BILLIONAIRE FOR KEEPS: Book 3 (Point St. Claire, where true love finds a way)

by Robyn Grady

  He had to.

  When her dad had phoned earlier and asked whether she might like to come keep him company, she’d gotten herself together and had driven straight over. With Griffin away on business―knowing she should tell him in person which meant at last a couple more days of holding it in―Vanessa decided she could use the distraction.

  Now sheets of paper rustled as Ronan put down his work again. “I can imagine you two together. Being happy with a family.”

  Vanessa set her father straight before she’d thought. “Griffin hasn’t asked me to marry him, dad.”

  “Oh, but I think he will.”

  Vanessa withered in her seat. “Please don’t tell me you’ve been getting in his ear.”

  “Not about wedding bells,” Ronan said, and then hurried on. “But, it’d sure be a load off my mind to know that when I go, you and the company would be in capable hands.”

  Vanessa studied her father’s face, the slight hunch to his shoulders in his favorite weekend sweater. “Have you thought about cutting back your hours at the office? Could be an idea.”

  “I’m fine, honey. Just thinking about the future. A man can’t live forever. I’d love for you to be settled when I go.”

  Vanessa heaved out a sigh.

  Talk about pressure.

  *

  The following Wednesday, Griffin was back from his business trip. He’d picked Vanessa up and had whisked her away to a favorite spot―their bar in Kevin Square.

  Griffin didn’t know it yet, but they had something big to discuss. She wanted to ease into it, so first they talked about his next auction evening, which charity he should sponsor. That led to discussion over how to help America’s homeless. The statistics were horrifying and only going up. That conversation rolled into families not having enough to eat, so many children being sent to school without breakfast.

  And there they were eating lobster rolls.

  Pushing her plate aside, Vanessa brought up a subject that would lead into the grand finale. Her father was so keen to see them together. She wouldn’t put it past him.

  “Did my father have anything to do with you asking me out that first night?”

  A glass halfway to his mouth, Griffin stopped. “Are you serious?”

  “I saw Dad on Sunday.” She smiled, remembering the latter part of the day. “He showed me a new model boat. Really took me back.”

  “I wonder who I would have become if I’d had a regular dad. Someone who actually gave a damn.”

  “Your mom…she was good to you, wasn’t she?”

  “I was angry with her a lot when I was young. I told you my dad drank. Actually, he guzzled. People say man and wife should move heaven and hell to keep a family together. I think if it doesn’t work, if one person can’t commit to giving it his all, don’t go there in the first place.”

  She let that sink in. “You wish your mom and dad had never married?”

  “Would’ve saved everyone a lot of tears and trouble. After ten years of putdowns and hangovers, he told me that fine summer day before he left…he actually said the words, You’re better off without me. Better off without your deadbeat dad. It was an excuse so he could keep drinking himself all the way to stupor heaven.” Griffin downed the rest of his club soda. “That man should never have been a parent.”

  “What about you?”

  His expression gradually softened and then he smiled. “Guess it’s something we should take about.”

  She exhaled. The sooner the better.

  “I’m not ready to be a father,” he said. “I’m not saying never. But neither of us need that kind of pressure right now, am I right?”

  Not the response she’d been hoping for. “Guess that’s kinda what your father told your mom when they got pregnant.”

  “Maybe.” His jaw clenched as he studied that empty glass. “I wish she’d never told him. I wish she’d decided to do it on her own. That I’d never known him.”

  “You don’t really mean that.” There must have been something good come out of the relationship.

  “Doesn’t matter. What’s done is done.”

  “Do you still blame your mother?”

  He raised a hand for the check. “I forgave her a long time ago.”

  “But you don’t see her much.”

  “She understands. I’m busy.”

  Or was his mom a trigger that made him remember too much? “Have you ever thought she might blame herself?”

  “I know that she does. If she had her time over, she wouldn’t tell Stanley he was going to be a dad. He wasn’t ready. Never would be.”

