Exactly what Lizzie had always wanted most.
And didn’t have to give.
Chapter Six
Nolan gave every bit of energy he had to his sax, breathing his emotion into the instrument, telling himself that the music was all that mattered to him that night. He determined to be completely truthful to it, to let the notes evoke whatever part of him he had to give, to become one with the collaboration.
That’s why he was there—in Austin, onstage at all—so that the hidden, secret parts of him could know expression to the fullest. To give positive outlet to the passion bottled up inside of him.
He blocked out the crowd, the drinkers and the women milling around. Normally his music was for them. Tonight he was playing for himself.
A brief release. That’s all he needed. He’d give his full focus to others, be a top-notch contributor, the other fifty weeks of the year. He just needed a couple of weeks of unfiltered self-expression.
It was only between songs that he found himself scanning the audience for one specific brunette.
But she never turned up.
He’d really thought Lizzie would be in the club that night. Coming to him on her terms. Letting him know that she called the shots.
When the gig ended, he took his time about packing up. He stopped across the street from the club for a carton of chocolate milk to take back to the hotel with him.
He spent the night in a state of weird dream and restless wakefulness. At one point he got up and showered. A long hot cleansing. He let the water sluice over him, relaxing his muscles. Drying off, he wandered naked back to bed.
Half an hour later, he tried the television, flipping through channels, trying to find anything that would bore him to sleep.
When others were going to church Sunday morning, Nolan was wandering the streets in his jeans and black vest, arms bare except for the T-shirt he had on, oblivious to the fifty-degree chill. He’d wanted to be free of Lizzie’s hold over him. He’d put the goal first and foremost on his list.
So that was what was happening. Maybe not the way he’d envisioned. Maybe not with him losing all the pent-up yearning for her, but with her rejecting him. Still, the end result was the same. He didn’t have to worry anymore about his feelings for her controlling him and driving him to make poor choices that not only mucked up his life, but hurt his family, and her, too.
She wasn’t willing to be party to any of his choices.
Seeing her there outside her door yesterday, with her looking at him as the man he was—Nolan Fortune, millionaire in his own right and joint heir to billions—had brought home to him the insane differences between them. It wasn’t just about what block you lived on, or the size of your house or where you went to school. It was a way of life—hers, and then, in a completely different atmosphere, his.
Nolan Forte had been able to pretend he belonged in her apartment.
Nolan Fortune couldn’t.
He still couldn’t figure out why Carmela had come to find him. Insisted that Lizzie was messed up and needed to see him. She hadn’t known about his alias so it couldn’t have been his money she was after.
Lizzie hadn’t appeared at all “messed up.” In fact, she’d looked as incredible as he’d remembered. Better, really. She was curvier than a year ago, which he liked. A lot. He’d teased her before about being all skin and bones. She’d been on a tight budget and hadn’t been eating enough, in his humble opinion.
But she’d had the same exact expression-filled brown eyes with insanely long lashes, beautiful skin and high cheekbones that set her apart, outlining that one-of-a-kind smile.
Not that he’d seen her smile yesterday. She hadn’t been pleased to see him.
So maybe Lizzie had just needed closure—had needed the truth. Maybe Carmela had meant that he’d messed her up emotionally with his disappearing act. Given her an inability to trust. She’d obviously tried to call the number he’d given her, since she knew he’d had it disconnected. Maybe that had been playing with her—thinking that he’d deceived her about everything else, too.
He’d told some lies, but not about how much he’d enjoyed his time with her, or about how special she’d been.
He turned corners. Passed open coffee shops, a bagel place, a bakery. He heard church bells, avoided traffic.
And it dawned on him...he’d done it again. He’d left without giving Lizzie a way to contact him—other than the club for the next two weeks. He’d told her his name, but he’d still given her no access to Nolan Fortune. Maybe that’s what she’d needed. Just to know that she hadn’t been kicked aside.
Yeah, his pace picked up as he landed on the thought. Pulling out his phone, he was pretty sure he was on the right track. He’d call her, give her his real number, his private cell, not the one the band used. Tell her that if she ever needed anything, he’d like her to call him.
It’s what a Fortune would do.
And one thing was unequivocally certain to Nolan these days. He was bound and determined—needed—to be a stand-up Fortune.
In spite of the emotions boiling inside of him.
* * *
Normally Lizzie was zonked from the second Stella fell back to sleep after her middle-of-the-night feeding until the baby woke up again just before dawn. It hadn’t happened that way Saturday night and she was heading for a nap on the couch when Stella finally nodded off in her swing just after nine on Sunday morning. Carmela was at the library studying—she loved it there on Sunday mornings because it was so quiet—and while Lizzie had planned to get the Christmas decorations out and have the place festive and happy feeling by the time her roommate returned, she really just wanted to sleep.
In flannel pajama pants, her butt made it to the sofa cushion, but her head wasn’t even on the pillow she’d punched into the arm of the couch when her cell rang.
