“Not that I didn’t enjoy my time with her,” he was pushed to add. “I did. Very much. She’s special.”
“You gave her a bogus number.”
The woman wouldn’t quit.
“No, I didn’t,” he said, and then added, “I had to change carriers, and the number didn’t convert.”
True, to a point. He’d changed carriers for Nolan Forte’s private phone, which had been the number he’d given her because he couldn’t trust himself not to engage if she called.
“You never called her.”
“Again, no expectation that I’d do so. We exchanged numbers, but made no promises either way. Her idea as much as mine.”
He turned back to pick up his horn and get on out of there. He’d pick up some comfort food on the way, take it back to his room.
Or he’d break his cardinal rule while on the road with the band and order a delivery that Nolan Fortune could easily afford. A thousand times over.
“You need to go see her.”
Carmela’s words at his back were a direct hit. She’d changed her tactics. Or he’d misheard the pleading in her tone now. He turned and looked at her.
“She’s still in Austin?” He’d promised himself that wouldn’t be the case, that she’d be graduated from college there and long gone. He only had two weeks to unwind, to recuperate from a long, hard, successful year of business. He needed the break. Deserved the break.
What he didn’t need was drama from someone he hardly knew. His sisters provided plenty of that back in his real life.
Carmela stood there staring at him like she had a whole lot more to say. He commanded himself not to ask about Lizzie, but didn’t obey.
“Didn’t she graduate?” He’d have bet his entire fortune that she had.
“Yeah.”
He shook his head, confused. “She got a job here in Austin, then? I was under the impression she planned to settle outside of Texas.”
“She got a job, yeah,” Carmela said, staring at him like he was supposed to be getting something more from what she was saying. He wasn’t getting it.
“You two still roommates?” he asked to give himself time to figure out this uncomfortable encounter.
Surely Carmela didn’t think he owed her something because he’d had a fling with her roommate.
“Yeah, we’re still roommates,” the fiery-haired woman said. “I don’t graduate until spring.”
So...wait a minute... “You’re still in the same apartment?”
He’d been staring up at Lizzie’s actual bedroom window that afternoon? He’d been a few feet away from her door? Walking around where he could have been discovered at any moment?
“Yeah,” Carmela said, and then dropped her gaze. She glanced around the club, almost guilty-like. “You really need to go see her.”
He couldn’t. Not for anything. Just...no. He wasn’t going back there again. He’d made it out.
He backed away from the woman.
“I’m serious, Nolan.” Carmela took a step forward.
“If she wants to see me so badly why isn’t she here?”
“I didn’t say she wanted to see you.”
Wait. What?
He shook his head. “Then why would I go see her?”
Once again her eyes met his, her stare like a slap. “I told Lizzie you were nothing special. That you were like all the rest, just out for a good time. She thought you were different. She thought you actually cared.”
“We had a two-week thing.”
“You messed her up, Forte,” Carmela said, turning her back on him now. “If you have any decency in you at all, you need to go see her.”
The woman’s parting had him right back in hell, longing for what he couldn’t have.
Chapter Three
When Carmela asked if she could take Stella with her to run errands Saturday morning, Lizzie didn’t think twice. Her friend had taken ownership of the baby like a second parent, was as fiercely protective as any parent would be and was happier just having Stella around. She also knew that sometimes Lizzie needed a little alone time at home.
Time to clean her bathroom, in preparation for maybe taking a bubble bath afterward. Time to pay bills, or answer emails, without having an ear to the monitor and a fifty-fifty chance of being interrupted.
Time to answer the door when the bell rang just fifteen minutes after Carmela had left. She only had an hour or so, was in sweats and the T-shirt she’d pulled on to clean, and wasn’t happy about the interruption.
Scouring pad in hand, blowing upward to move the stray hairs that had fallen from the clip holding up the knot on the top of her head, she looked through the peephole. And froze.
Tremors struck the hand that had automatically reached for the knob. Nolan was staring right at her and she had to remind herself that he couldn’t see her.
But, oh, God, she could see him. That thick dark brown hair that had a tendency to curl just a bit, the jaw that really did jut with strength, the little bit of stubble. If she closed her eyes, which she was doing, she could still feel the rasp of his face against her skin.
Her lids shot open. He was still there. In black jeans and a red plaid button-down shirt visible through the open front of his leather jacket.
Her knees felt like she should sit down. The rest of her hummed with a peculiar energy she’d only ever felt once before in her life. For two weeks the year before.
The warm look in his dark brown gaze made her feel like he was focused right on her. Made her wish he was.
No.
She turned away. There was no law that said she had to open her door just because someone rang the bell. No way for him to know she was in there.
Carmela had taken her car. It had been easier than moving the car seat.
Car seat!
Nolan knew where she lived.
He was in town for two weeks.
