by Rhodes, Beth
“Like her?” David’s stomach turned.
“A liar.”
He was thrown back to the day Maria arrived, as she sat on the couch in his den. And he’d questioned her integrity because she might have glossed over the truth—to protect herself, her family…him.
The judgment he’d placed on her and the days and hours he’d spent wondering when the next shoe would drop, when she’d pull the rug out from under him.
“No,” he said, more to himself than anyone else. “You can’t be trusted.”
It was like his dad didn’t even realize the sharp pain that sliced through him. His own actions had done that.
No one else’s. “You used me against myself. You used Tammy against me…”
Greg loosened his tie and hung it over the coat rack in the corner.
“And all along, it was you who made Mom leave.”
Sitting behind the desk, his dad quickly glanced up then frowned. “Your mother left so she could take up with another woman. I had nothing to do with that.”
“And it didn’t occur to you that I might want to maintain a relationship with her?”
His dad sighed, looking up through the top of his eyes as he folded his hands. “Your mother wanted to create a scandal—”
“No,” David spoke firmly. “Besides, who’s looking for scandal now? Your deception in Florida could have cost my marriage.”
The sound of disbelief from his dad brought his boil to that critical boil. “Shut up,” David barked. “Every decision, every relationship, everything I’ve ever done has been directly affected by mom’s abandoning me. And it was never true.”
“It most certainly is true,” his dad responded.
David scoffed, frustration riding his veins. “No, Dad. You forced her to leave—”
“She wanted to leave!”
“You.”
His dad flinched and turned away.
David had changed. He wouldn’t have believed he could feel sorrow or remorse, but they were walking hand in hand, like a couple of love sick bastards, straight through his conscience. “I’m sorry,” he added. “But it’s true. It didn’t have to be this way.”
“I did what I thought was best.” The fire blazed in his eyes again. “You’ll see. When it happens to you and your Maria leaves you.”
“She won’t,” he whispered.”
“You know nothing about her.”
“The same argument, Dad. Over and over. Maria. Won’t. Leave.”
“She’s put you off your game—in business and here at home.”
The panic he’d felt in Florida came raging back. Had she done that? His head had been out of the game since last fall.
Now he just had to consider the fact that he wanted and liked having his head out of the game.
~*~
A heart attack.
Maria packed, quickly and light as possible. She called the airline as she worked, made arrangements for a flight, and was headed downstairs within twenty minutes.
The sense of panic at David’s absurd suggestion to build a house was nothing compared to the thought of her dad… shit, she couldn’t even think it. She wouldn’t think worst case scenarios.
She rounded the end of the staircase toward the office, where she assumed David was with his dad, and stopped short. The door was slightly ajar and their voices carried down the hall, all too clearly, all too harsh. Like déjà vu.
“Your job was to secure the purchase in Florida.” Mr. March, barking again.
“Funny you should say that when you were the one who threw Tammy in my way.” David, quieter and reserved. “Donald and I are on the same page, and we’ve had several conversations since. I’ll get to it next week.”
Mr. March grumbled, muttering something she couldn’t hear, and the lull pulled her forward. No matter how much she didn’t want to see her father-in-law, she had to talk to David.
“You leave Maria out of this.” David started, his voice hard and aggravated.
“Are you out of your mind?” Mr. March’s voice rose. “That bitch really has really done a number on you, hasn’t she?”
She could imagine David’s furrowed brow and how he rubbed at the back of his neck when he was upset. “I can take care of Maria.”
His words brought a great pressure to her chest—disappointment—and a pounding in her head. The sounds of their voices fell away as Maria began a slow retreat.
He would take care of me? How? Paying her? Burying her in the backyard?
She took another step back. He’d said an arrangement when she came to him—equal parts. She’d wanted to believe so strongly that it was more, that maybe he felt something special with her. And he was a good man—kind, caring, protective.
“If you don’t fix this, David Tanner March, you will be out of a job on Monday morning. Don’t bother coming back to the bank.”
David’s response was too quiet to hear. Why didn’t he yell like his dad?
Maria bumped into her bag, almost tripping on it, and quickly picked it up.
She didn’t want to just leave. But it was time to go. And maybe the time away would give her a chance to think, rethink. She wanted to be needed, like so vital to each breath he would die without her.
She blinked at unexpected tears.
She could take care of herself.
She hurried back upstairs to the guest room and sat at the small desk. She scribbled a note, her throat tight with pain—guilt, remorse, and regret. And hurt. Oh God, the hurt. He didn’t truly understand her. That was obvious, the way he handled her.
She’d hurt everyone in her family because she believed he was on her side, and that even if he didn’t recognize it, he loved her.
But did he?
Did he know the deepest of her desires? Did he know what she wanted more than anything in the world?
20
His dad had completely lost his mind.
Fire him? It was insane. His dad could no more fire him than he could hire him.
Make his life a living hell?
Yes.
Smooth the way to bigger and better things?
Sure.
