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“Thatcher,” I whispered. “You didn’t let him.”
“You can say that. I can see, logically, how you might even be right. But that’s not how parenthood works. You think you’ve figured life out, more or less, then they put this tiny baby in your arms, and you realize you don’t know anything. You love them so much. And you think, I’m going to do this differently. I’m going to make this kid’s life so much better than mine. I’m not going to push him to succeed the way I was pushed. I’m going to make sure he knows he’s loved whether he wins or loses. I’m going to make his life so damn easy. I’m going to keep him perfectly safe. But then…” He stared down at our joined hands.
“You can’t.” I shifted carefully on the chair so I could look up into his face. “I mean, not you. No one can.”
Thatcher nodded, looking as troubled as if Brantleigh had fallen hours ago rather than decades, and looked off in the distance, where colorful parkas floated down white ski slopes. “Doesn’t mean you don’t try, though. Or that you don’t feel guilty when you fail. After Brant’s accident… it was a dark time. I realized I had no business raising a kid. Thalia agreed,” he added with a ghost of a smile. “Things between us were already bad, but there was no coming back from that. She moved to California with Brant.”
“You didn’t fight for custody,” I murmured, pieces fitting into place.
“Hell no.” Thatcher scowled. “I wouldn’t have him flying across the country every week or two. He needed stability. And he had Thalia.”
And who did you have? I wanted to ask, but I already knew. He’d had Pennington Industries. His company. His work.
“That’s bullshit,” I proclaimed.
He turned that scowl in my direction.
“Would you have blamed Thalia if he’d fallen on her watch?” I demanded. “Maybe, for a while, but you would have gotten over it. Continuing to blame yourself is ridiculous martyr-level bullshit, Thatcher. Every parent makes mistakes. I mean, obviously, I’ve never been on the parent side of it, but from the kid side?” I snorted. “I fell off a hotel bed when I was a newborn and bumped my head on the wall. My mother had set me in the middle of the bed while she blow-dried her hair. Should she have lost custody of me?”
“Of course not. But that’s hardly the same?—”
“Isn’t it? Weren’t you the one who said I can’t hold myself to a standard of perfection… or something like that?” I added, as though I didn’t remember every second of that conversation in the hallway of the Newport Grille.
“It’s different when it’s your child,” he insisted.
I lifted one shoulder. Maybe it was. What did I know? I shifted back to the reason he’d begun this story. “You’ve been afraid of heights since then?” I asked gently. “But… how does that work? Your office is on the top floor. And don’t you live in a penthouse?”
“Yeah. When there’s something solid beneath my feet and a wall around me, it doesn’t bother me.” His voice was gravelly. Broken. “But when I get on a ski lift or, god, an airplane, I feel like I’m in free fall with nothing under me. Pretty sure that’s one reason Thalia decided to move to California. It cut way down on the number of times I’d simply turn up to visit. I still forced myself to do it four times a year, but it was—is—a fucking nightmare. I have to plan ahead. Take meds to knock myself out, which make me sick afterward. A full recovery day after each flight. And nothing helps,” he added before I could ask. “I’ve tried therapy. Many times.”
I thought of the years he must have carried this guilt, the impact it had made on Brant’s upbringing, and the impact on Thatcher himself. He’d told Chris in that interview that Pennington was and continued to be his top priority. But the company couldn’t love him back. And if I’d ever met anyone who deserved to be loved, to be appreciated for all that he was, it was Thatcher.
As the chairlift rumbled through a transfer point, the seat swayed a little. I watched Thatcher closely. He gripped my hands tighter but kept his cool. “You’re able to ride this lift,” I said. “That’s something.”
He huffed out an unsteady laugh. “Only because I want to make you happy.”
Such a simple sentence, but it slingshot my heart around my chest cavity like a ping-pong ball. “Me?”
Thatcher’s hand released mine and reached out to tug my beanie down over my ear before running a thumb along my cheek. “You.”
It was the only word he spoke, but the look in his eyes said much more. I stared at him. Was the pull between us all in my imagination? Was I the only one tumbling helplessly toward the other? He crowded my waking thoughts and made me want things I’d never truly craved before.
Like a partner in crime. Someone to share this roller-coaster life with.
The rumble of another transfer point snapped me out of my delirium. I’d wanted to lean forward and taste the winter air on his lips. Instead, I murmured my thanks and turned to look out at the trees covered in snow, simply enjoying his presence by my side without doing anything to mess things up between us. I enjoyed his companionship, and for now… that was enough.
* * *
The following day was a whirlwind. I’d met several pro athletes through my parents, which meant I wasn’t nervous or intimidated in a room full of hot, fit millionaires.
But I was jealous as hell.
Thatcher wasn’t just sexy to me; he was sexy full stop. The man gave off toppy silver-fox vibes in a way that caught many pairs of eyes in any room he entered. Half the ball players’ wives eyed him up and down, and even a couple of the men there gave him a second look when they thought no one was watching.
They weren’t alone. All day long, I couldn’t keep my eyes off him. He spoke with authority on topics ranging from long-term real estate investments to complex global trade agreements. Hell, even children and animals seemed drawn to him. At one point, I caught him laughing at a story the Martinezes’ young son was telling him about his winning science fair experiment, while Thatcher sat pinned under the weight of their incredibly pudgy cat, who’d sprawled on his lap. When Thatcher caught me staring, he looked over the boy’s shoulder and winked at me.
My stomach tightened, and my inner slut whimpered. Instead of asking if I could sit on his lap, I busied myself in the kitchen, fetching another beer.
It wasn’t until later that evening, after several hours with the group on the slopes and then a long dinner full of sports gossip and a dessert course full of whiskey tasting flights, that I realized I was losing my ability to keep my feelings for Thatcher hidden behind any kind of poker face.