Chances were if he wanted to see her—and he must since he was outside her door—then he’d come back if she didn’t answer.
And when he did come back, chances were also good that if he found Lizzie home, Stella would be there, too.
She had to get rid of him now.
Nolan stood outside Lizzie’s door, wanting this over and done with. Standing outside the door of his greatest temptation was not how he’d envisioned spending his Saturday morning. Carmela had said that she’d make sure Lizzie was home. And that she would not be. She was giving them time alone.
Why, he had no idea.
You messed her up, Forte. Carmela’s words the night before had been haunting him ever since.
Open the damn door, Lizzie. Let me see what I did.
So he could fix it and move on.
He was over her. He knew that much.
But he had spent the night trying to envision the damage he might have done. He’d never meant to hurt her. The whole point of leaving it like it had ended was so that neither of them would get hurt. Or resentful. It had been an incredible two weeks. A Christmas fantasy, as she’d once termed it. He’d wanted it to stay that way. For both of them. Instead, he’d messed her up?
How?
She’d graduated. Had a job. She wouldn’t have gotten into drugs or alcohol. Not over a two-week romance. Not over him. The girl had survived the loss of her parents.
She was perfectly capable and comfortable with being alone in the world. Which was far more than he could ever see himself doing. The thought of not having his huge family in the background of his days was worse than any nightmare he’d ever had.
It was part of the reason he’d had to leave Lizzie behind. He couldn’t be Nolan Forte full-time. His family needed Nolan Fortune. A capable, responsible Nolan Fortune, not a guy who was letting something unreliable inside of him drive actions that would point his life in an unsuccessful direction.
Not a guy who’d repeat his own mistake by getting involved with someone completely outside their world.
His family wasn’t the only entity that needed Nolan Fortune intact. He did, too. He was already less respected, being the baby boy of the family. He had to try harder, reach success faster, if he ever hoped to be an equal to his three older brothers.
He knocked a second time, hoping that maybe Carmela was wrong. Lizzie wasn’t there. Or messed up, either.
A click sounded on the lock. The knob turned. As if in slow motion Nolan registered the door opening, not breathing as he waited to see her.
“Nolan. Wow. It’s been a long time.”
He backed up a couple of steps as the woman who’d been haunting him for an entire year slid outside, pulling the door closed but not latched behind herself, so that she could push back inside at any second.
She looked...divine. Perfect. His Lizzie, completely real, scouring pad and all. She did her own cleaning, twice a week, he remembered. He’d tried to help, but she’d kept shooing him away so mostly he’d watched. He’d gotten away with wiping the bathroom mirror. The sooner they’d got the bathroom clean, the sooner they’d be together in the garden-size tub...
He was hard. On fire. Having to consciously restrain himself from reaching out to her with both arms.
“Carmela said I messed you up.” If he’d been anywhere near the vicinity of his right mind he’d never have spoken the words aloud.
The thought occurred to him that they could be in on this together. Messing with him. For whatever unknown reason.
The Lizzie he’d known would never have done that. But then, that was the whole point, wasn’t it? He’d only known her for two weeks. The same amount of time Austin had known his wife before he’d married her. And Kelly had turned out to be a gold-digging, divorced, in-debt daughter of jailed con artists, not the debutante she’d presented to him.
He’d never have thought Molly would turn on him, either, taking her brother’s side.
“Carmela?” Lizzie’s confused frown was damned convincing.
“Your roommate? She is still your roommate, right?” So far he was winning the battle with the hands in the front pockets of his jeans. They were staying put.
“Yes. When did you speak to her?”
“Last night.”
“You were here last night?” There was a slight squeak to her voice as she looked around, and then back at him. She was shivering.
It wasn’t all that cold. Sixty or so. She had on a T-shirt. The sun was shining. No need for him to offer her his jacket.
“No, I wasn’t here last night.” Was he really doing this? He had to get out of the craziness. He’d known better.
“So how did you talk to her last night?” Even as she asked, her eyes widened. “She went to the club.” She answered her own question.
He nodded.
The sudden stilling of everything about her, the sharpening of her gaze, struck him as extremely non-Lizzie. And that hint of fear he’d seen cross her expression? He had to have imagined that.
He might have had a fling with her and left, but he’d never, ever given her, or any other woman, any cause to fear him.
“What did she tell you?” The question was sharp, in a tone he’d never heard from her before.
“Nothing,” he said, his frustration growing. “Just that I’d messed you up and needed to come see you.”
The anger that flashed in her eyes wasn’t hard at all to decipher, though the origin of it was not quite so clear. Either he or Carmela were in for it, though.
“She had no business going to see you.”
Deciding the wisest course was to keep quiet until he could figure out what was going on, Nolan didn’t voice his agreement on that one.
“And that’s it?” she asked. “That’s all she said?”
