The Heart Wants What It Wants

It was another three hours before Diana wrapped up the rest of her work. She wouldn’t be in the next day, a Friday – she had done as much as she could, but Liam would find a way to complain about it, and…

“Hello there, Diana, queen of hearts.”

Speak of the devil.

Diana made sure she was smiling – a regular smile, not her usual one – before turning around to Liam O’Donnell, the rising star of the law firm.

“Mr. O’Donnell, I’m sorry, but I need to…”

“It’s past seven, Diana, I think you could call me Liam, couldn’t you? You’d think we were strangers.”

They weren’t strangers, of course. That was the entire trouble.

Well, perhaps not the entire trouble, but it was definitely a good part of the trouble.

“We are still in the office…”

“We could fix that. How about we go out? Dinner and drinks.”

The charming smile did make Diana sigh a little bit.

Liam looked a bit like an angel, but who didn’t mind getting up to a little mischief when the boss angels weren’t looking. Curly blonde hair, sparkling blue eyes, and a dashing smile that made his eyes crinkle most appealingly – yes, he was definitely one of the most disarmingly handsome men she had ever locked eyes with.

He was also an inveterate playboy.

She hadn’t known that.

Everybody else had known that, but nobody had seen fit to warn her. Still, she didn’t hold a grudge. She just didn’t want to go down that old road again.

Once had been plenty.

“Thanks, but I can’t. I’ve got lots to finish before tomorrow.”

“Ah yes, the conference! You know, there were quite a few people who wanted to go. I pulled a few strings because I thought you’d enjoy a couple of days in San Diego!”

He winked at her conspiratorially and she wondered just why she’d been stupid enough to go out with him just because he looked like an angel.

“Thanks, but it means I have to finish all my work now, so…”

She made her escape before he could come up with anything, almost running back to the library. Now she could take some work home with her. She should have, anyway. It was fine. It was all just fine.

It was fine even if she felt like a thief, sneaking down the hall and into the elevator, with more work that could really have waited till Monday.

So it was Liam she had to thank for this great honor of spending her weekend manning a booth at an IT conference. Technically, it was only supposed to be two days, but the third day was supposed to be for networking and she was expected to be there and network, though she had no idea how she was going to do that with that crowd. She’d have nothing in common with any of them.

“Thanks a lot, Liam,” she muttered as she wrestled with the door of her rather broken down car. It ran, even if the check engine light had never been off, as long as it liked you. So far, it liked her, so it was fine.

Just fine.

Sure, she had to jiggle the key just right to turn it on, and it wasn’t an automatic so she’d had to really get used to driving it, but it was still just fine. Just. Fine.

Like her life. It was fine.

It was great.

Diana didn’t even call Alex after getting home.

It was a relief to be home. It was a relief that she could afford to live alone now, even if it was in a fairly small one-bedroom apartment in an area that might be considered hip in a few years, when she’d stop being able to afford it. Diana had dealt with about twenty roommates in her ten years in the city, first in college, and then after she’d started working. Some – like Alex – had worked out wonderfully.

Some, not so much.

Small or not, it was nice to let herself into her home and know that she’d find it exactly how she’d left it that morning. She had clutter, but not much, because dust gatherers lived up to that name.

Her TV did not take up a whole wall, which any reasonably sized TV really would have because the walls were not that big, but she didn’t spend much time watching it, anyway. She didn’t have the time.

She was just making herself some dinner – scrambled eggs and a salad because she was, yet again, on a diet, and not throwing the yolks away was her great rebellion against it – when her phone rang again.

“Oh God, don’t tell me anything’s wrong,” she muttered when she saw who it was.

“Hello, mama,” said Diana, her voice dropping into her soft, Southern accent when she talked to her mother.

“Di, you will not believe what Lizzie said to me today!”

Ah, so it was nothing urgent.

Diana let her mama talk – snippets of information about what was going on back home that Diana stored away for later, some complaints about her younger sister who was apparently too wild still, though Diana thought that Vicky was just fine the way she was, she just had a mind of her own and her mama didn’t really hold with that, and finally, of course, Diana.

“Now, tell me, how’s that nice boy?”

“Which nice boy would that be, mama?”

“That nice boy, Trevor. You know the one I’m talking about, young woman, don’t you try that on me. He’s nice, I quite like him.”

“I know you like him, mama. And he is quite nice. I am sure he’s doing fine. He looks healthy and he has not looked unhappy.”

“You should be the one making that nice boy happy, girl! You should be settling down with him and having yourself a few babies to keep you busy, give up on this whole lawyering malarkey.”

And there it was.

Trevor and Diana had been friends for a few years, and he had been her mama’s favorite. They had dated for a while – just a few months, but it had quickly become clear that they worked better as friends.

The fact that Trevor was gay might have had something to do with it.

“It’s not malarkey, mom. I will be a lawyer soon. I’m doing my studying, I’ll be able to switch to a full-time course in a year. I’ll be a lawyer in two years, maybe three at the most.”

“And you’ll be thirty-one by then, girl! You have to have your priorities right. When are you going to have those babies if you become a lawyer at thirty-one?”

Oh, Diana had asked herself that question a few times. She was beginning to wonder whom she had to blame for this crazy idea that women could ‘have it all’. Maybe they could have it all if they came from the kind of money that meant that they didn’t have student loans to pay off, or work twelve hours a day and then study another four. But people like her…

No, she would not give up on her dreams.

“I seem to remember that you had Will when you were thirty-four, mama. He’s doing just fine, isn’t he!”