Nate
NATE LEFT THE OFFICE EARLY wishing to get home.
Home.
Where Lily and Natasha were.
And, of course, Fazire.
Tash had called, telling him there was a surprise waiting for him there.
He couldn’t imagine what kind of surprise it could be, in the month since Lily’s dramatic tirade, complete with tossing clothes out of the wardrobe, his life had been full of surprises.
Pleasant surprises. Extraordinary surprises.
The kind of surprises and the possible intent behind them being something he’d very much like to believe, but found, through years of experience with disappointment, he could not.
It had started the next morning after Lily’s scene.
She had woken early, very early. She slid quietly out of bed obviously making an effort not to disturb Nate. This effort was for naught as she knocked into the bed twice, cursed under her breath and nearly fell over as she dressed. Knowing she was being careful for his sake, Nate kept his eyes closed when what he wanted to do was drag her warm body back into bed.
When time passed and she didn’t return, Nate got up, pulled on a pair of jeans and went in search of her.
He found her in the kitchen wearing a pair of very short, thin, cotton drawstring shorts patterned in stripes of soft pink and purple that showed off her long, shapely legs. With this, she wore a pink camisole and an old gray cardigan that had seen better days which he immediately decided to replace with something else, something new, something made of cashmere.
She was standing in the middle of the kitchen with her hands on her hips staring at the countertop with what appeared to be confusion.
Wondering at her mood after their row the day before, Nate approached her from behind silently on bare feet and cautiously slid his arms around her waist.
The afternoon before she’d promised not to leave him, said she would never leave, but Nate didn’t trust that. He’d learned early not to trust and nothing had happened in his life to alter that lesson.
He knew she wanted more from him, she wanted it all and he couldn’t give it to her. He felt, as he did eight years before, like he was living on borrowed time. Like once she found out who he really was she’d not only want to stay far away but now keep Tash from him as well.
Nate wouldn’t allow that.
And to stop it from happening he’d do whatever he had to do. Including keeping his past from the both of them.
Not that Lily was giving her all to him. The open-hearted Lily who let her excitement at life bubble out of her at the slightest provocation was gone. The laughing Lily who told stories about her beloved family had faded. No matter what he did to rectify his past mistakes, to erase the last eight years of her making do and scraping by, she was still different.
Wary, watchful and closed.
She jumped when he touched her and whirled, nearly knocking his chin with her head, and her soft, fragrant hair whipped across his face.
“Nate!” she cried, her expression clearly showing disappointment at seeing him and he felt something lurch painfully in his gut. She looked over her shoulder at the countertop then back at him and announced on an exaggerated pout, “You’ve spoiled my surprise.”
Then she stunned him by sliding her hands around his waist and tilting her head to the side, the disappointment fading as she gave him one of her quirky smiles. At the sight of it, he sucked in his breath and he felt every muscle in his body tense.
Her smile was exactly as he remembered. Not wary, not watchful, not closed in any way. Open, happy and one of the sweetest sights he’d seen in his life.
She leaned slightly into him, her breasts brushing his bare chest, her chin forced to tilt back further so she could look into his eyes.
“I was making you breakfast in bed,” she informed him cheerfully.
He glanced over her shoulder at the evidence that, indeed, he had interrupted her in the middle of preparing food.
With the knowledge of her intentions and understanding that her earlier disappointment was not directed at him, Nate didn’t know what to do. Nate was not the kind of man who didn’t know what to do and he didn’t like it.
No woman had made him breakfast in bed. No woman had even made him breakfast. Not a single one of his lovers had done anything for him, given him a present, brought over a bottle of wine or prepared dinner for him. They were happy for him to buy dinner, presents, even holidays, but the women in his life were used to being taken care of, being spoiled. Nate had played the game mainly because if he didn’t, they’d turn whiny and demanding. He’d learned it made life far more peaceful and furthermore, he could afford it.
This was an entirely new experience.
Lily seemed not to notice his surprise.
“Once I got started, though, I didn’t know what to do. You never remark on your food, say what you like. You just . . . eat.” Her smile hadn’t faltered, in fact, her voice sounded almost teasing. She gently pulled away from him and threw her arm out towards the food on the counter. “I decided bacon, eggs and toast was my best bet. Everyone likes bacon, eggs and toast. Then I realized I don’t even know how you like your eggs!”
She laughed softly, finding this amusing and came back to him, casually putting her arms around his waist again and resting her entire torso heavily against his tightened chest.
“You know, I feel like I’ve known you for years but I’ve really only known you a few weeks. Isn’t that funny?” She drooped her shoulders and tipped her head back to stare up at him with her extraordinary eyes, the blue so clear, so deep, so open, Nate felt lost in them.
