chapter NINE
EMMA must have seen their arrival through the window, because she’d already pushed the screen door open before they’d finished climbing the porch steps. She wore a voluminous yellow gown that Stephen thought looked a little the worse for wear, making her look like a bedraggled fairy plucked from a picture book.
“Momma!” she hollered, launching herself at Colette’s waist with undisguised glee. “You’re home!”
Colette staggered a bit for balance, one arm flying up to wrap about Emma’s back while her free hand shot out to grip the handrail. Stephen reached to press a steadying hand at the small of Colette’s back, and she immediately stiffened away from his touch. “Hello, sweetheart,” she said, dipping to press a kiss against their daughter’s tousled head. “Have you been a good girl this morning?”
The grinning mite nodded enthusiastically. “I drawed a picture and me an’ Janet maked lemonade. From scratch!” she crowed, a budding chef who’d obviously internalized her mother’s exacting standards for freshness.
“You remember Mr. Whitfield, don’t you?”
Emma cocked her golden head, her blue eyes tracking his features with undisguised interest. “'Course. Momma’s your en … your em …” Her tiny rosebud mouth puckered as she tried to recall the word. “What’d you say she was?”
She was supposed to be my mistress. “My employee?”
Emma beamed and nodded her head. “Yes, your employee. An’ you like princesses with blue eyes.”
A queer rush of possessiveness gripped his chest as he stared down at his daughter. How had he not recognized her as his from the very first? “Yes, I do.”
“Sweetheart,” Colette interrupted as she moved up to the top step and reached for the door. “Why don’t we go inside and fetch Mr. Whitfield some of that lemonade you made? He and I have something important to tell you.”
“'Kay, but we hafta make more,” she said as she turned to skip past her mother. “Me and Janet drinked it all.”
He and Colette trailed inside after their daughter, her excited chatter informing Janet of their arrival. “Let me do the talking,” Colette murmured beneath her breath.
Resenting her claim of control yet again, he felt irritation coil in his chest. “Why? So you can spin it in your favor?”
“So I can spin it in hers,” she hissed. “I want to minimize her shock and confusion.”
“There wouldn’t be any shock or confusion if you’d—”
“I know that,” she snapped, turning to face him with her hands knotted at her thighs. She checked over her shoulder and then lowered her voice. “But it doesn’t change the reality of here and now. She doesn’t know you are her father yet, and we can’t just spring it on her without taking time to prepare her.”
“Prepare her?” he asked, arching a brow.
She scowled, a trapped lioness protecting her cub. “She’s a child, Stephen, a sweet, innocent child, and telling her will require a bit more sensitivity than you possess.”
He felt himself bristle beneath the insult. “I can be—”
“You can’t.”
Scanning her mulish expression and the lines of worry around her hazel eyes, he realized with a sudden lurch in his gut that she was scared. Despite his anger and frustration, he felt something within him soften and shift. And, even though she deserved everything he saw fit to inflict, he decided it wouldn’t kill him to exhibit a little mercy. He could grant her this small modicum of control. “Fine. You do the talking. I won’t intervene.”
Her shoulders slumped with her relief. “Thank you.”
“But you owe me for this,” he said, reminding her that his capitulation came at a cost.
A flush climbed her face while her eyes flashed. “Fine. I owe you. Add it to my tab.”
Her tab. As if she ever intended to pay. He scowled, wishing he was merciless enough to exploit this new role of creditor to its fullest.
Now that the moment was upon them, Colette didn’t know quite how to feel. Nervous, jittery and scared, she couldn’t begin to predict how Emma would react.
Trepidation filled her lungs as she entered her bright yellow and blue kitchen to find Emma on her knees atop a kitchen stool, helping Janet squeeze fresh lemons into a pitcher. Colette’s heart twisted painfully but she persevered, donning a cheerful smile and a somewhat steady voice. “Janet,” she began, “would you mind excusing us for an hour or so?”
Her nanny arched curious gray brows, her gaze skipping from Colette to Stephen to Emma and then back again. “Of course not, dear. Is there anything—?”
“No, I’m fine,” Colette interrupted.
They stood awkwardly, a silent tableau of untold secrets, until Janet blurted, “I’ll just pick some things up at the deli, then. And catch up with Helen. It’s been a while since we’ve had a good talk.”
“Thank you,” Colette said as Janet collected her purse and then bustled out the back door.
Colette waited until Janet disappeared from sight before pulling out one of her three chairs and gingerly lowering herself into it. “Emma, sweetheart, why don’t you come sit on Momma’s lap?”
