by Susan Meier
Lila needed somebody who would be there for her.
She didn’t need him.
A few years from now she would thank him for stepping away from her, saying “Good night” and returning to his room alone.
* * *
The next morning, Mitch had himself all together. He hadn’t spent a sleepless night. He’d thought it all through and fixed it.
He’d always known he had tunnel vision. After Julia, he’d realized he wasn’t made to be a one-woman man. But what he had forgotten was that he’d promised Lila a job. When he remembered that, the fixer in him had perked up like a bull seeing a red flag. He might not be able to love her, but he could help her.
So he’d made a few calls to friends in New York, and because it was still afternoon in the States, within hours he had the perfect job for Lila.
Then he realized that there was an even better way to repay her for helping him with this ruse. For being a good sport. For being a nice person. She needed a job, but she also wanted to find her mom. She wanted the chance at a family that he’d always had and maybe taken for granted.
Because it wasn’t quite five o’clock in New York City, the town was still open for business. He pulled a few strings and got the name of a private investigator. With the promise of a bonus for quick work, he hired a firm that began looking for Lila’s mom. He didn’t ask what websites they’d checked, if they’d hacked things that shouldn’t be hacked, but two hours later he not only had her mom’s employer; he had her address and phone number.
Then he slept like a baby.
* * *
Sitting at the far end of the conference table, listening to his dad convene the final meeting of his stay in Spain, he felt pretty damned proud of himself. His family was solvent. The woman he might be coming to love would have a secure future once he told her about the job he’d found for her. She’d also have another shot at talking to her mom.
And he was back to being who he was. Not the needy man standing on the balcony wondering if he should take a risk.
He hated risk. Even considering taking a risk was foolish. Not him. And he was glad to be back to normal.
“As most of you have probably guessed, we have no agenda for this final meeting because there’s nothing left to discuss.”
Though everyone else in the conference room laughed, Mitch struggled to keep his facial expression neutral. He could be in his apartment right now, telling Lila she had a high-level administrative position in an investment bank and handing her mom’s personal information to her. Instead, he would sit here and listen to his dad rehash decisions that had already been made.
But he could do it. He was Mitch Ochoa, fixer, background guy who made other people happy.
“But there is one thing we haven’t discussed.”
There might be. But Mitch honestly had no clue what it was.
“I’d like to acknowledge my son...”
Alonzo. Who was getting married.
“Mitcham.”
For a few seconds his name didn’t register. When it did, he glanced up sharply.
“You think the family doesn’t see that you rescued us. But we do. Alonzo will be a great vintner. Your mother and aunt love managing the restaurant and gift shops. I’m okay with overseeing everybody. But, you, Mitch, fill in the final piece of the puzzle. The big piece. You sell us. Without you, we’d be broke.”
He sat back in his chair. Not quite sure what to say.
Riccardo laughed. “He hates praise.”
“I don’t hate praise. I simply don’t need praise.”
“It’s a foolish family,” his mom said, “who doesn’t acknowledge the person who’s holding it all together.”
“I wouldn’t say that I—”
Riccardo snorted. “Oh, please. Modesty? Take the praise and run.”
“Better yet,” his dad suggested. “Take a vacation. We’ve looked at the books and we’ve never seen that you take time off.”
Because he didn’t.
His mom reached across the conference table and patted his hand. “We also worry that you don’t have a life.”
“I have plenty of life.”
“True, but I wonder if Lila feels that way.” His mom caught his gaze. “Riccardo tells me you’ve never even taken her to the house in the Hamptons. Your dates are all in New York City. You need to give this woman more.”
Oh, boy. Dating advice. From his mom.
Here’s where he had to stop things.
He rose from the table. “Okay. Good talk. I’ll just be going back to my apartment now.” He started to turn away, but shifted back. “In fact, I’ll take your advice, and Lila and I will have lunch in town.”
Before he could make his escape, his dad walked over to him and gave him a stiff, all-businessman hug. “I’m still the boss, but I wanted you to know that we see what you do.” He pulled away and caught Mitch’s gaze. “I know you saved us financially, but we’ve all agreed this week that we’re on solid ground now. You can go and have some fun.”
Mitch left the conference room and all but ran out of the main house. But when he got to the sitting room of his apartment and saw Lila on the sofa reading, he stopped dead in his tracks. His family had given him the green light to slow down, take time off.
What if he did?
What if, after the wedding, he and Lila got into the family jet and toured Europe?
The possibility was so tempting his breath almost caught. He could have or do anything he wanted and what he wanted was time with this woman.
Except he wasn’t a guy who could make commitments. And he would hurt her.
She looked up and saw him. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
She turned off her e-reader. “Sorry, I was a little lost in my story. How’d the meeting go?”
She rose from the sofa. Her long legs seemed to go on forever beneath her short shorts. Her hair swayed as she walked over to him. And her soft eyes called to him.
