free. The yearning inside him had agreed with her, even as warning bells had gone off.
The rest of him, the parts Lizzie didn’t know at all, liked his Ferrari, his home, his ability to take two weeks off worry-free and pretend to be someone else. He loved his family—even when he didn’t like them sometimes. He needed to be a solid, contributing part of the energetic Fortune clan.
He liked eating at the finest restaurants. Having the best seats at the theater. And having a driver at his disposal any time he wanted.
He particularly liked being able to fly off to Greece for a long weekend.
Problem was, he’d liked Lizzie, too. More than any woman he’d ever been with.
He’d liked her too much to challenge the feelings with reality. Better to love and leave, as they’d both planned, than introduce her to his life of wealth and have the money come between them. They were from different worlds and he’d already tried that route with a woman he’d met in college. It had been a disaster all the way around, and they’d both been hurt. Badly. One of Molly’s brothers had tried to cash in on knowing him, by using the Fortune name, and Molly had expected Nolan to let it go, because they were all “family.”
He’d let it go because it hadn’t hurt his family, but he’d also had to let her go.
Whatever love he’d had for her had turned to resentment. And worse. He hadn’t been willing to chance having the same thing happen to him and Lizzie when reality set in.
He’d never thought she’d have used his wealth in that way, but their enormous differences would have torn their love apart. And then there was the fact that he’d been duplicitous with her, even after sleeping with her. A lack of trust was definitely pavement on the road to resentment.
Taking the long way back to the cheesy hotel, Nolan played the whole Lizzie thing in his mind one more time. He checked himself, his choices, and knew he’d done the right thing, cutting himself off from her.
His oldest brother, Austin, Nolan’s mentor from birth, had been down the Lizzie road, too, falling hard for a woman in just two weeks. It had turned into the biggest mistake of his life and it had hurt the family. Austin had been twenty-five when he’d married on the spot, the age Nolan had been when he’d met Lizzie.
Lizzie had been young, too, just like Kelly, Austin’s ex. Twenty-one actually, the same age Kelly had been when she’d hoodwinked Austin.
Added to all that was Nolan’s own habit for getting into mischief. He could see now that it had been a result of him yearning to break free that had sent him down the wrong roads. He’d dealt with that shadowy side his entire life. And paid for it, too.
Like the time he’d thought it would be cool to dare a couple of his sisters, Savannah and Belle, the younger ones, to jump off a cliff into a swimming hole twenty feet below. After he’d already taken the fall himself. Of course, since he’d dared them and was older than them, they’d done it. Though they were both successful, Savannah got sick, with a cold that then went into a bronchial infection, and had to miss the first two weeks of school.
Miles Fortune had been all up for grounding his son for the entire school year. One of his older brothers had talked him down to Nolan being Savannah’s servant for the next month, in charge of collecting and delivering all of her school assignments, too.
And then there’d been the time he’d climbed out his window to meet up with the teenage daughter of one of the ladies who’d cleaned their ten-thousand-square-foot mansion. Austin had covered for him then. Miles had never found out about that one.
But he was an adult now. His brother couldn’t cover for him anymore.
He’d understood what he had to do. And he’d done it. Cut things off at the quick with Lizzie before they went too far. He’d thrown away her number. He’d changed his own. And he’d checked the band’s website to make certain that there was nothing there that could possibly tie Nolan Forte to Nolan Fortune.
And then, like Austin, he’d concentrated on work.
When he and Lizzie had made love, they’d agreed that there’d be no promises. They’d just met and he was only in town a couple of weeks. And while they’d left open the possibility of being in touch after Nolan Forte’s gig was up and he had to leave with the band, they’d never promised to be.
Back at the hotel that Friday afternoon a year later to the day he’d first met Lizzie, Nolan showered, pulled on black jeans and rolled up the sleeves of his white cotton shirt, leaving the top buttons undone. He put on a black leather vest with silver studs, stepped into his black leather cowboy boots and grabbed his sax.
Lizzie was the past.
He was ready to move into his future.
“He’s in town.”
Carmela didn’t say who. But Lizzie knew immediately who her best friend was talking about.
Sitting with Carmela at the used but good-quality wood kitchen table they’d found at an estate sale, Lizzie flitted through the lettuce and veggies in her bowl with her fork. She’d been home from school for an hour, had fed Stella, who was sleeping, and really just wanted to take a nap herself.
If not for the fact that it had been her turn to make dinner, she’d have taken a nap rather than grilling chicken and cutting veggies for the salads they were now eating.
“Hon?” Carmela put fingers on top of Lizzie’s hand.
Lizzie stilled, but didn’t look up. Or over at the baby sleeping in her swing, either. “I heard you.”
She was trying not to let the knowledge seep in. She didn’t want to know. And most certainly didn’t want to care.
She’d told herself—and Carmela, too, three months before—that she wasn’t going anywhere near the jazz club over the holidays. If he was there, he was there. The fact had nothing to do with her.
Not anymore.
So why was her heart pounding in her chest, making it impossible for her to swallow even if she’d managed to get lettuce to her mouth and chew?
“You need to go see him.”
That got her attention. And gave her strength, too. Head shooting upward, she gave her roommate an authoritative stare. “Absolutely not.”
“He has a right to know.”
Putting her bare foot up on her chair, she hugged her knee with both arms. “No.”
Carmela didn’t speak, but Lizzie could feel the other woman’s striking gray stare burning into her, escalating the confusion roaring inside her.
Because as certain as she was that she was not going to see Nolan Forte ever again—in that lifetime or any other as far as she was concerned—she was equally aware that in some universe he had a right to know that he was a father.
Worse, and much more angst-producing, was the fact that Stella had a right for him to know. In case, someday, he wanted to know her.
Or had family that did.
Like her, he’d apparently had no family close enough with whom to spend the holidays the previous year. Aunt Betty, her only living relative, had been on a cruise with Wayne, Betty’s companion of thirty years. Nolan hadn’t mentioned anyone, nor said why he hadn’t been with them.
She hadn’t asked.
There hadn’t been time. Or it had seemed that way. With less than two weeks to spend with him, she’d been far more interested in their shared interests, in just “them,” than she’d been in any peripheral details.
When she’d found out they had a very real repercussion from their time together, she regretted that she knew almost