Emma must have sensed that something momentous was afoot, because her eyes widened momentarily before she climbed down off the stool and came to stand before Colette’s bent knees. “What about your lemonade?”
“We can have it later.” She reached for her daughter’s sturdy little torso and lifted her up onto her thighs. “Mr. Whitfield and I have something important to tell you first. Remember?”
Emma’s blue gaze, so like her father’s, skipped to where Stephen now sat, across from their scarred kitchen table. “Uh-huh.”
“Do you remember that Momma used to live in a place called England before she had you?” “Like Mr. Whitfield?”
“Yes, just like Mr. Whitfield. And when I lived there Mr. Whitfield and I … we were friends.”
Emma stared at Colette, her expression curious and not at all alarmed. “Is he still your friend?”
I doubt it. “Yes, sweetheart. He is. And he wants to be your friend, too.” Colette felt her stomach pitch as Emma’s compact body twisted to look at her father. “Would that be all right with you?”
“You wanna have play dates with me?” she asked, her small brow furrowing.
His eyelashes flickered for an instant, betraying a nervousness she’d have thought him incapable of feeling and sending a sharp lurch through her chest. “Absolutely,” he answered with a smile, and his blue eyes were filled with a tenderness Colette had never seen before. “But only if you want me to.”
She paused for a second, studying Stephen where he sat. “Do you have prince clothes?”
“Prince clothes?”
“For Beauty and the Beast.”
He cocked his brow at that, a disarmed smile tugging at his mouth. “Do you think I’m a beast, Emma?”
The trill of her giggle diluted some of the tension in the room as she nodded. “'Course I do! You’re gigantic!”
“In that case, I think I can probably come up with some prince clothes.” He angled a look at Colette. “Do you think a tuxedo would suffice?”
“Yes,” she said, smiling despite herself. Hauling in a stabilizing breath, and praying that her voice held steady, Colette brought the conversation back to the topic at hand. “Emma?”
Emma looked over her shoulder at Colette. “What?”
She tried to keep her hands from tightening too much about Emma’s body. “It turns out that Mr. Whitfield here is more than just a friend.” She offered a comforting smile. “To us, at least.”
Curiosity lit her baby’s eyes. “He is?”
“Yes. Mr. Whitfield is …” Her smile lost a bit of its moorings as she lifted shaking fingers to brush back a wayward curl from Emma’s upturned face. “Mr. Whitfield is your daddy.”
Emma stared at her with wondering eyes, her expression slowly transforming from curiosity to surprise. “My daddy?” “Yes.”
She turned back to Stephen. “You’re my daddy?”
“I am.” His deep voice held none of Colette’s unsteadiness, but she could detect the note of emotion underlying the words nonetheless.
“But Momma said my daddy lived far, far away,” she said.
Colette fingered the soft curls at Emma’s neck and answered. “He used to. He lived in England for a long, long time. But now he’s here,” said Colette. “And he’s very excited to have you as his little girl.”
Emma nodded slowly, processing this new development in her small, insulated world. “Is he gonna take us to live in England now?”
Colette ran a reassuring hand down Emma’s back. “No, sweetheart. We’ll stay right here, just like we always have.”
“And he’s gonna live in our house?” she asked.
“No, he’ll have his own house,” she rushed to answer before Stephen could. “But he’ll visit lots of times, and maybe you can visit him sometimes, too. Would you like that?”
Emma cocked her head, her expression skeptical. “Is your house far away?”
“I live at the hotel where your momma works right now, but maybe you can help me pick out new place to live. One that has a special room just for you.”
“Can you get a castle?”
He smiled and exchanged a quick glance with Colette. “I don’t know if there are any castles nearby, but we could certainly look.”
“'Kay.”
He leaned back to withdraw a small box from his suit pocket. “I’ve brought a present for you as well, if your momma says it’s all right for you to have it.”
Emma gasped and immediately turned to Colette. “Can I?”
Colette’s heart skipped a beat as she nodded, realizing she’d opened the door to losing her little girl to a parent with more money, more toys, and the ability to fulfill every material wish in a way she never could. “Of course you can, sweetheart.”
Stephen nudged the white jewelry box across the table toward Emma, who in turn exclaimed with pleasure before pulling off the pink bow and grappling with the lid. She resisted Colette’s offer to help, her childish efforts notching her brow and catching her tongue between her teeth. When she finally figured out the hinges at the back, it was with undisguised pride in her own abilities that she opened the box and peered inside.
Emma, who normally had a comment for everything, was rendered momentarily speechless.
“Oh, look,” said Colette, her chest tightening as she leaned sideways to see the delicate gold chain and pendant nestled within. “It’s a necklace.”
