AllFreeNovel
Share Us
benefits.
She blinked down at her bump and felt the rush of emotion again. It was just pregnancy hormones. If the only support Nate offered was financial, she’d be disappointed but she’d get over it.
Even if it killed her.
* * *
Nate checked the GPS on his phone, then stuffed it into his jacket pocket and walked into the downtown building. As soon as he entered the lobby he spotted Tess seated by the window, wearing one of her power skirts and a soft silk blouse, the first two buttons undone to leave a tantalising hint of cleavage. She was gazing into space, perched on the edge of the leather armchair, her hands clasped tightly in her lap, her legs crossed at the ankle and her golden hair pulled up in some kind of topknot that left only a few strands touching her cheekbones.
She looked stunning and sexy—and a little scared.
He thrust his hands into the pockets of his trousers, the kick in his gut hard, fast and inevitable.
He shouldn’t have come. But when his PA Jenny had slapped the message on his desk, with a definite sniff of irritation, he’d known he couldn’t resist the pull to see Tess again any longer.
It had been three weeks, and the look on her face as she’d thanked him for listening to her still haunted him. The rush of emotion had been sudden and unyielding and totally unexpected. Part lust, sure, because with Tess there was always that fierce yank of sexual need, but underneath had been something else. Something much more disturbing—a desire to make things right that he didn’t understand and didn’t want to understand.
He’d tried to rationalise it since as he forced himself not to drive down to San Revelle and see her. This woman was having his child, of course he would feel protective of her, and the baby. But the thing was, the child wasn’t really real to him yet. It was an abstract concept, a responsibility that he didn’t have to confront just yet. When the time came he would make every effort to build a relationship with it—even though parenthood wasn’t something he expected to be particularly good at, he would do his best. He owed his child that much. Because he knew what it was like to be ignored, to be sidelined, to be nothing more than an inconvenience. But he had six months still to come to terms with that reality, and step up to the plate.
No, it wasn’t his feelings towards the child that bothered him, or the uncertainty of stepping into a role he had no aptitude for—it was his feelings for Tess.
She wasn’t the person he’d thought she was. The fog of misunderstandings and recriminations and little white lies had cleared in that scenic overlook on Highway One to reveal a woman who was more honest, more forthright than he’d ever be. And as a result, his feelings for her weren’t nearly as shallow and easily compartmentalised as he’d hoped. How could they be, when he’d shared with her stuff that he’d never told another living soul? After sleeping with her exactly twice and knowing her less than a couple of months—during most of which time they’d argued like cats and dogs.
He frowned as he waited in the doorway. Trying once again to judge why he’d allowed himself to bare his soul like that with so little provocation.
At the time, talking about Zane and his father, and the turmoil of emotions that had nearly destroyed him as a teenager, hadn’t felt like a bad thing; it had felt like a release. Something he’d bottled up and refused to acknowledge for way too long. But once she’d opened her heart to him—and let him see the lost child she’d once been—relief and gratitude had been replaced by need.
She understood that he had a space inside him that could never be filled. And he didn’t want anyone to see that weakness, to know it was there. He wanted to take everything back. He didn’t want her to know about that little boy who had been stupid enough to believe that a biological connection could give him a family. He didn’t want to care that she too had had needs that couldn’t be filled, that she had survived unhappiness and disillusionment, because it gave them a connection that went well beyond sex.
He could do responsibility, he could even do commitment, up to a point, but what he couldn’t do was vulnerability. Opening yourself up like that, wanting people to care about you and for you, to be there for you, only ever led to one thing: disappointment.
Sure he could count on Zane, but there had always been that dark truth festering between them. That he had wanted to be Zane’s brother, but Zane had never wanted to be his.
He stepped up to the receptionist, sitting behind her desk, who smiled at him in helpful enquiry. ‘What can I do for you, sir?’
‘I’m Nate Graystone, I’m here with my...’ He paused. How did he describe Tess? She wasn’t his wife, or his partner, or his lover, or even really his friend. ‘With Tess Tremaine to see Dr Hillier.’
The receptionist smiled, then checked out something on her computer. ‘That’s great, Mr Graystone. The doctor’s running a little late, but she’ll be ready for you both in ten. Miss Tremaine is already here.’
He crossed the room towards Tess, whose eyes popped wide as he approached. She recovered quickly though and stood, brushing some invisible dust off her skirt.
‘You got the message?’ she said, her voice carefully neutral. Why he should find her controlled response annoying, he had no idea.
‘Yeah. Thanks for letting me know.’ He took the seat next to her, got a lungful of jasmine—and felt the all too familiar spike of lust.
‘You didn’t have to come,’ she said, which annoyed him more. ‘I didn’t expect you to. I thought you’d probably have another V.I.M.’
‘I wanted to come,’ he replied, the snotty edge to her voice going some way to dispel his annoyance. It was probably perverse, but he preferred Tess in a snit to Tess keeping her distance. ‘What’
s a V.I.M.?’
She sent him a level look that held a definite note of accusation. ‘A Very Important Meeting, of course. According to Jenny you’ve had quite a lot of those lately.’
He actually had had a lot of important meetings, he hadn’t faked that. Graystone was about to buy up a controlling interest in a failing software company he’d had his eye on for a while. The string of meetings with accountants, his development team, the contract attorneys, had been time-consuming and mostly mind-numbing. The best part of owning and operating an investment firm was the rush he got from locating, acquiring and then turning around small companies that showed potential—but the endless round of graphs and reports and numbers to be read and assessed and crunched before any contracts could be signed, not so much.
But he could have delegated some of the work to his management team in the last three weeks, and he hadn’t, for the specific reason that he’d needed a distraction, to keep his mind off Tess.
‘You’re settled in okay, at the cottage?’ he asked, sidestepping the comment.