Greg March’s position at the bank was uncontested, of course. He was the son of Tanner. Tanner might pretend to be a recluse with no care for what went on around him, but David knew better. Tanner was still the only person in the world who could make his dad toe the line. Because his grandfather still owned the damn bank!
What was David to do, though? Be a tattletale and run to his grandfather? Or return to work tomorrow, business as usual?
His desk at home was usually spotless, but right now, it was strewn with documents his dad had drawn up. One particularly large one—a postnuptial agreement.
The anger of it sat like a lead weight in his stomach. He’d wanted to sock him right in the nose. Just, BAM! Ugh! David picked up the pile of papers and walked over to the fireplace. Divorce, the word tasted like that crap his dentist painted on his teeth after they were cleaned.
He’d never really thought of how his life must seem to her. But as the papers passed through the wide, marble opening to the fire within, shame burned through his conscience. He was going to be different. No divorce. Not the easy way out for him.
He’d taken his lifestyle for granted, and the truth was, it had never made him happy. Not in the true sense of the word.
Maria had shown him what happiness meant.
Last weekend at his grandpa’s had been the happiest he’d been in a long time. No fear, no anxiety, no worry about work, the next deal, or the next investment.
He’d been free.
The papers fell into the raging fire and went up in smoke. He took the poker and shoved the pile deeper into the fire with a sigh. She was the only one in his world right now that made any sense. She was this bottom line that never wavered.
She was strong when he doubted himself.
Finally, he pulled the small piece of paper from his pocket and unfolded it.
A h
undred grand. That’s how much his child was worth. That’s how much his father would have offered Maria to leave.
David’s fist clenched on the offensive paper, and with a sound of disgust, the paper went into the fire with the rest. He would pay a hundred times that much to make her happy.
And that’s when he knew. None of this mattered.
The hotel in Florida didn’t matter.
The house. The cars. The money.
He checked his watch and looked around. For the second time today, he didn’t like what he saw. An office that had no photos or an ounce of warmth. A house that had always been too quiet.
Maria had changed that, too. She’d brought laughter and music. Conversation to the kitchen. And love into his bedroom—guest bedroom. Damn it!
Checking his watch, he knew he was going to have to call Donald before the end of the day. Since the fiasco in Florida, Tammy was still threatening to outbid him. She’d raised her own offer by twenty thousand.
Twenty! Shit. It was pissing him off.
But, he wanted to call her bluff. He even considered a counter offer to get her to back down—to fold, as Maria would say, because she loved to play Poker. But David had his own set of cards, and a few up his sleeves as well. He’d find something to hold over her head.
It seemed dirty, but so was using seduction to distract the competition.
And Tammy had had no qualms.
He didn’t believe Tammy was ready to buy this property, either. She worked in residential, buying and selling extremely large, overpriced homes on the coast.
“Call Donald,” David spoke to his phone then put it on speaker and set it on the desk. He picked up his old baseball glove and tossed the cradled ball into the air.
“Hey, David.”
“Donald. How’s it going?”
Thwack.
“Looking better today than it did yesterday. I got a call from Tammy’s assistant.” Donald hacked away from his phone and David winced. “I was on the other line. By the time I got back to her, the business day was over.”
“Yeah, what did she want?”
“She wants to meet.”
The ball fell into the glove and David sat up. “Oh yeah? What for?”
“She’s pulling her bid.”
You’re finished in this town, do you hear me? Done. I don’t want you coming back here, not even to shop. And Tammy, don’t ever talk to my wife that way, don’t talk to her period. You think you’ve got me between a rock and a hard place? Think about that time in Bermuda three years ago, got it? I’m not the only one with secrets. As a matter of fact, from now on, I have no secrets. Don’t ever think you can use my past against me. There isn’t anything that I care about enough to lose Maria. When you get in bed with my father, you pay the price.
Through their somewhat tumultuous early twenties when she’d been just as likely to hook up on a weekend business trip, he’d backed her, supported her, as a friend would. He hadn’t really cared anything about her sex life, same as he didn’t now. But her appearance in Florida shook him, left him wondering if he’d ever really known her.
They’d been friends a long time. He tried to pinpoint exactly when things started to change. Before he’d gone to California, certainly. That year before he met Maria his mother had begun her new effort to break into his life. Only, for some reason—age? Maturity?—her efforts paid off. Her persistence made it hard to ignore…the letters, the phone calls.
Maybe that’s when things with Tammy had started to change.
No, he’d started to change.
And he’d fought it, too. Hence the short-sighted proposal to Tammy on his panicked return to Vermont. He sighed.
“I’ll take it. When can we meet to finalize the deal?”
“Friday morning?”
David flipped through the calendar on his desk. He had a meeting with his dad for lunch, but that seemed almost irrelevant after their confrontation today. It hurt a little to think of a change as big as leaving the March company. He wasn’t sure what to do yet, but his dad…
He’d crossed a line. The truth was that David wasn’t sure where his heart sat anymore. Did he want to tolerate his dad’s meanness out of respect for his grandfather and the family?
