Chapter Seven
Hailey took a sip of the soda the waitress had delivered and asked herself why it had been so important to see Spencer. Is it loneliness and loss that brought me here, or something more? Am I trying to recapture part of the past?
What was Delinda hoping would come out of us meeting up?
Did she want confirmation that it wouldn’t be a problem for her family?
Or was she playing matchmaker?
I wish I knew which outcome ends my employment with her. Is there any way to do this without risking everything? “Promise me something.”
“Anything.”
“Don’t tell anyone about today or that we’re talking again. Okay?”
He didn’t look happy with her request. “Why not?”
I should just say it now—clear the air. Spencer, I’m working for your grandmother.
Yeah, that would go over well.
What if he has a problem with me being there? Am I willing to accept the consequences when I’m not the one it might hurt the most?
I have to be smart about this. There must be an option that leaves all of us in a better place.
But maybe not one that starts with me blurting everything out. “My employer is very particular. Very. Very. Particular.”
“Even about what you do on your own time?”
“She’s an older woman with some boundary issues—”
“Then you need to set her straight that your personal life is none of her business.”
“It’s not that simple.” Hailey’s mouth dried at the thought she might not be making the right choice. “I can’t lose this job.”
He leaned forward. “Talk to me.”
She needed a shoulder even if the one he was offering was risky to accept. “I had a career up until recently. I’m not irresponsible.”
“I know you’re not. Things happen.”
She searched his face and found no hint of judgment, so she continued. “I was a retail purchaser for DIY Rite, but after Ryan died I took a lot of time off work. I’m not sorry I did. Given a chance to do it over, that’s what I would do again in a heartbeat. But it did get me terminated. I told myself that once the dust settled, it would be easy enough to find another position, but that wasn’t how it worked out.” Hailey paused, uncertain if she could share the story without revealing too much. “I came across this personal assistant opportunity, and it had everything I needed: a place to live, insurance, a good salary. It doesn’t matter if I like it or not. We need this.”
Spencer laid his hand over hers. “If you need money—”
Hailey shook her head. “It’s more complicated than that. Skye had a really hard time after her parents died.” Hailey waved a hand in the air. “I know what you’re thinking—of course she did. I thought I understood grieving, but before taking this job I was beginning to worry that nothing I did would help her. I was sinking beneath the weight of advice from professionals who kept telling me she was getting better, but I knew she wasn’t. She’d become nonverbal, needed to be homeschooled because she didn’t want to be around other children, and I felt like I was failing her . . .” Hailey took a deep, calming breath. “Unless you’d seen Skye before and after she met my employer, you wouldn’t understand how good the move has been for her. She’s talking. She’s excited again. If things stay the way they are, I think she’ll be returning to school soon. And it’s all because the woman I work for has this ability to reach Skye in a way I haven’t been able to. She says it, and Skye does it. Just like that. That easily.” Hailey winced when she heard resentment sneak into her tone. I don’t want to be that person. “I’m happy for the change in her. I really am. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
He held her gaze. “You wanted to be the one to save Skye.”
As horrible as it was to admit, that was a truth she could bare to him. “Yes.”
He raised his hand to caress her cheek. “You did.”
Hailey shook her head. “I was the reason she stopped talking.”
“The death of her parents was the reason.”
I’m going to just say it. Get it out of my head. “I heard Skye say she stopped speaking because she thought everything she said made me sad. I never cried in front of her. I always waited until she was in her own bed. I didn’t know she could hear me. I knew she needed me to be strong. I thought I had been, but I failed her.” There.
Spencer stood up and slid into the booth beside her. He put an arm around her and kissed her lightly on the forehead. “You didn’t fail anyone. I hate that you went through that alone.” He looked as if he wanted to say more but was holding himself back.
Hailey closed her eyes briefly, determined not to cry in front of him again. “The worst of it is over. She’s looking more like her old self every day.” She opened her eyes but kept them glued to the table. “All I have to do now is not screw it up. It’s what I pray for every morning and pretty much what I pray for every night. I just want Skye to be a happy little girl again. I want her to have friends, go to school, come home, and argue with me over things that normal people argue over. I can’t afford to lose my job, not just because I need the money, but because I’m afraid of what will happen with Skye if we have to move again.”
“She’d survive. She has you.”
“That’s what I tell myself when I start to panic. I know this job isn’t forever, but for now it’s the best I can do.”
His arm tightened around her. “Hailey . . .”
