Not that she expected to hear from him so soon.
But there had been a real connection between them. She knew he would call.
Maybe tomorrow.
Definitely by the day after...
Chapter Two
Roman didn’t get in touch with Hailey.
Not the next day, Tuesday. Not Wednesday, either.
He’d decided not to call. It seemed the wisest course now that he’d had a little time to consider the ramifications of getting involved with someone.
He needed to focus on raising his son and getting some new projects off the ground. And he needed not to get involved with a woman.
By Wednesday night, he was way too aware that at this point, she had to be annoyed with him for taking her number and then giving her nothing but radio silence.
He found himself thinking of her constantly, and that somehow made him even more reluctant to call. The last thing he needed was a woman he couldn’t stop thinking about. Right now, a casual hookup was about the level of commitment he was ready for. He ought to be trolling Tinder or Casualx, not trying to get to know a former classmate’s kid sister.
It was just that he liked her way too much already. That had him feeling at a disadvantage. After all, he’d been completely gone on his first wife, Charlene. He fell for her so hard and deep. He’d declared his love for her early. And often.
She’d sworn she loved him, too.
For a little while. But then she’d shown her true colors.
A year into their marriage, she laughed in his face for being such a fool. She said straight out that she thought love was a crock and what she liked the most about him was his money.
She’d gotten what she loved, taking a big chunk of change off him when they split up. At least it was early in his success. She didn’t get as much as she might have if she’d married him a little later or stayed with him longer.
And then there was Nina, his second wife. With Nina, love hadn’t entered into it. He’d married her because she was pregnant with Theo. She’d died in a car wreck—just Nina, her new sports car and the date palm she veered off the road and hit head-on. Theo was a month old at the time. At least she’d left his son at home with the nanny when she decided to get behind the wheel drunk.
Bottom line, he had personal baggage to spare and it just wasn’t a good idea to go out with a woman he liked too much. The next time he saw Hailey—if he saw Hailey—he would have to confess that he was a two-time loser as a husband, a two-time loser with an eleven-month-old son.
She also deserved to know that he was the new owner of her precious theater—and that his plans for the historic building did not in any way dovetail with hers.
He should have told her all that up front. But he hadn’t.
So now, he was putting off calling her because he was way too attracted to her and he felt guilty for keeping her in the dark about the theater and his sucky track record with relationships.
Thursday morning when he came down to breakfast, his mother was standing at the stove and Theo was in his high chair eating Cheerios and mandarin orange slices off the tray.
“Da-da-da-da!” Theo cried at the sight of him. Roman grinned. For at least a few seconds, he forgot about the woman he shouldn’t like so much. He focused on Theo and his big, happy smile.
At this point in his life, Theo had no real concept of the mother he’d lost. He had a grandmother and a father who doted on him. For now, that seemed to be enough.
Roman bent to drop a kiss on his fat, sticky cheek. “Hey, big guy. How’s it hanging?”
“Gwat.” Theo grabbed a mandarin slice in his gooey little fist and offered it to Roman.
He took it and popped it into his mouth. “Yum. Thanks, Theo.”
“Ma-wa-da,” Theo replied.
“Eggs and bacon?” asked Roman’s mother from over at the stove she loved. It was a chef’s dream, stainless steel with giant dials and more than one oven. The one in the Summerlin house he’d bought for her had been even bigger, with even more features. She claimed this one was better, and he knew why—because this one resided in Valentine Bay.
Sasha Marek had not only raised him all on her own right here in Valentine Bay, working as a maid and housekeeper, she’d also recently agreed to move in with him and help him take care of Theo—on one condition: that they leave Las Vegas behind and return to Valentine Bay. Sasha had never liked living in Vegas. To her, Valentine Bay was the only place to be and she wanted her grandchild to grow up here.
He said yes to the eggs and bacon, brewed himself a cup of coffee and sat at the table next to Theo’s chair. The little guy kept holding out soggy Cheerios. Roman ate them automatically, straight from Theo’s chubby little hand, sipping coffee between bites, staring through the giant windows that looked out on the deck and the wind-twisted trees, with the cloudy morning sky and the blue Pacific beyond.
Sasha slid the plate of fluffy eggs and crispy bacon in front of him. “What’s going on with you?”
“Not a thing.” He smoothed a napkin in his lap and picked up his fork.
She scoffed. “You think a mother doesn’t know when her son is lying to her?”
He ate a bite of eggs and refused to answer. The question was rhetorical anyway. His mother was a wonderful woman, but at times, she displayed definite boundary issues.
A couple of hours later, he was in his home office working on the numbers for a new project he was putting together with a group of investors in Portland and some guys he knew from Vegas and Phoenix, when he got a call from a woman named Tandy Carson. She introduced herself as the director of the Valentine Bay Arts Council.
“We’ve all been wondering who the new owner of the Valentine Bay Theatre might be,” Tandy said. She must have received the letter his lawyer had sent. She sounded cheerful, though, which probably meant she hoped there was still a chance she could convince him to keep the theater available for arts council use.
There was no chance at all. “You’ve heard from my lawyer, I take it?”
