The Billionaire's Forever Family

by Cameron, Cate

  She shook her head. Will was the real problem. “He can’t love me. Not me, not when he has all those glamorous, smart women to choose from. Up here, where it’s just the two of us? Sure, I’m fine. But how long would it be, in the city, before he started realizing what a mess I am? Before he got sick of having to explain everything to me, before I turned into a burden? No way. I’d rather make a clean break than let it drag on like that.”

  “You’re not giving him enough credit.”

  “Oh, I’m giving him a lot of credit. I know he’d be kind and responsible. He’d stay with me because he should, not because he wanted to, and he’d make sure Emily didn’t get caught in the middle and the whole thing would be—” It was suddenly vital that this man understand. “It would destroy me. Don’t you see that? Being a burden, a regret? I take care of people; that’s who I am. Having to be taken care of, by someone who wishes he’d never met me? Someone I’d still be in love with? God, Trevor. How could I stand it?”

  His gaze was level, and eventually, he nodded. “I think you’re wrong about how things would turn out. I think you’d be able to adapt, and I think neither Emily nor Will would give a shit if you couldn’t. But I can see why it’s frightening. I can see how horrible it would be if it didn’t work out. And if you don’t think that’s a chance you can take, I guess I can understand it.”

  He slid off the couch and collected the papers she’d spilled onto the floor. He looked up at her while he was down there and said, “You don’t think Emily’s going to come visit you very often, do you? After she makes friends in the city and gets caught up in their glamorous lives, you think she won’t want to go visit her poor old doddering hick of an aunt. Right?”

  “I’m not even thirty yet!” Emily responded. “I wouldn’t say I’m doddering.”

  He grinned, quick and boyish. “I thought that might get you. But, okay, you don’t think Em’s going to want to go visit her poor young flailing hick of an aunt. Is that better?”

  “Maybe you could try it without the insults.”

  “Right. Only you get to say mean things about you. I see.”

  “Was there a point you were working toward?”

  He nodded and held out the last page to her. “I think you should sign this. It’s twenty thousand a month if she comes to visit, but as you don’t think she’ll be visiting, it won’t be much money total. Just enough to give you a cushion. You’ll be able to fly back east to visit her when you want, and you can use it to send her gifts or whatever. The money isn’t for you. It’s not a reward, or a bribe, or even compensation for your time. It’s just a way to help you and Emily have the best relationship possible. And that’s kind of hard to argue with, isn’t it?”

  She could probably have come up with some objections if she’d really tried, but she was too tired to bother. So she signed where Trevor pointed, then stood awkwardly as he gathered everything up. She wanted him gone, wanted some space so she could cry without anyone seeing her.

  They walked to the door together, and when he was outside, he held the door open and turned back to her. “Will said you wouldn’t sign that last one,” he said. “I reminded him how good I am at my job, and he said it wasn’t about being good at anything. He said the whole situation was impossible.” Trevor’s smile was a little bit smug but mostly kind. “I’m glad I was able to prove that nothing’s impossible. Not here, not yet.” He extended his hand, another copy of his business card between his fingers. “I know you already have this, somewhere, but it may have been lost in the move. Keep this one handy, Cassidy. And give me a call if you ever want to talk. I won’t even bill for it, I promise.”

  She stood there and watched as he climbed into his car and drove off down the dusty driveway. Will had good friends. Kind friends. And they’d be on Emily’s side and help her when she needed them to. Emily was going to be okay, and so was Will.

  So when the tears started falling, Cassidy wasn’t confused about the reason. Will and Emily were going to be fine; she wasn’t crying for them. She was crying for herself, and she wasn’t sure how long it was going to be before she was able to stop.

  …

  Will wished there were more complications in the Achterberg deal. He almost created a few, his restless impatience ruffling feathers and annoying Klaus Achterberg, the octogenarian tycoon who was accustomed to being treated with a little more respect. But Trevor was there, along with the rest of the team Will had assembled over the years, and they got everything back on track.

