Girl Gear 3: Bound to Happen (29 page)

A vein visibly throbbed at Nolan's temple. "She's not the mother you knew. I don't think she was ever happy here. At least, not compared to the contentment she seems to have found living and working in
France
."

"What?"
Sydney
mocked her own disbelief. She was on a roll and not about to stop herself from saying the things she'd been waiting to say for a lifetime. "My mother was unhappy here? How could that be? With such adulation for her work? And never having to spend time with her daughter because she had you to do it for her?"

"I spent time with you because I wanted to, not because I was doing it for your mother. You know that, so cut the crap." He dragged a hand down his face. "This isn't about you or about me, Sydney. Your mother was unhappy before either of us came along."

Sydney
looked down, pushed her toe at a lichen growing along the edge of one of the planks. "And boy, the timing of my coming along sure did stink, didn't it?"

"I know you've done the math," Nolan said, his shadow falling over her as he took a step closer.

Shading her eyes,
Sydney
looked toward the
Indiscreet
and echoed, "The math?"

"When you were born. When we were married."

"Oh,
that
math." She glanced away, rolled her eyes, surprised her father had finally decided to talk about the truth she'd figured out half a lifetime ago.

He stepped right in front of her, then took her chin in his hand and forced her to meet his gaze. "Do you realize that when I was your age, you were already nine years old?"

Startled, she tried to imagine herself with a child of nine. She did
not
want to talk with her father about sex. Even so, she couldn't help but ask, "What happened?"

"I fell in love." He dropped his hand, then rubbed loose strands of her hair with his fingers.

It was all she could do not to turn her face into his wrist and nudge like a puppy seeking an ear scratch. "At seventeen I thought that was called falling in lust."

"That, too, yes." Nolan tried to grin, but his face was a weary map of frown lines and tough negotiations. "Your mother was amazing. As a person. Worldly and exciting and an older woman of twenty-two. I met her during my senior year of high school."

The same year
Sydney
had met Ray.

"My life-drawing class visited a gallery where, she was having her first show." One corner of his mouth quirked upward. "It was love at first sight. Or as close as it gets."

Sydney
was having a hard time hearing over the blood rushing into her head. "I didn't know you'd studied art."

"I didn't. It was a blow-off credit. I remember you taking one or two of those." One brow went up, daring her denial. "I don't have a creative bone in my body, Sydney. Unlike your mother, who has a rare talent."

"For abandonment
mayb
—"

"And," Nolan continued, "enough sense to hire a consulting firm to develop the business plan for the gallery. I wouldn't have funded it otherwise."

Sydney
found herself biting her tongue, choking back all the accusations she'd held all this time. She looked down, watched the water lap the base of the pier as a strange sense of calm slowly settled.

Nolan went on, "I think you, of all people, might trust me on that. I didn't exactly get this far in life by being stupid. I am sorry about Izzy. I'm even sorrier that I disappointed and hurt you. But this thing with your mother…"

Nolan hesitated and
Sydney
couldn't help but look up. His eyes were dark. Even in the bright tropical sun of morning, his eyes were darkly shadowed.

"This was something I had to do. To make sure your mother was taken care of, settled. She gave me a family, Sydney. She gave me you. How could I deny her request for something far less precious and easier for me to give? Please tell me you can understand that."

Sydney
thought she was beginning to. Especially after the things she'd already heard about family last night from Ray.

Still, to actually see Vegas? To actually feel her brief obligatory hug, to actually smell the blend of perfume, linseed oil and paint that
Sydney
associated with great joy … and greater pain?

She hardened her heart. "I don't have time to go to
Paris
."

"I want you to make time." Reaching out, Nolan took hold of her hand. He laced his fingers through hers. "I'm going back at the end of the month. I want you to come with me."

"So I can see the gallery and she can gloat?"
Sydney
asked, looking down at their joined fingers, remembering when Nolan's hand had been so much larger and darker than her tiny white doll-size fingers.

"No." He covered their linked hands with his free palm and squeezed. "So you can see your mother and you both can heal."

Was there any person she wanted to see less? Or any person she wanted to see more? The yearning
Sydney
had ruthlessly suppressed for years constricted her chest. She closed her eyes, wanting to hold back the tears and finding it impossible.

As impossible as swallowing the emotion
suffocatingly
tangled like a ball of yarn in her throat.

Finally she looked up at her father, her view blurred by tears. "I'm scared, Daddy."

"Oh, honey. Don't you know that she is, too? She's terrified that her independent, brilliant, entrepreneurial daughter won't forgive her."

The intrepid Vegas Ford scared? Of her? "Okay, I'll go," she heard herself say.

"I love you, Sydney." Nolan brought her hand to his mouth, gave it a kiss. Then he opened his arms.

And
Sydney
returned home. "I know. I love you, too."

Eventually, reluctantly, she pulled free from his embrace and took a backward step toward the villa. "I need to go pack. So we can go."

