All of Me (All Series Book 2) (14 page)

Grinning, she swatted him with a loud crack. Skin against skin. Her palm against his backside. That had to sting because her palm did. She hadn’t meant it to be that hard.

“Hey, what was that all about?” he asked.

“Sorry, mosquito.”

He laughed. A nice sound, a sweet sound. “Oh yeah. Well, you’re the one who earlier said ‘I bet you could run naked around here and no one would know about it.’ I wanted to prove you could.”

Chuckling, she thought, leave it to him to throw those words back in her face.

Now, the next morning, gliding her hand over his shoulder, watching him sleep, she looked around the room. It definitely felt like a retreat to her. A place she didn’t ever want to leave.

Caveman

“I think I have everything,” Sophia said. Phil watched her pack up the rest of her things. “Oh, wait, my shampoo is in your shower.” She turned to walk out of his room.

“Just leave it.” She looked at him, startled for a moment, and he amended, “Unless you need it at a home?”

Tilting her head, she said, “No, I’ve got more at home. Are you sure?”

He knew what she was asking. It had nothing to do with the shampoo and everything to do with her leaving her stuff in his home. “It’s only shampoo, Sophia,” he said, teasing. But it wasn’t, and she knew that.

Either way, she walked back to her bag, zipped it up, and sent him a cheery grin. “Then I’m all set. I’ll follow you to your parents’ house.”

“I can bring you over, then bring you back here for your car.” She had suggested she could go home from his parents’ house. It was easier that way. No driving all over the lake, his parents were on her way home.

“It’s fine, Phil.”

“Okay, then let’s go.”

***

Ten minutes later, seated in Isabel and William’s living room, Sophia was talking with Kaitlin. Ryan, Phil and William were talking about the new development when Alec walked in. “Hey, shorty. What, is Phil too much of a caveman to pick you up and drive you here?”

Her eyes softened. She looked over at Phil and saw his face—almost embarrassed that his family would think that—so she came to his defense. “It didn’t make sense for him to drive me here and then bring me back to his place to get my car.”

“His place?” Alec said questioningly, looking at his brother, then his father.

Sophia grinned; she couldn’t help it. She knew what was going on. If Phil would have preferred she kept that bit of information to herself, he didn’t say. But he jumped in and said jokingly, “Yeah. Do you have a problem with her staying with me now and again? Do I need your permission to have an overnight guest?”

Ryan laughed, looked at Alec’s huge smirk, and decided to add to Phil’s teasing. “We know how jealous you get, Alec, but your brother is allowed to have a personal life away from his twin.”

“Cute,” Alec said. “I thought you were always on my side.” He turned to look at Ryan, who was leaning back with his arm around Kaitlin.

“Nah, not today. You guys gang up on Phil enough. This time I’m siding with him. Besides, I like Sophia better than you today so I need to stay in her good graces.”

“Looks like you’re outnumbered, Alec,” Phil said.

“Boys,” William jumped in. “It never ends with you two.” He turned to Ryan. “And you, don’t encourage them.”

Ryan laughed. Sophia knew that Ryan was part of the family, and always had been, even as a kid. Much like she felt part of the family too. Only it was different now. At times uncomfortable, but she would have to get over that.

“Alec,” Kaitlin said, “how’s the new place coming?”

“It’s getting there. I gutted the entire first floor this week. It takes longer when I’m the only one working on it, but I’m making progress.”

“I don’t know how you can stand to live in the construction mess,” Phil said.

Alec shrugged. “I’m used to it. You know I always do the master bedroom and bath before I move in.”

“But not the kitchen,” Kaitlin pointed out.

“He doesn’t need a kitchen when he comes here for dinner several days a week,” William interrupted.

Alec looked at his father. “Mom loves having me.”

With a shake of his head, William conceded. “She does. But you take all the leftovers home with you.”

“Sorry, she wants to make sure I’m eating.” He laughed at his father’s chagrined look, but Sophia knew it was all in jest.

“How long are you going to live in this house?” Kaitlin asked.

Alec shrugged. “Not sure. It will be months before I’m done with it. When I’m ready for some of the heavy work in the kitchen, I’ll bring a few guys in for some OT on the weekend to punch it out quicker. I don’t have any other properties lined up right now. So until I find another flip, I’ll stay in this one. It always works out in the end.”

“Don’t you get sick of moving so much?” Ryan asked, curiously.

Sophia smiled. Alec moved at least once a year, similar to her life growing up. But he did it by choice. Always buying and flipping homes, living in them during construction and then after until he purchased his next project. She knew Phil helped him often. Had even spent plenty of time with him this week alone demoing the main floor after they finished at Harper Construction for the day.

