One Unforgettable Weekend (Millionaires 0f Manhattan Book 6)

by Andrea Laurence

  “Where is Knox?” Aidan asked when she came through the door with nothing but her designer handbag.

  “He’s with Tara.” Violet couldn’t very well bring her six-month-old son to a bar, even if it was to see his father. She set her purse on the newly cleaned bar top and climbed onto one of the worn stools that lined it.

  “Who’s Tara?”

  “She’s the nanny.”

  Aidan got a funny look on his face. It was a mix of surprise, irritation and a complete loss of vocabulary. She wasn’t sure why he was confused by something that simple. He should’ve expected that she had someone to help her with the baby. Violet was a single, working mother. Someone had to keep Knox during the day. Eventually, he would go to a prestigious preschool, but until then, she had to choose between a nanny and day care. The nanny route won in the end.

  “What?” she asked at last. “There’s something on your mind, say it.”

  Aidan sighed and slumped onto the bar stool beside her. “What do you really know about this Tara? Did you do a background check on her? Get references from other families?” he asked.

  Violet snorted and shook her head. Did he really think she would leave her child with just some random person off the street? “‘Yes’ to all of that. I actually know more about her than I know about you. She checks out on every level and she’s amazing, so you can take the protective dad thing down a notch.”

  He shrugged off her concerns. “I can’t help it. I’m new at this, but it’s amazing how quickly the parental panic sets in.”

  “I know. When they took him from my arms to do his checkup at the hospital, I started to worry. By the time they gave him back to me, I was on the verge of tears. I had never loved anyone as much as I loved that little boy the moment I laid eyes on him.”

  Violet noticed a sad look in Aidan’s eyes before he shook it off and pasted his bright smile back on. She wished she could give him back the six months he’d lost. Or at least kiss him until the sadness faded away.

  “So whatcha drinking?” he asked, changing the subject.

  “Do you have anything sweet?”

  “I have a Magner’s Irish Hard Cider on tap.”

  “I’ll take that.” She picked up a cardboard coaster and started spinning it absently between her fingers while he moved down the bar to pour her drink.

  Aidan set the glass on a napkin in front of her. “So you mentioned when you called earlier that you spoke with your attorney. What did he have to say about our little situation?” he asked.

  “He’s going ahead with a draft custody agreement for us to meet and redline. His assistant will also call you with a time and place to go for the paternity testing. The lab already has Knox’s profile from his first testing with Beau. Basically, we’ll start from there.”

  “Okay, but I’ll need to know how much I’ll owe in monthly child support and things like that, too.”

  The mention of child support brought Violet’s fidgeting to a standstill. “I didn’t tell my attorney to ask for child support.”

  Aidan stopped and looked at her with his ginger brow furrowed in confusion. “Why not? I’m willing to do the right thing and help support my son.”

  Violet felt her stomach tighten with anxiety. She hated talking about money, especially her own money. It was one thing to talk about the family wealth in abstract or the foundation, but her personal finances always seemed to open up a door to angst. People never looked at her the same way when they knew how much she was worth. She liked the way Aidan looked at her that night after Murphy’s closed. His blue eyes had reflected pure desire and nothing more. Even now, she could catch the light of appreciation there as he admired her appearance from across the room. She didn’t want that to change. But she couldn’t take his money just to end the awkward conversation.

  “I don’t need it, Aidan,” she said at last. “With you trying to start the halfway house and keep the bar running, you can put that money to good use elsewhere. At the very least, save it for things to do when you and Knox are together.”

  “I have to,” he insisted with a stern set of his square, stubbled jaw. “I’m his father. I don’t want people to say I didn’t step up when the time came.”

  “And I’m telling you that I can’t take a dime from you. I mean it.” Violet crossed her arms over her chest in defiance. She doubted it made her appear more adamant, but she’d try it anyway. Male pride could be so frustrating sometimes. That was one thing about Beau that was easier to handle. He was happy to let her pay for things when she wanted to.

  Maybe too happy in retrospect.

  Aidan looked around the bar and held out his arms. “Listen, you’re well-off, Violet. I can tell by the apartment bigger than my bar and the nanny and everything else. But I—”

  “I’m not just well-off,” she interrupted, feeling the frustration building in her neck and shoulders and pulsating a familiar pain down her arms. She took a sip of cider, hoping it would relax her and dull the pain.

  Although she had a really nice apartment and most everything she needed or wanted, she tried to live a more modest lifestyle by Manhattan standards. Her parents’ collection of homes was so lavish she was embarrassed to take anyone to visit them. As a teenager in prep school, she’d never hosted a single sleepover. Not that her parents were ever home to oversee one. Her schoolmates didn’t need to see the gold-plated furniture and the marble statues of Greek gods in the foyer. It was an over-the-top display of wealth that made her uncomfortable.

  “Aidan, I’m one of the wealthiest women in the country,” Violet said, finally spitting out the words she’d been holding in. “We’re talking billions. With a B. I’m sorry to be so blunt about it, but I need you to understand that I’m not just being nice when I say that I don’t need any of your money.”

  * * *

  “She’s a frickin’ billionaire?”

