And other things.
Like the fact that she wasn’t swayed by notoriety, or money. To earn her regard you had only to be a decent person. Kind.
And honest.
He hadn’t told her yet that he was going back to New Orleans for Christmas. Or that he’d been thinking more and more about telling his family about Stella while he was there.
She was not only his daughter, she was their family, too, the first Fortune grandchild, whether they liked it or not. Approved or not.
He made it through one song without goofing. And another. He didn’t know how, as he was filled with a hot need to get out to Lizzie. To spend even ten minutes with her like they had the year before. Just talking about music and the way it infiltrated so many aspects of life. It was the background, the foreground, the dressing, the peace. They’d decided that.
It was the bells of heaven, Lizzie had said.
And the crescendo of perfect sex, he’d added, to which she’d eagerly agreed, climbing on top of him to ask for more.
They’d bought a house. Were starting a life together—albeit a part-time one, without an actual relationship. For Stella—not for them. Was tonight’s visit her way of opening the door to more?
Could he even do that? Well, physically, damn straight he could. Right that second. But that would be making her little more than his kept woman.
Closing his eyes, he put every ounce of frustration, of denial, of want and need, into the last stanza of the last number of the set. In a few more seconds he could talk to her.
And everything would fall into place again.
A few more seconds...
He got through the note. Opened his eyes.
And Lizzie was gone.
* * *
She wasn’t even in the SUV yet when her phone rang.
Nolan.
She didn’t want to answer. But if she didn’t he might think something happened to her—a woman alone in a club at night...
“Hello.”
“Where are you?”
“On my way home.”
“You’re walking alone?” He sounded out of breath, like he was walking fast. She unlocked his rental and got in, shutting the door, too late realizing he’d hear it shut.
“No, I’m in the SUV.”
“You’re still in the parking lot.”
“Yes.” She started the engine.
“Hold on, I’m coming out.”
“No, Nolan. You have another set to do. And I have to get home.” They had to be honest with each other, so she said, “Or rather, I just need to get away from you at the moment.”
She put the SUV in Reverse, backing out of the parking space.
“Listening to you play, it started things all over again,” she said. “Last year...the way your music sucked me in. How great it felt, how good we were together. The secret hopes and dreams that had been building in me. I can’t afford to let them come back...”
Back then, she’d actually thought they might be destined to become a family.
Now she knew better.
Hell, she didn’t even exist in his real life.
That apparently didn’t stop her from loving him.
She had no idea what to do with that.
* * *
Nolan made it to the parking lot in time to see Lizzie pulling out of the lot. “It was great, seeing you out there, Lizzie,” he told her as he watched her taillights disappear down the road. “I’m not always great at talking about what I’m feeling, but...”
“The song...the solo...it’s one I hadn’t heard.”
“It’s new this year.” And he thought of her every time he played the evocative notes.
“It’s good.” She mentioned a couple of particular phrases, the mezzo piano into mezzo forte.
“That’s it,” she said then as he stood in the parking lot alone. “Forte. That’s why you chose that name.”
Of course she’d get that.
“I’m glad you came,” he told her. “And I wish you’d stayed.”
“What do you think would happen if I did?”
In a perfect world, they’d end up together again. In bed. Holding each other. Making love until dawn.
“And then what would happen in the morning?” she asked softly, letting him know her mind was filled with the same memories as his. “Or tomorrow morning? Or the end of next week?” she asked. “I’d want more, Nolan.”
And so would he.
“I’m home. I have to go,” she said, but didn’t immediately hang up. So he did.
He let her go.
Because he was always going to have to let her go. It wasn’t just the responsible thing to do, it was the kind thing to do. Lizzie was accepting his place in her life because she was a great mother. A great human being. She was sharing their daughter with him.
He could be Nolan Fortune, be a father. But he couldn’t have it all.
* * *
On Sunday, Nolan suggested he and Lizzie go shopping for furniture. She was going to pick out whatever she wanted and he was going to foot the bill. The only choice he was going to make was for his own bedroom suite. The rest would be hers.
They had lunch at a pita bar, with her poring over furniture pamphlets as though her life depended on it.
Carmela was gone when they got back to the apartment, with a couple of hours before Nolan had to leave. He’d suggested taking the baby to the mall for pictures with Santa. Lizzie told him Carmela wanted to be there for that. He’d let that go, too.
“She’s soaked!” Lizzie, in jeans and a long-sleeved black T-shirt with a Christmas tree on the front, was lifting the baby out of her carrier. Glancing over at Nolan, she asked, “You want to change her?”
He did. But...
“I’ve never changed a baby in my life.” He was following her down the hall to her room, though, where, she’d told him during their shopping expedition, she had a changing table. He’d been asking about furnishings for Stella’s room at the time. She’d told him she wanted a crib to match the table she already had.
Laying down Stella, who was wide awake, arms and legs moving in their random way, on the changing table, Lizzie turned to him. “You up for this?”