"We'll go tomorrow." He inclined his head toward the
Indiscreet.
"I brought steaks. I'm cooking dinner. I thought it might be fun to hang out. Pretend that I'm twenty-something, instead of old as dirt."

"You're only as old as you feel. And you feel like you've been working out." She pinched his biceps hard. "Ray's gone, you know."

Nolan nodded. "I saw him before we set sail."

Sydney
nodded, too, and started walking away, then stopped and looked back. "I want to ask you something."

Nolan held out his hands. "Anything."

"What do you know about Patrick Coffey?"

ANTON NEVILLE
eased his Jaguar into the parking spot beside Lauren's SUV. He reached for the keys, then stopped and left the engine running. He'd been home from their trip to Coconut Caye for two months now, and his life hadn't been a particularly fun thing to be living. Which was why he was here. Even though he wasn't sure he was doing the right thing.

What a
chickenshit
. Couldn't make up his mind about Lauren and now didn't even want to get out of the car.

No, that wasn't true. He
had
made up his mind about Lauren. And he
did
want to get out of the car. But first he needed to take a minute or two to make sure he still knew how to breathe. He'd come too far to back out now. It was make-it-or-break-it time.

And breathing would be a good thing to know how to do if she decided to hang him high.

He stared at the gray marble facade of the
glRL-gEAR
building, at the huge lime-colored letters visible for miles. Or at least from any overpass along the Southwest Freeway. This group of women was about as unconventional as any avant-garde sorority could be.

And that was exactly how he thought of the six female partners and their Asian-American sidekick. Anton couldn't help but wonder how soon Poe would take over. He wouldn't doubt if she'd already set the wheels in motion. She was as independent and career-driven as the rest of them. Maybe even more so.

Wanting her own way. Getting it more often than not. Not taking no for an answer and not liking to swallow when it was forced down her throat. Exactly the same way Lauren reacted. Neither one of them resorting to tricks of the female trade. No pouting or crying or underhanded treachery.

Nope. These women were the epitome of free spirits, answering to no one but themselves. Recognizing the concept of compromise, but exercising the option as a last resort. Hardheaded, yes. But softhearted. And fair.

And he'd been a total prick for taking so long to come to the realization. Lauren wouldn't be Lauren if she'd given in to his way of thinking, given up any part of herself because it was what he wanted, what put him at ease. What he thought she should be.

It had been the sex in the Jeep that had brought him to his senses—right after it had brought him to his knees.

Her sexuality had always been an issue between them. An issue for him, anyway. Lauren didn't have a single sexual
hangup
. And
that
was his problem.

Yet his problem had soon become theirs, because he'd taken out his frustration on her. He'd made her believe that he thought her physical response less about having him for her lover and more about his body as convenient.

The very accusation women had leveled at men since the dawn of time.

He should've realized that, but he couldn't pull his head out of his ass to see. He'd been feeling sorry for himself, instead of getting down on his knees with gratitude for having found a woman other men would kill for. He just hoped he hadn't waited too long to stick his head back where it belonged.

He and Lauren couldn't be more different in so many ways. Too many to count. And he knew because he'd tried. If he'd been smart, he would've celebrated their differences, instead of trying to mold her into what made him more comfortable.

Hopefully he could make her understand. She already knew he'd been raised in traditional surroundings. A loving, family-focused environment, with a stay-at-home mother, a father who brought home the bacon in a really big way and a younger brother he'd had to baby-sit more often than he'd wanted.

What she didn't know was that he hadn't questioned anything. He'd accepted. Because that was the way things were done in the Neville household. What Marcel Neville set down as the letter of the law was not to be challenged, unless the challenger had a really big hard-on for the sting of a leather belt.

Anton had always assumed he'd be his own law in his own house over his own family, without the leather belt … uh, except in the kinkiest of situations. And for some reason, he'd also assumed that his woman, that Lauren, would be as compliant as his mother had been.

Yet ever since the day he'd met Lauren, he'd known she was as strong-willed as he was. And that was a big part of the attraction. He liked a woman who knew what she wanted. Even while he wanted to have a say or, at least, constructive input into the decisions she made and the way she lived her life.

Sitting here now in the gIRL-gEAR parking lot, he had to laugh. He'd been such a narrow-minded prick, expecting to have it both ways. He wasn't his father and he wasn't living his father's life. Or even living in an era with the same social mores. Hopefully, he still had a chance to make amends.

All he'd been doing was driving her away when the answer was so simple. By letting Lauren be Lauren, by abandoning any attempt to keep her under his thumb, he would end up reaping the rewards of being loved the way he'd always dreamed of being loved.

He turned off the engine and stepped from the car, his plan to show her what a changed man he was putting a grin on his face.

A grin that couldn't be mistaken for anything but the low-down and playing-dirty look that it was.

He'd show Lauren Hollister a thing or two about being a free spirit and getting your way.