  Everything was annoyingly simple with making arrangements for Emily as well. He’d drive up on the first Monday of her summer vacation, after she’d had a weekend to say good-bye to her friends, and her aunt, and he’d drive her down to the city. He’d already arranged to have her few belongings shipped, and he managed to distract himself for at least an hour buying every cat tree, scratching post, and toy in Manhattan’s toniest pet shop. The cats might have a bit of trouble getting used to city living, but he’d do what he could to keep them from getting bored.

  And that was that. His friends contacted him with more invitations to various social events than he’d ever received before. He knew they were trying to distract him and cheer him up. He wanted to wallow, wanted to lie on his bed, staring at the ceiling, thinking about Cassidy, poking at the emotional bruises, but he had a daughter about to arrive in the city, and he wouldn’t let himself be an emo mess while welcoming her to her new home. So he went out, tried to pay attention to conversations, tried to laugh, even. And when he’d exhausted his willpower, he snuck back home and moped for a while. He wasn’t proud of himself, but he was doing his best.

  “Cassidy’s having a hard time, too,” Trevor told him on Sunday night as they sipped scotch. It was Will’s last night without a teenager living with him, and maybe he should have been out tearing up the town, but he didn’t have the energy for it. Of course, that didn’t mean he wanted to sit around being taunted with tales of his ex-who-had-never-even-formally-been.

  “It’s her choice,” Will grunted, and sloshed a little more scotch into both of their glasses. “If it’s so damn hard for her, she can just change her mind.”

  “It’s frustrating to have things out of your control, isn’t it?” Trevor’s voice was casual, as always. And his gaze was as sharp as ever. “Relying on someone else for your happiness. Feeling like you have no power over your own life. That’s a hard way to live, isn’t it?”

  “Shut up,” Will said. Then he added, “You know, when people say you’re a counsellor, that’s just another way of saying you’re a lawyer. It doesn’t mean you’re a relationship counsellor.”

  “Thanks for clearing that up,” Trevor said mildly. And that was all.

  The bruise-pushing instinct made Will want to prod Trevor for more insight, but his pride wouldn’t let him. They finished their drinks, discussing the finalization of the Achterberg deal, the new restaurant Trevor had been to the night before, and some mildly gossipy tales of mutual friends. Will didn’t care about any of it, and he knew Trevor didn’t, either. But they played the game.

  The next morning, Will woke up early and started the drive for Lyonstown. He arrived at the little house to see what must be most of the Junior School’s graduating class milling about on the lawn, with quite a few parents along for the ride. There were two grills set up, hamburgers and hotdogs being distributed, and a generally festive atmosphere.

  Cassidy was throwing a going-away party for Emily. Of course she was. Emily deserved to be celebrated, deserved to leave Lyonstown with a whole bundle of good memories. And, a not-entirely-pleasant inner voice told him, Cassidy would be happy to have lots of people around to keep him in line.

  He parked next to a van advertising heating, cooling, and plumbing services, and Emily was outside his window before he had the engine turned off. “You made good time,” she said as she hugged him. “We thought you wouldn’t be here until later.”

  He looked over to the house and saw the other half of the
“we” standing on the porch, watching as he greeted Emily. But Cassidy had made her feelings clear, so he tried to ignore her presence.

  “I smelled the grilling and floored it. Nice to see you’re having a good send off.”

  “Aunt Cassidy said we should stay outside because she has the house all cleaned and doesn’t want to stick around to clean it again before she goes. But, yeah, it’s good to see everybody.”

  “Cassidy’s leaving soon?”

  “After the party. She’s all packed up.” Emily gestured toward the pickup, horse trailer already attached, various bags and boxes in the back of the cab. “She says she can take your goat with her, if you want, but she might charge you board for it.”

  He laughed in spite of himself. “Did she say how much it would cost to board a goat?”

  “She didn’t.” Emily looked at him thoughtfully. “Do you want to go ask her?”