  His earlier words about himself echoed in her ears.

  Still, Griffin had never confided in her this much before. It made her feel even closer to him. But he hadn’t answered her earlier question, so she asked again.

  “Did you send that saddle, ask me out, because you knew Dad wanted you to?”

  “Ronan knew we’d be good together.”

  She thought that sentence through. “What do you mean he knew?”

  Griffin hesitated, seemed to struggle for a second. “After the auction, Ronan and I met at another function. He said that he could see us together.”

  She’d get a direct answer if she had to ask a dozen different ways. “So, did he ask you to contact me?”

  “He didn’t have to.”

  “Because it was obvious that’s what he wanted?”

  “Because I wanted to. And I’m not sorry we went out that night. One of the best nights of my life.”

  As he leaned closer to steal a kiss, Vanessa turned her face away. This was important. She couldn’t tell him about the baby until she had this straight.

  “So, the timeline―”

  Griffin coughed out a laugh. “You weren’t set up, Nessa, if that’s what this is about.”

  Vanessa stiffened. She didn’t need to be patronized. She was the child of a very successful man. She knew how deals were made. Personal deals as well as business.

  “I know that nothing would make my father happier than to see us together. Bonus points because the company stays in the family.” With brilliant new son-in-law in charge. “And you get Toomey Constructions, like you’ve said you always wanted.”

  She was running off at the mouth now, but now the possibility was all too obvious to ignore.

  A pulse was beating double time in his jaw. “Ronan and I never had that conversation.”

  “You didn’t need to. You just set the ball rolling.”

  “That’s not how it happened.” He leaned close again, tried on that lazy sexy smile. “You know how I feel about you.”

  She thought she had. Now she wasn’t so sure. It had all happened so unbelievably fast.

  But this conversation had run its course. Better leave now before things were said that couldn’t be unsaid.

  She grabbed her coat. “We need to go.”

  “We’re talking.”

  “Not anymore.”

  She wanted to believe Griffin was being one hundred per cent truthful. But her gut wasn’t so sure. There was nothing was worse than being played for a fool, especially where romance was concerned.

  As for telling him about the baby?

  So not the time.

  *

  That Friday afternoon, Vanessa couldn’t stand the pressure any longer. She called Jace into the VeeTee boardroom, pulled pastries from the fridge and called an emergency meeting.

  She needed to spill.

  For the next hour, Jace learned all there was to know about her friend’s love affair with Griffin Hayes. All the highs, all the doubts. One thing was still too personal to divulge. Vanessa kept news of the pregnancy to herself.

  “Do I sound paranoid?” she asked. “But it happened so fast. It all seemed so perfect. Looking back now, too perfect.”

  “You’re definitely edgy, but not without reason. If it’s too good to be true, it usually is.” Taking the last apple and custard slice, Jace decided, “You need to do some dig
ging.”

  “What kind of digging?”

  “For information. You want to either prove or disprove that your dad and Griffin conspired to have you fall in love. Motives? Your father would feel more secure over your future happiness, the company would stay in the family, and Griffin Hayes would fulfil his lifelong dream of controlling Toomey Constructions.”

  Vanessa nodded. That was it in a nutshell.

  “Start with your Dad.” Jace went on, licking her fingers. “Texts are always good.”

  Vanessa went around straight after work.

  Her father was usually home by seven. But Wendy said he was out of town for a couple of days. Just so happened that Griffin was out of town again, too.

  When Wendy offered her some dinner, Vanessa passed. After her meeting with Jace and all those pastries, she seriously wasn’t hungry. What she did want was answers.

  So she went to her father’s home office, shut the door. She looked through the papers on his desk (nothing surprising), checked the ancient answering machine (nothing of any value). After sorting through his filing cabinet, Vanessa was feeling more than slightly ashamed.