He nodded. He told himself she looked okay, so he could go. Should go.
Instead, he stayed glued to the spot.
“Well, as you can see, I’m fine. I’m sorry she bothered you. You can go now.”
There. She confirmed it. Time to turn around and get back to his day. To walk aimlessly around the campus area and forget he’d ever known her.
Or see everything that reminded him of her and know that he’d made the right decision.
Maybe he should take a cab to the other side of the city and look at things he’d never seen before. Or, better yet, call home and get an update on all the drama he was missing. With six siblings, there always was some—a lot of times revolving around twenty-five-year-old Savannah. She was perhaps the smartest one of the bunch, but was way too beautiful for her own good, in Nolan’s opinion, and didn’t take kindly to being told no, which he knew well. Having been born just a year before her, Nolan was the one who’d taken flak the most often when his sister didn’t get her way.
“Please, Nolan, just go.”
Lizzie’s words, the honest pleading in them, brought him back fully to her doorstep. And the fact that he was still standing there.
“What did Carmela mean about you being messed up?” That’s why he couldn’t go. He was a gentleman and he had to know what was going on. To know his own culpability, or lack thereof, and take responsibility so that he could be completely free from what had turned out to be the most unfortunate incident in his life.
“I have no idea,” Lizzie said. “I was...hurt...when you left and I couldn’t get ahold of you. Maybe she wanted to give me a chance to chew you out. Maybe she thinks that would help. And, maybe for some, it would. I had no desire to hold on to any anger and I’m over it. Completely. As you can see, I’m fine.”
Yes, she’d already said that. And she was guarding her door like a member of the Secret Service. It occurred to him then that she might have someone inside. A man would be the most obvious guess.
He turned to go. “Well, let her know I stopped by, will you? So she doesn’t show up at the club again tonight ready to smash my grill.”
She nodded. He took another step toward the parking lot and his escape. “You look good.”
“I look like crap,” she said. “I’m cleaning...” Her voice broke off, and she glanced away, almost as though she was also remembering the time he’d helped her clean the bathroom. That had been a Saturday morning, as well.
“So...Carmela said you graduated and got a job.”
She nodded, and named the school district.
She had to really be all right, then, looking as great as she did and working for the city’s public school system.
“Please, Nolan, I mean it. We had a great holiday. I really want to leave it at that. I’m asking you to leave now. And I’ll talk to Carmela.”
She looked so good.
“We could go for coffee. Just to catch up.” What was he doing?
When she shook her head, he told himself he was relieved.
“Maybe later in the week, then. Come by the club, and we can set something up...just to talk...”
“Maybe. I need to get back inside.” She took a small step back.
He had no more reason to stay then. Not a legitimate one. Wanting to give her a hug definitely wasn’t one. Nor was he ready to just say goodbye. He was in town for a bit longer. They had a little time. With a last long look, he kept his hands in his pockets and headed back the way he’d come, wondering how long he’d wait for her to show up at the club before he’d break down and visit her again.
Chapter Four
After she slid back into her apartment, Lizzie bolted the door as though she could keep outside all of the feelings that seeing Nolan had brought back. Keep them in a pool out there. One she could avoid stepping into as she came and went from her home.
And after double-checking that the door was locked, she took her scouring pad back into her en-suite bathroom and sat on the side of the tub.
Just sat.
He’d looked so incredibly good. So good. So incredibly, bone-weakening, blood-heating good. If she was still alone and single, without responsibility, would she have asked him in?
Would she have regretted doing so?
What if he’d come when Stella had been home?
Oh. That was why Carmela had asked to take the baby on her errands that morning. Because it was something she did often enough that Lizzie wouldn’t be curious. And it would also give Lizzie time alone with Nolan.
Her best friend and roommate hadn’t told him about Stella.
She’d wanted Lizzie to do that. Had orchestrated the moment.
She’d overstepped. Lizzie was going to tell her so the second she got home.
In the meantime she recalled the warmth in that man’s eyes. For a second there, it had been like the year before, like she could see clear to his soul. She’d never met a man who she felt such an instant connection to. Like she could trust him forever.
Ha.
The man who’d given her a bogus number. And obviously a fake name, too.
If she really wanted to know who he was she could go to the club. Get the skinny from any of his bandmates.
If she were really ballsy she could ask Nolan to see his driver’s license.
Truth was, she no longer wanted the truth.
She wanted him gone.
* * *
He made it around the block. Twice. Two blocks over. Stopping for coffee Nolan sat himself down and looked around the shop at all of the people—mostly students and some professors who must live in the area, he presumed. A guy with glasses and longish, unkempt hair sat in a hoodie, hunched over a laptop that was plugged into the wall behind him.
A couple of girls leaned into each other across a table as they talked, one of them referring repeatedly to something on her phone.
Fortune's Christmas Baby Page 3
