Destiny (22 page)

“Thanks, but I need to do this on my own,” she said.

He nodded slowly, reminding himself he’d expected that answer. From the minute he’d seen Kelly and Tess through the window, he’d planned to walk in here and offer his support. He’d also figured she wouldn’t accept. “And I respect that. If you change your mind…”

“I won’t.”

He inclined his head in acceptance. It wasn’t easy when every instinct screamed at him to argue and force her to let him go with her.

But just because he was backing off now didn’t mean he’d let her just walk out of his life. Tomorrow, he assured himself. Tomorrow would be soon enough.

Time to move on to the next subject. “I spoke to Ethan a little while ago. He plans on driving to Jersey tomorrow to talk to Leah and her new husband.”

Kelly let out a groan. “What a nightmare my mother is.”

Nash agreed. He couldn’t imagine her torment, knowing her mother was willing to dig out her own daughter’s skeletons to get what she wanted.

“Don’t worry. Ethan’s more than up to the challenge. Hopefully Leah and her husband will care more about appearances in their social circle than they do about Tess. If we’re gambling correctly, Ethan will come back with signed custody papers tomorrow.”

“I hope you’re right.” Kelly’s smile was tight. “Thanks for letting me know. I heard my phone go off earlier, but I was at the school parking lot and let it go to voice mail. Maybe he called to fill me in.”

The small talk was killing him. But the dark circles under her eyes spoke to how much strain she’d been under. It didn’t help that she’d been single-handedly running Richard’s office. She’d sent a few new cases Nash’s way, but the bulk of the burden had been on her shoulders.

But tomorrow, the deposition and custody threat with Tess would hopefully be over. Then Kelly’s mind would be clear to could focus on what she wanted out of life.

He hoped like hell that something was still him. Because he wanted a life with her in it.

Sunny skies marked the day of the deposition. Kelly drove to Manhattan, planning to arrive an hour before she was scheduled to appear so she could talk to her attorney. She was determined to get through today and the only way she could face both Ryan and his wife was to put all the other problems and issues she was having out of her mind.

She couldn’t think about Ethan squaring off with her mother and her new husband over Tess. She couldn’t think about how scared Tess actually was. And she definitely couldn’t think about Nash.

As if she could think about anything else? He’d been so kind yesterday, so caring. Not only had he apologized but there was none of the residual anger she’d always sensed deep inside him. She’d been too overwhelmed with everything else in her life to let the conversation get any deeper, not with Tess just a few feet away.

Her cell phone rang and she answered on speaker. It was Annie calling to wish her luck and thankfully keep her mind busy as she drove.

The ride passed quickly, as it always did when you were heading toward something you were dreading. She’d planned to meet her lawyer at a Starbucks down the street from the law office where the deposition was being held.

She recognized him from Googling his name on the Internet. Mitchell Yale was a young-looking yet experienced family lawyer with dark brown eyes and a slightly receding hairline that did nothing to detract from his good looks. The right client would find him sexy with shoulders broad enough to cry on.

Not Kelly, who was still hung up on Nash Barron.

Her lawyer, who insisted she call him Mitch, reminded her to tell the truth, to answer questions succinctly and not embellish. Yes or no replies were best, and she should elaborate only if pushed. He further warned her not to engage in on-the-record conversations with Ryan or his soon-to-be ex-wife.

It sounded simple. Kelly knew from her years as a paralegal and the rapid pounding of her heart that the experience would be anything but.

She walked into the conference room, acutely aware of all the eyes on her. She’d chosen a simple black skirt, pale pink blouse, and pearls. Yes, she looked like the picture of innocence. No, she didn’t care what anyone thought of her. She just wanted this day over. That she had any impact on another couple’s divorce case made her feel both sick and ashamed. Two emotions she could not let show.

The seating arrangements at the large conference table were strategic. Doreen Hayward sat beside her attorney. Across from them was Ryan and his lawyer, and adding to the solemnity of the occasion, the court reporter was positioned at the far end of the table. Her time there passed in a blur. Kelly was dimly aware of Doreen’s resentful glare. She thought Ryan tried to get her attention, but as her attorney suggested, she focused on the lawyer asking her questions and nobody else.

It was as ugly as Kelly had imagined. Doreen Hayward’s attorney had dug into Kelly’s family situation, bringing up in his questioning the fact that her father died when she was young. He asked if she’d raised her sister and then basically insinuated that Kelly had been looking for a father figure when she’d worked as an escort and again when she’d gotten together with Ryan. Kelly pointed out that a onetime occasion didn’t make her an escort, but her attorney tapped her arm, reminding her not to engage.

