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‘It’s for my niece.’
‘Well, it would hardly be for me.’
As arranged, they had gone in to visit together.
He had spent years fashioning his life, and only Candice, himself and Abe’s private attorney knew of the deal they had agreed to.
He had admitted to Ethan the truth of their status, but that had been on the night he had told him that Merida was pregnant and Abe had attempted to show his brother that there were other ways to deal with the situation than marriage, but they had never discussed it since.
Abe’s seeming relationship with Candice was a business arrangement. Her stability and presence appeased the board, but they hadn’t slept together in years.
Their arrangement allowed a veneer of respectability to put a layer of gloss over his rather debauched life.
He housed her in an Upper East Side apartment and paid her a generous monthly allowance and, in return, she seemingly stood by his side.
Certainly, it was not something he shared with someone he’d had one kiss with.
It was not something he’d ever intended to share with anyone.
He waited till Barb had taken her coat and had headed off before he attempted to speak to her.
‘Naomi...’
She ignored him and headed up the stairs.
Possibly not the most adult way of dealing with things but, hell, Naomi just wanted to process what she’d found out alone, and work out how she felt about it all, before having to deal with him.
‘Naomi!’ He called her name more sharply and came to the bottom of the stairs, and she had the feeling he wouldn’t hesitate to follow her up.
‘Yes?’ She turned and attempted to look composed, but she looked past Abe’s shoulder at the gorgeous tree rather than at him.
‘Come through to the drawing room,’ he said. ‘It’s more private in there.’
‘We have nothingprivateto discuss,’ Naomi answered. She didn’t want to hear his excuses and lies, but more than that she wanted to be alone with her own thoughts and to assemble them into some sort of order before she discussed this with him.
But Abe was persistent. ‘We need to talk.’
‘I think we already did quite enough of that,’ Naomi said. ‘In fact, we spoke most of last night and all of today, and during all that time you refrained from telling me the one thing I should have known.’
‘Can we not do this on the stairs?’ Abe suggested.
‘Can we simply not do this?’ Naomi implored.
She loathed any sort of confrontation and, though she would never, ever admit it, despite her devastation, Naomi was just the tiniest bit relieved.
Yes, relieved that the feeling he evoked, the hope that had been gathering, could now safely lead...nowhere.
That she could reel in her heart right now, before it was too late.
She had learnt, long ago, how it felt to be discarded, to put down tentative roots and then be plucked up and moved along. Not so much in romance, she had no experience there. But in love, in family, at school and with friends, and she never wanted to revisit those feelings again.
And with that thought she was able to look him in the eye and dismiss the magical time they had shared. ‘It was a day out. It was a kiss. Probably small change to you and I was tired from flying and...’ She shrugged. ‘Abe, I’m here to work and to be a friend to Merida. Can we please just forget it happened?’
‘Naomi...’
But she had already walked off.
To Abe’s discredit, he was just a touch relieved by her dismissal.