She shrugged. She didn’t want him to feel sorry for her. That wasn’t why she’d come. “Enough about me. What about you? How’s your life?”
The inner beauty of the woman before him robbed him of his ability to answer immediately. The girl he’d known had grown into a strong and loving person. The depth of her loss and her ongoing struggle to reach her niece made the family issues Spencer had been dealing with seem trivial.
Life had battered Hailey, but it hadn’t broken her. She was more cautious, but she wasn’t bitter. Unlike him, she wasn’t angry and lashing out at those around her.
In truth, she deserved to be with a better man than him. The thought of her with anyone else, though, made his stomach clench painfully. He realized then that she was still waiting for him to answer. “It’s good. Busy. I have a virtual reality software company, WorkChat, that’s expanding faster than I dared to dream.”
She smiled, looking genuinely happy for him. “You got your cake.”
“My cake?” At nineteen, he hadn’t known to look for hidden layers in the words women used. He’d learned, though, that women sometimes spoke in code—like computers, but it was one they wrote as they went along. Nothing could be assumed. Something Hailey had said to him years earlier came back with unexpected clarity. “What does pie represent to you?”
She didn’t answer at first, and he half expected her to say she didn’t know what he was talking about. She did, though. He saw it in her eyes.
“Pie is something you could have every week without fanfare. It’s a comfort food. A family food. It’s what people serve when they gather on a Sunday afternoon.”
“And cake?”
“It’s a flashy celebration. Layers of intricate frosting designed to impress people.”
Ouch. “Back in college, you said you wanted pie, and I wanted cake.”
“I needed pie.” She looked relieved that he’d understood easily. “That’s why I moved back to be with my brother. I was falling apart, and I needed the security of being with someone who loved me.”
I loved you, he almost said, but he was beginning to wonder if he had known what love was back then. She had come second to his goals. He could have gotten her back if he had put aside the program he’d been working on and gone after her. Instead, he’d waited, confident that she’d be there when he finished his work. The more he’d heard about Brett running the family company, the more he needed to prove to himself that he didn’t need their father’s money. Proving himself had been an obsession back then. An obsession that had taken priority over making up with her. His love had been entitled and shallow.
They looked into each other’s eyes for a while.
She deserved so much better than I gave her. “I didn’t understand how much you needed me.”
“I know.”
“But that doesn’t mean I didn’t care about you.”
“I know that now. I didn’t at the time.”
He leaned forward and almost kissed her, but pulled back just in time. Would an explanation give her more comfort? Sex alone hadn’t been enough the first time. “I was obsessed with proving myself that year. My brother, Brett, had just taken over our family’s company. It wasn’t so much that I wanted it for myself, but I wanted to be considered. When my parents divorced, Rachelle, Nicolette, and I went with Mom. Brett and Eric stayed with our father—or the man I thought was my father.”
“So Dereck was your stepfather? I thought he was your father.”
There wasn’t another person on the planet he would have felt comfortable telling, but this was Hailey. Despite the time they’d been apart, she knew him better than anyone since. “Turns out, Mark was my biological father. I was the result of my mother cheating on her first husband.”
“So you were raised by your real father.”
“Without either of us knowing. I found out the truth last year.”
The shock Spencer expected to see in Hailey’s eyes never came. She searched his face as if understanding the extent of how much the news had shaken him. “I remember you talking about Mark. He sounded like an amazing person.”
“He was. He never missed one of my games. I don’t remember a time when he was too busy to help us with homework or ask about our day at school. I was still in high school when he died. I don’t deal well with things like that. I boxed my feelings up and put them aside. It wasn’t until I found out who he’d actually been to me that I realized how much I’d lost. It should have made me more understanding about your father . . .”
She smiled gently. “We could probably go around and around about who was the worst, or we could forgive each other and ourselves. I don’t want to carry that baggage around anymore, do you?”
“God, no.”
“Good, because I’m doing enough shit wrong today to feel bad about what I did yesterday.”
He chuckled. “That’s a T-shirt motto I’d wear.”
Her expression turned serious. “Do you still talk to your dad? The one you thought was your father?”
“No. I wrote him and his whole side of the family off.”
“You don’t see them at all? Not even the ones you were close to—like any grandparents?”
“All I had on that side was a grandmother.” He shuddered. “She’s a real pill. I’m okay with never seeing her again.”
“I bet she misses you.”
“I’m sure she doesn’t. She is one coldhearted old lady.”