In turn, Ryan’s attorney phrased his questions to imply that Kelly, a younger, broke woman had preyed on Ryan, a wealthy married man, who couldn’t resist her charms. More than once Kelly caught sight of Ryan arguing with his attorney over his tactics, but she refused to acknowledge what was going on.

All she needed to do was testify and leave. She’d managed to separate Kelly the paralegal from Kelly the witness. She didn’t know nor did she care about fault, no-fault, cause of action, or anything else. From a personal standpoint, this whole ordeal seemed to be about humiliating her, but she refused to succumb. The end result of today’s deposition had nothing to do with her and everything to do with how they divided up Ryan’s money. So she answered the questions and tried not to engage anyone in an argument. By the time it was over, Kelly was emotionally and physically drained, numb to any and all emotion, as she took the elevator downstairs and said good-bye to her attorney.

In the lobby, she turned to head for the parking lot where she’d left her car, when she heard her name being called and recognized Ryan’s voice.

Her stomach cramped, and though she wanted to keep walking, she’d never been a coward. She came today because she’d been subpoenaed, but she acknowledged that the day also provided closure. So she swung around to face Ryan in person for the first time in more than a year.

Nineteen

Kelly stared at the man she’d once loved, or thought
she had, looking at him in an objective way. He was a handsome man. Women turned to stare at him on the street and she couldn’t deny his charisma. The gray around his temples was new but only added to his good looks. She’d been intimate with him once, but now she felt like she was looking at a stranger.

“I am so sorry you had to go through that,” Ryan said, stepping toward her.

Wary, she held herself back, hoping he’d take the hint and give her personal space. “Thank you. I’m just glad it’s over.”

“How have you been?” he asked.

“I’m fine.” She deliberately glanced at her watch. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I really need to get going.”

“Please wait. I’d like to talk.”

Kelly frowned. “I can’t imagine what’s left to say.”

“Then let me tell you.” He smiled, one of his patented charming grins. “I’m sure you understood why I had to try and make the marriage work once Doreen told me she was pregnant, but it’s really over this time.”

She didn’t know whether to say she was sorry or to congratulate him, so she remained silent.

“You and I had something special,” he continued, in what she used to think of as his bedroom voice. “Kelly, you have to know I never stopped caring about you. And now that Doreen is out of the picture for good…” He trailed off, obviously assuming his meaning was clear.

Kelly shook her head in denial. “You went back to your wife,” she reminded him. “It’s been more than a year since you’ve seen me and we’ve only spoken once since you ended things!”

He reached out and touched her shoulder. “A long, painful year.” With his soulful, dark brown eyes, he pleaded with her to believe him.

There was a time when she’d have fallen into the trap, but she wasn’t the same girl she’d been when they’d first met, and he no longer drew her the way he once had. But even if she had still been attracted to him, she hoped she’d have learned her hard lessons and been strong enough to walk away.

The way she planned on walking now.

Kelly lifted his hand off her shoulder. “You made your choice and it wasn’t me. I’m sorry it didn’t work out for you, but I’ve moved on.”

And she had, she realized. She’d moved to a new town, she’d become part of a new family, and most important, she’d found a new man. A man she loved with all her heart, no qualifications and nobody else in the picture. A man she’d lost when she’d let fear of who she’d been take over. Even when Nash asked her to stay and talk after the family meeting, she’d run away.

But she wasn’t afraid anymore.

She wanted Nash—not Ryan—and she intended to get her man back or at least know she hadn’t let him go without a fight.

Ryan shook his head, denial in his posture and his determined expression. “You only think you’ve moved on because I gave you no choice. But things are different now. I’m free.
We’re
free to be together.”

Kelly stared at him. He wasn’t listening. He wasn’t hearing her. “I’m not free, Ryan.”

“There’s someone else?” He raised his voice, shock
rippling through him, as if he’d never considered the possibility.

“There is.” Kelly hoped that ended this discussion.

“You heard the lady, she’s taken.” Nash’s deep voice startled her. She was sure she had to be dreaming.

But when he stepped forward and slipped an arm around her waist, she knew she was fully awake.

She looked up at his handsome face. “You’re here. In New York.” She shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

Nash never broke eye contact, letting her look straight into his heart. He wanted her to see him. To know him. To believe in him.

