Everything I Hoped For

by Ann Christopher

  And what if—his pulse quickened at the thought as he poured himself another glass of wine before beginning to sauté the vegetables—what if he and Melody made love this next time he came to town? What then, genius?

  He had no idea how he’d go home again after that. The mere thought made his stomach clench.

  Insane, right? He lived in London. London was his home. Not some remote outpost from the center of the universe.

  And then he had a flash of true insanity.

  Maybe…

  Maybe he should mention Melody to Granny.

  The old girl often had practical advice for him, didn’t she?

  God, he was cracking up.

  He lost himself in his cooking, throwing together the go-to meal that had saved him from many a bowl of cereal for dinner over the years. And he was so engrossed with plating the food and getting the presentation just right that he didn’t realize Melody had returned until he heard an astonished voice behind him.

  “Oh, my God! How did you do this?”

  Startled, he turned and discovered that this woman could, in fact, unravel him more than she already had. Honestly, he had zero chance with her, which hardly seemed fair. Spending time with this siren was like planning a field trip to the sun: fraught with peril and likely to leave him burned and forever changed. Someone should have sat him down to explain the dangers and have him sign a waiver of liability before ushering him into her presence and making the introductions.

  At least then he’d have had some idea what he was coming up against.

  He stared at her while his wits packed their bags and left the building.

  First thing? Her scent. She’d anointed herself with all those secret perfumes, lotions and potions women liked to use, resulting in a fragrant cloud of X-rated flowers that surrounded her as she came closer. Her hair? Wild and free, exactly the way he liked it. Her face? Clean and luminous, with only a little gloss to make her lips even more tempting than they already were.

  And then there was her body.

  Her body. Her body. Her body.

  Acres of golden skin, glowing with that light that only she seemed to capture. With her strappy little black yoga top, a nice portion of her baps were on overflowing display. Narrow waist. Wide hips and toned legs nicely displayed in her nylon shorts. An arse that wouldn’t quit. Bare feet with pretty pink polish.

  All in all? The package of a woman with many natural gifts who took spectacular care of herself. An athletic woman with a healthy dose of bombshell thrown in for good measure.

  The package of his dream girl.

  13

  Wait, what?

  His dream girl? Had he actually just produced such a sickly-sweet thought? Had he been catapulted into some fairy tale without his own knowledge?

  Quite possibly.

  The lovely Dr. Harrison had just shaken him up like one of Bond’s martinis. That was for sure.

  Given the emptied-out status of his head, it was a damn good thing that she was preoccupied with the dinner because he was more than preoccupied with her. And being here with her like this…seeing where and how she lived…coming into face-to-face contact with how much he wanted her and how much he longed to stay for a while yet—it all added another thick layer to his sweet misery.

  Leaving her to go back home for nearly two weeks—fourteen bloody days!—would slice a clean year off his life. No doubt.

  But she’d asked him a question, hadn’t she?

  He squinted at her, trying to focus.

  Yes. She definitely had that bright-eyed air of expectancy about her. There was a question on the table.

  “I, ah…” He scratched his head as heat flooded his face, wishing his brain worked better. Or at all. Probably best to just come clean. “Sorry. I don’t think you should expect me to be an intelligent conversationalist when you parade around in that body.”

  An incredulous snort of laughter from Melody.

  “Parade around—? What are you talking about?”

  “This whole…” His helpless wave encompassed her from head to toe. “What you’re working with.”

  More laughter.

  “What I’m working with? Are you picking up slang from American teenagers? Never say that again.”

  “Glad I amuse. And how do you keep yourself in such exceptional shape, pray?”

  Melody hesitated, her hand going to her hair to make sure it covered the side of her face.

  Without thinking, he intercepted her hand, lowered it and brushed her hair back from her face.

  “Don’t do that,” he said quietly, his words scripted by an entity that seemed to have nothing to do with the working remnants of his brain. “You don’t need to hide anything from me. Ever.”

