Jenna gave him a wry smile. “You have no idea. Anyway, I’d forgotten about the portfolio until I turned eighteen and some lawyer tracked me down to say it was mine to do with what I wanted. I couldn’t believe it. Suddenly, I had funds that if I managed them carefully, could see me set up for life. I cashed in enough so I could get my degree without a student loan, and I kept working weekends at the store to meet my other expenses. I eventually sold off the balance a couple of years ago and used it toward buying my house.”
She felt Dylan shift at her side and she gave him a piercing look. “You thought I’d somehow used the money my father swindled to buy my house, didn’t you?”
He had the grace to appear shamefaced. “It was starting to look that way. The sums just didn’t add up.”
She nodded. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. Anyway, I was able to use the house as collateral to borrow the money I needed to buy out Margaret when she was ready to retire. The repayments make things tight, but as long as I can keep afloat I’ll get there in the end. The business will be all mine.”
“That security is important to you,” Dylan commented. “Owning your own home, your own business. Being answerable only to yourself.”
Jenna nodded. “It became everything to me. It’s the antithesis of what my life had been like up until my father was put in jail and I was sent here to Cheyenne to live.”
“You were in Laramie when your father was investigated, weren’t you? How did you end up here?”
Jenna rubbed at the mound of her belly absently. “Dad’s arrest was national news and Lisa heard about it. Despite Dad ditching her the way he did and all that he’d put her through, she was still fond of me. Turned out she had a recently widowed college friend who lived here. That was Margaret. Lisa contacted her about taking me on. It was only supposed to be until I was eighteen, when I was theoretically supposed to be cut loose, but we got on well. I worked hard and she appreciated that. Plus, I also loved working with her and with flowers. We ended up being a natural fit. I have so much to be grateful to Lisa for, but I’m particularly grateful to her for using her influence to convince the authorities to send me to Margaret.
“Being here was a gift that I certainly wasn’t going to throw away. It gave me a chance to start over in a town where people barely knew of me. I hated every second of the publicity that surrounded my father’s arrest. It was even worse when the media began to point a finger at me, saying I’d been complicit in his behavior. If I was guilty of anything, it was of ignorance. Maybe by the time I was fifteen I should have been asking questions about how he made so much money when he never appeared to work, but my head was filled with school and teenage stuff, so it never occurred to me to question any of it.
“One of my teachers got sick with cancer and the student council came up with the idea of a sponsored head shave to raise money to help her family out while she had treatment. When my dad saw me he was horrified at first. But then he took some pictures of me while I was visiting my teacher in the hospital. Without my knowledge or consent, he used those pictures to create a fake profile online, and used his imagination for the rest. It didn’t take long for investigators to clear me of any involvement, but mud sticks and for me it stuck hard.”
She thought back to that time when she’d been too afraid to leave the house and face the media assembled outside. Her father, then out on bail and awaiting the case to be brought before court, had simply taken it all in his stride, even laughing and joking with the reporters when he’d gone out. But for Jenna, who was still growing her hair back, every moment at school had become a trial by her peers, each day more unpleasant than the last.
“When Margaret placed me in school here I just did what I’d always done. Kept my head down and focused on my grades. By the time I attended the University of Wyoming people had begun to forget. Sure, I crossed paths with a couple of the kids I’d gone to school with in Laramie, but time has a really good way of blurring the edges of people’s memory.”
Jenna studied Dylan’s face again, and was grateful he’d listened without passing judgment. When given the chance, she’d grabbed the opportunity to forge a new life for herself, with both hands holding on tight. Sure, in hindsight she could see that her father had always believed he’d tried to do his best by her. That he’d obtained all those things under false pretenses was his cross to bear, not hers. Jenna knew that now. It didn’t mean that she forgave him for it, but it was who he was.
“As to the money he raised, I have no idea where it is. He managed to hide it somewhere. No doubt he’ll use it to seed his lifestyle when he gets out and the instant he does I hope the police will be back onto him. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you all this before,” she said softly. “I should never have accepted your proposal without doing so, but I guess a part of me was scared that you’d believe the worst of me when you knew.”
“And then I did, didn’t I?” he said ruefully. “Or at least it probably looked that way to you, huh?”
“In part. You have such a wonderful family, Dylan. I sullied them and your opening night at the Grill by bringing my life’s ugliness into it.”
“No, don’t say that. What you went through made you who you are now. And we love you for it. All of us.”
She searched his eyes to see if he was telling her what she thought, and hoped, he was saying. Sharing her past with him had made her feel lighter inside, as if it was no longer her burden to carry alone.
“Yes, Jenna. I do love you. I shouldn’t have walked away from you last weekend. I was so angry and so hurt when I learned you’d kept such an important piece of yourself from me. I shouldn’t have reacted the way I did. You needed strength and support from me, and I didn’t give it to you. But if you’ll let me try again, that’s what I’m offering you now.
“Everything, Jenna. My heart, my soul, my life. Knowing what you went through in your past just makes me want to create a better future with you, one for all three of us,” he affirmed, placing his hand on her belly. “So I’m going to ask you again. Jenna Montgomery, will you marry me?”