“I have, yes. And I wonder if we could meet and discuss the situation face-to-face.”
“It’s all there in the letter. You’ll need to find another venue at the first of the year. I have plans for the building.”
“I understand. If you would just come by the office, though. The community, the arts council board and I would really appreciate your willingness to talk this over.”
It was a total waste of time to meet with her. But it would be downright rude not to. He lived here now. His son would grow up here. He would do what he wanted to do with the theater, but it was only fair to give Tandy Carson her chance to convince him otherwise.
Reluctantly, Roman agreed to stop in at the arts council offices that afternoon.
* * *
Hailey woke Friday morning feeling glum.
It was a yucky feeling, the kind of feeling she usually refused to allow herself. Because it was self-indulgent to be glum—especially if you were glum because some guy hadn’t called.
Beyond the glumness, she was pissed off. Why ask for her number if he was never going to call?
And okay, yeah. Objectively speaking, she knew that it hadn’t been that long since Monday. Also, guys failed to call all the time. So what?
Forget him. Move on. It wasn’t as though she even knew the man, really.
However...
Well, she really wanted him to call.
And that pissed her off even more. Hailey had never been one to wait around for some guy to get in touch. She acted. When she wanted something, she had no problem stepping up and making the first move.
But she didn’t have his number and she wasn’t willing to track him down at the giant house he’d bought on Treasure Cove Circle. Being proactive with a guy was one thing. Stalking him at his house, well, that was a bridge too far.
Harper had left the cottage early to run errands. Hailey planned to meet her at eleven at a favorite thrift mall, where they would scavenge for treasures to use in the Festival of Fall Revue and the haunted house, too.
This year, the haunted house would be open for three nights—Halloween and the two nights before it. A major hit with kids of all ages, last year the haunted house had earned out and then some. This year, they needed it to be even bigger and better.
Hailey left the cottage at ten, which gave her time to drop by the arts council office on her way to meet Harper. Tandy was there at her desk wearing a determined look and a vintage T-shirt with Surely Not Everyone Was Kung Fu Fighting printed on the front. Her hair stuck straight up in its usual Mohawk, and her flawless dark brown skin made her look much younger than she was.
Hailey helped herself to a cup of bad coffee and took a chair. “Any news yet on the new owner’s plans at the theater?”
Tandy flopped back in her swivel chair. “Yeah, it’s not good. We need to be cleared out of there on January 1.”
Cleared out? Hailey blinked, as if the action could make Tandy’s words go away. “You’re saying you heard from the new owner?”
“I did. I got the letter from his lawyer Wednesday and gave him a call yesterday. He’s firm that he has other plans for the building.”
“You actually talked to him, then?”
Tandy nodded. “He even came in yesterday afternoon to listen to me beg. I pulled out all the stops, played on his community spirit, reminded him how much kids need structured afternoon activities, a safe place to gather where they can work together on something bigger than themselves and find a positive outlet for creative expression.”
“And?”
“He wouldn’t budge.”
“Oh, no...” Since she’d learned of the sale, Hailey had been telling herself she would need to be prepared for the worst. But she wasn’t prepared. In her deepest heart she’d refused to let herself believe they would lose the irreplaceable space.
“I’ve been calling around.” Tandy pulled a pen from behind her ear and rolled it between her fingers. “We’ll find something, Hailey. I know we will. And the good news is the new owner made a nice donation to the arts council.”
“Great,” Hailey said flatly, wishing the new owner had skipped writing a check and given the community the use of the theater for at least another year. The theater was perfect. There was nothing else in town that even came close. They would end up begging for space on a per-event basis in somebody’s barn or a church or the local Grange Hall. It was no way to build the program of her dreams. “Who is this guy?”
Tandy shook her head. “He’s not changing his mind.”
“Still, it can’t hurt for me to give it a try with him, can it?”
“He was very clear that he was not extending our contract beyond what the former owner agreed to.”
“I just want to talk to him. A polite conversation. Please.”
Tandy stared at her, narrow-eyed. Her pen fisted in one hand now, Tandy held it like a dagger as she clicked the ball point in and out with her thumb.
Hailey kept the pressure on. “It can’t hurt to give it just one more try...”
Tandy clicked her pen a couple more times—and then shoved it behind her ear again. “Why not?” She grabbed a document from the stack of papers at her elbow and copied a name and number onto a sticky note. Whipping the sticky off the cube, she handed it over. “Give it a go.”
Hailey stared at the name Tandy had written and couldn’t decide whether she felt murderous or sick to her stomach.
At last, very slowly, she smiled. “Thanks, Tandy. I’ll see what I can do.”
What she wanted to do was to wring Roman Marek’s muscular neck. As she climbed behind the wheel of her Kia, she slapped the sticky note on the dash. Really, she was way too worked up at the moment to be rational and constructive in a face-to-face with the man.
She probably ought to go home, lock herself in her room and try some deep breathing, maybe a little yoga and a series of calming affirmations to settle herself down. But she was seeing red, and why call when he’d made the mistake of telling her where he lived?