  She flushed scarlet. Looked down.

  He couldn’t have that either.

  So he tapped her under the chin.

  “You’re stunning, darling. Hold your head up high.”

  She looked at the floor. Her feet. Anything but him.

  “Anthony…”

  He waited in silence.

  She blew out a breath. Raised her head, cheeks pink and eyes shining. Steadily met his gaze while she tucked that same hair behind her ear.

  He felt a tremendous surge of satisfaction.

  “There. That’s better, isn’t it?”

  “I’m not sure,” she said, dimpling at him. “I feel a little shaky with you, to be honest.”

  He opened his mouth with no real idea of what to say. Only the absolute certainty that more of the right words were on the way.

  “We’re just having a quiet dinner together. Nothing to feel shaky about.” He paused, feeling more than a little shaky himself. “And you were about to tell me how you stay in such fantastic shape.”

  “I, ah…” She blinked and seemed to get her thoughts together. “Spinning. Weight lifting. A little yoga.”

  “Where on earth do you find the time?”

  “I have to make the time. It helps me decompress and stay sane, so I do what works.”

  “It’s also working very well for me, if it ever comes to a vote.”

  “Stop flirting. My delicious dinner is getting cold.” She looked at the plates. “What is this?”

  He blinked, taking an embarrassingly long beat or two to shift gears. This thing between him and Melody was damn intense.

  “This is, ah, sautéed chicken and vegetables with spaghetti sauce and pasta. Sometimes, when I’m feeling wildly adventurous, I make it with pesto instead. Or it can become Mexican with salsa and rice. Or homestyle with gravy and mashed potatoes. I’m a renaissance man. Exactly like DaVinci.”

  “You look like a genius from where I’m standing right now, that’s for sure. Thank you so much.”

  He somehow resisted the urge to puff his chest and strut about like a hormonally-charged peacock during mating season, a difficult feat with her beaming at him like that.

  “My pleasure.” He handed her a plate and fork. “Shall we—”

  His phone chirped.

  “Sorry.” He pulled it out with a quick glance at the display. “I meant to turn this off—oh, it’s my father.”

  His heart sank. He felt his expression turn sour.

  “Everything okay?” she asked quickly. “Go ahead and take it. I don’t mind.”

  The thing was, he didn’t want to take it. Wasn’t one dose of his father in the last few days enough to last him for at least a month?

  Even so, he hesitated, compelled by unknown and unwelcome forces to do the right thing.

  “I don’t mean to be rude…”

  “It’s your father.”

  With a sigh, he hit the button. “Hello?”

  “I don’t like the way we left things the other day,” the old man said in his craggy twang. “Don’t like it at all.”

  “It wasn’t good,” Anthony agreed, willing to suspend his raging suspicions of everything his father said and did for a few seconds, just to see where this was headed.

  “
Seems like the two of us should be able to share a drink every now and then without drawing weapons.”

  “That’s a wildly ambitious goal,” Anthony said, watching Melody take their plates to the table and pour more wine.

  “I think we should try it again. When will you be back this way?”

  Anthony’s attention split in half, divided by his longing to see Melody again as soon as possible and his growing unease at the vulnerability in his father’s voice. The old man didn’t do vulnerable, and he damn sure didn’t do needy.

  Surly, controlling and intransigent? Tony had those covered. Anthony knew how to deal with them.

  But this?

  Anthony was as outside his element with this softer side of his father as he was with his growing feelings for Melody.

  “In a couple of weeks,” Anthony said reluctantly.

  “Great. So maybe we could—”

  “Sorry, but what would be the point?” Anthony crossed his arms and leaned against the counter, hunching in on himself the way he had when his father yelled at him for his daily infractions (being bad at football and soccer and too good at studying and reading quietly on the sofa came to mind) back when he was a kid. He caught himself doing it and straightened up again. “What are you going for here?”

