If I Trust You (If You Come Back To Me #4) (19 page)

Nick was heartened to see Deidre hesitate and glance back at him.

“Your mother has already fed me. I’ll wait for you here,” he said, damning the crowd of people and surrounding festivities, but glad to see Deidre’s hand entwined with her mother’s.

“Okay,” Deidre replied, granting him that small smile that always pierced straight through him to someplace deep.

He inhaled slowly and reminded himself to be patient. This was an important night in Deidre’s life, and he couldn’t be selfish and whisk her aside to assure himself that was truly forgiveness he saw shining in her lovely eyes.

Even if that’s precisely what he wanted to do.

* * *

A half an hour later, Deidre stood next to Nick by the Christmas tree. He’d asked her if she’d wanted to sit down when she’d returned from eating, but Deidre had shaken her head. Her heart felt full. She was content just to stand next to Nick, watching her entire family as they chatted and joked and ate cake while Christmas music played in the background. She was happy to see that Ryan Itani seemed comfortable enough, chatting with Eric, Brendan and Colleen. Even Nick and he had spoken for a spell about their common experience as ex–air force pilots.

She stepped closer to the silent, somber man who stood next to her, her shoulder brushing against his upper arm. Her heart hitched when he put his arm around her waist.

They looked at one another, and it was as if they shared a mutual, unspoken message.

Later.

Following Kavanaugh Christmas tradition, Brendan, Jenny and Riley were allowed to open one gift beneath the tree. Much to the children’s regret—perhaps Riley’s most of all—the rest of the gifts would have to wait until Christmas Day.

“May I have everyone’s attention please?” Eric Reyes called once they’d cleaned up the discarded wrapping paper. He walked into the room carrying a bottle of champagne. Colleen was behind him with a tray of flutes. Brendan and Jenny followed, Jenny holding a plate of what looked like chocolate truffles and Brendan with a towel comically draped over his forearm like a waiter. Colleen and Eric set down their loads.

“The four of us have an announcement we’d like to make,” Eric said, putting his arm around Colleen. Jenny giggled in irrepressible excitement. Deidre glanced up at Nick in bewilderment and dawning pleasure.

“Brendan, do you want to start?” Eric asked the twelve-year-old boy.

Brendan nodded, taking a deep breath. “Eric asked Jenny and I for permission for Mom’s hand
and
to become our father.”

“And we said yes!” Jenny piped up excitedly.

“And then he remembered to ask me about the whole thing, and I said yes, too,” Colleen added, looking at Eric with laughter and profound love in her eyes. “So I guess it’s official all around. We’re going to become a family!”

An uproar ensued. Everyone converged on the couple to offer their congratulations. Nick and Deidre accepted a glass of champagne and joined in a toast. The living room was filled with Christmas music and happy chatter. From the periphery of her vision, Deidre noticed Marc and Mari share a meaningful smile. Mari set her champagne glass on the coffee table.

“Wait...” Deidre said slowly. “Marc and Mari—you two said you had something you wanted to announce here tonight, as well. What is it?”

Mari laughed and shook her head. “It’ll wait for another time.”

Colleen stared at Mari’s discarded champagne flute. “Mari, are you pregnant again?” she blurted out, her blue-green eyes wide.

Ryan leaned forward to look at his sister, his brow creased. “What’s this? You’re going to have a baby?” he asked.

Laughter escaped Mari’s throat as she stared at Colleen and Ryan in amazement.

“Colleen, we didn’t want to take the shine off yours and Eric’s amazing news—”

“So you
are
pregnant?” Deidre demanded.

Mari glanced from expectant face to expectant face and finally looked at her husband. Marc just shrugged.

“Well...yes,” Mari said.

Another uproar ensued. After everyone had gotten over their exclamations and congratulations, they basked in the glow of their good fortune. Brigit put her arm around Deidre, so that she was bracketed by her mother on one side and Nick on the other.

“This has to be the most wonderful Christmas ever. All this wonderful news—and you’re
here,
Deidre, hearing it. Maybe that’s the most wonderful news of all,” Brigit said quietly to Deidre, her heart in her eyes.

Deidre stepped back and located a small, dark red foil package from beneath the tree. She handed it to Brigit.

“What’s this?” Brigit asked. “The adults don’t open gifts until tomorrow, you know that.”

“I have a lot of making up to do in the gift-giving department for a lot of Christmases, so I didn’t think it could wait a night longer. Merry Christmas, Mom. It’s from Lincoln. And Nick and I.”

Nick glanced at her in surprise. Deidre smiled. Tears brimmed in Brigit’s blue eyes as she unwrapped the package with trembling fingers. Everyone in the room paused to watch. Brigit gasped when she withdrew the exquisite diamond brooch of the horse in full gallop.

“Oh...it’s Lily DuBois’s brooch of Gallant Hunter,” Brigit cried, tears spilling down her cheek.

Deidre started in surprise. “You recognize it?”

