by Donna Alward
They went inside and he watched as Tori went to the bar and spoke to the server behind the counter. When she came back, she led them to a table near the fireplace and hung her jacket over a chair. “Phew,” she said, sitting down. “I’m not going to lie, that fire feels wonderful.”
There were a handful of guests in the dining room, but it was otherwise quiet. “Not your busy time of year, huh?”
She shook her head as he took the chair opposite her. “No. The weekends are busier. People out for dinner, and our Sunday brunch is amazing.” She looked up, and he got caught in her eyes again. Today her hazel eyes looked more green than brown, and her thick lashes made them seem bigger. He wondered if their baby would have her eyes.
“I’ll have to try it while I’m here.”
He sat back when the waitress came over with a basket of warm rolls and pats of butter. “Your lunch will be right out, Ms. Sharpe.”
“Thank you, Ellen.”
Tori looked up at him, a smile on her lips. “You warming up yet? Your ears aren’t quite so pink.”
He chuckled a little, his gaze stuck on her lips. Just his luck he couldn’t quite forget kissing them. There could be none of that now. “The fire is helping. The wind is so bitter today.”
“So why were you walking the beach?” she asked, picking up a roll and breaking it in half.
“Thinking,” he replied, meeting her gaze. “I had a lot to think about.”
“And did you come to any conclusions?”
Her voice was calm, but he could see a tightening around her mouth. She was nervous about this, too. It gave him a little comfort. The lives they’d both built—separately—were about to be disrupted.
“A few,” he admitted. “But I’m not sure you’re ready to hear them.”
CHAPTER THREE
UNEASE SETTLED THROUGH HER, making her limbs feel heavy and her breath short. This was never going to be easy, but despite all the thinking she’d been doing the last twenty-four hours, she felt ill-prepared for whatever was going to come out of his mouth next.
She nibbled on a corner of the roll, though her appetite was diminishing rapidly. “Oh?” she asked, keeping her voice deceptively light.
He met her gaze and held it. “One thing is for sure, Tori—I can’t go back to New York and pretend that this isn’t happening. I’m going to be a father. I’m not going to abandon you or my child.”
Tears stung her eyes and she looked down at the napkin in her lap. It was lovely to know that he accepted the pregnancy and wanted to be a part of their baby’s life. But it stung that they were no more than an obligation to him; that he was tied to them out of duty and DNA and not affection.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“And whatever you need, you only have to ask. You need to know I’m willing and able to support you financially.”
Financially. She clenched her fingers into fists under the table.
“Tori?”
She’d been silent so long he reached over and touched her arm, prompting her to look up. She took a deep breath, met his gaze and said quite clearly, “Thank you, Jeremy. But I’m quite able to provide for us.”
His expression grew puzzled as his brows knit together. “Then what do you want from me?”
“Honestly? I don’t know. Time, I suppose. To figure this out.”
He looked at her tummy and then back to her face, and a hint of a smile quirked at the corner of his lips. “Well, we are on a bit of a ticking clock, don’t you think? And it’s halfway to midnight.”
She raised her eyebrow in response. “I’m hardly Cinderella. Or a damsel in distress that needs rescuing.”
At that moment their lunch was served; piping-hot bowls of soup along with bacon-and-avocado paninis that seemed to satisfy some sort of craving of Tori’s right now.
“This smells delicious.”
“It is. I’m kind of addicted to these sandwiches. I’m not sure if it’s the avocado or the bacon that the baby likes so much, but it’s my favorite.”
They ate in silence for a few moments, and then Jeremy spoke again. “This feels so weird. Last summer...”
His voice trailed away and Tori’s cheeks heated. Last summer she’d felt about ten years younger and stupidly carefree. Days on the beach, toes in the sand, love in the middle of the day. She’d told herself she deserved a bit of fun, but she’d been careless. They both had.
“Last summer was just...what it was.” She wiped her lips with her napkin and tried to calm the rapid beat of her heart. “We got carried away. We were impulsive, and now there are consequences. We can’t be impulsive this time, Jeremy. We have to make the right decisions.”
“I know.”
She thought of her mom, who was both dismayed at how the pregnancy had occurred and ecstatic about being a grandmother. There were just the two of them now. She was an only child, a bit of a miracle baby, really, since her mother had been told she’d probably never conceive. Her grandparents lived in Newfoundland and she rarely saw them. Her father had died two years earlier. Tori felt a certain responsibility to be there for her mom. Without Tori, Shelley had no family.
She looked at Jeremy. “Do you have brothers and sisters?”
“One of each.”
The topic had never come up during their few weeks of bliss. Now that Tori thought back to those sun-soaked days, she realized that anytime she had gotten close to talking about his family, he’d changed the subject. Even now, he didn’t offer any explanations. Just “one of each.”
“And your parents? Are they both back in New York?”
“My mother is in Connecticut. My father lives in the Virgin Islands. They divorced when I was little.”
