“All you women are enjoying this, aren’t you?” I asked, turning toward the kitchen as the dog trotted after me.
Charlotte met me in the hall. “Kira’s putting her suitcase in her car,” she said. “You’re not going with her?”
I glanced toward the door. “Why would I go with her?”
“I just thought it would make more sense for both of you to show up to tell her father you’re married. Wouldn’t that make it more convincing?” Obviously Kira had told Charlotte where she was going and why. She’d have told you if you’d asked too, Grayson.
“If she’d wanted me to go with her, she would have asked,” I insisted. I turned my attention to the dog. “Come here, Maggie.” She sat looking at me. I sighed. “Come on, Sugar Pie.” The insufferable animal stood up to trot after me as we walked toward the kitchen. Charlotte laughed. “I’m sure this is very amusing for you,” I said, glaring at her.
Charlotte smiled as she began to take items from the refrigerator. “I’m making Kira a sandwich to take on the road. Would you like one?”
“Sure,” I said, sitting on a bar stool.
“As for this sweet girl,” she said, smiling down at the dog who wagged her tail gleefully at Charlotte, “I imagine the first time Kira called her Sugar Pie, she said it with such adoring love, this dog couldn’t easily let it go now. I suspect it was the very first time she had heard a loving tone attached to herself in her short, sad life. That’s a very powerful thing, you know.”
I met Charlotte’s wise eyes, considering her words, thinking about the fact that my wife had brought this dog home for me to try to heal something that had happened a long time ago. By the look of sadness that had been in her eyes earlier, maybe Kira needed something from long ago healed as well. Perhaps we were husband and wife on paper only, but she had shown me undeserved kindness. She hadn’t had an ulterior motive; she’d simply done it because she could. Maybe she deserves the same. “Wrap both the sandwiches, Charlotte,” I said. “I’m going with her.”
Charlotte only smiled.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Kira
I was setting my suitcase in the trunk of my car when I saw Grayson emerge from the house with what looked like an overnight bag of his own and a small cooler.
I closed the trunk and stood watching him as he approached. “What are you doing?” I asked.
“Coming with you,” he replied, opening the trunk and removing my suitcase.
“Coming with me? But—”
He shut my trunk again and turned toward me. “It will look more convincing if we both go to your father. We made this business arrangement together, and we should both be involved in what’s necessary to make it work. Consider this me earning part of my share.” He was coming with me? My heart gave a small gallop of both happiness and uncertainty. He walked to his truck parked nearby and put my suitcase and his bags behind the front seat.
“Okay,” I said, walking him. “But why are you putting my suitcase into your truck?”
“Because I like to drive.”
I sighed. Controlling man. And here I was traveling to see another one who liked to trample all over me. That uncertainty suddenly ratcheted higher than the momentary happiness I’d felt.
Grayson got behind the wheel and I opened the passenger side door, looking up at him but not climbing in. “You don’t have to feel obligated to do this,” I said. I wasn’t exactly sure if I wanted Grayson to meet my father for the first time when I’d be telling him about our marriage. I could only imagine the frigid disdain he’d show not only me but Grayson as well. And I had to wonder if Grayson’s name would be familiar at all. I doubted it—my father only remembered those who could continue to serve his agenda in some way. Plus, what had happened had been quite a few years ago and had transpired in a few brief moments. Still, I’d never pictured Grayson being in the room when I informed my father I’d gotten married without telling him in advance. Things could get ugly, and I didn’t want anyone—most especially Grayson Hawthorn—to see it. Especially considering that I was pretty sure my father wouldn’t strive to spare Grayson’s feelings in any way, shape, or form. God, when had I begun to care so much about the Dragon’s feelings anyway? It was really somewhat concerning.
“It’s the appropriate way to handle this, Kira. Now, can we go? I don’t want to hit any traffic in San Francisco.”
“Who will take care of Sugar Pie?” I asked, attempting one final argument.
“Charlotte. Virgil will help out too. The dog seems attached to him already.”
Okay then, fine, he could come and see for himself exactly why I would rather marry him than take anything from my father in this life or any other. He would see…well, he would see exactly who I was. And that scared me. Why? And then it came to me—I wanted the Dragon to respect me. I didn’t want him to see me as the spoiled heiress he’d obviously judged me to be that day in his office when he’d shown me such coldness. I didn’t want him to see the grandeur of where I’d grown up and think that was any part of who I was or what I wanted out of life. I had married this man, and yet I’d never intended on letting Grayson Hawthorn into my private life, my private pain. I had set up this arrangement as a business venture. And now, suddenly, I realized, it was turning into more—for me at least. I cared. And that scared me.
I swallowed down my turbulent emotions and got in the car. As we drove through the gates, I rolled down the window and inhaled a deep breath of the air, still sweet with the scent of late summer.
“Where are you planning on staying?” Grayson asked once we’d turned onto the freeway.
“A hotel,” I answered.
“Not with Kimberly?”
“No. Now that I have the money to stay at a decent hotel, I’d rather not impose on them. Their apartment is so small.”
Grayson nodded. “She seems like a good friend.”
“She is. She’s the best.” I smiled, leaning my head back on the headrest. “We grew up together. Her mother came to work for us when we were both five. She’s more like a sister, really. My mother had just died”—I bit my lip—“a skiing accident, and well…Kimberly’s mother, Rosa Maria, took me under her wing during that time.” I smiled, happy to turn my thoughts to anything other than confronting my father with my marriage. “Kimberly’s birthday happened to fall a couple days after her mother first started working there, and Rosa Maria threw a very small party for her and invited the children of the other staff members. I was desperate to go and begged my father to take me out to get her a present, but he’d said, ‘You won’t need to buy her a present because you won’t be going. A Dallaire does not belong in such low company.’” I had deepened my voice to mimic my father’s masculine tone, and when I looked over at Grayson, he was wearing a small frown. Well, good, you should get a taste of my father’s winning personality now before you’re confronted with it in person.
“As you might imagine,” I went on, “I wasn’t going to accept that for an answer, so I took a necklace my mother had given me with a silver heart on it and had our gardener, George, clip it in half. I put it on a string, snuck into Kimberly’s party in their living quarters, gave the makeshift necklace to her, and declared it meant we would be best friends for all eternity.” My heart filled with warmth at the memory of how openly and lovingly she’d accepted it, and also that Kimberly still treasured the first token of our friendship.