“Is this our grandson?” Miranda Danforth asked, crossing the room. Jake’s mom had blond hair worn in a sleek bob. Her eyes were a warm blue that made Larissa feel safe and comfortable.
“Mom, this is Larissa Nielsen and my son,” Jake said.
Peter clung tighter to Larissa and wouldn’t turn around and meet his grandmother at first. “I’m sorry,” she said. “He’s not used to meeting new people.”
“That’s okay,” Miranda said, running her hand down Peter’s back. “Why don’t you come sit down with me?”
Larissa followed her across the room, conscious of all the others there. Wes Brooks, Jake’s college roommate, looked up from the desk where he was working on the computer. He gave her a friendly smile and a wink. Larissa smiled back. She knew Jake’s not officially adopted brother from their college days. And it was nice to see a familiar face in this sea of Danforths.
Miranda seated herself on a leather sofa and Larissa sank down next to her, pulling Peter onto her lap. Harry Danforth stood on the other side of the room. Jake had followed them and he sat on the other side of Larissa. He dropped his arm over her shoulders and she felt comforted by his presence.
As he’d said earlier, she wasn’t alone in carrying this burden. But Peter had never felt like a burden to her. He’d always been her joy. And these people, Jake’s clan, were lucky to have her precious son in their family.
“Jake called me earlier about your situation—” Nicola said.
“Pardon me for interrupting, Nicola,” Miranda Danforth said. “Peter, would you like to come to the kitchen with me for some cookies and milk?”
Peter lifted his head from Larissa’s shoulder. “What kind?”
“Peter.”
“That’s okay, Larissa. Double chocolate chunk, I believe.”
“Mama?”
“You can go, sweetie. Mrs. Danforth is your grandmother.”
“Wow. A daddy and a grandmother.”
Miranda smiled down at him. “You’ve got a grandfather as well as a bunch of other family.”
“Really?” Peter asked.
“Really,” she said. “I’ll tell you all about them while we have our cookies and milk.”
“Okay!” Peter said, taking Miranda’s offered hand and following her from the room.
Larissa felt naked without her little boy on her lap. She laced her fingers together and tried not to pretend that she was the cause of an uncomfortable situation for this very important family.
“I’ve been thinking about this all afternoon and I’ve come up with a solution that I think will take the heat out of anything Ms. Carmody writes.”
“Great, I’ll help in any way I can,” Larissa said.
Jake rubbed her shoulder, and she leaned back to smile at him. He didn’t smile at her, but a warmth entered his eyes that made her acutely aware of every place where their bodies touched.
“Perfect. I think you two need to get married as soon as possible.”
Jake surged to his feet. “No way.”
For Larissa, the next few moments seemed to happen in slow motion and there was a ringing in her ears. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected, but being forced to marry the man whose child she’d had wasn’t it. She had the first inkling of what her mother may have felt all those years ago when she’d faced Reilly Payton and his family—trapped and doomed.
“Excuse me,” she said, standing. She walked from the room, down the long hall and out into the night.
Any chance of forever happiness with Jake was gone in an instant, because no man could ever love a woman who’d forced him into a marriage he didn’t want.
Six
Jake knew he’d screwed up even before he’d felt Larissa leave the room. But one look at the condemnation shining from his father’s eyes was all it took to make him feel about fourteen again. Dammit.
He turned away from his father and focussed instead on Nicola.
“Is a marriage going to be a problem?” she asked.
Jake had no idea. He suspected that he was the last man Larissa would marry right now, after hearing his reaction to the suggestion. But the suggestion had taken him completely off guard.
“No, it won’t be a problem, will it, Jacob?” His father, Harry Danforth, said. There were maybe two moments in his life when Jake had felt as if he’d pleased the old man. Once when he was six and won the all-city soccer kickoff, and once when he had made his first million with D&D’s Coffeehouses. But for the remainder of Jake’s life, he’d seen his father with the same look he had on his face now: one of disappointment.
Even Uncle Abe and Wes were looking at him like he’d screwed up. But he knew what his father meant. He’d made this mess, now it was time to clean it up.
“I don’t know that Larissa wants to marry me,” Jake said. Not much of an excuse but the only one he had.
“Then convince her,” Harry said.
“I’ll try.” Jake stood and exited the room. He paused in the hallway and leaned back against the wall. His hands were shaking and he had that gut feeling that life was changing in a way he hadn’t anticipated.
The hallways were lit with wall sconces and Jake figured Larissa hadn’t gone out the front door, but out the back into the gardens. He pushed away from the wall and moved slowly through the house. Crofthaven was a showplace, unlike his parents’ more modest house.
He stepped out into the spring evening and paused. What if he couldn’t convince Larissa to marry him? He’d learned a long time ago that running away from problems wasn’t a solution. But marriage? It wasn’t as if he had anything against the institution, but he wasn’t sure it was the right move for them.
He heard the rustling of leaves and a soft fall of footsteps. He followed the sound until he found Larissa. She was walking around one of the smaller formal gardens in the backyard. Hedges surrounded it and there was a very European feel to this garden. A marble bench was tucked off to one side and Larissa paused next to it, then sank down on the bench. He stayed in the shadows to watch her.
