by Cat Schield
Sebastian crossed his arms and frowned. “How long were you two dating?”
The warmth in her cheeks rushed over all her skin, but she maintained an air of dignity as she answered, “We didn’t actually date. It was more like we spent a weekend together.”
A silent twin communication passed between her brothers. They were a year older than Grant, so obviously they would’ve known him—or of him—in school.
“Did Everett know how young you were?” Sutton shook his head as if struggling to understand and Harley wondered if Grant would be receiving a phone call or two later.
She heaved a sigh, wishing everyone would just get over their age difference. “He didn’t actually know how old I was until later. So don’t go blaming him for taking advantage of me or something equally ridiculous. If anyone took advantage,” she declared smugly, “it was me.”
“Is he planning on stepping up now?” Sebastian asked.
“He already has.” Harley immediately rushed to Grant’s defense, leaving no room for doubt. “He loves Daniel. And Daniel adores him.”
“So does that mean you’re going to share custody?” Beth asked.
Leave it to her practical big sister to spear straight into the heart of her dilemma.
“We haven’t discussed it,” she admitted, acting as if none of this was any big deal. “At this point, the two of them are getting to know each other.”
“But you said you’re going back to Thailand,” Piper said. “Or have you changed your mind?”
“My plan was to come back to Royal and find funding for Zest so I can continue the work I’ve been doing. And that work is in Thailand.” Harley spoke this last part slowly for emphasis. “So, eventually Daniel and I will be heading back there.”
“And Grant is okay with that?” Miles exchanged a profound glance with Chloe before returning his attention to his sister. “If I had a son, there’s no way I’d let his mother take him halfway around the world.”
This was the exact sort of brotherly highhandedness that had driven Harley to leave Royal. Yet, she was no longer an impulsive eighteen-year-old with a short fuse and kept her voice calm as she responded. “Grant understands our life is in Thailand. And he has been very clear about never wanting a family.”
Miles snorted. “You don’t think he’ll change his mind after spending time with Daniel?”
“I don’t know,” Harley admitted, gripped by the now familiar tightness in her chest as she considered how complicated her life had become since returning home.
On one hand, she was enjoying the time she and her son spent with Grant and she adored how Daniel was responding to his father. She also loved seeing him blossoming amongst his friends at the TCC day care, but when he talked about how much he missed those they’d left behind, Harley was torn. She should be glad that her son had such a big heart, but it meant that being parted from those he loved hit him hard.
“Well you better figure it out,” Sebastian said, amplifying her irritation with his condescending big-brother routine.
Instead of shooting back with a sarcastic quip, Harley lifted her chin and calmly declared, “Trust me when I tell you that I will do what’s best for Daniel.”
And if that meant staying put in Royal so he could have his father in his life? Harley would cross that bridge when she came to it.
To her relief the conversation soon shifted away from her news and returned to the company’s troubles. She learned more details about the circumstances surrounding the fire at the WinJet plant in East Texas and the subsequent lawsuit that claimed her family had directed the falsification of the inspection records.
By the time they moved from the dining room back to the living room, Harley’s head was spinning. Given everything she’d learned tonight, she recognized that Wingate Enterprises was not going to be the future source for Zest’s funding. Which meant she’d have to figure out where to turn next because she couldn’t keep the nonprofit going with nickel and dime fundraisers.
Lost in thought, she didn’t notice the arrival of a new visitor until her mother’s fragrance filled her nostrils. Instinctively, she recoiled from the scent, turned around and regarded Ava’s tight mouth and hard gray-green gaze. As usual, she wore her dark blond hair in a classic chignon and the touch of elegant gray at her temples added gravitas to her timeless beauty.
“Well,” Ava huffed. “It seems as if you and I need to have a little chat.”
Bristling at both her mother’s authoritarian tone and her tardiness, Harley was momentarily caught off guard by the sight of Keith Cooper—Uncle Keith, as he wanted her and her siblings to call him. As if being their father’s best friend—and after his death, their mother’s “special” friend—gave him some deeper connection to them. Harley shuddered. What was Ava thinking to bring him here?
“About what?” she asked breezily, wondering which of her siblings had ratted her out.
“Daniel’s father is Grant Everett?” Ava declared, making it sounding as if Grant was some lowlife criminal instead of a wealthy, accomplished doctor, as well as a member of one of the town’s most philanthropic families. “What were you thinking?”
“What was I thinking?”
She’d been thinking that Grant was the most brilliant, fascinating, sexiest man she’d ever met. She’d been thinking that being with him made her happy. She’d been thinking that she was the luckiest girl on earth to have caught his eye.
“He’s nearly twice your age.”
Harley ground her teeth. “You can keep your opinions to yourself about Grant and me. I’m really not interested in hearing them.”
“I’m your mother. I have a right to say whatever I want to about the mistakes you’ve made.”
Growing up in the shadow of her talented and ambitious siblings, she’d often relied on reckless behavior to make her presence known. Being good had never gotten her any attention, so she’d been bad. And then they’d noticed her.
