Not Quite Married (12 page)

But it seemed she wanted him to talk about his parents.
Really
wanted it. And he understood that to get what he needed from her, somehow he was going to have to give her the things that
she
needed.

“Dalton?” she prompted.

So he told her, “They were older. My mother was in her early forties when I was born.”

“
Were
older?”

“My father died a decade ago, of heart disease. My mother of cancer a couple of years later.” He rolled his head toward her.

“I’m so sorry...”

“Why? It’s not your fault.”

She gave a sad little laugh. “Dalton, it’s just what people say, that’s all. An expression of sympathy for what you’ve lost.”

“I know. It’s the right thing to say. And you said it sincerely. I believe you. But still, it’s not your fault.”

She reached out and touched the side of his face. Cool and soft and welcome, her touch. “Did they...hurt you somehow?”

He studied her face. He really liked her face, the pretty oval shape of it, the fullness of her mouth. From the first, she’d seemed the most open, accessible person he’d ever known.

“Dalton?” She was waiting for him to answer her question.

“No, they didn’t hurt me. They were distant, both of them. They wanted a quiet house, with everyone speaking in hushed tones. I don’t think they really wanted children. But they did want an heir, an Ames to take over when my father stepped down. And then I finally came along. They were glad on one level. The bank would be run for another generation by an Ames. But they also found me messy and loud and inconvenient.”

“I cannot imagine you as messy and loud.”

“They eventually whipped me into shape—figuratively speaking, of course. There was no actual whipping. Just constant and steady pressure to conform to the life they had laid out for me.”

“And you did conform?”

“I did. There were a lot of time-outs. Sometimes I lived in my room for days at a time. I was very resentful.”

The big eyes brimmed with sympathy. “They didn’t...love you?”

“I don’t know about that.”

Again, she brushed the side of his face with her tender hand. He felt that light touch all the way down to that place inside him that only she had ever reached. “You don’t know if they loved you,” she echoed in a sad little whisper. At his slight shrug, she said, “I’m so sorry...”

He tried a smile to lighten the mood. “There you go being sorry again.”

“You try to make a joke of it, but I think they were hard on you. Too hard.”

“Maybe. Their expectations were high, and I learned to rise to them. I am now the man they wanted me to be.”

“Except...on the island?” she asked only slightly sheepishly.

He admitted it. “Yes.”

She made a small, thoughtful sound. “So on the island you were your natural self, the person you might have been, if your parents hadn’t been so strict and controlling.”

He stroked her hair—and she let him. “I suppose you could look at it that way.”

“Because it’s the truth.”

“Clara, who knows how I would have turned out with a different set of parents? I might have ended up a hopeless slacker, totally lacking in focus and drive.”

“Oh, I seriously doubt that.”

“But you never know.”

She searched his face. “Do you plan to be strict and controlling with our daughter?”

“I plan to take care of her and make sure she gets whatever she needs.”

Her expression had turned severe. “If you’re too strict, you’ll be dealing with me.”

“I have no doubt on that score.”

“Rules and boundaries are important. But there has to be love and leeway, too.”

He turned on his side, rested his head on his arm. “I promise to be guided by you—or at least, to listen if you tell me I’m being too harsh.”

She looked so hopeful. “You mean that?”

“I swear it.” He watched her smile. Like the sun peeking out from behind a gray cloud, that smile. “Your turn.”

“For?”

“I have questions.”

She gave a low chuckle. “Anything. Just ask.”

“At the hospital, your great-aunt Agnes said something disparaging about your father and his ‘behavior.’ What behavior was she talking about?”

“That detective you hired didn’t tell you?”

“I didn’t hire him to find out about your father.”

“Right.” She winced and reached behind her.

“What?”

“Pillow...” She felt around at her back. He reached over her and grabbed the pillow she was searching for. “Thanks.” She took it and propped it between her thighs.

He touched the tip of her nose. “So. Your father...?”

“It’s beyond tacky. You won’t approve.”

“Tell me anyway.”