Lost in her eyes, lost in her mood, lost in Lily.
So lost, he didn’t answer.
“So,” she whispered, “how do you like your eggs?”
Her question took him away from his silent contemplation of her. She sounded as if his answer meant everything in the world to her.
He looked warily down on her, his body tight, not knowing whether to give in to the relief he felt at her new attitude or worry at what she was hiding behind it.
“I’ll like them any way you cook them,” he answered, noncommittal.
Something he could not read flashed in her eyes, something that looked strangely like determination and her arms tightened about his waist.
“Scrambled?” she asked.
“That’ll be fine,” Nate replied.
Her smile came back. “How about fried? Do you like that better than scrambled?”
“Either,” he answered.
“Poached?”
“Fine.”
At this, her eyes lit and she shook her head and laughed, her entire body vibrating with it. For a second she dropped her forehead against his chest, giving in to her bizarre moment of amusement then she flipped her head back again, nearly clipping his chin. She lifted her hands to either side of his face, pulling it to hers and she stunned him further by kissing him briefly, the laughter still on her lips.
She hadn’t touched him of her own accord outside of bed since they’d been reunited.
“What am I going to do with you?” she mumbled, clearly not wanting an answer as she carried on, her voice very soft. “How do you like eggs best, Nate? Please tell me.”
This trivial piece of information did mean something to her so he sighed then responded, “Poached.”
Both of her hands went straight up in the air as if she was calling a goal in an American football match. With this gesture, her back arched, pressing her front closer against him.
“Success!” she cried happily and loudly, her face alight with triumph and Nate felt the brittle edge go off his morning at the sight. An instant later her face fell dramatically and she exclaimed, “Oh no!”
“What is it?” he asked.
“I don’t know how to poach an egg.”
It was then that Nate started laughing, all tenseness gone, the edge smoothing out and his arms tightened around her as her hands dropped to hold him at either side of his neck. She leaned up and kissed him again.
“Never fear,” she declared, pulling away from him and turning, all business, toward the counter. “I saw someone do it on a cookery program once. I think you have to get the water going in some kind of centrifugal thingie-ma-bobbie and crack the egg in it. I’ll figure it out.”
On this, she got busy and opened the bag of bread.
Nate allowed himself a moment to let his relief show. He allowed it because, with her back to him, Lily couldn’t see it. She seemed so happy, so much the old Lily he wanted time to revel in it. He reached out and pulled her back into his arms, burying his face in the hair at the side of her neck.
It wasn’t often that Nate felt hope, so when he did he knew it was a precious thing.
And at that moment, he felt hope.
Not a forever kind of hope. That hope, he knew, didn’t exist. But a hope for now.
“Nate?” She was pulling slightly away in an effort to see his face but not get out of his arms. “Is something the matter?”
He lifted his head and kissed her nose. “Nothing.”
Again, something flashed in her eyes but instead of her face closing off as it normally did when he didn’t give her the answer she wanted, she leaned back into him. The midnight blue in her outer irises had moved in towards the pupil.
“Now that we have breakfast semi-sorted, perhaps you’ll give me a good morning kiss?” she prompted softly, her voice timid but her eyes were inviting.
This wasn’t the old Lily. This wasn’t even the new Lily.
This was an altogether unknown Lily.
She’d never asked for a kiss before and Nate didn’t need to be asked twice.
Both Fazire and Victor arrived in the kitchen at the same time interrupting a good morning kiss that had become pleasantly heated.
“Sorry, sorry . . . we’ll come back.” Victor edged back out when Nate reluctantly lifted his mouth from Lily’s and turned his gaze to the two men.
“I’ll not come back!” Fazire grouched, flagrantly ignoring the scene he’d just interrupted and stomping in. “I need coffee immediately.”
Lily pulled away from Nate and approached her friend.
“Fazire!” She grabbed Fazire by the cheeks and pulled his head to her, tipping it down and kissing it on the top. “Nate likes his eggs poached,” she imparted this on her friend as if she’d just been the first to decode the enigma machine.
After he was released, Fazire looked from Lily to Nate and back to Lily. He shrugged his disinterest in the news and went to the coffeepot.
Nate leaned his hip on the counter and nodded to his father who straggled in wearing his pajamas and a dressing gown.
“Who made this?” Fazire demanded to know, his lip curled in disgust. He was holding the coffeepot aloft and staring at Nate angrily deciding Nate had to be the culprit.
“I did,” Lily answered, busily lining bacon on the grill pan.
At Lily’s admission, Fazire wasn’t deterred in his ire.
“It looks like water,” Fazire accused, transferring his angry eyes to her.
