Under the Millionaire's Influence

by Catherine Mann

  “Why don’t you go to bed then? I have to stay up with the baby till she nurses again.” She tickled her wide-awake daughter’s toes as little Libby grinned in the swing. “But that doesn’t mean you have to miss out on sleep, too. Catch an extra hour for me.”

  Starr shook her head. “I’m too wired.”

  “From your trip or from work this evening?”

  From making love in the attic, but she didn’t feel like sharing that intensely intimate moment with her sister. As a matter of fact, a big part of the restlessness stemmed from feeling raw after all the sharing with David.

  No wonder he was distant so much of the time. He’d had precious few examples of how to be affectionate. Only a smothering mother—who wanted any part of that—and an emotionally sterile father. For so long she’d demanded that he give her more of himself and he’d been offering her everything he had to give.

  She swiped her hand under her nose and glued another ticket to the memory book, mounting it on a decorative movie-strip paper.

  Claire reached across the kitchen table. “What’s that you’re working on? Something new for the gift shop?”

  “No, this is for me. I’m making a memory book.”

  “It’s about time you did one of those for yourself. The one you started for baby Libby is gorgeous. You have such a great eye for colors. I’m envious of how you put those together.”

  Starr snorted in disbelief. “You’re so organized I would think you’d be great at these.”

  “Oh, I have my photos in boxes, filed by date, but when it comes to the cutting and the arranging, that’s beyond me.”

  “I imagine we have skills that match up, which is why we make good business partners.” Starr sifted through the photos, searching for just the right one to center on the next page, finally settling on one of her and David sitting together in front of a bonfire. “I was talking to David about how Aunt Libby had a real gift for helping us find our strengths. God, I couldn’t believe how lucky I was to have landed here.”

  The photo called to her to linger. She traced her finger over the two of them, so young, so long ago. David had his lanky arms looped around her as she grinned. Only now did she realize how few photos captured him smiling.

  Claire’s voice slowly pierced her reminiscent fog….

  “I loved Aunt Libby, make no mistake about it. That dear woman mothered me from the time I was six. But in those early years, after I got past the aching for my own teenage mama—as unfit as she may have been—I yearned for a family. The fact that my own biological mother refused to sign away her parental rights was a mixed blessing. I never had abandonment issues, but I never could be set free, either. I was terrified of losing control of my environment. It took me long time—and a stubborn man—to share control with him and make this family of my own I wanted so desperately.”

  Where was Claire going with this? Claire always had a reason for her rambles, so Starr settled back and waited for the moral.

  “When it came to abandonment, Ashley had it in spades. Her birth parents didn’t want the financial obligations of her birth defects.” Her hand grazed over her own infant’s head as if to recheck the baby’s health. “And neither did adoptive parents. At least as a ward of the state she had most everything fixed, God love our precious little sister.”

  A little sister whose willowy stature towered over both of her shorter older sisters now.

  Starr couldn’t help but think of her own trust issues and imagine how much more difficult it would have been had she been in Ashley’s shoes. “It’s going to be hard for her to trust enough to fall in love.”

  Claire pierced her with a pointed stare, staying silent.

  Starr fidgeted in her seat, suddenly uncomfortable with all those pictures. She smacked the memory book closed. “Now that you’ve covered your past and Ashley’s, I assume you want me to sort through my own non-adoptive issues.”

  Still, her sister stayed diplomatically silent, lifting her baby from the swing and settling her on her lap to nurse. Did Claire realize how lucky she was to have found such peace with her big hunk of a husband and the sweet baby? Even thinking about that kind of normalcy felt unattainable, larger than life somehow, swelling frustrated feelings inside Starr until she snapped.

  “Fine.” She shoved the memory book away. “Okay, my family would have sold me for a piece of pizza and that has left me with unresolved issues when it comes to relationships.”

  And just that fast, stalwart Claire’s smile faltered, her eyes welling until two tears spilled over down her cheeks. “That should tell you what complete and total idiots they are because you are the most amazing and unique individual I have ever met.”

  “Thank you.” Starr’s eyes started to sting, as well, and she reached across the table to clasp her sister’s hand. “I love you, too. So what does all of this have to do with why I’m still single?”

  “Think back, sweetie. Make a memory book in your mind and let yourself remember. Couples wanted to adopt you, regardless of your age. You were cute as could be, so dynamic, everyone saw you. You draw people in, always have.” Her smile returned with a nose scrunch as she shook her head. “And yet, you always sabotaged it at the last minute by doing something awful to the couple to scare them away. Why do you think that was?”

  Starr shoved her chair away and made tracks for the industrial-size refrigerator. Opening it, she searched. Where was a good hunk of chocolate when a girl needed it? “Well, it wasn’t because I was holding out hope of going back to hawking encyclopedias door-to-door.”

  “Starr, I’m being serious here. This is important. Really important.” Her voice chastised until Starr finally turned around with a slice of cheesecake in a napkin clasped in her hand.

  Starr made her way back to the table and stuffed an oversize bite in her mouth so she wouldn’t have to answer the increasingly uncomfortable questions.