“It becomes second nature after awhile,” Sophia said.

“Shorty’s right. Besides, I don’t have that much stuff to move around. Just a few pieces of furniture, my bed, dresser and clothes for the most part.”

“When are you going to decide on what piece of land you want?” Kaitlin asked.

“I think I know which one. No rush. Unless either you or Ben is ready to choose your piece from the remaining three plots.”

Sophia knew that William and Isabel had bought four pieces of land on the lake while their children were growing up. One for each of them to have at some point. Only Phil had claimed his piece and built already. The one piece that none of the others wanted. It was almost like they knew one of their children would want the solitude.

Ryan said, “We have no need for it.”

William explained, “Doesn’t matter. It’s Kaitlin’s. Save it for your kids someday then.”

“I don’t think Ben has any intention of moving to the lake anytime soon,” Alec said. “So I’ve got plenty of time. He told me to choose whatever piece I wanted since he didn’t care.”

“Same here,” Kaitlin said. “Whatever one you want, it’s yours.”

Sophia loved how the siblings were all there for each other. There weren’t any competitions, any wars, and no tugging going on. She knew the siblings had done their fair share of fighting in their lives, like most brothers and sisters did, but never about the important things.

Growing up, she’d had more than her share of step and half siblings in and out of her life. Always vying for attention among the parents. Sometimes wanting to cause problems for her—starting wars and having jealous fits. She never wanted any part of it. Life was easier if she just blended in and stayed on everyone’s good side.

Besides, she had been through it enough in her life. Her parents’ marriages or relationships never seemed to last. It was just getting through to the next one and then on to the next. She found a way to get through it all and came out unscathed for the most part.

Though now that she was out of the house and very rarely saw her parents, they seemed to both have marriages that were sticking longer than normal. Her mother was on her third husband. He was much older and she seemed happy enough. They’d been together over ten years.

Her father was on his fourth wife, married five years now. Normally he didn’t even make it this far, so maybe this one would stick too. Maybe having kids in the picture caused problems. Who was she to judge? His new wife was younger than him, but had no children and had no intentions of having any.

Sophia had one half-brother from wife number two, and a half-sister from wife number three, but they were grown and out of the house now too. Her dad was free to come and go as he pleased.

That didn’t count her half-sister her mother had with husband number two. Not to mention all the steps blended in. Too many to count, in her eyes.

She was drawn out of her thoughts when Isabel came into the room from the kitchen to ask Kaitlin, “What time is your ultrasound this week?”

“Nine on Thursday morning. And I might as well tell you all now.” She looked apologetically at her mother and then at Sophia. “Ryan and I decided to wait to tell everyone the sex of the babies until Michele and Thomas’ party on Memorial Day weekend.”

“What?” Sophia said. “That’s not fair.”

“No, it’s not,” Isabel said, jumping in and looking distraught.

“Sorry,” Ryan said. “We want everyone together for it. And Presley will be there too. It’s important to Kaitlin to have everyone together like she has for every other announcement.”

“And I managed to talk Cori into waiting too. We’re both going to announce it then. It’s only two weeks away.”

Sophia couldn’t argue with that. She wanted to, but didn’t. She looked and saw Isabel’s slight frown, then turned and saw William’s crestfallen face. Now
that
was funny. “You better not make us wait until the end of the party,” William stated.

“We wouldn’t do that. Once everyone is there, we will make the announcement. I promise,” Kaitlin said.

All That Matters

It had been a long ten days. Between client meetings, board meetings, her normal workload, presentations and interviews, Sophia barely had a moment to breathe, let alone see Phil.

His life had been even crazier than hers. They were in full swing with the ten new houses all being built at the same time in the development. Now that the foundations had set, they were rushing to get the shells of the houses up, then the roofs, trying to get the houses covered from the elements. Any last minute changes the new homeowners wanted had to be done now. Alec was anal about not wanting layouts changed once the construction had been started, especially when trying to do so many homes at once. She knew that because Phil had been complaining about changes himself these last two weeks.

So here she was, driving by Harper Construction again, only this time his truck was nowhere to be found. Must be on the site with Alec.

They’d at least managed a few lunches, two dinners and one weekend together in that time. She wasn’t sure how, but they did. Looked like today would be another missed opportunity, though. She knew Phil was going to Alec’s after work to help him get the kitchen cabinets set in the flip he was working on.

Pulling into her office parking lot, she took note of the time: four o’clock. With any luck she could get some emails taken care of, a few phones calls returned and get out at a decent hour to go home and do some laundry and housework. She was looking forward to the weekend with Phil, and she only had two days to get everything done before the long holiday.

