Reunited with the Billionaire

by Sandra Marton

  “Wendy.”

  Her mother reached across the table for her hand. If she touched her…God, if she touched her, it was all going to come tumbling out—that she hadn’t just disappointed them all, she’d destroyed the one dream that really mattered. Not the one her father thought she cherished, but the true dream, the secret dream…

  “I’m all right,” Wendy said. She put her spoon on her plate, her napkin on the table, then pushed back her chair. Gina started to rise, too. Wendy shook her head. “No. No, thank you, Mom, but—but you don’t have to come with me. I just…I have to go to the ladies’ room. You stay here. I’ll be—”

  Seconds ago, she’d thought of Seth. Now, as she stood up, she saw him. She could almost feel the blood drain from her face.

  “Wendy?”

  And it was silly, wasn’t it? Hadn’t she just told Gina her motto? Deal With It As It Comes, because there wasn’t a way in the world you could prepare for life ahead of time.

  “Baby, please, what is it?”

  You could never plan on anything…but maybe, just maybe, in an area as small as this tiny piece of New England, she should have been smart enough to have at least anticipated coming face-to-face with Seth seated two tables away, holding hands with the woman who’d replaced her.

  It wouldn’t have helped.

  Nothing could have prepared her for how she’d feel to see him with another woman, or for the sharpness of the pain that knifed through her heart.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE LADIES’ ROOM was empty, except for a whimsical toy panda dressed in a purple ski suit that sat on the marble vanity, smiling at Wendy as she ran cold water into the sink and splashed handfuls of it on her face.

  After a few seconds, she shut off the water, lifted her head and looked at herself in the mirror. A woman with suspiciously bright eyes and blotchy skin stared back at her.

  The stuffed panda was still smiling.

  “What are you looking at?” Wendy grumbled, and doused her face with more cool water.

  It was ridiculous to be so upset at seeing Seth with another woman. He had a new life. So did she—or she would have, once she had the operation. One of the risks in coming back to Cooper’s Corner had been the probability of seeing Seth, and it had already happened twice.

  She’d survived both encounters.

  So what if this was a little different? He was on a date. Well, that was his prerogative. It was perfectly normal for him to be here with a woman, deep in conversation, so deep that he hadn’t noticed her sitting just a couple of tables away.

  “I’m fine with that,” Wendy said to the panda.

  She tore a paper towel from the dispenser, soaked it in cold water and pressed it to her face. Her cheeks felt as if they were on fire. She couldn’t go back out there like this, skin hot, eyes glittering as if there were tears in them.

  The past was the past. If she had a dollar for every time she’d said that the last few days…

  “I’d be a millionaire,” she told the panda, just as the door opened. A teenage girl shot her the kind of look any sane person would give someone conversing with a panda wearing a purple ski suit. Wendy thought about explaining, decided against it, took a steadying breath and left. Outside in the narrow hall, she paused, curved her lips into a smile and stepped into the dining room.

  The first thing she saw was her mother’s white, pinched face.

  The second was Seth, leaning across the table and holding the woman’s hands, focusing so intently on her that he was oblivious to everything else.

  “There you are,” Gina said, when Wendy reached their table and sat down. She scooted forward and leaned in close. “Oh, baby, I saw.”

  “Saw what?” Wendy asked calmly, picking up her spoon. The soup, so delicious moments ago, tasted like wormwood. “Mmm. This is wonderful.”

  “Wendy, did you hear me? I know what upset you. I saw Seth.”

  “Do I look upset? Eat your soup, Mom.”

  “If you weren’t upset, why did you run off like that?”

  Wendy looked at Gina. “I admit I was…surprised. I’m fine now.” She spooned up some soup. “The soup’s getting cold.”

  “Wendy, this is silly. We wanted to have a fun evening. Let’s just get our check and go someplace else.”

