by Helen Lacey
He looked at her incredulously. “Are you serious?”
“Perfectly.”
He shook his head with a kind of impatient disdain. “How about the fact that I’ve been ignored for the last twenty-five years?”
“Well, I think the family only discovered that your...” She paused and found some different words. “That Gerald had other children a year or so ago. And with Keaton arriving in town and falling for Francesca and then Chloe being acknowledged as a sibling and her marrying Chance, I guess there’s been a lot going on for everyone.”
“Yes,” he said with a scorn she’d never heard before. “I’m sure it’s been unbearable for the legitimate children of Gerald Robinson discovering they have so many other bastard siblings around the globe.”
Robin felt his pain so much her insides hurt. “What are you afraid of, Amersen?”
“Afraid?” he scoffed. “I’m not afraid of anything.”
But she knew he was. She reached out and grasped his hand, holding it tightly within her own. He didn’t pull away. He didn’t move. He looked at her, meeting her gaze with a kind of burning intensity that drew her toward him like a moth to a flame. She wanted to help make things right for him.
“I wish you’d told me.”
“Why?” he shot back. “So I could see that pitying look on your face a whole lot sooner? No, thanks.”
“Because we’re friends,” she said quietly. “And friends help one another.”
He looked down into her upturned face, and the mood quickly shifted. “I don’t want to be friends with you,” he said and bent his head, all vulnerability gone, replaced by a burning look of awareness and sexual longing so intense it curled her toes. “I want to make love to you.”
She knew what he wanted—to exorcise his demons with sex. And she should have pulled back and put space between them. But she couldn’t. She loved him. He was hurting. And she would do whatever she could to help ease the pain in his heart and soul.
“Then make love to me,” she said and pressed closer. “And let me make love to you.”
He looked at her for a moment, as though making some monumental decision, and then he kissed her, long and hard and deep and, in a way, a little angry. But she matched his kiss and his touch, and when they finally made it to the bedroom and started stripping off clothes, his hands were caressing her so exquisitely she was all out of coherent thought. He touched her between her legs, and when he found her wet and ready, he made an almost agonized sound low in his throat. Once he had birth control in place, she accepted him eagerly, holding his hips firmly, and he moved inside her, finding an erotic, wild rhythm that made her climax almost immediately. There were no words, nothing other than the need for pure sexual release between them. It felt divine. It felt like she was being driven higher and higher with every pulsing stroke. And it made her a little sad, too. Because she knew in that moment that it was all she could give him. She loved him and gave herself up, holding him tightly as his orgasm brought him shuddering against her.
Afterward, he rolled off and disappeared into the bathroom. When he returned, he sat on the edge of the bed. She knew he didn’t want to speak and didn’t want her advice or counsel. But he was going to get it, regardless.
“I think you should talk to Olivia.”
“No.”
Robin sighed and placed her hand on his bare back. “If you’re feeling like this, then chances are she is, too. What have you got to lose?”
He didn’t move. “My edge.”
Ah—pride. She wanted to hug him and slap him at the same time. “Maybe it’s the person with the stronger character who takes the most risk.”
He shrugged off her touch and walked to the window, naked and unselfconscious. The curtains were open, but the tinted windows gave complete privacy. He stared out of the window for a moment and then spoke.
“You should go home. I’m not in the mood for company.”
Robin hurt right through to her soul. But she knew he was hurting, too. And she wanted to help him. Because...because she loved Amersen Beaudin with every part of her heart. She loved his brash confidence and his self-assured belief that he was right about every single thing. She loved that he was romantic and gave her silly gifts that meant so much. She loved that his kisses made her head spin. She loved the way he looked directly into her eyes when they made love. And she loved that she was seeing him raw and vulnerable and he couldn’t hide it from her, no matter how much he tried.
She knew he was fighting his feelings. And a part of her was, too. She’d never been in any kind of hurry to settle down into a relationship. Even being with Trey had simply happened without any real effort. And she knew Amersen hadn’t been thinking of anything long-term when they met a few weeks ago. But, looking at him, seeing him so hurt and conflicted about who he was, made her realize that she was deeply invested in him. In them. A part of her knew she was wishing for the moon...and that he needed to work out his feelings toward the Fortunes before they could even contemplate taking their relationship any further forward.
He had to face who he was.
And suddenly, she knew exactly what she needed to do.
Chapter Eleven
Amersen picked up his cell phone at least half a dozen times the following morning before he summoned the courage to call Robin and apologize for his appalling behavior the night before. He’d asked her to leave, and she had. Without hysterics or recriminations or complaint. And he felt like the biggest heel of all time, because he knew he’d hurt her. He didn’t have to see the wounded look in her eyes as she’d dressed. He’d used her to get all thoughts of the Fortunes out of his mind—and it felt wrong.
She answered on the third ring. “Hello, Amersen.”