“How’s the office been, Ashley?” Sophia asked the receptionist when she walked in carrying her laptop. She’d just come from a meeting with a client. One of her favorite parts of the job was going over their balance sheets, cash flow statements and profit and loss reports. The analysis part of the job came so easily to her.

She loved talking with clients and showing them where they could better their profit margins and increase their sales output, lower their costs and consolidate expenses. Deep down she was a closet nerd.

“Ah, Sophia, you have a visitor in your office,” Ashley said, looking uncomfortably nervous, causing Sophia to halt her progress down the hall.

“Who? No one should be in my office without me. You know that.”

Ashley looked around some more, leaned over the counter and lowered her voice. “She said she’s your mother. And I couldn’t get a word in edgewise. I really hope she is. I’m so sorry if she isn’t, but she looks just like you. Only older, obviously,” Ashley rushed out.

Sophia shook her head. That sounded like Victoria Richmond Mansfield Hartman Milan. Always coming up to you all smiles and sweet, talking a mile a minute and getting her way. So much for getting work done here today, or even at home if her guess was correct. “I’ll take care of it. Don’t worry about it, she’s my mother.”

“She’s very beautiful,” Ashley said. “I want to be her when I grow up.”

Chuckling, Sophia said, “Careful what you wish for.”

Making her way down the hall, Sophia took a deep breath and prepared for some more drama. Though actually, she was happy to see her mother. She always was. As messed up of a childhood as most people thought she had, she truly loved her parents and she knew they loved her. Their motives weren’t always the best, but through it all, they cared about her and she believed they did the best they could during those times in their lives.

Pushing the door open, she saw her mother sitting behind her desk, scrolling through her cell phone. “What a lovely surprise, Mother.”

Victoria stood up, elegant as always with not a hair out of place. The same height as Sophia, a bit curvier—the result of two children, she often said—but beautiful like Ashley said.

Victoria walked forward in her tailored pants and summer top, a single diamond pendant hanging down hovering above her cleavage and sparkling off the light. Still classy, if five carats of a diamond solitaire on a summer day could be considered classy. Matching diamond studs in her ears, and the one on her finger almost as big as the one hanging around her neck. “Oh, Sophia, sweetie, I wanted to surprise you.”

“And you did.” Returning her mother’s hug, she gave her a kiss on the cheek and ushered her over to the couch against the wall. “What brings you to town? Saratoga’s quite a ways from Napa.”

“Anthony had some business on Long Island. While he was taking care of it I took another flight to Albany, then drove here. I hope that’s okay,” Victoria said, a bright smile on her face. She could talk a saint into committing a crime. Sophia learned that years ago.

“Of course it is. How long are you staying?”

“Just the night. I’ll fly back tomorrow mid-morning and stay with Anthony for a few more days, then back to Napa.”

“How’s the wine business doing?” Her mother’s current husband, Anthony, owned a vineyard in Napa. And one in Italy—where they’d secretly married ten years ago while Victoria had been there vacationing and nursing a broken heart from her last breakup.

The marriage had come out of nowhere. Sophia had been at college and didn’t even know her mother was in Italy or that she had been there for two months. Going home at winter break gave her a shock. It was the last time she did so, at least to stay for any length of time.

But Anthony was a nice enough guy, and he seemed to be keeping her mother happy. “Everything’s going well. We’ll be traveling back to Italy at the end of the month and staying there longer. I wanted to come see you before we left.”

“I’m glad you did. Why don’t you give me a minute to shut down my computer and get my things? Then we can go home and catch up.”

“Who’s the hunky man on your screen?”

“You were on my computer?” Sophia said, turning with a start. Her computer was off limits. Employees weren’t even allowed to touch it. Most of her work was done on her laptop, but there were files from clients that were confidential on her desktop too. Everything the employees needed could be accessed through their server.

“No, sweetie. I tried. I wanted to look up a few restaurants to visit in Manhattan while we were there, but I didn’t know your password. I must say though, that smiling face that greeted me when I tried to get on was a treat. Who is he?”

Sophia could only blame her momentary lapse about her computer being protected on the shock of her mother’s visit. “That’s Phil.”

“Does Phil of the soulful brown eyes have a last name?”

Soulful brown eyes. That’s funny. Leave it to her mother to say something like that. But looking at the picture of Phil smiling on her screen, maybe her mother was right. Those eyes seemed to look right through her soul plenty. “Harper. Phil Harper.”

“Ah. I thought he looked familiar. Kaitlin’s brother?”

Sophia shouldn’t have been surprised her mother figured it out. Victoria was intelligent, very aware and very in tune to her surroundings and everything going on around her. She always had been. She just had always been needy and emotional on top of it.

