In Her Wildest Dreams (4 page)

“Thanks” Erica said.

Without thinking, she rose on her tiptoes and placed a kiss on his check. It was a friendly kiss. A way to say thank you.

At least that’s what Erica told herself.

Chapter Three

Gavin stood in the middle of the Farmer’s Market staring at Erica’s back as she sprinted away from him. The fact that she
had
run had him reading more into that peck on the cheek than he probably should. That wasn’t the first time her lips had touched his face, so why did it suddenly feel different?

Because he wanted it to, that’s why.

“You need anything else?” the vendor asked.

“No,” Gavin said, although that wasn’t entirely true. He could use some help figuring out just what was going on between him and the woman who’d just scurried away from him.

He was toeing a precarious line, trying to force the issue with Erica. Gavin knew if he pushed too hard, he just might push her away. He would do anything to prevent that from happening.

Over the course of the past year he and Erica had become more than just really good friends; they were each other’s confidants. They were similar on so many fronts, both having left other professions to try their hands at running their own businesses. Even though he hadn’t exactly
left
his previous business. Still, he and Erica knew the struggle of being small business owners.

Gavin didn’t want to mess up their friendship by suggesting they become more than what they already were to each other, but he was done residing in the “Friends Only” zone. He ached to be more to her. Dammit, he
craved
that woman.

“Well, well, well. What do you know?”

Gavin’s shoulders instantly tensed at the sound of a voice he hadn’t heard in nearly a year. He turned around, his jaw automatically clenching at the sight of her.

“Hello, Whitney,” he said.

“Gavin.” Her gaze embarked on a slow trek from his head to his feet. “You’re looking well.”

“Thank you,” he answered. If his mom were here, she would have slapped him upside the head for being so rude, but Gavin couldn’t bring himself to return the compliment, even though Whitney Parker looked very well, indeed.

As usual, she appeared runway-ready in ultrahigh heels, a tastefully short skirt, and a soft cashmere sweater that molded to her generous breasts. Whitney Parker lived to draw attention to herself. It wasn’t hard to do. At six-foot-one with the body of a supermodel, she turned heads wherever she went. But turning heads had never been enough for Whitney. She demanded that eyes pop out of sockets and tongues trail on the ground as well.

Even more impressive was that inside that incredible body was a brain that could not be rivaled. Whitney had graduated summa cum laude from Tulane University and had one of the savviest business minds Gavin had ever encountered.

She also had a tendency to cheat on her significant other, which tarnished all of her other attributes in his eyes.

“Is this how it’s going to be whenever we run into each other?” she asked.

“I don’t plan on running into you all that often,” Gavin replied. “I’ve managed to avoid you for almost a year.”

“I apologized, Gavin.”

“Yes, you did. Several times. It still doesn’t erase what you did.” He held both palms out to her, pleading. “You already have my business. What else do you want from me, Whitney?”

“Don’t you play the martyr with me, Gavin Foster. You are the one who chose to walk away from Technology Concepts. I never asked you to leave. In fact, I insisted that they offer you a generous salary to remain CEO.”

“Remain CEO? Why? So I could have a front row seat to the annihilation of the company I built? So I could watch you and your boy toy step into the coat closets to have quickies?”

She treated him to a withering stare. “This is so beneath you, Gavin. You need to get over what happened between us.”  

He huffed out a laugh. “I don’t have time for this.” Gavin turned, but Whitney caught his arm, tugging him back toward her.

Gavin stared at the slim fingers gripping his bicep. “Get your hand off of me,” he warned.

He owed Whitney Parker absolutely nothing, not even courtesy. She’d given up the right to any warm feelings from him when she’d orchestrated the demolition of his company behind his back, all the while sleeping with the head of the venture capitalist firm that handled the hostile takeover.

“Fine, Gavin,” she said, letting him go and holding her hands up in surrender. “If this is how you want things to operate between us, so be it.”

“There is no ‘us,’ Whitney, and there never will be. We no longer operate in the same circles. Do me a favor. The next time we happen to run into each other, pretend you don’t know who I am, okay?”

