2. Chapter Two
Chapter Two
Hayden
Dasha had barely entered the house, and Hayden was already furious.
She stood beside his mother in a fitted green dress, accepting Larissa’s welcome as if she’d been invited home after a long trip. Her red hair curved against her jaw in the same perfect line Hayden remembered. Her green eyes moved from him to Caroline and back again.
“Hayden,” she said.
“Dasha.”
He kept his voice flat. At his side, Caroline had gone very still.
His mother either didn’t notice or chose not to.
“It was such luck that Dasha was free,” she said. “I thought we needed one more person at the table.”
“You might’ve mentioned it.” Hayden tried to keep his voice low and polite.
Larissa’s smile held. “It was a last-minute thought.”
There were no last-minute thoughts in his mother’s social life. She placed people around a dinner table with more care than most developers used on a site plan. She decided who met, who sat together, and which conversation ought to happen before anyone else knew there was a plan.
Hayden understood because both his parents operated that way.
Larissa arranged the family’s private world.
Adam remained chairman of Lynch Properties and expected the same access to Hayden’s business decisions, though Hayden had been CEO long enough to know the company better than anyone.
To them, his authority was real right up to the point when he used it to do something they disliked.
Marrying Caroline after one weekend had passed that point at high speed.
Paulie stepped forward and kissed Dasha’s cheek.
“I knew dinner was missing danger,” he said roguishly.
“No way. With you here?” Dasha said.
“True. But I provide a different kind.”
Larissa laughed. Caroline didn’t.
Hayden rested his hand more firmly against the small of her back. “Come with me,” he said.
She looked up at him. “Where?”
“Somewhere quiet.”
He guided her out of the entrance hall before his mother could object. The first open door led to a morning room that faced the side garden. He closed the door but left it unlatched. Caroline turned toward him, the dusty-blue dress smooth over the curve of her belly.
“I didn’t know she’d be here,” he said.
Caroline searched his face. “You really didn’t?”
“No.”
“Your mother seemed pretty sure she’d be welcome.”
“My mother thinks everyone she likes is welcome everywhere.”
“Does she still like Dasha?”
“She never stopped.” He rubbed a hand over his beard, already tired of a conversation he shouldn’t have needed to have. “That has nothing to do with me.”
Caroline glanced toward the closed door. “It feels as if it might have something to do with us.”
“It doesn’t.” He stepped closer and took her hand. “Dasha’s here because my mother invited her. I didn’t ask for this. I don’t want her here, and her being at dinner changes nothing between you and me.”
The strain around Caroline’s mouth eased, though it didn’t vanish. “Nothing?”
“Nothing.” He raised her hand and kissed the inside of her wrist. “You’re my wife. You’re carrying my daughter. You’re the only woman I want to take home tonight.”
“That’s a low standard when the other woman has her own car.”
He smiled despite himself. “I was trying to be romantic.”
“You were getting there.”
“Give me another minute.”
“Your mother might send a search party.”
“She’d choose the outfits first. We have time.”
Caroline’s laugh was quiet, but it was real. Hayden bent and kissed her. She leaned into him, one hand settling against his chest. For a few breaths, he had his wife back – the warm, funny woman who made even his parents’ house feel less heavy.
When he drew away, he touched his forehead to hers. “If you want to leave, tell me.”
“I already wanted to leave,” she said.
“If you want to leave more.”
“Very useful system.”
“I thought so.”
He opened the door and brought her back to the others.
Dinner began soon after. Hayden had eaten at that table often enough that he barely saw it anymore.
The silver had belonged to some branch of the family before he was born.
Portraits of dead Lynches hung against dark walls, all of them dressed as if smiling would’ve shown poor judgment.
Too many forks and spoons bordered each plate.
The glasses were thin, the linen was heavy, and every dish arrived looking exactly as his mother expected.
Caroline sat beside him. Dasha was across from them, between his father and Paulie.
His mother’s seating plan, of course.
“The blue was an excellent decision,” Larissa told Caroline after the first course arrived. “Though I confess, I rather miss all that hair. Our wildflower looks almost tamed.”
Caroline touched the low knot at the back of her head. “It took a lot of pins.”
“I’m sure it did. It must be wonderful to have so little concern for convention.”
