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He nodded. He could almost hear the pieces clicking together in her sharp brain.
“And you’re Grant Tay…oh!” She thunked her palm against her forehead. “You’re Edward Taylor’s son. Nathan is your brother. I’ve read articles about your family. Nathan must have been the one to donate all that money to the Mariposa Renovation Fund…how did I not make the connection before now?”
“Because no one would expect Edward Taylor’s son to own a small-town tavern. Not even you.”
“Still, I should have figured it out.” She shook her head, her ponytail swinging. “No wonder your father wanted you to go into the family business. And no wonder you didn’t want to.”
“What does that mean?”
“Well, if you wanted to cook and own a restaurant, that doesn’t seem very compatible with application software and mainframe databases.”
“In my family, it wasn’t.” He shrugged. “I never wanted to work for Intellix. Never wanted to have the kind of marriage my mother and other people wanted for me either.”
“Did you have to pick between your life and theirs?”
“I guess so. It wasn’t so dramatic that my parents threatened to disown me or anything. I still see them sometimes and keep in touch. But my mother is still trying to get me to change my mind, and my father just uses the opportunity to remind me I’m the bad son.” He shook his head in self-disparagement. “Not that I feel sorry for myself. I’m doing what I want, and obviously I love my parents and brother. We just get along better at a distance.”
Admiration sparked in her eyes. “Good for you for figuring that out.”
His chest unknotted. Edward Taylor was a big name in the tech industry, but Rory seemed surprised rather than shocked and impressed by the fact that he was Grant’s father. Even though she didn’t know all the details of his estrangement from his family, she didn’t think he was an asshole for walking away from them.
“You still want to go through with this?” He gestured between them.
“Sure.” She shot him a grin. “Pretending to be Grant Taylor’s girlfriend will be the most interesting thing I’ve done in ages.”
He laughed. “Wait until the wedding.Interestingwon’t be the word for it.”
