“There’s definitely something to be said for finding the right woman,” Nathan told him. “Maybe you’ll be next.”
“The problem I find is that there are so many right women, I’m not sure which one to choose.”
Nathan grinned and shook his head. “It’ll happen. Probably when you least expect it. You’ll meet someone and you’ll just know.”
“Was it like that with Ana? Because I recall you saying that you broke it off.”
“And it might have been the worst mistake of my life. I’m just lucky that she was willing to give me a second chance.”
“You’re getting sentimental, which can only mean you’ve had way too much to drink.”
Actually he was stone-cold sober, but he didn’t argue.
Jordan slugged his arm. “Go sleep it off. And Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas. And drive safe.” He watched his brother disappear into the night, then he shut and locked the door and set the alarm.
He found Ana in the kitchen washing dishes by hand. “Is the dishwasher broken?”
“It’s already full and running. This is what’s left.”
He stepped up behind her, slipped his arms around her waist, nibbled her ear. “Are you sure you don’t want to leave these for tomorrow?”
“It’s tempting, but I really hate waking up to a dirty kitchen.” She smiled up at him hopefully. “If we do it together it’ll take half the time.”
Half the time ended up being an hour. When they were finished, they heated mugs of spiced cider in the microwave then cuddled up on the couch in front of the fire. Ana had barely spoken since everyone left, and Nathan was beginning to wonder if something was wrong.
“Is everything okay?” he asked her. “You’ve been awfully quiet.”
She sighed and rested her head against his chest. “Just tired. It’s been a really long day.”
“That it has.”
“It didn’t work out exactly as we planned, but I think it went okay.”
“Better than I anticipated, considering the guest list.”
“It was really strange opening the door and seeing my dad there. And even stranger when your brother showed up.”
“Yeah, that was definitely unexpected.”
“He was really good with Max. I wouldn’t have pictured him as a kid person.”
“As long as it’s someone else’s, I guess. He doesn’t seem to have any desire to settle down and have a family of his own. Of course, neither did I.”
“This is probably a terrible thing to have to ask, since he is your brother, but he’s not going to say anything to the board at Western Oil about us, is he? I know that you were concerned about him finding out.”
“He said he wouldn’t. He said he wants a fair fight.”
“And you trust him?”
“You don’t?”
She shrugged. “Maybe it’s because of the things you’ve told me, or just a gut feeling, but it seems as though he really resents you.”
“He has no reason to resent me. I saved his hide more times than I can count. He owes me.”
She lifted her head and looked up at him. “Saved it from what?”
“Our father. He was a hard-ass, and he liked making his point with a belt, or the back of his hand, or sometimes even his fists.”
Her eyes went wide. “Your father hit you?”
“I told you before, he was a bully.”
“I just figured that you meant he bossed you around. I didn’t think he was physically abusive. And you protected Jordan from him?”
“Jordan is younger than me, and up until college he was small for his age. Real quiet and shy. I was tougher, and a lot bigger, so I took the knocks for him.”
She was staring at him, mouth open in awe. “You let your father hit you instead?”
He wasn’t sure why that came as such a surprise to her. Maybe because she was an only child. “I was the oldest. It was my responsibility to watch out for Jordan.”
“It seems like it should have been your father’s responsibility to find a more constructive way to discipline his children. Or your mother’s responsibility to protect you both. Why didn’t she stop him?”
“She probably didn’t want to risk losing her meal ticket.”
“So she let her husband abuse her children? That’s just wrong. They put people in jail for that sort of thing. I believe it’s called depraved indifference.” She wasn’t just mildly disturbed, she was furious. Maybe because she was looking at it from the point of view of a parent.
“It’s not worth getting this upset, Ana. It was a long time ago.”
“It’s just not fair,” she said, reaching up to touch his cheek. “You should have had a better childhood. It’s not right that your parents failed you so badly.”
“Maybe, but the world doesn’t always work the way it should.”
“And look at all you’ve done with your life, despite it. You’re the CBO of a billion-dollar company. That’s a huge accomplishment.”
“You want to hear something weird? Your dad sort of offered me a job.”
She laughed. “Seriously?”
“He said he didn’t like the idea of his son-in-law working for a competing company.”
“Did you remind him that you’re not his son-in-law?”
“Well, not yet. He was talking about the not-so-distant future.”
Her brow crinkled. “Are we planning to get married in the not-so-distant future? Because I think I missed the memo.”
“Unless you don’t want to marry me,” he said.
She sat up and set her cup on the coffee table. “I didn’t say that. I just didn’t know that you wanted to. We’ve never actually talked about it.”
Of course they had. “I told you I wanted to make this work, that I wanted to be with you. Eventual marriage seemed like a foregone conclusion.”
“A single woman never takes that for granted. And when she does, she tends to get her heart filleted and handed back to her in little pieces.”
It took him several seconds to connect the dots, and when he did, he understood why she wouldn’t take anything he said for granted. “You’re talking about me, right? When we were seeing each other before Max.”
