Chapter Thirty-One
Austin
I sat at the table on my laptop, pleased with the updated internet service in my parents’ house. I looked at Preston’s pictures from his unexpected vacation and noticed how often the cowboy hat was on his head. It seemed to suit him, and I thought deeper about that. We’d been to Dallas when I bought the restaurant, and he’d seen the bigger city, but he wasn’t quite as struck with it as he was North Reed.
What was it about North Reed?
I didn’t even feel the same way about Texas as I did this town. I’d avoided it for years after leaving, and I don’t think my parents even knew about the restaurant. I hadn’t told them I bought it, and if they’d read about my purchase, the matter had never come up in any conversations. Going to Dallas was much like going to Chicago for me, if I tried to not think about North Reed when I was here.
I always made it a different world in my mind.
Something clicked in my head, and I sighed. Perhaps Rebecca wasn’t the only reason I avoided North Reed. If it changed Preston in a matter of days, why wouldn’t it change me as well? This was a different life than the one I’d grown accustomed to in New York, and the differences were obvious right now.
Everyone was closer here. They all cared about each other. If I went to the hospital in New York for any reason, the police chief would not be at my door. He would probably only read about me in the papers and wouldn’t care about my well-being with all the things going on in the city. Hell, I couldn’t picture the man in my head, and we’d met at a few social functions in the past. I met everyone that was high up on the ladder of business and the social world, but nobody really knew me there.
I couldn’t count the amount of times neighbors called to check on Dad or brought food over to help Mom out. They even went to the trouble of making sure it was healthy for all of us to eat, including Dad. The kindness of this town had stunned me once again, and I wondered how happy I was back in New York.
Fuck. Why did I keep thinking about this?
I heard the door open and glanced up to see Mom walking in with a bag. She’d been enjoying sneaking away to the stores while I was here, and today she had something from the bakery.
“Hi, Mom.”
She gave me a warm smile. “Is Dad sleeping?” she asked.
“Yeah. He’s been down for about an hour now. I’ve been looking at Preston’s vacation pictures.” I watched as she unloaded some fresh bread and muffins on the counter.
“Is he having a good time?” Mom came over to me, giving me a curious look. “Is it okay for me to look at them? They’re not indecent, are they?”
“Preston is a proper chap, and he’d never show anyone pictures like that.” I turned the screen.
She looked through the slide show and raised a hand to her mouth. “He's still wearing that hat in Singapore?” she asked with a laugh.
“He seems to have taken a piece of North Reed along with him,” I agreed.
She kept looking through the pictures. “Who is that pretty girl who keeps showing up at his side? Will she be coming back with him?”
I rolled my eyes. Though he was a proper chap as I liked to tease him about, he knew how to work the women.
“Probably not,” I said. “She’s a local there, more than likely. We’ll see when he comes back to New York in a couple of weeks.” Shit. Preston would be coming back to New York, and I didn’t know what the hell I wanted to do.
“If you’re there,” Mom echoed my thoughts as she glanced at the last picture. “Would he move here with you?”
That hadn’t even occurred to me, but I could imagine it. “I don’t know.” It was all I could think of for an answer because I honestly didn’t know. That was too far away in the future, even if it was just a matter of days from now. I needed to decide soon.
We both heard Dad coming down the hall, and Mom hurried forward to give him a soft kiss. I could swear they were more in love than ever. I shook my head as I turned to look back at my computer. The loss of the deal flashed through my head, along with the alternate ending of keeping it and gaining millions, if not billions of dollars. I’d be back in New York partying with my friends and talking about all the good that could come from that money instead of sitting here in North Reed, pondering my future.
Which was a better option?
I greeted Dad, and he followed Mom out back to sit down and enjoy some tea. I closed the computer and stretched. My phone rang in the kitchen. I stood and answered it as I pulled the container of muffins towards me, not bothering to look at the screen first. “Austin Harris,” I said, putting on my business tone before listening to the voice on the other line.
“Hello, Austin,” Mia cooed.
I rolled my eyes. What the fuck did she want now?
“Mia,” I said in a low voice, finally getting the muffin that I wanted out. My appetite faded at the sound of her voice, but I could get through this. She was miles away from me, and I’d handled worse things than her.
“How was your Christmas?” she asked.
