Chapter Thirty-One
I don’t know if Liam likes me.
With Nick and Liam with us all day, Skye and I hadn’t had a chance to really talk. I rolled onto my back in bed. I had almost been asleep when her text came in. The Wells family still lived on Pacific time instead of Eastern.
He’s just shy, and your dad makes him nervous.
Are you sure?
Positive.
I saw the way the kid looked when they came out of that maze. He was staring at Skye like she was the sun in his sky. At the same time, Nick was awkwardly trying to wipe away the mascara that had run under my eyes. That was a fun conversation, to explain why I was crying and why it looked as though Nick and I were having an intimate encounter. It had ended with me blathering that I should buy waterproof mascara and I liked babies. It wasn’t my finest moment.
Okay. You’re the best.
Do you want to get pedicures and Chinese one night this week while your dad is doing one of his workshops?
Yes!!! Please!!!
Perfect. Let me know which night.
I will. Gotta go. Liam texted.
I told you. Good night.
I didn’t get a response. At least not from her.
Are you still awake? Nick texted.
If I said, no, would you believe me?
My phone buzzed.
I answered it, “I guess that was a no.”
“Hello, Kate.”
“Hello.” I bit my lip.
“Sorry it’s late.”
“That’s okay. Can I help you with something?”
He paused. “We didn’t get to finish our conversation.”
“Which one?”
“You asked me about Alessandria and I never got to answer you.”
“I probably shouldn’t have.”
“I’m glad you did.”
“You are?”
“I want to dispel anything you may have read about us, about me, during that time.”
“Despite what my mother says, I didn’t obsess over every detail of your life when I was younger.”
“So you didn’t cry when you found out I got married?” There was a gleeful, bordering on evil tone to his voice.
Searing heat emanated from my cheeks. My parents were both getting an earful from me, and I was banning them from Nick. “Moving on.”
“If it makes you feel any better, I should have listened to my fans.”
“The breakup of a marriage never makes me feel happy, even when it is a good thing. At least not now,” I conceded. I was more than giddy when I learned about the demise of his marriage. I’d had a lot of growing up to do at that point in my life.
“Like you, there never should have been a marriage, but . . .” he inhaled deep enough for me to hear, “I did what I had to do to save my child.”
I sat up in bed. “What do you mean?”
“The only anchors Alessandria and I had were our images and . . . sex. When we met, it was a PR dream, and we had explosive chemistry. It worked to further our careers. We let being the ‘it’ couple go to our heads and our bank accounts. Then reality hit. Alessandria got pregnant. She wanted to—” he could hardly say the word, “terminate . . . the pregnancy.”
I placed my hand over my mouth, thinking about Skye not existing. And worse, knowing from the conversation I’d had with Skye that she knew her mother never wanted her.
“I convinced her,” he continued, “what a good opportunity this would be for us. We would allow the press access to our wedding and our journey into parenthood. I felt like I had to sell my soul, but my child was my priority.”
There was a long pause where neither of us spoke.
“Did you love her?” I braved asking.
He didn’t answer right away. “We were too in love with ourselves to be in love with anyone else. But I thought I loved her. I wanted us to be a family. That being said, I didn’t know what real love was until Skye was born. From the moment I held her, my life changed.”
He had me choking up. “I envy you.” I tried to keep my voice steady.
“You want children, don’t you?”
“More than anything.”
“I hope you get your desire.”
“Me too. How about you? Do you want more children?”
“Hmm,” he thought. “With the right woman, perhaps.”
“Perhaps?”
“Skye will be graduating before I know it, and I don’t want to be collecting social security and chasing after toddlers like some of my cohorts back home.”
He made me laugh. “You have a ways to go before that.”
“All I know is I would choose a better mother next time. And keep the press out of my marriage.”
“I hope so, for both Skye’s and your sakes.” I yawned. “I should probably get to bed. Some of us have to work for a living,” I teased.
“Today was a work day for me. I even wrote some when we got back.”
“How’s that coming?”
“I’ve never felt so inspired. I think it’s the best I’ve ever written.”
“I bet you say that about all your projects.”
He chuckled. “If only you knew.”
“Good night, Nick.”
“Kate, thank you for opening up to me today. I hope we continue to get to know each other. Good night.”
