“Fate,” I say and kiss her deeply.
Thirty-Three
Blaire
We spend the rest of the day making love and snacking on whatever he has in his cupboards. Around eight at night, he orders food, and I step into the shower. As the warm water hits my skin, I realize too much is happening at once. I’m not talking about having unprotected sex—but that was a huge deal too.
That’s not what’s really bothering me; it’s the possibility of me being pregnant. The odds are against me, a woman who went through almost four years of chemotherapy and radiation. The probability of getting pregnant is pretty slim.
The odds are against me, the woman who craves a baby. The realization only made me sad, and I don’t want to have a heart to heart conversation just yet. Not after what just happened between us. He’s not afraid of a little girl. He said he wants to have one with me, but I doubt I can give him that. Would that be an obstacle between us?
I jolt when I hear his gravelly voice asking, “You okay?” He steps into the shower, and honestly, I’d be better if he pushes me against the shower and thrusts himself inside me.
“Regrets?” he asks, embracing me with his strong arms.
“What?” I ask.
“Us. Do you regret what happened?” he asks. “I thought we were on the same page, but if I overstepped.”
This is the part where I could lie, but lies are useless. They take too much time and energy from you. Life is too short to be spreading that shit. Lies are toxic and keeping up with them is useless.
“I love you, Blaire. This didn’t happen just because I need to touch you, but because I…” He cups my chin with his hand and lifts my face, kissing me lightly. “Talk to me, Baby.”
“There’s nothing wrong,” I insist.
“Blaire, I know you. What happened?”
“I went through years of chemotherapy and radiation,” I say out loud and hug his waist, feeling vulnerable and needing him close. “So really, the odds of having a baby are—”
“You were young when it happened,” he reminds me. “Our odds are as good as any other thirty-some year-old couple. If we can’t make it happen, we’ll harvest your eggs and fertilize the ones that aren’t damaged.”
“Fixing my sadness with science?” I joke.
He kisses the top of my head. “Always. Adoption is also an alternative,” he adds. “If you’re ready to have a baby we can start looking into it.”
My bottom lip quivers. “You’d do that for me?”
He nods and kisses me. “Anything for you, Blaire.”
“Let’s wait. I’m in no hurry, but if it happens the baby will be welcomed.”
“And loved,” he adds.
We’re in the dining room eating pizza while he’s in a videoconference with Henry.
“Listen, we have to work with people we trust, and I don’t trust Dad’s interim CEO,” Henry says. “He worked for Merkel Hotels and Spas a few years ago, and as I mentioned earlier, I fired him.”
“Can we replace him?”
He nods. “Yes, I already have a couple of guys in mind. We just need the approval from the majority.”
“Have you spoken to Pierce?”
“He’s my next call,” Henry says. “Are you going to talk to the others?”
Hayes bobs his head a couple of times. “Yes. I’ll be heading out this Wednesday. Can we take care of the CEO now, or do you need their input?”
“We need the majority to vote. We’re lucky that our father didn’t have a board, or this would be a fucking mess. As long as we have four votes, we can change the CEO. Blaire, what do you think?”
“Go for it,” I approve. “You got my vote.”
“I just need Pierce’s vote, and we’re golden,” he continues. “That’s all I need for now. Call if you need anything from me.”
After he hangs up, Hayes looks at me and says, “Henry texted me earlier to tell me that Vance is unreachable. We don’t know if he’s in or out.”
He’s unsure, I don’t say out loud. Instead, I ask, “What are you planning on doing?”
Vance needs him to reach out, to show him that they care about him.
“I’m going to Atlanta to visit Addison,” he answers. “She should be able to find him for us.”
“Why the sudden urge to look for him?”
“I want to talk to him, explain to him that we’re all in.”
“But you’re not,” I remind him. “Three, maybe four of us if you count Pierce are in. What about the others?”
“What do you want me to do? Wait until the last minute when everyone is in and see if he magically appears?”
“Yes,” I answer. “Once everyone is there. If you call him, I’m sure he’ll be there.”
“I doubt it,” Hayes groans. “He always ignores my calls.”
“I would approach the other three,” I suggest and show him my phone. “He always answers my calls.”
“How often do you call him?”
“Only when I have an emergency. We usually text. As I told you before, we aren’t that close, but he’ll respond if I call. I won’t make that call until I can promise that everyone is invested.”
He runs a hand through his hair. “Okay. I trust you.”
“I love you,” I say.
He peppers kisses on my hands. “Thank you for today. I missed you so fucking much.”
There’s something about his statement that doesn’t sit well in the pit of my stomach. It’s probably my own insecurities, and I should let it go, but I can’t.
“Just so we’re on the same page, what was today?”
Hayes
“Seriously, Blaire?” I cock an eyebrow.
“Yes, I want to know. We don’t play games, and it’s important for me to know if you’re recalling—”
“When I’m remembering our past, it’s normally at three in the morning while I jerk off because you’re not there,” I say in a low firm voice. “Today, it was me loving you.
