“I understand. It’s somewhere you still feel close to him. Selling it feels like handing those memories on to someone else.”
“It’s about what’s right for Mom, not me. I’m not the one who matters here.”
“You matter to me.” She slid her hand into his, and he stroked the backs of his fingers over her cheek.
The sun had dusted her nose with freckles and lightened her hair, making her eyes seem bluer than ever.
He wondered how she could possibly think she was the “bad” twin.
She was one of the most fiercely loyal people he’d ever met and straight as an arrow. For some reason he found himself thinking of Naomi, and her complicated manipulation.
Fliss was straightforward. She didn’t play games.
If Chase Adams was surprised to see Fliss, he kept his feelings to himself. Instead he gave her a hug, thanked her again for what she’d done for Matilda, assured her he was deeply in her debt and then turned to introduce his friend.
Todd Wheeler was an investment banker who worked on Wall Street. His phone rang constantly. It would have driven Seth insane, but Todd seemed to regard it as a normal part of his day.
“Wheeler.” He answered the phone in blunt, crisp tones. “No… That’s right… That stock is going through the roof—”
Seth didn’t care what happened with the stock as long as Todd had the money to buy his house, but the man didn’t seem interested.
Was a guy really going to part with a substantial portion of his capital for a place he’d barely glanced at?
Todd ended the call and Seth managed a polite smile. “Busy day?”
“Normal day.” Todd glanced at his watch. “Let’s do this.”
Seth refrained from asking if he was sure he had the time. Instead he walked through the rooms, the emptiness of the house enveloping him.
He probably should have been giving an effusive sales pitch, filling the echoing silence with patter about why this house was perfect, but he couldn’t summon the energy.
In the library Todd took three more phone calls in rapid succession and Fliss glanced at Seth and rolled her eyes.
The face she pulled made him feel better.
Later, he decided, they’d go back to his place and walk on the beach.
When Todd finally dropped the phone back into his pocket for the fifth time, Seth showed him the rest of the downstairs. He lingered in the formal dining area, where his mother had hosted more noisy dinner parties than he could remember, then walked through to the large kitchen that had been the heart of the home and had sweeping ocean views.
When Todd took another phone call, Seth started to wish he’d let Chase show the house without him. He could feel his father in every room.
He remembered the last Thanksgiving they’d spent together here as a family. Naomi had joined them, and from the moment she arrived it had been obvious to him he’d made a mistake inviting her. She’d read too much into the gesture and he’d heard her giggling with Vanessa. It was obvious they’d been plotting together, and that he was the subject of the plot.
She’d been waiting for him to propose.
When he hadn’t, she started dropping hints. When he hadn’t taken those hints, she’d grown more and more exasperated. And then moody.
Seth had left her with Vanessa and gone sailing with his father. This late in the year the waters around Gardiner’s Bay had been choppy, and they’d needed all their skill and experience to keep the boat on course. It had been both terrifying and exhilarating, and they’d had one of the best days sailing Seth could ever remember.
And he remembered another thing, too. He remembered his father saying that choosing a partner was one of the most important decisions a man ever made. That you should choose someone who wanted to run with you, not hold you back.
Seth knew his father didn’t think Naomi was right for him, and he’d agreed.
It was one of the last serious conversations he’d had with his father, and it had been the beginning of the end of his relationship with Naomi. It was the day he’d stopped looking for someone who made him feel the way Fliss did and resolved instead to find Fliss.
His father’s death shortly after had reminded him that life was too short to spend it with the wrong person.
They moved upstairs to the bedroom suites, and he heard Todd asking Chase a question about rental yield.