I played the day back through my mind. I wasn’t sure if news of my father had gotten out, since I told my staff to keep it to themselves.
“It was very good. Did you go see your sister in Connecticut?” I walked out to the front porch and sat down.
“No. She didn’t want to come into the city with the new twins, and I had a party to attend. It was at this new club in Manhattan, and everyone was there.”
I raised an eyebrow. She chose a party in the city over spending time with the new babies in her family? I wouldn’t trade my Christmas for that now, but I had forced my parents to come to be with me for the past several years. We didn’t do the clubs, but what was the real difference? I had gone out after they went to sleep to the same places that Mia just described.
I was no better than her in some ways.
“That sounds…great,” I said, unable to offer much more than that. “Your parents were gone?”
“A European cruise.”
They still lived in their original home where she was from, but I expected that they would want to see their grandchildren for the holidays. The apple didn’t fall far from the tree. The saying made me think of my Grandpa and Dad. Suddenly, life in New York seemed so empty. I set the muffin on the table and ran a hand through my hair.
“I missed you this year, Austin. When are you coming home to me?”
“We broke up, Mia. We broke up mutually months ago. Why are you calling me?” I kept my voice calm and stared at the front yard. It was set so far back from the street that it felt like my own little paradise at this moment, far away from New York.
“You don’t miss me just a little bit?” she asked. “We had some good times together, Austin. All the nights out that ended in your bed or mine haunt my dreams. It hurts my feelings that you don’t feel the same way.” She poured as much seduction as she could into the words, but it didn’t affect me the way it used to. “I know that I meant more to you than you’re letting on.”
“Is that so?” I asked.
“I also know that you’re not in the Bahamas, Austin,” Mia tried to whisper.
My eyes widened. “How?” Whoever let that information slide would be fired immediately.
“You know that your colleagues hang out in the same places that I do. I’m Mia Laht, Austin. It doesn’t take much for me to find out anything, and when the guy is drunk, it is that much easier. I’ll bet you’d love to find out who it was.”
“Give up on this, Mia, and leave me alone,” I growled before I ended the call, holding my phone tightly in my hand. I was tempted to throw it into the snow in my anger toward Mia, but it takes two to tango. I was the male version of her not that long ago, flaunting myself and my wealth for everyone to see.
I had been a womanizer. I used them for sex, using a variety of ways to meet my needs. It was no wonder that this was happening to me. Mia was far more manipulative than some of the others. She wasn’t going to make this easy, and I didn’t know what to expect from her now that she seemed to know where I was staying.
My thoughts moved to Rebecca. She was the one woman who wasn’t impressed by my wealth. While she enjoyed dinner in Dallas, she made it clear when I dropped her off that it wasn’t necessary for me to love her. She was so much more complex than the others. I needed to prove myself to her in a different way.
I dialed a number on my phone with a smile.
Rebecca was spending time with Kim tonight, having dinner out and watching a movie at her house. As much as I wanted to see her, I’d never interrupt that time because I knew how close they were to one another. But being apart from her tonight worked out. I could plan ahead and make the next time I saw her special. I wanted to put my mistakes in New York behind me and show Rebecca that I loved her.
That last call I made outside was to Rebecca, telling her to expect a surprise on Saturday. That was her next day off, and I wanted to do something that she’d never forget. She didn’t pick up, so I left a message and sat back to enjoy the lemon blueberry muffin that Frannie had been making for fifty years. They were always my favorite as a kid, and I appreciated that Mom remembered that.
I joined my parents for dinner a little while later, enjoying the grilled chicken and vegetables that she made. I watched as they talked about their day and what was going on in town. I took in the way things seemed so much slower here, and I thought ahead to Saturday. I wanted to show Rebecca that you could mix slow and fast to come up with the perfect combination. I wanted to show her things she’d never seen before. Points of view that might surprise her.
I wanted to impress the hell out of her. I’d done that with other women just by being another version of myself, but it didn’t feel genuine. It felt like the game that it was.
Rebecca was different. She was special, and I would have to do a little digging and show that to her. I would have to break myself down in the process and find the right combination for this to work.
I pushed aside the uncertainty about the future and focused on enjoying dinner here with my family. I listened to the wind outside and tasted the food as I enjoyed the moment to its fullest.