“Stop it, Trish. You know that’s not true. I need you. You’re not some interchangeable woman. I can’t just swap you out and carry on as if nothing has changed. I’m different when I’m with you. I’m not nervous or geeky or nothing but a bank account. You make me me. You make me feel like everything’s finally right in the world.”
She closed her eyes and shook her head. “Oh, Nate. Don’t make this harder than it has to be. We had a deal, you and I. A temporary nanny. A casual affair. That was the plan. No falling.”
The desperation turned and suddenly he was mad. Why was she being so stubborn? She had feelings for him, he knew she did. He gripped her by the arms. “I want a new deal. I want a different plan.”
“Don’t do this,” she whispered again, trying to back away from him, but he held tight. “Don’t. I can’t fall.”
“What’s it going to take, Trish? To get you to stay. Twenty thousand a month? Two hundred and fifty thousand for your charity? That was our deal, right? I want an extension on our contract.”
“Nate.”
She was trying to cut him off, trying to stop him, but what did billions in the bank mean if he couldn’t take care of her? If he couldn’t make sure that she never felt poor ever again?
If he couldn’t get her to stay?
She was worth more than that to him. She was worth more than all of it. All that cash was pointless if it couldn’t get him what he really wanted—her. “Anything you want, name it. Just...stay with me, Trish.”
Too late, he realized he’d gone too far.
“Oh, Nate.” She shook free of his grasp and looked up at him. Tears streamed out of the corners of her eyes. “I—I can’t. I can’t give up everything I’ve ever been, everything I’ve ever wanted to accomplish, to raise another baby that’s not mine. There’s so much more I need to do in this world right now and I can’t sacrifice all of that, not yet.” Her eyes filled with tears. “I’m not ready to be a mother. Not even a mother. A nanny.”
“You’re more than that to me, babe. You know that.”
She shook her head. Why couldn’t he make her see reason? “I can’t turn my back on my own family, my tribe, just to play house with you.”
“This isn’t playing house. I want you to live with me. I want you to sleep in my bed with me.” Why was that a bad thing? He didn’t understand. “I want more than casual. I want more than an affair. I want you.”
“On your terms, Nate. We aren’t equals. We can never be equals.” Her voice broke.
Where had he gone wrong? Since when had telling a woman he loved her become such a mess? Panic bubbled just beneath his surface, threatening to break free. He’d never been that good with women, never known what to say to them. That’d been what he loved about Trish—he could talk to her. But not right now. His words were failing him.
“I would always be dependent on you,” she went on, her face pale. “I would always need you more than you needed me.”
“That’s not true.”
She smiled at him, a weak and sad smile that hurt to see. “Just because you can’t see that doesn’t mean it’s not true.” She touched his face but pulled her hand away quickly, as if she’d been burned. “I...I can’t need you as much as this.”
“Why not?” He said louder than he meant to, but was she being serious? “I need you, too. That doesn’t make me weak and it doesn’t make you weak, for God’s sake. It makes me want to take care of you. So let me.”
She stood before him, her face creased with pain. Then, unexpectedly, she leaned up on her toes and kissed him. For a moment, he thought that was her giving in, her agreeing to stay. He tried to wrap his arms around her to hold her tight. Thank God, he thought.
Then she was away from him. “Of course I care for you,” she said, skirting around him. “I could love you for the rest of my days.”
“Could?” he asked incredulously as she started up the stairs.
“But I can’t lose myself in you. I can’t...” A sob broke free of her chest and she stopped, four steps up. “I can’t forget who I am.”
“I’m not asking you to do that. Damn it, Trish—I’m asking you to stay!”
She turned, looking down on him with a face full of pain. He started up the stairs to reach for her, but she backed away from him. “If I agree to your new terms—if I agree to stay—then what? Another month passes, we fall more in love, you extend the contract again, one month at a time.”
“Don’t you want to stay with us?” he demanded. “Isn’t that what you want?”
“Oh, God, of course I do. But this isn’t real, don’t you see? All of this,” she said as she swept her arms around, “and...you—God, Nate.” Her voice caught in another sob. “People are depending on me. I have things I have to do.”
“So do them from here!”
She shook her head. “I can’t. I can’t be your kept woman. I—I have to go.”
Before he could do anything else, she spun and raced up the stairs, her shoulders shaking under the strain of her sobs.
What the hell? Okay, so he shouldn’t have brought money into the conversation. That was a mistake, one he wouldn’t make again. But...
A kept woman? That wasn’t what was happening here! He was in love with her, for God’s sake! And she might be in love with him, too—wasn’t that what she’d said when she’d said she could love him the rest of her life?
So what was the problem here?
Overhead, he heard her door shut—and the lock click. He could go after her, go in through Jane’s room. He could make her see reason—
And what? Argue with her until she agreed just to keep the peace? Force her to stay?