Brigit nodded, her throat convulsing with emotion. “You forget, I grew up with Lincoln. I remember when Gallant Hunter was inducted into the Racing Hall of Fame. I saw Lily wearing this brooch on several occasions. Oh, but you should have it, Deidre. It belonged to your grandmother,” Brigit insisted.

Deidre grabbed her mother’s wrist when she tried to hand it back to her. She folded Brigit’s hand over the brooch. “No. I want you to have it. Lincoln would have wanted that. I just know it.”

“I agree completely,” Nick said.

Deidre took the brooch and pinned it to her mother’s dress, where it sparkled brilliantly next to the dark green fabric. “There. Perfect.”

Brigit hugged her with feeling. Deidre closed her eyes and inhaled the familiar scent of her mother’s perfume. She’d wondered and worried what the wise choice was in regard to her mother. Because of the feeling that swelled in her at that moment, Deidre knew without a doubt that forgiveness had been the supremely right thing.

When mother and daughter broke from their hug, Deidre kept her arm around Brigit’s waist and put the other around Nick. He leaned down and spoke into her ear, his deep, gruff voice causing a shiver of pleasure to go through her.

“You’re something else, do you know that?”

She looked up at him and met his stare. “I was so glad to see you when I walked in,” she whispered. “You never did tell me how you ended up here tonight.”

Nick nodded in the direction of her mother and spoke very quietly. “Brigit and I ran into each other getting coffee at Celino’s this morning. When she heard you’d left town, I think she took pity on me. Maybe she thought we could suffer together instead of apart, knowing you’d likely be gone on Christmas Eve.”

Deidre took in his features, cherishing every one. Then she swept her gaze across her family.

She saw Liam nuzzle Natalie’s cheek until she turned to face him. “Merry Christmas, wife,” Deidre heard him murmur before he kissed Natalie.

Marc took the opportunity of the lull in the conversation to kiss Mari with feeling. At the same moment, Eric dipped his head down to his new fiancée’s upturned face.

“There’s mistletoe back there on the chandelier,” Brigit said confidentially to Deidre and Nick, nodding a few feet behind them. “It seems to have very good effect, even from a distance.” Brigit gave them a droll smile and left the room.

Deidre was left looking up at Nick.

“Merry Christmas,” she whispered before she went up on her toes and touched her mouth to his, praying he understood the volumes of unspoken words that accompanied her kiss.

Epilogue

W
hen they left that night, Nick convinced Deidre to leave her car at her mother’s since they’d return there the following morning for Christmas Day. The tension between them mounted as they drove through a picturesque Harbor Town. The little community might have been placed under a spell. It was silent and seemed to sparkle with Christmas magic.

Of course that special gleam that gilded the entire world might have been projected by Deidre herself, she felt so happy.

“Aren’t we going to Cedar Cottage?” Deidre asked when Nick turned onto Main Street instead of continuing on Travertine Drive.

“No. I thought we’d go to the hotel, if you don’t mind. There’s something there I need to get. The only problem is,” he said as he turned into the Starling Hotel parking lot, “you might have to join me in a little cloak-and-dagger routine to avoid the reporters that have been gathering here. They keep thinking I’ll spill the truth about the will if they pounce on me hard enough. We’ll take the stairs up to my suite.”

While they were hurrying down the hallway a minute later, Nick spied a reporter standing in the lobby in the distance, talking on his cell phone. He rapidly put his back to the wall and Deidre followed his example. She stifled some giggles as they cautiously made their way to the doorway leading to the back stairs.

“Shhh,” Nick hushed, but he was grinning, too.

They ducked into Nick’s suite on the fifth floor, both of them breathless with laughter and the exertion of climbing the stairs. Deidre gazed around the large, luxurious suite and found the bathroom door.

“I’m just going to pop in here and freshen up a little,” she said, laughter still lingering around her mouth.

When she came out a few minutes later, Nick was standing behind the granite wet bar.

“Champagne?” she asked, her eyes going wide.

“Yeah. I thought it was appropriate,” Nick told her, a small smile shaping his mouth. His longish bangs had fallen on his forehead as he uncorked the bottle. He really was the most handsome man she’d ever seen. How she could have ever considered him cold and heartless was beyond her.

She smiled as he came around the bar and handed her a flute of champagne.

“Did you mean champagne was appropriate because it’s Christmas Eve?” she asked.

He shook his head, holding her stare. He waved her over to a seating area where they both sat on a plush couch.

“What’s the appropriate occasion then?” Deidre asked.

Nick shrugged and her gaze dropped over his broad shoulders. He looked good enough to eat wearing a well-cut black suit, crisp white dress shirt and a silver-gray tie that almost matched the color of his eyes.

“For a couple of things, I guess.”

“Such as?” Deidre prompted.

“First, to say I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry, too, Nick.”

“I was too amazed and pissed off about the idea of John Kellerman coming here to sabotage everything, I couldn’t even think straight. I missed the opportunity to set things right with you the other night.”