  “No!” Wendy leaned forward, voice pitched low. If she left now, she’d be running away, and why on earth should she run? She’d found her resolve in a one-sided dialogue with a toy panda and she was going to keep it. “You were the one who kept telling me I needed to get out and do stuff, Mom. Well, here I am, out with you, having dinner, and I’m not going to split just because an old boyfriend is here with his date.”

  Gina looked unconvinced. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, absolutely.” Wendy smiled, shoveled another spoonful of soup into her mouth and choked it down. “Come on. Talk to me. Tell me about school. Do you still have the same horrid principal, or did the board finally get rid of her?”

  “We have someone new,” Gina said, with obvious reluctance.

  Wendy nodded, asked another question. Her mother answered. The topic was an old one; Wendy knew Gina had been one of the teachers who’d lobbied for a change. If she got her mother talking about it, maybe she’d carry the conversation.

  It took a few minutes, but it worked. Gina was passionate on the subject of giving good teachers administrative support, not dictums, and she got caught up in the topic. Unfortunately, Wendy didn’t. She tried hard, but her attention kept wandering to Seth and the scene playing out at his table. It was like cruising past an accident on the highway. You didn’t want to look but you just couldn’t help it.

  She couldn’t see much of the woman, only her slender back, straight shoulders and long, straight, silky blond hair, the kind that she probably never had to gel or blow-dry into submission. She was undoubtedly pretty, too. Pretty girls had always hung around Seth when they were going together. He was oblivious to his appeal, as if he’d never looked in the mirror and noticed that he was good-looking. He’d been as polite and friendly to the ski bunnies who asked for his help getting up on their feet as he was to the experienced skiers whose bindings seemed to be too loose whenever he was in sight.

  Wendy had teased him unmercifully.

  “Hi, Seth,” she’d say in a simpering whisper. “Could big ol’ you help little ol’ me? Pretty please? I want to do a snowplow. Oh, no, don’t show it to me. Put your arms around me and demonstrate.” Then she’d bat her lashes. “I’ll learn a lot faster that way.”

  Seth would tease her right back. “At least all of that goes on in front of you,” he’d say. “What about all those guys who look at you as if you were a mug of hot soup on a cold day when you’re off skiing in Vail and I’m here in New England?”

  “I don’t have time to flirt,” she’d say with mock indignation. “I spend those days working.”

  “Yeah?” he’d say. “What kind of work?”

  Which would be her cue to give him a come-hither smile and slip her arms around his neck.

  “Not this kind,” she’d purr, and then she’d kiss him, and the teasing would give way to passion.

  The truth was, they’d both had eyes only for each other, right from the beginning. The differences between them—she longed for Olympic gold and he for a quiet life with her—hadn’t mattered. They’d loved each other enough to get past those things.

  “…visit my classroom,” Gina said, “and you’ll see…”

  What Wendy saw was that they’d been too young to realize that it wouldn’t have worked. They were too different. Hadn’t what happened to her proved that? Her dream had destroyed his. One bad fall and their future together had ended.

  Years before, she’d taken the first step toward setting them both free. She’d sent Seth away, and look how well it had worked. He’d moved on, gone from holding down a casual job on a ski slope and tucking in occasional business courses to becoming a skilled craftsman. In a part of her heart, she’d always
known she’d have held him back. Her career would have had to come first, had they married.

  Now he’d found someone to love. A woman who held his attention as she’d once held it.

  “Mom?” Wendy interrupted Gina in midsentence. “What’s her name?”

  Her mother glanced at the other table, looked quickly away and pushed aside her soup bowl.

  “Who?” she said, with an innocent lift of her eyebrows.

  “Mother…”

  Gina sighed. “Joanne. Joanne Cabot. And don’t ask me for details because I don’t know anything more.”

  “What does she do? Does she live in Cooper’s Corner? How long has Seth been seeing her?”

  “She’s a legal secretary. She lives in New Ashford and he’s been seeing her for two or three months.”

  Wendy almost smiled. “You don’t know anything more, huh?”

  “No. Not a thing.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m glad he’s happy.”

  “Are you?”