“It does not look like water. Just because you can’t chew it, Fazire, doesn’t mean it isn’t any good.” She tossed her head and looked over her shoulder at Victor who had decided to seat himself at the kitchen table to watch the show. “Fazire likes his coffee strong.”
“I gathered that,” Victor commented.
Lily threw a startlingly bright smile at Victor and went back to work. Even though she’d turned her back to him, Victor stared at her in frozen wonder for a moment then his eyes slid to Nate.
Then Nate’s father smiled and slowly he winked at his son.
That evening, after Victor and Laura had gone, Fazire had disappeared to his room and Nate had listened to Tash reading before he tucked her in to sleep, Nate had gone to find Lily.
She was sitting in the sun room in a new wicker lounge with a bright-blue cushion edged in a soft beige, her legs curled beneath her, her head bent, reading a book. Mrs. Gunderson was sleeping in a tight cat body curl next to her.
With Nate’s money and Lily’s choices, everything in the room was of far better quality and vastly improved style. The furniture was wicker, woven plump with thick, dark reeds. The windows had been replaced with timber-framed, double-glazed, sparkling panes. The walls had been repainted in clean linen and large potted palms were placed attractively around the room. The day outside was gray, but the room had a soft glow from lamps with bulbous beige bases with crisp shades sitting on wicker tables by the lounge and in between the two chairs opposite it. A square, glass-topped, wicker table sat in the center of the arrangement holding a huge crystal globe vase filled high with irises.
Nate felt a sense of satisfaction seeing Lily sitting there peacefully reading with her cat. It was the kind of room Lily should be in, expensive and elegant, and it was the kind of thing Lily should be doing, reading and relaxing, not running around taking care of everyone.
He’d been studying her for some moments when she sensed him, her head coming up and her face, which had been concentrating on her book, relaxed into a small smile.
“Is Tash sleeping?” she asked.
Nate felt something uncurl inside him at her simple question. It wasn’t important. It wasn’t profound. Just a mother asking a father if their child was sleeping.
Yet, to Nate, it was the most intimate question anyone had ever asked him.
“Yes,” he answered.
Lily put her bookmark in her book and set it aside but she didn’t rise.
“She loves to read to you. I think it’s the highlight of her day.”
Nate made no verbal response but that thing unfurling in his chest loosened further upon hearing her remark.
Finally he spoke. “I don’t want to interrupt your reading.” She shook her head to indicate she didn’t mind and he continued, “I’ve been meaning to tell you that tomorrow morning we have an appointment at the Registry Office to begin the process—”
He didn’t finish as suddenly Lily hurled herself out of the lounge and across the short space and threw herself bodily at him, rocking him back on his heels. Mrs. Gunderson went flying on an angry cat meow at her rapid movement.
Lily’s arms went around his shoulders and with a little hop, her legs went around his hips and he reflexively put his hands under her bottom to hold her steady against him.
She was pressing her cheek against his and holding him tightly.
“What’s this?” he whispered into her ear.
Her head jerked back and she looked at him, her eyes bright and tears were glimmering at their bottom edges.
“You said in Alistair’s conference room you were going to marry me but then you didn’t say anything about it again. You said two months. It’s been nearly a month already!” He had no chance to respond to her overwhelming reaction as she went on excitedly. “We’ll fix a date tomorrow, yes?” she asked and he nodded, finding himself pleased by her extremely positive response.
She leaned into him and again put her cheek against his.
“I have so much to do! I have to find a dress and Tash needs a dress. And we have to get invitations.” Her head jerked back and she looked at him again, all sign of tears were gone, her eyes were alight and dancing. “A small wedding? In the Registry Office?”
At her question, he nodded again and with a soft pull, she released her legs from his hips and he let her go. He watched as she kept talking excitedly and walked around the room, turning off the lamps.
“Fazire will need something to wear and then there are flowers. I think peonies. Mom loved peonies. It’s the Indiana state flower, did you know that?” She didn’t look at him as she asked the question, nor did she wait for a response.
“We’ll need a photographer. I don’t want one of those Nazi photographers that take seventeen hours to pose all the photos. It should be a fun day. We should be drinking and eating, not spending all our time having our pictures taken. What do you think?”
Before he could answer, she stopped and jerked erect after turning off the second lamp.
“I know! Fazire can take the photos!” She clapped her hands in front of her excitedly and Nate remembered her doing precisely the same thing when he’d given in to her motorcycle ride on their first and only date. The sight of it made his chest expand in a way he’d never felt before. It was warm. It was pleasant. And he had no idea what it meant. He had no idea that it heralded contentment and security, two things he’d never felt in his life.