“The meeting was fine.”
“So what’s on the agenda for today?”
He fingered the slip of paper in his jacket pocket. The name and address of the company for her new job. The address and phone number for her mom.
“My dad told me today, in front of everyone, that he realizes I saved the family.”
Her eyebrows rose. “That’s cool.”
Now that he was past the dating advice and remembering the things his dad had said, it was cool. Warmth bubbled up in his chest. All the weird feelings from the unexpected praise disappeared like a puff of smoke. The sense of accomplishment that rippled through him made him laugh.
“It was great. A surprise, but great. I think my dad might be making a road for a new way for the family’s company to do business.”
He fell to the sofa, happily confused.
“And that’s good too, right?”
“Absolutely.”
No feeling had ever come close to the emotions rolling through him at that moment. Another man might have looked at Lila, with his family’s instructions for him to have some fun floating through his brain, and seen his chance. Mitch remembered that he wasn’t a good bet as a boyfriend and Lila needed more.
And suddenly everything felt off. Wrong.
They had three more days of this charade. Three days of getting to know her, laughing with her, longing for something he couldn’t have.
Maybe it was time for this ruse to end? His family respected him. He’d found her mom. They both had what they wanted.
Except he wanted her.
But he couldn’t have her. It annoyed him that his usual self-control was deserting him. When he decided against something, he never thought of it again. He didn’t torture himself. He took action.
He rose from th
e sofa. “I found you a job.”
Her eyes widened. “You did?”
The excitement in her voice strengthened his resolve. He hadn’t even told her about her mom yet, but she was so thrilled with the job it was clear she wasn’t invested in this, in him, the way he was beginning to feel about her.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the little slip of paper. “Your mom’s address and phone number are on there too.”
Her mouth fell open. “Oh, my God.”
* * *
She was just about to jump in his arms and tell him she loved him, when he said, “I found your mom because I don’t like to do things halfway. I realized last night that you wanted your mom, not a job. So I did what I should have done in the beginning—I hired a PI and found her. The new job is like a bonus as a thank-you for being so convincing as my fiancée.”
She stepped back, away from him so she could see his face. He’d said the words as if he was happy, proud of himself, but she saw deeper. She saw the flicker of uncertainty in his eyes.
“You found my mom last night?”
He nodded. “It was only afternoon in New York City, even after our chat on the balcony.”
When she’d kissed him.
And he’d pulled away.
He’d immediately gone to his room and found her mom.
She took another step back.
He might have feelings for her. She’d sure as hell felt them the night before. But he didn’t want to love her.
Her heart felt crushed. Not smashed into a million pieces, but flattened into a thin red line.
And she still had to go to the rehearsal dinner that night, pretending everything was okay. Then the wedding. The day-after party.
She had to. He’d done his side of the deal. Found her a job. Then gone the extra mile and found her mom.
She had to.
Her heart tried to swell back to life, but couldn’t. She was right at his fingertips. He loved her. But he wouldn’t say it. Didn’t want her.
When the chips were down, when commitments had to be made, no one really wanted her.
She cleared her throat to ease the tears out of her voice. “You do remember that my mom always disappears right after she’s found.” The right thing to do would be stay and finish this. But with every ounce of her being she knew she couldn’t.
Gathering her courage, she raised her eyes to look at him. “I can’t wait on this.” She waved the paper. “I have to return to America today.”
For one blessed second, he hesitated. Hope swelled, but he dashed it. “I don’t think we have to go through with the rest of the charade.”
She blinked, the tears a little harder to hold back this time.
“My family respects me.” He nodded at the paper in her hands. “We found your mom. We accomplished everything we wanted.”
Nodding, she swallowed hard to hold back the emotion flooding through her. She’d wanted her association with him to be over when she returned to New York. She’d known it was the only way she could handle this.
But now that the time was here...
Her chest shuddered with unshed tears and she pressed her lips together to settle herself before she said, “You’re right. Give me an hour or so to pack. You can think of a good breakup story for your family.”
He nodded.
She straightened her shoulders and walked into her bedroom.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
LILA ARRIVED IN New York feeling like a new person. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the new person she’d thought she’d be when she agreed to the charade with Mitch.
She thought she’d come back with four suitcases of beautiful clothes, a sophisticated knowledge of Spain and how the other half lives and a new job she could sink her teeth into. Though she had those, she’d brought home something else with her.
She was truly in love with Mitch. And she knew he loved her too. But he’d nudged her out because he didn’t want to love her. Who knew why? On the flight home she’d wondered if he didn’t think her good enough, but recognized that wasn’t true. He wasn’t that kind of guy. She’d considered that what had blossomed between them had happened too fast. But he didn’t have to ask her to marry him. They could have dated.
He didn’t even want to give them a chance.