  Aidan winced as one of his regulars, Stanley, said the B word a little louder than he would’ve liked. “Why don’t you yell it again, Stan? I don’t think the whole bar heard you the first time.”

  “Sorry,” Stan said, taking a big swig of his dark brown pint of Guinness. “I thought you were bragging. I know I’d be happy to be involved with a sexy billionaire. I’d shout it from the rooftops.”

  “You’d shout it from the rooftops if you were involved with any woman.”

  Stan chuckled and took another drink. “Probably so. But what’s so wrong with a rich girl?”

  “Nothing. And everything.” Aidan didn’t like to admit it aloud, but he didn’t really care for rich people. Give him blue collar...give him salt of the earth people who worked with their hands and were willing to give you the shirt off their backs... He’d rubbed elbows with all types and the working class were the kind of people he preferred to associate with in both his personal and private life.

  There were never ulterior motives to their friendship. They weren’t out to make a buck off you or use your shoulders to climb higher up the social ladder. Most of them knew they were never going to be upper class, much less rich, and they were okay with that. Aidan had aimed high, trying to better his situation for his and his mother’s sake, and he’d done well. Working at one of Madison Avenue’s biggest and most prestigious advertising agencies had come with lots of cash and plenty of perks.

  But he was happier here behind the bar at Murphy’s Pub. Aidan had had a taste of upper class and it was far more sour than he’d expected it to be. Here, if something tasted bad, he just changed out the keg and the problem was solved.

  “This is about what happened with you and fancy pants Iris, isn’t it?”

  Aidan winced at the mention of his ex-fiancée’s name. “I paid you fifty bucks to never say her name again.”

  Stan rubbed his stubbly chin thoughtfully. “You said you would. Never did, as I recall. So I’ll say it again. That nasty breakup with Iris mus
t’ve made you bitter.”

  Bitter? Aidan thought over Stan’s choice of words and eventually shrugged it off. “Maybe so. Wouldn’t you be bitter if your supposedly loving fiancée left you for your wealthier, more successful boss?”

  “He wasn’t your boss,” Stan pointed out. “You’d quit the agency by then to come work at the pub. I remember her coming in here to break it off.”

  “Technicality. What’s important is that she decided—within weeks of my father’s death, I might add—that marrying a bar owner wasn’t good enough for her. If I wasn’t going to be a hot shot advertising exec with a chance at making partner at the agency, she wasn’t interested.”

  “That was pretty cold. But what makes you think this new woman you’re involved with would do the same thing?”

  “I don’t.” Aidan shook his head and wiped down the worn wood countertop of Murphy’s Pub. Most of the day-to-day tasks of running Murphy’s were the kind he could go through almost robotically without concentrating too hard. Unfortunately today, that meant his mind was free to run through his earlier conversation with Violet again and again. “It’s just a general distrust of the wealthy. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and the rich are happy to keep it that way. Anyway, I’m not involved with Violet. I was. We have a child together thanks to some tequila and a three percent failure rate on condoms. I don’t think she’s interested in, uh...”

  “Banging the bartender on the regular?”

  “Nice choice of words there, Stan. But yes. Our fling was one thing. An actual relationship is totally different.”

  “Just because it’s different doesn’t mean she’s disinterested.”

  “She didn’t exactly run out to find me when she realized she was pregnant. Would you if you were in her shoes? I’m just a bartender barely keeping afloat, Stan. She’s probably embarrassed to tell people about me.”

  “I thought she hit her head or something.”

  “That’s what she says.”

  “You don’t believe her?”

  Aidan sighed and leaned his elbows on the countertop. “I don’t know. It seems awfully fantastical. The far simpler answer is that she wanted to forget she ever met me and when put on the spot, she came up with that story so she didn’t look like the bad guy.”

  “Or she really did have an accident and forget. She’s been very accommodating since you two ran into each other, hasn’t she?”

  She had. That was part of the problem. The Violet he knew didn’t seem like the kind of woman who would make up a story like that. She’d seemed genuinely relieved to know his name and connect the dots of her past. But did that Violet from all those months ago have anything in common with the high-class lady who had his baby? It was hard to associate those two parts of her personality.

  “Let me ask you this, then,” Stan said when Aidan didn’t respond to his question. “You say she wouldn’t want to date you. But what about you? Are you interested in a relationship with her?”

  Aidan’s jaw clenched tightly as he thought over his response. Easily, the answer came that he wanted her. How could he not want her? She was the most beautiful, sensual creature to ever waltz into his life. But the Violet he wanted was the one who had stumbled into his bar all those months ago. Was billionaire socialite Violet going to be as uninhibited and free? Knowing more about her and who she really was by the light of day had changed things for him.

  As Stan had mentioned, Aidan didn’t exactly have the greatest impression of rich people, and it wasn’t just because of Iris and that toad Trevor. No, he’d been burned more than once by people with more money than moral fiber. Violet may not fit into that category, but he didn’t know for sure. As she’d pointed out earlier that afternoon, they didn’t really know much about each other. It wasn’t long ago that he didn’t know her last name or where she lived or worked. What he did know—what he had burned into his brain—was every curve of her body, the taste of her skin and the soft sounds she made just seconds before her orgasm broke.

