wrapped an arm around his mum, pulling her in for a quick hug. She was several inches shorter than his own six foot two and her dark hair was liberally streaked with gray, but she still had the same comforting scent of lavender that he always associated with her. “Everything is good luck to you.” He dropped a kiss on the top of her head.
“You are my best bit of luck,” she answered and turned to face him. “I’m so glad you chose to spend Christmas with us this year, Keaton.”
“I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else, Mum.” He thought for a moment of his own empty flat across town. It had been almost two years since he’d headed up the renovation of the building he lived in near the center of the city. His apartment was spacious and new, boasting a state-of-the-art design that had led one London magazine to name Keaton the heir apparent to one of the UK’s most famous architects, Lord Foster.
But as much as Keaton appreciated the style and amenities of his posh apartment, he’d spent each of the past thirty-three holidays with his mother, having Christmas dinner around the slightly shabby oak table in the house where he’d been raised. Keaton might have earned the finer things in life through his success, but he’d always appreciate where he came from and the woman who sacrificed so much to make sure he had a good life.
“Yet you’re still set on leaving me?” she asked, a small catch to her voice.
He turned and glanced down, hating the worry his mother couldn’t quite hide from her gentle blue eyes. Anita Whitfield still wore her hair in the same simple bob she’d had since Keaton was a lad. Delicate lines fanned out from the corners of her eyes, and her mouth pulled down on either side before she forced it into a smile.
“I’m moving to Austin for a project,” he corrected. “That isn’t the same thing as leaving you. I’ll be gone for a few months and now that you have a smartphone, we can text or FaceTime whenever you want.”
“That phone you gave me is so smart it makes me feel like a regular idiot,” she complained, making Keaton smile.
“You’re getting the hang of it,” he told her.
She sniffed. “In the past few days, I’ve made more accidental calls with my bottom than by actually dialing any numbers.”
He pulled his mother in for a hug. “I’m going to miss you.”
She squeezed him tightly before stepping away. “I hope you know you don’t have anything to prove to your father,” she whispered.
“Gerald Robinson,” Keaton said through clenched teeth, “is not my father.”
“Keaton.” Anita cupped his cheek like she used to do when he was a boy. “I know he hurt you.”
He turned toward the display of his mother’s Lemax Christmas Village. He rearranged the tiny figures in front of Santa’s workshop, setting them together in groups of three or four. As a boy, his mother’s miniature buildings, figurines and holiday landscapes had been off limits, but he’d routinely snuck over to it, setting the small porcelain figurines into family units, the kind he’d never known.
Until last year, the identity of the man who had deserted his mother when she’d been pregnant with Keaton had remained a mystery. Keaton had been aware, in the inexplicable way of children, that his mother’s heart had been broken by her short-lived love affair. Even as boy, he’d hated the wistful sorrow that filled her eyes when he’d asked about his father. So he’d stopped asking. Instead, he’d channeled his energy into hating the stranger who—to his young mind—was the reason his mum had been forced to work two jobs and still continually scrimp and save in order to support the two of them.
Now that he knew that man was Gerald Robinson, the ridiculously successful and wealthy technology mogul, he was more determined than ever to prove that he’d been better off never knowing his father as a boy.
“You were the one he hurt,” he answered. “Gerald Robinson is nothing to me. I don’t have a thing to prove to that man.”
He said the words with conviction, even though he and his mother both knew they were a lie.
Anita placed a hand on his arm, squeezing softly. “You’ll do well in America,” she murmured, “and I know it will be lovely to visit with the other Fortunes again.”
Keaton nodded. As bitter of a pill as it was to learn that Gerald, who had years ago faked his death as Jerome Fortune so that he could start a new life, was his biological father, Keaton had enjoyed getting to know his half brothers and sisters. He’d always envied his mates who came from big families, and being a part of the Fortune clan—despite his feelings for Gerald—filled a bit of the void inside him.
“You two lovelies had better get seated,” a voice called from the hallway that led to the flat’s kitchen, “Or you’re going to miss the whole of the Christmas feast.”
Keaton took a breath and smiled, watching his mother do the same. Lydia Miles, one of Anita’s close-knit circle of friends, beckoned to them.
Keaton might not have had a large family growing up, but he’d never lacked for love. His mother had cultivated a group of women, her own little village of mother hens, and Keaton had been at the center of their sweetly smothering love and attention.
As he followed his mother into the kitchen, he was accosted on all sides by this brigade of pseudo-mums. They kissed and hugged and pinched his cheek as if, at six foot two, he didn’t tower above the lot of them.
“I’ve made your favorite pudding,” Mary Jane told him.
“And I’ve brought prawns,” Lydia added.
Not to be outdone, Jessa held a plate under his nose. “Don’t forget my pigs in a blanket.”
Keaton laughed and plucked one of the bacon-wrapped sausages off the tray. “I’m going to need to loosen my belt a notch after this dinner,” he said and popped it into his mouth.
“Ah, dearie,” Lydia said, patting him on the shoulder. “Word on the street is you have plenty of notches to go around.”
Keaton promptly choked on the sausage, and the women gathered even closer to take turns gently slapping him on the back.
“Give him some room,” Anita shouted with a laugh. The other women backed away and his real mother handed him a glass of water.
“There are no notches on my belt,” he muttered, clearing his throat.
His mother raised a brow.
“At least not recently,” he amended.
Ever since discovering that Gerald might have a whole passel of illegitimate Fortunes from various dalliances with women over the years, Keaton had curbed his own dating life until it was nonexistent. He was careful with women—both their hearts and in the bedroom—and had remained friends with almost all of his ex-girlfriends. But he still wanted there to be no mistaking the fact that he was nothing like his womanizing father.
Part of why he’d taken the position with the firm in Austin was to work with his half brother Ben on tracking down other children sired by Gerald. Keaton was determined to make it clear that he hadn’t inherited the “ship in every port” tendency of the elder Robinson.
“Sit