“It’s always me loving you,” I repeat.
She’s about to speak when I interrupt her. “And before you tell me that I don’t love you, I do. We know each other so well we can still read what the other is thinking without words. It’s just a matter of catching up, Blaire.”
Blaire purses her lips, far from satisfied, which is understandable. We need to talk everything through. That’s the way she operates. “You make it sound so simple.”
“It’s that simple, Blaire. Love isn’t as complicated as people make it—I complicated us by being stupid,” I explain.
“This is happening too fast, and I know what you’re going to tell me. That’s who we are, still … I have this nagging feeling that this is a summer fling. It’s like your dad is playing puppet master,” she declares, and she’s right about that part.
William might be dead, but he is still playing with our lives.
“My father tried to fuck us up, but, in reality, he gave me a gift,” I intercede. “I was getting restless, desperate. I’m sure that I was days or maybe weeks away from saying fuck my pride and looking for you.”
“I saw my picture in your office. It was turned around.”
God, this woman never misses any detail. She could be a detective or part of a forensic team.
“It hurt to see you and not to have you,” I explain. “Some days, I’d turn it around, and others I would look at you for hours and talk to it, the way we used to talk at night.”
“I talked to you through my blog,” she answers.
“I read it,” I say, reaching for her hand and kissing her knuckles. “Look, I’m making a lot of changes in my life, but it’s not just for you. It’s for me, too. You’re…”
The first good thing I allowed myself to have—and to love. Since the first time I met her, I wanted her all to myself. To love her and never share her with anyone because she made me happy.
Ever since my father fucked up our lives, I worked hard to make Mom and Carter happy. It was like a pena
nce I had to do for pushing Dad away. Obviously, I was delusional. That notion disappeared years ago when I realized I had nothing to do with his poor choices. However, as a kid, I believed my father had gotten himself a new family because I yelled at him.
He missed my science fair and Carter’s baseball game.
“I hate you,” I yelled. “I wish you weren’t my father.”
And then, it was on the news. William Aldridge had a new kid with a famous starlet and left us for good. So, I had to be a good brother and a good son to make up for what I did wrong. Then it was just required by Carter and Mom to cater to them because I was the dutiful son.
Blaire has always been the one person who I can be myself with, who I can keep for myself, who I can have without worrying about anything. We understand each other.
She’s the person who I’d steal the sun for, who I’d want to build an entire universe with. I wouldn’t promise her the stars because I want to create them with her. And once we have enough stars, we’d form entire constellations.
“You’re the one person who makes me believe that there’s more to science,” I say.
“Like magic and fate?” she prompts. “They are real. Not everything needs a scientific explanation.”
“Only you make me believe,” I repeat.
It’s true. Blaire is the one thing I could never explain. Like why I was so enthralled with her from the first moment I touched her. Something about her has always felt right.
“We just reconnected. We’ve been apart for years, but I think you’re smart, interesting, and I like you. I can’t wait to discover more. I look forward to working with you. From everything that I’ve read, you’re a pretty knowledgeable doctor and caregiver.”
She tilts her head to one side. “Stroking my ego, Aldridge, or fishing for a few compliments?”
“I don’t need compliments.”
“Good, because I still haven’t googled you. I feel like a terrible ex-girlfriend.” She smiles, and her words and posture lighten the mood.
“Well, consider yourself my girlfriend, and you get to learn all about me firsthand.” I wink at her.
“Have you done any sightseeing while you work in foreign countries?”
“Not really. My schedule only allows me to browse for souvenirs around the airport, but most of the special things that I have from each visit are handmade objects by the kids or women who live in the villages I visit. Drawings are my favorites.”
“What do you love the most about your job?”
She shrugs. “It’s safe to say everything. The only thing I don’t like is not having the money to fund more projects.”
“If I could, I’d get you out of Dad’s mess and make sure the financial piece was never a problem. I feel like among all of us, you’re the most affected. Well, not you, but the work that you do.”
“It’s okay. I’m making things work, and Baker’s Creek isn’t bad. I like the town. It’s quirky. I can run the foundation from any place as long as I put together a good team to work on each project. It’s happened in the past. I stayed in Atlanta for a year.”
“After the kidnapping?”
She nods.
“Is it okay to ask what happened?”
“Wrong place and wrong time,” she announces. “I was buying some supplies for the village. One moment I’m paying and the next, there’s a guy pointing a gun and shoving me into a car with three other women. Fortunately, I was able to send a text to Vance before they dragged me to their warehouse.”
I don’t understand how she says it so casually. “Are you okay?” I ask worried.
“Yes, I’m fine,” she assures me.
“I mean, kidnapping?” I say, my stomach tied into knots just imagining it.
“It was scary, but lucky for us, Vance found us quickly,” she explains. “He took me to Atlanta with Addison. She cared for me while I was going to a therapist. Again, I’m fine, but that’s because I got help.”
“You are brushing the subject, discussing it so casually.”
