“Why not?” Brad watched her eyes, there was something strange there that he didn't understand.

“Your brother can't have children, Brad. He had syphilis when he was in college, and now he's sterile.” For a long moment Brad was shocked into silence.

“Do you mean that?”

“Yes.” There was something deeply unhappy in her eyes. “But he didn't bother to tell me, until last month, when everyone knew we were engaged. And he knew that I wouldn't go through another broken engagement. Christ.” She laughed a brittle little laugh. “Everyone in town would laugh till their sides split, poor little Pattie Atherton, dumped by another Fullerton.”

“That's not the same thing.…” Brad reached out and touched her arm. “I'm sorry, Pattie. He should have told you before. That was a lousy thing to do.”

“I thought so too.” And then in a soft distant voice. “He'll pay for that in the end.”

“What the hell do you mean?” Brad looked shocked.

Shr shrugged. “I don't know.” And then she looked up at Brad, with a grim little smile. “I wanted to marry him to get back at you. I guess you could say I used him. But the funny thing is that he used me. He got the last laugh. He got me to say I'd marry him, and then he tells me he's sterile a month before the wedding.”

“Would you have married him if you'd known?”

She shook her head. “No. I guess he knew that. That's why he didn't tell me.”

Brad looked thoughtful as he looked down at this woman he had once thought that he knew, but he realized now that he didn't know her at all. She was manipulative and vengeful, and yet she had her vulnerabilities too—needs that spurred her to hurt others. He was deeply sorry for his brother. In her own way she was actually much worse than their mother. “It was wrong of Greg to hide that from you.” It startled him to see that side of his younger brother. “Maybe in the end this will be for the best. You'll be able to devote yourselves to each other.”

She didn't answer at first. “Wouldn't it matter to you if your wife couldn't have children, Brad?”

“Not if I really loved her.”

“But she can, can't she?”

He hesitated for a long moment and then decided that he had better tell her. She'd find out soon enough, and he wanted to be honest. “Serena is pregnant, Partie.” But as soon as he said the words, he knew he'd made a mistake, there was a look of viciousness in her eyes that was almost frightening.

“Knocked her up quick, didn't you? Is that why you married her?” If it were, maybe she'd feel better. Maybe he'd had to marry her.… But her hope was stillborn.

“No, it's not.” His eyes met hers squarely, and after a long silence she turned on her heel and walked away. And a moment later Brad went back inside, and immediately ran right into Greg.

“Where's Pattie?” There was a look of nervous suspicion in his eyes and it was obvious that he was drunk again as he lurched slightly toward his brother.

“She's here somewhere. We went out for some air, and she just came back in. Maybe she's in the ladies' room.”

Greg stared at Brad. “She hates your guts.”

Brad nodded slowly, watching Greg's eyes, and for the first time he realized how little he knew him. “She wasn't right for me, Greg. I would have broken it off when I got back anyway, even if I hadn't met Serena.” He was sure of that now. “We'd have made each other miserable.” But he wasn't sure that she and Greg would do better. “Are you happy, Greg?” He wanted to tell him that it wasn't too late to change his mind, that he'd be better off, but he wasn't sure if he should tell him.

“Hell, yes, why not?” But he didn't look like a happy man. “She'll keep me on my toes.” For a moment he looked malevolently at his brother. There was jealousy there too, even more than he had seen in Pattie's eyes. “She's a firebrand in bed, but you know that. Or have you forgotten?”

“I never knew.” It seemed the only thing to say as he cringed at his brother's remark.

“Bullshit. She told me.”

“Did she? Maybe she just said that to make you jealous.”

Greg shrugged as though he didn't really care, but it was plain he did. All his life he had come in second best to his brothers. He knew what he was, and what he wasn't. “I don't really care. Virgins are the shits. I didn't even like them when I was in college.”

“Apparently.” Brad wanted to bite out his tongue for what he had just said, and his eyes instantly met Greg's.

“She told you, didn't she? The bitch. Why the hell did she have to tell you?”

“You should have told her before.” It was an almost fatherly reproach.

“And maybe you should mind your own goddamn business. I don't see you running your life so smoothly either, Brad, marrying your little Italian piece of ass. Christ, I'd expect you to have the brains to leave that where you found it.”

“Stop it, Greg!” Brad's voice was low and gruff.

“The hell I will. If you'd done what Mother expected you to, she wouldn't be on my back. You'd be in politics where you belong and I could do what I want. But no, Big Brother has to play independent, leaving me holding the bag. And me, what do I get out of all that? I get a royal pain in the ass and a gun to my head. Now I'm the hope of their hearts and I get stuck with all their expectations. Looks to me like you got off easy, as usual.” He sounded more drunk than he had before, and infinitely more bitter.

“You don't have to do what they want. You can please yourself, for chrissake.” Brad was actually sorry for him. And at the same time he knew that Greg didn't have the guts, not to face up to their mother, or Pattie.

“The hell I can. And now there's Pattie. She expects me to go to work for her father.”

“If you don't want to, don't.”

Greg looked at him with bitter amusement, and his face broke into a wintry smile. “Brave words, Brad. There's only one problem.”

“What's that?”

“I'm not a brave man.” And with that, he drifted off, leaving Brad feeling desperately sorry for him.





24

“Good morning, Serena.” She said it so icily, it was worse than if she had snubbed her totally, and Serena felt instantly both rejected and subdued.