But she wanted him to want it, too. She didn’t want him to bind himself to her out of obligation, and if David Caine was involved, obligation was all there was. Because Bobby hadn’t said I want you to stay.
He’d said if.
From the hallway came the distinctive sound of her father grumbling at Mickey. Bobby turned to face the door. But he didn’t release her, not all the way. Instead, one hand slid down and wrapped around hers. As impassive as she was trying to be, she couldn’t help but give him a little squeeze.
They rounded into the doorway, her father first. He’d aged considerably since she’d seen him last. His hair had thinned and the lines around his mouth were deeper.
He was followed by Mickey, who looked like a dog that had been swatted with a newspaper. When he’d called, he sounded as if he’d been on the verge of crying. All he’d been able to tell her was that her father had flown in on his private jet, but Mickey hadn’t told him she was with child.
Mickey met her gaze, then looked away. He did, in fact, look as if he might have shed a tear or two. She knew how it was. He’d tried his best to protect her, but no one refused David Caine.
Including her.
“Hello, Da.”
There—she’d managed to keep her voice light and uncommitted. That, in and of itself, was a victory.
“When I asked you where you were, I never imagined you’d be here.”
No hello, no how are you, no long time no see.
Just like that, she felt small again, a little girl who knew, deep down, that she was nothing more than an inconvenience.
“Mickey was with me,” she offered, knowing full well that wouldn’t bring her any goodwill.
“Yes. I am aware.”
Her father cast a disapproving glare around the room before his gaze settled on Bobby’s hand holding Stella’s. He stared, the tension in the room getting more and more painful. Stella felt as if she should say something, although she had no idea what, but Bobby gave her hand a sharp squeeze, so she kept her mouth buttoned tight.
Finally, her father said, “Why are you here?”
“I came for Thanksgiving.”
It was true enough. By the time they’d gotten everything squared away with the doctors and the lawyers, it would have been Thanksgiving, except for the benefit.
“I was not aware that you knew each other.”
“Well,” her mouth started before she could process the words that were coming out, “I can’t imagine why you would have been. I haven’t seen you for two years. Rather hard to stay on top of these things.”
Her father’s glare cut through the air so fast that she could practically hear it. She should have been cowed, but there was something freeing in it. She would not want her baby to live in the shadow of fear of this man, as she did. There was no time like the present to begin living through example. She would not be scared of this man.
Which was well and good—until her father gave her the look that had always made her feel four inches tall.
“I’m only going to ask you one more time, Stella. Why are you here?”
She wanted so desperately to lie, to say something that would magically extricate her from this situation and turn the clock back to this morning, when Bobby had woken her up with a series of kisses that had gone places she’d never dreamed would feel so good.
Alas, no such lie existed. She took a deep breath and, Bobby’s hand in hers, leaped into the abyss.
“I’m pregnant. Bobby’s the father.”
Behind her father, Mickey hung his head. He knew it, too—they’d gone past the point of no return.
Her father actually managed to look shocked. But it didn’t last long. His face assembled itself into a mask of rage so pure, so vitriolic, that Stella suddenly wasn’t sure they’d survive.
“Do you—” he spit out the words “—have any idea how that’s going to make me look? After all the money I’ve given to support traditional marriage? Do you know what the papers are going to say? Good Lord, they’ll crucify me—David Caine’s daughter, pregnant out of wedlock!”
“Yes,” Stella heard herself snap, “because this is all about your reputation, isn’t it? Don’t mind me. I’m just pregnant.”
Bobby didn’t say anything—really, what could he say? But he let go of her hand and slid his arm around her waist, pulling her into his hip. They still stood side by side, facing David Caine together. It didn’t feel as if he was trying to hold her back. It felt as if he was supporting her, just as he’d promised. Just as she wanted.
“Don’t you dare take that tone with me, young lady.” He eyed them. “How soon can you get married?”
“We’re not getting married.”
Bobby’s sudden interjection into the conversation made her jump.
“Don’t be daft. You’re getting married immediately, if not sooner. Otherwise—”
“Stella does not want to get married.” Bobby’s voice—clear and strong and, God bless him, not in the least bit intimidated—cut off her father midsentence. “So we’re not.”
The sentiment was lovely, really. Unfortunately, no one cut off her father. Ever.
Her father’s eyes narrowed to murderous slits. “That’s so, is it?”
“It is.”
Bobby gave her a little squeeze. She loved him for it.
And he was going to pay for it, too. Her father would see to that.
“Did you take advantage of her? My daughter would never do something so stupid as sleep with the likes of you,” he sneered. “I should have you arrested.”
“I chose him, Da. He didn’t take advantage of me. If anything, I took advantage of him.”
Not that those words did anything to mollify her father. He was in a full-fledged rage and nothing would calm him down until he had taken his fury out on someone.
“My God, this is going to ruin me. Is that what you want?”
“No, I want—”
But he didn’t listen. He never did. Instead, he turned his attention to Bobby.
