Mallory looked around, noticing the lake across the street. They’d just passed a gated community, and across the other way was a fine dining restaurant with green grass and landscaping that could have been on the cover of Better Homes and Gardens.
Just outside of L.A., it was the most spacious area she’d ever seen so directly attached to the crazily busy metropolis.
“It’s perfect, Braden.” The words didn’t quite catch in her throat. Only because she got them out before the deluge of emotion hit.
His new place would be better even than the San Diego version. Of course. Braden was a lot wealthier now than he’d been then. The first building had gone up with loans, not investors.
“You really think so?” He was watching her and she looked back at him.
“I do.”
Her eyes glistened, but she smiled.
Looking satisfied, he nodded. “I was thinking the front of the building would face south,” he said, going on to describe his vision for the complex.
She added a few suggestions, which drew other ideas from him. All in all, they sat there for almost half an hour.
Mallory was proud of how well she managed.
His new life was going to be great.
And she resented the hell out of it for taking him away.
Because somehow over the past three years she’d become completely selfish where Braden was concerned. Counseling, both grief and marriage, had taught her to focus on herself—the only thing she could control or fix. Maybe she’d gone a bit too far with that.
“Do you think it’s wrong, me having a child?” If they’d been sitting in a restaurant with people buzzing around them, or in the broad light of day, she might not have asked.
In the dark in the enclosed and private comfort of his vehicle, with jazz music playing softly in the background, the question slipped past the barriers that guarded their friendship.
“I wouldn’t have participated if I did.”
She’d probably known that. And wished she’d asked a different question. Maybe more to the point would have been, Do you like the idea of me having a child? Or, Do you want me to have a child?
No. Neither one of those worked.
Do you feel good about me having a child?
Maybe that one was more what she wanted to know.
Was he hoping, secretly maybe, that she wouldn’t conceive?
Now she was treading on minefield territory.
“Are you planning to sell the complex in San Diego?” Sitting back, she stared at other headlights on the road in the distance and watched the rhythm of their passing, one after another.
“Of course not. Why would I do that?”
She shrugged. Trying to keep her tone even, noncommittal, she said, “You don’t need two headquarters.”
“Braden Property Management can have more than one office. It needs more than one, actually.”
Thinking about what he did, all of the people who worked for him, she could see that.
“Is William going with you to L.A.?”
“No. I need him right where he is, doing what he does.”
She could see that, too.