the point.
So why did he suddenly feel so dejected? And so rejected by Clara? Hell, she’d invited him to join them. And how could she be rejecting him when he hadn’t even asked her for anything?
Oh, for God’s sake. This really was nuts. He should be working. He should have been working the entire time he was standing here revisiting a past it was pointless to revisit. He’d become the CEO of Dunbarton Industries the minute the ink on his MBA dried and hadn’t stopped for so much as a coffee break since. Staying home today to meet Clara and Hank with his mother was the first nonholiday weekday he’d spent away from the office in years.
He glanced at his watch. It wasn’t even noon. He’d lost less than half a day. He could still go in to the office and get way more done than he would trying to work here. He’d only stayed home in case Clara turned out to be less, ah, stable than her résumé let on and created a problem. But the woman was a perfectly acceptable candidate for mothering a Dunbarton. Well, as an individual, she was. Her family background, on the other hand...
Grant wasn’t a snob. At least, he didn’t think he was. But when he’d discovered Clara was born in a county jail, and that her parents were currently doing time for other crimes they’d committed... Well, suffice it to say felony convictions weren’t exactly pluses on the social register. Nor were they the kind of thing he wanted associated with the Dunbarton name. Not that Hank went by Dunbarton. Well, not yet, anyway. Grant was sure his mother would get around to broaching the topic of changing his last name to theirs eventually. And he was sure Clara would capitulate. What mother wouldn’t want her child to bear one of the most respected names in the country?
Having met Clara, however, he was surprised to have another reaction about her family history. He didn’t want that sort of thing attached to her name, either. She seemed like too decent a person to have come from that kind of environment. She really had done well for herself, considering her origins. In fact, a lot of people who’d had better breeding and greater fortune than she hadn’t gone nearly as far.
He lingered at the bedroom door a minute more, watching the scene before him. No, not watching the scene, he realized. Watching Clara. She was laughing at something his mother had said, while keeping a close eye on Hank who, without warning, suddenly bent and brushed a kiss on his mother’s cheek—for absolutely no reason Grant could see. He was stunned by the gesture, but Clara only laughed some more, indicating that this was something her son did often. Then, when in spite of their best efforts, the structure he’d been building toppled to the floor, she wrapped her arms around him, pulled him into her lap and kissed him loudly on the side of his neck. He giggled ferociously, but reached behind himself to hug her close. Then he scrambled out of her clutches and hurried across the room to try his hand at something else.
The entire affectionate exchange lasted maybe ten seconds and was in no way extraordinary. Except that it was extraordinary, because Grant had never shared that kind of affection with his own mother, even before his father’s death changed all of them. He’d never shared that kind of affection with anyone. Affection that was so spontaneous, so uninhibited, so lacking in contrivance and conceit. So...so natural. As if it were as vital to them both as breathing.
That, finally, made him walk down the hall to his office. Work. That was what he needed. Something that was as vital to him as breathing. Though maybe he wouldn’t go in to the offices of Dunbarton Industries today. Maybe he should stay closer to home. Just in case... Just in case Clara really wasn’t all that stable. Just in case she did create a problem. Well, one bigger than the one she’d already created just by being so spontaneous, so uninhibited, so lacking in contrivance and conceit, and so natural. He should still stay home today. Just in case.
You never knew when something extraordinary might happen.
Actually, something extraordinary did happen. On Clara and Hank’s second day in New York, the Dunbartons had dinner in the formal dining room. Maybe that didn’t sound all that extraordinary—and wouldn’t have been a couple of decades ago, because the Dunbartons had always had dinner in the formal dining room before his father’s death—but it was now. Because now, the formal dining room was only used for special occasions. Christmas Day, Easter, Thanksgiving, or those few instances when Brent had deigned to make time for a visit home during his hectic schedule of bumming around on the world’s best beaches.
Then again, Grant supposed the arrival of a new family member was a special occasion, too. But it was otherwise a regular day, at least for him. He’d spent it at work while his mother had taken Clara and Hank to every New York City icon they could see in a day, from the Staten Island Ferry to the Statue of Liberty to the Empire State Building to whatever else his mother had conjured up.
Grant had always liked the formal dining room a lot better than the smaller one by the kitchen, in spite of its formality. Or maybe because of it. The walls were painted a deep, regal gold, perfectly complementing the long table, chairs and buffet, which were all overblown Louis Quatorze.
But the ceiling was really the centerpiece, with its sweeping painting of the night sky, where the solar system played only one small part in the center, with highlights of the Milky Way fanning out over the rest—constellations and nebulae, with the occasional comet and meteor shower thrown in for good measure. When he was a kid, Grant loved to sneak in here and lie on his back on the rug, looking up at the stars and pretending—
Never mind. It wasn’t important what he loved to pretend when he was a kid. He did still love the room, though. And something inside him still made him want to lie on his back on the rug and look up at the stars and pretend—
“It’s pretty cool, isn’t it?” he asked Hank, who was seated directly across from him, his neck craned back so he could scan the ceiling from one end to the other.
“It’s awesome,” the little boy said without taking his eyes off it. “Look, Mama, there’s Saturn,” he added, pointing up with one hand and reaching blindly with the other toward the place beside him to pat his mother’s arm...and hitting the flatware instead.
Clara mimicked his posture, tipping her head back to look up. The position left her creamy neck exposed, something Grant tried not to notice. He also tried not to notice how the V-neck of her sweater was low enough to barely hint at the upper swells of her breasts, or how its color—pale blue—brought out a new dimension to her uniquely colored eyes, making them seem even greener somehow. Or how the light from the chandelier set iridescent bits of blue dancing in her black curls. Or how much he wanted to reach over and wind one around his finger to see if it was as soft as it looked.
“Yes, it is,” she said in response to Hank’s remark. “And what’s that big one beside it?”
“Jupiter,” he said.
“Very good,” Grant told him, unable to hide his surprise and thankful for something else to claim his attention that didn’t involve Clara. Or her creamy skin. Or her incredible eyes. Or her soft curls. “You’re quite the astronomer, Hank.”
“Well, he’s working on it,” Clara said with a smile. “Those are the only two planets he knows so far.”
Grant’s mother smiled, too, from her seat at the head of the table. “I have the smartest grandson in the universe. Not that I’m surprised, mind you, considering his paternity.” Hastily, she looked at Clara and added, “And his maternity, too, of course!”
Clara smiled and murmured her thanks for the acknowledgment, but his mother continued to beam at her only grandchild. Only in more ways than
