advice.
Would she be as reluctant to have children if money wasn’t an issue? Bella had no clear answer. On the day she’d turned fifteen and had to spend her birthday in the emergency room because her two youngest siblings had stuck M&M’S up their noses on her watch, she’d decided she never wanted the responsibility of motherhood. Her opinion didn’t change through college or the next few years of teaching when she’d moved away from the farm, although she continued to lend her family what support she could by sending money home. But it was never enough.
The emotions stirred up by her pregnancy had called into question a decade of wanting nothing but her freedom. She’d been plagued by doubts. Questioned her choices. But after Drew’s birth, she’d decided that she’d been a victim of pregnancy hormones. Her heart continued to hurt at the absence of Drew from her life, but she knew he was part of a loving family that had his best interests at heart.
Only today she’d discovered that he might have a father who loved him dearly, but the woman who was supposed to be his mother had turned her back on him. Disgust rose at Victoria’s actions. If Bella had suspected how things would turn out, she never would have agreed to carry Drew for Blake and his wife.
So what was Bella’s responsibility to the child now? With Victoria out of the picture, Bella could be a part of Drew’s life. Was that what she wanted? To be half in his life, always there, but never truly belonging? Blake had wanted her in his son’s life before. But how long would it last? What happened when he remarried? Surely his next wife wouldn’t want her around any more than his last one had.
There were no easy answers.
“So you’re going to do it.” Deidre shook her head as she came back into the room.
“I have to.” Bella wished her friend would understand.
“You’re going to miss a fabulous summer here. A friend of my brother works the door at that new club everyone has been talking about. He said he can get us in whenever we want.”
Disappointment stirred. The reason she’d stayed in New York City was so she could enjoy being young and not have to be responsible for anyone but herself. Last summer she’d been pregnant, so this year she’d been looking forward to dancing the night away at the clubs. Sleeping late. Reading in the park. Being Drew’s nanny meant she wouldn’t get to do any of that.
But she’d have a week in the Caribbean to look forward to. And she had to help her sister.
“That club sounds like it’s going to be so much fun. I wish I could be here to enjoy it with you.”
“Then tell Blake to forget it. You don’t have to make everyone around you happy all the time.”
“I know that.”
“But you never put yourself first. Does your family even appreciate all the things you do for them?”
Bella’s spine stiffened. “They aren’t taking advantage of me.” This wasn’t the first time Deidre had criticized her for helping her family. Being an only child, she didn’t understand why Bella couldn’t ignore that her family needed her help. She might feel anxious about working for Blake this summer, but she was willing to do it for Katie. “Look, if I can help my sister and go to the British Virgin Islands later this year, it will be worth spending a couple months as Drew’s nanny.”
Deidre stepped forward, her expression contrite. “I’m sorry if I made you feel bad. You know what you’re doing. Let’s go out tonight. You can borrow my new Michelle Mason dress. We’ll celebrate the end of the school year and three months of freedom.”
“Thanks,” Bella said, grateful to have what she’d always wanted.
Freedom to do whatever she wanted with her time. Freedom to live where she was most content. Freedom to spend money on a fabulous vacation without guilt.
So, with all that freedom to revel in, why did she feel as if something was missing?
* * *
In the quiet Upper East Side apartment, Blake thanked his doorman and hung up the phone, his spirits lightening. Once he put Drew to bed, his mood always dipped. In the days before his son’s arrival, he’d discovered just how much he hated being alone. Most nights Vicky had been at the theater preparing for her off-Broadway debut. The part had been small, but she’d been thrilled. Blake had indulged her, knowing his wife needed a diversion. Waiting to become parents had been hard on both of them.
Or so he’d thought.
It was his nature to be focused and driven. Setting goals and achieving them had made him wildly successful in his business. He’d applied the same principles to his personal life: first finding the perfect woman to marry, and then starting a family with her.
He’d taken Vicky at her word when she told him she wanted children someday. Two months after their divorce was final, he wasn’t sure if she’d really wanted to be a mother before being an actress came along and got in the way, or if she’d told him what he wanted to hear so that he’d marry her.
Either way, the results were the same. He and Drew were alone—the same way Blake and his father had been in the ten years following his mother’s return to Paris—and Blake had no intention of letting his son grow up without a mother who loved him.
The doorbell chimed, startling Blake out of his reverie. He glanced at his watch as he headed for the front door. Ten-thirty was late for his sister to be out. But when he opened the door, he saw it wasn’t Jeanne.
Rocking her weight from one black stiletto sandal to another, Bella looked like a kid caught midprank. But she wasn’t a kid. Nor was she the guileless Iowa farm girl she’d been last summer. In the nine months since he’d last seen her, New York City had transformed her into a sophisticated woman who looked at ease in a one-shoulder black minidress that showed off miles of toned leg and bared slender arms adorned with eight inches’ worth of jangling bracelets.
Her inability to meet his gaze gave him hope that the woman he’d befriended wasn’t gone, only hiding beneath her expensive wardrobe. She’d done something with brown eye shadow to make her large, pale blue eyes dominate her face. Not even the bright red she’d applied to her lips could eclipse their haunting beauty. But the stark color did emphasize her mouth’s downward cant. The urge to smear her perfect lipstick with hot, demanding kisses demonstrated that his reaction to her this afternoon hadn’t been a fluke.
Damn this sudden attraction.
He didn’t want to be distracted from his important mission by a fleeting, if forceful, craving to take her to bed. He had to keep the focus on Bella and Drew’s relationship. She needed to become so attached to Drew that she couldn’t imagine not being a part of his life. That would be jeopardized if Blake got physically involved with her.
He stepped back. The move wasn’t an invitation for her to enter, but a retreat from the way she affected him.
“Come in,” he offered, covering his lapse of control.
“I can’t stay long. I’m meeting friends.” She glanced around as she took three steps into the foyer and stopped.
Blake shut the door, trapping them together in the foyer’s dimness. Intimacy crowded them as the silence lengthened.
A year ago they’d been friends. He’d thought her one of the kindest, warmest people he’d ever met. She was everything he imagined the perfect mother to be. Gentle, but resolute. A natural caretaker with a loving heart. Dedicated to her family.
His heartbeat quickened as images of her in the apartment rushed through his mind. The evening she came over for dinner to celebrate her agreeing to act as their surrogate. The afternoon she’d perched on the edge of a chair in the living room while they awaited the results of her pregnancy test. Her, cranky and uncomfortable the morning before she gave birth, four days past her due date and annoyed with him for being so positive despite the extended wait.
Thinking about that day made his heart clench. Twenty-four