  Falling into her father’s chair, she closed her eyes. She’d been so tired lately. Common with early pregnancy. Mood swings were, too. If her mother were alive, she’d have reassured her, and shared, too, all the secrets and blessings that lay ahead.

  Her mom would definitely not have approved of her adult daughter snooping around like this. And for all her trouble, she’d found precisely nothing, which was fine.

  Which was good.

  Vanessa was pushing up out of the high-backed chair when a receipt from Novelty Everything for a model boat caught her eye again. She was so glad she and her dad still shared that connection. She realized now that the receipt was one of two stapled together. Ronan usually concentrated on one boat at a time.

  She flipped the top receipt over.

  Not for a second boat at all. Her father had made payment for something else entirely.

  A bedazzled blue saddle. The caption for the product line read:

  When you need to impress.

  Chapter 7

  The Present, Boston.

  On the day of her father’s funeral, sitting in a packed chapel and dressed in something black, Vanessa’s mind was dark and heavy, stuck in a fog.

  There’d been the pronouncement at the hospital, followed by a blur of arrangements that hadn’t seemed in any way real. A week after Ronan’s fatal cardiac arrest and she still couldn’t get her head around the inescapable truth.

  She would never see her father again. Or hear his laugh. Or feel his warmth.

  As of now, she and the baby she carried were all the family they had.

  As projected images of her father, from childhood on through, clicked over on a screen behind the polished casket and waterfalls of flowers, the minister spoke about a person who had won the hearts and loyalty of many. Ronan the devoted family man. Toomey the business magnate.

  Vanessa closed her eyes and let silent tears slip down her cheeks.

  Life had changed after her mother passed away. When Vanessa had come home during breaks from boarding school, her dad would apologize for spending so much time at the office. During college, she had Christmas and some spring and summer break time with her Dad, but by that time, most vacations were spent with doing crazy stuff with her friends. She’d thought then that maybe growing up had meant growing apart.

  But when she’d set up her own business, father and daughter had found each other again. Ronan was happy to give advice on business structure and financial projections and handling staff. He’d even started talking about the future in family terms again, like walking her down the aisle one day, about being a grandpa and giving up eighteen hour days for good.

  Sometimes he had looked so tired. So ready to put his feet up for a change. Maybe even find a companion to share thoughts and travel with. He’d always wanted to try his luck fishing in the Umba River. Every year he’d let her know: Russia’s Kola Peninsular, and its Atlantic salmon, were supposed to be spectacular in the spring.

  Then Griffin had appeared back in her life, like a white knight dream, like the icing on her cake, and for the first time she was truly able to move past the tragedy of her mother’s early death. She’d begun to think about ‘forever’.

  But bit by bit the icing had soured.

  Then one day the dream had turned dark.

  Now, as the funeral service came to a close, the minister let those gathered know that refreshments would be served in an adjoining room. Vanessa gathered herself, pushed up onto shaky legs and put her mind to allowing mourners pay their respects to Ronan Toomey’s daughter. His only child.

  Vanessa’s college buddies stuck close by. Friends from boarding school days stayed, too, lending support. Jace had stayed glued to her side throughout the entire ordeal.

  It was Jace now who sent up the alarm.

  “Honey, Griffin Hayes is on his way over.” Silver bangles tinkled as Jace purposefully pushed back her chair and got to her feet. Five foot two of formidable female. “I’ll head him off.”

  Vanessa glanced up from her cup of cold tea. Jace knew all about her affair with Griffin. All the whirlwind ups and downs, including the deal breaker that had brought it all crashing down.

  And yet now, with Griffin slicing though the crowd, his concerned gaze stormy and fixed on hers…Vanessa’s heart fluttered and her core squeezed tight.

  How crazy was that? How flat out annoying and wrong?

  “Is there anything I can do?” Griffin asked, casting a shadow as he stopped at one side of her chair.

  Vanessa pushed her cold cup away. “It’s all over.”