“You listen to me, you little fink. You are going to marry my daughter or I will destroy you. I’ll cancel your show, withdraw my funding for your real estate deal and make damn sure to publicize your gross negligence in every single newspaper, radio station and network I own. You’ll not only lose that resort you’re so fond of, but I won’t stop until that god-awful motorbike business of yours is dead and gone.” His voice moved past shouting and into a full roar. “No punk-ass rat makes a fool of David Caine!”
She’d heard those words many times over. No one ever made a fool of David Caine. It simply wasn’t done.
The walls reverberated with the force of his scream. Then, a hush fell over the room. Her father seemed to shrink back into himself, as if the effort of his explosion had drained him.
He would do it, too—take everything Bobby had worked so hard for and grind it into dust. Not because that’s what Stella wanted—she didn’t—but because Bobby had to be taught a lesson, and that lesson was that David Caine always, always won.
Right then and there the words Marry me, Bobby were on the tip of her tongue. If that was what it took to keep her father from ruining the man she loved then perhaps that was what she needed to do. She couldn’t bear to watch her father destroy the only man who’d come close to loving her.
But, as she opened her mouth, Bobby spoke.
“You watch your mouth around her.”
It came out as a growl, as if he was prepared to launch himself at David Caine and fight to the death.
“I will not let anyone—not even you—speak to her like that. I don’t care what you say. She’s a grown woman and she has the right to make her own decisions. We’re not getting married and that’s that.”
Her father went positively puce with rage, but Bobby wasn
’t done yet, God bless him.
“You’re not welcome here. If I see you anywhere in South Dakota, I’ll file a restraining order. Now get out.”
Had he just thrown her father out? Apparently he had. The shocked silence that settled over the room confirmed it.
But he hadn’t let go of her. His hand was still around her waist. It was almost as if he wasn’t going to let her go.
And David Caine saw it, too.
“Stella,” he spat out as if her name were a bitter pill he couldn’t swallow.
“You can stay,” Bobby said. She turned to him, saw him swallow. His grip on her tightened. “If you want.”
Not don’t go, not stay with me.
She could stay. If she wanted.
Not because he wanted her to.
No, she would not cry and that was final. So she touched her hand to his cheek. “You’ll hear from my lawyer,” she managed to get out, although her voice was far too quiet to be authoritative. “About the child support and the visitation. Just as we discussed.”
“Stella—” he said quickly, but stopped as she turned away from him.
She faced her father, who looked as if he might keel over. “All I ask is that you do not ruin him because of me.”
She got no promises, which was just as well. She didn’t expect any.
“My things,” she motioned to Mickey, who looked as if he’d been run over by a train. “If you please.”
Then, her head held as high as she could carry it, she walked past her father and out the door.
And away from Bobby.
Without crying.
Fifteen
Before he knew what had hit him, Bobby was alone in the middle of his apartment.
He was the guy who always knew what to say, when to say it—what people needed to hear. But he’d messed up, big-time, and he had no idea if he could make this right.
He hadn’t wanted her to go. But he couldn’t make her stay.
It was only two in the afternoon. He should go back to the construction site, pretend that none of this had ever happened. Those guys, the contractors and the hired workers, they all depended on the money from this build to get them through the winter. Some of them had turned down other guaranteed paying jobs to work on the resort. If Caine killed the whole thing—and Bobby put the odds of that happening on at least eighty percent—they’d all be out of a job.
And his brothers, Ben and Billy? They’d be out huge sums of money.
So many people had been counting on him. They’d all put their trust in him, believing that he could actually pull off this resort.
And Stella—she’d put her trust in him, too. She hadn’t had to come out here and tell him she was pregnant. But she had.
He didn’t remember driving to his brother Ben’s warehouse. By the time his eyes focused, he realized he was sitting at his brother’s table, his head in his hands.
“Bobby?”
At the sound of his name, he looked up—and found himself face-to-face with Jenny Bolton, Billy’s wife.
“What’s wrong?”
“Bobby’s here?” At this, Josey emerged from the kitchen, Callie on her hip. “You’re here!” Then she gasped. “What’s wrong? Stella—the baby?”
“What baby?” Jenny asked.
There was no way around this, only through it. Better to tell Jenny and Josey first. Maybe, if they didn’t hate him too much, they’d help soften the blow—blows—from his brothers.
“Stella and the baby are fine. But she left.”
“What baby?” Jenny repeated with more insistence, her gaze darting back and forth between Bobby and Josey.
“What do you mean, she left?” Josey sat down at the table with a dull thud. “I don’t understand.”
“I don’t understand, either.”
“Someone better tell me what’s going on,” Jenny said, tapping her fingers on the table. “Now.”
Bobby took a deep breath, but it wasn’t deep enough to clear his mind. Maybe Jenny would understand. She ran a support group for pregnant teenagers. Even though neither he nor Stella were teens anymore, Jenny might have some perspective. Either that, or she was going to kill him. He had that coming, too.
