The Texas Tycoon's Baby(44)

“I think he just wants to get all the ceremonial stuff over with and be with his family in peace.” Chet was grinning down at Caroline, and the baby was still enamored of him.

“Ally’s as cool as ever,” Mina said. “I was with her first thing this morning, checking to see if she needed anything.”

“I have no doubt you were of great help.”

He transferred that adoring smile to Mina, and she just about melted, even though he was talking about one of her sore points—her propensity to be such a people pleaser.

Then it hit her: had she been doing her best to please Chet, too, just like anyone else?

The more she thought about it, the more it seemed like a real possibility. She’d been dancing around him with the paternity situation, putting all the pressure on herself without seriously giving him the benefit of the doubt when it came to taking the news well.

Had she taken her neuroses too far? Was this more about her than him?

While she was mulling over that, Chet had taken to rocking the baby ever so slightly, and Caroline’s eyes were beginning to close, little flutters of sleepiness.

The movement echoed in Mina’s chest, and she struggled to maintain herself.

She started up the conversation again. “Ally’s going to be such a beautiful bride.”

Now she sounded downright yearning, and Chet looked up from the baby, noticing it, as well.

“Don’t they say that every bride is beautiful?” he asked.

“Some more than others, I suspect.”

“Well, I’ll tell you what—you’ll be outshining everyone in that ballroom today, Mina.”

The sincerity of his tone bowled her over, weakening her in the knees and threatening to take her down.

The atmosphere had changed between them, going from tense to absolutely laden, weighed with things they couldn’t, wouldn’t, talk about.

“Mina,” he said, “I owe you a long talk. As much as I’m ashamed to say it, I’ve been putting it off, just like I put off making my peace with Eli for so long.”

She got the bad feeling that she was someone to “make peace with,” too, and that didn’t sit well.

Was he going to tell her that a romantic relationship just wasn’t going to work out, even before she told him what he needed to know?

All of a sudden, it was as if she was hearing her drunken uncle at that barbecue all those years ago, and he was spouting another truth, this time directly to her.

No one wants you, Mina. You’re an accident to everyone.

Her world spun, nightmarishly fast—images of her raising the baby alone or, worse yet, her having to trade off with Chet for visitation…

Before she could ask Chet to come out with what was in his heart, footsteps sounded on the path.

Mina turned to find Zoe rounding a tall hedge. Her dark shoulder-length hair was cut straight, and it swung with every step.

“Hi, there,” she said, giving Mina and Chet the same glance from last night, when they’d been slow dancing like a real couple.

After Mina and Chet quietly greeted her, Zoe held out her arms for the sleeping Caroline.

“I grabbed some breakfast early,” she said, “so I’m free to steal the baby while you take care of yourself, Mina.”

Chet gave the precious cargo to Zoe, who shot a sympathetic glance to him.

“Chet,” she said, “Eli’s on the patio. He’s been asking where you are.”

“Thanks, Zoe.”

She left Chet and Mina standing there, his hands in his jeans pockets, her arms crossed over her chest.

“You should go to him,” Mina said, almost relieved that she and Chet wouldn’t be able to talk until after the wedding. She was so afraid of what he might say…and about how this conversation with his father might ultimately affect everything.

“I’ll see you at the wedding,” Chet said, but he seemed hesitant to leave.

So she deserted him first, just as she might have to do anyway.



Chet kept thinking that there was something that he should go back and say to Mina before he went to his father, but he wasn’t sure what it was.

I’m sorry for always having to leave you hanging?

I’m sorry my life is such a mess that it doesn’t leave all that much time for you?

As he rounded the tall hedges and spotted his father standing on the patio in front of the French doors, a glass of what looked to be orange juice on the table near him, Chet fisted his hands by his sides.

He was sick of apologizing to Mina—just as sick as she must’ve been in hearing him. He was sick of how his life had spun out of control and he’d been too stubborn and angry to get a grip on it.

Most of all, he was sick of how Eli tested them, over and over again.