The Better Man (Chicago Sisters) Read online

  Without a moment to spare, Max asked the chef to send him a complete list of his supplies and apologized for needing to be on his way when they invited him to join them for dinner. He was already late, and if the traffic didn’t cooperate, he was going to miss the visit altogether.

  In the back of the cab, he pulled out his phone to call Laura, only to find it had died. Katie was never going to let him live this down. The cab driver claimed not to have a phone, only his radio, so Max offered him an extra fifty if he could get him to his appointment before it was over.

  When they pulled into the parking lot, Katie was there, loading Aidan into the car. Max jumped out and called to her. He jogged over to her car, hoping she’d let him have a minute or two with his son.

  “I’m here. Sorry. Something came up at work, and then my phone died. I should have called from the restaurant. I forgot my battery was so low.”

  Katie pressed her lips together and closed the back door of her car.

  “I know I’m late, but we can still have half a visit.” Max bent down and waved at Aidan, who was all strapped into his car seat.

  “Your visit was at six o’clock. You didn’t show up. I have the right to leave after twenty minutes if you don’t call.”

  “Come on, Katie. The owner came to the restaurant without any warning. My phone died. Traffic was awful. Give me a break, please.”

  She opened her door. “You haven’t changed. Work always comes first. I don’t think arbitration is going to work, Max. I don’t trust you. I’m asking for a judge. My lawyer will be contacting yours soon,” she said before getting in her car.

  Max wanted to pound on the window when she shut the door and started the engine. He wanted to scream at her for being so unreasonable and unforgiving as she started to back out. He wanted to throw something to break her taillight as she drove away. But he didn’t do any of that because his son was in that car and Max had no one to blame for missing his visit other than himself.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  KENDALL HATED BEING WRONG. Not that she wasn’t wrong lots of times about a lot of things, but she hated being wrong when she was so sure she had been right. How many times had she argued with Max about that sushi bar? How many times had he told her exactly what Mr. Sato said? Perhaps it wasn’t being wrong that bugged her. Maybe it was her foolish stubbornness.

  Trevor used that word because he knew it got under her skin. Just because she voiced an opposing opinion, he’d shake his head and tell her to stop being so stubborn. Sometimes he was right. She could admit that, on occasion, she could dig her heels in just to spite him. That was what she had done here. Max, in all his Trevorness, had repeatedly questioned her design, and in an attempt to prove to him she was smarter than he gave her credit for, she refused to listen to reason.

  The worst of it was that Max hadn’t even called her on it. He hadn’t rubbed in the fact that he’d seen the same design flaw from the very beginning. That was notably un-Trevor-like and baffling given his recent realization. She was more confused than ever about how to handle his relationship with Simon.

  Oh, Simon. Her son had left for school today after making the deal that if he went to school all week, he’d get to go trick-or-treating with Max on Friday. It was a lot to ask of him—it had been a long time since he’d made it an entire week without incident.

  She watched him now as he ran in circles around the coffee table, pretending to make his red Corvette fly through the air. The letter Wilder had sent home with him lay open on the couch beside her. She had ten days to prepare for the meeting the school was requesting. Ten days to decide what she wanted for Simon and how to advocate for him properly.

  This was not the time to let her stubbornness get in the way. The educational team wanted to discuss options, alternative schools that may or may not be a better fit for someone like Simon. Kendall wanted to be sure she was making her decisions based on facts, not on her stubborn need to be right.

  “Mom, do you think cars can fly?” Simon asked, bringing his Corvette in for a landing on the armrest of the couch.

  “Maybe they will someday. Planes fly, why not cars?”

  “Do you think Max likes flying cars?” Max’s likes and dislikes were still Simon’s favorite subjects.

  “I can ask him tomorrow.”

  Simon made a loud roar like an engine and lifted his Corvette back into the air. “Don’t. I’ll ask him on Friday.”

  “Okay.” A tingle of excitement ran through her to hear him talk like he believed he’d make it through the week of school. She watched him run around the coffee table a few more times. “Do you like Max because he looks like Daddy?”

  Simon came to a stop and shrugged. “He’s not Daddy. He’s different.”

  Kendall leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. “What makes him different?”

  “His hair is funny. It grows on his face sometimes.”

  Laughter bubbled up and out of her. “His hair is different.”

  “And he’s nice to you,” he said as he went back to running in circles. “He makes you smile and laugh.”

  Kendall’s heart sputtered and backfired. “Your dad was nice to me,” she choked out, sitting back.

  Her sweet boy climbed up on the couch and kissed her cheek. “Daddy made you cry, remember?”

  She remembered, but it broke her heart to know Simon remembered, too.

  * * *

  THE EARLY MORNING light seeped through the rice-paper panels of the shoji screens that covered the street-side windows of Sato’s. The quiet was a welcome change from the noisy construction that usually filled this space. This was the kind of silence Kendall could get used to. The crew was due later this morning to tear out the sushi bar bases they had installed the day before. Where they were going to put them was still a mystery. Kendall hoped the right answer would come to her while she worked on the mural.