  Of course he did. Well, he wanted to go to her, and ask her things, but not necessarily about goats. He wanted to talk to her about anything, or maybe not talk at all. He was pretty sure he could be happy for a decade or two just watching her. But there was no point to it; nothing had changed since the last time they’d spoken. “She can send me a bill,” he said lightly. “I’m good for it.”

  He mingled with the crowd a little, always far too aware of Cassidy doing the same thing, both of them overly careful to stay away from each other. They’d have to get over that at some point, he supposed; he wanted to co-parent effectively, and that probably meant face-to-face communication rather than dragging Trevor into the middle of everything. So, someday. Maybe eventually he’d be able to see her without feeling as if all his skin had been scraped off his body, and when that day came, he’d be ready to make small talk with her. Until then, though, he was happy she seemed to share his interest in staying apart.

  Well, maybe happy wasn’t quite the right word, but it would do. It was enough to get him through the rest of the barbeque, out on the road with his daughter safely beside him, and most of the way out of town. That was when he glanced over at her and saw the tears streaming silently down her face. “Shit, Em,” he said, and he reached his hand out for hers as he guided the car to the shoulder. “I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he said. He leaned toward her, she burrowed into his arms, and he tried to comfort her. And he was pretty sure she tried to comfort him, too.

  Neither of them was completely successful, but at least they were honest. “I’m really glad I found you,” Emily sobbed, “and I’m really excited about living in the city and the new school. I am!”

  “Shh,” he said. “I know. I’m really happy I know about you, and it’s great you’re coming to live with me so we can get to know each other better.”

  She nodded, and sobbed, “I’m very happy,” into his shoulder, and he laughed, and hugged her, and told her that he was very happy, too, in almost exactly the same way she was.

  They eventually pulled themselves together enough for Will to ease back into his own seat and get them back out on the road, and by the time they hit the city, Emily, at least, was bouncy and excited again.

  A few days of intense tourism activity was a good distraction from other worries, and Will made sure he didn’t take any of his frustration out on Emily. A few times in the evenings he heard a too-familiar voice coming from Emily’s new iPad as she Skyped with her aunt, and it was enough to send a dagger of regret into him, but that was to be expected.

  Everything was fine. He was keeping it together, focusing on being a father, making the transition work. Emily filled a hole in his life, a hole he hadn’t known was there, and that gain was enough to keep him from obsessing too much about the other gaping, jagged void her aunt had left behind. At least he thought it was enough.

  But one evening a couple weeks after Emily had arrived, she found him in his study, looking over the final documents in the Achterberg deal, and she said, “Do you have time to talk?”

  “Of course,” he said, and laid the papers down. “What’s up?”

  She was suddenly bashful, picking at her bright green nail polish and letting her hair fall down to cover her face.

  “You okay?” he prompted.

  She nodded, then finally looked at him. “Yeah. I’m okay. Are you?”

  He took a moment to think before he said, “You were talking to Trevor today, after he dropped the contracts off. Did he say something?”

  She shrugged. “Not much. I tried to get him to tell me more, but he’s pretty good at changing the topic.”

  Pretty good? Trevor was a master of conversational manipulation. If he’d given any clues at all to a thirteen-year-old, it was because he’d wanted to. “You tried to get him to tell you more about what?”

  “About you,” she confessed. “About whether you’re, you know. Whether you’re happy. I mean, you had a pretty sweet life before, right? With your friends, and your freedom. I saw the pictures on the wall—you used to travel a lot. But you can’t really do that anymore. Not with a kid to look after. And you’ve seemed, I don’t know, you’ve seemed a bit gloomy lately. So I thought I should say—I can live at the school in the fall, if you want. And I could see you on weekends, if that worked for you, or maybe we should sort of flip things around. There are probably good schools in Dallas. Aunt Cassidy’s living—”

  “No.” He said it so loudly she jumped a little. But the thought of losing her, after already losing Cassidy? It was impossible. “I’m sorry if I haven’t been completely on my game lately, but I promise, it has nothing to do with you. I’m really, really happy you’re here, and I don’t want you to go anywhere. Honestly.”