  Melody, who’d been making a valiant effort to give him a modicum of privacy, caught his gaze across the table, her expression troubled.

  The old man, meanwhile, paused before finally snorting out a disbelieving laugh.

  “It’s the oldest story in the book, AJ.”

  Anthony winced at the use of his childhood nickname, short for Anthony Junior. The sound of it tugged on heartstrings he hadn’t realized he still possessed and wished he could cut out and throw away.

  “I might be facing down the end of my life.” Tony cleared his hoarse throat. “It would be nice if my tombstone said something other than Selfish SOB. It doesn’t matter what your grandmother or any of my business colleagues or drinking buddies think about me. But what you think? That matters.”

  “I’m surprised to hear that,” Anthony said.

  “Not as surprised as I am to say it.”

  Anthony snorted. Well, there it was. The hidden agenda. This latest attempt at amnesty was, of course, all about his father and his selfish motives, and Anthony was just foolish enough to be surprised. Having evidently given up convincing Anthony move to Houston as a lost cause, Tony had progressed to wanting to make sure his slate was clean if and when he found himself ringing the doorbell at the pearly gates. He didn’t truly want any meaningful involvement in Anthony’s life or to be a good father. Perish the thought. What he wanted was Anthony’s good opinion—to win the room over the way he did with everyone else in the world except for Anthony and his grandmother. Bottom line? Tony didn’t want any asterisks by his name or record when it came time to meet his maker.

  Anthony should have known better than to think otherwise, even for two seconds.

  “Do you have a sincere bone in your body?” Anthony said.

  “Do you have a forgiving one in yours?” Tony asked quietly.

  Well, the old guy had him there.

  Anthony fumed in silence for a moment, wondering which was worse:

  Dying with regrets on your soul, or living with bitterness in it?

  Either way, Anthony didn’t want any part of that dysfunctional equation.

  Not when the air was ripe with possibilities and new beginnings.

  He watched Melody get up and go back to the kitchen to work on the dirty pan, her gaze averted, giving him zero clue as to what she might be thinking.

  Anthony scrunched up his face. Rubbed his forehead. Took a deep breath.

  “For the record, I think this is a terrible idea. But I’m willing to try it again. See what happens.”

  “Excellent,” Tony boomed. “You call me when you get back to town, y’hear?”

  “Yes,” Anthony said sourly.

  “How’s your pretty little Miss Melody? You’re with her right now, aren’t you?”

  Anthony bristled. “I don’t see how that’s any of your—”

  “Put her on. I want to talk to her.”

  “Christ.”

  “Do it.”

  Anthony shot her an apologetic look and, without a word, passed her the phone.

  Looking startled, she pointed to herself.

  Me?

  He nodded grimly.

  “Hello?” she said with vague alarm.

  Tony said something that he couldn’t quite catch.

  Melody listened, her color rising as she tried to repress a smile.

  “I’m immune to your would-be charms, Tony.”

  Tony’s booming laugh came through loud and clear. Then Melody listened again.

  “You have to say that. You’re his father.” More listening, then she laughed. “Oh, so when you say he’s a paragon of virtue, you actually mean it as an insult? I see. Got it. Well, I can make up my own mind about Anthony, anyway. I’m a pretty good judge of character. So I’ll decide for myself.”

  Here, she nailed Anthony with a secretive female smile that made nerve endings tingle to life across his belly.

  More listening, her smile fading.

  “Oh. Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” she said quietly. “Sounds like you’ve had a good recovery, though, right? … Of course I’ll keep you in my thoughts and prayers.” She looked at Anthony, her expression shadowed as she listened again. “No, I’m not putting in any words for you. Forget it. He’s your son. If you don’t like the bed you made for yourself, then fix it. Don’t come to me for—don’t even try it. Your sweet talk won’t work with me, Tony…No, I’m not calling you Pop. No. Forget it.”

  Laughing again, she held the phone out to Anthony, brows raised.