He had not even come into the room and was still standing in the doorway. He leaned against its jamb and continued to watch her.
He didn’t stay very long in his position. Lily walked toward him, grabbed his hand and led him out of the room through the living room and up the stairway to their bedroom. The entire time she talked and she planned.
She asked him if he wanted dancing then didn’t wait for his answer and decided there should be dancing.
She asked him if he wanted to wear a morning suit then didn’t wait for his answer and decided that was too stuffy for a Registry Office.
She asked him if he wanted speeches then decided there must be speeches.
In the bedroom, after he’d closed their door, she turned into his arms.
“Just leave it to me. I’ll take care of everything. I’ll call in Laura and Maxie and we’ll have it sorted in no time.” She pressed her index finger in his chest. “You just need to be responsible for the honeymoon. Can you do that?”
His arms tightened and he smiled into her shining face.
“I think I can manage that.”
She tipped her face up to him and smiled.
Three days later, Nate was in his new Bristol office in a meeting, two of his transplanted staff seated in the chairs in front of him awaiting instructions, when the buzzer went on the phone.
When he was in a meeting, the buzzer never went on his phone.
Ever.
Nate wasn’t a cruel boss but he was a demanding one. He expected his staff to work hard and smart, to be ambitious but not greedy nor backstabbing and to be forthcoming with good ideas and constructive criticism. He rewarded them for these things. The more of them they demonstrated, the better they demonstrated them, the larger the reward.
If they failed to demonstrate them, they were gone.
However, Nate was not friendly with his staff. He didn’t take them out for drinks. He didn’t buy them Christmas presents, although he did give them generous Christmas bonuses. He didn’t share his personal life with a single soul in the office or out of it, for that matter. He did not encourage this behavior amongst his managers and their employees either. He expected work to be work, he expected success, he expected absolute professionalism and he led by example.
He was not a doting father to a corporate family.
He was the respected, removed commander of a very tightly run corporate army that, day after day, achieved remarkable results.
It was his edict that he was never to be disturbed during a meeting unless it was urgent. An edict like all of his edicts that was always strictly obeyed.
Therefore, when the phone sounded, both of his staff jumped in surprise.
Nate hit a button on the phone. “Yes?”
“Ms. Jacobs for you,” his secretary, Jennifer, said over the intercom, adhering to his command that any time Lily called, any time, she was to be put straight through.
Nate didn’t spare his two employees a glance (if he had, he would have seen their eyes widen in surprise). He just picked up the phone.
Lily had called him once to complain about her living room furniture being carted away.
Tash, on the other hand, called him every day when she got home from school to tell him every minuscule piece of news that she felt might be of import, which was practically every second of her day. Nate looked forward to his daughter’s calls. Natasha was talkative but clever, incredibly clever. She had at her command a great number of words, and she used them well and often, far better than people three times her age. It was clear Tash was advanced and Nate was already looking into special schools for her, something, he thought vaguely, he really should discuss with Lily.
Nate had learned quickly that Tash’s calls were to come on a regular schedule and he had Jennifer clear his diary for that hour, without exception.
But Lily had only called once. There was no more furniture to be hauled away and most of the work was being completed that week. He had no idea why Lily would call and he was concerned it was not good news.
“Lily,” he greeted her.
“Hi! You busy?” she responded brightly, her light-hearted tone taking him by surprise.
Nate was busy. Nate was always busy.
“No,” he replied.
There was a pause. Then she asked, “What’re you doing?” And she spoke as if she was calling just to chat, as if she did this every day.
He sat back in his chair, taken aback by this latest development that was the New Lily and finding himself wondering at her intentions.
His glance slid past his two employees who were pretending (poorly) not to listen into their normally cold and indifferent boss’s unprecedented conversation with the unknown “Ms. Jacobs,” a woman for whom he would interrupt a meeting without even the briefest hesitation.
He ignored them.
“Working,” Nate answered.
She let out a carefree laugh then remarked, “Of course.”
“Lily, is there something—?”
She interrupted him. “Tash is going to be on school holidays soon and I think we should plan a family trip.”
Nate froze at her unexpected words.
He’d had family holidays with Victor and Laura but as Victor worked constantly, they’d been few and far between. During those holidays Jeff had taken every opportunity to torment Nate in his own special way while Danielle had taken her own opportunities to torment Nate in entirely different ways.
Nate did not have fond memories of family holidays.
Then again, Nate had very few fond memories and most of them centered around two weeks eight years ago and his most recent three.