The fact she recognized his number made him feel worse. She knew him. Because somehow, in a matter of weeks, that was what they had become. An item. A couple. A relationship. The idea rocked him through to the very blood in his bones. He remembered what his mother had advised before he’d returned to Texas, some platitude about signing on or breaking it off. The truth was, he didn’t know what to do. The thought of not seeing Robin again caused a physical ache in his chest. But if they continued as they were—disaster. He wasn’t stupid; he knew what he saw in her eyes when they were together. And he...he had so many conflicting feelings churning through his head and his heart, he didn’t know what the hell to do.
“I’m sorry about last night.”
She sucked in a short breath. “Okay.”
“I was...angry,” he explained, an inexplicable heat burning his eyes. “Not with you. With myself. With the whole...situation.”
“I understand.”
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“Of course.”
“Can I make it up to you?”
“Sure.”
Her staccato responses unnerved him, and he hated that she could do that. He didn’t feel anything like his usual self when he was around Robin. His overconfidence had often been described as arrogance and cockiness, and he’d never bothered to waste time altering those opinions. It was good for business, and in the past, business was all that mattered. But not anymore. Robin had an uncanny ability to strip down his defenses.
“Shall I pick you up so we can spend the rest of the day together?”
“I’m working. But perhaps we could meet later.” She hesitated for a moment and then asked a question. “How long are you staying in town?”
“I’m not sure,” he said and then realized she would be looking for assurances. “Perhaps a few days. It is Christmas soon and I need to get home to my...to everything there.”
“Okay,” she said after a moment. “I’ll come to the hotel after lunch. I need to pick up my things that I left there. Give me a couple of hours.”
When she hung up, Amersen felt uneasy and couldn�
�t define why. She hadn’t sounded right. Not angry, which was what he’d expected. Not confused, which he’d figured she was probably feeling. But agreeable. Too agreeable. Which meant one thing. She was ending it.
Good. It saved him the bother. She could come to his hotel, collect her things, maybe they’d spend the night together in one final goodbye. They could have hot, mind-blowing sex, and then they would be done. If that was what she wanted, he’d accommodate her.
It was after twelve when he was alerted by the concierge that she was on her way up. And barely a couple of minutes later he heard a sharp tap on the door. He pulled the door back, and as soon as he saw her, every ounce of blood in his veins heated. She wore jeans, a soft purple sweater, a scarf, boots and a jacket, and her beautiful hair was loose. His heart skipped a crazy beat. And then every thought he had about ending things with her disappeared. He didn’t want to end things. He wanted to start things. He wanted to haul her into his arms and kiss her beautiful mouth and do it every day for the rest of his life.
“What took you so long?” he said, dying to drag her to bed for the rest of the day. “Come in.”
She hesitated, her gaze shifting to the right. Amersen peered around the door and froze.
“Hello, Amersen.”
Olivia Fortune Mendoza was at his door. He immediately glared at Robin, seeing assurance in her expression as rage percolated quickly in his gut and then churned throughout his entire body.
“What is this?” he demanded.
Robin squared her shoulders and walked past him, inviting the other woman into the suite.
By the time he was in the lounge area, both women were seated on the sofa. Robin looked pensive. Olivia looked nervous. And Amersen was so angry he could barely get his legs to move.
“I called Olivia and asked her to come here because I thought the two of you should talk.”
It was Robin’s voice, but he hardly heard it above the rage gathering momentum and screeching through his ears every time he took a breath. “You did.” He scratched the words out and knew he sounded like he was chewing sandpaper. “Did you?”
She looked at him, her blue eyes unwavering. “You need closure. You need to sort this out.”
Annoyance and resentment settled in his blood. “I don’t think it’s anyone’s position to tell me what I need.”
“I think you’re wrong,” she said quietly, unmoving. “I think sometimes, when someone is hurting, it’s up to the people who care about that person the most to make sure they do right by them. And that’s what I’m doing.”
“What you’re doing,” he seethed, not daring to look at Olivia, his rage all directed toward Robin, “is interfering in my life. And assuming that you have the right. Which you do not.”
“But I thought—”
“You thought wrong,” he said harshly. “I wouldn’t accept this kind of interference from even my closest friends, let alone someone I hardly know.”
As soon as he said the words, he saw her recoil. But he was pissed off and couldn’t control his words at that point.
He looked toward Olivia. “My apologies, Mrs. Fortune Mendoza, for your wasted trip. I’m sure Robin will see you out.”
He strode off and headed for the bedroom, slamming the door to make the point that the conversation was over. When he was ready to face any of his half siblings, it would be his decision. And he’d make sure Robin understood she wasn’t to interfere in his life. He heard the suite door open and close and took a couple of puffs of his inhaler before he stalked back out into the main room. He was stunned to see that Robin was no longer there. But Olivia Fortune Robinson—now Mendoza—was sitting exactly where she had been when he left the room, knees crossed, hands in her lap.
She looked up and raised both brows. “Have you finished sulking?”
He stilled instantly. “Where is—”
“She left,” Olivia supplied, head at a tilt. “Not that I blame her. You really are as stubborn and pigheaded as we’ve all come to believe.”
It was a pretty mild insult, and he’d had far worse over the years, but it still irritated the hell out of him. “We?”
