by Kait Nolan
“Sure thing, Sandra.”
She headed down the stairs, her sensible heels echoing off the walls. With a smile and a nod for old Jerry Noble, the security guard manning the front desk, Sandy stepped out of City Hall. She paused for a moment on the steps, soaking in the sight and sound of the town she loved. Courtesy of her future daughter-in-law, Wishful was enjoying its first economic growth in decades. The facelift Norah had arranged to give downtown was in evidence everywhere Sandy looked. Pedestrians strolled the sidewalks and cars lined the streets on all sides of the town green. Her town was not only still alive, it was thriving.
Looking both ways, Sandy crossed Main Street to the town green. Her destination lay at the far end. Fed by nearby Hope Springs, the fountain dated back to just after the Civil War. And according to local legend, it granted wishes. Norah had rebranded the entire town around it. Banners with their slogan hung from every street lamp that marched the length of Main Street. Welcome to Wishful, Where Hope Springs Eternal. She wasn’t sure if she really believed. It had been years since she’d made a wish herself and that one hadn’t panned out. But because they desperately needed some of that hope if they were going to save Cam and Norah’s wedding, Sandy strode purposefully to the fountain.
The happy burble of water was soothing and nice to hear after years of nothing. The temperamental old fountain hadn’t run properly since Cam was little, but over the past couple of years, it had slowly been coming back to life. Digging a quarter out of her purse, Sandy held it tight. I wish for a miracle to save Cam and Norah’s wedding.
She tossed it in, listening to the thunk as it hit the water.
Well, that was that. Maybe she should run by Brides and Belles and talk to Babette Wofford. She might have some ideas for alternative, last-minute venues. As she hit the far side of the green and prepared to cross over Spring Street, her phone rang.
“What is it, Avery?” Sandy prayed it wasn’t another disaster from the storm.
“You’ve got a call from Louis Harker over at The Babylon.”
She’d seen the name often enough over the past year and a half as the city had begun doing more business with Peyton Consolidated, but generally Norah handled all the liaising. Then again, Norah was supposed to be out for meetings with the Chamber of Commerce this afternoon. “Patch him through.”
A moment later, the call connected.
“This is Sandra.”
“Mayor Crawford, this is Louis Harker. I’m Gerald Peyton’s executive assistant. I’m calling to inquire whether you’d be free for dinner this evening.”
It was the last thing she’d expected him to say. “I beg your pardon?”
“With Mr. Peyton,” he added. “He has some business he’d like to discuss with you.”
Sandy’s curiosity piqued. Her town had been doing business with Peyton Consolidated for eighteen months, but she’d never actually met the mysterious Gerald Peyton, III. He was rarely in town, and when he was, he tended to keep to his hotel. According to the local gossip mill, he worked long hours, usually ordering in meals, and rarely actually leaving his offices at The Babylon. All his direct interactions with the city had been handled through Norah, as she was the one who’d convinced him to invest.
“Does Norah need to be in attendance as well?”
“No ma’am. Mr. Peyton was clear this was a meeting specifically for you. Are you available?”
Curiouser and curiouser. “I can be. What time?”
“Seven o’clock. The Spring House.”
“I’ll be there.”
She hung up and her imagination fired. What on Earth could Gerald Peyton want to discuss with her over an after-hours dinner meeting? Especially one without Norah. Did he have some problem with her future daughter-in-law? Was he going to try to hire her away again? Sandy had no idea. But as she prepared for her next meeting, her brain turned to a far more important question.
What did one wear to a business dinner with a billionaire?
Chapter 2
Trey arrived at The Spring House early. He told himself it was because he wanted to get out of his office or because he wanted a chance to set the stage, so he’d have the upper hand at this meeting. But he was kidding himself. Nothing about the private little solarium overlooking Hope Springs said business meeting. The wine, the candles, the view. They were all trappings of a date. Having Louis set everything up had been yet another delaying tactic, the latest in a long line of them he’d employed in an effort to avoid coming face-to-face with Sandra Crawford since he’d started doing business in her town.
