John moved to the doors and opened one side for Georgeanne. When she walked outside, he turned back to the room. “Make yourselves at home,” he told his teammates.
Claude stared after Georgeanne with a smile twisting one corner of his mouth. “Take your time,” he said.
Dmitri didn’t say anything; he didn’t have to. The conspicuous absence of his gold chains spoke louder than the dopey look on his young Russian face.
“I shouldn’t be long,” John said through a frown, then stepped outside and shut the door behind him. A slight breeze ruffled the blue and green whale banner hanging from the rear balcony while waves softly slapped the side of John’s twenty-three-foot runabout tied to the deck. The bright evening sun shimmered on the ripples cut from a sailboat slicing peacefully through the water. The people on the boat called to John, and he waved automatically, but his attention was focused on the woman who stood near the water’s edge with one hand raised to her brow, gazing out onto the lake.
“Is that Gas Works Park?” she asked, and pointed across to the other shore.
Georgeanne was beautiful and seductive and so malicious that he had visions of tossing her into the water. “Did you come to see my view of the lake?”
She dropped her hand and looked over her shoulder. “No,” she answered, then turned to face him. “I wanted to talk to you about Lexie.”
“Sit down.” He pointed to a pair of Adirondack chairs, and when she sat, he took the chair facing her.
With his feet spread wide, his hands on the armrests, he waited for her to begin.
“I really did try to call you.” She glanced at him briefly, then slid her gaze to his chest. “But your answering machine picked up and I didn’t want to leave a message. What I want to say is too important to leave on an answering machine, and I didn’t want to wait until you returned from your trip to talk to you. So I took a chance that you might be home and I drove here.” Again she glanced at him, then looked over his left shoulder. “I really am sorry if I’m interrupting something important.”
At the moment John couldn’t think of anything more important than what Georgeanne had to say to him. Because whether or not he would like what she had to say, it would have a big effect on his life. “You aren’t interrupting anything.”
“Good.” She finally looked at him as a tiny smile flitted across her lips. “I don’t suppose you would reconsider leaving Lexie and me alone?”
“No,” he answered flatly.
“I didn’t think so.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Because I want what is best for my daughter.”
“Then we want the same thing. Only I don’t think we will agree on exactly what is best for Lexie.”
Georgeanne looked down at her lap and took a deep breath. She felt jumpy and as nervous as a cat looking at a big Doberman pinscher. She hoped John hadn’t noticed her anxiety. She needed to take command, not only of her emotions but of the situation as well. She couldn’t allow John and his lawyers to control her life or dictate what was best for Lexie. She couldn’t let things get that far. Georgeanne, not John, wanted to dictate terms. “You mentioned this morning that you planned to contact an attorney,” she began, and moved her gaze up his gray Nike T-shirt, over his strong chin darkened by a five-o’clock shadow, and into his deep blue eyes. “I think we can come to a reasonable compromise without involving lawyers. A court battle would hurt Lexie, and I don’t want that. I don’t want lawyers involved.”
“Then give me an alternative.”
“Okay,” Georgeanne said slowly. “I think Lexie should get to know you as a family friend.”
One dark brow lifted up his forehead. “And?”
“And you can get to know her, too.”
John looked at her for several long seconds before he asked, “That’s it? That’s your ‘reasonable compromise’?”
Georgeanne didn’t want to do this. She didn’t want to say it, and she hated John for forcing her. “When Lexie knows you well, and is comfortable with you, and when I think the time is right, I’ll tell her you are her father.”
John tilted his head slightly to one side. He didn’t look real happy with her proposition. “So,” he said. “I’m supposed to wait until
“Yes.”
“Tell me why I should wait, Georgie.”
“No one calls me Georgie anymore.” She didn’t tease and flirt to get what she wanted these days. She wasn’t Georgie Howard now. “I would prefer that you call me Georgeanne.”
“I don’t care what you prefer.” He folded his arms across his wide chest. “Now, why don’t you tell my why I should wait,
“This is bound to be a great shock to her, and I think it should be done as gently as possible. My daughter is only six, and I’m sure a custody battle would hurt and confuse her. I don’t want my daughter hurt by a court-”
“First of all,” John interrupted, “the little girl you keep referring to as
Georgeanne felt her resentment stir and took a deep breath. “Well, I’ve changed my mind.” She couldn’t afford a fight with him, not yet anyway. Not until she got a few concessions.
John sank farther down in his chair and hooked his thumbs in the front pockets of his jeans. His gaze narrowed and distrust pulled at the corners of his mouth.
“Don’t you believe me?”
“Frankly, no.”
On the drive over this evening, she’d run through several if-he-says-this-then-I’ll-say-that scenarios in her mind, but she’d never thought he wouldn’t believe her. “You don’t trust me?”
He looked at her as if she were crazy. “Not for a second.”
Georgeanne figured they were even then, because she didn’t trust him either. “Fine. We don’t have to trust each other as long as we both want what is best for Lexie.”
“I don’t want to hurt her, but as I said before, I don’t think we will agree on what is best. I’m sure it would please you clear down to your southern toes if I died tomorrow. However, that wouldn’t please me. I want to get to know Lexie, and I want her to know me. If you think I should wait to tell her that I’m her father, then okay, I’ll wait. You know her better than I do.”
“I have to be the one to tell her, John.” She expected an argument and was surprised when she didn’t get one.
“Fine.”
“I have to insist that you give me your word on this,” she persisted, because she wasn’t convinced that a few months down the road, John wouldn’t change his mind and decide that being a daddy cramped his style. If he abandoned Lexie, after she knew he was her father, it would break her heart. And Georgeanne knew from experience that the pain of abandonment from a parent was worse than not knowing at all. “The truth has to come from me.”
“I thought we didn’t trust each other. What good is my word?”
He had a point. Georgeanne thought about it, and having no other alternative, she said, “I’ll trust you if you give me your word.”
“You have it, but just don’t expect me to wait a long time. Don’t jerk me around,” he warned. “I want to see her when I get back into town.”
“That’s another reason I came here tonight,” Georgeanne said as she rose from the chair. “Next Sunday Lexie and I are planning a picnic at Marymoor Park. You are welcome to join us if you don’t have plans.”
“What time?”
“Noon.”
“What should I bring?”
“Lexie and I are providing everything except alcoholic beverages. If you want beer, you’ll have to bring it yourself, although I’d prefer you didn’t.”
“That’s not a problem,” he said as he stood also.