Not knowing any of this, Lily continued, “I’m thinking Disneyland Paris. Tash has been wanting to go there forever and I’ve never—” She stopped abruptly and then quickly went on, trying to cover her reference to what she and Natasha had done without him over the years. A reference she knew would put Nate on edge. “Anyway, we’ll all go for a few days and then Fazire can take Tash to the park and perhaps you and I can go into Paris for a day, or a couple of days, just the two of us. I’ve never been to Paris.”
Nate was silent at this suggestion of a stereotypical family holiday with the inclusion of an intimate couple’s getaway.
Lily was also silent.
Lily’s silence was expectant.
Nate’s was stunned.
And pleased.
She finally broke it. “Well, what do you think?”
“I’ll have Jennifer set it up,” Nate replied.
“Yippee!” she shouted so loudly that he had to take the phone away from his ear and he couldn’t stop a small grin from forming on his lips as he heard her unconcealed glee.
Nate was also relatively certain his two employees heard her cheer. Especially since they glanced at each other with knowing looks and they definitely saw his heretofore unseen grin.
“I have to go,” Nate told her, his grin gone and he was sending a cold look to both his staff, which immediately wiped any speculation off their faces.
“Oh, okay.” Her voice sounded disappointed, and at that Nate felt that strange, relaxed feeling in his chest again. “When will you be home tonight?”
“The usual time.”
“Oh, okay,” she repeated then hesitated then she sighed deeply, and if he wasn’t mistaken, meaningfully, then she said, “’Bye.”
“I’ll see you later.”
He waited for her to hang up. She didn’t.
“Lily?”
“Nate.”
“Hang up,” he commanded.
“You hang up,” she retorted.
His eyes lifted to his employees again and one of them had dropped her head to stare at her lap, the other one was looking to the side and his lips were twitching.
“Lily, I have two of my staff in my office with me.”
“Oh!” she exclaimed. “If you were busy, why did you take my call?”
“I’ve missed enough of your calls in the past. I won’t miss another one,” he responded and the steel in his voice, a far more familiar sound to them, caused both of his employee’s faces to go instantly blank.
Lily’s tone was warm and soft. “Nate.”
Lily saying his name in that tone went straight through him.
“I have to go,” he repeated, this time with a reluctance that he allowed to be read in his voice.
“’Bye,” she said, that one word sweet and intimate, and Nate felt it almost as if it was a physical touch and that thing in his chest loosened just a bit more.
Two weekends later on a Saturday afternoon came the most profound of a month full of surprises.
Nate and Victor had finished going over some business in Nate’s new study on the garden level. Father and son went in search of everyone else and found them in Lily’s office on the top floor.
The house was complete, the workmen and decorators gone, the furniture and appliances replaced and it was now what Nate considered a home appropriate for Lily and Natasha. A home of consequence and quality for his family. A home he provided for them. The kind of home they deserved. The kind of home he would work until he died to be certain they always had.
The mortgage was now settled and Lily owned the house free and clear.
The furniture and fittings were all top of the line and even if something happened to him, she’d not have to replace them for decades.
Lily had stamped it with her quirky style that was both refined and offbeat. Muted colors mixed with bold, classical, elegant furniture twinned with distressed cottage-style antiques, the walls and most surfaces adorned with Fazire and her mother’s framed photographs of family and her home in Indiana.
Lily had decorated her office in eggshell white with furniture upholstered in grass-green with lilac and sunshine-yellow toss pillows and accents.
The usually tidy room was covered in opened magazines and catalogs with pages torn out and strewn all over the place. There were also torn and frayed swatches of fabric dotting the floor and several surfaces.
Fazire was reclining in his usual armchair, and he was, for some reason, partially covered in an enormous swathe of taffeta the color of an eggplant. Maxine, wearing a turban nearly the same shade as Fazire’s swathe but not a part of the afternoon’s planning session, instead a part of her own bizarre ensemble, was seated at Lily’s white, spindly-legged desk, clicking through photo after photo on Lily’s laptop. Laura was reclining on Lily’s chaise, an enormous book open on her lap displaying invitation selections.
“No purple,” Lily decreed as Victor cleared the door and Nate stopped in it, taking in the scene.
“It has to be purple!” Maxine cried in a tone that said she’d absolutely expire if whatever it was they were discussing was not purple.
“I agree,” Fazire announced pompously.
“No purple,” Lily repeated.
“Pink!” Tash shouted over the conversation.
Lily was on her knees on the floor, her bottom resting on her calves that were folded underneath her. Four magazines were opened in front of her and swatches of fabric in every color of the rainbow were arrayed around and amongst the magazines.
Tash was standing behind Lily, her body pressed against her mother’s back and her arms around Lily’s neck. Lily was lightly holding on to Tash’s elbows, keeping her daughter close.
