Nic Durand could be as charming as he wanted to be, could do a million wonderful things for her and their child, and it still wouldn’t matter, Desi assured herself. There was no way she would let any of that sway her from her course, no way she would let herself soften, let herself forget. No way she would let herself depend on him. Because that didn’t work for her—it never had. Never would. The moment she started to believe someone cared about her, that the person wouldn’t leave her—boom. That’s exactly what happened.
So, no. There would be no falling for Nic, she told herself again as the limo made its way through the streets of LA before turning onto the freeway. Yes, he was living with her. Yes, they were incredibly sexually compatible, and yes, she was having his baby—but that was all there was. It was enough. More than enough. Trying for anything else would only end with one—or both—of them getting hurt.
The thought depressed her so much that she closed her eyes and willed herself not to think about it anymore. Nic had been living with her for only twenty-four hours, had been back in her life for only one week, yet the idea of him wal
king out of her life one day soon bothered her more than she would ever be comfortable with.
It had been a crazy day, and it wasn’t long before the motion of the car had her drifting off to sleep. She’d planned on only dozing—wanting to be alert enough to answer if Nic texted her—but the next thing she knew, they were pulling into the massive SeaWorld parking lot. She reached for her phone and the directions she’d downloaded earlier on how to get to the pavilion, but the driver seemed to know exactly where he was going as he wound his way to the private entrance.
When they arrived, she thanked the driver profusely and tried to tip him, but of course he wouldn’t take her money. Desi shook her head ruefully as she climbed out of the car. Having Nic around to take care of her was going to ruin her if she wasn’t careful.
A glance at her phone showed she hadn’t missed any texts from Nic, but then again, she’d made it to San Diego earlier than expected. She set her phone to recorder mode—which was one of the ways she kept track of who was talking to whom and what they were wearing while they were doing it—then followed the pathway up to the pavilion’s main door.
Once she was checked in, she walked through the venue, scoping it out. She’d never been to a charity ball here before, and as she walked in the door, she was charmed to see the huge aquariums that surrounded the room on all sides. The decor was very much “under the sea,” which was to be expected, considering the charity benefiting from the night’s gala. The aquariums blended in beautifully.
She took quiet note of who was already there—not a lot of people yet whom her readers would be interested in—then made her way to the aquariums. She wanted to see the fish. She could imagine the beginning of her piece starting with the fish and expanding to the oceans and then the purpose of the gala. The society reporter before her used to focus exclusively on the glitterati, but Desi had gotten in the habit of giving her readers a little more of the atmosphere and charity angle before launching into the who’s who.
So far her readers seemed to like it. Or, at least, they hadn’t complained about it, so she’d take a win where she could get it.
Especially after her debacle with the Bijoux article. Her cheeks heated as she once again thought of how badly she’d messed up that whole thing. She’d spent much of last week going over her notes, trying to see where she’d gone wrong in vetting the source, but everything had checked out. Everything had seemed fine…right up until it had all fallen apart.
She still didn’t understand how she had made such a terrible mistake.
Malcolm told her it was because her nose wasn’t developed yet—he was always going on about how all the great investigative reporters had a nose for a story…and a nose for the truth. When she was little, before her mother had died and her father had bugged out for parts unknown, her dad used to say the same thing. But he’d told her she had that nose. That she was going to be a great reporter.
And though he’d disappointed her in a lot of different ways through the years, she’d never doubted him when it came to that. Probably because she hadn’t wanted to doubt him. Hadn’t wanted to acknowledge that the one tenuous thing that held them together was nothing but a lie.
As she stood staring at a particularly beautifully arranged aquarium—filled with orange clownfish and yellow-and-blue angelfish swimming amid bright pink, yellow-and-blue sea anemones—she was hit with the most awful thought yet. What if she didn’t really want to be a reporter? What if she’d done all this—busted her butt at the top journalism school in the nation, worked her heart out to land the worst job at one of the most prestigious papers in the country—not because she actually wanted to be a journalist, but because she’d been so desperate to get her father’s attention, to make him love her, that she’d made herself into a person she thought he would want?
It hadn’t worked. Not that it was exactly a surprise—from the moment her mother had died, Desi had ceased to exist for her father. Then again, everything had ceased to exist except his job. He’d shuffled her from relative to relative, exhausting their hospitality while he chased stories overseas.
And where had that gotten them? He was dead and she was in the middle of this ballroom, taking notes about rich people and wondering if maybe her whole life up until this point had been a lie. Not exactly a stellar year for either of them, if she did say so herself.
Her soul-searching was cut off when a familiar male voice asked, “Sparkling water?”
She turned to see Nic, a glass of champagne in one hand and a glass of sparkling water in the other. He was dressed in a different tuxedo from the one he’d been wearing the night she met him, but he still looked absolutely gorgeous. Absolutely devastating. Or maybe it was just that she was devastated. She couldn’t tell. All she knew was she wanted nothing more than to throw herself into his arms, burrow into his chest and pretend that everything was going to be okay.
“You look thirsty,” he told her, holding out one of the glasses with a quirk of his eyebrow.
And because she knew he would take her mind off everything that was whirling in her brain—and because she knew a perfect setup when she saw one—she took the glass from him. Then she looked over the rim and delivered her line. “Funny, I was just about to say the same thing about you.”
“Were you?” he asked with the crooked grin she had come to love. “Well, you wouldn’t be wrong.”
She went off script then, tapping his glass. “You should probably drink up, then.”
“Oh, I intend to. In fact—” He paused suddenly, his eyes darkening to the mossy green shade she loved the most. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing at all,” she lied. “Why?”
“Something is,” he told her as he searched her face. He was frowning now, all levity replaced by concern.
How could he tell? she wondered a little wildly, even as she calmly met his gaze. She’d learned a long time ago to keep her emotions tucked deep inside, so deep that sometimes even she forgot they were there. So how did he know?
“I can see it,” he said, and for one crazy moment she thought he had read her mind. But then she realized he was reacting to her denial…and the upset she obviously wasn’t as good at hiding as she’d thought she was.
“Here.” He cupped her cheek in his hand, rubbed his thumb gently over the skin just beyond the curve of her mouth. “Your dimple’s gone. That only happens when you’re upset.”
No one had ever seen that before—not even her. She’d gone through most of her adult life thinking she was one of the very few people who didn’t have a tell, thinking she had hidden herself deeply enough that there was nothing for anyone to see.