The full moon and landscape lanterns provided soft lighting to the area, revealing the woman who was bound to him in ways he didn’t understand. It was more than that they shared a child. It was more than sharing college memories. It was a soul-deep feeling that made him flinch and that he found difficult to ignore.
He didn’t know what to say to her. He wasn’t really sure what he wanted from her. But he knew what duty demanded and he’d give it his best shot.
He was about to step from the shadows, when Larissa turned her head to the right and brought the blossom of a hibiscus close to her face, inhaling deeply. What was she thinking?
“Can I join you?” he asked.
She turned toward him. He stepped from the shadows and waited for her permission to join her.
She shrugged and crossed her arms over her chest.
He sat next to her, leaving space between them. Though it was only a few inches, he knew the gap here was miles wide. His next words would have to build a bridge over it. But he wasn’t ready. He was still angry that she’d never told him about Peter before now. He knew he needed to get past the anger and thought he’d been making some progress in that direction.
But sitting in his uncle’s library and knowing those closest to him knew the mother of his child didn’t think he was good enough to be a father—well, hell, it hurt. And he’d reacted the only way he’d ever learned—by lashing out and hurting back.
Hurting the one woman he wanted to protect. She looked fragile sitting here in the garden. But he knew she wasn’t fragile. Larissa was a survivor. She rolled with the punches and kept plodding along with life.
She cleared her throat. “I’m sorry I ran out like that. I…”
Suddenly everything was clear and he knew, despite the anger and need for vengeance still pulsing through him, that marriage to Larissa wasn’t just a right choice; it was a necessity.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. I know you don�
�t want to marry me.”
“The thing is, I’m not sure I don’t.”
“What are you saying?”
“I wasn’t prepared to have everyone know you thought so little of my fathering skills.”
“Oh, Jake, I didn’t.”
“Of course, you did.”
“Didn’t you hear anything I said to you earlier?”
“About what?”
“My family. I never thought about you as a father, Jake. I thought about you as a man trapped by circumstance. And I was right, wasn’t I?”
He cursed under his breath and stood, then paced away from her. He was a man trapped, but not so much by circumstance as by his past. By all the lousy decisions he’d made to get to this point. All the time when he’d put feeling good and having fun in front of responsibility.
It was time to get his act together in his personal life and he knew it.
He turned back to Larissa, who watched him with wide, wet eyes. He knew he’d hurt her. Somehow he hadn’t expected her pain to cut him. But it did.
He strode back to her and took her hands in his. He sank down in front of her on one knee and looked up into those pretty blue eyes. Those eyes that usually showed her wit and intelligence, but tonight were guarded and vulnerable.
“Larissa Nielsen, will you marry me?”
Larissa wasn’t sure what to say. Marrying Jake, well honestly, it was what she’d been secretly dreaming of since she’d first met him in college. But she’d also dreamed they’d have a huge wedding in Savannah so the old gossips wouldn’t be able to talk. She’d wear an elaborate white gown similar to Princess Di’s and she’d be the most beautiful woman on that day.
It was a fantasy she’d devoted too much time thinking about. Despite Jake being down on bended knee, Larissa knew that responsibility was motivating Jake and not love or eternal devotion. And she knew that he was a good man. He’d already proved he could be a good father. And sometimes in life you had to take what was offered and kiss goodbye the secret dreams you’d harbored.
“Are you going to keep me hanging forever?” he asked, his voice low and husky. When she looked into those devastating dark brown eyes of his, she wondered if she’d ever be able to deny him anything.
She shook her head. He was doing his duty—darn it. She had to remember Jake was still angry with her for keeping Peter a secret for three years. Jake wasn’t in love with her, and no matter what else happened, she had to protect her emotions from him. Because she knew from watching her mother’s bitter experience that falling in love with an illusion was never a good thing.
“You don’t have to do this,” she said at last, forcing herself to look away from him. She looked instead out at the well-tended gardens. She and her mom had had a window box at the small duplex they’d lived in most of her life. One small box that they’d filled with annuals every year. And though Crofthaven wasn’t Jake’s childhood home, she knew this kind of garden—the kind that took a small army to maintain—was what he was used to.
Their lives were worlds apart and she wondered in her heart if they could ever make anything work between them. Even his original idea of them living together now seemed doomed. But marriage—marriage was sacred to her because she knew that when it wasn’t right, too many people got hurt. Innocent little people that had no right being hurt by choices that adults made.
“Do what?” he asked, shifting closer to her on the ground. His arms circled her hips and tugged her closer to him. He didn’t leave any space between them. She remembered what it was like to be in his arms and wanted to be there again. She’d never thought of herself as sex crazed until she met Jake. He made all her senses go on hyperalert.
He was so close and she remembered their earlier embraces. She still ached for him in this most basic way. She needed something from him that she wasn’t sure she should take, because it would make her even more vulnerable.
“The down-on-one-knee proposal thing.”
