And it wasn’t until last night, sitting under the stars with Alex in his arms¸ that he had felt like putting down roots. Settling.
He wasn’t sure what that would mean. He was here on an ever-renewing work visa so he had to keep working. He couldn’t up and quit and wander around aimlessly in the United States.
Blowing out a breath, he picked up his phone and dialed the number to his father’s shop. It would be in the afternoon there, probably around one of his father’s dozen smoke breaks.
After a series of clicks, there was finally ringing and Spencer tapped his fingers on the ink blotter of the hotel desk.
“Red Fox Auto,” a gruff voice answered, followed by a loud exhale.
Yep, smoking. “How many fags has it been already today, Pop?”
There was a pause. “Get off my arse.”
Spencer smiled.
“How are you?” his father asked.
“All right. Working. Uh, in a town in Maryland.”
“Where’s that?”
“East Coast.”
His dad grunted. He’d never been to the United States and said he never had the desire to. And Spencer hadn’t been back for a couple of years. He wondered what his father looked like now. If his hair was completely white now. If it was thinning. If that spare tire around his gut had grown. He sighed. “Did you care that I didn’t stay?”
“What are you on about?”
“Did you care that I left? Or did you want me to stay and work at the garage?” He’d always thought his father didn’t care either way.
Another pause, this one longer, punctuated by a series of harsh coughs that made Spencer cringe. “ ’Course I cared.”
“Yeah?”
“Always thought you’d be working beside me, but didn’t want you to do it because you felt like you had to. You were . . . eh . . . smarter.” He drew out the word, with a little bitterness. “Like your mum. Always thought you’d leave and be happier that way.”
“Do you ever . . . wish you had left?”
“No.” The answer came quick and sharp. “I’m lucky. Knew where I belonged right away, and that’s here. Sometimes it takes people their whole lives to figure out where the hell they belong.”
“But you don’t think I belonged there?”
“Not when you were eighteen. Now? Maybe. I don’t think you belong in that fancy city of yours, though, either.” There was a banging sound and his father cursed at someone before speaking to Spencer again. “You think you figured out where you belong yet?”
“I don’t know.”
“This have to do with a woman?”
Spencer hesitated. “It might.”
His dad grunted. “That’ll do it. Bring her ’round sometime. Gotta run.” And then he hung up.
Spencer stared at the phone, then began to laugh. There really was no one like his father. He’d spent a lot of energy when he was younger hating him, but that had been the result of a lot of miscommunication and teenage angst.
He stared at the phone in its cradle, thinking he was glad as hell he called. And he was still laughing when there was a knock at the door of his room.
He opened it and Penny walked past him into the room, wrinkling her nose at the clothes he’d left on the floor. He rolled his eyes, picked them up, and threw them into a chair. “Better?”
“I thought you liked tidy.”
“It’s a hotel room, and we’re checking out soon, right?”
She fiddled with a half-full soda bottle on the desk. “Yes, we are.”
“Why are you acting odd? Is there something wrong?”
Penny sat down on the end of his bed and Spencer frowned, taking a seat in the desk chair. Her shoulders were tense, which was really the only indication she was nervous. Penny tended to face things head-on. She met his gaze. “The team back in New York liked Nick’s proposal.”
Spencer stared at her, frozen.
“It’s a good location, within walking distance of a convenience store. It’s visible and the lot is cheaper.”
Spencer finally got his jaw to unhinge. “Wait, what are you talking about? My report was perfect. I scoured this town—”
“Nick mentioned that your report may have been colored by your . . . personal life.”
Spencer rose so fast that the chair slammed into the desk and Penny jolted. Through gritted teeth, he said, “Tell me he didn’t say that.”
She swallowed, her complexion a little white. Spencer knew he was towering over her, his body radiating fury, but he couldn’t seem to calm himself.
“I didn’t know he was going to do it,” she said. “And for the record, I disagree with him, but this isn’t a dictatorship and—”
He ran a hand through his hair and strode to the window, staring out at the pool below, his mind on overdrive as he tried to sort through the issue while also working to control his temper.
When Penny spoke again, her voice was softer. “The decision isn’t final, but we will be moving forward with inquiries to buy the Payton land. If those are . . . unsuccessful, then we will resort to the location you recommended.”
He closed his eyes and banged his forehead on the window. He knew how persuasive his company’s lawyers could be. They weren’t crooked, but they sure struck a shrewd deal.
He thought about the first time he saw Alex, when she stood in front of the garage, tire iron in her hand, blue eyes bright.
It’d been him who had brought Royalty to this town, who’d told his company to build here. He’d brought this down upon the head of Alex and the only family she’d ever known. He knew for a fact that his relationship with her hadn’t clouded his judgment, but fucking Nick would use anything he could to get his way. “Shit,” Spencer whispered.
A hand landed on his shoulder and he shrugged it off. A heavy sigh came from behind him, but he ignored her, because his chest hurt and all he wanted to do was get in his car and drive far, far away. For a second he thought about leaving without telling Alex, but that would be the coward’s way out. He had to do something, even if it cost him everything.
Maybe he could go down to Payton and Sons. Warn Alex. But that seemed ill-advised. What, would she forgive him just because he gave her a heads-up? No, no way. She’d still blame him. She’d still hate him. She’d asked for them to part ways with happy memories, and now they’d be tinged with betrayal.
“Shit,” he said again.
“Look, that shop is old anyway. They’d get money to rebuild and—”
He whirled around and pinned her with a glare. “You don’t know these people.”
“Oh and you do?” she said through narrowed eyes. “You know all about them after sleeping with Alex for a couple of weeks?”
He pointed a finger at her. “That was a little low.”
Color stained her cheeks. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. I like Alex too, but this is business.”
He shook his head. She didn’t understand. “I know these people, and they don’t care about a fancy garage or anything like that. That shop has been there for forty years, and it’s going to take an act of God for the patriarch of that family to give it up. And I don’t want him to be pressured and hassled. I want to leave here with them happy and healthy, knowing that a hotel will be built on land that won’t affect them, and that hotel will create much-needed jobs for this town. That’s what they want. And that’s what I want.”
“We don’t always get what we want, Spence,” Penny said softly.
“What does that mean?”
She lifted her chin higher. “There’s no deeper meaning. It’s a fact of life.”
Spencer was done keeping his mouth shut about her husband. “Well, Nick’s not getting this, Penny. He’s not. It’s like he’s spent his whole marriage to you proving he is a better husband to you than I would have been. When’s that going to stop? When’s he going to realize we’re not in competition?”
She pressed her lips together and kept silent.
Spencer wondered why Penny found herself in these relationships with men who couldn’t hold a candle to her. “Penny, I know you love Nick. And I know I’m sticking my nose somewhere that it doesn’t belong, but can you honestly say your marriage is okay? That Nick is the one for you?”
Her top teeth peeked out to nibble on her bottom lip. “When we first met, I thought he was just competitive, but . . . ”
“But what?”
“But now I’m starting to think he’s insecure.” She shook her head. “I don’t know. I can’t make any decisions right now.”
Spencer sighed, thinking the similarities between Penny and Alex were more than he had previously thought. Both were strong women who couldn’t seem to find a man who appreciated that. Except him, maybe. His heart ached. “I’m sorry to bring it up.”
“No, it’s okay,” she said softly. “You’ve always been honest with me. I wouldn’t want you to change now.”
Spencer glanced at the door. “Where’s Nick now?”
“He said he was going to the park to go running.”
Spencer glanced outside. It was drizzling. “In this weather?”
Uncertainty crossed Penny’s face.