The answer was no.
Maria was the only one who mattered.
~*~
David headed to the kitchen even though a part of him wanted to go back upstairs, check on Maria, see if she was still asleep…maybe wake her up.
She’d been exhausted when they got back and needed sleep.
And with his purchase of the old hotel in Florida about to happen, he’d have to get to town for an hour or so to organize the paperwork and set up the funding. He wouldn’t be long.
The excitement of owning the property pulsed through his veins. He’d waited a long time, and he was already dreaming about what they could do with it.
Not just a regular hotel, either.
No. He wanted a resort.
Small, exclusive…luxurious.
It would be more than what they’d done in the past, buying companies that were struggling. This was for him, his pleasure to see something from the ground up.
And then to keep running it.
“What can I get for you, David?” Mrs. Kraus pulled him from his thoughts as she stood from her seat at the table.
“Don’t get up,” he said, waving her back. “I’m headed to town for an hour or so. Will you let Maria know when she wakes up??
“Sure thing.” She was studying him, head cocked. “We’ll have a nice dinner tonight. Baked chicken rice pilaf.”
David smiled. “Can you make the Boston crème pie Maria likes so much?”
“That’s a wonderful idea.”
He turned to leave, but a tender feeling inside made him stop. “Thanks, Mrs. Kraus.”
“No problem.” She moseyed to the fridge and opened it. “Go on. I’ll take care of your wife while you’re out.”
Laughing, he shook his head. “Something tells me she can take care of herself.”
The drive to town was short and sweet. Half way there, he realized he’d forgotten his cell, which ended up being a good thing. Without the distraction, he was done in under an hour, had booked a flight to Florida, and sent Brandy home.
He took another thirty minutes to update his portfolio, and he checked in on the Nasdaq and Dow. There were two parts of his life, always had been. Work and family—his grandfather, the cabin, the woods, his bit of travel. He’d worked because that was what a man did. Ninety percent of his time in this office, doing business deals, writing up contracts, buying and selling.
He left such a small part of himself for the things he really loved.
He loved hiking through Grandpa’s property. He loved seeing other small towns and discovering places—like the old hotel in Florida.
This was the change he needed.
Maybe it was time to bring what he loved into his work. Get his hands dirty a little. The resort down south was going to be his guinea pig. Maybe that hotel management class he took as a freshmen in college would come in handy after all.
He grinned. Maybe.
It certainly wouldn’t hurt to try.
Leaving the town behind in the twilight of clear, twinkling skies, David stepped on the gas. If Maria had napped, they’d have dinner…then who knows. Maybe he’d sneak her upstairs and get her naked again. They’d finish what his father interrupted.
He shook his head as he pulled into his driveway and saw his mother’s car. “First I never see her in twenty years, now I can’t get rid of her.”
But he was also grateful because Maria had made a connection with his mother, one he was still working on. Years of thinking one way was harder to adjust than he expected. There was still a part of him that was waiting for the other shoe to drop.
What he wanted right now was for Maria to be happy. In the weeks she’d been here, she’d had to deal with his father, Tammy. She could use a friendly face. And
maybe he wouldn’t mind a little mom time, either. If he was going to embrace this whole family thing, it was time he figured out how to include the past.
The kitchen was bright with the life of women. Mrs. Kraus, his mother…and though Maria was still upstairs, her vibe lived here. Even Mrs. Kraus was making a side of fresh salsa and had a bowl of Maria’s homemade tortilla chips on the counter as an appetizer.
“Hi Mom,” David started as he crossed the room and kissed Mrs. Kraus’ cheek. “Hi. How’s Maria?”
“Haven’t heard from her yet.”
“Want me to go check on her?” His mom asked, with a smile.
“No, I’ll go up.” David took the steps two at a time to the second floor. He threw his door open and when she wasn’t there, he crossed the hall. But the guest room was empty too. “Maria?”
He knocked on the bathroom door then opened it. Nothing.
He rubbed a shaking hand over his mouth as dread filled him.
The library.
Back through the bedroom, he stopped and his heart fell. The bed was made. Nothing was out on the dresser. The closet door was shut. Maria wasn’t a slob, but she lived in this room, and usually it showed.
She wouldn’t have left him. She’d been having a bad day, the confrontation with Tammy only adding to the clusterfuck, but she was too incredibly strong to leave him.
And why the hell was he running through worst case scenarios right now?
Maria had to be somewhere.
“She’s gone.”
David turned quickly to his Dad who stood in the doorway.
“When did you get here?”
“I just got back.” His voice fell off, with that tone of a well-kept secret. “I followed her to the airport. She took a flight to California.” He handed over a small piece of paper.
“You’re lying.” David grabbed the scrap paper and tried to read what was on it, but the words blurred.
“I wish I was.”
I’m sorry for all the trouble. Please don’t worry about me. I have a flight to California... My dad had a heart attack. I’ll probably be busy for a few days. Talk to you when things are settled.
