by Robyn Grady
“You had a good time overseas?” Her father’s dark-winged eyebrows arched as he lifted the cup to his pursed lips.
“Yes.” Bailey fought the urge to clear her throat. “Thank you. I did.”
“I’m glad.” Her father held his smile. “You must have been busy.”
A little nervous, she laughed. “Pretty much.”
“You enjoyed it then?” Damon Ross went on.
Her fingers tightened around the cup. He was pushing the point that he had advised her not to go abroad alone. Digging to see if, true to his prediction, anything had gone wrong.
“I’m glad I went,” she said, her smile verging on tight now. “I’m glad I’m back.”
Her father nodded, but his buoyant expression had slipped a touch, too.
“I wasn’t sure what to think,” he said.
Out of the corner of her eye, Bailey saw Mateo roll back one shoulder a second before she replied. “About what?”
“About how you were doing,” her father expounded as if he were telling her B followed A. “Whether you were in any kind of trouble.”
“You didn’t need to worry, Dad.”
Damon Ross laughed with little humor. “It’s not as if I’ve never had to worry before.”
A retort, fast and hot, leapt up her throat but before she could say a word, her father changed his tone…upbeat again.
“So,” he pushed his cup aside and threaded his fingers on the table, “did you find work while you were over there?”
“I did some waitressing.”
“Well, as long as it kept you out of trouble.”
Bailey’s face burned. There was that word again. Or was he merely being inquiring, genuinely concerned, and she was being overly sensitive? Now that she was here, shouldn’t she be the better person and let any slights, intended or otherwise, sail over her head? She was mature enough to handle this.
“How did you two meet?” her father asked Mateo while Bailey took a long sip of hot coffee.
Mateo replied, “Through a mutual friend.”
“Bailey’s mother and I met at a church function.” Damon blinked several times then dropped his faraway gaze. “But that was a long time ago.”
“We recently returned from France,” Mateo chipped in, sharing a covert you’ll-be-fine wink with her.
Her father’s wistful smiled returned. “My wife and I visited Paris on our honeymoon. Ann was taken with the country scenery. She said she felt as if she’d stepped into a Monet.” His gaze wandered to his daughter and he sat back. “So, what are you doing with yourself nowadays?”
“I’m working,” she announced. “For a real estate firm.”
Mateo stepped in again. “Bailey and a friend of mine clicked. Natalie said Bailey had what her agency was looking for.” He caught her gaze. “Didn’t she, darling?”
Bailey’s heart lifted to her throat. Mateo had only ever addressed her by name and yet he’d chosen this moment to call her an endearment. A well-educated, respected professional in his field, Damon Ross was challenging his daughter and Mateo was defending her without causing waves, by letting her father know she was his “darling” and insinuating she was selling properties rather than cleaning bathrooms.
She hoped the smile in her eyes told Mateo she appreciated his efforts. But honestly, she’d sooner he didn’t intervene. Whatever came today, she needed to stand up for herself, not as a child standing toe to toe with a disapproving parent, but as the self-respecting adult she’d become, and without too much of her father’s help.
“Bailey’s going back to school,” Mateo was saying.
Her father looked half impressed. “Well, well. I said one day you’d regret dropping out.” While Bailey set her teeth, Damon Ross spoke again to Mateo. “My daughter didn’t attain her high school diploma,” he said under his breath as if she hadn’t learned to spell her own name.
Bailey studied that wedding portrait and, hands on the table’s edge, pushed her chair out. She’d come here hoping—she’d wanted to make their father-daughter relationship work—but she was only hurting herself. Still, she wouldn’t argue. Neither would she sit here a moment longer.
As she rose, her father stopped talking and looked up at her with eyes that, for a moment, were unguarded.
“Are you pouring more coffee?” he asked.
“Actually, Dad, we have to go.”
Her father got to his feet. “You only just arrived.”
“We can stay awhile longer,” Mateo said, standing too.
But she pinned Mateo with a firm look that said he was wrong.
“Mateo,” she said, “it’s time to go.”
While her father muttered that he didn’t know what the rush was all about, Mateo’s furrowed gaze questioned hers.
She peered up at the ceiling and almost groaned. She appreciated Mateo coming—appreciated everything he’d done—but this was her business. Her life. She’d gone through this game with her father too many times already.
Bailey walked away and the men’s footfalls followed. At the door, she leaned toward her father and pressed a quick kiss to his cheek. When she drew back, her father’s gaze was lowered on her wrist. On the bracelet.
“I see you haven’t lost it yet,” he said.
Her gaze went from the bracelet to her father’s cheated look and a suffocating surge of hurt, and guilt, bubbled up inside her.
He just couldn’t let her leave without mentioning that.
On the edge, she flicked open the bracelet’s new clasp. “Know what, Dad?” Slipping the chain and its jingling charms from her wrist, she handed it over. “I want you to have this.”
His brow furrowed. “But I gave it to you.”
“Not the way I needed. The way she would’ve wanted you to.”
“Don’t start on—”
“Mum didn’t ask to die,” she plowed on. “She didn’t want to leave us. I don’t need this to know she loved me. It’s sad but,” she slapped the bracelet in his palm, “I think you need this more than me.”