  “That’s what Trevor said. Then I asked him why you were in a bad mood, if it wasn’t because of me.”

  “And what did he say?” Will braced himself for the answer.

  “He said I should talk to you about it.”

  That wasn’t so bad. Maybe Trevor wasn’t completely manipulative after all.

  But then Emily added, “He said I should remind you that people without power have to be creative and think outside the box in order to get what they want. What did he mean by that?”

  Ah. Classic Trevor. “I guess he meant—” He meant planting questions in Will’s daughter’s mind so Will would be forced to actually answer them. But what else did he mean? Why did he want the question answered? And what had Emily said just a little earlier that was still tickling at his brain, making him want to think in a new way? “I’m not sure,” he said out loud. “But—” Cassidy wanted to keep things quiet, but Cassidy was no longer there. “I think I’m being grumpy because I really, really miss your aunt. I know you miss her, too, but you guys are still in touch, and she and I aren’t, and she doesn’t really want to be, so…” He shrugged. “So it’s got nothing to do with you, I promise. You’re the best thing in my life right now.”

  She nodded slowly, thoughtfully. “So you don’t have power because you can’t make Aunt Cassidy do what you want? That’s what Trevor was talking about? You couldn’t make her come live in New York?”

  “That’s right.”

  “So we need to be creative and think outside the box,” she said, sinking down onto the sofa nearest his desk. “If you don’t have the power to change her mind…you have to change something else!”

  “Any suggestions?” he asked, and he found himself really waiting for her answer.

  “Not right now,” she said. “But—can we talk about it? Like, brainstorm or whatever? Can I—” She looked shy again. “Can I help?”

  His daughter. His blood, his past and his future. He had to swallow hard before he said, “Yeah. I’d like that.”

  She beamed at him, then stood up. “I need paper and a pencil. I think best when I write things down.”

  “I can supply those important tools,” he said, and rummaged in his desk drawer.

  “I have a good feeling about this,” she told him. And for the first time in too long, he had a good feeling, too.

  Chapter Twen
ty

  “No!” Roddy bellowed for what felt like the five-hundredth time. “You can’t muscle him around like that—you’re a strong person, and you think strength is always going to be the answer, but the horse is stronger than you. You need to use your brain. Find a way so he wants to obey you, not so he has to.”

  Cassidy slumped on the horse’s back, exhausted after a long day of work in the nearly unbearable Texas heat. She knew Roddy was right; he shouldn’t have to be yelling at her, teaching her things she’d known when she was a teenager. Part of the problem was that she was rusty; a year without serious riding had been hard on her muscles and, apparently, her instincts. But it wasn’t the only problem.

  She felt a rough hand on her knee and looked down to see Roddy’s leathery face smiling at her. “He’s making you work. That’s good! That’s what makes you learn, a horse who challenges you.”

  “I’m sorry I’m not doing better,” she said. This man had taken a chance on her, and she didn’t want to let him down. “I’m kind of—I don’t know. It’s a hard adjustment, that’s all.” Hard to get used to no Emily, and no Will. At least Emily would be out for a visit in another couple weeks, but the other loss was much more permanent.

  Roddy shrugged. “You’re doing okay. I can’t fault your effort, that’s for certain. You need to just relax a little, and let things come.”

  No, she silently corrected, relaxing was the last thing she needed to do. As soon as she let her guard down, the loneliness hit and the sense of loss threatened to overwhelm her. Relaxing was absolutely not an option.

  But neither was arguing with Roddy, so she finished her ride, and then hosed down the horse before taking him back to his yard. When she came back to tidy up the wash area, she reached for the hose, then turned it on herself. Her hair, shirt, and jeans were soaked with sweat anyway, so a little extra water wouldn’t hurt anything, and at least she wouldn’t be as sticky.