Outside, the dark pressed against the windows, but the light in the room kept it at bay. Wes had a sip of coffee, more to take a moment to gather his thoughts than for anything else. He was at home in any situation, yet here and now, he felt a little off balance. It had started with his first look at Belle after five long years. Then seeing Caroline had just pushed him over the edge. He really hadn’t taken in yet just how completely his life had been forever altered. All he knew for sure was that things were different now. And he had to forge a path through uncharted territory.
When he set the mug back on the table, he looked into her eyes and asked, “Did you tell Caroline who I am?”
She bit at her bottom lip. “No.”
“Good.”
“What?” Clearly surprised, she stared at him, questions in her eyes.
“I want her to get to know me before we spring it on her,” Wes said. He’d had some time to think about this, during his long day of waiting, and though he wanted nothing more than to go upstairs and claim his daughter, it wasn’t the smart plan. He wanted Caroline to get used to him, to come to like him before she found out he was her father.
“Okay,” she said. “That makes sense, I guess.”
She looked relieved and Wes spoke up fast to end whatever delusion she was playing out in her head. “Don’t take this to mean I might change my mind about all of this. I’m not going anywhere. Caroline is my daughter, Belle. And I want her to know that. I’m going to be a part of her life, whether you like the idea or not.”
Irritation flashed on her features briefly, then faded as she took a gulp of her coffee and set the mug down again. “I understand. But you have to understand something, too, Wes. I won’t let Caroline be hurt.”
Insult slapped at him. What was he, a monster? He wasn’t looking to cause Caroline pain, for God’s sake. He was her father and he wanted her to know that. “I’m not going to hurt her.”
“Not intentionally. I know that,” she said quickly. “But she’s a little girl. She doesn’t know how to guard her heart or to keep from becoming attached. If she gets used to having you around, having you be a part of her world, and then you back off, it will hurt her.”
He was used to responsibility, but suddenly that feeling inched up several notches. Wes couldn’t have a child and ignore her. But at the same time, he was about to break every rule he’d ever had about getting involved with someone. There was danger inherent in caring about anyone, and he knew it. But she was his daughter, and that single fact trumped everything else.
“I’m here because I want to be,” he said, then tipped his head to one side and stared at her. “I’m not dropping in to get a look at her before I disappear. Yes, I have an important product launch coming up and I’ll have to return to Texas, but I plan on being a permanent part of Caroline’s life, which you don’t seem to understand. It’s interesting to me, though, that suddenly I’m the one defending myself when it’s you who has all the explaining to do.”
“I didn’t mean that as an attack on your motives,” she said quietly. “I just want to make sure you understand exactly what’s going to happen here. Once Caroline gives her heart, it’s gone forever. You’ll hold it and you could crush it without meaning to.”
“You’re still assuming I’m just passing through.”
“No, I’m not.” She laughed shortly, but it was a painful sound. “I know you well enough to know that arguing with you is like trying to talk a wall into falling down on its own. Pointless.”
He nodded, though the analogy, correct or not, bothered him more than a little. Was he really so implacable all the damn time? “Then we understand each other.”
“We do.”
“So,” he said, with another sip of coffee he really didn’t want. “Tell me.”
“I’m not sure where to start.”
“How about the beginning?” Wes set the coffee down and folded his arms across his chest as he leaned back in his chair. “If you have family money, why the hell did you come to work for me?”
“Rich people can’t have jobs?” Offended, she narrowed her eyes on him. “You have money, but you go into the office four days a week. Even when you’re at home in Royal, you spend most of your free time on the phone with PR or marketing or whatever. That’s okay?”
He squirmed a little in his chair. Maybe she had a point, but he wouldn’t concede that easily. “It’s my company.”
She shook her head. “That’s not the only reason. You’re rich. You could hire someone to run the company and you know it. But you enjoy your job. Well, so did I.”
Hard to argue with the truth. “Okay, I give you that.”
“Thank you so much,” she muttered.
“But why did you lie to get the job? Why use a fake name?” He cupped his hands around the steaming mug of coffee and watched her.
“Because I wanted to make it on my own.” She sighed and sat back, idly spinning the cup in front of her in slow circles. “Being a Graystone always meant that I had roads paved for me. My parents liked to help my brothers and I along the way until finally, I wanted to get out from under my own name. Prove myself, I guess.”
“To who?”
She looked at him. “Me.”
He could understand and even admire that, Wes realized. Too many people in her position enjoyed using the power of their names to get what they wanted whenever they wanted it. Hell, he saw it all the time in business—even in Royal, where the town’s matriarchs ruled on the strength of tradition and their family’s legacies. The admiration he felt for her irritated hell out of him, because he didn’t want to like anything about her.
She’d lied to him for years. Hidden his child from him deliberately. So he preferred to hold onto the anger simmering quietly in the pit of his stomach. Though he was willing to cut her a break on how she’d gotten a job at his company, there was no excuse for not telling him she was pregnant.
Holding onto the outrage, he demanded, “When you quit your job and left Texas, you didn’t bother to tell me you were pregnant. Why?”
“You know why, Wes,” she said, shaking her head slowly. “We had that what if conversation a few weeks before I found out. Remember?”
“Vaguely.” He seemed to recall that one night she’d talked about the future—what they each wanted. She’d talked about kids. Family.
“You do remember,” she said softly, gaze on his face. “We were in bed, talking, and you told me that I shouldn’t start getting any idea about there being anything permanent between us.”
He scowled as that night and the conversation drifted back into his mind.
“You said you weren’t interested in getting married,” she said, “had no intention of ever being a father, and if that’s what I was looking for, I should just leave.”
It wasn’t easy hearing his own words thrown back at him, especially when they sounded so damn cold. Now that she’d brought it all up again, he remembered lying in the dark, Belle curled against his side, her breath brushing his skin as she wove fantasies he hadn’t wanted to hear about.
He scraped one hand across his face but couldn’t argue with the past. Couldn’t pretend now that he hadn’t meant every word of it. But still, she should have said something.
“So you’re saying it’s my fault you said nothing.”
“No, but you can see why I didn’t rush to confess my pregnancy to a man who’d already told me he had no interest in being a father.” She rubbed the spot between her eyes and sighed a little. “You didn’t want a child. I did.”