She shrugged. “I thought everything was going great, that we had a future. You kept telling me how happy you were. Then pow, out of the blue you dumped me.”
“I guess I did, didn’t I?” He pulled her into his arms and held her. She snuggled up against him, soft and warm. She was so tough all the time, so direct and resolute, he sometimes forgot that she had a sensitive and vulnerable side. She’d gone through life probably feeling abandoned by her mother then rejected by her father. Then Nathan came along and made her feel wanted, and he let her down, too. He wasn’t going to let that happen again. Besides, he needed her as much as she needed him. He needed to show her that he meant what he said. That this time it was different.
“I have an idea that I wanted to run past you,” he said.
She tilted her head back and looked up at him. “I’m listening.”
“I’ve been thinking that eventually we’re going to need a bigger place. Something single-family, with a big yard for Max. Because of work, I thought it would be best to wait, but it is a buyer’s market. It couldn’t hurt to start searching now.”
She sat up a little straighter, looking as though she wanted to let herself be excited, but she was still wary. “Are you sure? What if we find something right away?”
“Worst case, we could move in and I can keep my apartment as my formal mailing address. Although I doubt anyone would question me buying a house. Emilio, our CFO, owns investment properties all over.”
She still looked unsure.
“If you don’t want to, we can wait,” he said.
“It’s not that at all. I want this. I really do. It’s just…everything is happening so fast.”
“And it seems to me that it’s about a year and a half past due.”
; “I just don’t want us to rush into anything. I want you to be sure.”
“I am sure.” It was the most sure he had been about anything in a very long time. Ana grounded him. He would be a fool to let her go again.
She smiled. “Okay then. Let’s look for a house.”
“I’ll call an agent after the first of the year.” They would have to work out the logistics of actually viewing the properties, since they couldn’t be seen together house hunting, but they would figure something out.
She leaned back against his chest and sighed. “I’m exhausted.”
“Why don’t you go crawl into bed. I’ll get the lights and check on Max.”
She yawned and shoved herself up from the couch. “I’ll see you in there.”
As she shuffled off, yawning and rubbing her eyes, Nathan shut off the lights and unplugged the Christmas tree. On his way to bed he slipped into Max’s room. He was asleep on his stomach, and as usual he’d kicked the covers off.
Nathan tucked the blanket up around his shoulders, then he pressed a kiss to his fingers and touched them to Max’s cheek. When the three of them were living together, he could do this all the time, since odds were pretty good that he wouldn’t be home every night in time to tuck Max into bed. A lot of women would have a problem with their husbands or significant others working such insane hours, but Ana grew up around the oil business, so it was second nature to her. Even back when they were dating the first time she’d never made an issue out of his work schedule.
Nathan closed Max’s door behind him and walked to the bedroom, pulling his shirt over his head, wondering if Ana was too tired to make love. He got his answer when he stepped into the room and heard her slow, even breaths from under the covers.
She was out cold.
He put on his pajamas and crawled into bed, curling up behind her. She murmured something incoherent and cuddled against him. And as the digits on the clock neared midnight, he couldn’t imagine a better way to end his Christmas than lying in bed, holding the woman he loved.
So why did he have a nagging voice in his head saying that things were so good, so perfect, something was bound to go wrong?
Fourteen
“Are you sure that you and Nathan are okay?” Beth whispered, taking Ana’s empty champagne glass and handing her a fresh one. “You’ve barely even looked at each other all night.”
“That’s the point,” Ana said, sipping the champagne, knowing that if she was going to make it to midnight she was going to have to pace herself. She and Nathan had already arranged to meet upstairs in the guest bedroom right before the clock struck twelve so they could share a New Year kiss. And maybe share a little more than that. From the minute she poured herself into the crimson party dress, he’d been gunning to get her back out of it again. And though he looked utterly delicious in his tux, she much preferred what he was hiding underneath it.
Since Christmas Eve, Nathan had spent every night at her place. Every day he brought more of his things, and he’d arranged for the service that picked up and delivered his dry cleaning to start coming to her condo instead of his apartment.
If someone had told her a month ago that she and Nathan and Max would be more or less living together now, she would have called them crazy.
Beth handed the empty glass to a passing waiter and asked Ana, “So you two are bitter rivals tonight?”
“No.” She glanced over at Nathan, who was standing across the room with a group of elegantly dressed couples. He seemed to sense her watching and glanced her way. Other than the slight tilt of his lips, he did nothing to acknowledge her. “Just indifferent,” she told Beth. “Sometimes acting as though you hate someone is even more suspicious than not acknowledging them at all.”
“Ma’am?” One of the servers approached Beth. “We’re running short on cocktail napkins.”
“There’s another box in the pantry,” Beth told her, and she stared at Beth blankly. Beth sighed and said, “I’ll show you.”
They walked off in the direction of the kitchen, and Ana crossed the great room to the Christmas tree beside the stone fireplace. It put hers to shame. It was so tall it nearly kissed the peak of the vaulted ceiling. There was another equally grand tree in the foyer at the base of the staircase. Beth always went all out on the holidays, enlisting a professional to decorate the estate inside and out. In fact there were so many white lights adorning the house and the trees and shrubbery throughout the grounds, Ana was sure that it was visible from space.