He sat heavily on the steps, pulled down by a weight in the center of his chest. For some reason, his brain decided that this would be the perfect time to revisit Diana’s betrayal. To remember walking into the house that was supposed to be empty and hearing the distinctive noises of sex. To remember reasoning that it was just Brad with his latest girl. To remember calling Diana’s phone to see where she was—and hearing it ring from the coat stand right at his elbow.
To remember walking up the stairs in his parents’ home, each footstep heavier than the last. Opening the door to his brother’s room and seeing Diana, naked and bouncing on top of Brad.
Realizing with crushing certainty that he’d screwed up somewhere along the line—that he hadn’t been enough for her. He’d been good enough until someone better came along.
He’d closed himself off after that. He didn’t let himself get close to people, to women, because he couldn’t be sure they weren’t after something else—his company, his money.
He’d let himself get close to Trish. He’d trusted her with a part of himself he’d held back from every other person. He’d let himself be more real with her than he’d been in...years. Maybe in forever. He’d let himself think that he was enough for her. Him, Nate Longmire. Not the Boy Billionaire, not the philanthropist who cut the checks. Just him.
And what had she done?
She’d decided he wasn’t enough. He wasn’t enough; Jane wasn’t enough. The two of them could never be more important to Trish than a bunch of backpacks.
He wasn’t more important than two new pencils. Not to her.
Damn, but that hurt.
* * *
Trish packed quickly. Anything to not think about what had just happened. What was still happening.
Nate...
The moment she felt herself waver, she pushed back. Her mother would do anything to keep a man happy. Her mother would quit her job, ignore her children—anything, as long as it kept her man coming back for more.
And Trish? She could do it. She could agree to what Nate wanted, when he wanted it, as long as he kept on loving her. Even that last kiss—it’d almost broken her resolve.
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She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t give herself over to him and cast everything that she’d held dear to the wind.
So she packed as fast as she could. She couldn’t stay, not a moment longer. Every second she was around Nate was another second of temptation. Another second she would break.
It didn’t take that long. Since she’d completed her schoolwork, she’d sold most of her books back already. She only had a few that were worth keeping more than they were worth the few dollars she’d get at the bookstore.
Her clothes fit into the duffel. She packed up her laptop, her shoes and the phone.
No, the phone was his. She didn’t need it, didn’t need the constant reminder of how Nate wanted to take care of her. If she kept his phone... Besides, they didn’t get a lot of cell-phone reception on the rez, anyway. Who would she call, except him? She put it back on the dock.
What was she doing? This whole thing was ridiculous. It’d been ridiculous since she’d first agreed to his contract. She had no business being in this nice house, surrounded by nice people and things and food. But more than the material comforts, she had no business being in Nate’s bed, having a casual affair. She had absolutely no business being with a man who was going to break her heart.
She couldn’t stay. She couldn’t give herself over to him, mind, body and soul. She could not lose who she was to become the woman he loved. That was what her mother did.
That’s not what Trish did. She shared a name and a physical resemblance with her mother, but that’s where it ended. Trish was a strong woman with a plan.
A plan that had never included falling in love with Nate.
Except she had. She had.
She buried her head in her hands, trying not to sob. She’d been wondering if maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to stay for another two weeks—finish out the school year living here, taking the comfort of Nate’s bed—until she went home for a couple of months. She’d been sorely tempted. It was just another twelve, fourteen days at the most. Where was the harm in that? And then, after she’d spent some time away from Nate, she’d be in a better position to figure out how she wanted to proceed with him. Because she hadn’t been done. She’d just...needed to get some perspective to make sure she didn’t lose herself in him.
How had this happened? That was the problem. Somewhere, the attraction she’d felt at their first meeting had blossomed into something else, something infinitely more. Watching Nate cuddle Jane? Eating breakfasts out on his patio? Talking about comic books and charities?
Lying in his arms at night? All those stolen moments during the day?
A month ago, she hadn’t loved him. A month ago, the little girl still sleeping in the next room had been in dire straits, only days from a trip to the emergency room.
A month ago, everything had been different.
Including Trish.
She was not her mother’s daughter. No matter how much she wanted to open that door and run down to him and tell him that she was sorry and he was right and she’d do anything he wanted, just so long as he said he loved her and he kept on loving her. She wouldn’t.
She had to walk away. Before she lost herself completely.
Her things packed up into two sad bags, Trish forced herself to go through the bathroom to Jane’s room. The little girl was restless, although her eyes were still closed. She’d probably picked up on the sudden tension in the house, Trish thought.
“You’re a good girl,” she told the drowsy baby as she stroked the fine hairs on her little head for the last time. “You take good care of your uncle Nate, okay? Make sure to smile at him and make him laugh like you do, okay?”
Jane shook her head from side to side, as if she was trying to tell Trish to stay, too.
“He’s going to be a great daddy for you,” Trish went on. “He loves you and he’ll take good care of you.” She thought back to all the times Nate had cuddled Jane or changed her or fed her—all the times he’d been a father.
