CHAPTER 13
Randi lost herself completely in his kiss, the power of the embrace all-consuming and fierce. She steadied herself by gripping his powerful shoulders, and let her senses drown in Evan’s dominant assault.
She lost all of her will to fight her untamable attraction to him. This was Evan. Powerful. Indescribably sexy. Completely irresistible when he was this out of control.
Panting as he tore his mouth from hers, Randi looked at him with wide eyes.
“Did I hurt you when I told you that I didn’t want you to be pregnant?” he asked in a graveled voice.
She nodded slowly. “It’s not that I wanted to be pregnant. It was just the fact that you were so horrified that it might happen with me.”
“You know that dyslexia is hereditary. It runs in families. I was afraid for Grady when he had problems early in school, but his issues turned out to be completely different. And once I left for college, things got even tougher for him. I hated that.”
It wasn’t like it was Evan’s fault that he’d had to go away to college, but she’d learned enough about him to know he took the problems of the world onto his broad shoulders. He didn’t see it as a burden; it was simply his responsibility. “So?” Randi challenged. “Would you see any child of yours as defective if they had your condition?”
“Of course not,” Evan denied vehemently. “But it isn’t easy.”
“Evan, you’re not your father. He doesn’t define you,” she told him softly. “You’d be a good parent and your child would be special. Dyslexic children can learn, and they can be incredibly intelligent and creative like you. You talked to Matt brilliantly.” Okay . . . she hadn’t heard the whole conversation, but he’d made Matt happy.
He shook his head. “He told me he wanted to be a shark like me.”
Randi chuckled at the child’s reference to a popular television show. “Are you a shark?”
“No. I just look at things differently, and probably some luck has been involved. I am an investor, and I seem to be able to look outside the box to decide what will be successful and what won’t. Sometimes it’s a talent, but sometimes it’s just a good gut instinct,” he admitted slowly. “Besides, I have more money than the typical shark.”
Randi wanted to laugh at his cocky mention of his superior bank balance, but she didn’t. She needed to address the rest of his statement.
“You’re brilliant.” Randi was stating the obvious, but she didn’t care. Even with the horrible trials that dyslexia brought to a child, the fact was that dyslexic children were wired differently, and it caused many of them to have creative talents others didn’t have. Obviously, the disorder affected Evan by letting him see an entire picture of a prospective business instead of focusing on one or two negatives that could be resolved. He had a special gift of picking the right businesses, no matter how much he tried to explain it away.
“I’m business-smart,” Evan corrected, apparently unwilling to believe he was brilliant. “And I have a natural instinct for what will fly and what won’t. I’ve picked up companies that nobody else will touch and made them work.”
“You sold your father’s businesses?” Randi knew he had. Evan had liquidated when his father had died and distributed the Sinclair wealth to all of the children equally. Then, he’d proceeded to build another huge empire of his very own.
“They weren’t really my father’s. They were actually started by my grandfather. He was a wily old coot who could sniff out a good business from the other side of the world. I sold them all when my father died so I could divide the family fortune.” He frowned as he continued, “To be honest, I wanted to get rid of them. I wanted to prove to myself that I could pick my own companies and make my own fortune. Obviously, I was lucky I had the money in the first place, but I’ve multiplied my initial inheritance several times over.” He wasn’t bragging; he was just stating a fact.
“What does it feel like to be that rich? I always wondered what it would be like to be wealthy,” she asked curiously. It didn’t matter to her that she wasn’t rich and never would be, but she honestly wondered what it would be like not to follow a budget every month.
“Not so different than what anyone else feels, I imagine. We have the same concerns, the same fear of failure. We just have nicer cars, nicer houses, and more zeros in our net worth.” Evan shot her a small grin.
“And does that make you happy? Is a lot of money ever enough?” Once a person was that rich, did how much they have really matter anymore?
“I told you what makes me happy, and it’s not all about the money to me,” he answered gruffly. “But I guess I’ve always wanted to prove that I could build something on my own. I wanted to accumulate more than my father.”
She knew what he meant. He’d been proving himself for years, trying to be better than his father to prove himself worthy and negate the labels his father had given him as a child. “More money doesn’t mean better,” Randi explained. She was sure people could be wealthy and absolutely miserable. “There’s much more to happiness than money.”
“I think I’m figuring that out.” He lifted a hand to her head and stroked over her hair gently. “I’m sorry I hurt you, Randi. It’s never been my intention.”
It didn’t escape her notice that he was still thoughtfully using her nickname, not wanting to remind her of her childhood. His sensitivity touched her like nothing else could.
She understood his violent reaction now to the possibility of getting anyone pregnant. It wasn’t exactly for the reasons she’d assumed. Honestly, it wasn’t even rational. Just because he was dyslexic didn’t mean his child would also have the learning disability. With his fortune, he could afford the finest schools to help his child, and dyslexic children were often at average or above-average intellect. But maybe in Evan’s mind, he didn’t want a child to suffer like he did. He didn’t consciously realize that the way the problem was handled made all the difference. “You could have just told me.” She gave him a fake punch to the shoulder. “I thought you were starting to like me,” she teased.
“I think I more than just started,” Evan said grimly. “Show me happy, Randi. I think you’re the only one who can.”
Her heart accelerated as she contemplated what he was asking. Evan thought in broad terms when he requested something he didn’t quite understand. It hurt her heart to think he’d never really experienced a happiness that could help him understand contentment. “You have to trust me first.”
“I do,” he shot back immediately.
She grimaced, knowing she was committing herself to spending most of her free time the next few days with Evan. It was tempting, but dangerous. “It won’t be all about sex,” she warned him. Hell, she loved the sex as much as he did, but it wasn’t all there was to being happy and content.