“Of course!” He’d been in the room before, but somehow this time, seeing the walls crowded with baby things, was a shock. Her life had truly done a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn. He’d known, but in that room, it really hit him. Wiping his mind of anything but the moment, he stepped up so close to her their arms were touching, so that he was near enough to tend to his daughter.
“Unsnap her here,” she said as she pointed to a series of snaps running up one leg and down the other. He did as she said, working his fingers gently from snap to snap, undoing each one up her left leg, happy with his ability to reach success even with her flailing legs.
“If you take that long, she’s going to lose patience with you,” Lizzie said. “You’ve got to be quick, or play with her to distract her attention, or she’s going to get mad.” As she spoke she pulled the snaps on the other leg apart with one quick jerk. She pointed to the diapers tucked into a cubby on the top of the table.
“She doesn’t like the cold air on her so I always grab the new one first, have it open and ready to slip under her before I unfasten.”
Conscious of time, he grabbed quickly for the clean diaper but ended up with two. He dropped one, opened the other and put it on the table.
“Spread the sides open, too,” Lizzie said, her fingers touching his as she showed him what she meant.
“Now, pull these tabs...” She pulled one, paused, and he jumped in and did the other. He tried to focus. He did not want to make his daughter angry.
“Here’s the tricky part,” Lizzie said, glancing over her shoulder at him. “I’ll do it this time, you get the next...”
With a couple of quick flips and a grab, she had Stella’s tiny ankles between a couple of her fingers, the baby’s butt up in the air, soiled diaper gone and new diaper slid into place. All within about two seconds. She took another couple of seconds to wipe the baby down with a cloth she’d grabbed from a dispenser by the diapers, and then the front of the diaper went up in place.
“You want to do that quick—”
“I know, so she doesn’t get mad,” he said, reaching over to pull the second tab and attach it into place when she didn’t follow the first one up.
“And so she doesn’t pee on you,” Lizzie said, grinning at him. Her lips were so close, her beautiful brown eyes glowing and meeting his.
“A...huh.” The tiny sound wasn’t a wail. But it was a warning he’d already grown to recognize.
“It’s okay, baby girl, Mommy’s right here.” Lizzie’s attention was instantly fully back on the baby. “Just be patient a little bit longer while Daddy gets you snapped up,” she said in the higher tone she often used with Stella. And then, while Nolan’s heart tripped over and skipped beats, Lizzie entertained the baby, poking her belly and making faces and sounds, as he worked one snap at a time on the baby’s bottom half.
Daddy.
Daddy!
Daddy...
Any way it sounded in his head, he wasn’t ever going to be the same.
Chapter Seventeen
Nolan didn’t play well Sunday night. He didn’t sleep much, either. If he’d been sick, he could have taken a pill or something. His aches came from a place much deeper than bones and flesh. He was trapped between two lives that were pulling at him with equal force. Each of them filled with heart and soul, with a substance that couldn’t be denied.
To be a good family member in one life meant he had to be a bad one in the other.
He’d given in to yearnings the year before, to the unreliable buzz of energy inside him, and had created a hell for himself. He saw no way out.
He and Lizzie and Carmela were supposed to take Stella to get her Christmas pictures with Santa that day before having lunch together—the four of them. His request. Carmela was family to Lizzie and Stella, not biologically, but in any way that counted to Lizzie.
Nolan thought it important that he and Carmela find a way to be comfortable around each other, too.
How could he expect the woman who seemed to see only the worst in him to be comfortable with him, when he couldn’t find a peaceful place with himself?
They were going to get Christmas pictures and he hadn’t even told Lizzie that he wouldn’t be with them for Christmas yet. That he’d booked a flight for himself for the next afternoon, to have himself home in time for his parents’ annual gathering. While not as big as the New Year’s bash, by a whole lot, the Christmas Eve thing was far more important. It was a get-together with loved ones, trusted ones, not the showy party that included everyone the Fortunes had to invite.
He hadn’t told Lizzie he was going because he still wasn’t sure he was going to do so. He knew he should. He needed his family on his side, ready to accept the huge news he had to lay on them. And it wasn’t like Stella would even be aware that it was any other day. His parents would probably be more hurt by his absence than Lizzie would be. And yet...
Monday morning, early, when he knew his older brother would be at work, he dialed Austin.
He’d told Lizzie he wouldn’t say anything to anyone, but he needed answers and wasn’t finding them on his own. He’d swear Austin to secrecy, but he had to talk to someone.
Somehow, even with the best of intentions and his eyes seemingly wide open, he’d mucked up his life.
“To what do I owe the privilege of a call from the one who has to escape us all?” Austin’s voice replaced the phone ringing in Nolan’s ear.
“Yeah, right, like you weren’t the first one who couldn’t wait for a little time away once upon a time,” he said. Austin might be his unknowing mentor, the sibling he felt closest to, but the man didn’t have to know that. And Nolan had ceased being intimidated by him about the time he’d started making notable amounts of money at the firm. Nolan had ceased acting intimidating long before that.