  Painting had always been therapeutic for her. When Kendall was little, she used painting to express her feelings. Like her son, talking about what was going on inside was a lot harder than putting it on paper or canvas. Art was also a needed release in a house with two sisters who never held back any of their emotions.

  With the bristles dipped in the palest-of-pink paint, Kendall used the thin handle of the brush to scratch the itch on her nose. The mural was her favorite design element in the restaurant. She’d chosen a Japanese garden with cloudlike cherry blossoms and a bright red bridge crossing a lily-pad-spotted pond as her setting. A beautiful geisha holding her parasol would eventually be standing near the tall grasses beside the water.

  There were still many layers of paint to apply before it would be finished, which was why Kendall had arrived so early. She was adding a bit more pink to the cherry blossoms when Max showed up.

  The man was always dressed to the nines. His suits were impeccably tailored and his hair probably had more product in it than hers ever did. He was so handsome, good-looking in a much different way than Trevor had been. Max had an elegance about him, whereas Trevor’s strength and power was what always stood out when you saw him.

  “You may be the first person I’ve met who works harder than me.” Max set a cup of coffee on the table nearest her. “I thought you might need this.”

  He certainly had this way of knowing what someone needed before they even knew they needed it. She thanked him and picked up the warm, delicious-smelling coffee. Owen, her usual caffeine dealer, was working on another one of KO Designs’ projects today. His connections had landed them two more smaller projects, including a kitchen remodel in a gorgeous Queen Anne house on the north side of the city.

  “How’s Simon?” Max asked, turning out one of the chairs from a nearby dining table. He took a seat, sipping from his own cup of coffee.

  “Good. He’s hoping to come by on Friday. He has a new question for you.”r />
  Max tipped his head and smiled. “What is it this time? What time do I go to bed? How many marshmallows can I fit in my mouth? What’s my favorite toothpaste?”

  “I’m not allowed to tell,” she replied with a laugh and shake of her head. “But that marshmallow one is good. It sounds like something he might need to know one of these days.”

  “He sure likes to get personal.”

  Kendall wondered if that bothered him or not. Simon did ask him a lot of personal questions, and she couldn’t blame Max if he wanted to set some stricter boundaries.

  “I can tell him he needs to cool it. I don’t want things to get any weirder than they already are.” She turned back to the mural, waiting for his response.

  She heard him stand up, and the sound of his footsteps warned her of his close proximity. “Simon’s questions don’t bother me. Not being up-front bothers me.”

  She swallowed hard before turning to face him. She focused on his eyes because they were the feature that never made her think of anyone but him. She expected them to be angrier than they were. “I’m really sorry I didn’t tell you everything from the start. I wasn’t sure how to even bring it up.”

  “I believe you.” He lifted a hand to Kendall’s cheek. His thumb swiped across it, applying the lightest pressure but still setting her skin on fire. “You had a little pink paint right there,” he said.

  She was sure the pink was quickly replaced by the traitorous red of her blush. “Thanks.” She used her own hand to wipe the spot.

  “Stop.” He carefully grabbed her wrist to keep her from doing it again. The gentleness of his touch sent a tingle down her spine. “Now you really smeared it on there.”

  She hadn’t noticed the paint on her fingers until he pointed it out. Feeling foolish, she stepped away and searched for the hand towel she used to take care of messes like these. She probably looked like some sort of clown. There was absolutely nothing fancy or elegant about her.

  “I care about you, but I can’t compete with someone who’s dead,” he said, still considerably close.

  “You’re not competing,” she said, closing her eyes and holding her breath. Did he really care about her? Why did he have to smell so good? She cared about him, too.

  He stepped away, putting some needed distance between them. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. I meant I care about you and Simon.”

  Of course he did. This was quickly becoming a sorry fest. Kendall had to fight the urge to apologize for being disappointed he wasn’t having feelings for her. Ever since Simon had shared his thoughts on Max, Kendall’s feelings were more muddled than ever.

  “Simon told me last night that he doesn’t even think you look that much like his dad. He said you have funnier hair.”

  Max’s brows pinched together until Kendall’s words had registered. His hands flew to his hair, patting and smoothing it down. “What’s funny about my hair?”

  Kendall snickered. “Nothing. He spends a lot of time with my dad, who’s balding, and his dad always had a military cut. I think funny means fancy to a six-year-old.”

  Max gave his hair one more pat and returned to his coffee. “What about you? Do you look at me and see him?”

  “Sometimes,” she admitted. Truthfully, thoughts of Trevor weren’t as haunting these days. Once Max found out about the two of them looking alike, the nightmares had stopped. Maybe it had been guilt over not being honest that had been driving them and not solely their resemblance.

  “That’s got to be confusing. It confuses me. Like when you smile at me, I don’t know if you’re smiling at me or at the thought of him.”

  Kendall set her paintbrush down and joined him at the table. The sound of the chair legs scraping against the wood floors filled the dining room. “I won’t lie. It’s been extremely weird.” It was time to be honest with him and herself. Trevor hadn’t given her a lot of reasons to smile before he died. “But I smile at you because of the things you say or do, not because of how you look. So, the smiles are yours.”

  His smirk told her he was pleased with that answer. He set his coffee on the table and propped his head up on his hand. “What was he like? If you don’t mind me asking.”