“No pink, baby doll,” Lily said softly then bent her head to kiss a spot just above Natasha’s wrist, and at this sight Nate felt a warmth seep through him, starting in his gut and emanating upward.
“Gray. A nice, soft, dove gray,” Laura suggested. “No one ever uses gray.”
“What are you talking about?” Victor sat next to Laura on Lily’s green chaise longue.
“Wedding colors,” Maxine answered. “Fazire and I are agreed on purple. It’s the only color that has more than one vote.”
“Purple isn’t very Lily, Maxine,” Laura put in.
“Dove gray is definitely not Lily,” Fazire stated firmly.
Nate leaned against the doorjamb and crossed his arms on his chest, surveying the scene with a vague sense of satisfaction.
Lily’s eyes lifted to him, they dropped to where he was lounging against the jamb and then back to his face. Then he was arrested when he saw a secret, intimate smile play at the corners of her mouth before she looked away.
“It’s Lily’s wedding. She should pick the color,” Victor noted logically.
“Lily, can I speak to you privately?” Nate cut in to the discussion, deciding to assuage his curiosity about her smile, the answer behind which he very much wanted to know, rather than wait for a determination of what their wedding colors would be, the answer to which he didn’t care about in the slightest.
Everyone turned to stare at him, but without hesitation Lily kissed Natasha’s arm again, gently disengaged from their daughter, stood and followed him out of the room, down the hall and into their newly completed bedroom.
Their room she had decorated in rich indigo, sharp vermillion and deep violet, somehow managing to make it both comfortably masculine and softly feminine, a place in their home that Lily was able to make for them both together and separately.
Once he closed the door behind him, she slid her arms around his waist and leaned her weight into his torso, a habit she had formed the last several weeks. It was something she did often, in fact, most every time she was near him.
“What’s your favorite color?” she asked, her head tilted back and that strange, knowing smile still visible on her face.
One of his arms went about her, the other hand cupped her jaw, his thumb running along her cheekbone.
New Lily, he saw, was firmly in place. She was a mixture of his sweet Lily, the Lily he had saved from the purse snatcher, the mature but not lost nor broken Lily, and something else altogether. She was cheerful, playful, teasing, loving and relaxed. She was also something different, something alluring and mysterious, as if she had a secret but not a bad one.
A delicious one.
She’d begun spending the evenings in her office writing, using the laptop Nate had bought her or writing longhand in notebooks.
Natasha would sit with her and watch the new flat screen television using her headphones or Tash would sit in Nate’s study when he was there, watching his flat screen television and wearing her headphones. Fazire would often join them when they were in Lily’s office, Fazire sitting in Lily’s grass-green armchair, his feet up on the ottoman, reading one of his books (Fazire didn’t join Tash in Nate’s study, however).
Lily had also started the habit of calling Nate regularly at his office, not every day but several times a week.
She had nothing to say and didn’t want to know much of anything. She’d ask what he wanted for dinner (he never had a preference, food was food). When he’d be home (he was home the same time every night, except five minutes earlier each time). What he was doing at that particular moment (always working). Did he want Chinese takeaway that night (again, food was food). How he felt about beef Wellington served at their wedding reception (he only cared about Lily being legally tied to him, he didn’t care what they ate after that came about).
It was clear she didn’t really care about his answers, in fact, didn’t demand them as he often didn’t give them. It seemed, instead, as if she simply wanted to talk. As if she wanted a brief connection with him during the day and this connection had no strings. There was nothing loaded in their conversation. No wrong answer he could give. It was just her way of establishing a connection, any connection.
Each time she called, he dismissed anyone who was in his office with a sharp nod of his head, turned his chair to face the window, sat back and rested his ankle on his knee. Then he let her blather on, just like he let their daughter do when she called.
When Lily phoned, it too became known around the office as uninterruptible.
Without exception.
And during the last two weeks after Tash was in bed, there were three occasions when Lily asked Nate to go to the pub with her.
They quietly walked together down the sea path to her local. There, they sat outside by the sea, Nate drinking vodka and ice, Lily having a glass of white wine. Eventually, she’d lean into him and rest her head on his shoulder, his arm would slide around her and together they would watch the water.
She didn’t ask probing questions. She didn’t demand details of his past. Often, something in her thoughts would make her sigh but he never asked her about it and she never offered any explanation. Other times she’d break the silence and tell him about her family, her father, her mother, her grandmother, her old limestone house. These stories could be sweet, they could be funny but always they were tinged with her grief.
After a few drinks, they’d walk slowly home, taking their time and holding hands, and he’d take Lily to bed and make even slower love to her.