She headed straight for his big, beautiful house on Treasure Cove Circle. Slamming to a stop in the wide driveway lined with giant sword ferns and rhododendron bushes, she flung herself from the driver’s seat and soundly slammed the door.
Marching up the gorgeous fieldstone steps between a pair of cedar posts stuck in pillars of concrete and rock, she halted at a front door of iron and glass. Ignoring the bell, she raised a fist and pounded on the iron part of the door. She did it repeatedly, with great enthusiasm.
Soon enough, through the glass lights in the door, Hailey spotted a statuesque form approaching. The door swung inward to reveal a stunning fiftyish woman in a calf-length A-line shirtdress. She had beautiful, wavy hair in every color of gray from silver to soot, hair that fell down her shoulders and over her full breasts in a smoky cascade. Her eyes were the same silvery green as the man who was about to get a full dose of Hailey Bravo in a very bad mood. The woman carried a cute, wide-eyed toddler in her arms. “Yes?”
“Where’s Roman?”
Did a smile flit across the woman’s amazing face? It was there and gone so fast, Hailey couldn’t be sure. They stared at each other. And then, without another word, the woman stepped back, clearing the doorway. She shifted the toddler, so he sat firmly on one arm. The other arm, she swept out toward the impressive stone staircase leading up to the second floor.
Hailey didn’t hesitate. She crossed the threshold and marched to the stairs. Mounting them swiftly, she stuck her head into three different bedrooms before reaching the master suite, where the door stood open and Roman just happened to be exiting the luxurious bathroom, naked except for a towel around his lean hips.
Hailey froze in the doorway. It was just possible her mouth was hanging open.
Roman didn’t even have the grace to flinch—and really, why would he? Every inch of him was perfect. His chest was downright climbable, laddered with hard muscle. His feet were long and tanned, his legs big, cut, powerful. He looked like the men on the covers of sexy romance novels, juicy books with titles like Hot Contact and Midnight Diversions. Casually, completely unperturbed, he used a second towel to scrub at his thick, inky wet hair.
“Hailey,” he said coolly. “This is a surprise.”
Was she starting to feel just a little bit foolish?
So what? She’d come this far, and she refused to turn back now. Not until she’d given Mr. Studly McBastard a giant piece of her mind.
“Let me put something on,” he said and went for the towel wrapped around his hips.
Did he think that dropping that towel was going to send her running?
Not a chance. She slapped a hand over her eyes in order not to see him naked when she didn’t even like him anymore and she let him have it.
“Three hours, Roman,” she accused in a low, angry growl. “You spent three hours with me on Monday. Three hours during which I made it painfully clear to you how concerned I was that the theater’s new owner would boot out the arts council at the first of the year. Three hours. That’s one hundred and eighty minutes and a whole boatload of seconds during which you might have mentioned that you were the new owner in question.”
She heard a drawer shut somewhere nearby. Was he getting dressed?
Who cared? She didn’t. Butt naked or fully clothed, he was getting an earful and he was getting it now.
She pressed her hand closer to her eyes so she wouldn’t be in any way tempted to peek and kept after him. “It’s inexcusable, that’s what it is. You’re inexcusable. And aside from how you shamelessly lied to me by omission, Valentine Bay needs that theater and whatever you think you’re going to do with it can’t possibly be as important as what will be lost whe
n you turn it into...whatever it is you’re thinking of turning it into.”
“A hotel,” he provided mildly. “And you can open your eyes now.”
She probably shouldn’t trust him, not even about something so minor as whether or not he’d put on some pants. But as each second ticked past, she felt increasingly more ridiculous, her blood at a boil, standing there with her hand clapped over her eyes, wondering what he might be up to while she couldn’t see.
She dropped her hand. He was right there in front of her, still barefoot, but now dressed in jeans and a Henley. “You can’t do this,” she cried, a pleading note creeping in. Because she would do anything—beg, plead, steal—if only she could convince this man to keep the theater going into next year.
“Oh, yes, I can.” He said it kindly, an almost tender look in those ice-green eyes. “And, Hailey, I will.”
His tenderness did it. All the fight went out of her. She shouldn’t have come. She was making a fool of herself. And for nothing, too.
Spinning on her heel, she marched back the way she’d come.
“Hailey! Slow down,” Roman called after her.
She didn’t hesitate or turn. There was no point in talking to him. He’d made up his mind.
As she took off down the stairs, she saw the beautiful gray-haired woman waiting at the bottom, gazing up at her, the big-eyed child still in her arms. The look of sympathy on the woman’s face said it all. She’d heard every word.
“Sorry to, um, burst in like that,” Hailey said miserably as she reached the lower floor. The woman gently patted her on the shoulder as she rushed by and out the door.
Fleeing down the fieldstone steps and across the wide driveway, Hailey leaped into her Sportage, gunned the engine, backed fast, turned around and got out of there.
* * *
Roman stopped at the top of the stairs.
Clearly, Hailey Bravo wasn’t going to slow down long enough to hear anything he might have to say to her. He watched her race past his mother and son and on toward the front door. As he started his descent at a more leisurely pace, he heard her car door slam, the engine rev and tires squeal on pavement as she sped away.
Home for the Baby's Sake Page 3