  Kendall took a moment to consider what she should share. “Trevor was very confident. The first time we met, he introduced himself as the man I couldn’t help but fall in love with.”

  “Confident?” Max arched a brow. “That sounds cocky.”

  She conceded with a nod and a shrug. “Maybe a little. He was...very sure of himself. He made decisions and never second-guessed them, even when he was wrong.”

  “Was he wrong very often?”

  Kendall shook her head. “He didn’t think so.”

  “Well, that settles it. Besides our good looks, we’re nothing alike because I am often wrong about things.”

  “You weren’t wrong about the sushi bar.”

  “Ah,” Max said with a wink. “I was right about that, but I second-guess myself all the time. I’m always worried I’m not going to be good enough. Top that off with some incredibly bad trust issues and I’m a hot mess.”

  “Me, too.” Kendall smiled. Max looked like Trevor but apparently had more in common with her.

  “You’re a hot mess? Please!” he shouted in disbelief. “You’re a gorgeous woman who runs her own successful business and is raising an amazing kid by herself. You are the opposite of a mess.”

  She opted to ignore the comment about being gorgeous. “The business is too new to be considered successful, but thank you. And Simon is amazing, but I could never say I’m raising him on my own. I have a lot of help from my family. And things still aren’t easy. He took his dad’s death real hard and every day is a challenge.”

  “Owen told me about the mutism. I hope that’s all right.”

  She wondered what else Owen had told him. “Owen has a big mouth, but I love him, so it’s okay.”

  “He doesn’t talk to anyone outside of you, your mom and me?”

  “Selective mutism is the oddest disorder. Everything about him is so normal when it’s just him and me at home. But when we go out into the world, the anxiety takes over and makes it impossible for him to speak.”

  “Did he just stop talking when he heard his dad died?”

  “No, it wasn’t right away. I think the funeral was his trigger. It was so overwhelming and sad.” She shuddered at the memory of it as well. “Imagine being five and everyone you love is crying and saying goodbye to your dad. I think that’s when he realized Trevor really wasn’t coming back.”

  “Then I came along, and he thought his dad had come back.”

  This was where things got even more confusing for Kendall. Simon had thought that, which explained why he’d spoken to Max the first time they met. What didn’t make sense was that after he accepted Max wasn’t Trevor, his desire to talk to him remained. There must be something about Max that reduced Simon’s anxiety. What it was, Kendall didn’t know.

  “He absolutely thought his dad had come back the first time we saw you.” She realized something else she hadn’t told him. “We actually watched you get into a cab outside your house days before I met you here.”

  “You did?”

  “The day I got this job, actually. I got called away in the middle of our meeting with Mr. Sato.”

  Max’s eyes shut, then sprang open. “I remember that. I was late. A kid shouted at me and almost ran into the street. That was Simon. I saw you. I saw both of you.”

  “Crazy, huh?”

  “You can say that again.”

  “He’s aware you’re someone else and he still wants to talk to you. That’s about you, not his dad.”

  Max finished his coffee and let that sink in. Max was a thinker while Trevor was a doer, another clear distinction between the two men.
/>   “That makes me feel better,” he said, standing up and buttoning his suit coat. He nodded toward her mural. “I’ll let you get back to work. That is going to be the restaurant’s pièce de résistance.”

  He was full of compliments today. Praise wasn’t always easy for Kendall to hear. Trevor had a way of focusing on her flaws, causing her to do the same. Max was certainly different. Kendall gave him another smile that was 100 percent his.

  * * *

  THE GEISHA’S KIMONO was coming along nicely. Kendall took a step back and squinted, tilting her head. She was relieved it still matched the drawing she’d first put down on paper. This was the most detailed mural she’d ever painted.

  Max’s compliment rang in her ears until it was her phone doing the ringing. The name on the caller ID filled her with dread. The school never called with good news.

  “Hi, Mrs. Montgomery, it’s Lisa.” The rest of what the social worker had to say barely registered. Kendall heard the words “recess,” “retard” and “no dad.” She was already heading for the exit before the request to come to school was even out of Lisa’s mouth.

  “What’s wrong?” Max surprised her, standing at the door like he’d seen her coming. He held it open for her and followed her out.

  “I have to go get Simon,” she explained, feeling more angry than anything else right now. “And I may have to spank someone else’s first grader.”

  Max’s eyes widened. “I think I better come with you,” he said, hailing her a cab. Kendall was in too much of a hurry to argue. She knew kids could be thoughtless, but when had they become so cruel? She concentrated on her anger because being mad was easier than the alternative.

  Lisa and Mrs. Nigel were waiting for them in the main office. Two little boys sat side by side in chairs outside the principal’s office. Kendall wondered if they were the same two boys who’d told her son he couldn’t go on the monkey bars because he was a retard with no dad.

  They didn’t look like the bullies she’d imagined on the drive over. In fact, one of the boys lived on their block. His mom had invited Kendall and Simon over for a play date when they’d first moved in. They weren’t invited back after the woman realized Simon wouldn’t speak to anyone but his mom. Like mother, like son. Someone had failed at teaching her kid some empathy.