“I couldn’t think either,” she said. She studied the bubbling fluid in the flute, too ashamed to meet his eyes. “I was too busy panicking. I was more than mad. I was scared. I was scared of what it meant if
you
—the person who was closest to Lincoln—doubted the soundness of his mind when he’d convinced himself I was his daughter.”

“Sometimes the people who are closest have the most trouble seeing the truth about the other,” he murmured.

“I was afraid of other things,” she said quietly. “I was scared you’d been keeping secrets from me...manipulating me.”

He put his arm around her and stroked the skin on her shoulder just next to her dress. She suppressed a shiver of pleasure at his touch.

“I thought I told you never to be scared when it comes to me,” he said.

She gave a small smile. “I guess it temporarily slipped my mind. Once I got to Chicago and I started to see things more clearly, I realized you were hardly acting like a person who was using me. Just the opposite, in fact.”

He laughed, low and rough. “If I had been smart, I would have known there was one thing I could have told you that day at Cedar Cottage that would have reassured you that I wasn’t plotting against you.”

“What’s that?”

“That I’ve fallen in love with you.”

Deidre froze.

“You...you have?”

“I think I’m concussed I fell so hard,” he said dryly under his breath.

He sounded so starkly earnest, Deidre couldn’t help but smile.

“So the thing of it is, it would be pretty stupid of me to take you to court or hassle you or do anything that wasn’t in the service of your complete happiness, wouldn’t it?” he murmured. Her breath stuck in her lungs when he leaned forward and kissed her with warm, firm lips. “I only want you to be happy, Deidre. Please believe me.”

“I do,” she whispered.

“I know the fact that we’re Lincoln’s coheirs has muddied up the waters. I know people like Nick Kellerman are going to raise their eyebrows and hiss about our relationship. But I don’t care. Lincoln was wise to split things between us fifty-fifty.”

“I still don’t want to run DuBois Enterprises, Nick. That’s your job. Lincoln knew no one could do it better than you. He trusted you, and so do I.”

“You still have half of the controlling interest. That’s never going to change. If you ever decide to take the helm with me at DuBois, I’ll be more than happy to share. You can change your mind whenever you like—our marriage won’t change that.”

She smiled and kissed him again fervently.

“There’s something else,” Nick said quietly next to her lips. He withdrew his arm from around her and took her champagne glass, setting it on the table beside him and leaning back on the couch. Deidre met his stare.

“I know being Lincoln’s daughter meant the world to you,” Nick said. “But the fact of the matter is, I don’t care whose daughter you are. I just want you to be my wife. Marry me, Deidre.”

She felt him place something in her hand. She stared in numb disbelief at the signature light blue Tiffany jewelry box. Her hand shook as she opened it. Teardrops skittered down her cheek when she saw the stunning pavé ring with the sparkling large diamond set in the middle.

She looked at Nick and saw the question lingering in his eyes.

“Yes,” she whispered emphatically.

His mouth tilted in a smile. He reached for the box and removed the ring.

“It fits perfectly,” she said when he slid it on her finger a moment later.

“I got lucky. I bought it in San Francisco while I was there. I’ve been carrying it around, waiting for the best time to give it to you.”

“You have?” Deidre asked in amazement. She thought of his intense lovemaking when he’d returned home early from San Francisco. He’d known...even then.

“I kicked myself numb after what happened with John Kellerman for not giving it to you sooner. Then everything went to hell, and you left town, and I wondered if I’d lost the chance.”

“But you didn’t. I love you, Nick,” she said feelingly before she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. A moment later, they separated, both of them slightly breathless. Nick grinned at her unabashedly.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” she asked, laughing because so much happiness was inside her that it was brimming over. “Won’t everyone at DuBois think it’s foolish of us to mix business and romance?”

“Maybe,” he said shrugging. “People will hear the news of our engagement and assume you turned my head. Once they catch a glimpse of you, they’ll know why, and shut up after a spell.”

Deidre gave him a repressive glance.

“It’s true. I told you before—I’m a man, not a job. But there’s no reason whatsoever our getting married has to affect the running or prosperity of DuBois Enterprises. Lincoln always kept DuBois a private business. It was his dream to make it a family-run one. Now his dream will come true. I’ve never been surer of anything in my life,” he said quietly. “You?”

“I feel the same way,” she said in a whisper, every trace of her doubt vanished.

Nick picked up their champagne glasses and handed one to her.

“Let’s make a toast. To Lincoln.”

“To Lincoln,” she murmured. She tapped her flute to his and they both drank.

“I’m beginning to realize you were right about Linc. At first, I thought he was mad for mentioning you and me in that letter—for suggesting that two people who were virtual strangers might share the happiness that wasn’t meant to be between your mother and him.”

“And now?” Deidre asked quietly as he removed her flute from her hand and set it back on the table. He took her into his arms and kissed her damp cheeks. Deidre lifted her head and their mouths brushed together.

“Now I think he might have been the wisest man on the face of the earth for throwing us together.”

Her blissful laughter was cut off beneath Nick’s all-consuming kiss.

* * * * *