside if they were forced to participate in something so…homey.”
She threw her head back and laughed at the idea of Adam and Zach sporting milk mustaches.
Seth lifted up a finger. “And point of order since you’re learning another language. Back in Oz, they call cookies biscuits.”
Huh? “But biscuits are nothing like cookies. They’re two separate things. Biscuits are a heavy, denser version of bread. Cookies are lighter, often sweet.” Switching that around made no sense. “What do you call our biscuits?”