The God’s honest truth was that he was nervous for the first time in decades. Peytons didn’t get nervous. They made others nervous with their wealth, their prestige, their control. But he’d never been in control when it came to Sandy Crawford.
He had no idea how this dinner would go. He’d spent the past year and a half watching, listening, gathering information on Wishful’s two-term mayor. Like him, she was divorced and single. By all accounts, she’d stayed that way since her deadbeat ex-husband had walked out on her and their eleven-year-old son nearly twenty years before. She was tightly enmeshed with her family—what a concept—and the townspeople loved her.
Trey had loved her once.
He’d spent the last eighteen months trying to figure out if he truly still did.
He fidgeted, starting to reach for his phone, then stopping himself. What was the point of having people if he didn’t trust them to do their jobs? He employed thousands across the globe. They could get on with running his business without him for one night. But that left his hands empty and his mind too full of questions and possibilities. Maybe he should go find the waitress and order a scotch.
Trey rose, but a motion in the doorway had him freezing in place. The hostess, followed by a tall, willowy blonde, in a little black dress that managed to be both elegant and conservative at once. His heart began to hammer. Would she even recognize him after all these years?
Sandy stepped over the threshold, her heels clacking softly on the brick floor. She was smiling at the hostess. “You be sure and tell your parents I said hello.”
Small towns, he thought.
“Yes, ma’am, I will. Your server will be with you shortly. Please enjoy your meal.”
The young woman withdrew, and Sandy turned, her step faltering as she caught sight of him, still standing at his seat. Her face went slack with shock, her cheeks going pale beneath her carefully applied makeup. “Trey?” Her smooth voice was barely a whisper.
She remembered him after all.
He worked up a smile. “No one’s called me that in a very long time.”
They stared at each other, the silence humming with tension and thirty years of unasked questions.
Move your ass, Peyton. Manners saved him as he scooted around the table to pull out her chair. “Please, sit.”
For a long moment, Sandy didn’t move. Trey wondered if she was just going to turn around and leave again. After all his subterfuge, he wouldn’t blame her. But ultimately, she crossed the room and took the seat he offered. As he pushed in her chair, he caught a faint whiff of her perfume or maybe her shampoo—something subtly floral, with notes that reminded him of the sea—and beneath it, a scent that was purely Sandy. He had a ridiculous urge to bury his nose her hair. Instead, he circled around the table and took his own seat.
Sandy held herself stiff as a board, her expression caught somewhere between discomfort and outright panic. Definitely not the reunion he’d fancied. What must be going through her head right now? A laundry list of all the interactions Peyton Consolidated had conducted with the city government through proxies and representatives? All the times he could’ve revealed himself and hadn’t? Or was she thinking of that last night? Of him waiting for hours at the old Hoka Theater in Oxford?
Trey poured a glass of the Cabernet that had been breathing since his arrival and nudged it toward her. “Here, this will help.”
She just shook her head. �
�I don’t understand. You’re Gerald Peyton?”
“The third. Hence, Trey, back in college.”
“All this time you knew about me, and you said nothing?” There was just a hint of temper beneath the incredulity. Justified.
“No.”
“Why?”
He lifted his own glass, buying time. But what else was there to say except the truth? “You made your choice years ago. I was simply honoring it.” The tone that came out was the cool one he usually reserved for boardrooms. He needed the cool confidence of the billionaire just now to cover the personal weakness of the man.
Her fingers flexed around the stem of her glass and her cheeks flushed. Shame wiped out her irritation. “What must you think of me for how I handled things?”
She’d left him hanging, never even offering an explanation. And what explanation had he really needed? He’d seen her pick Waylan. He’d known he was beaten and that whatever she felt for him wasn’t enough.