Hailey chewed her bottom lip, then said, “Sometimes people who appear coldhearted are really just scared.”
This was the Hailey he remembered. She always saw the best in everyone. Unfortunately, that didn’t mean she was right. “You don’t know her.” The pizza arrived, and a silence hung over them for longer than was comfortable. Spencer picked up a piece. “You know what would make us both feel better?” Since what would really cheer him up wasn’t on the menu, he said, “Carbs, cheese, and grease.”
She laughed. “What an appetizing description. You’d be awful in marketing.”
“I rock at sales, though. I just need to turn on the charm.” He flexed his shoulders, then brought the pizza to his mouth and took a bite while imagining every place on her body he’d like to nip. He half closed his eyes, savoring the vision, letting himself remember her taste. From the sweetness of her mouth to the hot heat of her sex. “It’s just as good as I remember. Nothing ever compared,” he said in husky voice.
A blush warmed her cheeks, and he knew he’d led her thoughts to the same tantalizing place where his had gone. He raised the pizza to her lips. “Try it, then tell me—is it as good now as it was back then?”
Her breath warmed his fingers, and desire flamed in her eyes. “I remember it being really good.”
“Me, too. But I bet it would be even better this time around.” Her lips parted ever so slightly, and he was so turned on he wanted to toss the pizza aside and take her right there on the table. She licked her bottom lip the way she used to when she was just as hot for him.
“How is everything?” the waitress interrupted, and the mood was broken. “Would either of you like another drink?”
“An ice water,” Spencer said in a strangled voice. For my lap.
“One for me, too, please,” Hailey said.
The waitress walked away, but since she would soon return, Spencer decided to lighten the mood. He placed the pizza slice on a plate and shot her a cocky smile. “See, I could sell pizza.”
“He could sell me anything. That was hot,” a young woman said from the next table before turning to giggle with her friends.
A male voice boomed across the restaurant. “Spencer Westerly, I heard you were here and had to come out and see for myself. Are you looking to pick up a few hours?” Spencer turned to the man who had bankrolled most of his early technology needs by letting him work for him. Ralph Mangiarelli was still just as round as he was tall with a big smile and dark hair slicked back.
“Not this summer,” Spencer said as he rose to accept a backslapping greeting from Ralph. “Just here for a quick meal.”
Ralph’s attention went to Hailey. “And you brought a beautiful woman with you. She looks familiar to me.”
Hailey slid out of the booth to greet Ralph. “I used to eat here all the time when I was in college.”
“Did you? Were you two . . .” He paused. Neither Spencer nor Hailey confirmed his suspicion, but that didn’t slow Ralph down in the least. “Oh yes. You’re the one who broke his heart.”
No. No. No. We are not going there. Spencer shook his head.
“I remember you now.” He shook a finger at Hailey. “That wasn’t very nice. You should have seen him after you left. He sat alone in that booth for months looking like his world had just ended. Sure, he dated other girls”—Ralph frowned at Spencer—“but he never looked happy.”
Spencer glanced down at his phone. “Look at the time. I have to get back to the office.” He slapped several bills down on the table. “Hailey has to get back as well.”
“But you haven’t eaten.” Ralph called across the restaurant: “Carol, bring a box.”
The pizza was boxed quickly. Spencer accepted it as well as another hug from his old employer, then hurried Hailey out to her car.
They stood, pizza between them, next to the driver’s door. She moved as if she were about to open it, then turned back. “Were you really that upset after we broke up?”
He could have lied and retained more of his dignity, but if the truth brought her comfort, it was worth being honest. “I was.”
“I was, too. You should have asked me about Greg. I would have told you he meant nothing to me.”
He shrugged. “I was an idiot.”
She smiled sadly. “We both were.”
He cupped one side of her face. “Didn’t we already forgive ourselves for this?”
“Yes, we did.” Her gaze went to his lips, and it took everything in him not to kiss her then.
“Then let’s start over.”
“As friends,” she reminded softly.
“If that’s what you want.”
A beautiful rosy pink spread up her neck and cheeks. “Okay.”
With that, she turned, opened her car door, and slid into the driver’s seat. He handed her the pizza box because he was at a loss for what else to do. “I’ll call you.”
“I’d like that.” She closed the door.
He moved to the sidewalk and watched her drive off. The only woman who had ever reduced him to a grinning, lust-filled idiot had just done it again. Then she turned him down and left with his lunch.
And it was amazing—every moment of it.