“Fair enough. My father had a mistress while he was married to my mother.”

“Shocking,” he teased.

She wrinkled that pretty nose at him. “It went on for two decades.”

“It? You mean he messed around with different women?”

“No. Just one. Her name was Willow Mooney, and he was with her for more than twenty years. My father essentially had two families at the same time. There was my mom and my brothers and sister and me, living the good life in the big house my dad built when he and my mom got married. And then there was Willow, with her five kids, in a smaller place across town. That went on, him going between my mother and Willow, for over twenty years. And all along, he publicly claimed my half siblings. All nine of us have the Bravo name. I’m glad for that, on the one hand. I love my half sisters and brothers. But that he rubbed his other family in my mother’s face, well, that hurt her. A lot. And the day after my mother’s funeral, my father married Willow and moved her into the house he’d built for my mother. He’s gone too now, my father, but Willow’s still alive.”

“Your father sounds like a man who never worried about what people might say.”

“No, he did not. He never considered who he might hurt, either. He just did whatever he wanted to do. He was a big man, with a lot of charisma. And when he would look at you,
talk
to you, he made you feel like you were the only other person in the world.” A faraway smile tilted the corners of her mouth. “I was always so certain that I was his favorite, of all his kids. But then my sister Elise told me she knew that
she
was the favorite. And my half sister, Nell? The really hot one, with the tats and the auburn hair?”

“Yes. I remember her.”

“Nell told me a year ago that she always knew Dad felt
she
was the special one. Even if you didn’t like the things he did, somehow you couldn’t help liking
him
, couldn’t help feeling you were special in his eyes.”

“Including your aunt Agnes?”

“
Except
for Aunt Agnes. She never liked him. And she can hold a grudge. She never forgave my father for keeping Willow on the side, for having children with her, children that he treated just the same as his children by my mother. My father sent all nine of us to college—or at least, those of us who wanted to go. And when he died, he left each of us a nest egg, a trust fund that matured when we reached the age of twenty-five. Agnes believed that my mother’s children should have gotten more than Willow’s kids. And to this day, she’s furious that Willow ended up with my mother’s house.”

“You all appear to get along, though—your siblings and half siblings. At the hospital, everyone seemed on pretty good terms.”

She reached down and readjusted the pillow between her thighs. “We’ve had our issues, but we’ve mostly worked through them. Our parents’ choices are not our fault. But my mother, well, he hurt her so bad. She was proud, my mother. From a wealthy, respected family. Before she died, when she was so sick, she whispered to me that she wanted to hate my dad, that he had humiliated her for most of their married life.”

“Then why didn’t she leave him?”

“She loved him. Loved him enough to live with the humiliation of him having another woman. To her, having him half the time was still better than not at all.”

“What about the other woman?”

“Willow?” Clara made a scoffing sound. “Are you kidding? Nobody knows what goes on with Willow, not even her own kids. I suppose she loved him, too. She started in with him when she was only eighteen. And I’m pretty certain she was true to him, through all the years he was married to my mother. And since he died, there’s been no other man in her life—at least, not as far as I know. And in this town, if Willow Mooney Bravo started dating, it would be major news.” She taunted, “Admit it. Your parents would never approve of my crazy family.”

Probably not
. “We’ll never know. They’re not around to judge.”

“Judge? Is that what they would do?”

Absolutely
. “I have no idea. And I don’t care.”

She tipped her head a little, studying him. “Liar.”

“I’m not lying. I honestly don’t care what they would think or do.”

“But you can guess.”

“Clara. It doesn’t matter.”

Her gaze turned assessing—and then softened. “Well, that’s kind of sweet...”

“What?”

“You’re trying to protect me, trying not to hurt my feelings.”

“I’m trying to keep you focused on what matters.
You
matter.” He put his hand on her belly. It felt good there. “Our baby matters. The life we’re going to make for her,
that
matters.”

“We’ll have to work together—I mean, to make sure there’s consistency for her, between your house and mine.”