Trey twitched his shoulders, restless with the memory that had been too close to the surface since this morning. “You chose someone else. It doesn’t matter what I think. And anyway, that’s not why I asked you here tonight.”
Another faint shake of her head told him she was off-balance. “Then why?”
“I heard about what happened with the church. I want to help make sure Norah and Cam’s wedding still happens.”
A faint pleat appeared between her brows. “Why would you do that?”
“I was with Norah when she saw the church. I know how much this means to her. She’s become something of a surrogate daughter to me over the last couple of years, and I want to see her happy.”
Sandy took a long drink of the wine before meeting his eyes. “So why bring me in? Why not just go directly to her? Or to Cam?”
“Because I don’t want to tell her until there’s actually a plan we know will work. No sense in getting her hopes up if we can’t pull it off. And because I didn’t think their wedding was the right venue for you to find out about me.”
Across the table, she spun her glass between two fingers, eyes fixed on him. “That’s very thoughtful of you. On both fronts.”
“I’m a thoughtful guy.” He meant it as sarcasm.
“I remember that about you. I remember a lot of things about you.”
The specter of the past seemed to float between them, a barely acknowledged ghost he didn’t want to deal with. He wasn’t fool enough to go down this path again. Was he?
The waiter interrupted the weighted silence, reeling off the specials. By the time he scampered off to turn in their orders, Trey had himself under control again. Mostly.
“So, the Babylon is, unfortunately, out. Both the ballroom and the rooftop gardens are booked that day for other functions. I checked as soon as I got in this morning.”
She studied him for a long moment, those hazel eyes full of questions. At last she said, “What exactly do you propose?”
“I don’t know yet, but we’re smart people. I figure between the two of us, we can come up with something.” And maybe by the end of this dinner, he’d come up with a way to put these feelings to rest.
~*~
Sandra thanked God for the fact that it was a Tuesday and the Mudcat Tavern was about to close for the night. That meant fewer prospective witnesses to the stupendous freak out that had been simmering inside her since she’d walked into the solarium at The Spring House. But no, she couldn’t think about that. Not yet. As mayor, she had a certain image of control to maintain at all times. Beyond that, she didn’t want the inevitable gossip to get back to her family. If she lost it in public, the entire messy clan would hear about it and be after her for explanations she couldn’t give.
Only one other living soul knew about her history with Trey, and she currently moved with smooth efficiency behind the U-shaped bar, racking glassware and chatting with her regulars. There weren’t many at this hour and none that Sandy knew to speak to. Small blessings. She stepped up to the bar, laying her clutch on the polished wood.
Adele Daly scanned her from head to toe and, with the privilege of long friendship, declared, “You look like crap.”
Sandy grimaced. Exactly what you wanted to hear when you’d just shared a meal with your ex, the billionaire. Except Trey Peyton had never been anything so simple as an ex.
“You want a drink?”
No. The one glass of wine had been enough. “I’m driving. Do you have a minute to talk?”
Without hesitation, Adele looked over her shoulder. “Joe, can you come finish this up, please?”
“You got it.”
Swapping places with Joe Fowler, her second in command, Adele slipped out from behind the bar and jerked her head toward the kitchen. Sandy followed her back, through the swinging doors, where scents of grease and sizzling beef mixed with the sharp tang of detergent. They kept going, into Adele’s little hole of an office, where a battered metal desk, painted fire engine red, was crammed in with a desk chair and a creased leather loveseat. She sank down on the latter as Adele shut the door. Only then did she begin to shake.
Adele dropped onto the sofa beside her, reaching for her hands. “Honey, what’s wrong? Is this a hide-a-body kind of crisis? Because I can go get my truck.”
Sandy laughed. “No. No truck necessary.” Although she was rethinking that drink. Her deep breath did nothing to calm the nerves jumping like a cat on a hot tin roof in her belly. “Have you ever met Gerald Peyton?”
Adele blinked. “The guy who owns The Babylon?”
