“Don’t look so nervous. I promise what I have to say will help you to understand the man whose heart you hold.” He raised a staying hand when she made to argue that last fact. “Just listen and draw your own conclusions.”
She nodded. Wondering what had the concern flashing in his eyes.
“I’m sure Falon told you, or at least hinted at, his distaste for me. I cannot fault him for it as it is very well founded. You see, his mother fell in love with the son of my gardener. For a man such as myself, to have my only daughter choose a man who digs in the dirt, it was inconceivable to my ego.” He paused, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I let my ego push my daughter from my life. She had a choice, that man or her legacy.”
“She chose love.” He looked deep into her eyes. “I can see that now, but then I was so lost in my own pride I cut them from my life. I acted as though they did not exist, lost track of them.” The regret filled those expressive eyes, the eyes so much like Falon’s. “I was in Italy when I heard about the accident. It had happened six months earlier and I knew nothing about having a grandson. Grief stricken, I didn’t return to America for another six months only to learn of Falon. He was lost in the system by then and there is only so much foreign money can buy.”
“He said you contacted him at Northwestern.”
His eyes lit up. “So he did open to you.”
The statement caused her to issue a very unladylike snort and the smile returned to his face. “I think you are underestimating your position with my grandson. Life has dealt him some blows. He feels he cannot rely on anyone. A part of that is my fault. A part of it is the people who the state trusted to care for him after his parent’s death.”
“What do you mean?”
“After I cut his mother off, their life was hard. They did not have money, but they were rich in other ways an old man is only now beginning to understand. They had love. When they died that love was ripped from Falon and he was thrust into a world he wasn’t prepared for.” He looked so guilty she fought the urge to comfort him. “One home he was in, they should have never been trusted with children. Falon came home early one day and found the man trying to rape one of the girls in the house. He reacted, putting the man in the hospital.”
“Oh my gosh.” Sarah raised a hand to her mouth. She knew Falon had pulled himself from poverty to become the success he was today, but she had no idea it was that bad.
“He won’t talk about that day.” He shook his head sadly. “I had to access the closed police file for what little details I know. But I believe that day was the last straw, he was only seventeen and had to witness what lack of self-control can do to a man. That, coupled with what I did to his mother, it changed him.”
“You can’t blame yourself.”
“I can, and I do.” He rose from his seat. “My grandson has connected with you in a way I had been praying for, for years. You are in his heart. The question is Sarah Maxwell, what are you going to do about it?”
She sat frozen watching him walk out of the room. At the door, he turned to study her once more. “There are many faults with the man he has become. He cannot see past his own resolve to see his life is to mean something more than the money that keeps him from the world he is running from. Money is never a replacement for love. This old man should know.”
Then he was gone and Sarah was left to make sense of what he had told her. There was no way he could possibly be right. Right? From her understanding, the man barely knew Falon. How would he know if he … if she … God, just the idea that he might be right made her heart leap into her throat.
A high-pitched tittering filled the outer office as the man in question stepped off the elevator, Ginny securely attached to his arm. His eyes clashed with her for only a moment before he focused on his companion. She wasn’t sure, but the look she saw in that second their eyes connected gave Sarah the confidence to enact one more mission.
***
Falon had listened to Ginny begging him to take her away for the weekend the entire hour they spent at lunch. She wanted his last days in Chicago to be spent in utter—naked—seclusion with her. She had been regaling him with her sexcapades schedule when they stepped off the elevator and his eyes tangled with liquid topaz. He forced his gaze back to Ginny before he crossed the room and took Sarah in his arms. Making a fool of himself telling her how much he missed her eyes, her laugh, how their bodies fit. Missed her.
Shaking off the sentiment, he smiled down at the woman on his arm. “I’ll call you.” He gave her a peck on the cheek and pulled his arm free. He let out a relieved sigh when the elevator doors slid shut.
“She’s not the one for you, figlio.”
Falon’s spine straightened. His grandfather was the last person he wanted to deal with today. “It’s none of your concern, Armand.” He turned to face the older man. “What are you doing here?”
He knew part of his defensiveness was because Armand was right. Ginny wasn’t for him at all. And that suited him just fine. He didn’t want a woman to feel right. To fit into his life so well that he wasn’t sleeping nights without her. He was afraid the only woman he would ever truly want was now out of his reach.
“I told you I would be in town this week.” The kind, knowing smile on his grandfather’s face made him bristle further. “Ralph and I have a tee time scheduled after lunch. I thought I would stop in early and see how you were.”
“Now you’ve seen me.” He held his hand out to his sides. “As you can see I’m doing just fine.”
“Planning a little vacation I hear?”
“Again, not of your business.”
Armand studied him for a moment before giving a slight nod. “Don’t make my mistakes. Your mother would not want you pushing away the ones you love.”
“Don’t you think you’re the last person who would know what my mother would have wanted?” He felt his hands curl into fists. Taking a deep breath, he willed himself to calm down. Just in time for the elevator’s ding and the arrival of Ralph and Frank. “Looks like your golf partner has arrived.”
The old man didn’t say anything more, just looked at him for a second, searching for something he wasn’t sure he would find before he went to greet his old friend. Breathing deeply, he had never been so glad it was a Friday in his life. At the end of the day, his job in this godforsaken city would be done and he could get on with his life. Shooting another glance through the glass at Sarah, he refused to acknowledge the emptiness of that life.
***
Falon sat on the edge of the bed watching the city lights through the curtains he forgot to close when he got in earlier that night. The sweat on his skin was now dry, but the erection that was making itself painfully known hadn’t gone anywhere. The dream that pulled him from his sleep was different this time and he was trying to make sense of it all.
It was still fully of erotic images and sensations he could still feel at the base of his spine. But this dream started differently. He had been lying in bed. He recognized the room he spent his senior year in, despites its best efforts to tilt off its axis. He remembered that night. It was the end of midterms and he had gotten amazingly drunk avoiding the decision to join his grandfather’s company or go out on his own.
Lost in those thoughts, his dream self didn’t register someone was in the room until the door clicked quietly shut.
“Jim?” Even his drunk, twenty-one-year-old self knew that voice. It was the girl Jim had pointed out to him when everyone had returned from break.