He picked up his sandwich and took a bite, but his face was set in a grim expression even as he chewed. Her heart sank a bit. It would be a shame if he wasn’t close with his family. What would that mean for their child?
“Cousins? Favorite aunts and uncles?”
He swallowed and wiped his fingers on his napkin. “What’s the point of this family tree examination?”
All the warmth from earlier was gone from his voice, and she withdrew a little bit. “We just...don’t know much about each other, that’s all. And it seems strange under the circumstances. Besides...” She lifted her chin a bit. “These people are going to be our baby’s family, too. Isn’t it right I know more about them?”
He took a drink of water and put down his glass, then placed his napkin on the table as he rose. “I’m sorry, but I really should head out to my appointment. Thank you for lunch.”
He took a step to pass the table and she reached out to put a hand on his arm. “Is your family so bad you won’t even talk about them?”
He looked down at her, and she couldn’t read his eyes at all. They were flinty gray and shuttered, keeping her from seeing anything too personal. “It’s not something to discuss over lunch.”
“Then later?”
He moved his arm out from beneath her hand. “I’ve got to go, Tori.”
The way he said her name at the end told her he wasn’t as closed off as he appeared. Perhaps what they really needed was some time away from prying eyes to discuss properly what the pregnancy meant—to both of them.
“Drive carefully,” she replied and shifted in her seat, letting him off the hook.
When he was gone she tried to finish her sandwich, but her appetite had gone with him.
* * *
The hot shower was exactly what Jeremy needed after the long day. This afternoon he’d visited three different properties along the South Shore, looking for the perfect home for his client, Branson Black, who was also a former classmate and one of his closest friends. Black was nearly as rich as Jeremy, but he wanted little to do with the money, which Jeremy couldn’t quite understand. His instructions were to find a property with a vie
w of the ocean and away from just about everything else. Jeremy was all about giving the client what he or she wanted, but he worried that Bran was trying to hide away from life and not just recover from recent trauma.
Still, he’d found one that he felt was perfect, and under three million. It even came with its own lighthouse, which, of course, was defunct but still lent the property an air of history and uniqueness. He had appointments to see several others during the week, though, before narrowing the choices down to send to Bran.
Being next to the ocean all day, walking the properties, had chilled him to the bone. He’d warmed himself during walk-throughs and by cranking the heat in the car, but the hot shower and warm hotel were more than welcome once he returned.
The hotel might be cozy, but Jeremy’s thoughts were not.
He kept messing things up with Tori. He should have known that she’d start asking questions about his family. She was that type. Girl-next-door, nurturing, home-and-family type. He’d always been able to spot them because theirs had been so very different from his own upbringing. Last summer she’d talked about her mom a lot, and missing her dad, and Jeremy had always changed the subject. She didn’t need to know that his dad had walked out when he was a little boy and that his mother hadn’t been much of a mother at all; she’d left that to the nannies—plural, because his mother tended to hire young women looking to gain some “adventure” by working for rich families for a year or two and then moving on. Some had been nice. Some had been tolerable, more excited about the money and their days off. The last one had had an affair with his stepfather, and that had been the end of the nannies and the beginning of the talk about boarding school. His stepdad had stayed. Jeremy had been sent away.
But it had been a blessing, really. When he’d finished middle school, he’d been sent to out-of-the-way Merrick Hall. And there he’d found his family—of sorts. Including Branson.
He tugged on a warm sweater and called down to room service for dinner. When it was delivered forty minutes later, he opened the door to find Tori’s soft face behind the cart.
“Room service,” she said softly, and offered a timid smile.
He couldn’t find it in himself to stay irritated. He opened the door wide and let her in, watching her hips sway as she moved the cart into the room. He swallowed thickly. Tori Sharpe was no less attractive now than she’d been five months ago. There was a subtle sexuality about her that was alluring. And when she turned around and the gentle swell of her tummy was visible, his heart gave a little thump. That was his child in there. He had no idea what to do but he knew for sure he wanted to be a better dad than his own had been.
“It’s late. I didn’t think you’d still be working,” he said, then realized how critical he must sound right now. “Thank you for bringing it,” he added, trying to be less of a jerk. After all, he’d walked out of their lunch like a coward.
“I waited for you to come back,” she admitted, her dark eyes troubled. “I didn’t like how we left things at lunch, and I wanted to say I was sorry for prying.”
“You had a right to ask those questions. It’s not your fault I don’t like answering them.”
She folded her hands in front of her. “You should eat while it’s hot. Let me set this up for you.”
He watched as she set a place at the small table and chair by the window of the suite, poured his beer into a glass and whisked the cover off his entrée to reveal a glistening steak surrounded by roasted potatoes, grilled asparagus and button mushrooms in garlic butter. It smelled heavenly, and his stomach growled in response.
“Have you eaten?”
“I have,” she said. “So please, sit down. I’ll leave you to it.”
She turned to go and was almost to the door when he said, “Tori? Stay.”
