Billionaires and Baby Rattles(70)
“Looking for this?”
She spun around, and all thought left her head. Easton stood there, holding up the letter she’d kept in the drawer. “H-How…?”
He strode toward her, taking slow, measured steps. The thundercloud that was his expression did not bode well. “You told me you would leave a cheat sheet if I forgot anything, so she wouldn’t see you instructing me. I panicked a little over one of the ingredients for the sauce when you went into the back.”
That’s why he’d gone quiet and become distant. He found her letter, and he was right. She did leave instructions, written on a tiny scrap of paper, but not in the drawer. She had taped it to the side of the breadbox, out of sight of Darby but visible to him. He must have forgotten in his anxiety.
Kenzie twisted her hands together and glanced away from him. “You should have realized it wasn’t what you were looking for and put it back. It wasn’t any of your business. You shouldn’t have read it.”
“None of my business?” he roared. The paper crackled as he snapped it open. “‘Dear Ms. Bridges—Kenzie—if you’re receiving this letter, it means I’ve passed on… I want you to know what our time together has meant…”
She looked at him as he stopped reading and caught the sickened expression on his face. “It’s not like that!”
“Not like what?” He stepped closer, and she retreated a step. “Let’s talk about the fact that you lied. You knew my grandfather!”
“Yeah, and I can see you’re jumping to conclusions, but I didn’t lie. You never asked me if I knew him.”
“I distinctly did.”
“You ‘distinctly’ didn’t! You told me your name like I should know you, and I told you I didn’t know you, which I didn’t.”
“That’s a technicality.”
“Whatever.”
“Don’t play games with me, Kenzie.”
“I’m not.”
He grabbed her arms and jerked her to him. “You tricked me.”
“Nobody tricked you!”
“He says in black and white in that letter that he wanted you to help me find a wife. Do you deny it?”
“No.”
“And you decided you would volunteer for the job.”
“Boy, please! You must have forgotten I turned your oh-so-romantic offer down. I didn’t trick you. Okay, I knew your grandfather. He started coming here about a year ago. He’d rent out the place and just sit here drinking coffee and eating my sandwiches. I knew he was sick. He told me as much. That might be why I let him keep coming. We became friends, sort of. As much as an arrogant old rich man like him would allow. Then he stopped coming, and I wondered.”
“Bedridden.” The pain on Easton’s face said all she needed to know.
“I got the letter about a week and a half before you showed up. I read it, but I didn’t take it seriously. It made me sad knowing he was gone.”
Easton released her and turned his back. He shifted his big shoulders and ran a hand through his hair. She wanted to touch him but resisted. No matter the fact that she’d explained to him, he still appeared angry.
“Grandfather changed over the last year or so of his sickness. He started viewing the world differently.”
“I understand that. My mother was the same way.”
He looked back at her, and for a minute he seemed to commiserate, but then his expression hardened. “You insist you weren’t trying to trap me, huh?”
“Kiss my ass, Easton.”
He strode back to her. “Oh really? Then what’s this?” When he tapped two fingers to her belly, she forgot to breathe. “You’re pregnant! You were on the Pill. It’s the only reason I stopped using protection. I should have known better.”
Several times, she opened her mouth to speak, but words refused to come. At least her eyes were dry for the moment. “Get out.”
“What?”
“You. Heard. Me. Get the hell out of my restaurant, and don’t come back!”
“No.”
She moved around him and walked down the stairs to the door. Wrenching it open, she enunciated again, “Get out, Easton. If you don’t leave now, I’m calling the police, and you can deal with them. I used to date a cop who works this beat. He hates snobby rich guys like you, and he’d be glad to arrest you and figure out who you are after tossing your ass behind bars.”
“Fine, but this conversation isn’t over.”
“Oh, it’s over. Go find Darby and marry her. Let her have your baby. Me and mine don’t need you, not now, not ever.”