Gavin saw a glimmer of sorrow trace across her features. “It doesn’t have to be this way,” she said.

“That’s where you’re wrong. This is the only way it will ever be between us.”

He grabbed his purchases from the counter and stalked away from her.

***

Gavin stirred the creamy, marigold-colored sauce, then dipped his finger in and tested it.

“Ouch!” He snatched his hand back and stuck his finger between his lips.

“What do you expect to happen when you go poking around in a pot of hot liquid?”

Gavin turned at the sound of the voice, smiling as his mother entered the kitchen.

“How did you know that’s what I’d done?”

“Because I know you,” she said. She pulled his head down and kissed his cheek.

“Happy Birthday, Mom,” he said, returning her kiss. 

“Thank you,” his mother replied. She peeled off her jacket and draped it on the back of a chair in the breakfast nook. “That smells amazing, Gavin. I hope it tastes just as good. I’m starving.”

“Since you won’t let me buy you anything for your birthday, I figured the dinner I prepared had better be spectacular.”

“You bought me this house. I think you’ve spent more than enough of your money on me. You keep that money in the bank. No need for you to spend it on foolishness.”

He had over forty-million dollars in the bank. Did she really think he would just blow through it?

“I disagree that your 60th birthday is foolishness, but I respect your wishes.”

She huffed. “If you respected my wishes, I’d have a couple of grandchildren running around here, terrorizing my nice, big house.”

Gavin just rolled his eyes. This was a discussion he wanted to avoid at all cost.  

“Oh, that reminds me. I have the cutest thing to show you,” his mother said. She retrieved the iPad he’d bought her for Christmas from her shoulder bag and tapped on the YouTube app.

“How do you even know how to use YouTube?” he asked her.

“Everybody knows how to use YouTube.” She pointed at the touchscreen. “Look at this. This is Loretta Samuel’s grandson. Isn’t he the cutest thing ever?”

Gavin had to endure two minutes of a chubby two-year-old singing James Brown’s “I Feel Good.”

“Adorable,” he said with zero enthusiasm.

“All of my friends have videos of their grandchildren to share.” His mother’s exaggerated, wistful sigh was nothing he hadn’t been subjected to before.

“Please, don’t start,” Gavin pleaded, returning to the stove.

“I’m just saying that it would be nice if I had some of my own videos to share.”

“Show them the video of Uncle Jake dancing at the Fourth of July picnic. That one always puts a smile on my face.”

His mother shot him the evil eye. It was a look that could still send a chill down Gavin’s spine.

“I need to change out of these stuffy work clothes,” she said, uncovering the pot where the Yukon Gold potatoes boiled.

“If you would quit your job you wouldn’t have to wear those stuffy work clothes,” Gavin argued.

No matter how much he pleaded with her, his mother refused to retire from the clerical job she’d held at the Department of Child and Family Services—not when she only had a few years left before her Social Security kicked in. As if she needed to wait for Social Security.

Gavin had pretty much given up on that argument. He had a feeling that his mother’s choice to continue working had less to do with financial security and everything to do with fear of loneliness. It was something that had weighed on Gavin’s mind ever since his dad had suffered a massive heart attack two years earlier, leaving his wife of nearly forty years a widow. He prayed his mother had many years left on this Earth, but Gavin constantly worried about just how she would fill them. Maybe keeping her job wasn’t such a bad thing.

“How much longer before we eat?” his mother asked.

“Potatoes are done. I just have to mash them, and we can eat.”

“Good.” She nodded, kissed his cheek again, and started for the hallway that led to the back of the house. She stopped at the kitchen’s arched entryway.  “You didn’t bring any chocolates to tide me over until the food is done?” she asked.

His mouth quirked in a smile as he retrieved the eight-piece box he’d brought home from Decadente. Gavin started to hand her the box, then pulled it away. “Only way you can have it is if you promise no more grandkids talk tonight.”

“Boy, give me that box,” she said, reaching for it. He switched the box to his other hand, fully expecting a slap.

