her daughter’s footsteps, Rachel reached the end of the hall leading into the living room. She hung back as Natalie opened the front door, so she could still witness what was happening.
When she saw the tall, spectacular looking man standing on the threshold, the sight of him reduced her limbs to water.
It was Tris. But over the last twelve years, the good-looking nineteen-year-old heartthrob she’d fallen in love with had changed into the most gorgeous man she’d ever seen in her life.
His hair was more black than brown. He wore it shorter than he’d done in his early college days. Natalie had inherited his coloring and height.
He had a straight nose which he’d also bequeathed to their daughter. But where her chin was softly rounded like Rachel’s, he possessed a firm jaw and a cleft in his she’d always loved to touch and kiss.
Unlike the jeans and polo shirts he’d worn on the ship, he was dressed in an expensive looking gray suit. The combination of his silk tie with its various shades of charcoal, silver and gray toned with his white shirt, dazzled Rachel’s eyes.
At a glance his whole demeanor proclaimed him the successful, wealthy hotelier of the prominent Monbrisson family.
As Rachel took in everything from the distance, she watched father and daughter studying each other with the same searching intensity. Since opening the door, Natalie had been speechless. With good reason.
No father in Concord or anywhere else had his powerful physique or striking masculine features. He spoke first.
“I always wanted a daughter. You’re so beautiful, Natalie, I can hardly find the words.” His low voice sounded husky.
“I always wanted my dad,” she answered in a tear-filled voice.
“Then how about a hug.”
Rachel’s eyes blurred as she watched him crush their daughter in his strong arms. He picked her up and rocked her, causing her dark ponytail to swing back and forth. The contrast between his elegance and the T-shirt and shorts she’d worn to hockey practice made the picture even more poignant.
Natalie’s quiet sobs of joy were interspersed by endearments he spoke to her in French, forcing Rachel to look away.
Though she couldn’t help but be thankful Tris was showing Natalie the unqualified acceptance she craved from a father, another part of Rachel’s soul was horrified to realize that she’d kept them apart all these years.
Just the way Tris communed with his daughter as they quietly picked out the similarities in each other, Rachel realized he would never accept her reasons for failing to look him up in Montreux.
Not telling him he was going to be a father after she’d returned home and gone to the doctor was the most terrible mistake she’d ever made in her life.
He would see the last twelve years as wasted time he could never get back or recapture with his daughter. He wouldn’t buy any explanation of Rachel’s.
Tris isn’t going to forgive me.
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