"So he knows then, about your mom?" Sadie asked hesitantly. Both her friends knew that she'd been holding back on telling him about her mother's situation.

"He knows," Claudia said.

"How did he handle it?" Grace asked.

"Well. Leandro handles everything well," Claudia said. She didn't want to tell them that she'd ended things with Leandro last night. Not yet. They'd want to talk, and she didn't want to. She felt as though one false move would puncture the fragile bubble that held all her raw, aching hurt inside her. And there was no point hashing it all over, anyway-nothing was going to change the fact that she and Leandro wanted two very different things out of life.

"So, what next?" Grace asked.

Even though she knew Grace was talking about Leandro, Claudia chose to deliberately misunderstand her friend.

"Tests, a general checkup. They'll see if she's done any permanent damage to herself. And then my father will take her home, and everyone will go back to pretending that it never happened. Just like the last time and the time before that," Claudia said matter-of-factly.

"Maybe this time your mom will recognize she's got a problem," Sadie said.

Claudia shook her head. "I can't believe in that, Sadie. You know I can't. I've believed in too many second chances over the years. She always lets us down. Always."

The heavy silence that fell between them was broken by the ring of Claudia's phone.

Claudia s.n.a.t.c.hed it up eagerly. For as long as she could remember, work had been her solace, her safe house. She drew confidence from her successes, and each step up the ladder was another brick in the wall separating herself from her mother's fate. Now, more than ever, she needed to remind herself of that. She was not her mother's daughter, and last night she'd taken steps to ensure she never would be.

"Claudia Dostis," she said into the receiver.

"Claudia. You got a moment to look at those promo slots?"

It was Harvey, her immediate superior, calling to ask a question about the network's promotions schedule. Pulling the appropriate file folder toward herself, Claudia indicated to her friends that she had to take the call.

Sadie and Grace withdrew. Focusing on what her boss was saying, Claudia gave herself over to work.

THE FOLLOWING DAY, Leandro pulled up in front of Dom's house. His brother had signed up for another run along the fire trails, following through on his determination to lose his paunch. For his part, Leandro was hoping that a bit of physical punishment would give him some relief from the pointless circling of his thoughts.

Claudia had made her position very clear-she didn't have room for him in her life. And even if she had been able to slot him in, even if she had wanted to talk, he knew how immovable a committed career woman could be. He'd played this game before with Peta, after all. He knew all the angles, all the parries and thrusts. He knew exactly how irreconcilable two divergent life views could be.

He frowned with surprise when his mother opened the door to his knock.

"Ma. What are you doing here? And what have you done to your hair?" he asked, eyeing her new, elegant jaw-length cut.

Alethea put a hand to her newly cropped hair and preened. "Don't you love it? Claudia did it for me," she said.

His frown deepened.

"Claudia cut your hair?" he asked skeptically. He was used to his mother's roundabout ways of telling a story.

"She arranged for one of her show's stylists to cut it for me. So I could look like one of the characters. Not that I watch the show, of course. I was changing channels one day when I saw this woman's haircut."

"It's okay, I know you watch Ocean Boulevard. I watch it, too," he said dryly. Although that was probably about to change. There was no way he could watch a single frame anymore without thinking of Claudia.

"Really? You don't mind?" his mother asked as she led him into the kitchen.

He stopped short when he saw that his youngest brother, Theo, and his wife Isabella were there, as well as his father and his two sisters, Magda and Georgia, and their husbands Peter and Jack. Theo's two daughters, Alice and Chloe, were sitting under the kitchen table with Dom and Betty's Alexandra and Stephen, all of them coloring up a storm on sc.r.a.p paper. Dom and Betty were the only absentees.

"What's going on?" he asked.

"Betty's gone into labor early," Isabella said. "Her water broke first thing this morning."

She sounded worried, and Leandro did some rapid calculations in his head.

"She's not due for another six weeks, right?" he said.

"Seven," Theo said tightly.

"It's all going to be fine," Alethea said firmly, filling the coffeemaker with water. "I refuse to believe anything different."

