Danielle Steel - Impossible

“How long has it been going on?” he asked then, hoping it wasn't a one-night stand, or an irresistible impulse, which would make a liar of him to Tatianna, when he had said his mother didn't do things lightly and this was probably important to her. Which only made Tatianna cry more. She didn't want her mother marrying some ridiculous young artist. That would have been just too embarrassing. And too much for her to swallow. She wanted her mother to mourn her father forever, childish though that was.

“It's been going on for six months. On and off since January,” Sasha said miserably. Liam was listening, lying next to her in bed, and decided to leave her alone to talk to her son. He got up and went downstairs to make coffee.

“Are you going to marry him?” Xavier asked her.

“Good lord…I don't know…I keep telling him this is impossible. I think Tatianna proved that last night. I'm not going to do anything that alienates me from either of you. Liam and I haven't figured out where this is going to go, if anywhere. It may not.”

“It won't alienate you from us, Mom. Nothing could do that. We love you. She'll get over it. She was just surprised. We want you to be happy.” He spoke for both of them, which Sasha knew was not the case. Or at least not at the moment.

She groaned ruefully then at the memory of the scene the night before, with she and Liam naked and everyone screaming at each other. Tatianna had described it fairly accurately to her brother. “It was pretty awful. We thought she was a burglar. Liam went out into the hall with a poker, and no clothes on.”

“So she told me,” he said generously. He was two years older than his sister, which made a difference. And Liam was his friend, so he was not an unknown to him. His mother's affair with him had surprised him too at first, but at least he knew he was a decent person. Tatianna knew nothing about him. “It's a good thing he didn't just take a swing and hit her in the dark.”

“He turned the lights on, which made it worse, when she saw us.” This time Xavier laughed.

“Well, Mom, you've been outed. But if you're happy, that's all I care about. I'll talk to Tatianna later. I told her to take a Valium and go to bed.”

“Does she take Valium?” Her mother sounded shocked. Neither of her children had ever been on drugs, that she knew of.

“No. But I'm sure someone she knows has some. She sounded like she needed it last night. You should have turned a fire hose on her. She was half out of her mind when she called.” And by then, she'd had a stiff drink, and sounded slightly drunk. She was a total mess, and he told her to get some sleep and call him later. “Can I talk to Liam?” Sasha went to find him in the kitchen. He handed her a cup of coffee, and she handed him the phone. Xavier chuckled as soon as he heard the familiar voice. “So do I call you Dad now?”

“That's a lot better than what your sister called me. Hey man, I'm sorry. I really am. I didn't mean to create this mess. I wouldn't do that to your mother for anything, or to you.”

“Don't worry about it. Shit happens.” Xavier stepped into his role as head of the family then, defending his mother's interests. “Do you love her?” he asked soberly. Xavier hoped he did, because he was a good guy, and Xavier wanted to believe he was behaving honorably, and not just on a whim. He didn't want his mother taken advantage of, especially by his friend.

“Yes, I do,” Liam said loud and clear, glancing over at Sasha, who was slumped in a seat at the kitchen table, still looking upset. She felt utterly humiliated.

“Is it too soon to ask your intentions?”

“Probably. We're both still trying to figure that out. It's a little early. It's taken me a lot to convince your mother that this was a good idea. I don't think last night helped a lot. And I'm not even divorced yet.” Then he asked Xavier a question. “If we ever got there, would you approve?”

Xavier hesitated for a long moment, thinking about it. This was new to him, too. “I guess so, if you think you can make each other happy. It's not what I expected, but life takes funny turns sometimes. Maybe this could work. I'll let you two figure that out. I'll take care of my sister while you do.”

“I appreciate it a lot,” Liam said with a tremor in his voice. What he appreciated was his friend's blessing on their relationship, more than his help with his irate sister, although that was useful, too, and would mean a lot to Sasha, who still looked distraught. Liam handed her back the phone then and went outside to stand on the porch and look at the beach. It was a foggy day, which seemed appropriate to him.

Xavier tried to calm his mother when she got back on the phone. She was crying softly, and he felt sorry for her. He could easily sense how awful it had been for her. “Mom, try to relax. I'll talk to Tat. Just try to have a decent weekend. She'll get over it. So will you. He's a good guy. He says he loves you. That's all you need to know.”

“I love him, too,” she sniffed, “but I'm not willing to lose my children for him.”

“You won't. She'll yell and scream and stomp around for a while. She'll be a diva. That's how she is. You have a right to this, if that's what you want. You have my support. And if you stick with it, and it works, you'll get hers, too. If not, chalk it up to experience and we'll all laugh about it one day.” But no one was laughing yet. Xavier was being incredibly mature and generous, far more so than his sister.

She thanked him profusely, they talked for a few more minutes, and then they hung up and she went out to find Liam on the porch. He was looking out to sea and thinking, and turned as she sat down on the swing next to him.

“I'm sorry, Sasha. I didn't mean to make a mess for you.” He looked genuinely sorry it had happened.

“You didn't make a mess. It just happened. They were bound to find out sooner or later.” Others would, too. This was just not the way she wanted their affair to come to light, to say the least. Neither did he.

They spent the rest of the weekend quietly, and went back to the city Sunday night. She had tried to get through to Tatianna several times on her cell phone, and it was always on voice mail. At her apartment, all Sasha got was the answering machine, and left several loving messages for her. Liam hated to hear her crawling, but he knew how much her daughter meant to her. He thought Tatianna should be spanked, but he said nothing to Sasha. How she handled it now was up to her.

Xavier left his sister several messages, and she called him back in London. But she was intransigent when he tried to reason with her, and furious with him for endorsing Liam.

“You're as nuts as they are. For chrissake, he's about twenty years younger than she is. How crazy is she?”

“She's not crazy, Tat. She's lonely. And he's only about eight or nine years younger than she is,” Xavier said quietly, trying in vain to reason with her.

“He looks like a kid.”

“In some ways, he is. He acts like one, but he isn't. He's an adult. He says he loves her. And I think she loves him. Whether we like it or not, she has a right to be with whoever she wants. And I'd rather it be him than some uptight prick we really hate, or some guy after her money.”

“This is sick, Zav. And he probably is after her money.”

“I don't think so. All he cares about is art. He's a decent guy who was married for twenty years and has three kids.” He didn't tell her that the marriage had broken up because he had slept with his wife's sister. “You just have to trust her on this one. Maybe they'll get over it. They're not hurting anyone.”

“She'll look like a fool, and so will we, if anyone finds out, or she goes out with him.”