“You said you didn’t need anything during the deposition, that you could handle it alone.” He paused. “But you didn’t say anything about not wanting me to be here for you afterward.”

“You came,” she murmured, the pleasure in her tone warming him. “How did you know where I’d be?”

“I had to drag the information out of Ethan,” he admitted. And his brother had only parted with the address when he fully understood Nash’s intentions.

“Excuse me for interrupting,” the other man said, sarcasm making his annoyance clear. “But who are you?”

“Ryan Hayward, meet Nash Barron. Ryan, this is Nash.”

“Her
someone else
,” Nash said pointedly.

Ryan narrowed his gaze and glared at Nash. “Kelly’s not the kind of woman you can stake a claim on. She’s independent and smart.” He squared his shoulders, ready to take Nash on, so certain he knew Kelly best.

Nash bristled at the assumption. “I agree. Kelly is smart. Too smart to wait around for you to decide things didn’t work with your wife, so now she’s good enough to take back.”

Kelly stiffened against him. “Kelly can speak for herself,” she said, obviously feeling the need to at least defend herself.

Ryan scowled. “This man doesn’t know the first thing about us or what we had.” His words were bluster. His shoulders dropped and he’d lost his defensive stance.

Nash almost felt sorry for the man.

“Actually, Nash knows everything about me.”

Those words thrilled him beyond reason. “What I know is that you had her, you lost her, and she’s mine now. Is that good enough to convince you?” He wanted this man gone so he could kiss the woman he loved.

And he did love her. Her independence, her ability to stand up for herself and her sister, to take on whatever life threw her way and succeed.

Ryan finally lowered his head. “It’s enough that she’s not denying a word you say.” He raised his gaze and looked at Kelly. “I wish you well,” he said at last.

“I wish you well, too.”

Ryan extended his hand to Nash. “Do a better job taking care of her than I did.”

Nash hesitated but knew he could afford to be magnanimous and clasped the other man’s hand.

Seconds later he was gone.

Kelly pulled out of Nash’s hold and turned to face him, hands on her hips, her pink-glazed lips turned downward.

Uh-oh. “Should I apologize for acting all caveman?” he asked.

“Ryan was right, you know. I’m not the kind of woman you can stake a claim on,” she informed him.

Nash’s heart skipped a beat. He felt sure he stopped breathing.

He’d had been waiting downstairs in the lobby for more than an hour. When the man he’d assumed was Ryan Hayward called Kelly’s name, Nash wanted to intercede. He wanted to get to Kelly first, make his case. Then he remembered his resolution. He wouldn’t judge and he wouldn’t take control.

If Kelly wanted that prick, Nash would have had to let her go. But her body language had informed him she wanted nothing to do with Hayward, freeing him to join in the conversation. He was just glad Kelly had given him such a good opening.

But now she wasn’t happy. “Are you telling me that was all an act to get rid of him?” Fear rippled through Nash, worse than anything he’d felt in the past and that was saying something.

“I’m telling you no man can claim me unless I want him to.” She smiled and wound her arms around his neck, pressing her body intimately close to his. “And Nash? I want you to claim me.”

Pure sweet relief rushed through him as he lifted her off her feet and spun her around before setting her back down and dipping his head for a kiss.

“Let’s go.” He tugged on her hand.

“Where? My car’s in the parking garage around the corner.”

“And I booked us a hotel room at the London NYC.”

Her eyes opened wide in surprise.

“Before you say no, I wanted to make it up to you for missing the trip to the bed-and-breakfast. Not to mention I thought you’d need to relax, not drive home today. But if you don’t want to go—”

“Stop! Yes! Of course I want to go. I’m still getting over the fact that you came all the way here. For me.”

He cupped her face in his hand. “Honey, I’m always going to be where you are. Now can we please go to the hotel? We can talk about anything you want as long as we’re alone.” He’d had enough of this sterile lobby to last him a lifetime.

And a lifetime was exactly how long he wanted to be with Kelly.

Nash had thought of everything. Kelly stepped into
a hotel suite on a high floor with a view that overlooked the bustling city below. Chilled champagne sat on the counter beside the large king-sized bed.

Her head still reeling with the events of the day, she lay down on the bed and stretched out, letting her body melt into the deliciously comfortable mattress. “This is heaven,” she murmured.

“I hope it’s going to get even better.” Nash sat down beside her, his eyes warm and filled with emotion. “I really wasn’t sure how you’d react to seeing me today.”