“No, it was four years ago. I’ve had a lot of time to process it and a lot of therapy. I was lucky. Somehow, I believe Carter was looking out for me that day. He wouldn’t let anything bad happen to me.”
“He wouldn’t,” I agree. He loved her like a sister.
“We did it again, made this heavy. It’s like every time we take an important step forward, we end up bringing up the past.”
“Sorry, I’m just trying to—”
“Learn everything about me,” she answers. “I know, everyone has their thing. Yours is learning. Discovering new things, and with me … knowing me from the outside in and the inside out.”
“You’re a very strange person, Blaire Noelle Wilson,” I remind her. “You like to learn, too. I remember teaching you a lot about yourself.”
I wink at her, and when I spot a red hue staining her lovely face and her pupils dilated, I know she understands my meaning. This would be a great time to drag her back to the bedroom, but I don’t.
“So tell me, Doc, what’s been happening with you?” she asks. “I might not get to stalk you until later next week. Have you published any papers?”
“A few,” I explain. “I love science. I’m good at what I do, and I get a lot of referrals from other states and countries.”
“Then closing your practice is extreme. Are you sure you don’t want to take a sabbatical?”
“It’s fine because we are going to do a lot of good with our new practice.”
“You’re an orthopedic surgeon,” she repeats. “You can’t just drop it and forget about it. Unless you have a backup plan, and you know I don’t like to be kept in the dark.”
She looks at me expectantly. The woman knows me. She’s actually proving me right.
“Not a backup plan, but …” Her face actually brightens as she listens to me. “Once our practice is running and we expand, we can add some equipment and even have ambulatory surgery. Again, I haven’t worked everything out in my head—”
“It’s brilliant because the patients and their families can stay at The Lodge to recover, concierge service could be added to it, and we can have that covered by their insurance. If there are any injuries during ski season, you are right there, too.”
“Marry me,” I say, because this woman understands me like no other person in the entire world.
“Let’s not get carried away, Aldridge.” Her words and her eyes have an edge. “I like the idea to expand the practice, but proposing to me is moving too fast.”
I wink at her. “Technically, we’re moving in together.”
She laughs. “We’re just back to dating. Let’s change the subject.”
“Vance isn’t in the Army. What does he do? You have to know.”
She grins.
“We don’t talk often,” she responds. “I talk to Addison, his mother. We’re good friends, and she likes to check on me. As I mentioned, I lived with her for almost a year.”
“Is she married?”
“Yeah, and she has two other children—teens. Your family fascinates me. Your mothers responded differently after they figured out William was a scumbag.”
“You’ve always been fascinated by us. We can barely stand each other,” I say with a sigh. “If Carter was here, he’d have convinced all of them to stay.”
“No,” she answers. “You never understood how you seven worked. They look up to you—because Carter did. That’s why Henry is an asshole, because he’s the oldest and couldn’t get the admiration you got. Yet, you always relied on Henry to make decisions, and sometimes you added Pierce. Stick to what you’ve done before. Make them see that they matter to you, that you guys are a team.”
“I hope it works because if not…”
“Have faith,” she presses. “It’s time for bed. We can pick up this mess tomorrow morning.”
Thirty-Four
Hayes
The next morning, I sign the paperwork and sell my part of the practice. Blaire
asks me to help her interview the doctors who might be going on the next mission. We hire a couple on the spot and agree to wait to interview more applicants before we fill the last three spots. The team she’s assembling for her next trip should be leaving in three weeks.
We discuss the possibility of moving Carter’s Kids Foundation to Baker’s Creek. It would be a lot easier to help her manage it. Tori could still do her part from San Francisco, while the rest of us could help her with planning, executing, and even organizing a charity event to raise funds. Pierce even offered his legal services, pro bono.
We hire a moving company that’ll be picking up my boxes on Monday. The rest of the weekend Blaire and I pack my belongings. We separate the stuff I want to keep at the house from what’s going to storage. I decide to donate my furniture. Blaire calls a friend of hers who runs a safe haven home.
On Sunday, the company I hired to move my cars arrives. I only keep the car I’m using to drive to Baker’s Creek.
Everything is moving too quickly, and yet, not fast enough. I’m ready to start this stage of my life. After the moving company picks up the boxes, Blaire and I drive to Baker’s Creek. We arrive at midnight. Since we’re too tired to deal with the new house, we stay at The Lodge.
“I missed this,” Blaire says the next morning, as we jog through the town. “The birds, the people greeting you as you make your way through the town, and, of course, the pastries.”
“Do you want to check on the house before we go to the bakery?”
“That’s a good idea,” she agrees.
“They changed the gate?” Blaire asks.
“It looks newer. Maybe they repaired it, painted it, or did something so it looks as new as the house.”
There are a few workers around the area. Some are painting the barn while others are working on Beacon’s studio. I spot Easton close to the main house, speaking with a man holding a blueprint.
“Good morning, Easton,” Blaire greets him.
Loved You Once (The Baker’s Creek Billionaire Brothers Book 1) Page 23