“It’s for me as much as for you.”
“Yeah, right. I heard you in the library, Jake. You don’t want to marry me.”
“Dammit, Rissa, you piss me off,” he said, pinching her butt.
She swatted his hand away. “I know I do. So why are you asking me to marry you.”
He wriggled his eyebrows at her. “You also turn me on.”
“Is this a joke to you?” she asked.
He cursed under his breath and then hugged her tightly. “I can’t explain it, but there’s something about you I’ve never been able to forget.”
Her heart melted a little at his words. He let go of her hands and cupped her face, bringing her face toward his. He brushed his lips over hers, softly, gently…seductively. Making her yearn for deeper contact between them. But she knew what he was doing, what he was trying to say with this kiss. And she returned it. Took control of the embrace, kissing him deeply.
Jake stayed at her feet and it was a heady feeling to dominate him. He was totally at her mercy. His head tipped up to hers; his body was under hers. Her emotions swirled out of control. She wanted more from him than this. She wanted—no, needed—something that he wasn’t offering.
Something more than duty. She broke the kiss, taking deep breaths to try to remember that despite the garden and the moonlight, this wasn’t a love story. She wasn’t the heroine in some happily-ever-after tale. Reality was that Jake hadn’t wanted to marry her. It was only the pressure of the media and his family that had sent him out after her.
And despite his sweet words, she knew it was too soon for Jake to feel anything but anger toward her.
“What’s going through that head of yours, Rissa?”
“Nothing you’d want to hear.”
“I know I’ve screwed up one thing after another, but marry me and let me make this right.”
“If we got married it’d be more business than romance, wouldn’t it?”
“It would be what we made it. There’s no one else in our relationship but us and Peter.”
“I’m scared, Jake.”
“Of what?”
“Of making the wrong decision and ruining Peter’s life.”
“I told you earlier that those shoulders of yours are too small to carry everything. Share that burden with me, Rissa, I’m not going to let you down again.”
Promise? She wanted to ask but didn’t. Normally she wasn’t this needy. Normally she wasn’t this timid. Normally she made her decisions and lived with the consequences. But it was time to stop clinging to girlhood fantasies and start living in the real world. A world that included more than her and Peter.
“Okay, Jake. I’ll marry you.”
Jake figured it probably wasn’t the best acceptance in history, but he knew it was good enough for him. He stood, pulled Larissa to her feet and took her in his arms.
But her fingers over his lips stopped him. “No, Jake.”
“Why not?”
“I want this marriage to work for Peter’s sake.”
“I’ve never heard that sex screwed up a marriage.”
“I think it would screw up ours. I can’t think straight when you kiss me.”
“Good,” he said, lowering his head again. But she turned away from him and his lips barely brushed her hair.
“Dammit, woman.”
“You’re not listening to me.”
“You’re not saying anything I want to hear.”
“I’m sorry, but I think keeping things platonic between us is for the best.”
“Woman, who are you kidding?”
“Maybe myself. But it’s important to me.”
“Hell,” he said, letting her go. She took a step away from him, but it didn’t change the way his blood was racing. He was still aroused and could tell from her shallow breathing and flushed skin she was too. If he pushed her, he could convince her she was wrong. He knew it. And he suspected she knew it.
Why then was she saying no?
“I’m not letting this go. Honestly, I don’t th
ink we can live together without sleeping together.”
“You may be right. But I’d like us to try it.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s because we have to get married,” she said softly.
He waited, sensing there was more she had to say. Here was the Larissa he’d known in college. The quiet and contemplative woman who’d spent hours discussing world politics but had never said a word about her upbringing. Would he ever understand this woman?
Finally she bit her bottom lip and looked up at him. “I don’t want to start thinking there’s more between us than obligation.”
He knew she was being serious. He wanted to respond to that, to take this discussion even deeper, but instead, all he could think about was her lips. The bottom one she kept nibbling on as she thought about what she was going to say next. He wanted to suckle on it, to tease away her solemn mood with a lighter one. A safer one. Because he didn’t like where this conversation was going.
“More? Like what?” he asked at last.
She crossed her arms over her chest and tipped her head to the side, watching him with those wide expressive eyes of hers. “Like love.”
Oh, no, not love. If the topic didn’t change soon, he’d have to say to hell with it and force matters back into the physical realm, where he was more confident. “Just love?”
“The in-sickness-and-in-health, until-death-do-us-part stuff. I don’t want to buy into this fantasy that I’ve had in my head for so long a time.”
“What fantasy?” Did he have a starring role in this image in her head or was he a walk-on replacement? He suspected the latter.
“Oh, Jake. Don’t make me tell you this.”
He held his hands up. Far be it for him to force anything from her. “I’m not making you tell me anything.”
“I know. Let’s go inside and tell Peter we’re getting married.” She started walking out of the garden. Jake wasn’t really ready to rejoin his family. Even though he’d convinced Larissa to marry him, he knew his dad still wouldn’t be pleased.
Sin City Wedding (Dynasties: The Danforths Book 3) Page 6