“That’s quite a tree,” Nathan said, stepping up beside her, as though he was just making polite conversation with a fellow party guest.
“Yes it is,” she agreed.
He leaned in and said softly, “Sort of puts ours to shame.”
She smiled and whispered back, “Funny, but I was just thinking the same thing.”
“Next year,” he said.
“If we want one this big we’ll need a great room with a vaulted ceiling.”
“Should we put that on the list?”
In preparation for house hunting, they had begun making a list of the features they both wanted in a home. Nathan had even been looking at available properties online and already found several possibilities. Ana just wished she could shake the feeling that things were moving too fast.
Was it that she’d been hurt so many times that she was afraid to trust it, or was it her instincts telling her something was wrong? She just wasn’t sure.
“Ana Birch?” someone said from behind her.
She turned to find a short, plump, vaguely familiar woman. She had blond, poofy hair that accentuated her round face, and wore a dress that was just a smidge too clingy for someone her size. “Yes?”
“It’s me, Wendy Morris!” she bubbled excitedly. “From St. Mary’s School for Girls!”
It took a second, then Ana was hit with the memory of a young, bubbly cheerleader wannabe who was always so desperate to be accepted by the popular girls she made an annoyance of herself. “Oh my gosh, Wendy, how are you? I haven’t seen you in ages.”
“Well, it’s Wendy Morris-Brickman now,” she gushed proudly, flashing a ring in Ana’s face. She turned and shouted across the room, “Sweetie, come here!”
A man who looked to be about Nathan’s age, with thinning hair and round glasses, in a tux that didn’t quite accommodate his stocky build, crossed the room. Wendy hooked an arm through his in what looked like a death grip. He couldn’t have been more than two inches taller than his wife, and though Ana wouldn’t have considered him unattractive, he was very…nondescript. Bordering on mousy.
“This is David Brickman, my husband. David, this is Ana Birch, my good friend from high school.”
More like casual acquaintances, but Ana didn’t correct her. She accepted David’s outstretched hand. It was warm and clammy.
“Nice to meet you,” he said, but she realized he wasn’t even looking at her. His eyes were on Nathan, who was still standing beside her.
Wendy looked up at Nathan and asked Ana, “And this is your…?”
“Nathan Everette,” he said, shaking her hand, then extending his hand to David.
David looked at his hand, then glared up at Nathan, red-faced with anger.
What the heck?
“You have no idea who I am, do you?” David asked.
Nathan blinked, and she could see him wracking his memory.
“We attended Trinity Prep together,” David said, with a venom that took Ana aback.
Who was this guy? And why would he be so openly rude?
Nathan must have recognized him, because suddenly all the color drained from his face. “David, of course,” he said, but he looked as though he might be sick.
“Let’s go, honey,” David said, dragging his confused wife in the opposite direction.
“What the hell was that about?” Ana whispered.
“Later,” Nathan said, before he walked away, too.
She couldn’t exactly go after him, not without rou
sing suspicions, but she wanted to know what was going on. Maybe Beth would have an idea.
Sipping her champagne, she walked to the kitchen, but Beth wasn’t there. In fact, she didn’t see her anywhere. Beth was the consummate hostess. She would never just disappear in the middle of her own party.
Ana found Leo in the study showing off his college football trophies.
“Have you seen Beth?” she asked him.
“She’s probably upstairs freshening her lipstick,” he said.
Ana headed up the stairs to the master suite. The door was closed so she knocked gently.
“I’ll be down in a minute!” Beth called.
“It’s Ana. Are you okay?” she said.
There was silence, then the door opened. And Beth clearly was not okay. Her eye makeup was smudged and tears streaked her cheeks.
“Beth, what’s wrong?”
She pulled Ana into the room and shut the door. “I’m just having a minor meltdown. I’ll be okay in a minute.”
“Did something happen?”
Beth sat on the edge of the bed. “It’s nothing.”
“It’s obviously not nothing or you wouldn’t be crying.”
“It’s Leo,” she said with a shrug. “You know how men are.”
“What did he do?”
“I went in the pantry to get the napkins and he was in there.” At Ana’s questioning look she added in a shaky voice, “With a paralegal from his firm.”
Oh hell. “I take it they weren’t in there getting napkins.”
Beth laughed through her tears. “Not unless they were crammed down her bra.”
“That rat bastard,” Ana said, furious on Beth’s behalf. She’d seen him two minutes ago and he hadn’t looked the least bit remorseful. She always thought that Leo was the perfect father and husband, and that he and Beth had the ideal marriage. So much for that delusion. “Do you think it was a minor indiscretion, or is he having an affair?”
“There have been a lot of late nights at the office the past month or so, and calls on his cell phone that he has to take in his study. And our sex life has ceased to exist, so I’m guessing she’s the new flavor of the month.”
A Clandestine Corporate Affair Page 13