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“Your mother looked at me like a hungry hunter. She was an adventurous woman, your mother. So, her sweet eyes, the same color as yours, they were filled with both wariness and attraction. She wanted to tame the lion, but wasn’t sure I could be tamed.”
“You were a playboy?”
“No. Like Sandor, I was a businessman. A shark. I’d inherited wealth, unlike your young man, but it wasn’t enough for me. I was only twenty-eight, when I met your mother, but though we worked side by side for years, I’d already almost doubled my father’s business holdings.”
“Did you love her?”
“Very much.”
Something inside Ellie cracked at that assurance. He had loved once.
“How did she die?” She’d always known her mother died after giving birth, but there’d been an accident, too. She’d never asked for details because, well…that wasn’t the kind of thing she asked her dad and there’d been no one else.
“She was in a car accident. It was bad. She went into premature labor…she delivered you girls and then slipped into a coma. She never came out and died less than a week after giving birth.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I am, too. She was a wonderful woman and she would have been so good for you. I didn’t raise you the way she would have wanted me to. I failed her and you both…just like I failed your sister. I fight for every business concession I want, but I was too weak to fight past the pain of her loss.”
“Failure is not a terminal disease unless you allow it to be,” Hera said from her chair beside the bed, sounding comfortingly practical.
George’s head snapped up and he met her gaze. “I’m not going to let myself die. I’m going to make it up to my girls. Somehow. Someway.”
Hera nodded. “That is an admirable sentiment, but it will not be easy.”
“I know.”
“If it becomes too difficult and you retreat to your work again, you will not get another chance. Your daughter is very self-sufficient.”
“Too independent.”
“You would rather she was weak?”
“No.”
“Good.”
Ellie didn’t mind the conversation that did not require her participation. She had a lot to assimilate and as much as she wanted to trust her dad again, she just didn’t know if she could. He’d hurt her so many times both as a child and then as a woman. And she’d been hurt by others, too…she was discovering that past pain could be a huge barrier to present acceptance of things like love and affection.
CHAPTER TEN
BREAKFAST ARRIVED ANDthey ate together, setting the pattern for days to come. Ellie came to the hospital each morning and ate breakfast with her father before going on to work. She knew that Hera spent a couple of hours every afternoon with him and Ellie returned in the evenings to spend time with him before bed. Sandor spoke to him daily.
Sandor called Ellie two or three times a day, too, but they didn’t see each other. He was working twenty hour days covering for her dad and taking care of his own business.
In a way, Ellie was grateful for the respite from his company. She knew that since he’d decided she was trustworthy, he still wanted to marry her. She just was not up to arguing with him about it right now.
Hawk was still looking for her sister, but the man she’d been seen with had disappeared from sight and Hawk’s agents were having difficulty locating the tycoon. The investigator had learned what the tabloid reporters had…no one else seemed to know who Menendez’s mystery woman was.
In the meantime, Ellie was getting to know her dad like she never had. He told her things about her mom, her grandparents…himselfthat she’d never known. And each day, she got a little closer to believing the change in him was a permanent one. That maybe he really did love her.
But part of her acknowledged that until he was back to work and in his old world andstill interested in her life and spending time with her, she wasn’t going to trust that change completely.
He went home from the hospital the following Friday afternoon. It was the longest break from work Ellie had ever known him to take. Even though the following day was Saturday, he went into the office for a few hours. Sandor made sure those hours were short, escorting him back home before lunchtime.
He’d arranged with Ellie to be there to share the meal with her father. She waited for them, butterflies playing volleyball in her stomach. She hadn’t seen Sandor since the Saturday before.
When she did see him, she had to fight the urge to take him into her arms. He looked exhausted, but then running two multinational companies would be enough to drive most men into the ground. Not Sandor. He looked tired yes, but still so strong and masculine that Ellie’s knees had weakened at the sight of him ushering her father into the room.