  Anthony studied her carefully, then took the phone.

  “What embarrassing things have you said to her?” he asked his father. “If you’ve ruined my chances—”

  “I didn’t ruin a thing, boy. I told her you were a goddamn paragon of virtue. You should thank me for being your wingman. I’m trying to help you out. Know why? ’Cause that girl is far out of your league. She’s got beauty, brains and a backbone. The three Bs. You’d better watch yourself with her. You might find yourself proposing before dessert tonight.”

  He might indeed, Anthony thought grimly as he hung up, scrunched his face and rubbed his forehead.

  A moment passed while he and Melody watched each other in the kind of awkward silence they hadn’t experienced since their first couple of interactions.

  “So…” she finally said. “Are we supposed to pretend he never called?”

  “The idea has some merit.”

  “I’m sorry to hear he’s had heart issues.”

  He nodded. His tight throat began to burn, much to his dismay.

  She studied him closely.

  “You okay? You have to help me out here. Do you prefer to sulk by yourself, or should I pick a fight so you can blow off some steam? Or I could just find an old plate and you could smash it on the floor.”

  He wanted to smile, but his mouth suddenly couldn’t seem to remember all the steps.

  “We, ah…” He ran a hand over the top of his head. “We don’t get along. Never have. I’m far too British for him. Like to make an occasional decision by myself, without considering whatever order he’s barked at me. He and my mother had a nasty divorce. The nastiest. That took up the last few years of her life. She was free of him for about thirty seconds before she died in her skiing accident.” He studied the tips of his shoes, trying not to sound too bitter or too whiny. He was a grown man, for God’s sake. Decades had gone by. Wasn’t that time enough for these old wounds to heal? “I blame him for making her life miserable. I suppose he blames me for looking like her. We’ve happily hated each other for all these years, but now he’s gone and got himself a heart condition. Mucked up the natural order of things.”

  Her expression cleared. “Ah. Now he wants to
be a good father.”

  “Correction: now he’d like the credit for being a good father.”

  She tipped her head to the side while she thought that over.

  “He’s scared about being sick. Plus, it’s probably scary reaching out to you. You’ve got that—” she swirled a hand at his face— “great horned owl thing going.”

  “I do not—”

  “And I’m guessing he’s a pretty proud and stubborn guy. This can’t be easy for him.”

  “Can’t be easy for him? I’m the poor bloke who had to grow up under that yoke of tyranny. You weren’t there when he forced me to play American football when I was little, then heckled me from the sidelines. You weren’t there when he took me hunting when I was six and killed a wild boar, then field cleaned it in front of me. You weren’t there when—”

  “You’re right. You’re right,” she said quickly, holding up her hands and retreating a step. “I’m sure he’s Satan. Can we eat before our food gets any colder?”

  Her twinkling eyes got him.

  He started to grin. Caught himself.

  “He is Satan.”

  “I’m taking your word for it, because none of this is any of my business. Whatsoever. At all.”

  He waited, his entire body primed to hear the rest.

  “But…it does seem to me that you have to live with yourself. If he’s a bad father, that’s something he has to live with. He’s earned that guilt. But I’d hate for you to ever feel bad or regret anything you’ve done.”

  “So I’m supposed to give him my best while he gives me his worst?” Anthony demanded, flaring up at the inherent unfairness of being expected to good-naturedly tolerate his father’s ongoing disdain and disapproval. “I’m supposed to forgive him his nastiness and neglect?”

  “No,” she said gently. “You’re supposed to do what your conscience tells you to do. And never do anything you can’t live with later. So if any part of you thinks he could change, maybe you could think about giving him the benefit of the doubt. That’s all I’m saying.”

  The words slowly sank in, leaving him uneasy because he knew she was right. Painful experience overseas had taught him that he could live with almost anything except the nagging certainty that he’d left stones unturned, or that the entire situation could have turned out better if only he’d put his back into working a bit harder.