“My mistakes?” Harley’s gaze flicked to where Keith stood talking to her brothers. “What about yours?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Was this thing between you and Keith going on before my father died?”
Ava’s eyes went wide at her daughter’s insinuation, but Harley couldn’t tell if her surprise was genuine or merely great acting. “How dare you ask me such a question!”
“That’s not an answer.”
“You are being completely ridiculous.”
“Am I?” Harley ground out. “Because it seems like your devotion to my father all these years has been nothing but an act. It wouldn’t do for you to get a divorce. That would affect your standing in this town. Especially when everyone found out you were having an affair with his best friend.”
“I wasn’t,” Ava sputtered, shocked at her daughter’s attack. “We never—this is outrageous.”
“I might’ve been young, but I noticed the way he looked at you. And Dad told me how it was between the three of you when you were in college.”
“What do you mean how it was between us?” Ava asked, her unruffled manner belying the hard light in her eye, put there by her daughter’s accusation. “We were all friends. It wasn’t until after I graduated that your father swept me off my feet.”
Carried away by the emotional upheaval of her homecoming and the tumultuous last few weeks with Grant, Harley craved an outlet to vent her distress. Her mother was the perfect choice.
“Yet, you barely waited until he was in the ground before you ran off to Europe with Keith. That’s not exactly the picture of a loving wife.”
“What are you accusing me of?”
“I think it’s pretty obvious. You and Keith have been carrying on for a long time.” Harley frowned. “The only question is how long.”
Diamonds flashed as Ava waved away her daughter’s accusation. “Don’t be a chi
ld.”
“I’m not a child. I see what’s been going on.”
“Keith feels nothing but friendship for me,” her mother declared in dismissive tones. “He’s been married three times.”
“And you didn’t notice how similar each of his wives was to you?”
“You are being completely ridiculous.”
When her mother rolled her eyes, Harley realized there was no way Ava would come clean and admit any wrongdoing. Not a surprise for a woman who routinely criticized those around her and spent no time at all in self-reflection.
“I’m not being ridiculous,” Harley argued, even as she wondered why she was wasting her breath. For years, she’d felt guilty about leaving Royal just when her father needed her, but if he’d been able to speak, he never would’ve asked her to stick around. Especially given the toxic atmosphere between mother and daughter. “Even before Father had his stroke, you neglected him.”
“I didn’t come here today to be attacked by you.”
“Well you certainly didn’t come to have dinner with your family,” Harley countered. “So why did you come?”
“To warn you that this family cannot take any more scandals. If Grant Everett is Daniel’s father, give him whatever he wants when it comes to the boy. I won’t have the Wingate name dragged through the mud because of you.”
Harley felt as if she’d been slapped. “That’s not Grant’s style.”
“Don’t be so sure.” Ava arched her elegant eyebrows. “Men can play dirty when it comes to getting what they want.”
Harley’s entire body flushed with panic at the thought of losing her son, but she turned her mother’s warning back on her. “Maybe the men you know.”
How far would a man like Keith Cooper go to get what he wanted? Before Harley could give the matter any thought, her mother delivered one final punch.
“Don’t imagine for one minute that Grant won’t do whatever it takes to keep hold of his son. All I ask is you don’t do something stupid and stir up more trouble for the family.”
“I assure you that Grant and I are on the same page when it comes to Daniel.” But the minute she said it, she couldn’t help but wonder if it were true.
* * *
When Harley appeared on his doorstep after having dinner with her family, Grant took one look at her stormy expression and put his romantic inclinations on hold.
“How’d it go tonight?” he asked, taking both her hands in his and walking backward toward the living room.
Harley grimaced. “It went great until my mother showed up late and accompanied by Keith.” She’d spoken at length about the man and her suspicions about his relationship with her mother. “She knew it was supposed to be a family dinner. Why did she have to bring him?”
Keith had been her father’s best friend and since Trent Wingate’s first stroke had been advising her mother on the company, as well as more personal issues. Far from seeing the relationship as simple friendship, Harley had speculated that they’d been carrying on for years, possibly even before her father’s illness. Especially after Ava had spent a year in Europe with him not long after her husband’s death.
“He and her husband had been friends since college,” Grant pointed out. “Maybe she considers him family.”
“Ugh! Don’t even go there.” Harley was so preoccupied with her own thoughts that she didn’t seem to notice that he’d coaxed her down the hall to the master bedroom. “I don’t like him. And I’ll certainly never think of him as part of the family.”
She stripped off her earrings and the simple gold bracelet that she’d donned as her only accessories to the floral dress crafted by the women of Zest. Sweeping her long brown hair aside, she presented her back to Grant so he could unfasten the zipper. Both of them took for granted the easy familiarity that had grown between them in recent days.
“Is it just Keith’s appearance tonight that has you all worked up?” he asked. Dispensing with the zipper, he cupped his hands over her shoulders and nuzzled her temple, hoping to redirect all that passion into something that would leave them both deliciously satiated. “Or is there something else?”