His mother didn’t disappoint. She swatted his arm and pierced him with a look that said
give me the chocolates, or else
!

Gavin complied, handing her the box, but he made another plea. “Mother, please, no more videos or stories about someone’s adorable grandkids. At least for tonight.”

“Fine, Gavin.” She gestured toward the stove. “Mind your pot before you scorch my birthday dinner.”

He went back to the stove, lowering the fire under the sauce.

He could only hope his mother took his plea to heart. He wasn’t up for her badgering. It was a conversation they’d had all too often. Even when he was with Whitney, whom his mother had never liked, she’d still held out hope that maybe the relationship would finally yield some grandchildren.

Gavin knew she’d had her heart set on grandbabies for some time now—especially after his father had died. As an only child, it was up to Gavin to provide them. Talk about pressure.

He would love to give his mother the grandchildren she continually begged for, but Gavin had never seen himself having children with Whitney. She was too ambitious. Too driven by work.

Oh, yeah. And she was a cheater. Couldn’t forget that.

But, eventually, Gavin wanted kids of his own. And he knew who he wanted them with. He just had to convince her to want the same thing.

Kids?
Was he really thinking about Erica having his babies?

They weren’t even a couple; they had yet to go on an official date. He had no idea whether Erica was even interested in the marriage, two point five kids, and white picket fence bit. Besides, when it came to her business, she was just as driven as Whitney.

But Erica had a softer side. There was something she possessed that he had never seen in his ex-fiancée. Compassion. Consideration for other people’s feelings. A heart that wasn’t made of ice and surrounded by razor-sharp barbed wire.

The edges of his lips twitched in a cynical grin. He knew he wasn’t being fair to Whitney. The barbed wire around her heart probably wasn’t
razor
-sharp.

Gavin sucked in an irritated breath, annoyed with himself for being so callous. Running into her this afternoon, seeing how good she looked, had him thinking especially vicious thoughts of Whitney. He was being unfair, especially since Whitney had told him from the very beginning where things stood. She had said that if she had to choose between him and her career, she would choose her career.

Maybe if she’d mentioned that there was a possibility that she would bring other men into the relationship, he wouldn’t have had such a hard time with some of her other choices.

“This really does smell amazing, Gavin,” his mother said, coming back into the kitchen dressed in slacks and a sweater. “I taught you well.”

He gestured to her outfit. “You do realize we’re staying in, right?”

“What?” she asked, looking down at her clothes. “It’s my birthday. Can’t a woman look nice while she enjoys her birthday dinner?”

Gavin eyed her curiously. “You’ve got plans,” he surmised. She opened her mouth as if to refute his statement, but he continued. “You’re going to gobble down this food, and as soon as you’re done, you’re sending me packing.”

“That is not true,” she said. “I never gobble down my food. What do I look like to you, a Thanksgiving turkey?”

He barked out a laugh. “More like a spring chicken. Come on.” He clasped a hand around her waist and guided her to the table. “I don’t want to keep you from whatever it is you have planned tonight.”

She took her seat and Gavin dished out the meal he’d spent nearly two hours preparing. As he chatted with his mother over her birthday dinner, he was encouraged by how far she’d come from those dark days after his dad died. It had been a rough time for both of them, but his mother in particular. She’d plummeted into a deep depression after losing her still relatively young and vibrant husband. She’d tried to put on a brave face, but Gavin had heard her wails through the thin walls of their old house during those weeks he’d stayed with her after his dad’s fatal heart attack.

He would do anything for this woman. Too bad the one thing she wanted above all else would require the assistance of someone else.

“So,” his mother said as she forked a piece of the dark chocolate and espresso cake Gavin had picked up from her favorite bakery. “About those grandkids? Any chance I’ll have them before my seventieth birthday?”

He just dropped his head and sighed.

Chapter Four

“You want to rent the zebras and elephants?”

Erica gave the Audubon Zoo’s director of operations a firm nod. “In a way,” she said, knowing the director probably didn’t get such requests very often.