“We’d just started dating when Willow showed up,” he told his mother. “And it doesn’t matter. Molly, why don’t I bring you to the hotel so you can drop your stuff off. There is time yet before I need to come back.”
“You don’t have to leave,” she said. “I’m fine.”
“I need some air,” he said. “Mom, you can go back into the waiting room. You don’t need to stand here and listen to this conversation.”
“Fine,” his mother said, turning and walking off.
“Sorry about that.”
“Where is she going? The waiting room is over there,” Molly said.
He hesitated. “We’ve got a separate waiting room.”
Dean’s mother looked kind of snooty and she had more diamonds on her hands, ears, and neck than Molly had ever seen in one room let alone on one person. Maybe they had a private room to wait.
“If you don’t mind leaving, then it would be nice to put my car somewhere and my things.”
“The hotel isn’t far. I’ll drive if you want and we can walk back. If you’re hungry we can stop for a bite to eat too.”
“I’m sure you want to get back here,” she said. “I can get food in the cafeteria.”
They turned to leave, going down a different hall than she had come from. The lace on her shoe came undone so she moved over to the side and bent down to fix it. When she stood up she was face to face with a picture of a man on the wall.
Her eyes lifted and she saw the name Dr. Dean T. Easton. Next to it, the wing that was named after him. The wall was filled with pictures of people and donors. What were the chances she’d stand up right next to this one?
She turned to look at Dean, saw his face had paled, and her jaw dropped. “Tell me this isn’t your grandfather.”
“It is,” he said.
“There is a wing named after him. People who have wings named after them have mega bucks.”
“They do,” he said. “Can we please have this conversation at the hotel?”
She wanted to have it now. She wanted to show him that a redhead had a temper, but she wouldn’t cause a scene here.
Instead, she sat quietly in her car while all sorts of things went through her head and he drove them to his hotel.
He went to Columbia. His family wanted him to be a doctor.
He didn’t want to be what others expected of him so he left. Just like she did.
His house. The nanny.
Everything.
It was right there in front of her face.
She even brought it up and he sidetracked.
Talked about good investments.
But she never kept her life a secret like this.
She may have dressed differently and acted meeker than when she was around him, but that was not the same as having a grandfather with a wing named after him.
She pulled her phone out and did a quick search. When she saw that not only was D.T. Easton a cardiac surgeon but that he also patented several medical devices and got a tiny glimpse at his net worth on Wikipedia, she felt like the world’s biggest idiot.
Once they were in the hotel room she felt like the top of her head was going to blow like a geyser.