Emma nodded soundlessly, her blue eyes wide and shining.
“It’s very beautiful, don’t you think?”
She arched back to whisper in Colette’s ear. “It’s a princess necklace!” she divulged in an excited puff of warm breath. “With a crown on it!”
It was the perfect gift, exquisitely perfect, in fact, and Colette lifted blurring eyes to gauge Stephen’s reaction. He was watching their daughter, his smile uncharacteristically uncertain around the edges.
“What do you say?” she prompted Emma.
Emma gasped in belated recollection of her manners, and then launched herself off Colette’s lap. Before Colette had registered her intent, Emma had raced around the table and wrapped her arms as far as they could reach around Stephen’s chair and waist. “Thank you, Daddy! Thank you!”
For a beat of silence Stephen’s surprised gaze held Colette’s, before he leaned sideways to return Emma’s hug. “You’re welcome, sweet,” he said before clearing his throat. “Do you want me to help you put it on?”
Emma nodded her enthusiasm, placed the box in his broad palm, and then swung to present her back, lifting her curls and tipping her head forward without a moment’s hesitation.
Once he’d fastened the clasp, she lifted her chin and fingered the tiny gold and pearl crown. “Do I look like a princess, Momma?” she asked.
Colette blinked back her tears and nodded while Stephen answered in a gruff voice, “You don’t just look like a princess, you are a princess.”
“I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but I think you managed to find the only modern-day castle within a hundred miles of New York,” Colette observed three weeks later as Stephen welcomed them into the new home he’d purchased in the East Hamptons. With its long halls of checkered marble, heavy chandeliers, dual curved staircases, and an entry foyer that could accommodate the entire New York Senate, it was large enough to host state balls of fairytale proportions.
“I promised our little princess a castle, and I always deliver on my promises,” Stephen answered as he offered his hand to their daughter. “Emma, would you like to see the movie theater or the indoor pool first?”
“Yes!” she answered, reaching for his outstretched hand and jumping forward to stand by his denim-clad thigh. “C’mon, Momma!”
Emma, more excited than Colette had ever seen her, skipped alongside Stephen as he led them on a tour of each wing of the colonial mansion. He showed them a six-car garage, countless bedrooms, a giant gourmet kitchen, and multiple entertaining rooms of various sizes while Emma exclaimed over every new discovery.
“Can we play hide ‘n’ seek?” she asked, after they’d explored the extensive exterior grounds.
“Maybe later,” answered Colette. “Right now, I’m worried you’d get lost and I’d never find you.” Dressed in a caramel-colored wrap skirt, blue oxford and espadrilles, Colette had trailed behind Stephen and Emma for the entire tour, feeling inexplicably tense. Colette’s tiny home would have fit inside Stephen’s a good dozen times, and the sheer size of the place overwhelmed her. Though it was beautiful beyond Colette’s wildest imaginings, it reminded her of a fantasy getaway, or a mausoleum she doubted could ever feel like a real home.
Emma, on the other hand, thought it was perfect, and she spent the next half-hour rushing pell-mell down the interior hallways, exploring nooks and crannies and investigating the maze of cupboards beneath the stairs.
Colette would have thought watching a small child explore with no particular destination in mind would have bored Stephen to distraction, but it hadn’t. He was proving to be a wonderful father to Emma: kind, patient, and involved. In fact, if she were honest with herself, he was everything she’d hoped he might be with their daughter. So why wasn’t she happier about it? And why, like now, when he looked at her with those blue eyes of his, did her every cell seem to come alive with yearning? Ever since she’d called a halt to their lovemaking that fateful day in his office, he’d stopped trying to seduce her. He talked to her only about Emma or hotel business, and avoided being alone with her at all costs. He hadn’t mentioned marriage again, and he seemed to have forgotten all about his requirement that she be his mistress.
While Colette, to her eternal consternation, found herself unable to think of anything else.
It was because he was too handsome, she thought dizzily. His black hair, gleaming with blue lights no matter the weather, begged to be smoothed back from his broad forehead. His hands and forearms, bronzed and muscular beneath rolled white cuffs, and his powerful legs encased in worn denim, created a heady combination of male virility that had her eyes darting to the unmistakable bulge between his thighs.
Heat scalded Colette’s cheeks as she dragged her attention back to his chin. How was she supposed to think clearly with him looking the way he did?
With him looking at her the way he did? She felt the weight of his stare on her face, the hungry gaze that seemed to track her movements whenever they happened to be in the same room. Knowing he wanted her, yet had no intention of acting on his desire, made her insides twist up in nervousness. In longing. In a wholly inappropriate, unwelcome desire to touch. To feel. To forget all the reasons things could never work between them and simply start anew.
