by Floyd, Jacie
“No, of course not.” He brushed her hair behind her ear and stroked gently through the strands. The touch managed to work its soothing magic. “The position was advertised through the regular channels. When she recognized my name on the board, she called me to personally recommend you. She raved about the extent of your knowledge and writing skills. She also said we had interests in common and maybe I could take you to dinner. She never suggested that I try to spirit you away for the weekend or become intimate with you in any way. Believe me, from the moment I saw you, doing Regina a favor was the last thing on my mind.”
With her head bent, she peeked at him from under the slant of her hair, beginning to believe him.
“Will you answer one more question?” He waited for her agreement, and she nodded. “The thing I’ve wondered about the most is why do you look so sad?”
She sprang up and away from him, separating herself from the concern in his voice. That was the last question she expected him to ask, and in fact, the main thing she didn’t want to discuss. On the heels of the revelation about his former relationship with Regina, it was too much. She returned to the table and sat in her chair, hands fidgeting in her lap. “It’s a long story.”
“I have time.” He clasped his hands behind his head in a relaxed pose, but his study of her remained intense and direct.
“I’m not sure I want to tell it.”
“When I went to The Hansett yesterday, the last thing I wanted was company for the weekend. But something about you spoke to me, Kara. The look in your eyes haunted me. I tried to dismiss the idea, but I couldn’t. You may not think you can trust me, but you can. And sometimes it helps to talk about our burdens. To acknowledge them. Vanquish them.”
She crossed her arms and lifted her chin. “You ask a lot.”
“I ask for nothing.”
“But Regina—”
He shook his head. “Regina doesn’t factor into this.”
Kara felt torn. Confused. Afraid. If she spoke of them, all of the old feelings she had only been able to contain, but never banish entirely, would be released from the place she kept them subdued. But with his keen, sympathetic eyes on her, control was an illusion she could no longer afford. She took a deep breath. “Stop me if this is more than you want to know.” She prayed that he would.
Looking in his general direction, but focusing beyond him, she went to a place in the past. A place it wounded her to return to.
“I was married and had a child.” She hoped a matter-of-fact delivery would get her through the story with the least amount of exposure. “My husband, Mike, was a chemist. Brilliant in his field, shy and reserved otherwise. Except with me. We had a son, Adam, during the first year of our marriage.”
Wyatt sat up and reached toward her. He stroked her arm. Just that. A soothing gesture that encouraged her to continue.
“Later, we talked about having another child, but we decided to time the birth for after I finished work on my master’s. It hurts my heart to think how happy we were. How naive we were to think we could plan the future to suit ourselves.” She moved her hand to her chest and rubbed her fingers over the spot that ached.
“What happened?”
Remembering that cold, dreadful day, Kara shivered. “It started to snow and quickly turned into a blizzard. I was supposed to pick Adam up from the babysitter’s on my way home from class, but Mike left a message that he would get him. When I finally got to the house after being stuck in traffic for hours, they weren't there yet. Not long afterward, a policeman came to the door.”
She swallowed a lump in her throat. Suddenly, Wyatt knelt beside her, gripping her hands in his, offering her his strength. She wouldn’t look at him. Pity from him now would kill her.
“Both of them were killed. My God, both of them,” she cried in a hoarse voice, the words ripped from her throat. She fell silent again, gathering enough control to continue. “I’m told I did everything that was required of me. I went to the hospital and identified the bodies. I arranged for the funeral. I stood by the caskets and accepted condolences. I remember very little of it, except for sitting in my house for months afterward, surrounded by their things, haunted with guilt and remorse. I didn’t eat or sleep, didn’t acknowledge friends or family. Seasons came and went. Friends came and went. Nothing penetrated my grief. Nothing mattered.”
“When did this happen?” His tone remained even, detached almost, but his touch offered infinite comfort and understanding.
“Three years ago.” Realizing she had his hands in a death grip, she released them to rub her fingertips across his knuckles.
“How did you put your life back together after such an enormous tragedy?”
Kara sat up straight and squared her shoulders, really looking at him for the first time since she began relating her story. “I met a man in a museum.”
“No.” He shook his head, refusing to accept the responsibility for her recovery. “What happened between then and now? You must have done something that helped you to survive.”
“Just the opposite. With money the insurance companies settled on me, and the proceeds from the sale of our house, I was suddenly very wealthy, a circumstance that had never been my life’s goal. To have gained materially from the deaths seemed so ghastly, so mercenary, like the worth of their lives could be measured on a monetary scale. Mike’s life was short, but he lived long enough to know certain joys, and pleasures. To achieve success in his field. But his death took our son’s life with him. There is no solace to be found in such a waste.”
She shook her head and scoffed, denying the idea even now. “I shut down emotionally, closed myself off, determined to pay for being alive by making myself as miserable as I possibly could. I moved to New York to close myself off and gain greater distance from my family and friends. I chose not to seek help, or let go of my misery. Sometimes I think I was afraid that if I let go of the pain, I’d be letting go of Mike and Adam, too.”