Harley slipped from beneath his touch and let the dress fall to her feet. Clad only in a lacy pink bra and matching panties, she stepped out of the dress before scooping it off the floor.
“It’s just my mother being my mother. She’s always on a mission to tear me down. Nothing I do is ever right.” Harley crushed the garment in her hands. “I wish I’d never come back here.”
Although he recognized that Harley was more upset over her encounter with her mother than Grant had ever seen her, he recoiled as her words lanced through him. Anxiety spiked. Despite how well they’d been getting along these last couple of weeks, in the back of his mind lurked the certainty that Harley intended to take Daniel back to Thailand. He hated the thought that arguing with her mother might cause Harley to leave sooner than planned.
“I swear nothing I do is ever good enough for her.” Harley continued to rant as she marched into his closet to hang up the dress. “She’s never once given me any credit for the job I’m doing raising Daniel by myself, or acknowledged the number of people I’ve helped through Zest.”
Reemerging from the closet, she stormed across the room to the dresser where she placed her jewelry, opened the drawer and pulled out a nightgown. After turning to face him and without a hint of invitation in her eyes, she stripped off her bra and underwear, bestowing on him a provocative glimpse of her glorious, naked body, before sliding the silky cobalt blue gown over her head.
“I’ll bet if I won the Nobel peace prize, instead of congratulating me, she’d point out every single thing my siblings have accomplished since kindergarten.”
With her delicates gripped in her hand, she headed back to the closet where the hamper awaited their dirty clothes. When she reappeared once more, she was twisting her hair into a loose messy bun on top of her head. She secured it with a clip and sighed.
“I know I’m not alone in how I feel,” she began, her voice heavy with compassion.
The weekend that they spent together, she’d asked him why he was single. He’d explained how isolated he felt growing up because his interests diverged from what his parents wanted for him and that they’d struggled to understand him. His family was dedicated to their charitable foundation work and maintained an active social life. While Rose had taken after their parents, Grant had been more interested in intellectual pursuits, and they struggled to relate to their introverted, bookish family member. When it became obvious that he intended to have a career in medicine rather than join the company business, his parents gave up on him. He was the oddity in the family. The one who’d disappointed his parents by going into “service.”
Although he’d relayed this narrative without any emotional display, the way Harley had acknowledged how much this must have bothered him, he’d been overwhelmed with relief. Until that moment, he hadn’t realized the depth of the grief he’d bottled up, or the damage he’d done to his psyche by closing himself off to further hurt.
Looking back now, he realized he’d come to trust her in those unguarded moments. She’d been right when she’d said that something had sparked between them that weekend. So much so that the powerful connection had disturbed him. He’d shied away from the attachment, rejected its importance. Thoroughly rattled by the burst of unruly sentimentality, when he’d discovered that she’d deceived him, he’d grabbed at this excuse and slammed the door shut on his emotions, setting a bar in place to keep them permanently locked away.
Harley came to stand before him, her fingers going to work on the buttons of his shirt. She tugged the hem free of his pants and finished unfastening the front. In the middle of stroking it off his shoulders, she paused and gazed up at him.
“Why are some parents driven to find fault with everything their children do? It’s as if...”
She trailed off, swallowing bitter words. “You know what I’m talking about.”
Grant stripped off his shirt and cast it aside. Wrapping one arm around Harley’s waist, he drew her into a comforting embrace. She leaned into him, setting her cheek against his shoulder and wrapping her arms around his neck. Although her mood was somber, just holding her in his arms stirred his blood. Yet, despite that, he was happy to offer her sympathy if that’s what she needed right now.
“The sooner I get back to Thailand the better,” Harley continued in dark tones, unable to stop fuming over her encounter with her mother.
Grant’s heart twisted at the thought of losing his son. “When you say sooner...?”
“I thought after being gone for five years that I could come back and things with my family would be better. But they treat me like I’m a child. Nobody gives me any credit. I started an amazing nonprofit that helps women, but all they see is their baby sister who made the mistake of getting pregnant when she was eighteen.”
“Daniel and I have barely had the chance to get to know each other,” Grant said, realizing she wasn’t paying attention to him. “I need more time with my son.”
“I’m sorry for dumping all this on you.” Her arms encircled his waist as all the fight drained out of her. “It’s just that my mother drives me crazy. She couldn’t be bothered to arrive in time for dinner and only showed up to warn me not to drag the Wingate name through the mud.”
“How did she think you’d do that?”
“She has this idea in her head that you and I are going to go to battle over Daniel. As if we would.”
Grant opened his mouth to voice the concerns that had been growing each time she mentioned taking Daniel back to Thailand before thinking better of it. Harley’s mother had hurt her so, of course, her reaction would be to want to put as much distance between them as possible. That she wasn’t thinking about him or her son at the moment was obvious. And with her in this mood, Grant understood that the last thing he should do was alienate Harley. She’d already demonstrated her eagerness to get back to her regular life. Once she cooled down, he hoped she’d become more reasonable.