Seventeen
Dylan’s heart beat double time as he waited for her answer. He wanted this, her, the baby, more than anything he’d ever wanted his whole life. His happiness and his future hung now on Jenna’s reply.
When it came, her simple yes was the most magical word he’d ever heard.
“I promise to make sure you never regret it,” he vowed as he leaned forward and took her lips in a kiss that transcended every previous contact they’d ever had before. Nothing stood between them now. Their lives and their love were laid bare to one another.
“I know I never will, Dylan. You offer me so much, it makes me wonder what I offer you in return,” she said uneasily as they broke apart.
“Everything,” he said, and it was heartfelt. “I thought it was just a fluke, the way you made me feel the first day I met you, but you never left my thoughts. Through J.D. dying, through Angelica’s wedding being called off...even when I was working hard on the Cheyenne Grill’s opening, you were always there.”
Dylan shifted on the couch so he could pull her into his lap, one arm wrapped around her while his other hand rested on the mound that resulted from their first meeting.
“I couldn’t stop thinking about you, either,” Jenna admitted with a rueful smile. “It was...quite uncomfortable at times. I knew you were back in Cheyenne on and off, while the restaurant was being built. I guess I was a bit like a crazy teenager with a crush, hoping I’d get a glimpse of you. Your world, your background, is so different to mine. I convinced myself that you were unattainable for me, that our lives were too far apart and that I was happy not to hear from you or get in touch with you myself. But then I discovered I was pregnant, and it made me reassess everything. Made me wonder if you’d even be interested. After all, it’s not like we got to know each other before we—”
“Shh,” he said, pressing a short kiss to her lips. “So we didn’t do things the conventional way. That doesn’t mean we can’t be as old-fashioned as we like, if we want to be, for the rest of our lives. Let’s not wait to get married. I want us to be together, as husband and wife, as soon as we can.”
“But what about where we’re going to live? I—”
“I’ve been thinking about that. I have a strong team at my back. I can afford to work from here in Cheyenne, at least until the baby’s born. After that, we can decide what we’re going to do next, although I’d like to think I can make the move home permanent. I’d like to see our baby raised here, closer to my family’s roots. So, what do you say? How does next Saturday sound?”
“Are you sure? That’s a lot of organizing in a short period of time.”
“We can do it, if we want to. I have contacts in the catering business,” he said with a cheeky grin, “and I know someone who has a real way with flowers. If you’re okay with it, I’d like to keep it small and invite family and close friends only. What do you think?”
She nodded. “That sounds perfect. Do you think we could get married out at the Big Blue? It’s an important part of your past and your family. I think it would be so special to be married there, where you grew up.”
“I think that would be perfect,” he said, kissing her again. “And I’m sure Chance and Marlene would be thrilled. So, shall we do it? I’ll get the license on Monday and we can be married by the end of the week.”
“I can’t believe it’s true, that it’s really happening.”
“Believe it, Jenna. Believe me. You are all I’ve ever wanted, you and our baby. I had some wonderful examples of love growing up. First my parents, and then J.D. and Ellie. Losing Aunt Ellie crushed J.D. He never stopped loving her until he drew his last breath.
“Even as a kid, I knew I wanted to know that kind of love with another person. I’m thirty-five years old, Jenna, I was beginning to think that kind of love wasn’t out there for me, and God only knows I looked. I never expected to find it, to find you, right here under my nose in Cheyenne. And now that I have you, I’m never going to let you go.”
“I’m going to hold you to that, Dylan Lassiter. Every day for the rest of your life,” she promised, her eyes burning fiercely with her love.
“I can’t wait.”
* * *
It was a dazzling afternoon out at the Big Blue. As Dylan had expected, Marlene had taken the initiative and organized the wedding with the flair and efficiency he’d always known her to have. Strange how he’d thought he’d be wildly excited about today; instead, he was filled with a deep sense of rightness and calm. Everything he’d ever done to this point in time had led to this moment, this day, where he would declare his love for Jenna in front of their nearest and dearest.
He looked out the window of the second floor of the house and down toward the garden, where a hastily erected bower of flowers on the patio marked the spot where he and Jenna would become husband and wife very soon. A handful of waitstaff from the Grill circulated among the small gathering with trays of drinks and hors d’oeuvres, and he knew his executive chef had taken over Marlene’s expansive kitchen to create a wedding supper that would rival anything he’d ever done before.
A knock sounded at the guest room door and his sister stepped inside. A smile wreathed Angelica’s beautiful face, but he could see the concern in her eyes.
“Hey,” she said, moving across the room to give him a quick hug.
“Hey, yourself,” he answered. “I’m glad you could make it.”
“Well, it was rather short notice, Dylan. Seriously,” she teased, “a girl needs time to plan for these things.”
“I figured if the bride could be ready in a week, our family and friends could, too.”
“Good point,” she said, stepping back and assessing him thoroughly. She flicked a tiny piece of lint off the lapel of his suit. “Speaking of which, this wedding is all rather sudden, don’t you think? To be honest with you, I can’t believe you’re actually going through with it. Are you absolutely sure you’re doing the right thing? It’s no small step you’re taking.”