And there is the reason I let myself fall in love with a woman I knew would make me miserable-genetic optimism, Leandro thought grimly.

As if she sensed the general lack of belief in her proclamation, Alethea began ticking off her arguments on her fingers.

"The babies are already a good size, we know that from the ultrasounds. And Betty has always come on early-Alex was two weeks early, and little Stephen was three. Plus, I read in Betty's coffee grounds that she will have four children."

His mother shrugged her shoulders as though this last "fact" sealed the deal.

Leandro ran a hand through his hair, his own problems receding for the moment.

If Betty and Dom lost the twins...He could only imagine the dark well of grief that would be waiting for them.

"We should go to the hospital," he said.

"Not with the children," Georgia said firmly. "Dom will call when they have news."

Leandro let it go. She was probably right, anyway. The kids would only get tired and bored at the hospital, and he knew from his night in the E. R. how difficult screaming children made it for everyone else.

Inevitably his thoughts clicked over to Claudia again as he remembered the events of Thursday night. He felt...Cheated was the only word that matched the emotion sitting on his chest like a dead weight. He'd fallen in love with her, and he knew in his bones that she loved him, too.

Without him consciously willing it, he had a memory flash of the anguish in Claudia's face as she'd listened to her mother's cries in the E. R. How he'd wanted to make the world right for her, but Talia Dostis's alcoholism was obviously a long-standing family issue. Just as obviously, there was a rift between Claudia and her father. And she'd never brought either subject up with him. All the while he'd imagined their relationship was progressing, that they were becoming closer and closer, she'd kept him firmly at arm's length.

Belatedly Leandro realized what he was doing: flogging a dead horse. Hadn't he learned his lesson? He and Claudia wanted different things. It was as simple as that.

Unless, of course, he changed what he wanted.

Could he give up his dream of a family of his own, children of his own, if it meant keeping Claudia in his life? It wasn't something he'd ever really considered with his ex-wife, but Claudia was different. He felt so connected to her, so complete when he was with her. Was it possible he could content himself with being an active uncle, channeling his frustrated parenting ambitions into his nieces and nephews?

Looking around the room, at his mother and father, his brother and sisters and their partners, at the four children lying sprawled beneath the table, he felt an expanding warmth in his chest. Family was important to him-the center of his universe. He found his career satisfying, but it was not his everything. These people were. It was part of who he was, part of his essential character.

The answer was no, he could not live without the love and laughter of children in his life.

"Uncle Leo, come and look at what I drawed," Chloe called from under the table.

Pulling his thoughts back to the here and now, Leandro crossed to the kitchen table and squatted down to peer under it.

"Look. This is you and the pretty lady from the other day," Chloe said. "Mommy said you love each other, so I drawed a big heart for you to share, see?"

Isabella made an embarra.s.sed noise as Leandro accepted the proffered drawing. Two stick figures filled the page, the only differentiating feature being the triangle of the woman's skirt. A big lopsided love heart encircled them both.

"That's great, Chloe," he said. "You got my hair just right." He went to give it back to her, but she shook her head.

"It's for you. For the fridge," she said firmly.

Thanking her, he stood and realized that the adult members of his family were all gazing at him speculatively.

"So, when are you going to ask her?" Alethea said, lining up coffee mugs on the counter.

"I beg your pardon?" Leandro said, even though he knew what she was getting at. This was the last thing he wanted to think about, let alone talk about. But he also knew it was easier for all of them to concentrate on his love life right now than on what might or might not be happening at the hospital.

"I can see you love her, Leandro. You couldn't take your eyes off her," Alethea said. "When are you going to ask her to marry you?"

"I don't think it's really the time-" Leandro stalled, but Theo cut him off.

"Might as well give, Leo. She's not going to stop until she hears what she wants to hear."

Leandro sighed and stared down at the two figures holding hands in Chloe's drawing. As much as he hated to say the words out loud, they needed to be said.

"Claudia and I decided not to see each other anymore," he said.

A stunned silence met this announcement.