The boutique hotel and spa was only one of a myriad of projects Peyton Consolidated had its fingers in around town. Norah had recruited him as an investor before she’d even taken on the job of city planner. He had to have known when he signed the memorandum of understanding with the city that Sandy was mayor. Which explained why, since their initial partnership, her future daughter-in-law had been the primary liaison between the company and the city. In a year and a half, the pair of them had done wonders for Wishful’s flagging economy. And Sandy had suspected nothing. Resentment prickled.
You made your choice years ago. I was simply honoring it.
She pulled herself back to the conversation. “Yes.”
“I don’t think a rich real estate mogul has much cause to frequent my bar, especially since his hotel has one of its own. But he did come in for drinks with Brody Jensen once, back when Brody still worked for him. I don’t remember much. Dark-hair. Suit. Kept to himself. Why?”
“I had dinner with him tonight.”
Adele’s blue eyes went blade sharp, her fists automatically curling. “Was he an asshole? Did he get handsy? Because I can get that taken care of, millionaire or no.”
She loved Adele for her instant readiness to defend. But she’d never been good at letting others fight her battles. Look at how things had turned out with Trey.
“Billionaire. And no.”
“Then what’s the problem? What did he say to upset you?”
Sandy clasped her trembling hands around her knees and shook her head. “It’s not what he said. It’s who he is.” She lifted her gaze to Adele’s. “It’s Trey.”
For a long moment, Adele’s face was blank. Then comprehension dawned and her hand tightened on Sandy’s arm. “Oh. Oh, damn. How did you not know this?”
“I never knew his proper name was Gerald. I didn’t know Trey was a nickname because he’s a third. And he’s gone to a great deal of trouble to avoid any face-to-face time with me since he began investing here.”
“So, what, after nearly thirty years, he just up and invites you to dinner?”
“It wasn’t about me.” Why should that sting so much? As he’d said, she’d made her choice, though it hadn’t been the one he imagined. She’d lived with it.
“Then what the hell was it about?”
“He was with Norah when she found out a tree fell on the church. He wants to help make sure the wedding still happens.”
“I heard about that,
bless her heart. Mitzi Culpepper was in here, saying it might be some kind of an omen. I set her straight.” Adele rose and opened the bottom drawer of the desk, pulling out the top shelf scotch she kept hidden there for emergencies. “Anyway, that’s nice of him and all, but that’s not what I really want to hear right now. You haven’t seen this guy in thirty years. What was that like? What’s he like?” She splashed two fingers of the scotch into a low ball and handed it over.
“Still gorgeous.” He’d grown from boyish to full manhood. The years looked good on him. But as impressed as she was by the man he’d become, it was the boy she’d seen when she looked at him. The earnest, fiercely protective friend she’d fallen in love with. The one she’d nearly changed everything for.
She couldn’t help but wonder how she looked to him. She’d put weight back on since her cancer went into remission, and her hair had grown back. She was acutely aware of every flaw, every imperfection, every year she carried that hadn’t been there the last time she’d seen him. “Seeing him again makes me feel both nineteen again and utterly ancient.” Like she needed more of a reminder that she was knocking on the back door of fifty.
“So, did you tell him?”
“Tell him?”
“About what really happened with Waylan. Why you didn’t meet him that night.”
“I was too busy trying not to hyperventilate. And anyway, we didn’t talk about the past at all.” Not really. “He wanted to talk about the kids.”
Adele arched a dark brow. “Are you seriously telling me you spent an hour or more having a meal with this guy and all y’all talked about was Cam and Norah’s wedding?”
Sandy shrugged, because reality defied expectation. “He was all business.” She’d been very conscious she was having dinner with the billionaire he’d become, not the man she remembered. And yet he’d made arrangements for the chef to prepare a pineapple upside down cheesecake. Just like they used to share at the Hoka back in college. What did that mean?
“So, how are you feeling about all of this?”