  A pulse in his shadowed jaw flexed as he assessed the thinning crowd. “I’ll drive you home.”

  Vanessa’s hand fisted on the tabletop but she kept her voice even. As entitled as ever. But this was no place for a scene. “I can manage.”

  “We need to talk.”

  “Not today.”

  “You need to know about a section of your father’s will.”

  Her fist clenched more. “Do you think I care what Dad bequeathed you or anyone else? That was his business, not mine.”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  “It really is.”

  He crouched beside her, covered that clenched hand with his as he spoke against her burning ear. “Please, Nessa…come with me now.”

  Her stomach looped and knotted. Fresh tears welled and stung her eyes. But she didn’t move. Wouldn’t give in. When would Griffin understand? He’d dealt his best hand but it―this―they were over.

  After a tense drawn-out moment, he pushed to his feet, strode away, dabbing his brow with one of his monogrammed handkerchiefs as he filed out the door.

  Boston’s most eligible bachelor. The man who had shattered her heart.

  Time healed all wounds. In a few months time, she wouldn’t feel as bad. Life wouldn’t feel so empty. But right now…

  She only wanted to curl up and die.

  A week later, Vanessa learned what Griffin had wanted to tell her so badly the day of her father’s funeral. She didn’t cry. She was so angry, felt so betrayed, she didn’t think she would ever cry again.

  Chapter 8

  Welcome to Point St. Claire!

  As the sign came into view, Vanessa told herself to stay calm. Stay numb. She wasn’t here to reminisce. To feel sorry for herself.

  She hadn’t come to mourn.

  Her mission was more important than that.

  Since finding out via her father’s attorney that Toomey Constructions was signed over, sold to Griffin, the day of Ronan’s fatal heart attack, she had been moping around at home, at the office, unable to concentrate, not wanting to eat or talk or forgive.

  The remedy?

  Do something about it, sooner rather than later. Point St. Claire was the key.

  As she drove toward the town center, she focused on her plan. First, a place
to stay. And not just any place.

  Before setting off that morning, she hadn’t phoned ahead. She wouldn’t give herself the opportunity to back out if the cottage from her childhood wasn’t available. She was a minute away from finding out.

  As she walked into the realty office, the entry door tinkled, and Vanessa hesitated. The sound took her back, way back to a morning when she and her dad had gone to a store and the first domino leading up to this point had fallen. A woman stood behind the realty counter, a welcoming smile, no accusations in her eyes.

  “I’d like to rent a cottage,” Vanessa said.

  “We have some gorgeous places right in town―”

  “By the lake.” Tight smile. “Thanks.” Vanessa gave an address. “Is it available?”

  The woman, Emma Bagwell her name badge said, tapped on a laptop keyboard, narrowed her eyes on the screen and nodded. “It’s free. Has been for a good while, actually.”

  As Emma saw to rental agreements and deposits and such, Vanessa caught a movement out the corner of her eye. Another woman stood in a doorway that led to the back of the building. Extraordinarily pretty with long brunette hair and an inquisitive, thoughtful expression.

  Emma Bagwell handed the keys over. “Do you need directions?”

  “I’ve been here before.” Vanessa tipped closer. “And if anyone should ask…”

  Emma held up both palms. “We never met.”

  *

  The cottage hadn’t changed. Not a bit, which was eerie. She felt as if she were that girl again, being carried in through the front door.

  Every stick of furniture was in the exact same place. The same rug was laid out before the same twin sofas. The same fireplace and pokers and grill. Closing her eyes, Vanessa inhaled. It even smelled like the past, not exactly musty, but…locked away.

  She opened her eyes, glanced around. In a corner, she saw herself as a first grader playing with oversized memory cards. There were pictures of animals…a big blue friendly bear, a racoon with a round googly eyes.

  A door clicked shut behind her and she swung around.

  No one was there. Not in the here and now. But she still saw her father walk over to that younger Nessa and ask if she wanted to go play on the beach in a while.