After those three nights, Nate noticed he’d had the most restful nights of sleep he could remember and he could remember every night of his life.
Once, when he had work to go over, needing to make detailed notes before a meeting the next day, he’d stayed late in his study asking Lily, for the first time that he had been in Somerset, to let Tash read to her so he could finish.
In the wee hours of the morning, Lily came down and knocked on his door. When he called her in, she jumped up and sat on the side of his desk and began a sweet and strange interrogation, asking him questions about what he was doing and what his work involved.
He calmly, but not very informatively, answered. He had work to do, it was late, he wanted to finish and join her in bed and he knew she had to be in the shop in only a few hours. He was trying to ignore the soft skin of her thigh that rested next to his forearm. He was trying to ignore when she’d lean forward and point at a graph on a document and ask a question, her cleavage bared to his view. He tried to ignore it when she regarded him levelly, her eyes warm, her thumb between her bared teeth, her mind obviously somewhere else, somewhere better as she watched his lips form brief words to answer her questions.
Eventually, she giggled, threw her hands in the air and stared for a moment at the ceiling. She then jumped off the side of his desk, grabbed his wrist and held it out so she could slide into his lap.
And seated there, she asked one final set of questions that swiftly ended the late night interrogation.
“What’s a girl have to do around here to seduce her fiancé? I mean, how obvious could I be? Should I do a striptease? Roll around on your desk naked?”
She didn’t finish, couldn’t, as his mouth cut off her words.
And she did end up on his desk naked but she didn’t have to roll around.
In their bedroom with the entirety of both of their family next door talking wedding colors, Nate’s hand drifted from her jaw to tuck her hair behind her ear.
“My favorite color?” he repeated.
“Yes, you pick our wedding colors,” she demanded, her tone teasing.
“Lily, my favorite color is red,” he told her, her eyes widened and she burst into laughter, her body pressing closer to his.
“Dracula’s wedding!” she shouted and Nate hoped Laura didn’t overhear, her heart would explode. “I love that! I’ll wear black with blood-red petticoats and carry red roses and you can wear a tuxedo with one of those crosses at your neck. We’ll be the talk of the town.”
Nate smiled at her outrageous suggestion as she snuggled closer.
“I’d rather not,” he replied dryly.
“Me neither.” Her sexy, knowing smile was gone and her quirky grin was back. “What did you want to talk to me about?”
“Nothing,” he replied.
For some reason, her hilarity and the loss of that smile caused his curiosity to recede.
Her arms tightened around him and she kissed the underside of his chin.
Then she said, “Come on, Nate. You had something to ask?”
“It isn’t important.” He dropped his other arm to her waist, but to his surprise she let out an exasperated noise, pulled away and then, sharply, she pushed him towards the bed with both her hands at his chest.
He didn’t move.
“What are you doing?” he asked as she planted one foot behind her and began to shove his chest with her full, leveraged weight behind her shove.
He still didn’t move.
She ignored his question and muttered to herself, “Forget it, you aren’t going to budge.” And then she stopped shoving and started to unbutton his shirt.
At her bizarre and unexplained behavior, his voice was edgy and he grabbed both of her wrists.
“Lily, what in bloody hell are you doing?”
Her head came up and she leaned into him, ignoring his tone and allowing him to hold her wrists but now pressing her chest tantalizingly against his.
“I’m making you talk,” she explained with a jaunty grin.
“I’m sorry?”
Without warning, her head bent to the middle of his chest where she’d managed to get his shirt unbuttoned. He felt her tongue on his skin and fire swept through him.
He jerked her back by her wrists.
“Lily, Natasha is in the next room.”
Her grin turned devilish.
“Then you better talk quick before I ravish you.” She leaned in again and ran her lips along the underside of his jaw and he felt his body’s immediate reaction even as he bit back a smile.
“Ravish me?” he said, amusement in his voice.
His hands loosened on her wrists and she put them to good use, pulling his shirt free of his jeans.
“You think I can’t do it?” Her head came up with her challenge and the midnight had nearly taken over the pale blue of her eyes.
He slid his hand into her hair at the left side of her head and gently fisted it at the back to hold her face tilted to his.
His head descended and softly, against her lips, he said, “Oh yes, darling, I think you can do it.”
He felt, rather than saw, her smile and that feeling stole through him.
“Tell me why you wanted to talk to me,” she coaxed, her hands edging lightly up the skin of his back.
He wasn’t proof against her playful mood and he gave in. “Tell me why you were smiling.”
His eyes were less than an inch from hers and he saw hers turn confused as her brows knitted.
“I’m smiling because you just admitted I could ravish you—” she began.