He considered letting that question stand and simply answering it as a what-if. But no. “You’re assuming that you and I will be living apart.”

She chewed on her lower lip a little. “That
was
our agreement, remember? You’re only here to help out. You go when the baby comes, or when I say I want you to go.”

He lifted his hand from her stomach and laid it, lightly, on her soft cheek. “I think you’re going to need a lot of help from me, Clara. For a very long time.”

She drew a tiny, hitching breath. “What does
that
mean?”

“It means...” He canted closer. Until their lips were only an inch apart. Her warm breath touched him. He stroked her hair and whispered, “I’m going nowhere. You’re mine and so is the baby. I keep what’s mine. You should start getting used to that.”

Her eyes went wide—and then narrowed. “Overbearing much?”

“I’m tired of dancing around the truth, that’s all.”

“What truth? I mean, wasn’t Astrid yours? And look what happened there.”

“That was different.”

“How?”

“It just was. Take my word for it.”

“Who’s dancing around the truth now?”

Instead of answering that one, he said, “Oh, and with Astrid, there was no child involved.”

She seemed to puzzle that through. Then finally, “Well, okay. I can see that. Kind of. But that hardly makes
me
yours.”

He thought,
You are mine
. He said, “I just think you should start to accept the fact that I’m not going away.”

“And yet you had no problem sending
me
away on the island.”

Terrific. Back to that again. Patiently, he said, “My mistake.”

“Yeah, and it was a doozy.”

“I’m not denying that. I thought I could walk away from you—I even thought that walking away was the best thing to do. I had it all wrong and it took me a while to figure that out.”

“What about the next time you’re confused about something that means the world to me, the next time you walk all over my poor little heart?”

“There won’t be a next time. Not about this.”

“I’m not going to end up like my mother, Dalton. Lying on my death bed, feeling like I was cheated of what I wanted most in life.”

“You won’t end up like your mother.”

“Suddenly, you can guarantee that? Mr.
I’ll only mess it up if we try to take it off the island
?”

It would be so easy to become impatient with her. “Have you been listening to anything I’ve been telling you? I know what I want now, and that isn’t going to change. I want our baby. And I want you. I’ll take care of both of you. And there won’t be some other woman in another house across town. I’ll be true to you, to our family.” He eliminated that inch between his mouth and hers. She gasped as his lips touched hers. He kissed her fast. And hard. “You need to get over what happened on the island so we can move on.” He gentled his touch, stroked her hair some more.

She caught his wrist and pushed his hand away. “The really scary thing is I want to believe you.”

It was more than he’d expected her to admit at that point. He felt a warm curl of satisfaction. “I will take care of you, Clara.”

“I don’t need taking care of.”

He ran the back of his fingers down the side of her smooth, cool throat. “Yes, you do.”

Her eyes went wide again and her mouth had gone so very soft. He moved in to steal another sweet kiss.

And the doorbell rang.

She immediately tried to rise.

He clasped her shoulder and eased her back down. “Stay there. I’ll get it.”

She wore a mutinous look. He was preparing to remind her that she was supposed to be staying off her feet. But then she only said, “All right,” and settled against the pillows with a sigh.

He sat up, slipped his shoes back on and headed for the foyer, pausing to tuck in his shirt and straighten his jacket before he opened the door.

Wouldn’t you know? It was the best friend she’d almost married. Just the guy Dalton
didn’t
want to see.

Ryan had one arm braced on the doorframe and a smirk on his much-too-good-looking face. “I was beginning to wonder if anyone was home.”

“Sorry,” Dalton replied with zero sincerity. “Clara and I were relaxing...in the bedroom.”

Ryan gave him nothing for that but a quirk of one eyebrow. “I came to see how she’s doing.” He straightened from the doorframe and waited for Dalton to step back and let him in.

Dalton held his ground. “She’s doing fine. Resting.”

The other guy grunted. “Come on, man. She’s not going to be happy with you if she finds out you wouldn’t let me in to see her.”