She waved an impatient hand. “Oh, come on. We both know that Keaton and Ben have tried to contact you and that you have ignored every request. And you’ve been back and forth to Austin twice in the last few weeks and still didn’t make contact with any of us. Shame on you.”
Shame on him? He almost laughed out loud. “I hardly think that it is my—”
“Are you so self-absorbed that you think you are the only one suffering here?” she demanded, sitting upright on the sofa. “Do you have any idea how it feels to discover that there’s a dossier on the results of your father’s indiscretions? And to discover that the father you’ve believed in all your life is someone else entirely? Someone who has children with other women, someone who is now painted as some kind of ogre?”
He rocked back a little on his feet. She had a valid point. He’d never spared much consideration to the feelings of Gerald Robinson’s children. His jaw suddenly felt like it was carved from granite. “I guess I don’t.”
“Some of us don’t want to play the victim card, Amersen,” she said pointedly. “Some of us are willing to try to work through this. He made mistakes—big ones—but who hasn’t made mistakes in their life?”
Amersen ignored the tightness in his chest. He’d never considered himself to be a victim. And he didn’t like the label one bit. “He ignored my existence for twenty-five years. He ignores me still. That’s not a mistake. That’s a choice.”
Her mouth thinned. “God, you’re so much like him—so arrogant and self-important.”
He didn’t ever want to be compared to the other man, and was about to tell her so, when Olivia spoke again.
“He didn’t know about you,” she said and sighed heavily. “Look, I wasn’t going to bring this up because it’s obviously something you need to sort out with your mother...but all I know is that she told my father that she’d ended her pregnancy, and as far as he knew, that was the truth.”
“He paid her off,” Amersen said quietly, refusing anyone to lay any blame at Suzette’s feet. His mother had told him the truth—Gerald never wanted the child she carried. Never wanted him. Suzette made the choice to have Amersen on her own, and he was grateful for that decision. He was also thankful that Luc Beaudin had entered her life. “And he was relieved when he believed she had taken care of things.”
Olivia shrugged. “I guess it was a difficult time for them both. All I’m saying is that he didn’t ignore you...he didn’t know about you. It was my mother who knew,” she explained, and he could see how much the truth hurt her. “She knew about the dossier and kept the information to herself. She knew about you and Keaton and Chloe and the others that are in it. It’s not a pretty story, okay? My mother has played her own part in this situation and she, along with the rest of us, have to live with that. And yes, our father has known about you for a while now and hasn’t made contact, but can you blame him? He knows he’s not going to get a good reception from you—is he? It’s not like you have this great reputation for being all warm and fuzzy.”
“I don’t think my reputation should matter,” he said tightly.
“Of course it does,” she said and waved an impatient hand. “We all know who you are. What you are. That you have this opinionated and cynical skew on life. I’ve read your blog and your bio, Amersen. You’re not perfect. And he’s not perfect, either. But he’s trying to make amends in his own way with Keaton and Chloe. If you give him a chance, he’d probably try to do the same with you.”
“Probably?”
She sighed. “Like I said, he’s not perfect.”
Amersen’s head reeled. Everything Olivia had just told him about Gerald and Charlotte made the whole sordid mess somehow less sordid. And then, wit
hout warning, part of the weight that had been pressing down on his shoulders since he’d first discovered he was Gerald Robinson’s son slowly lifted.
For months, he’d made a point of denying any biological link to the other man. In his core, he believed that Gerald was a dishonest, womanizing cheat who betrayed everyone he got close to—and Amersen never wanted to be that kind of man. So, the farther he withdrew, the less chance he had of ever being compared to the one man he had grown to hate above all others. Even before he knew of his biological father’s identity, he knew enough about the quality of man he was—married and unable to remain faithful. A consummate liar. A man who promised everything and delivered nothing. A man who left a trail of emotional destruction in his wake. That was why Amersen never let himself feel anything other than desire in his relationships and why they were brief and ended before he was in too deep. No investment—no possibility of leaving that same trail of destruction and pain. Absolute proof that he was nothing like the man who had given him life. And the knowledge that no one would be hurt. Including him. Especially him.
The realization made him laugh to himself. For so long he had kept people at a distance. He had success and wealth and fame and everything he’d ever dreamed of. Except the one thing that really mattered...complete and utter emotional surrender to another human being.
Until Robin.
“You look like you’ve just had some kind of revelation,” Olivia said quietly, and he saw that she was smiling.
It occurred to Amersen that he liked her. His sister. His blood. “I think I just did.”
Her mouth twisted slightly. “Well, maybe it’s not me you should be admitting that to?”
He let out a long and weary breath. “She left me.”
“Because you were a stupid jerk,” Olivia said and smiled. “You know, don’t be offended when I say this—but you really are a lot like him. You’re both driven and innovative, and you both clearly attract women like flies to honey. But,” she said when he went to protest, “that doesn’t mean you have to be him. All I’m saying is, learn from his mistakes. You know, when Robin called the vineyard this morning and asked me to come here to speak with you, she knew you would be angry. But she did it anyway. That should tell you all you need to know.”