The moment she paused seemed filled with...well, surely not possibility? There was a change though, somehow. As if the invitation marked a willing step toward discussion. Intention, rather than dancing around the topic or taking the temperature of the situation.
And when she turned back around and faced him, his stomach quivered. He didn’t let himself get too personally involved with anyone, but he was going to have to with her, wasn’t he? At least if he wanted more of a relationship with his kid than sending a support check every month.
“Are you sure?”
He nodded. “I was rude this afternoon. I’m sorry about that.”
She took a single step toward him. “Neither of us knows how to navigate this. It’s an unusual situation.”
He gestured to the seat across the table from his food. “Come sit. Do you want some tea? Or anything else sent up?”
“There’s water on the cart. I’ll grab one of your glasses and have some. That’s all I need.”
He waited until she had her water and then they sat together. It felt wrong, eating while she wasn’t, but the food was delicious and by her own admission she’d had dinner already. The asparagus was done to perfection and the steak mouthwateringly medium, just as he’d requested.
“Your chef is very good,” he said. “This is delicious.”
“Tastes here aren’t terribly adventurous, so he does simple things well and adds a bit of flair when he can. But no one leaves hungry.” She smiled. “Neil has been here a long time, and the rest of the kitchen staff have trained under him. It makes for a consistent culinary experience.”
The resort wasn’t as glamorous as some he’d stayed in, but he had no complaints.
“And you’ve been here a long time, too.”
She lifted her water glass. “Since I was in high school. I started in housekeeping. Then moved to waitressing when I was legal age. Front desk for a while, too.”
“You trained yourself to know the different departments,” he observed, and her cheeks colored a little.
“I wanted to be in administration. For a while I was the events manager, in charge of special functions. Then when the assistant manager retired, I applied for the job and got it. This week, I’m acting manager since Tom is away on vacation. Saint Lucia, lucky thing!”
“And your mom is here. You have strong ties.”
“The strongest. My mom doesn’t have anyone else, really. As far as family goes, that is. Of course, she has friends.”
“As do you.”
Her brow furrowed. “Well, yes.”
“And so you probably wouldn’t consider moving.”
Her hand stilled halfway to the table, the glass trembling in her fingers. “Moving? As in...”
“Nearer to me. So our baby could be close to both parents.”
“Not with you.”
His eyes widened. Did she think he was going to ask her to move in with him? Or “do the right thing” and propose? Their affair had been amazing, but there wasn’t love between them.
“This isn’t the fifties. We don’t have to get married to parent this child. But I did wonder if you’d consider moving somewhere closer to, well, me. Of course, I’d look after everything financially.”
Her throat worked for several seconds while she studied her fingers, then looked up. Her eyes were clear and there was no censure on her face, either. “It’s a generous offer, Jeremy. But my life is here, as you just heard. I’m truly glad you want to be a part of his or her life, but I’m not prepared to completely uproot mine to make that happen, any more than you’re willing to uproot yours.”
She was right. If the shoe were on the other foot, he’d never agree to leaving his life behind and moving to small-town Nova Scotia. They were from totally different worlds.
“I respect that,” he said, putting down his knife and fork. “I really do. But I thought I should at least put the possibility on the table.”
“Of course.”
“We don’t have to decide right away, right? You’ve got a few more months to go.”
She nodded.
Then her expression softened. “About today... I’m sorry if I picked at a sore spot. Was your childhood awful? Is that why you don’t talk about your family?”
He sliced into the steak and considered. She was going to find out at some point, wasn’t she? All she had to do was get on the internet and do a bit of digging and she’d find out who he was. “My older sister works on Wall Street. And my big brother moved to California straight out of MIT. He worked for a few start-ups right out of college and then started his own. Now he’s CEO of a Fortune 500 tech company.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. Being in property, I’m kind of the underachiever of the family.”
“But property is a huge investment,” she contradicted, and he was amused and a bit flattered that she jumped to his defense. “And you don’t sell average houses. Your clientele are all rich, right?”
“Yeah. Dropping a few mil on a house is no big deal for them.” He realized she had no idea exactly how wealthy he was, and it both amused and pleased him.
“It’s a whole other world.”
He looked at her and held her gaze. “They’re people, just like anyone else. They have their own pressures, insecurities, heartache. It’s true that money can’t buy happiness, you know.”
“But it sure can help take some of the stress off,” she remarked, leaning back in her chair. “So how much are you worth, Jeremy?”
She said it lightly, teasing even, but he figured now was the time to be honest.
“One point two billion,” he replied.
She burst out laughing, then stopped abruptly as he merely kept watching her. He knew it was a crazy sum of money. Some days he didn’t believe it himself.
“Wait. You’re not joking.”
“No, I’m not.”
“You’ve made that much money in realty?” Her lips dropped open in disbelief.
“Hardly.” He pushed his plate away, leaving a few little potatoes, and reached for the beer. “But I had a big trust fund—the one thing my dad left me. And I have a sister on Wall Street who manages my money for me. Add all my assets together...and you get that number.”
