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Leah rolled her eyes. “Sometimes, but for some crazy reason I still love him. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure he behaves tomorrow.”
He wasn’t worried about her brother or anyone else in her family. Gavin was worried that after she had some time to think about it, she’d reconsider her apparent willingness to forgive him for keeping Erin a secret all this time.
“Promise?” Even though the door remained open, he couldn’t keep from brushing a kiss across her lips.
“Absolutely.”
Bits and pieces of conversations drifted into the room as people passed the door. Before another family member or guest interrupted them, he took a step away from her.
He didn’t ask her to, but Leah walked him outside. Despite other guests being around, he couldn’t resist giving her one last kiss before getting in his car and driving away.
With several projects still needing his attention, he’d brought along his laptop this morning. After checking into his room at the Sherbrooke Hotel on America’s Cup Avenue, he ordered a pot of coffee and an order of loaded nachos from room service before getting down to work. Countless times, both Leah and his sister had referred to him as a workaholic. Although he never thought of himself that way, he couldn’t deny much of his time was spent working. If he hoped to have a relationship with Leah, he needed to find a way to get the same amount accomplished and still have time for her, which meant he saw a lot of sleepless nights in his future. In his opinion, having Leah in his life was worth much more than some missed sleep.
Chapter Five
Leah watched the waves crashing against the beach. She’d been up for well over two hours, but rather than get dressed and search out any family members who might be downstairs, she slipped on a bathrobe and stepped onto the balcony. Although the beach remained empty, she could picture Gavin sitting on the sand as they helped Reese build her mega sandcastle. The thing really had been enormous by the time they finished it. And not once while they worked had Gavin showed an ounce of annoyance as the little girl chatted away. Boy, did she chat too.
As the memories of Gavin and Reese interacting played through her thoughts, Leah realized she hadn’t asked him if he had any pictures of his daughter. None of her friends had children, but several of her cousins did. They all had numerous photos of their children stored on their cell phones. Most likely Gavin did too, and she was more than a little curious about what Erin looked like. Did she have Gavin’s dark eyes and hair or did she take after his ex-girlfriend? At the thought of Amber, a slight wave of jealousy passed through her. Intellectually she knew it was unwarranted. They’d not only broken up years ago, but Amber lived almost two hundred miles away from Gavin and was engaged to another man. Still, the idea of Gavin having a child with some faceless woman annoyed her. She wondered if her cousin’s girlfriend, Paige, ever experienced similar emotions. While it was clear to anyone with eyes that Scott was head over heels in love with Paige, he did have an eleven-month-old son from a previous relationship. If it did bother Paige, she never showed it. Whenever Leah saw her with Scott’s son, Paige treated Cooper like he was her own child.
He’s a dad. For the umpteenth time the words went through her head as she stepped back inside her bedroom.
“Gavin has a nine-year-old daughter.”
Never in a million years would she have guessed. While it didn’t change her feelings for Gavin or her desire to see where things between them went, the fact he’d kept the truth from her despite all the time they’d spent together stung.
“His reasons make some sense,” she said to her reflection in the mirror as she pulled shorts and a top from a drawer. There was a lot about her private life that she only shared after she knew a person well. Not to mention, if she had a brother and a father with reputations similar to Harry’s and Mr. Kincaid’s, she wouldn’t want to talk about her family either and have people believe she was anything like them—especially a man she was interested in dating.
She carried the clean clothes into her private bathroom and turned on the shower. Leah knew the truth now, so there was no point in dwelling on the fact he’d waited months to tell her. Nope, instead she’d enjoy the day with him as well as her brother, his girlfriend, and Reese. Maybe in the process she’d get to th
e bottom of how Curt and Reese had become so close in a rather short period of time. She could see it happening if Reese was Taylor’s daughter, but she wasn’t. So there had to be a story there.
Then later today when they were alone, she fully expected to be on the receiving end of Gavin’s kisses. She’d gone on her first date at fifteen, so she’d kissed her share of men, however never had a kiss hit her the way his did. She’d read in novels that a character got weak in the knees during a kiss and until last night she’d thought it was a silly description authors used. Thanks to Gavin, she knew the expression existed for a reason.
If he’s that good at kissing, how is he at other things?
She’d never been one to lounge around and fantasize about sex, but the image of them together in her bed sprang to life as she stepped under the hot water.
Hold your horses. We kissed a few times. That’s a long way from making love.
Squeezing her eyes shut, Leah forced the oh-so-delightful picture from her mind and lathered the soap between her hands. She didn’t care if it had been almost ten months since she had sex. Before she let him in her bed or jumped into his for that matter, she needed things to grow between them. Only once had she slept with a guy less than a week after getting into a relationship with him. About four months in to their relationship, she’d learned Benedict, her boyfriend before Harry, was seeing another woman. A woman he married about a month after Leah dumped him and then divorced less than a year later. And she hadn’t slept with anyone including Harry since.
This time around she planned to take it slow, because while she knew Gavin far better than she’d known either of her last two boyfriends, there was still a lot she didn’t know, like whether he preferred his eggs scrambled or over easy or if he’d played any sports in high school. There was a lot he didn’t know about her too. This afternoon she’d work to rectify both.
***
When Leah finally made her way downstairs, she found her cousin, his wife, and their son enjoying a late breakfast on the deck. Normally when Jake and his family visited Newport, they stayed at Cliff House, his father’s home. With the home’s interior being painted, they’d opted to stay with Leah’s parents instead this weekend.
“Nice bit of rescuing yesterday. I could’ve used someone like you when Tasha was after me,” Jake said once Leah was settled across the table from him.
Him too? “Did everyone see us on the deck?”
Courtney, Trent, and Derek had all made sure to comment on the brief encounter between Gavin, Tasha, and her yesterday afternoon.
Jake caught the sippy cup his son knocked off the table before it hit the ground. “Doubt it.” He placed the cup back on the table. “The little scene on the beach, though, everyone saw.”
Not much embarrassed her, but heat filled her face at Jake’s comment. Had everyone at the party seen them kissing?
“Stop tormenting her.” Charlie nudged Jake with her elbow and then turned her attention Leah’s way. “Neither of us saw anything. Your brother has a big mouth and told Jake. I think most people were too busy eating to notice you two.”