  “You probably realize the truth of why you sabotaged everything, at least subconsciously, and that’s why you’re avoiding answering. You’ve been avoiding this for a long time.”

  Chewing, Starr let the words shuffle around in her head until they settled like the photos in her memory book, finding the right background and framing. And in a beautiful rightness, it all made sense. “I didn’t want to leave David.”

  Claire sighed. “Of course you didn’t.”

  Her sister made it sound so simple, yet it had taken ten years to work out. “I thought I was the bartender who dispensed wise advice.”

  “I’ve been subbing for you enough to get the gist of how it goes.”

  “You’re damn good.” Better than she’d given her credit for. Why hadn’t she taken the time to listen before?

  Because she hadn’t been ready to listen.

  Claire stroked a hand over her child’s head and smiled indulgently at her younger sister. “Maybe I can sub at the bar for you while you’re on your honeymoon.”

  Honeymoon? Panic twisted Starr’s gut tighter than her fist working the last remnants from a tube of paint. Honeymoons came after a wedding. A wedding came after declarations of love.

  Love. The word settled in her mind with the greatest sense of rightness of all, providing the perfect framework for all the snapshots of her and David together. How could she have looked at them in any other light? Of course she loved him—with everything inside her.

  But thanks to her abandonment issues bred from a childhood of neglect, she’d been afraid this man who traveled the world would one day never return to her. Yet, he’d proved to her over the past ten years that even without her giving him the least encouragement, he’d stayed steadfast. He might be a hardheaded man, but he was her man, with issues of his own.

  And even as a part of her started to make plans to claim him as her own, she couldn’t help but stare out the window at the trio of RVs parked along the beach. Shame prickled over her. What did they want? A rogue thought she’d never considered swept over her as she allowed herself to consider a life wit
h David for the first time.

  If she surrendered to her feelings for David, would that put him in the Ciminos’ crosshairs forever?

  Eleven

  P arked in the stifling library with his mother, David couldn’t help but see the room through Starr’s eyes, envisioning the room with light and—what had she said?—white shutters and sheers. She’d also wanted to clear the place of clutter.

  That struck him most of all. Clear the clutter. His gaze stopped dead on the mantel and piano filled with photographs—stilted, posed portraits. Not to mention the mammoth posed oil portrait over the fireplace. Nowhere could he find the kind of laughter ever-present in snapshots taken by Libby Sullivan.

  For probably the first time in his adult life, he let himself speak first without thinking. “Mother, why did you put up with Dad’s crap for all those years?”

  His mother froze, her teacup halfway to her mouth. Three blinks later, she placed her china cup back on the saucer with exaggerated care. “I’m not sure what you mean, dear.”

  He’d had enough of the denial. Sitting here in this stifling room, he couldn’t help but wonder if he’d used his only-child status as an excuse to be a loner all these years. It was far easier than putting himself on the line in a conversation like this. It was certainly easier than risking getting his heart stomped by Starr.

  Except now the danger of losing her outweighed anything else.

  “You know exactly what I’m talking about.” Something niggled in his brain right now, a reason why he needed to figure this out. “Mother, I deal with people telling falsehoods all the time in my job. It may not be the profession you would have chosen for me, but I’m damn good at it, good enough to wave the BS flag here. No disrespect meant, but you called me home. If you want something from me, the least you can do is be straight-up honest.”

  His mother turned the cup around and around on the saucer, a nervous twitch of hers. “Your father wasn’t an overly demonstrative man. That simply wasn’t his way. It doesn’t mean he didn’t love his family.”

  Enough already. “The only time he touched me was to pose for a photo or to backhand me. There’s not much affection between us to build a relationship.”

  Lips pressed thin, she folded her hands in her lap. “You never met your grandfather. Your father came a long way from how he was brought up.”

  “That might explain things, but it doesn’t excuse them.”

  “Or why I didn’t step in?”

  He stayed silent. He hadn’t been headed in that direction with this conversation, yet he couldn’t bring himself to redirect the path.

  “I did what I thought was right, son. I did what I thought would keep this kind of life for you. You have no idea what it’s like to grow up with people looking down their nose at you because you don’t have money.”

  His mother’s family had all died before he was old enough to meet them. He’d known they didn’t have much money, but she hadn’t mentioned any great hardship. “If you know how it feels to be poor, why do you treat Starr and all the girls next door like pond scum?”

  “Because I want you to keep the stature I’ve worked hard for you to gain.” An edge of panic laced her tone. “I don’t want your bloodline to backslide.”

  “Whoa, back this up.” His brain went into overload with all the info she tossed his way in a few short sentences. “I thought you disapproved because some of the girls had rough pasts with illegal activities. Not because of some ridiculous bloodline issue that doesn’t even matter.”

  “That’s easy enough for you to say since you’ve never had to prove yourself.”

  Her spine straightened and she smoothed her hands over her completely wrinkle-free powder-blue dress. He couldn’t remember a time he’d seen his mother anything but perfectly groomed, gray-blond hair turned under at the chin.

  All of the things spouting from his mother’s mouth should have made her more sympathetic to the girls next door and instead she’d hardened her heart. Money versus bloodline? David didn’t much like the new image of his mother forming in his mind. And he definitely didn’t like the notion that this image was far from complete.