"But we liked her," his father said.

Leandro felt a belated stab of sympathy for Peta, who had never been so unreservedly welcomed into the fold.

"She was perfect for you, Leo," his mother said. "Warm and smart and so pretty. Strong enough to match you, soft enough to love you. She was perfect."

"We wanted different things," was all he said. He wasn't about to go into the complexities of his and Claudia's relationship.

"I'm sorry, Leandro," Magda said quietly.

"Yeah, I really thought..." Theo said, trailing off when Isabella dug an elbow none-too-subtly into his ribs.

"Don't you like my drawing, Uncle Leo?" Chloe piped up from down on the floor.

Quickly Leandro squatted down to her level again.

"It's great. I especially like the colors. And how big my feet are," he said with a smile.

She smiled back, her dark Mandalor eyes sparkling up at him.

One day, I will have a little girl just like you.

He'd thought the same thing about all of his nieces and nephews at some time, but today the notion brought no comfort because he knew now that his daughters would not share Claudia's sloping cheekbones and small, proud nose.

Hard on the heels of this depressing acknowledgment, the phone rang. The tension in the room ratcheted as tight as a drum as Stavros calmly reached out a hand and lifted the receiver.

"Mandalor residence," he said.

Leandro only realized he was holding his breath when it hissed out of him as his father's mouth stretched into a big grin.

"Wonderful news! Wonderful!" he said, waving his free hand exuberantly.

Covering the mouthpiece, he spoke to the room.

"Mother and babies are well. The bubs don't even need the special beds, Dom says." Stavros sounded proud, as though the entire Mandalor family could take credit for this achievement.

"And what about Betty? Did she need any st.i.tches?" Alethea asked.

"St.i.tches? Why would she need st.i.tches?" Stavros frowned.

"Because the-Give the phone to me!" Leandro's mother said, flushing red and s.n.a.t.c.hing the receiver from her husband's hand.

Alethea interrogated her middle son for a few minutes before reluctantly ending the call. In the meantime, Stavros had been busy pulling out the shot gla.s.ses. Splashing the ouzo bottle from gla.s.s to gla.s.s, he finished pouring with a flourish.

Leandro accepted his gla.s.s, wondering vaguely what his stomach was going to make of hard liquor at nine o'clock on a Sat.u.r.day morning.

"Here's to our new family members-Christopher and Jason Mandalor," Stavros said, raising his gla.s.s high, sticky ouzo dripping from his over-full gla.s.s.

Leandro raised his own gla.s.s and tossed back the liquorice-flavored mouthful in one shot. Isabella gave a small cheer of relief and hugged her husband, and his parents gave each other fond hugs. His sisters clinked gla.s.ses, and under the table, the children sent up a cheer of their own.

His throat burning, Leandro was suddenly acutely aware of the empty s.p.a.ce at his side.

It had taken him nearly a year to get over the failure of his six-month marriage to Peta. His time with Claudia was ridiculously short by comparison, but he knew he would be stinging from her loss for far longer.

I thought she was the one.

Standing amongst his family, marveling at the birth of two new tiny beings into the world, he understood absolutely that she'd been right to end things. This was his world, and she didn't want any part of it.

Forcing a smile, he reached for the ouzo bottle and topped up everyone's gla.s.s.

"To new life," he said, raising his gla.s.s.

A MONTH LATER, Claudia rubbed her eyes as she, at last, ended a phone call with one of the show's most experienced directors. It was Monday night, and she'd spent the past two hours talking the woman out of resigning over a disagreement she'd had with their production manager. Now she had to call the other woman and convince her not to resign, also. The joy of working with volatile creatives.

She was reaching for the phone again when someone whisked it out of her reach. She glanced up to find Sadie hovering over her desk, the receiver clutched to her chest. Rather incongruously, she also held a stack of plates and a fistful of cutlery. Grace stood in the doorway behind her holding two carrier bags that gave off the distinct aroma of takeaway Chinese food, and Claudia realized she was about to be on the receiving end of an intervention.