“I got a girl pregnant. Woman, actually. She came to tell me and I convinced her to stay so we could figure out what to do. Then her father showed up.”
Josey’s eyes were wide with disbelief. “David Caine—he was here?”
“Wait,” Jenny asked, looking impatient. “The David Caine—who bought your show?”
“Yes,” he answered to both of them.
Josey covered her mouth with a hand. “How did he find out?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Try us,” Jenny said, sounding grouchier by the moment.
“His childhood friend, Mickey, is Stella’s bodyguard-slash-driver-slash-surrogate-father. He told David where she was. And David came to collect her.”
He looked at Josey, hoping for something comforting. All he got were eyes wide with horror. “The show? The resort?”
All Bobby could do was shrug. “I don’t know.”
Jenny tapped one finger on the table with extra force. Bobby felt like he was a student who’d gotten in trouble at school.
“Okay, talk. From the beginning. Everything.”
So Bobby talked. He started with the night he’d met Stella in the club and didn’t stop until he got to the part where Stella left him. He didn’t leave out a thing, including the part where he’d given the baby a room and hadn’t told Stella about that. Not even the part where David Caine promised to ruin him.
When he was done, Josey and Jenny sat and stared at him. Callie had fallen asleep in Josey’s arms, so she got up and put the baby to bed.
He and Jenny didn’t say anything while Josey was gone. Bobby couldn’t tell if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Jenny wasn’t the kind of woman who kept her thoughts to herself. Shocked silence was not a good sign.
When Josey came back, she sat down next to Jenny, across the table from Bobby—like judges on the bench and he was awaiting his fate. Which he was.
He managed to clear his throat. “So.”
“Man, you screwed up,” Jenny said.
“I figured that out on my own.”
“I have a question.” Josey, ever the practical one, managed a warmish smile. “What do you want?”
“It’s not about what I want, not anymore,” he said, thinking of Stella’s words.
Jenny and Josey gave each other a look Bobby recognized—the look they normally gave each other when one or more of the Bolton boys were doing something stupid.
“What?”
“Why are the cute ones always the idiots?” Jenny said to no one in particular.
“Bobby, honey, think about it.” Josey spoke in the tone of voice she might use while trying to reason with a five-year-old about bedtime. “This whole thing has been about what you want—since the very first moment she showed up. That’s all she’s asked of you—to be honest about what you want.”
Jenny was not quite as gentle with him. “You said she wanted a family?”
“Yeah.”
Josey nodded. “She told me she didn’t want to get married if you didn’t want to.”
He could see her confiding that to Josey. “So?”
“God, you’re dense,” Jenny muttered.
“Don’t you have a kid to pick up from school or something?” Bobby snapped.
Jenny shot him a look. “I took the day off. I had an appointment.” Then everything about her softened. “I’m three months along.”
Great. And just when he thought things couldn’t get any worse. Billy was going to be a father—and a good one. Bobby didn’t have a dou
bt that Billy would be at doctor’s visits, listening to heartbeats, holding his newborn baby.
The things that Bobby wouldn’t get to do.
“Bobby, how did you ask her?” Josey was still being nice to him.
“What do you mean?”
Jenny rolled her eyes. “Did you drop down on one knee and tell her you couldn’t live without her? That you loved her more than the sun, the moon and the stars above? Spout poetry? Anything?”
He thought back. He’d told her they’d get married. And when she’d said no, he’d added that, if she changed her mind, the offer stood.
“No...”
“For crying out loud,” Jenny muttered.
Bobby gaped at Josey, who was nodding in agreement. “I’d bet dimes to dollars that she thinks you only proposed because you wanted to keep your show—not because you wanted her.”
If the two of them were right... He dropped his head in his hands. All this time, he’d been thinking about the baby’s room and the shop space, how much he wanted her to stay. He’d been thinking—not talking. Not with Stella. He’d been so hell-bent on asking her what she wanted that he hadn’t told her what he wanted.
“I think he’s got it now,” Jenny said under her breath. She could have sounded smug but she mostly sounded sympathetic.
He didn’t have anything—not Stella and...
“If I lose the resort, my brothers will kill me. They put their money into the resort—I’ll cost them millions.”
“Gosh,” Jenny said in a louder tone, “I can’t imagine Billy having ever done anything that was a poor business decision—like, say, paying blackmail money to an old girlfriend with a company paycheck.”
“And I can’t imagine Ben ever letting the company go down in flames when it conflicted with something he wanted—like, say, quitting because a certain brother canceled an equipment order,” Josey added.
The two women looked at each other and grinned.
Bobby rubbed his jaw where it had been wired shut after Ben had punched him for canceling that order. “Yeah...I guess.” But he was pretty sure that Billy would still kick his ass. God only knew how many bones would be broken this time.
“You’re a creative guy. Even if Caine comes after you in the press, who here gives a rat’s behind?” Jenny was getting more animated now. “You’ll spin it like you always do, use it to make you look more dangerous. What’s the big deal?”
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