After she stopped shouting, Lily saw emotions warring on his face and she couldn’t latch onto any one of them but she thought she glimpsed amusement as well as anger there, and something else, something she definitely couldn’t read.
“If something happens to me, I want you to be taken care of. I don’t want you wasting that money on me,” he told her, his voice much softer but his dark eyes were intense.
“Nothing’s going to happen to you,” she snapped, not feeling any less intense and her voice not one iota softer.
Finally, he touched her. He dropped the papers he was holding on his desk and his hands settled on either side of her neck, one of his thumbs moved to stroke her cheek.
When he spoke again, his voice was gentle. “If there comes a time in your life when I’m not in it, I want to know you’ll want for nothing.”
“That’s not going to happen!” she yelled, now her raging feelings even more intense knowing she hadn’t made the tiniest nick in his armour, not even a scratch.
Furthermore, she was beginning to get scared.
Why would there be a time when he wasn’t in her life?
“Nate, I’m not letting you go,” Lily declared, scowling at him to hide her fear. “Whatever is going on in that head of yours, forget it. I’m not letting you go. You’re not letting me go. No matter what.”
“Lily –”
“No! No matter what!” she snapped. “Now we’re done talking.”
She pulled her neck away from his hands and stomped back to the door, feeling relatively pleased with herself, feeling she’d made her point.
“Lily,” he called and she halted, hand on the door and whirled around to glare at him again, not wishing to lose ground. Even if she hadn’t put a scratch in his armour, he’d have to be an idiot not to understand what she just said and Nate was no idiot.
“What?” she clipped.
He watched her a second and she realised whatever emotion that had hold of him was gone. She knew this because his lips were twitching.
“After… that,” he started, his voice was no longer angry, there was no intensity and there was no gentleness either, he was definitely amused, “I hesitate to mention money again, but you’ve a separate bank account with a goodly amount in it.” He pointed to the paper on his desk that he’d been studying when she’d arrived.
She stomped back around the desk to stand beside him, snatched up the bank statement and stared at it. It was Tash’s school fund.
“It’s clear you could have used that money, I’m wondering why –” he began.
“I never touch that. That’s Tash’s school money,” Lily answered his unasked question, tossing the bank statement down on his desk.
He stared at her, eyes blank. “I’m sorry?”
She turned to him and put a hand on her hip. “Tash’s school money. Tash is a gifted child. It’s not just me who thinks so as a doting mother, so do her teachers. They told me she’d benefit from a special school. Those schools cost money, lots of money. I’ve been saving –”
Something shifted in the room and that something emanated from Nate and the power of it made Lily stop speaking. It was something she didn’t understand but Nate didn’t look amused anymore, he also didn’t look blank. His eyes were burning into her so intensely she felt they’d scorch her skin.
“You did without to save money so Natasha could go to a school for gifted children?” he asked.
Lily felt a shiver slide across her skin at the tone of his voice. Again, she couldn’t put her finger on it, didn’t know what it was but it meant something to him, something profound.
“Of course,” Lily said quietly, knowing, in her experience of families, in her experience of people, an experience she didn’t know was vastly different from his, that any mother would do the same. Those two words were said with the kind of certainty that someone would declare the sky blue and the earth round. “Can I spend my seven million on that?” she ventured carefully.
Tash could go to the best school in the world with seven million pounds.
Nate didn’t answer her. In another abrupt change of mood, he swept her in his arms and held her so tightly she couldn’t breathe. He buried his face in the hair at her neck and for long moments he didn’t speak and he didn’t let her go.
“Nate,” Lily whispered, “I can’t breathe.”
At her words, his arms loosened but he still didn’t let her go.
Finally, after whole minutes slid by, he lifted his head and looked into her eyes and what she saw made her not able to breathe again. It was raw and aching and the weight of it fell on her like an avalanche.
“No,” he said softly, “I’ll pay for Tash’s school.”
She nodded immediately, not wanting to do anything to deepen that ache in his eyes.
“I’ve already noticed she’s advanced for her age,” he went on.
“Significantly advanced,” Lily told him.
He smiled, that awful look thankfully melting from his face, it warmed and he bent his head to kiss her lightly.
“Significantly advanced,” he agreed against her mouth.
“Like her father,” Lily continued, staring close up into his eyes.
“Like her mother,” Nate parried.
She shook her head and put her hand to his cheek.
“What am I going to do with you?” she whispered.
“Help me select a school for our daughter,” he responded without hesitation. “I’ve already made a shortlist.”
Her eyes rounded at his announcement then she grinned and leaned into him, dropped her hand from his cheek and wrapped both her arms around his waist.
“Okay,” she answered.
Lily pressed her cheek to his chest and she felt him rest his on the top of her head.
And, Lily realised, joy beginning to bud in her heart, that she’d done something ages ago, something that was for Tash, something that no hugs, no afternoon phone calls to his office, no expensive motorcycles could do.
What she’d done for their daughter, his daughter, rent a huge, gaping hole in his armour.
She closed her eyes tightly and felt hope.
“Lily?” he called against her hair.
“Yes?” she whispered, her eyes opening.
“Please don’t buy me a King Charles Spaniel. I’m not fond of small dogs.”
She closed her eyes again, this time with laughter.
* * * * *