  He shoved up from his seat, turning his back on his mother long enough to rein in his anger. “Starr is a part of my life.” He cupped a family picture of the three of them and wondered what kind of family photo Starr would envision. They’d never even discussed children before. He hadn’t given her much to hang her dreams on, a mistake on his part, one he could see now he needed to rectify.

  Setting the framed picture facedown, David pivoted to face his mother. “Where she and I take the relationship next is up to her, but I will not push her away just because you don’t approve of her DNA.”

  His mother shoved to her feet, quickly, with none of the frail shaking she’d displayed in the past few days. “Have you seen her parents? Her aunts and uncles and their schemes? What if they get a piece of that property? I’ve heard them talking, you know.”

  She made her way across the hardwood floor with a rapid click, click, click of her heels, her face flushed with anger rather than inflated blood pressure. “They want a share in that restaurant. They could be here permanently and then all our property values will drop. They don’t care how they make it happen. These are the sort of people she comes from. Time will tell. Blood will tell. Just you wait and see.”

  “If it’s the truth that blood will tell, then things do not bode well for me, Mother, given the way you’ve treated Starr.”

  She snapped. “How dare you.”

  Her rambling speech shuffled around in his head with niggling persistence, but he was close; his instincts insisted that if he continued to push, it would all make sense. “I dare much. I am your son, after all, your blood, Father’s blood, and apparently I have your strength when it comes to standing by my decision. The difference is my decision isn’t to protect a piece of property. I’m protecting a person. The only person who matters to me right now.”

  His mother raised a shaking hand and for a moment he actually thought she planned to hit him—until she pointed out the window. “Look at them. Look. You have to see. I thought that if you really looked at them…”

  The truth hit him with far more power than any hand. His mother’s sudden illness that had vanished. Her insistence he come home. The puzzle pieces fell into a picture he wished he didn’t have to acknowledge. “You brought them here.”

  Her shaking stilled. His mother’s arm lowered and she clasped her hands in front of herself in a white-knuckled clench. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You called Starr’s family here and then summoned me home. You set up this whole volatile meeting.”

  She tipped her chin. “So what if I did? There’s nothing illegal in that. You’ve been mooning over that girl for more than ten years. It’s kept you from finding a nice young woman to settle down with and give me grandchildren. What’s wrong with an old woman wanting grandbabies to hold before she dies?”

  “You’re nowhere near death, Mother, but if you’re that lonely, I believe the time has come for you to consider moving to an assisted-living facility. You have begun wandering and falling under the influence of people of bad repute. I can’t watch over you 24/7.”

  Panic laced her blue eyes. “Then we will hire someone to move in here permanently.”

  “Someone you can sway over to your side and manipulate. I think you misunderstand. There’s not a decision to be made.”

  “You’re not asking me?” She blinked back the tears.

  He couldn’t allow her to stay here, not when she had this obvious wish to rain heartache on Starr’s head. No matter what happened between him and Starr, he would protect her. “Mother, we can make this transition with grace and dignity, or we can do this in a way that hurts us both.”

  “You own the house. You’re not leaving me any choice.” She tipped her head with the regality of a deposed queen. All her tears disappeared in a snap.

  He wasn’t
sending her into exile, for heaven’s sake, just someplace nearby with her friends where doctors and nurses could keep a better watch over her health.

  “I won’t send you far away to a hovel. You are my mother and you will see me just as often as you do now. But I will not allow you to hurt Starr.” He closed the six feet between them and rested a hand on her shoulder. “And Mother, I will not allow you to hurt yourself through a vendetta that eats you alive.”

  “I’m not a bad person. I didn’t do such a terrible job bringing you up, after all.”

  “That’s neither here nor there. So we have come to an agreement?” He gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze before stepping back. “One thing boggles my mind though, Mother. Why go to all this trouble? Starr and I resolved long ago we’re not right for each other—for reasons totally different than yours of course. Why try to break us up when we aren’t a couple?”

  “Oh, my son, are you truly that self-unaware?”

  He stared, unblinking.

  “You’ve been obsessed with this girl since she pulled up in the driveway seventeen years ago, long before you even started dating. I don’t know what kind of hold she has over you. Maybe it has something to with how these people are able to pull off such unbelievable scams—”

  “Mother…” he growled.

  She waved a hand in the air. “Whatever. The two of you play at this game and it doesn’t seem to make you happy. I only want my son to be happy.”

  “Do you think being manipulated by my mother makes me happy? Do you think being mortified by her family has made Starr happy?” He thought of her tears in the attic, her tears for him. He’d been a fool for leaving her behind all these years. She deserved better than she’d gotten from the people in his house. “I stand by my statement. Life moves on and it’s time for us to make some adjustments. If you truly want those grandchildren, there’s only one woman who will be their mom.”

  He’d made his point and she could accept it or not, he wasn’t backing down. But since he’d won his point, he felt compelled to let her know something he’d perhaps forgotten to say often enough. He leaned to kiss her cheek. “I do love you.”