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‘Thanks, Walter, I appreciate your input.’ He picked up his suit jacket, slung it over his shoulder. Feeling more in control than he had since he’d first laid eyes on Tess Tremaine. ‘Let Jenny know when the meeting’s scheduled and I’ll be there.’
Walter slammed the planner closed. ‘Are you sure that’s wise?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’ve gotta say, son, I haven’t seen you this steamed up since that episode with the Ducatti woman ten years ago. It might be simpler and less provocative if my team and I handle it from here.’
Nate debated the thought. Yes, it would be easier and more rational to let the legal team take over from here. But then the image of Tess, lying to him without a qualm not a half-hour after he’d been thrusting into her on her kitchen counter, blazed through his mind.
The hell with that.
He couldn’t just let it go. Maybe it was irrational, and a little childish of him, but he wanted to see her brought to account. And the good news was he wasn’t that dumb twenty-year-old kid any more, who had fallen so easily for Marlena’s lies.
Tess had been driving him slowly insane from the first minute he’d spotted her in the crowded rooftop bar during the Galloway party. But despite that cosmic chemistry, she didn’t have any more power over him than any other woman. And when she signed on the dotted line and took his money, he’d be able to prove it.
‘I’ll let you do all the talking, Walter,’ he said, making it clear he’d made up his mind on the issue.
Walter gave a brief nod, but looked unconvinced. ‘All right. You’re paying the bills, I guess it’s your call.’
Damn straight it was, Nate thought as he left the office.
And when Tess Tremaine finally figured that out, everything could be worked out to his satisfaction.
* * *
‘I do not believe it!’ Tess slammed the phone back into the cradle on Eva’s kitchen wall.
‘What’s happened? Who was that on the phone?’ Eva asked, pausing as she shovelled some unidentifiable substance into Carmine’s open mouth.
‘That, if you can believe it, was the PA to Walter Jensen.’ Tess spat the words out. ‘Who is none other than the legal representative of Nathaniel Graystone, CEO of Graystone Enterprises.’
‘The Firecracker Guy?’
‘He’s not the Firecracker Guy,’ Tess said as the telltale blush fired up her throat at the memory of how much of a firecracker he’d been six days ago in her kitchen. ‘He’s a pain in the backside.’
Eva wiped Carmine’s mouth with his bib and handed the baby the plastic spoon to suck. ‘What did his lawyer want?’
‘Apparently, I’m supposed to go to their offices for a meeting tomorrow. When the terms of our settlement will be negotiated.’
‘What settlement?’
‘I have absolutely no idea, and the delightful Mrs Shenberg didn’t seem keen to elaborate. When I asked for an explanation she started talking in tongues about their client Mr Graystone, his rights and responsibilities, and loads of other rubbish that made no sense whatsoever. What rights and responsibilities?’ Tess marched across the open-plan kitchen getting more agitated by the second. She felt as if she’d been sucked into an alternative reality in which Nate Graystone seemed to have invaded her life. ‘I’m not going. He doesn’t have any rights and responsibilities towards me. Which I have already made perfectly clear.’
She didn’t want to see him again. Look what had happened the last time. She was having a hard enough time forgetting about him, and yet he insisted on continually reappearing in her life.
‘Actually, he sort of does,’ Eva said, sending a pointed look towards Tess’s belly button.
Tess placed her hand over her midriff. ‘That’s not his responsibility, it’s mine. I don’t want him involved.’
‘Why not?’ Eva protested. ‘He’s the baby’s father.’
‘No, he’s not...’ Tess waved the thought away, feeling flustered. ‘Not in any real sense. His involvement’s just an accident of genetics.’
Eva gave an incredulous laugh and smiled at her son, who was hammering an invisible nail into his high chair with his spoon. ‘I’ll be sure to tell Nick that, next time he drags himself out of bed at two in the morning to change Carmine’s nappy.’
‘It’s not the same. Nick’s a fantastic dad. You can see how much he adores his son every time he looks at him. Nate Graystone’s not interested in being a father.’
‘How do you know that?’ Eva leaned forward to emphasize her point. ‘He may have said some stupid things when you told him about the baby. But maybe he was in shock.’