Not recognizing the number, or even the area code, that flashed on her screen, she let the call go to voice mail. Too many sales calls, debt consolidators and political robots these days. If the call was important, they could leave a voice message. She had to get some sleep.
Her eyes had just closed when she heard the faint ting of her voice-mail notification. She knew she wasn’t going to be able to ignore it enough to doze off. She was going to lie there and wonder who’d left that message.
“Lizzie? This is Nolan Fortune. Listen, I’m not planning to harass you or anything. I just wanted to make sure you have my phone number this time. My personal cell number. Please call me if there’s ever a time you need anything. I’ll be happy to hear from you.”
He’d be happy to hear from her?
Lying back down, her heart pounding and her belly flip-flopping, she tried to relax. He might be richer than Midas and he’d be happy to hear from a first-year schoolteacher who was living paycheck to paycheck?
That made no sense to her.
Panic flared as she considered the idea that he knew about Stella. That he was trying to worm his way in so that he and his big rich family could steal her baby away from her. Opening her eyes, she sat up.
The thought was ridiculous. If he knew about Stella, all he had to do was compel a warrant for her DNA. Hell, he didn’t have to do it; he’d have any number of people under him who’d do it for him. Probably a team of high-powered lawyers.
Or maybe he was just looking for another romp over the holiday? Some men got turned on by women who weren’t in their usual social circles. And she’d been a cheap date.
She’d just never felt cheap. Until she’d dialed the number Nolan Forte had left her and found out that he’d been unreachable. In every fashion.
If he thought—
No. She’d seen him twice the day before. He’d seemed sincere both times.
Hadn’t come on to her at all.
So did he know about Stella? Had he been spying on them?
No.
> She wasn’t going to lose her mind over this.
She was going to handle it.
She just had no idea how. No honest idea what was best for her daughter.
Because that was what it came down to. In conversations with Carmela. In the middle of the night. And midmorning, too. Her bottom line was Stella.
She’d do whatever was best for her daughter.
Even if that meant she lost the one thing that mattered more to her in the world. The one thing that had made her truly, completely happy. Being a family with her baby girl.
Nolan was that baby girl’s father. Good or bad.
The day before, he’d seemed to really care that Lizzie was all right. He’d come clean with her when he’d had no reason to have to do so.
Maybe some aspects of the man she’d fallen so hard for were real. Maybe some of Nolan Forte really did exist in Nolan Fortune. Maybe she had to find out.
For Stella’s sake, if nothing else.
Picking up her phone, she didn’t add the last number to her contacts. She tried not to look at it long enough to remember it.
She called it.
And when he picked up on the first ring, she forced words past the constriction in her chest, and hung up mere seconds later with an appointment to meet with Nolan for coffee that afternoon at a shop they’d frequented several times in the past.
Next she texted Carmela, making arrangements for her roommate to be home to tend to Stella while she was gone. Carmela, who was greatly relieved Lizzie had contacted Stella’s father, agreed immediately, of course.
Lizzie had known she would.
And wished she hadn’t.
Now she had no excuse to call back and cancel.
She had to sit across the table from the only man she’d ever loved and figure out if he was going to be the source of her greatest heartbreak.
For a second time.
Chapter Seven
Holy hell. He was sliding right back to the past, agreeing to spend Sunday afternoon sipping coffee with Lizzie. The hours that had to pass before then taunted him with anticipation versus responsibility. He walked, and then ran some, expending energy that continued to produce inside him at alarming rates.
Lizzie and him! Drinking coffee.
It couldn’t be the past. And there was no future.
That thought firmly in mind, Nolan found a high-end clothing store open on Sunday, and while the gray suit, white shirt and blue silk tie he ended up with wasn’t tailor-made to fit him, it was going to make him stand out among the college students, professors and general coffee-shop-goers by campus.
His jeans would have been more to his liking.
But he was a Fortune. He was going to feel like one. To act like one. To look like one.
He was not going to forget, even for a second, that Nolan Forte existed only in his deepest, unreliable yearnings. The man owned jeans, but he wasn’t real.
He had to give Lizzie real.
Staring at the shiny toes of his brand-new black leather dress shoes, he waited for her outside the shop, his thumb rapping a beat against his thigh.
He had nothing to be nervous about.
She’d only wanted to talk.
He owed her that.
And then he’d walk away. It was the only choice he could live with.
In jeans and a purple loose-fitting T-shirt, Lizzie looked him right in the eye as she walked up to him. Her dark hair, down and straight, as usual, caught the sun’s reflection and glinted like gold. Or the little white lights on a Christmas tree.
Giving himself a mental shake, he calmly held open the door for Lizzie to pass through before him. She gave no outward reaction to his changed appearance, and he had no reason to feel disappointed.
He was there to listen, not to get her attention.
Forte wanted to know what Lizzie thought of Fortune’s looks. Just like a fantasy, to think about things that didn’t matter.
