Her eyes popped open and he kissed her long and hard, until he was certain they were closed again.
Had he really just said what she thought he said or had the wine hit?
By the time the kiss was over, Tessa was good and confused again, and ready to share anything. Including her past.
“It’s not a huge deal,” she said, confirming she was at least a little tipsy even to say that. Her issues with her mother had always been a huge enough deal that she’d buried them and thrown away the shovel.
Until now.
“I was raised by a career-crazed single mom who put her job before her daughter and basically lied to me for almost seventeen years about who my father was.”
“How’d that happen?”
Good question. “Well, she was never home,” she said softly. “She was always, always working. Which meant she was always, always with him.”
Frowning, John shook his head. “I thought you said he was dead.”
“He is now. He wasn’t then. He was my mother’s partner.”
His expression grew more confused. “They lived together?”
“Law partner. Look, it’s complicated, which is one of the reasons I don’t tell people, even my friends.” She gnawed her lip, thinking about the vacuum of information she’d kept from Lacey, Zoe, and Joss. “I’ve always planned on telling them someday,” she added quickly. “At first, when I met them in college, the wounds were still so raw I couldn’t be straight with strangers. After a few years, after we were so close, the whole subject embarrassed me because they knew I hated secrets. But only because my mother’s secret hurt me so much.”
“Tell me the whole story.” He repositioned himself next to her, aligning his large, strong body along hers, sliding a leg over her, as if they were lying in bed together.
Taking a slow breath, she closed her eyes and leaned her cheek against his head, a few soft hairs tickling, the lingering scent of food on him and the garden in the air like a balm over her old wounds. Maybe telling him would erase the scars completely.
“My mother is a lawyer in Seattle. In her first year out of law school, she got involved with another lawyer in her firm. I was the result.”
“Why didn’t she marry him?”
“Because his wife would have hated that.”
He grunted softly.
“Yeah. So, she had me and promptly returned to work, and her affair, which lasted for another sixteen years.”
“Seriously?” He lifted his head as if he hadn’t heard that right. “He was married the entire time?”
“Oh, yes. Married, with children.”
“Did you know he was your father?”
That was probably the thing that hurt the most. “No. When I was old enough to understand, my mother told me I was an accident, the result of a one-night stand whose name she didn’t know.”
“Did that other lawyer know you were his?”
“Uncle Ken? Of course he did.” Another aspect of her screwy life that always irked. “And I knew him quite well, only I never had any idea he was my father. When I was about five, they started their own firm, Donnelly & Galloway, and it was hugely successful. My mother was the quintessential workaholic, putting in long days and”—she gave a dry smile—“lots of out-of-town trials that she and her partner handled together.”
“Who raised you?”
“Nannies when I was little, then I pretty much learned to fend for myself.” She’d been the original latch-key kid.
“How did you find out he was your dad?”
“He died and she was…” She shook her head, remembering the dark, dark days of her mother’s grief. “Devastated would be an understatement. That’s when she told me, in the throes of her grief.” Damn it, her voice cracked.
Instantly, he was up on one elbow and his grip around her waist tightened. “That must have been rough.”
“I think the hardest part was I had a father and didn’t know it. No, no, the hardest part was I shared him with another family and my mother…” The lump in her throat made it hurt to swallow, even to get air. “No, it was all hard. Including the fact that my mother was willing to settle for second best and live a lie. And, of course, she kept that secret from me and from the world. To this day, his family doesn’t know.”
For a long time, John stayed quiet and still. She waited for a reaction, a question, some sympathy. But he didn’t say a word.
“Anyway, she’s fine,” Tessa said, as if he’d asked. “Still runs the law firm, still works long hours.”
“Only now she’s alone.”
So very much alone. “We talk, but not often. Mostly by e-mail. She came to see me when Billy left me, and it only made things worse.” She snorted softly. “Like she was a good role model for marriage.”
“And the fact that she didn’t tell you about your father is why you hate secrets,” he stated, as if he’d snapped the last piece of a puzzle into place.
True enough. But was that the reason she’d shared this one? So he knew that about her? Because something about this man, this night, this…
If he was going to push this to the next step, then so was she.
“That’s why…” Her voice trailed off as she struggled with the admission. “I want a child so much. I think the worst way you can end up in the world is alone. And, honestly, I’m headed right there.”
“Your mother had a child and she’s still alone.”
“I’ll do better,” she said without hesitation. “I learned from her mistakes.”
He nodded, considering that.
“Aren’t you afraid of being alone, John?” she whispered, fighting the urge to touch his face to punctuate the question.
“No. I’ve been alone for a while—no.”
So he hadn’t
He didn’t answer, but slowly closed his eyes.
“I think”—she turned onto her side, facing him—“that there is much more to you than brawn and good looks.”
Still, silence.
“I saw it in your eyes the very first night we met. Something deep, something real, something… pained.”
He squeezed his eyes shut as if he couldn’t take the words. Or didn’t want her to see that pain.
“Will you share?”
His only response was to angle his head down, as if he couldn’t face her, even with his eyes closed.
She’d shared her deepest and darkest. Wouldn’t he?
He finally looked into her eyes. “No.”
There was more, and he didn’t deny it. But he wouldn’t share. And, really, that told her all she needed to know about how “real” this was.
He let out a soft sigh. “I’m sorry, I can’t.”
Can’t or won’t? Either way, it hurt.
Chapter Twenty-one
This time, nothing would stop her. Tessa waited until late afternoon the next day, when it cooled down a bit,
