The Billionaire's Best Friend (The Sherbrookes of Newport) (23 page)

Lauren
’s heart cracked open, and words failed her as he walked back out of the bedroom. Then she heard the kitchen door open. Alone at last, she sank onto the bed. Dropping her head into her hands, she let the tears come. God, she’d come so close to having her dream come true. Now, thanks to his arrogance, it was in jeopardy. Maybe Kevin and his family had the right idea about marriage after all. Maybe it shouldn’t be about love. A marriage formed like a business kept your heart safe.

“
Enough crying for now.” She raised her head and wiped the tears from her face. She had too much to do before she left, including a call to Callie to tell her the wedding was off.

Chapter 14

Cliff House sprawled out before her. Designed to resemble Alexander Palace in Russia during the late 19th century, the mansion amazed her every time she saw it. The amount of time and money that went into constructing and maintaining the building boggled the mind. Just a few years earlier, she and Callie toured mansions like this one, awestruck by their beauty and the people who had once owned them. Now she got to sleep in places like this on a regular basis, and her best friend and her family owned them. How quickly life changed. Too bad it didn
’t always change for the better, as it had in Callie’s case. She’d gone from thinking her father was dead, to meeting a family she didn’t know she had, and meeting the love of her life. Now she and Dylan were starting a family of their own.

Lauren parked in front of the mammoth garage, a building bigger than her house.
Time to put on a happy face
. Tomorrow when Callie arrived, she could spill her heart, but for now she needed to keep it together.

The
Sherbrookes’ butler opened the door and, as usual, greeted her in his monotone voice. Someday she’d love to see the guy get angry. He always appeared so calm. Almost to the point of being bored.

“
Great. You’re here.” Sara appeared behind the butler. “Charlie and Allison are here, too.”

Sara gave her a welcoming hug. Once again, Lauren thought of how much things had changed. Not that long ago Sara would have said hello and kept on walking. Now, though, she treated Lauren as a friend.

“Allison called me and asked if she could help,” Sara explained, referring to Allison Sherbrooke, her and Callie’s cousin. “They’re outside.”

Sara led her out onto the veranda where Charlie and Allison sat, the remnants of lunch still on the table. Immediately, Lauren took a deep breath and enjoyed the smell of the ocean. Off in the distance she saw the sailboat Jake kept moored at the estate, bobbing up and down as the waves crashed against its side.

“Are you hungry? We just finished lunch, but I can have something prepared for you.” Sara took a seat next to her cousin. The two women looked so much alike they could be sisters.

“
I’m good.” Lauren hadn’t eaten since the night before, but even still she had no appetite.

With a nod, Sara pulled the tablet computer from the case by her feet.
“Now that Lauren’s here we can start.” Her fingers flew across the screen, causing the light glittering off the large diamond ring to hit Lauren square in the eye.

“
Is that what I think it is?” she asked, all thoughts of Callie’s baby shower pushed aside for the moment.

A giddy smile formed, and Sara nodded.

“Why haven’t I read about it?” The media loved the Sherbrooke family. How had they missed that Sara Sherbrooke and Christopher Hall were engaged?

“
After our trip to Connecticut, we stopped at Martha’s Vineyard for a few days, and he asked me then. We haven’t told anyone except family yet.”

“
Congratulations. Can I see?”

The ring on Sara
’s hand was breathtaking. She couldn’t even imagine how many karats the thing was. Actually, in a way it reminded her of the ring Kevin had proposed with, although that one hadn’t been quite as large. Despite the beauty of Sara’s ring and the one Kevin had offered, she preferred Nate’s. She glanced down at her own hand. She hadn’t worn the engagement ring long, but her hand looked strange without it now.

“
It’s beautiful. I won’t tell anyone.” She released Sara’s hand.

“
I know. I trust you, Lauren. Congrats, yourself. Callie told me about your wedding next month.”

“
You and . . .” Charlie paused, her forehead creased as she thought. “Kevin, right? Callie thought you two weren’t that serious.”

“
Who’s Kevin? Callie said your fiancé’s name was Nate. Someone you grew up with.”

Obviously Callie talked about her with her family. But then again, Lauren sometimes did the same. Still, this time she wished her friend had kept her mouth closed.

“Kevin asked me, but I said no. And as of right now, I’m not marrying anyone. I canceled the wedding.” Or at least she planned to. She still needed to drop the news on Callie.

Three identical expressions of shock stared back at her.

Sara put down the tablet in her hands, a clear sign that thoughts of the baby shower were gone. “Why? Callie told me the whole story. It sounded as if you were meant for each other.”

“
When he asked me to marry him, he left out a few details, including that we’d have to move to Virginia if he makes the FBI’s HRT.”

“
What exactly is that?” Allison asked.

“
According to Nate, it’s the FBI equivalent to the military’s special forces,” Lauren answered. “Anyway, he made all these decisions before he asked me and now expects me to just go along with them. I can’t be with someone who calls all the shots without considering how it will affect me. He did it once before. I’m not letting him do it again.”

Sara slipped an arm around her shoulders.
“Men are idiots sometimes.”

“
I heard that.” Jake walked out onto the veranda, followed by his best friend and future brother-in-law Christopher.

“
It’s the truth,” Charlie added when Jake placed a kiss on her cheek.

“
If women were in charge, the world would run much smoother,” Allison said, adding her two cents to the discussion.

Christopher held up his hands in mock surrender.
“Jake, I think that’s our cue to leave.” He leaned toward Sara and kissed her. “Your brother says his golf game has improved. I’ll be back after I prove him wrong.”