All the times she’d been so surprised that he would be a father to someone else’s child only because she didn’t know men would do such things.
She leaned down and kissed Jane’s head. “Goodbye, Jane. I love you. I won’t forget you.” The thought made her start to cry again because she knew that Jane would never remember her.
She hurried back to her room—no, it wasn’t hers. It was merely the room she’d slept in for a month. Nothing here was hers, except for the sad duffels. She hefted them onto her shoulders and, with one last look, headed out.
As she trudged down the stairs, part of her brain was screaming at her that she was being stubborn—she didn’t have to go! So Nate had been less than smooth. He wasn’t always, she knew that. She was overreacting and she should let him take care of her.
But she was so much more than a temporary nanny with benefits. She ran a charity that hundreds, maybe thousands of children depended on for food and school supplies and the chance at a life better than the ones they’d been born into. She owed it to those kids—the ones who would never have a billionaire uncle to suddenly show up and make everything better—to do her best for them. For Patsy, her littlest sister. Trish was defined by her actions, not by the man she was sleeping with. She’d told him she would not fall for him and, at least on the surface, she had to hold that line.
She was a temporary nanny who’d had a casual affair and now it was time to go back to her real life. That’s all there was to it.
Nate was waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs, hands on his hips. Just the sight of him nearly broke her resolve. Be strong, she told herself. Her mother would cave. She was not her mother.
But this was Nate. Her Nate. The man who’d said he was falling for her...
“I want you to stay, Trish,” he said in a voice that was almost mean.
In that moment, she buckled. He was everything she wanted but... Be strong, she told herself. “You’ll be all right? You and Jane? For the weekend?”
He stared at her as if she were speaking Lakota instead of English. “Don’t we mean anything to you? How can you just walk away from her? From me?”
“I...I have to do this.” Her own excuses rang hollow because he was right. Jane meant something to her. She wasn’t just a baby that Trish had to take care of because no one else would.
And Nate? He wasn’t just a man—any man, like her mother would have settled for. He was a man who stepped up when he had to. He took an active role in his niece’s care. He didn’t just take from Trish—he listened to her, he made her feel important.
“And that’s it?” He made a sweeping gesture with his hands, as if he could clear everything away. “That’s that?”
He was breaking her heart. For so long, she’d guarded herself against just this—the pain that went with the end. That’s what her mother had taught her. It always ended and when it did, it always hurt. Every single time.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “We just—I need some space. This has been a great month,” she hurried to add, “but everything’s happened so fast and I need to step back and make sure that I’m not losing myself. I’ve got to graduate and go home for a while. Maybe for the summer, I don’t know. And after that...”
“Will you call me? At least let me know where you wind up tonight, so I won’t worry about you.”
Oh, God. Somehow, admitting this was almost as hard as leaving because it felt so final. No calls, no texts. A definitive break. “I left the phone upstairs.”
All the blood drained out of his face. He knew it, too. “Oh. Okay. I see.”
“Nate...”
“I, uh, I called for a car. It’ll take you wherever you want to go.”
“Thank you.” She didn’t know what else to say. She’d never broken up with anyone before. She’d only seen the screaming, crying fights her mother ha
d had. He was being polite and respectful and, well, Nate.
Then, unexpectedly, he stepped up the few stairs separating them and cupped her face in his palms and touched his forehead to hers. She was powerless to stop him. “You probably don’t want me to say this, but I don’t care. I love you, Trish. Think about that when you go home. I love you. It doesn’t make me less to love you. It makes me want to be someone more than who I was before I met you.”
She gasped and closed her eyes against the tears. She couldn’t do this, couldn’t break his heart and hers—
Outside, a car horn honked.
Nate moved again, but instead of kissing her, he grabbed one of her bags and carried it down the rest of the way. He opened the door for her.
Struggling to breathe, Trish picked up the other bag and walked out into the weak afternoon sunshine.
It’d always been easy to stick to her principles, to keep herself safe from the messy entanglements that had ruled her childhood and all the children that they’d produced.
But putting her few belongings in the back of the trunk of some hired car? Silently standing there as Nate opened the backseat door for her? Not telling him she’d changed her mind when he leaned down and said, “I’ll wait for you,” right before he closed the door?
“Where to?” the driver said.
No, nothing about this was easy.
But she did it, anyway. She would not live month to month, at the mercy of this deal or that. She would not be ruled by love.
“San Francisco State University,” she told the driver in a raw voice.
And that was that.
Thirteen
The day of graduation dawned bright and hot. Trish was already sweating in her cap and gown. Underneath she had on a pair of cutoffs and her Wonder Woman shirt. It was foolish to hope that the shirt would imbue her with enough power to make it through all the speeches and waiting to finally cross that damn stage and get her master’s degree without dying of heatstroke, but it was the best she had.
“Who’s the speaker, again?” Trish asked her neighbor after she took her seat in Cox Stadium.
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