Wyatt’s amber eyes glowed with empathy. “‘My grief lies all within, and these external manners of laments are merely shadows to the unseen grief that swells with silence in the tortured soul.’”
“Yes.” Now that she knew he was an English professor, she wasn’t quite as amazed by his ability to sum up each moment with appropriate literary allusions. “I probably would have drowned in my sorrow if Regina hadn’t kept after me. The more I resisted, the more she insisted. She literally put me on a plane to come out here.” Kara paused to trace the scar on his chin with her fingers. “And she asked a friend of hers to meet me. I’m angry with her for her methods and horrified to know the history you share with her, but I’m very, very grateful to her. And to you.”
“Not to me.”
“You’re like the Indian bear who broke through the darkness and brought sunshine into my cold and barren life.” She raised his hand and kissed it. “Thank you.”
She was relieved to read compassion rather than pity or revulsion in his eyes. He seemed to struggle with himself to accept her gratitude and then went one step further by returning it. “Thank you for telling me about it. I know that wasn’t easy to share.”
“Two days ago, it would have been impossible.”
Looking out to sea, chaotic thoughts broke through his normal control and tumbled across his expression. “How much longer will you be here?”
“Is that one of your five questions?”
“Do I have any left?”
Rubbing her forehead to clear away the tendrils of grief tying her to the past, she forced her thoughts back to the present. “I lost track.” She would answer as many as he wanted. Owing him that much and more. “I’m going home on Wednesday, but if I get the job at The Hansett, I’ll be coming back here to stay for two or three months.”
Wyatt cradled her face in his hands. “If you come back to California, will you stay with me?”
“With you?”
“For as long as you’d like. Or for as long as I’d like. Whenever either one of us
would want it to end, it would. No strings attached. No regrets. No recriminations on either side.”
“Why would you want me to?”
“It just feels right.” Wyatt shrugged. “I always thought of having a woman here as an intrusion, but I’ve enjoyed spending time with you. I’d like to continue our association.”
“I’m not used to this much ‘associating’.”
“Maybe it’s like the novelty of a new toy and once the shiny wears off, we’ll slow down.” He laughed.
Good heavens! She wondered if this pace of morning-noon-and-night sex was normal for him.
“Or instead of staying with me, you could stay here at the cabin. I spend most week nights at the beach, so you would only have to see me on weekends.”
“It’s too soon to make these plans,” she objected. “I may not even get the job. And please don’t pull any strings for me at the museum.”
“Will you come back if you don’t take the position?”
“I hadn’t planned on it.”
“Maybe you could come back for a visit.” She wished he’d just let her go. If he pressed her to, she’d return. “Will you think about it?”
She nodded but drew away, uncertain if she meant yes that she’d think about visiting, or yes that she’d stay with him. They both needed time to think.
Chapter Eight
Atlanta, present day
After the news conference, Wyatt returned to his childhood home in Buckhead with his mother and sister. “I have another announcement to make that might be of some interest.”
With Mother arranged in her throne-like chair and Allie in the handmaiden’s seat nearby, they both looked at him with half-smiles and raised eyebrows. Standing just inside the door of the arena-sized room, Wyatt had second thoughts about the champagne he’d asked the housekeeper’s husband, Jonah, to serve.
“What is it, dear?”
Hoping his well-known diplomacy would come to his rescue, Wyatt searched his verbal bag of tricks and discovered he must have left his silver tongue in California. Maybe he should postpone the announcement. No, now was as good a time as any. He would give it to them straight, like medicine one needed to swallow in one gulp.
“You may congratulate me. I am a father.”
His mother looked at him over the top of her glasses. “What did you say?”
“I have recently discovered that I have a child.”
“A child?” His mother repeated the words as if he’d informed her he’d bought a fake Monet. And then, with more horror than sensitivity, she choked, “An illegitimate child?”
“A child?” Allie echoed, her curiosity blending with enthusiasm. “That’s wonderful, Wyatt! Boy or girl? How old?”
“Congratulations, Mr. Wyatt.” Jonah passed around the filled glasses.
“Thank you, Jonah.” Wyatt lifted his glass in a salute and smiled broadly. “It’s a boy!”
“Wyatt.” His mother’s demeanor turned icier than usual. “Are you quite certain?”
“That he’s a boy? Yes, actually, I am. During his bath time, I witnessed the evidence of his gender firsthand.”
“I mean, are you sure that he’s yours? I can’t believe you could be so irresponsible. So thoughtless of our good name.” A frown conveyed her sentiments.
“Mother, surely you realize that I don’t give our good name a lot of thought under any circumstances. And in amorous moments, none at all.”
She continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “And we all know this wouldn’t be the first time someone had schemed to get their hands on Wyatt Enterprises for their own purposes.” Their mother sent Allie a disapproving look that seemed to disavow her own role in advancing Allie’s ex-husband’s suit into the family.
“There have been no claims or demands made by anyone, financial or otherwise. And I am entirely certain that the child is mine.”
“Have there been blood tests?” His suspicious mother’s doubts would escalate instead of abate.