  “Yes. Why wouldn’t I be? I—I cared for him once, remember?”

  But she wasn’t happy. The ugly truth was that it hurt to see the warmth in his amber eyes as he looked at another woman the same way he’d looked at her that last night they’d been together, when he’d asked her to give up Lillehammer and marry him.

  Seth, she thought, oh, Seth.

  He glanced up as if he’d heard her, and his eyes widened with shock. The woman with him—Joanne—must have noticed because she turned around, looked over her shoulder and saw Wendy.

  Her face drained of color. She pulled her hands free of Seth’s. He said something. She answered. He spoke again and she stiffened.

  Wendy pushed back her chair.

  “Wendy,” Gina said with quiet urgency, “what are you doing?”

  “I’m going over to say hello to Seth and his girlfriend,” Wendy replied calmly.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “It’s the right thing to do, Mother. They just saw me. They’re not happy about it, and that’s silly. There’s no reason for all of us to be uncomfortable. We’re adults.”

  It was a lie. An adult wouldn’t hear her pulse hammering in her ears as she rose to her feet and walked past the fireplace. An adult wouldn’t feel her lips tremble as she smiled.

  But Seth wasn’t smiling. He was glowering, and he stood up just as she got to his table.

  “Hi,” she said brightly. “I just noticed you sitting over here and I thought I’d—”

  “Wendy.” His voice was low. “Your timing’s bad.”

  Wendy’s hard-won smile faded at the edges. “So much for being adult,” she started to say, but Joanne made a strangled sound, shot to her feet and hurried toward the door. Seth snarled an oath, dumped a handful of bills on the table and went after her.

  Wendy could almost hear the silence; she could feel people trying not to stare. She wanted to crawl away, to become invisible. Instead, she walked back toward her mother. Gina was already standing in the aisle with Wendy’s coat in her arms.

  “Go on,” Gina said quietly. “I’ll meet you outside.”

  Wendy nodded, kept her eyes straight ahead and made her way to the door.

  “How was everything?” the hostess asked as she brushed past her.

  “Fine,” she answered. What else could she say? Surely not that she should never have come home, not even for the hope of five minutes alone with Rodney Pommier.

  She stepped out the door into a night that was black as ink and cold as only these hills could be in midwinter. The darkness and the cold were welcome. One wrapped her in blessed anonymity; the other was a balm to her hot-cheeked humiliation. She yearned for her own car so she could escape, but she had to wait for her mother.

  Wendy turned up her collar, put on her gloves and headed around the side of the building, away from people and the bright fairy lights that adorned the door and windows of the restaurant.

  She’d spent half the flight from France to the U.S.A. suffering over how tough it was going to be to face people who’d known her when she was whole, how awful it would be to have them look at her, and know they were pitying her.

  The bittersweet truth was that nothing was as old as yesterday’s fame. Nobody had stared at her…

  Until now.

  She bit back a moan.

  Every eye had been on her. The entire restaurant had watched her embarrassment, watched her endless walk to the door in defeat.

  “Wendy.”

  Her hand flew to her throat. She whirled around and saw Seth stepping out of the shadows.

  Despair, rage, humiliation…a dozen emotions swept through her. Seth was the cause of them all.

  “Get away from me!”

  “Wendy, please. I know you’re upset—”

  “Upset? Why would I be upset? Just because you made me look like a fool?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I don’t give a damn if you’re sorry or not.”

  Seth’s hands clamped onto her shoulders. He stepped around her and planted himself in her path.

  “Grow up,” he said roughly. “You’re the one who came to my table. You’re the one who caused a difficult situation to get worse.”

  “What I did was grown-up. You behaved like a—a spoiled child.”

  Seth’s hands tightened on her. “I knew you were there.”

  “That’s why I went to your table. I just wanted—”

  “From the minute you walked into the restaurant and all through dinner, I sensed you. Damn it, don’t look at me that way. Is it so crazy to think I wouldn’t know you were near me?” His mouth thinned. “But I concentrated on Jo. It was the right thing to do.”