He shook his head and kissed her lightly then let his lips slide down her cheek to her ear, “Before, in your office, when you saw me in the door.”
She moved back and looked at him, and there it was, that knowing look in her eye, the smile twitching her lips.
“That?” she asked.
He nodded. “That.”
The smile deepened and, if it was possible, her eyes warmed further and she explained, “Remember when we first met, after Victor brought me back to his house and I was coming down the stairs when the police were there?”
Of course he remembered. He remembered like it happened only an hour earlier.
“Yes.”
“Well, you were leaning against the wall like the hero in a romance novel then and you were doing it again just now. And I remembered when you did it then and how much . . . how you . . .” She stopped for some reason and started again, “How I so very much wanted you to notice me when I saw you leaning against the wall like a romantic hero. And, well, and then you did, er . . . notice me that is.”
Her comment took him outside the playful mood, her words shaking him and he stilled.
“I’m sorry?” he queried.
She smiled at him, her eyes both alluring and dancing. “You’re just like the hero in a romance novel. I should know, I’ve read hundreds of them. So has Maxie, you can ask her. I promise, she’ll agree with me.”
Before he could reply, she pulled away, brought her hands up between them and started counting things.
Things about him.
Things that made his stomach clench, his chest ache and his throat close.
At the same time he felt all this, conversely, he also felt like bursting into laughter.
“First, you are inconceivably, impossibly handsome,” she began. “And you lean very well.”
“I lean well?” he asked incredulously.
She nodded vigorously. “Very well,” she assured him as if leaning well was a trait akin to honesty, integrity, diplomacy and generosity all rolled into one. “And you’re tall and dark and narrow-hipped—”
“Narrow-what?” Nate interrupted her but Lily ignored his interruption.
“And you’re very clever. Beyond clever. You’re brilliant. And you’re hard-working. You’re virile and fierce—”
“Lily—”
“And rugged—”
He couldn’t help himself, he started laughing.
Rugged?
“Lily—” he tried interrupting her again but she stopped ticking off her hilarious list and put her hands on either side of his face and what she said next made all amusement flee.
“You’re everything I ever wanted. You’re exactly what I wished for when I was fourteen years old. Exactly. You can ask Fazire. I told him what I wanted and then, years later, there you were. And you were perfect. I knew it the minute I laid eyes on you. I knew who you were and I knew I wanted you and I knew you were mine.”
Nate stiffened, his body going stock still, and he shook his head, pulling away from her, putting distance between them and he felt his shields go up. He didn’t put them up. They went up automatically.
Softly, as a warning, he told her, “You have no idea who I am.”
She didn’t allow him to retreat. She closed the distance and wrapped her arms around his waist, holding on tightly.
“I know exactly who you are.”
He shook his head again, once, a definite negative but she kept talking, this time her voice was fierce and there was an iron edging her words.
“You’re Nathaniel McAllister. You’re my lover. You’re the father of my child. You take care of your family. You’ll never let us go without again and you’ll never let me go again.” She flattened herself against him and lifted her lips against his. “Nate, you’re mine. You belong to me and I belong to you.”
He felt her words tear through him.
If she knew about him, her words wouldn’t be so fervent, so determined.
He lifted his hands to either side of her face.
“You’re right, Lily, I’ll never let you go but you’ve no idea who I am.”
She kissed him silent and then said softly, “You can have your secrets. I don’t care about them. You can tell them or you can keep them. But Nate, I know who you are. I may just have learned your favorite color but I know you’ll never let me hurt again. And you wouldn’t have done it before if you’d thought it was within your power.” Her gaze, which had been intent, lightened and she finished, “By the way, Jeff doesn’t lean. He slouches.”
At her quick change in topic, her tone moving from impassioned to playfully informative, unusually, Nate lost track of the conversation.
“I beg your pardon?”
On a wicked grin she said, “Jeff, your brother, he doesn’t lean like a sexy romantic hero, like you do. He slouches, like a snotty schoolboy.”
At that, Nate finally allowed himself to give in to laughter. Letting the rest of it go. Burying it deep so after she knew, after she went away, he could take it out and savor it.
Snatching her to him, he threw his head back and roared with laughter, holding her close.
Nate nor Lily had any idea that the inhabitants of the room next door went silent and listened to him laugh. Two of them smiled. One of them giggled. The last scowled.
In their bedroom, Lily’s mouth against Nate’s neck, when he stopped laughing, she said quietly against his skin, “Something else you should know, I’ll never let you go either.”
And Nate felt her words were less words and more a vow and his arms tightened around her.
Now he was on his way home, to his most recent surprise, another day bringing him closer to the end, another day he had to relish as he waited for his good fortune to run out.