Hayden glanced at his mother. Her tone was light. She’d called Caroline their wildflower before, and he understood it as an attempt at fondness. A poor one, perhaps, but Larissa’s humor had always come wrapped in a little criticism.
“She looks beautiful either way,” he said.
Caroline turned toward him. The corner of her mouth lifted.
There. Handled.
His father asked him about the financing schedule again. Hayden gave him a brief answer, then put down his wineglass.
“We’ll review the full numbers at the office,” he said.
“I only asked whether they’re settled.”
“They’re where I said they’d be.”
His father’s gaze stayed on him for a beat. “Fine.”
The exchange would’ve sounded ordinary to anyone else. Hayden heard the reminder under it. His father was still chairman. He still expected to ask a question whenever he pleased and receive an answer that satisfied him.
Paulie broke the pause by asking Caroline, “Have you taught my brother to make anything more complicated than a whiskey with ice?”
“He can open wine.” Caroline chuckled.
“Can he?” Dasha asked. “He used to make someone else do it.”
Hayden ignored her. “I have many skills.”
Caroline looked at him with grave doubt. “Name four.”
Paulie laughed. “Give him warning before an exam.”
The next course arrived. Caroline looked down at the silver beside her plate and reached toward one fork before stopping.
Larissa leaned closer. “The outside one, dear.”
Caroline moved her hand. “Right. Thank you.”
“We really must stop setting these little traps for you.”
Paulie lifted the wrong fork on purpose. “Which one catches bears?”
“Put that down,” Larissa said.
Hayden smiled. Caroline didn’t look at him.
He assumed she was concentrating. She’d told him dinner felt like an examination, and now she was determined to pass it.
He wished she understood that none of it mattered.
The fork existed to move food to her mouth.
His mother teased everyone. Paulie had spent most of his life making himself the joke before anyone else could manage it.
They were a difficult family. They weren’t monsters.
“Whatever else happens,” his father said, “Hayden will always be guaranteed an excellent cocktail.”
Everyone laughed. Hayden did too, more at the idea of Caroline behind their formal drinks cabinet than at his father’s joke.
Caroline set down her fork.
“It’s quite a skill,” Dasha said. “And you have such a refreshing lack of self-consciousness, Caroline. I envy it.”
“Do you?” Caroline asked, her voice tense.
“Very much. I can’t remember the last time I walked into a room without thinking about how I appeared.”
That was plainly untrue, but Hayden took the comment as an effort to be pleasant. At least Dasha wasn’t openly hostile.
Paulie, who could never leave a conversation alone when he might make it louder, leaned toward Caroline. “Tell them about the whiskey man.”
She shook her head. “No.”
“You told me, and I’ve been saving it for people with the right level of education.”
“Then you chose the wrong table.”
Hayden grinned. “What whiskey man?”
Caroline looked at him, and some life returned to her face. “He came into the bar with a woman he wanted to impress. He asked for our most expensive whiskey and made sure she heard the price.”
“A romantic,” Paulie said.
“Very. Then he asked me to put cola in it.”
Adam frowned as if he’d been told about a crime.
Caroline saw it and laughed. “That was almost my face too. His date ordered the same whiskey neat, drank hers, then took his glass away from him.”
“Did she drink that too?” Hayden asked.
“After I replaced it. I told her some mistakes shouldn’t be allowed to spread.”
Paulie raised his glass to her. “A public servant.”
Caroline was laughing now, her hands moving as she described the man’s wounded pride and the tip his date had left.
Hayden watched her and forgot the weight of the dinner for a while.
This was the Caroline he’d first seen under amber light, moving behind the bar with quick hands and quicker answers.
She hadn’t cared about his suit except to make fun of it.
She’d had no idea his name appeared on buildings, contracts, and articles he never read unless someone forced them on him.
He’d been meant to spend one night in Vegas for a Lynch Properties development. The financing depended on relationships he had built, and every meal on that trip had carried some purpose. He’d gone into the bar after a long day because he wanted one drink before sleeping.
Instead, he’d stayed until Caroline finished work.
He’d delayed his flight, moved calls, and told his team to manage without him for a little longer. The demands hadn’t stopped. His phone had filled with messages from senior staff, lenders, his father, and his mother. For once, Hayden hadn’t let any of them decide where he would be.