Her Little Secret, His Hidden Heir(16)
She had such close relationships with so many people in town. Something she’d never had while living in Pittsburgh with Marc. In the city, whether visiting the grocery store, pharmacy or dry cleaner’s, she’d been lucky to make eye contact with the person behind the counter, much less make small talk.
Here, there was no such thing as a quick trip to the store. Every errand involved stopping numerous times to say hello and catch up with friendly acquaintances. And while she’d never missed that sort of thing before, she knew she would definitely miss it now if she woke up one day and realized it was no longer a part of her life.
“That’s about it,” she told him twenty minutes later, after pointing him in the general direction of the hotel where he would be staying. “There isn’t much more to see, unless you’re interested in a tour of the dairy industry from the inside out.”
A small smile curved his lips. “I’ll pass, thanks. But I think you missed something.”
She frowned, wondering what he could possibly mean. She hadn’t shown him the nearest volunteer fire department or water treatment plant, but those were several miles outside of town, and she didn’t think he really cared about that sort of thing, anyway.
“You didn’t show me where you live,” he supplied in a low voice.
“Do you really need to know?” she asked, ignoring the spike of heat that suffused her from head to toe at the knowing glance he sent her.
“Of course. How else will I know where to pick you up for dinner?”
Five
As much as Vanessa would have liked to argue with Marc about his heavy-handedness, in the end, she didn’t bother. He had a nasty habit of getting his way in almost every situation, anyway, so what was the point?
She’d also reluctantly decided that, for as long as Marc was determined to stay in her and Danny’s lives, it was probably better to simply make nice with him. There was no sense antagonizing him or fighting him at every turn when he potentially held so much of her future in his hands.
At the moment, the only thing he seemed to want was time with and information about his son. He wasn’t trying to take Danny away from her or making threats about trying to take him later, even though they both knew he was probably within his rights to do so.
The threatening part, not the actual taking. But if she were in his shoes, anger and a sense of betrayal alone would have had her yelling all manner of hostile, menacing things.
So this afternoon when Marc asked her to show him where she lived with Aunt Helen, she took him to the small, two-story house on Evergreen Lane. It wasn’t much compared to the sprawling estate where he’d grown up with servants and tennis courts and a half mile, tree-lined drive just to reach the front gate, but in the last year, it had become home to her.
Helen had given up her guest room to Vanessa and helped turn her sewing room into a nursery for Danny. She’d volunteered her kitchen to thousands of hours of trial and error with her family recipes before they’d felt brave enough to move forward with the idea of actually opening a bakery of their very own.
In return, Vanessa helped with the general upkeep of the house, had planted rows of brand-new pink and red begonias in the flower beds lining the front porch and walk, and had even taught Helen enough about computers to have her emailing with friends from grade school she’d never thought to be in contact with again.
Though Vanessa still believed there was no way she could ever truly repay her aunt’s kindness in her time of need, Helen insisted she enjoyed the company and was happy to have so much youth and activity in the house again. Which, in Vanessa’s book, made the tiny white house on less than an acre of mottled green and yellow grass more of a home than Keller Manor, with all its bells and whistles, could ever be.
Taking a deep breath, she checked herself over in the bathroom mirror one last time—though she wasn’t sure why she bothered. Yes, it had been a while since she’d had a reason to get so dressed up, let alone get so dressed up twice in one day.
But even though jeans and tennies were more her style these days, Marc had seen her in everything from ratty shorts and T-shirts to full-length ball gowns and priceless jewels. Besides, she wasn’t attempting to impress him this evening, was she? No, she was pacifying him.
After showing him to the Harbor Inn and then letting him drop her off at The Sugar Shack once again, Vanessa had finished off her day at the bakery, closed up shop, and headed home with Danny and her aunt. While Helen had fixed dinner for herself and kept Danny entertained, Vanessa had run upstairs to change clothes and retouch her makeup.
She wasn’t fixing herself up for Marc, she told her reflection. She wasn’t. It was simply that she was taking advantage of a dinner invitation that included the chance to look like a woman for a change instead of a frazzled working mother struggling to be a successful entrepreneur.
That’s the only reason she was wearing her favorite strapless red dress, strappy red heels and dangling imitation ruby earrings. It was over-the-top for even the priciest restaurant in Summerville, but she didn’t care. She might never get the opportunity to wear this outfit again…or to remind Marc of just what he’d given up when he let her go.
The doorbell rang before she was ready for it and her heart lurched in her chest. She quickly swiped on another layer of lipstick, then made sure she had everything she needed in the tiny red clutch she’d dug out of the back of her closet.