Then again, it was hard not to miss the resemblance between the Harper siblings. Even though her mother had never met Phil, she had seen Kaitlin plenty over the years and knew about her brothers. “Yes, her oldest brother.”

“One of the twins? The Architect.”

“Right again.”

“I’m a pretty good judge of your tastes. Though I have to say I’m amazed.” She stopped and looked at Sophia thoughtfully. “But you look very happy. Almost glowing. And that is all that matters.”

***

During dinner that night, Victoria was seated on the couch in Sophia’s living room, a glass of wine in her hand with music playing in the background. “So tell me about Phil.”

Sophia wasn’t sure she wanted to go into details with her mother, not about Phil or her relationship. She never had before. Her mother had never asked her before either, to be honest. “Why are you asking?”

“Because this is different. I can see it. I didn’t need to see his picture in your office to know, either.”

Now she was curious. Her mother was more intuitive than most gave her credit for. “How so?”

“For one, you wouldn’t risk your friendship with Kaitlin over something casual. So for you to even consider getting involved with one of her brothers means you’ve felt something for a while. Am I right?”

“You are.”

“Are you in love?”

That was blunt. “I don’t know.”

“Oh, sweetie, of course you know. You may not want to admit it, but you know the answer.”

There was no getting anything past her mother. “Were you in love with everyone you’ve been with?”

“Absolutely. Love is a wonderful thing. It makes food taste better, people look more attractive, sounds clearer, and your vision brighter. You name it. Love turns everything up several levels.”

“Then why do you seem to fall out of it so much?” It was tough on her part to ask that, but Sophia really wanted to know. She needed to know.

“It’s never a choice, sweetie.” Victoria stopped and took a sip of her wine. “Sometimes I didn’t fall out of love with someone, but they did with me. You can’t make someone love you no matter how much you want them to.”

“Like with Dad?”

“Smarter than you look,” Victoria said tenderly.

“Just like my mom.”

“I loved your father so much. It was that fast love. A deep burn for each other. Everything was covered in a haze around us. Oh, and what a lover he was.”

“Mother, please. I don’t want to hear that,” Sophia said, a pained expression on her face.

“Now, dear, you’re old enough to know your father and I had sex,” she said, chuckling.

“Doesn’t mean I want you to talk about it.”

“Still.” She waved an elegant hand at Sophia. “I loved your father. More than he loved me. I knew that.”

“So he couldn’t give you what you wanted?” Which had always been Sophia’s greatest fear in a partner for herself.

“It wasn’t that. I knew early on he didn’t love me the same—not as deeply as I wanted—but I thought he would learn to love me more. I wanted to be number one in his life. But no one is really number one in Spencer Mansfield’s life, except himself.”

“Then why did you get married?”

Victoria lifted an eyebrow, smiling softly. “You.”

“You were pregnant?”

“I was. Your father married me the minute we found out. I don’t regret those years with him. But they weren’t always happy ones. I wanted more than your father could give me. In the end, I wasn’t what he wanted either. I tried to hold on longer than I should have. That was wrong of me. When it was all said and done, we couldn’t stand each other.”

Sophia snorted. “I remember.” She may have only been four years old, but she remembered the yelling and the fighting, not to mention the battles afterward during the divorce and the years following.

“You got the raw end of the deal. We know that, and we tried to do right over the years. We did the best we could.”

“You both did fine.”

“So we’ve been told enough by the psychologists.”

“There were plenty of them,” Sophia said dryly.

“And you always managed to fool them.”

“How’s that?”

“Sophia,” Victoria said patiently, “we have always loved you. Your father and I, well, we might have used you at times, which was wrong of us, but we loved you the same. If you’d ever once said anything to us about it or how you felt, we would have changed. You never did, so we were stupid and naive and even vindictive with each other. Then we continued on the stupid stubborn path we laid. Looking back, it was wrong. I know that now. And I often wondered if we damaged you somehow.”

“Damaged,” Sophia sputtered. “Do I look damaged?”

“Relationship-wise,” Victoria corrected. “I’ve never known you to have a serious relationship. I’ve wondered if you were jaded because of your experiences with us.”

She didn’t think she was jaded, but maybe she was. It wasn’t that she never wanted a relationship. She wanted someone to love her. When it all came down to it, she wanted the real deal. She wanted forever. Not to fall in and out of love like her mother and father did. When she finally was ready to make that commitment, she wanted to know it was truly until death do us part.

Until she met Kaitlin and her family, she hadn’t known that was possible. But once she realized it was, this was her goal—to meet the one man she could be with for the rest of her life. The perfect mate.

She expected ups and downs. Expected good and bad points. But through it all, all that really mattered to her was that the person loved her.