She headed down the path.
Mateo remote-unlocked his car a second before she reached for the passenger side handle. Churning inside, she kept her burning, disappointed gaze dead ahead while Mateo slid into the driver’s side. He belted up, ignited the engine, shifted the gear into drive. Trying to even her breathing, she felt his gaze slide over.
“Your father’s waiting on the doorstep,” he told her. “Don’t you think you ought to at least wave?”
Her stomach kicked and she screwed her eyes shut. “Don’t try to make me feel guiltier than I already do.”
Not about her father’s behavior but because she had almost lost that bracelet, and she would never have forgiven herself if she had.
Mateo wrung the steering wheel with both hands. “He was a little out of line. But, Bailey, he’s your father. We were there ten minutes. Do you really want to walk away, cut him off, again?”
Eyes burning, she continued to stare ahead. Mateo might want the chance to sit down and speak with his biological father, but she knew now hers would never listen. Would never understand. He wasn’t the only one who’d felt lost when Ann Ross had died.
And while they were on the subject—if she was running away, hadn’t Mateo in a sense run away too, from that little boy who would love to be his son?
But she wouldn’t mention that. If she did, they’d have an argument and the way she was feeling—the way she’d thatched her fingers to stop her hands from shaking—she wouldn’t be the one to back down.
While she glared out the windshield, Mateo sucked in an audible breath and wrenched the car away from the curb. They drove in silence home. When she got out of the car, she tried to make her way through the house and up that staircase before any tears could fall, but Mateo had other plans. Catching up, he grabbed her arm from behind. Tamping down hot emotion, she lifted her chin and turned around.
The chiseled plains of his face were set. “We need to talk.”
�
��Not now.”
She tried to wind away but he held her firm. “Don’t let this get to you.”
“I’d have thought you’d approve of me walking away.”
Mateo had once said he was selfish. He was wrong. He was a hypocrite. Mateo might have had a good relationship with Ernesto, but there was a little boy back in France who had silently begged for years for the monsieur to accept him. Not so different from the way she wanted to be accepted by her father.
She shook her arm free and started up the stairs. It was better they didn’t discuss it.
Mateo’s steps sounded behind her. “I’m not the one you’re angry with.”
Her throat aching, she ground out, “Please. Mateo.” Please. She continued up the stairs. “Leave me alone.”
When an arm lassoed her waist and pitched her around, she let out a gasp as she fell. But before her back met the uneven ramp of the stairs, that arm was there again, scooped under and supporting her as Mateo hovered over her, daring her to try to walk away from him again.
But he didn’t speak, and the longer he stayed leaning over her as she lay on the steps, his eyes searching hers, the more her tide of anger ebbed and gradually seeped away. But the hurt remained…for herself as well as for Remy. She doubted that would ever leave.
Her words came out a hoarse whisper.
“Why does he do that?”
Mateo exhaled and stroked her hair. “I don’t know.”
“I won’t ever go back.”
“You don’t have to…if that’s what you want.”
Frustration sparked again. “I know what I want, Mateo.”
His lips brushed her brow. “I know what I want.”
She shifted onto her elbows. “Do you?”
He hesitated a heartbeat before his mouth slanted over and took hers.
His kiss was tender and at the same time passionate. Dissolving into the emotion, needing to completely melt away and forget, she reached for his chest and struggled with his shirt buttons. As the kiss deepened, he shifted too, rolling back each shoulder in turn as she peeled the sleeves off his powerful arms.
When his mouth finally left hers, her blood felt on fire. She didn’t want to think about anything but this. Not her father or France or her bracelet. Only how Mateo made her feel time and again. She couldn’t deny it any longer. As much as she’d set out to keep her head and her heart, she’d fallen in love with Mateo, an emotion that consumed her more and more each day.
His eyes closed, one arm curled around her head, he murmured against her parted lips. “Perhaps we ought to take this upstairs.”
She sighed against his cheek. “If you want.”
His brow pinched. Before he kissed her again, he said, “I want you.”
Fifteen
Finished tapping in the final answer on the last form, Bailey held her breath and hit send. If everything went according to plan, in a couple of months she’d be busy studying, sending off her first assignments, on her way to getting that degree.
Sitting back in Mateo’s home office chair, she had to grin over the majors she’d chosen. What were the odds? Then again, what were the odds she’d come to feel this way, this deeply, about Mateo?
A week had passed since their surprise visit to her father’s house…since Mateo had defended her, challenged her, then pinned her on the stairs where they’d made love in a frenzied, soul stirring way they never had before. Her skin flashed hot to even think of the avalanche of emotions he’d brought out in her that day.
Mateo cared about her. He enjoyed her company. But even more, Mateo Celeca believed in her. Yes, for her sake he hoped she and her father could somehow, someday, make amends, but he respected her enough not to push. The same way she wouldn’t push about Remy, no matter how strongly she felt those two should be together.
More and more she was coming to believe she and Mateo should stay together too. More than common sense said he could have his choice of companions, and yet he chose to be with her. Had asked her to stay. She couldn’t help but wonder….
