had her diary, knew she’d been unable to conceive, and that having a child had been the cornerstone of her every desire. When she’d heard about the babe being given up, she and his grandfather had stepped forward, then fled back to Ireland, due to her irrational fear the Havershams would take the baby back. She’d never told a soul, claiming the baby as her natural-born son, for fear he’d be shunned by the family if they knew. Griffin’s father had enough of the Gallagher look about him to get by, and no one had ever learned who his parents had truly been. But apparently Griffin had the look of Trudy’s family, fairer of hair and lighter of eye. He’d borne the brunt of being the outcast, not only because of his different looks but because of his different demeanor and way of thinking. If he had only known…it would have explained so much. Saved him from so much.
But what was done was done. Whatever his last name was, or what blood coursed through his veins…didn’t matter. He knew who he was and what he wanted. If Lionel Hamilton could get him one step closer to fulfilling his dreams, then he’d take that as the first stroke of honest-to-God luck he’d ever had, and build on it. It was the kind of foundation he understood. He knew how to grow that, nurture it.
Looking at Melody Duncastle he was filled with…want. Want of all those things he’d shut himself off from. Want of things that scared the ever-loving hell out of him. He looked at her, and he wanted what those dreamy, content, confident eyes could bring to his life. He wanted her to look at him and feel all those same things. He wanted her to look at him…and glow.
Bloody Christ, I never should have come in here this morning.
“I’m a very lucky woman,” she said, as she continued the task at hand, bending down to begin a cluster of amazingly intricate roses. “To have literally stumbled into something that has been such a good fit for me. I do know that.”
A lucky woman, he thought. No. Of the two of them, he was the lucky one. To have met her, been beguiled by her, compelled to open up to her. In the span of a single day, she’d turned his head completely around, and his thoughts to things he’d never contemplated before. If that had been the first day, what would a lifetime of days with her be like?
Not that he’d ever know. He was no prize, that was for certain. She might have had the luck of the Irish in finding her true life’s calling. But she’d never consider him a lucky catch.
What did he have to offer? Money? Yes, he had a pile of it, but she’d likely made plenty of that on her own as a lawyer. She’d walked away from that success to live over a shop where she put in far more hours than at any law firm, and all to live in a town that didn’t even boast a single traffic light. Clearly, the one thing he had was the last thing that would impress her.
There was chemistry. Explosive levels of it. That, and not his fortune, could possibly get him laid—if he was very lucky—but nothing more.
“So, no…I don’t want the big dream,” she went on, turning the cake around, and starting another cluster at the top corner, oblivious to the blade she was sinking, so smoothly, deep into his chest. “I don’t want to take my business global. I don’t want”—she looked up from what she was doing, to him—“I’m sorry. I’m not meaning this as an insult, you understand that now, don’t you? But I don’t want what you’re selling. I imagine most of the folks here will. But not me.”
“So, what will you do?” he asked, trying not to care, to start building a wall of indifference, right then and there. She was no longer a thorn in his side. That’s the only way he should be looking at her. She might be leaving Hamilton altogether from the sounds of things. He wouldn’t have to risk bumping into the one thing he wanted that he couldn’t have. He could focus, instead, on what he should be doing, which was launching the project. It was all good news.
So why did he feel as if the best thing that had ever happened to him was slipping through his fingers before he even had the chance to figure out how to hold on to it?
“I honestly don’t know,” she said. “It’s a lot to think about. What about you?”
“Me?”
“You left Dublin to come here and take this challenge on. I know there is a lot of personal meaning in this for you, but, ultimately, is it just another job for you? I mean, are you uprooting your whole life in Ireland to come stake out a permanent home here? What about the business you left behind?”
“Who says I left it behind?”
“So you’re…just temporarily here then?”
“I didn’t say that. But with global marketing and technology, I don’t have to be physically in Dublin to continue forward. In fact, I was rarely there.”
“So you have jobs going on right now that you’re overseeing?”
“I play a very specific role in setting up these kinds of paths for people to take.”
“But you don’t necessarily stay and watch them grow to fruition.”
“That’s not my job.”
He watched her face, saw the edges of disappointment, and felt whatever wall he’d been building crumble to dust. He couldn’t afford to allow hope to elbow its way in. She was pointing out the very reason why, even if he lost every bit of rational sense he’d ever had and decided to pursue her, it wouldn’t have mattered anyway.
He didn’t stay. It wasn’t in his job description.
“What I do is see the path for others; I establish the best way to get them there, set them up for success. Then I step back and let them walk that path to their own future.” He lifted a shoulder. “I leave and go on to do it again for someone else.”
“But this isn’t a job you’re doing for someone else. This time…I mean, isn’t this going to be yours? Isn’t the success of Hamilton Industries a personal success for you? One that doesn’t end with the planning stages?”
“If you’re asking me if I plan to stay here and run Lionel’s empire, the answer is no. That was never the plan.”
Her mouth dropped open, then snapped shut—pretty much describing what it felt like his heart had done in that same moment. Was it possible? Beyond all reason, she was acting like someone who was thinking the same kinds of things he was, about possibilities and taking chances. Why else would she be looking so disappointed in hearing that it couldn’t possibly happen, even if she wanted it to?
Why in hell did that make him feel so bloody fantastic? It was anything but. They were lost to each other before they could even decide to begin.
It made no sense. She couldn’t possibly truly want him. Griffin. More likely, she merely wanted to fan the sparks of the electricity crackling between them. He was merely mistaking that for the possibility of her wanting something more.
Maybe desire was all he was feeling, too. Perhaps they needed to give in to the heat. Take what was really being offered. It was the best way, maybe the only way, to distinguish what was from what could never be.
“So…you’re not staying in Hamilton long term?”
He shook his head.
“Then…what is Lionel—I mean, who’s going to run the company after—”
“The company—controlling interest in it, anyway—will
