If I Didn't Know Better (The Callaways #9)(26)

"So there was a lot of competition in the family."

"Definitely. My father is also one of six kids, and he was raised with the idea that you grow up and you give back. He did that as a firefighter. He instilled in us the idea that it was important to live a life that mattered. He wanted everyone to set their goals early, to figure out their plans and stick to them. He wanted us to push ourselves to be the best at whatever we were doing. So when it came time for me to make my plan, set my goals, I figured that I needed to stay where I was the most confident—academics. After I got a bachelor's degree, I went back to school to get a master's degree. I got as much education as I could possibly get. Then it was time to find the perfect job to fit all that education and that was as an assistant curator at the Kelleher Museum. I helped to curate the visiting exhibitions."

Jeremy nodded. "Okay, so where's the embarrassing part?"

"I'm working up to that." She paused for a moment, trying to remember where she'd left off. "The first year was all right, but the job wasn't what I thought it would be. It wasn't nearly as interesting as I'd imagined. I was doing paperwork and making a lot of phone calls. I found myself setting up hotel reservations for the people bringing the collections to the museum. I was getting farther and farther away from art. Then a new director was hired. Grayson Maxwell. He'd been working in Paris, and he was handsome, sophisticated, a little older than me, and very flirtatious. He definitely brightened up my days."

Jeremy saw the shadows behind her smile. "You fell in love with him."

"I did. I thought I was being careful. I didn't jump into bed with him. We went out for weeks before things got intimate." She cleared her throat. "I thought I knew him pretty well by then, but I didn't. To make this long story a little shorter, he turned out to still be married to the woman he'd left behind in Paris. She found out about us and threatened to take all the money she'd donated to the Kelleher Museum elsewhere. Grayson broke up with me and the museum laid me off on some technicality that we all knew was just a smokescreen for appeasing his wife and getting me out of the way."

"That's not right. He was responsible for what happened as much as you were, even more so, because he was the liar." He'd always hated men who were disloyal or unfaithful to anyone: girlfriend, wife, friend, family member. He'd never understood how anyone could betray someone they allegedly cared about. But maybe it was because those people usually cared more about themselves.

"That's true. But that's not the way the real world works, and to be honest, I didn't want to stay there anyway, not just because it would have been horribly awkward but also because I really didn't like the job."

"So what's next?"

"That's what I came here to figure out. Maybe what happened with Grayson was the best thing that could have happened, because I was forced out of that supposedly perfect job that I didn't really love the way I was supposed to."

"Do you know what you want to do career-wise?"

She shook her head. "I wish I did. I know I want it to have something to do with art, but I can't make money as an artist; I'm not talented enough, and that's not really my dream, either." She sighed. "I just feel like I've let everyone down. My family doesn't know as much as I just told you. They know that Grayson turned out to be married, but I sort of glossed over the getting fired part. They're all expecting me to work in another museum, to do something important with my life, because that's what Callaways do."

He smiled. "Here I thought not having a family was a bad thing. Maybe I'm lucky not to have anyone who cares what I do."

"My family would tell you that they support me in anything I want to do, but that’s not really true. There's underlying pressure. I know all my siblings have felt it at one time or another. It’s more difficult for me, because I had to choose a field that's hard to stand out in, to do something important in. My firefighter brothers save lives every day. Ian is working on some scientific breakthrough and Kate wants to serve up justice wherever she can. Annie is a bit closer to me, but even her job is making her famous. She was featured in a national magazine last year." She paused. "Anyway, it's not that I'm not happy for their accomplishments; I just want to bring something interesting to the table."

"I'm sure you'll do that, Mia."

"I hope so. Aunt Carly was the one person in my family who really understood me. Before she died, we exchanged emails. She didn't know that I'd gotten myself involved with a married man, but she did know that I didn't love the museum the way I thought I would. It was shocking to me that something I'd worked so hard to get would turn out to be so disappointing."

"What did she say?"

"That I needed to follow my passion, wherever it led. That life wasn't about a bank statement or a job title or the respect of anyone else. She told me to quit, find a new job. I wish I'd followed her advice then, instead of looking to Grayson to inspire my life. That was a big mistake."

"I don't find regrets to be that helpful, Mia. It's what you do next that matters. When you fall down, you get back up. That's all you can do."

"And maybe try not to fall again," she said with a wry smile.

He tipped his head. "Definitely."