  “How nice for you both,” Wendy said with a polite smile. “Now, please, get out of my way.”

  “I didn’t dare look at you. I knew I’d never stop looking, once our eyes met.”

  “You know what, Seth? There are names for a man who takes one woman to dinner and—and comes on to another.” Wendy peered past him. “Where’s your girlfriend? What excuse did you give for leaving her in your truck while you came after me?”

  “Jo left. She came in her own car.”

  “Well, be sure and tell her I didn’t mean to upset her and that she doesn’t have to run when she sees me. The field’s clear. It has been for a long time.”

  “Damn it, Wendy!” Seth’s eyes were dark with anger. “Will you listen to me?” He took a deep breath. “The reason I was less than gracious when you showed up was because of Jo.”

  “Really?” Wendy said sweetly.

  “She’s a wonderful woman.”

  “Terrific.”

  “She’s kind and generous and—”

  “And she loves animals. You know what, Seth? I’m not very interested in a rundown on her character.”

  “She cares for me. A lot. And…” He took a breath. “And I just broke up with her.”

  “That’s too damned…” Wendy’s eyes widened. “You what?”

  Seth let go of her and ran his hands through his hair, something she recalled him doing whenever he was upset.

  “That’s what you walked in on,” he said grimly, “me taking half the meal to work up enough courage to tell her so long, stay well, it’s been nice but it’s over. I’d gotten just past that point when you came along.”

  Wendy sagged back against the brick wall. A spurt of elation swept through her, followed quickly by the knowledge that it was wrong to feel anything but compassion for a woman she didn’t know and a man who’d once been her lover.

  “I’m sorry. I had no idea…”

  “She wanted…she wanted more commitment than I could give. She deserves better than that. It had become an issue and we’d been drifting apart.” It was close enough to the truth. Seth wasn’t sure what had gone wrong; he only knew that saying any more would be saying too much. “And then I got to the worst part, where I told Jo that I thought it would be best if we stopped seeing each other. I looked up and ther
e you were, big as life, standing next to the table.”

  “Seth.” Wendy put her hand on his sleeve. “I’m so sorry. I just wanted to do the right thing. I mean, I saw you and—and Joanne, and I thought about how we’d probably keep tripping over each other and that I couldn’t run away each time….”

  She stopped, caught her breath as she realized what she was saying, how much she was saying, but it didn’t matter. Seth hadn’t been listening. He was looking at her in a way that made her heartbeat quicken.

  “Nine years,” he said. “Nine long, endless years you stayed out of my life, and all of a sudden, here you are.”

  “I came back to Cooper’s Corner, not to you.”

  “Every time I turn around, you’re there.”

  “Every time you turn around?” Wendy’s chin came up. “Don’t think you can lay this on me! I didn’t come bursting into your house. I didn’t follow you to the Burger Barn. And tonight, when I tried to do the…the polite thing—”

  “Aren’t you going to ask me what Jo said when I told her we weren’t going to see each other anymore?”

  “I am not! Frankly, I don’t much—”

  “She said, `Is it because of Wendy Monroe? Is it because she’s back and you never got over her?’“

  “I hope you told her the truth. I’d hate to think you used me as an excuse to break up with the woman.”

  Seth closed his hands around her wrists. “You are some piece of work, you know that?”

  “Let go.”

  “You think you’re the only one whose world turned upside down when you took that fall? I’ve got news for you, lady. My world took a pretty bad hit, too, but you never gave a damn about that.”

  “Okay. That’s enough. I don’t have to stand here and listen to this garbage!”

  Wendy pulled free and started toward the restaurant. Seth went after her, caught her arm and turned her toward him.

  “You want to get on with your life? Well, so do I. But I can’t. And if you’re honest, you’ll admit that you can’t, either.” He moved closer to her, his shoulders blocking out the night, this man who had once been her lover but who had become a stranger. “That’s what I told Jo. I said I didn’t know what in hell I felt for you, but my life has to be on hold until I find out.”