“So what’s up? I’ve got an early meeting.”
“We’re on vacation,” Nolan reminded him.
“Yeah, well, Brighton’s in town.”
He knew the guy. A foreign businessman who used their bank for his North American funds, to broker North American deals and to finance a multitude of North American businesses.
“Let me guess, you invited him,” Nolan said. Austin’s silence was his response, one that Nolan translated in the affirmative.
“Seriously, what’s up?” Austin asked, his tone evincing true interest.
“I’ve mucked up,” Nolan said. “Take your worst moment, double it and I’m there.”
“You got married? What the hell? When?” The alarm coming over the phone shot straight through Nolan, mincing with his own. Compounding his own. In dark dress pants and white business shirt, minus the red tie he’d planned to wear to the mall, he paced his hotel room. Irritated by the brushing sound his stocking feet made against the carpet, he’d never felt weaker in his life.
He should have put on his new wingtips before he made the call.
“I’m not married,” he said. “I knew better than that.” No, what he’d done was far worse. “I need you to swear that you’ll keep this to yourself. Give me time to figure out what I’m going to do. And then let me tell Dad myself.”
“Are you in jail? Or in danger of going there?”
“No.” Thank God for that.
“Then you have my word. Tell me.”
“I have a kid, Austin.” The words sounded far too raw when he said them aloud. “An absolutely incredible little baby girl. Her name’s Stella.”
“You what?”
Nolan hoped no one else was in his brother’s vicinity as he yelled the words.
“How old is she?”
“Three months.”
“And I’m just now hearing about it? It took you this long to figure out you had to do something about it?” Austin’s tone was still loud enough for Nolan to hear every word with his cell phone held out at arm’s length.
“I didn’t know about her myself until last week,” he said, pulling his arm back in so he could talk into the phone. “And please stop yelling. I’m not a kid anymore and don’t need you ragging on me. Believe me, I’m doing enough of that myself.”
“Jeez, man, a kid?”
“I know. She’s phenomenal, Austin. I never knew it was possible to instantly love something like this, but I have to take care of her.” He wasn’t articulating at all as he’d planned. Just spewing the emotion bottled up inside him.
“Are you sure she’s yours?”
The quiet words stopped him in his tracks. Literally. Standing in the middle of the somewhat-dingy hotel room, he looked in the mirror across from the bed. He saw himself, a successful banker, standing there, and hardly recognized the man.
But he felt like him.
“Positive.”
“You’ve had a paternity test, then, good.”
“No, I haven’t had a paternity test! She’s mine.”
“You don’t know that, bro. Women have been using kids to trap rich men for centuries. Doing the math, I’m guessing you’re wherever you were last Christmas, seeing her again.”
“Lizzie isn’t like that, Austin. I know...you didn’t think Kelly was, either, but I swear to you. What this woman wants most is for me to leave her alone.”
“That’s what she says. And let me guess, you’ve already offered her support.”
“That baby is my responsibility. Of course I’m going to take care of her.”
“She’s playing you, Nolan.”
Austin sounded as s
ure about that as Nolan was sure she wasn’t.
“Remember when I first told the family I was married? No one liked Kelly. But I was absolutely certain you all just had to get to know her. Sure that I knew her. She was my soul mate, Nolan. I was so sure of it I was willing to risk the Fortune name, our money...”
His brother let the words speak for themselves. Nolan knew where the story ended. How it ended.
Only the fact that his wife had been a proven player had saved Austin from losing a whole lot more money than he had.
“You couldn’t possibly feel surer than I did then, Nolan. I’d have died for the woman.”
Yep, that about summed it up.
“I’m telling you, before you do another thing, and—Wait...you haven’t signed anything yet, have you?”
An offer on a house, but he had a ten-day inspection period to get out of that, a period he’d planned to waive. He’d only put down a thousand bucks, in any event. If he didn’t follow through on the deal, he’d only be out that much.
Until the house closed, he was covered.
“No.”
“Good. That’s real good. So now, before you do another thing, you get that paternity test done. You don’t even have a problem until that comes back—and I’m betting that when it does, you’ll find that you don’t have a problem at all.”
He did not want to ask Lizzie for a paternity test.
“Hey, at least promise this...” Austin was saying. “Promise me you won’t sign anything until after you’re home tomorrow. We’ll talk then.”
Yeah, about that... He didn’t even know if he was going to New Orleans.
He had the ticket. Everyone was expecting him to show up.
But he couldn’t see a way to leave Lizzie and Stella. It was the baby’s first Christmas. And Lizzie...well, he wanted to be there with her.
“I can give you my word I won’t sign anything before tomorrow,” he said.
His days of “freedom” were quickly drawing to a premature close. He was buying a house. Planning to support a woman and child. He had to tell his family.
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