Exhaling, Bailey pushed that thought aside and, before signing off the computer, decided to check emails. A message from her friend Vicky Jackson popped up in reply to the email Bailey had sent when she’d discovered that first day back that her friend was out of town. Vicky was dying to hear all the news. Had she seen her dad yet? Had she met anyone wonderful? As always, Vicky wanted the gossip, just like the old days, bolts and all.
Bailey glanced around Mateo’s red leather and rosewood office. So many amazing collectors’ items. Even the ornate silver letter opener looked as if it belonged in a museum. Would her friend since school believe what had happened over the last few months? From backpacking around Europe, to settling down in Casa Buona, to being cornered into an engagement that had sent her on a desperate flight home to Australia. Best of all she’d gone and lost her heart. A huge romantic, when Vicky found out, she would go berserk!
Fingers on keys, she jumped right in.
Vicky! You wouldn’t believe how I’ve lucked out. So much has happened since we saw each other last. But the main thing is that I found *the* guy. A keeper!
I’m sitting here now in his home study. Make that mansion! I’m actually cleaning houses atm. Long story. But that’s only temporary. I have *so* many plans—BIG plans—and Doctor Mateo Celeca is at the center of them all—
Bailey stopped, pricked her ears and listened. Mateo’s car was cruising up the drive.
She tapped out a super quick “Talk soon,” hit send, then jumped up. Mateo had said she could use this laptop anytime. She didn’t feel guilty about taking him at his word. In fact, she’d come to feel wonderfully at home here. But, with him being gone for four hours, she was excited to have him back. Whenever she thought of him striding toward her, that dazzling smile reaching out and warming her all over, her knees went weak. She needed his kiss. More and more she wanted so much to let him know how deeply she felt.
What would he say if she did?
Mateo entered the house aware of the weight in his shirt pocket and the broad grin on his face.
Not so long ago he’d had no intention of getting overly involved with a woman. And yet, with Bailey, he was involved up to his chin. He’d spent his whole life avoiding the ghosts and hurdles of his past. He’d only needed his friends and the possessions he surrounded himself with. To open his heart—to consider marriage and children of his own—would mean to invite in vulnerability. Take on risk.
But late last night in the shadows, after he and Bailey had made love and he’d felt so at peace, he’d questioned himself. Searched his soul.
Did he love Bailey Ross?
Moving down the central hall now, Mateo rolled the question over in his mind but still the answer eluded him. He did know, however, that he had never felt this attracted to a woman before. He enjoyed, without reservation, Bailey’s conversations and smiles. He looked forward to seeing her, kissing her, letting her know how much he valued her. And they were certainly beyond compatible in the bedroom.
In Paris he’d made a decision. To offer her commitment—a home, his affection—without unnecessary encumbrances. This morning he’d come to a different conclusion.
He may not be certain that he loved Bailey but he was wise enough to know he would never find this connection with anyone else. Today he intended to utter words that previously had not existed in his personal vocabulary. As soon as he found her, wherever she was hiding, he intended to ask her to be his bride.
He entered the kitchen, swung a glance around. Empty. Out in “their” garden, no sign of her among the statues either. A hand cupped around his mouth, he called out, “Bailey. I’m back.”
He waited but the house was quiet. Then he had a thought. Before he’d left this morning, she’d asked if she could use his computer. A bounce in his step, he headed for the office.
A few seconds later he discovered that room empty too. But from the doorway he saw the internet browser on his laptop had been left open. T
he world was full of hackers, scammers, looking for a window to wiggle into and defraud. A person couldn’t be too careful. Needing to log off, he crossed over and saw a message hadn’t been closed. He moved the curser to save the draft at the same time a few words caught his eye.
BIG plans… A keeper…
His gaze slid to the top of the screen. He skimmed the entire message, lowered into his chair and read it again. After a fourth time, Mateo’s hand bunched into a tight ball on the desk. There had to be a different way to interpret it. A different light from the murky one he’d latched on to. But, for the life of him, he couldn’t grasp any other implication from this message than the one hitting him square between the eyes.
You wouldn’t believe how I’ve lucked out. I found…a keeper!
Actually cleaning houses…that’s only temporary… BIG plans—and Doctor Mateo Celeca is at the center of them all—
His gut kicked then twisted into a dozen sickening knots while his hand drifted to his shirt pocket. His fingers curled over the velvet pouch inside and tightened. Was her meaning as obvious as it seemed? Had he been wrong about Bailey? Emilio then Mama…Had she wormed her way into his feelings to manipulate him too?
Had he played the fool again?
“Mateo!” Bailey’s call came from down the hall. “Where are you?”
He snapped back to the here and now and dabbed his clammy brow with his forearm. He had to think.
“Mateo?”
The call sounded close. He looked over and saw Bailey standing at the office door, looking slightly flushed, a brilliant smile painted across her face. She rushed forward and wasted no time plopping onto his lap and snatching a quick kiss.
“Guess what I did today?” She asked, beaming.
Although his mind was steaming, he kept his tone level. “Why don’t you tell me?”
“I enrolled.”