His face fell, and Randi bit her lip to keep from smiling. Jesus, it felt good to have a man want her that much, but it wasn’t enough for Evan. He needed to learn that he wasn’t going to find what he was looking for by working every waking hour of the day. There was obviously little levity in what he did, or the people he worked with on a day-to-day basis.
“Okay,” he agreed, sounding reluctant.
“It won’t hurt a bit. I promise,” she assured him with a smile, her heart aching that Evan trusted her enough to let down his arrogant guard with her.
“Then show me.” He leaned forward and put his lips to her forehead.
His willingness to put his vulnerability into her hands had been her downfall. Randi was going to show Evan that there was more to life than just work and duty if it killed her . . . and judging by the sensual, hot look in his eyes, she decided that she just might not make it out of the whole experiment unscathed.
Dear M.,
What’s your favorite flower?
Randi looked at the short email from her pen pal, wondering what prompted him to ask that question. They threw out weird questions to each other, but it was usually relevant to something they’d been discussing at one time or another. This one was totally random.
Shaking her head at her laptop, she replied.
Dear S.,
I love calla lilies. My foster mother used to plant some of the huge, white variety down by the creek on her property every spring. Calla lilies in general don’t do well in the Maine climate, so she dug them up every year and preserved them inside for the winter so she could replant them in the spring.
Randi had named her dog after the flowers, because their center was actually the same gold color as Lily’s coat.
She had a momentary stabbing pain in her chest remembering that there would be no giant, white calla lilies by the creek this year. Joan had been too sick to preserve them, and Randi had never learned how.
It will be sad not to see the giant white flowers by the creek this year.
Randi added the sentence to her previous message before S. could reply.
Dear M.,
Still hurting?
Randi answered honestly.
Dear S.,
I think I’ll miss her and my foster father for the rest of my life. It’s been way over a month now since she passed, but it still hurts so much sometimes that I can hardly breathe. I know I was lucky to have them in my life at all, but our time was too short.
Randi pressed “Send,” already knowing that her friend would understand. He always did.
Dear M.,
I wish I had the words to make everything right, but I think time will help. I can’t say I’ve ever been standing in your shoes. I can only imagine how much it would hurt to lose someone I loved that much.
Randi sighed. S. always made her feel better somehow, maybe because he had an uncanny ability to empathize.
Dear S.,
I guess you’ll just have to put up with my sulking for a while.
She’d been pouring out her heart to him since her foster mother died.
Dear M.,
You’re not sulking, you’re grieving right now. Is it helping to have a guy in your life?
Randi thought about his question for a moment. Evan wasn’t really what she’d call the man in her life, but they’d shared more deeply buried secrets with each other than they had with anyone else. She’d never shared her secrets with a man she cared about except S., and he was a fantasy. He didn’t know her background, and Randi had no idea what her email friend was like in person.
She was willing to bet Evan shared very little with anyone.
Dear S.,
I think it does help, even though it’s nothing permanent. It takes my mind off my own sorrow.
Thinking of the challenges Evan had been through made her determined to teach him how to be content and live in the moment for just a little while. Her mission did help to lessen her grief.
Dear M.,
It could become permanent. You never know.
She wrote two words back quickly.
Dear S.,
It won’t.
He typed back one word.
Dear M.,
Why?
There were a lot of reasons, but the fact that Evan was leaving was the biggest one.
Dear S.,
He won’t be around long. We’ll spend some time together this week and then he’ll be gone.
How are things with the new woman in your life? I think I’m a little bit jealous.
It was winter in Amesport, not the best time to be showing Evan how to have fun. But she’d manage something.
Dear M.,
Don’t be jealous. I had you first, and I think I really like her because she’s a lot like you.
Randi was slightly taken aback by his words. S. didn’t really know her, yet he did. She’d shared so much of her thoughts, feelings, and emotions with him, even though they’d never met in person. In some ways she was envious of the unknown woman. If S. liked this female, he’d pursue her. If he went after her, he’d get her. Randi had never met him, but someone as intelligent, thoughtful, and insightful was undoubtedly a great guy. He’d never run away from her, and that was saying something since she’d done nothing but pour her heart out to him since Joan’s passing.
Dear S.,
I’m happy for you. She’s a lucky woman.
The two of them signed off after a few more exchanges.
She wandered into the kitchen, wondering what to cook. Too tired to really fuss with anything, she emptied food into Lily’s bowl and nuked herself a huge bowl of nacho cheese and took out the chips. Chuckling as she stood at her kitchen counter, she could only imagine what Evan would say about her dinner.
Evan.
What in the world had possessed her to accept his challenge to help him know happiness? What in the world did she know about being an upbeat person right now, anyway? She was a mess, a woman who was still in mourning with a piece of her soul missing.
I’ve been happy. I just need to remember how it was before I lost the last person who would love me like a daughter forever.
Maybe if she was very lucky, she and Evan could help heal each other. She could get her joy back, and Evan could find it for the first time.
She didn’t regret reaffirming that she’d go to Hope’s party with him, when she’d seen him earlier at the Center while tutoring Matt. It would be the last night she’d spend with him before he climbed into his expensive airplane and flew halfway across the world for another possible business deal.
Don’t think about him leaving. Just think about tomorrow. Live for now.
She ate a few more chips, dunking them in the massive bowl of warm, creamy nacho cheese.
Since she had no choice but to live for the moment, she wasn’t going to fight it. Thinking about the fact that Evan was leaving soon wasn’t going to ruin her chance of making him see that life was about so much more than work.
If anyone deserved a little bit of happiness, it was Evan Sinclair.
Pushing her negative thoughts from her mind, Randi contemplated exactly how to teach a man who knew nothing but work how to be happy.