Lauren watched with envy. Both couples exhibited utter love and happiness. Sure, they probably had disagreements. What couple didn
’t? But they loved each other. Worked together to keep their relationship on track. At least from where she sat, neither Jake nor Christopher called all the shots, and from what she knew of Sara and Charlie, they’d never let their partners make all the decisions. Was it too much to ask for the same thing with Nate?

“
Christopher’s in for a big surprise. Jake’s game really has improved,” Charlie said once the two men departed. “He hired some former PGA golfer to coach him.”

“
Couldn’t take losing to Christopher anymore?” Sara asked.

“
Nope. You know your brother.”

Sara laughed.
“At least they’re gone for now.” Her smile faded. “Are you sure about canceling the wedding? Maybe you can work things out. And moving might be fun. I worried about moving to California, but now I love it.”

“
Virginia is beautiful, very similar to Massachusetts, and Quantico isn’t that far from us,” Charlie added.

Lauren traced a path through the condensation on her water glass. The other women
’s concern touched her, but weren’t they supposed to be planning a baby shower? “It’s not only the move. He never once mentioned his plans to me. He assumed I’d just go along with them. That he knew best.” She took a sip of water, hoping the lump in her throat would disappear. “When we broke up after high school he did the same thing. He assumed life as a military wife would be too hard on me.”

“
On that one, I think he was thinking of how hard it would be on him, too. Trust me, I’ve seen it firsthand. It’s just as hard on the husbands and boyfriends when they get deployed as the woman they leave behind,” Charlie said.

As a former doctor in the Navy, Lauren trusted Charlie
’s insight, but that didn’t change the past. Before he left for Annapolis all those years ago, they could have discussed it. He could have shared his worries with her.

“
From what Callie told me about you two, it sounds like he’s the one. Okay, he left after high school. Everyone does stupid things when they’re eighteen. He came back to fix his mistake. And if he didn’t mention the possibility of a move, he probably just forgot about it. Or assumed you expected a move at some point. Doesn’t the FBI move agents all the time?”

Sara
’s words held at least some truth. Everyone did make mistakes at eighteen. Still, she couldn’t dismiss what he’d done when it came to their current situation. “According to Nate, they don’t move agents as much as you think. Regardless, when I gave him back the ring, I told him I needed time to think,” she said, finally able to get a word in. “He’s leaving on July 15th. So no matter what I decide, I need to cancel the wedding.”

“
Just one more thing, and I promise I won’t say anything else. I almost lost Christopher because I let something from my past influence me. Sometimes you need to let go of the past, to forget about it,” Sara said.

As promised, after Sara
’s final comment no one mentioned anything else about Lauren’s romantic problems. Instead, the four of them dove into preparations for an end-of-summer baby shower. Even with the conversation centered on perfect locations and color schemes for the shower, part of Lauren remained detached. Even before their conversation, she wondered how she should handle Nate. With him back in her life she felt complete again. Before he’d walked into her mom’s retirement party, she hadn’t realized just how much she’d missed him. The years had dulled the pain caused by his departure. And looking back, she could admit that over the years she had compared all the men she dated to him. No matter who they were or what they did, none had made her feel the same way Nathaniel Callahan did.

Even with all that, though, could she ignore his insistence on calling all the shots? She wanted a partner, not a guardian. If she married Nate, what kind of future would she have? Would he eventually try to control every aspect of their life? Some men were like that. They didn
’t allow their wives to make any decisions on their own. She didn’t think Nate would ever go that far, but what if this most recent action turned out to be just the beginning? She would never stand for behavior like that, and if they had children she didn’t want her children raised in that kind of environment.

***

How had his week gone down the crapper so fast? Monday he’d been on the top of the world. He’d been about to marry the one woman he’d always loved. Then HRT announced tryouts down in Quantico. Since he first applied for a position with the FBI, he’d wanted a spot on the Hostage Rescue Team.

Now just a day later, and he was stuck in traffic with his wedding called off and Lauren
expecting him to move out by the time she returned from Newport. Part of him said she’d come to her senses. That she would change her mind and still marry him. What if she didn’t, though? Deep down, in a place he avoided, he knew it was possible.

The car in front of him moved, and Nate took his foot off the brake. Why had he scheduled this last minute interview in Natick at four-thirty in the afternoon? Traffic on Route 9 sucked in the middle of the week, but on a Friday the nightmare only intensified. Nate made it to the traffic light just as it turned red.

“Won’t miss traffic like this when I move to Maine,” Joe said. In his fifties, Joe Perkins had been with the agency for twenty-five years and planned to retire in the fall. Since Nate had arrived in Boston, he’d acted as a mentor of sorts to him. “Heard I’m not the only one moving on. When do you leave?”

“
Next month.” Nate tapped his fingers against the steering wheel. There had to be a better way around this section of town. Next time he came through here he needed to find it.

“
Word of advice. Make sure your fiancée is on board with this. I spent fifteen years with the team, and I saw a lot of marriages end. Even those that looked rock solid from the outside. Heather and I did fine, but not all women can handle the stress.”

Nate tucked away Joe
’s words for later. He hadn’t considered how the day-to-day stress of the job would affect Lauren.

“
Would’ve had more kids if I stayed an agent in a field office rather than join the team. But after Nadine was born, Heather said she didn’t want to have any more children. In a lot of ways, she was a single parent and she couldn’t handle more than Jessie and Nadine.”

In the months they
’d worked together, Joe rarely divulged any information about his family. In fact before now, Nate hadn’t even known the name of Joe’s children. For him to do so now spoke volumes. From where he sat, it sounded as if Joe believed only single agents with no ties belonged with HRT.