“I’m glad you took the risk.” She pushed herself back into the pillows. “Talk to me,” she said, needing to understand what changed for him, what brought him here.

He lay down beside her, sharing the large bed. It felt so good to be here with him, so right. And though she didn’t know what he was thinking regarding the future, she loved him enough to take it as slowly as he needed to.

“It’s hard to look at yourself and discover everything you believed was a lie,” he finally said.

She narrowed her gaze and waited for him to continue.

“I thought I was an amazing brother to Dare and a great husband to Annie. Ethan was the jerk and I was the good guy. When I realized everyone else knew your secrets before me, it was easier to get angry at you than to look at the reasons why the people I loved couldn’t come to me.” His expression darkened, disappointment and pain radiating from him in waves.

“Nobody’s perfect. Not even you.”

He managed a laugh, and her heart filled with love as she realized how difficult the last few weeks had been for him too.

“Kelly, did you hear what I just said?” He levered beside her, propping himself up.

She had. He’d been talking about why the people he
loved
couldn’t come to him. He’d put her in that category, but she’d let her mind skip over it, too afraid to believe he could really mean it.

“Say it again,” she said, looking into his eyes.

“I love you. And I will never again be a pompous jerk who judges you first and asks questions later.”

The lump in her throat was so big she could barely speak. “Even after I saw you in the lobby, even after we walked into this room, I couldn’t let myself believe,” she whispered.

“You can,” he assured her, his voice gruff. “Because I
love
you.”

She smiled wide. “I like the sound of that. And I love you too. So much it hurts.” She threaded her fingers through his hair and touched her forehead to his.

The intimate gesture filled Nash with a contentment and happiness he’d never known before. He sealed his lips over hers and kissed her like he hadn’t seen her in a century, relearning the deep recesses of her mouth, licking her lips, tasting her over and over again.

She moaned and he rolled her on top of him, never breaking the connection between them. She straddled him, her hips aligning with his, and something hard pressed into his thigh.

“Wait,” he said, unable to believe he’d forgotten something so important.

“Haven’t we waited long enough?” She wriggled her hips against his, obviously frustrated by their clothing.

“One thing first.” He rolled her over so he could slip his hand into his front pants pocket. “I wish I’d come back to you sooner, but I wanted to give you space to deal with everything that was going on in your life. Your mother, this deposition… And during that time, I realized I was holding back how I felt. The same way you withheld the past from me. Because I was going through too much for you to burden me with.”

Kelly nodded, her eyes glazed and happy.

He loved seeing her happy. “The time apart also gave me a chance to prove to you that not only did I want to change but that I actually could. I want you to be able to come to me with anything and know I’m not going anywhere, no matter what you have to say.”

“You never had to prove anything to me.”

He shook his head. “Maybe I needed to prove it to myself then. Anyway…” He opened his hand and revealed a ring he’d bought this morning as soon as he’d reached Manhattan. “Think you can bring yourself to marry me and spend the rest of your life with an arrogant jerk who occasionally sees the world in all black and white?”

“Yes. Yes. Yes!” She rained kisses over his lips and face, her reaction everything he could have hoped for and more.

He slipped the Tiffany setting, a traditional white gold band with a solitary diamond, on the third finger of her right hand. Only then did he pull her back on top of him where she belonged.

And later, when they were both undressed and he slid back inside her, he knew he’d found the one thing he’d been looking for his whole life.

In Kelly, Nash found home.

The Barron family gathered in Ethan’s family room
for a celebration. A joint party in honor of Nash and Kelly’s engagement and Ethan’s success in dealing with Leah Moss and her new husband.

Dare Barron enjoyed the celebration, but he’d needed some breathing room and sat down on the sofa to think and reflect. Their family was amazing, he thought. Especially in light of their shared history, some recent, some old. Watching them laugh and share jokes, nobody would know that the men in the Barron family had recently been estranged. Or that before three months ago, no one had even known Tess existed. Or even that Faith and Kelly were recent additions.

As a unit, the people in this room were closer than any families Dare had encountered. They impressed him, these people in his life, the things they’d lived through and overcome. There were times he was damned sure he didn’t deserve them. Especially not Nash, who’d done more for Dare than any parent, yet who’d blamed himself for Dare’s mistakes.

Dare shook his head to dispel those damned ghosts from the past. Most days he could keep them in the shadows where they belonged. Sometimes they came back to haunt him when he least expected it. Since having it all recently resurrected, Dare had begun having nightmares about the night Stuart Rossman died.