And she had to deal with that. Straight up. No pulling punches. The man had had her at his fingertips, and he’d given her the one thing he knew would push her away—her mom.
But somehow having her mom’s address felt empty. Worse, it was frightening. She’d turned her mom in. Who knew how she’d react? What would she do if her mom didn’t run this time, but stayed and talked with her, and flat out told her she didn’t want her in her life. Then she would have been rejected by her mom and the man she loved.
Then it would be official. There would be no one in the world more alone than she was.
* * *
The next morning, Mitch woke and stumbled into the kitchen of his apartment. The one bad thing about being with a woman who had a good reason not to drink was he now couldn’t get drunk to drown his sorrows. He looked at alcohol a totally different way now.
So he’d barely slept. And he hadn’t had the sweet release of alcoholic oblivion to get him through the night. Instead, he’d gone back and forth between thinking he was an idiot and knowing he’d had to do the right thing.
His wedding tux hung on a rack in his sitting room—obviously delivered by staff. He wasn’t shaved. He didn’t feel like showering. He drank coffee but he’d just as soon throw the bagel at the wall as eat it.
A knock at his door surprised him. Thinking it was someone here to annoy him with some detail about the wedding, he barked, “Come in!”
The door opened slowly and Julia entered. “A best man is supposed to attend all wedding functions, including the rehearsal dinner, so where were you last night?”
“Taking my fiancée to the airstrip.” He tossed the bagel to the table. “We broke up.” And it felt real. And it sucked. And it confused the hell out of him. All the time he’d been trying to avoid hurting her, and he was the one hurting.
Julia’s face fell in confusion. “You broke up?”
“Don’t pretend you’re not happy. Now you’re back to being queen bee. I know you didn’t like her.”
“I adored her. She was the first person to hold her own with me in a long time. But honestly I knew something was up when she left the bachelorette dinner. I knew you were going to do something stupid.”
“Yeah, well, the stupid thing I did was find her mother.”
Julia fell to the seat across from his at the small, round table. “Her mother?”
“She wasn’t in foster care because she was an orphan. Her mother is alive. She lost custody when Lila was about ten. Lila hasn’t seen her since. Every time she finds her mom, she disappears. It seems she likes her mother more than she likes me. Because as soon as I gave her her mom’s address she was out of here.” That wasn’t quite the truth. Though she’d been the first to mention leaving, he’d agreed.
“And she gave you back the ring?”
He ran his hand along the back of his neck. “No.”
“Maybe you misinterpreted? You did say her mom disappears every time she’s found. Maybe Lila didn’t think she could wait.”
“That was part of it, but I... Never mind.”
“Never mind like hell. You love this woman! Are you just going to let her go?”
“She’s better off without me.”
“No. She’s not! I was,” she said, then she grinned. “But that’s because you didn’t love me. You could drop me for a business meeting any day of the week. But you’re different with her. You sometimes can’t take your eyes off her. She knows enough about business that you talk for real.”
She smiled. “You take her seriously, Mitch. And she makes you laugh. You love her.”
Julia rose and took his tux off the rack. “You need to go after her.”
“After her?”
“Are you deaf or daft? First off, you’re sending her to meet her mom alone. My goodness, Mitch. Seriously? She hasn’t seen her mother in over fifteen years and you sent her into that emotional land mine alone?”
He’d never thought of that. It should have shamed him that self-absorbed Julia had. “I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do.”
“Nothing...just support her. Be moral support.” She tapped his forearm. “She needs you, Mitch. And you love her. Go.”
“What about your best man?”
“Riccardo will fill in.” She waved the tux. “Luckily, you’re the same size.”
* * *
Lila sat at her kitchen table, staring at the piece of paper with her mom’s address and phone number on it. Mitch had found her mom. She had the information about her new job. She’d already called and learned that she could start the following Monday. She had three closets full of clothes and a ring the size of a small town on her finger. She was going to have to return the ring—in person—only a fool would put a ring this valuable in the mail. But she couldn’t seem to move from the table.
Oh, she wanted her mom. She longed for the chance to say she was sorry, to make things right, but she also wanted Mitch. Everything she’d resolved to avoid when she’d made this deal had happened. They’d gotten close. She’d fallen in love for real. He’d fallen for her too, but that stubborn Spanish businessman could not let go and say he wanted her.
So maybe she was better off with a fresh start.
Really.
She showered and put on a pair of jeans and one of her new blouses, along with new shoes. She took the subway to the part of town where her mom lived, but walking up the sidewalk, she saw a limo.
She almost laughed. A limo. In this part of town. She thanked God for the laugh since she was shaking in her new shoes. She’d already been rejected by Mitch. Now her mom would probably reject her too. She was the stupidest woman in the world to put herself in these kinds of positions. But if there was even a chance her mother wanted her in her life, she had to do this.