She told herself she should be glad he hadn’t pushed for more, that he no longer touched her. That when he tired of playing at being a father and left, she’d be grateful that they hadn’t slept together. She would be.
Several hours later, after a swim and a movie, they retired to Stephen’s private dining room for dinner. The three of them sat at one corner of an impossibly long mahogany table and ate grilled steaks, seasoned new potatoes, and fresh green beans grown in his new estate gardens. Household staff appeared and disappeared soundlessly while Emma chatted about all the things she planned to do during her future sleepovers.
After they’d finished, and their plates had been cleared away, Colette collected the dessert she’d brought from home. “Do you want ice cream with your pastry?” she asked Stephen, her spoon poised over a fresh carton of vanilla bean. “Don’t I always?” he answered.
Colette scooped a hearty portion of both ice cream and fruit tart onto his plate and then leaned to assist Emma with the finishing touches. “That’s right,” she said, her hand curved around Emma’s. “You drizzle the strawberry sauce over the whole thing, first this way and then … that. Perfect!” She grinned at Emma and then lifted the dessert for Stephen’s inspection. “What do you think? It’s Emma’s first homemade fruit tart.”
“It looks delicious,” Stephen said.
“It’s my favorite,” Emma told him as she readied her drizzling spoon for the next serving. “Momma let me roll the dough all by myself.”
“Did she now?” His gaze snagged on Colette’s and a reminiscent smile eased its way across his face. “She taught me how to make my favorite dessert, too. Only mine was black and white mousse cake.”
Colette sucked in a breath, remembering the first time she’d tried to teach him that unique blend of almond, chocolate, cream and ganache. He’d watched her until she’d finished her explanation, his eyes tracking her like a lazy cat’s, and then demanded to lick the bowl. Except he’d spread the leftovers on her flesh before he’d done any licking at all. Her nipples tingled at the erotic memory of his mouth at her breast, tasting her. Consuming her.
“Maybe you can make that next time?” he asked.
Colette’s face heated and she immediately shifted her focus to the ice cream between her hands. “Sure,” she mumbled, grateful that Emma was in the room to corral her impulses.
Later, after Emma’s bath and a lengthy debate over which princess nightgown would go best with her new pink-canopied bed, she was finally ready for her first sleepover at Daddy’s. Colette lifted Emma up to her high mattress and helped her climb beneath the covers.
“Do you get to sleep over, too?” Emma asked.
Colette’s hands stalled and the heat of Stephen’s gaze upon her profile made her skin flush. “No, sweetheart,” she said, tugging the blankets high and tucking them beneath Emma’s arms. “Momma has her own bed at home, remember?”
“Maybe Daddy can give you one of his so you can have two beds like me!”
Rather than continue a discussion she didn’t care to have, Colette dug in her bag for Emma’s favorite storybook. “Would you like me to read to you before lights out?” she asked.
After Emma had listened to her favorite fairytale twice, read once by Colette and once again by Stephen, Emma drifted off to sleep in her high bed, a golden-haired angel dressed in yellow and pink.
“Thank you for letting her stay,” Stephen said quietly.
“She’s talked of nothing else for days,” she admitted.
They stood looking down at the sweet curve of Emma’s cheek and curled fist, neither of them speaking for several seconds.
“I think she likes the house,” he finally whispered.
“You think?” Colette shook her head, a small smile tugging at her mouth. “If you keep spoiling her like this,” she warned, “she’ll be impossible at thirteen.”
“We’ll deal with that when the time comes,” he answered in a low voice.
Colette turned to face him, stunned anew that he planned to be around for Emma’s adolescence. That the permanence of fatherhood didn’t seem to deter him at all. “You’re good with her,” she said softly. “Better than I expected.”
“You do tend to underestimate me, don’t you?” he answered, without lifting his gaze from their slumbering child.
She didn’t answer, uncomfortably aware that he probably spoke the truth.
“I’ve always liked children,” he continued, leaning to draw the blanket up over Emma’s curved shoulder. “And Emma’s particularly easy to like.” His big palm cupped the back of her head before he straightened and strode silently toward the door.
He exited the room without another word, and Colette felt her perceptions of him shift yet again. After watching him with Emma, his harsh edges softened by the incongruity of a child at his knee and a doll in his hand, she could no longer cast him in the role she’d formerly assigned to him.
For beneath the veneer of international playboy and ruthless businessman lurked a layer she’d never suspected. A layer Emma could rely on and trust.
A layer perhaps she could trust as well.