She ordered tea, not the caramel latte she’d preferred the year before, and he allowed himself a small black coffee—laced with nothing—staying away from the espresso he’d have preferred. No surges of adrenaline or energy necessary at the moment. When he turned from paying at the counter, to notice the high-top table in the corner they’d shared several times the previous year, he’d expected her to head in that direction.
She chose instead an upholstered armchair, across from another, with a square brown table in the center. Applauding her decision to put more distance between them than other tables would have done, he took the seat she’d left him, and sipped his coffee.
He tried not to notice that everything about her, from the backside he’d followed across the room, to the way she held her shoulders, matched perfectly the image he carried daily in his memory. He’d have preferred the real thing not to live up to fantasy.
What did a guy have to do to catch a break?
“So what’s up?” He’d opened this door by giving her his number. And it felt wrong, too. Like he was breaking some kind of “good man” rule.
He had to be there, wanted to be there, and had nothing to offer that she’d want or need.
Her shrug didn’t bode well for his quick finale. “I just...wanted to talk,” she said slowly, as if just now figuring out a purpose for the meeting. “It plays with your head, you know, to think you had...something...and then find out that it wasn’t real. I mean, I knew it wasn’t permanent or anything. We made no commitments, but I really trusted you. I thought we were honestly special. Different from a usual hookup. When I first figured out that you’d been lying to me all along—you know, when your number was disconnected and there was no Nolan Forte on the internet, and my email sent to the band address got no response—I was hurt. And shocked. But I came to terms with it, you know?”
She’d been running her finger around the rim of her cup, but glanced up at him as she asked the question.
Nolan swallowed.
He forced himself to say nothing, and she glanced down again. “Then you showed up yesterday, and told me the truth, and that just confused everything. Like...who are you?” Her gaze met his again. “You’re making me not trust my own mind, my judgment, my heart, and that’s not cool.”
Oh, God. He should have stayed in New Orleans. He wasn’t man enough to do this. To leave her in this state.
He saw now why Carmela had come to him. He’d taken a sweet, innocent woman and, in his own selfish need to preserve himself, had victimized her.
Or...he was falling prey to feelings that prompted him to think irrationally. Was he reading more into what she was saying, into what he’d done, as a justification to himself to see her again? To spend whatever time he could with her?
To what end?
Memories of Molly came flooding back. Not just her mind-set about her brother not hurting anyone by benefitting from knowing him, but earlier, too. Her lack of understanding of his commitment to the responsibility that came from his family’s wealth. His need to please his family, to be there for them. To be a part of them.
And Molly hadn’t even been predisposed to hate wealth. Lizzie had already stated, quite clearly, that she wanted no part of the type of life he led.
They could try, but resentment would build. And he couldn’t bear to have last year’s love turn to hate.
To hear Lizzie spew bitterness at him, as Molly had.
“I just needed to see you again,” Lizzie said then, “to talk, to find out...”
It took everything Nolan had to remain seated and aloof as her voice faded off. She wanted to know if she was special to him. He could put her doubts to rest in a heartbeat.
As Nolan Forte.
Only to have to leave her again. Because he was Nolan Fortune.
He wanted to be honest with her. And tell her...what? That he was crazy about her, but knew better th
an to trust those wayward yearnings with himself? That he’d lived with them his entire life and knew they were his challenge, his temptation? That normally his music satisfied them completely, until he’d met her and the ante had been upped?
“My oldest brother, Austin, met a girl several years ago. Within a couple of weeks, he was certain she was the one and he married her.”
“After knowing her two weeks?”
He nodded. They were looking at each other, eye to eye, talking. Just talking. Speaking and listening. With honest interest.
How in the hell could that feel like some kind of real connection? A year ago, yeah, they’d mixed sex in with the talking. But now?
“Wow,” she said. “That’s... Wow. Usually you just see stuff like that in the movies.”
She smiled. And his brain just...paused.
For a second there, the tension between them was hiding. They were as they’d been last year.
“The marriage didn’t last.”
Lizzie frowned. “He didn’t really love her?”
“He didn’t really even know her,” he said, taking a sip of his coffee, as though that could somehow distract him from the intensity dancing between them. But what happened with his brother’s whirlwind romance was only a small part of Nolan’s reasons for leaving her. She’d told him that she needed to understand.
And he knew what he had to give her.
“I thought I was in love once before,” he told her. “In college. I was away from the family, away from anyone who knew me. I was a regular guy, kind of like Nolan Forte. I blended in. And I met a girl.”
Her face froze. He’d not known, until that moment, that expressions really could be like stone.
“So this is just what you do? Pretend you’re someone else and fall in love for a short period of time?”
What? Wait! “No!” He sat forward, reached for her arm when she moved as though she was going to take her tea and walk. “It’s that I’ve made mistakes and am leery of making them again.” He could hear the passion in his voice, but couldn’t take time at the moment to edit it out. “Molly truly seemed like the one for me. But it turned out that our views on life were so vastly different that everyone got hurt.” He was simplifying. Giving a really bad year of his life in two sentences.
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