Me too. I threw a blanket over my head.
~*~
Monday felt different after the weekend I’d had. Maybe it was because my mom called me on the way to work and informed me that she’d read my horoscope and been to her psychic over the weekend and they both said I needed to look to the stars.
“Nick is a star,” Mom yelled in the phone.
That concluded our conversation. Or perhaps it was the email Kenadie sent telling me what a great job I had done matching Nick. She attached a picture of Chanel kissing Nick’s cheek at the Braves game. Nick didn’t look all that thrilled in it. To be honest, I found myself not appreciating it. The picture had been posted by a local newspaper which touted Binary Search. Kenadie sent me the link to the article as well.
My stomach churned. How was Kenadie going to feel when I told her that Nick wanted to date someone new already? Should I tell her he helped my parents and I went to that creepy Xavier house with him? Maybe she already knew because of Nan. Nick mentioned Jack went to church with Nan yesterday and had lunch at her place. They were getting cozy quickly. Nick seemed to be all right with it. Ugh. How had my life gotten so complicated?
I blamed one person.
The only thing I could do was to find him the perfect match, even if he wasn’t looking for anything serious and my twenty-year-old self begged me to break the rules and try him out for myself. I took a breath. We were only going to be friends. And as his friend, I was going to find him someone terrific—a woman he couldn’t refuse. A woman who would be a good mother to Skye and any future babies.
I popped a natural peppermint candy in my mouth to help with the upset stomach I was giving myself thinking about it all. I had a feeling I better stock up on those.
Zander’s knock on my door was a good distraction. When he walked in, I noticed he looked queasier than I felt.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
He took a seat in front of my desk. “It was a rough weekend. Meg was in the emergency room yesterday morning.”
My heart began to pound. The worst scenario running through my mind, remembering my own emergency room visit when I was pregnant, but then it dawned on me before I said a word that Zander wouldn’t be here if the worst had happened. He would be with Meg like the good man he proved to be.
I calmed myself. “Are she and the baby all right?”
He ran his hands through his hair. “She was dehydrated from vomiting, but she’s better now after some fluids. Nan is with her this morning.” He looked wiped out.
“How are you?”
He acted as if he was going to say fine, but he blew out a large breath. “Hell, I don’t even know anymore. I’m constantly worried about Meg, and now I have to take care of her damn cat I don’t like because it’s bad for the baby if she changes its litter box.” He took a breath. “Then there’s diapers, my nightmare of living in the suburbs and growing old and turning out like my parents. Said parents visiting more often now that I’m going to have offspring. And how much should I save for college?”
I tried to suppress my smile, but I was awful at it. “The good news is morning sickness usually goes away in the second trimester, and you are a long way off from paying for college.”
He didn’t look as if that helped.
“Why don’t you pay Lana to take care of the cat? She loves animals.”
He perked up a bit. “That’s a thought. Now how do I get rid of my parents?”
I laughed. “You’re on your own there. I have my own intrusive parent issues.”
He stood up and rubbed his neck. “Thanks for the talk, doc.”
“Anytime. Tell Meg I’m thinking about her and let me know if I can do anything.”
“Will do. By the way, any issues we should talk about with the batch of new clients before I assign them a relationship manager?”
“Besides that they are mostly Nick sycophants? No.”
Zander’s lips curled. “I’ll be happy when he’s either found someone or moved back to La La Land where he belongs.”
“He already wants to date someone new.” I grimaced.
A smug smile filled Zander’s face. “I told Kenadie last night that he wasn’t into that chick. That picture of them said it all.”
I was glad I wasn’t the only one who thought so. I was afraid I’d let my personal feelings cloud my judgment of it. I was afraid of a lot of my personal feelings, come to think of it.
“I guess it’s back to the drawing board,” I lamented.
“According to Nan and her new ‘boyfriend,’ you should choose yourself.”
I almost choked on the peppermint candy in my mouth. I coughed and spluttered.
“Exactly. Kenadie and I both told her you’re way too smart to get mixed up with a guy like him.”
I held my chest and took a deep breath after my little episode. I gave Zander a weak smile. “Yeah. Way too smart.”
“He won’t stay forever, and then you can be done ‘fixing’ him.”
Right. Who was fixing who again?