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“I am now.” She’d come to Santa Fe looking for a fresh start.
The only major industries that registered with her were ones she might work in. She’d settled in Santa Fe, rather than somewhere else in New Mexico, because of the numerous art galleries and thriving artist community.
She’d been supplementing her income with small commissions from one of them since a year after her move from Seattle. For a place to live and her main income, she’d watched children for a wealthy couple who had a real estate business. When Emma had gone job hunting, none of the places she’d applied to had been mining companies.
It had taken her nearly four years to build her life back to something decent, where she and her son did not have to live a hand-to-mouth existence and she wasn’t going to let Konstantin mess it up now.
She’d gotten her degree, only an associate’s and not the bachelor’s she’d planned for, but it was a degree. But in order to get away from the stigma of the restraining order he’d taken out against her, Emma had had to change her name.
It had hurt to give up her adoptive parents’ name. She’d been a Sloan since only a few months after birth.
However, they’d washed their hands of her, so she’d done it, changing both her and her son’s last name to the one she’d been born with, Carmichael. The only thing she had of biological parents she would never know.
There was drama at the car, Mickey not wanting his father to leave and follow in another car, his screams and tears not unusual for his age, but having a more profound impact on Emma because of the situation. Moisture burned in the back of her own eyes as she tried to explain that Konstantin would meet them at their small house.
“I will ride with you,” he said as he walked around the car to the passenger side.
She stared at him and then down at her ten-year-old domestic compact and tried to compute that statement. Him ride with her and Mickey?
Konstantin’s security argued, but he ignored them, opening the back door for Mickey and helping her incredibly independent son, who had stopped allowing her to help him more than a year ago, into his safety seat.
Hands shaking with nerves, Emma spoke to Konstantin across the roof of the car. “You can ride with your security. Mickey will settle.”
Her son was no longer crying because he believed Konstantin would be riding with them, but was now busy doing up the buckles on his five-point harness.
She acknowledged ruefully that he was no longer the one in danger of having a meltdown.
Konstantin closed Mickey’s door, tapped the hood and came around the car to speak to her.
“You kept my son from me.” The accusation in his voice would have hurt.
If the words had been true.
They were not.
A parking lot was better than a bank, but the car was not exactly soundproof. She lowered her voice, but let her tone drip with accusation. “You ejected me from your life so you could marry another woman.”
“And so out of spite, you did this thing!” The Prince was making no effort to keep his voice down.
“Spite? Are you delusional?” she demanded, her voice still low. “I tried to call you. You refused my calls. I tried to see you, and you had a restraining order taken out against me, remember that? I’d done nothing to warrant one, but men like you, they get what they want.”
“I am not the delusional one. I took out no restraining order. More to the point, I did not want to be a nonentity in my child’s life,” he said in a driven tone.
“You couldn’t tell from how you treated me.” He had made it clear he wanted to be a nonentity in her life and his dedication to that endeavor had dictated his not finding out about their son.
“You should have tried harder.”
How typical to expect her to have had options he would have taken for granted, but that he’d removed from her. He lived in such a rarified world, he probably really believed the garbage he was spouting.
“What do you mean, harder? I called and texted, but you blocked my number. You moved out of our apartment and I couldn’t get a forwarding address.” She’d tried, but the building super and doormen had held firm against charm, pleading and even threats. “I wrote and you never answered, I didn’t even know if you got my letters. I sent emails through the contact form on the Mirrus Global website, but never got a reply.”
It had been hellish. And once she had finally gotten in touch with someone in his family? That hell had only gotten worse, not better.
Something like guilt briefly showed in his expression and then it was gone.
Konstantin looked down at their son through the window, realized the small boy was watching them avidly even if he couldn’t hear everything said and grimaced. “We will have this discussion later.”
“Good call.” She made no effort to temper her sarcasm. But neither did she reopen the conversation.