“I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life.”
“Dylan, you don’t have to marry her to be a father. You know that, don’t you?” she pressed. “We hardly know anything about her.”
“I know all that I need to know for now. I look forward to spending the rest of my life discovering the rest. As to not having to marry her—Angelica, I want to. I want her to be my wife more than I’ve wanted anything else in the world. It’s a destination that I know, deep in here—” he thumped his chest “—we would have come to anyway. Having the baby, well, that just speeds it along.”
“What if things go wrong?” she persisted. “Even when you think you know a person...”
Angelica’s voice trailed off, leaving her bitterness and anger toward her ex-fiancé to hang in the air between them. Another knock at the door interrupted what Dylan was going to say, and Sage came into the room.
“You scrub up pretty well,” he teased his younger brother.
“You don’t look so bad yourself,” Dylan replied, taking comfort in the usual banter.
“I never expected you’d beat me down the aisle,” Sage commented lightly. But then his face grew more serious. “It’s not too late to change your mind.”
“Not you, too,” Dylan groaned. “Look, guys, I appreciate the concern, but I know I’m doing the right thing. She’s going to be one of us now. I’d like you to respect that. Can I have your promise you won’t say anything about it again, please?”
Angelica and Sage each agreed, and the conversation turned to other matters.
Sage spoke first, directing his attention to their sister. “Since the three of us are together, I wanted to discuss the rumors that you’re moving forward with contesting J.D.’s will.”
“You’re not still going ahead with that, are you?” Dylan asked.
“Of course I am,” Angelica said with a stubborn look that the brothers knew all too well. She might have all her mother’s beauty and grace, but deep down inside she was J.D.’s daughter through and through. “As I recall, Sage, you were originally the one to suggest it.”
His eyes reflected his frustration with her. “Yeah, but I also realized early on, and advised you, that continuing with the idea would prevent J.D.’s other wishes for inheritance from happening. Did you really want to see Marlene unable to live here? Or for any of the other bequests to be frozen while you battled this out? I thought you understood that it was more important to observe J.D.’s wishes in the end than to persist in something that’s only going to cause bigger and bigger problems.”
“Oh, sure.” Angelica laughed, but the sound was insincere. “Nothing like the good ol’ boys backslapping and agreeing to hush the little woman on her ideas, right? We all know Lassiter Media should have been mine. I did all the hard work. I picked up and carried on when Dad started to pull back from the day-to-day operations. Me! It’s my baby and I want it back.”
Dylan interrupted before things could get any more heated. Sage was right, but he could see where Angelica was coming from, even if he believed she was wrong. “I would have thought you’d want what’s right for Lassiter Media. We all know that while we didn’t agree with everything J.D. did, he was a brilliant businessman. He made his decision. Think of the wider picture, Angelica, if you even can anymore. You’ve become so dogged about this that your behavior is damaging the company. Is that what you want?”
She sighed and her shoulders sagged beneath the couture gown she wore. “No, it isn’t what I want at all, but I have to fight for what’s right. For what’s mine.”
Dylan put an arm around her. “We’re going to have to keep agreeing to disagree on this, Ange. This obsession isn
’t good for you, isn’t good for any of us.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” she retorted. “You got what you wanted.”
“And I’d walk away from it all today if I knew that was what was best for the corporation.”
The air was thick with the conflict until Angelica shook her head. “Let’s not talk about this today, okay? We’re here to celebrate you getting married.”
The men grunted their assent, but Dylan knew the subject would not be forgotten. It was far too important to simply try and sweep under the rug. But for now, they could pretend there was nothing contentious simmering between them. He looked out the window once more, noting that the white folding chairs on the patio were filling with guests.
“Let’s go do this,” he said with a smile at his siblings.
Downstairs there was a hum of excitement in the air, yet it did little to ruffle the calm that wrapped around Dylan like a cloak. He’d spent every day in the past week looking forward to this moment, and finally it was here. Everything was coming right in his world, and he only hoped his sister could one day be as happy as he was.
Dylan took his place under the floral bower and smiled at the celebrant they’d booked to conduct the ceremony. Then he turned and looked down the aisle at the eager faces of the people he loved most in the world. All except for one, and she’d be coming from the house any moment now.
Jenna had elected to walk alone toward him, stating that she’d stood on her own two feet for so many years, she didn’t need anyone to give her away. She was coming to this marriage freely and wholeheartedly. In response, Dylan had elected not to have a best man, although they’d asked Sage and Valerie to be their official witnesses.
After a flurry of activity at the doors leading onto the patio, Marlene appeared with Cassie, who was dressed in mint-green organza and carried a basket of petals. Marlene flung Dylan a smile and gave him a thumbs-up. Until then, he hadn’t realized he’d begun to feel nervous. No, it wasn’t nerves, exactly, it was more anticipation. He couldn’t help it; a big smile spread across his face.
EXPECTING THE CEO'S CHILD Page 16