  “It’s too early to say.” Aidan answered the question at last. “It’s complicated.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, he caught the unmistakable gesture of the two men drinking in the far corner. They wanted another round. Aidan moved away from Stan and poured two pints of beer. Then he carried them over to the table and bussed their empty glasses.

  “All relationships are complicated,” Stan pointed out when he returned. “What makes this more complicated than usual?”

  “Aside from her being ridiculously wealthy? How about that if something were to happen between us now it has the potential to complicate our coparenting arrangement?”

  “Coparenting?” Stan said with an expression of distaste. “What’s that, raising a kid together?”

  “Yeah. That’s what they call it now.”

  “When I was young enough to get a woman in trouble, they called it marriage.”

  Marriage? He supposed that some people would think that was the answer. Aidan was actually lucky his devout Irish Catholic parents were both dead and buried or the news of their illegitimate grandson might have killed them.

  “Yeah, well, the topic of marriage hasn’t even come up and I’m not in the least bit surprised. Why would she want to marry me, Stan? She doesn’t need me to raise our son. She has a fortune at her disposal. The biggest Manhattan apartment I’ve ever set foot in. A live-in nanny. Me showing up in her life is mostly a complication for her, I’m sure. She’s letting me be involved in Knox’s life to be nice. There’s nothing I can offer her or my son.”

  “That’s not true,” Stan said in as comforting a tone as he could muster. The older, burly, rough construction worker was hardly the comforting type. “You’re his father. At least you’re pretty sure you are. Once the tests come back and you’re certain, there’s nothing that will ever change that and no one else that should take that place in his life. You don’t need money or a fancy job to be there for your son. Just be a dad. That’s important. More important than bleeding your checking account dry trying to pay for the kid’s fancy private schools. She can handle that. You stick to what you’re good at.”

  “And what’s that?” Aidan asked. “I used to be good at getting people to buy things they didn’t need. In high school, I was a decent baseball pitcher. I can pour a perfect beer. None of those skills will help me where Knox is concerned.”

  “Just be the best dad you know how to be,” Stan grumbled. “Is that so hard?”

  “I don’t know. Do I know how to be a good dad?” Aidan asked.

  Stan looked at him with a narrowed gaze. “You didn’t have the best example in your father,” he admitted. He’d been a patron of Murphy’s Pub long before Aidan took over and had been good friends with Patrick Murphy, his father. “But I’ve known you since you were a kid and you’ve grown into a good man, Aidan. You gave up your career to take over this place after your dad died. You took care of your mother while she was sick, God rest her soul. You know how to be a good dad because you’re a good person. I’m certain of it.”

  Aidan thought over his regular customer’s words carefully before he nodded. “You’re right,” he said at last. “Being there is more than some dads do, rich or poor. I’m just not sure if that’s enough for a kid like him.”

  “A kid like what?”

  “A rich kid. I can’t buy him a sports car or send him to some Ivy League school like other dads can. But I want to play catch with him and take him to his first Yankees game. I want to teach him what he needs to know to be a strong, honorable man in this world, so when he grows up with a fortune at his disposal, he doesn’t abuse his powers. I also want him to have a normal childhood.”

  “What’s normal?”

  “Having a trust fund opened the day you’re born isn’t normal. Neither are boarding schools, live-in nannies and being captain of the polo team.” Aidan shook his head. “No ma
tter what I say or do, my son is going to be a rich kid. That’s a given. All I can do is try to keep him levelheaded so he isn’t a spoiled, obnoxious rich kid.”

  “Good luck with that,” Stan said, taking the last sip out of his pint glass. He shuffled off his stool and tugged his coat back on.

  Aidan chuckled at his regular and went to close out his tab. “Thanks.”

  Five

  The sound of the phone ringing—again—was enough to set Violet’s teeth on edge.

  That morning, she’d stepped out into her kitchen and found herself ankle deep in cold, murky water. Understandably, her day had gone downhill from there. Hours of phone calls, troops of repairmen and insurance company paperwork had left her slightly less damp, temporarily homeless and extremely irritable. So when the doorman rang to let her know she had another guest, she wasn’t exactly receptive to the news. But it was Aidan, so she said to send him up anyway.

  She waited in the foyer as Aidan stepped out of the elevator and stopped. Her front door was standing wide-open with a huge industrial fan blowing in on the wood floors. His eyes were wide with surprise as he ran his hands through his long strands of auburn hair.

  “What the hell happened here?” he asked as he took a giant step over the fan into her apartment.

  Violet sighed and pointed to the disaster area she once called a kitchen. “Apparently one of the pipes from the upstairs bathroom corroded and finally burst in the night. It took out my kitchen ceiling and filled most of the apartment with several inches of water. This is one of the joys of living in a pre-war building, I guess. I never expected to wake up to a mess like this.”

  Aidan looked around with a grim set to his jaw. “This is going to take a while to fix. The wood floors will have to be replaced. They’re already warping. Some of the floor and ceiling supports, too. The insulation soaks up the water inside the walls, so that might have to get ripped out and replaced along with all the drywall that got wet. Maybe even the cabinetry. It’s a big job, for sure.”