“No, I’ll see to that, but they’re just a technicality.”
“Then where is the proof?”
Wyatt removed several photos from his inside coat pocket, including one of himself he’d retrieved from a photograph album earlier in the day. He passed them to her. “Here’s a picture of me as a newborn, and here’s one of my son. What do you think?”
“Oh, he’s darling.” Allie peered over their mother’s shoulder to view the pictures. “He looks a lot like Xander, too, doesn’t he?”
“The similarity is remarkable.” The Ice Queen thawed slightly, as Wyatt knew she would under the indisputable evidence of another grandson. But she still clutched a few straws. “Is this all the woman has to back up her story? It could as easily be Chase’s child. Your cousin looks very much like you and has an unsavory history with women. Is the mother someone you admit to having been intimate with?”
“Yes, Wyatt.” Allie grinned up him. “Who is the baby’s mamma?”
“Kara Enderley.”
“Oh, dear God!” His mother didn’t bother to hide her horror. “The child doesn’t have her maiden name, does he?”
“No, Mother, he doesn’t. Kara, along with most of the civilized world, opted for something more reasonable. His name is Sean Connor.”
“Sean Connor Enderley, I assume.” She sniffed as she said it.
“That’s right.” He took a seat in a Queen Anne chair near Allie.
“Oh, I was afraid of something like this.” Mother gulped champagne in one of the few unladylike acts Wyatt had ever witnessed from her.
“Afraid of what? That I’d eventually father a child?”
“Yes, because I knew you’d choose to go about it in an unorthodox manner rather than marry an appropriate young woman of good family and settle down here in Atlanta.” Her usual serene expression segued from irritation to outright distaste. “But more importantly, I’ve worried about the amount of influence this Enderley woman seems to have over you. I didn’t believe you would have set up such a substantial foundation for her deceased child if there was nothing between you any longer, as you claimed.”
He unbuttoned his suddenly too-tight top button of his shirt and loosened his tie. “Actually, there is nothing between us. Except for this one very significant connection.” And some rather undefined hopes on his part.
Allie leaned over and kissed Wyatt’s cheek. “I, for one, think this is fabulous news. What do you plan to do now?”
“I plan to learn how to be a father.”
“Before or after you seek custody of the child?” His mother looked at him over the rim of her champagne flute.
“There’s no question of that.” Wyatt made sure his words left no room for doubt.
He should have expected that once past the initial shock, she would push him to gain custody. Nothing like another grandchild to ensure the future of her holy financial empire.
“Of course, there is, dear.” Her tone turned noticeably sweeter. “If he truly is one of us, then he should be raised here, where he can appreciate all that will one day be his.”
She gestured around the room at the array of museum-quality old masters and antiques. Wyatt considered the difference between this stuffy showplace and Kara’s warm, comfortable home. He remembered how tiny hands were never allowed to touch anything in this room, and how little boys were never allowed to roam freely. At Kara’s, no material possession was more important to her than her child.
Beyond the residence itself, he knew his mother’s realm also included the family heritage and influence, along with extensive business holdings. None of which he or Xander had ever aspired to, despite having been raised among it, and the pressure which had been applied to them. Shuddering, he vowed to never allow her to use the same tactics on Sean.
“No, Mother.” He wouldn’t let her interfere with whatever might happen between him and Kara, or in the direction Sean’s life would take. “I’m satisfied with the situation as it now stands. Kara has no interest in relocating to Atlan
ta, and I won’t consider taking Sean from her. I advise you not to consider it, either.”
Mother firmed her lips for a moment, but it went against her grain to remain silent. “I believe I’ll consult James Luttrell for a contingency plan.”
“Kara and I will work this out between ourselves.” Plain speaking was all she would understand, and even then, it might be best to employ a bit of blackmail. “If you interfere in any way, I will see to it that you will never know your grandson. Do I make myself clear, Mother?”
“Are you saying that I will get to know him as things are now?” She met his level gaze with one of her own.
Perhaps this was the concession she had wanted from the first. “As soon as you can arrange it, you can go to New York with me and meet him.”
“I want to go, too,” Allie said. “And Xander?”
“Yes, of course. Anyone in the family who wants to.” Wyatt tried to relax in his chair, shifting his weight in the uncomfortable collector’s piece. “Frankly, I can’t wait to show him off.”
“Why don’t you bring him here to us, Wyatt?” his mother said.
Jonah, still beaming over Wyatt’s disclosure, returned to refill his glass.
“Eventually, I will, Mother, but not now, and maybe not anytime soon. As odd as it may seem to you, Kara isn’t all that wild about the idea of her son being a member of our family.”
“She should have thought about that before.” Queen Rosalie motioned a surprised Jonah to pour her another small measure of champagne. That single act revealed the depths of her distress more clearly than anything she had said or done. Her ironclad rule on the subject of drinking limited ladies of quality to a single glass of spirits before dinner. Never, under any circumstances, two. Even on the day of his father’s funeral, she hadn’t broken the rule. Although on that day, the glass had been filled with bourbon. Straight.