Page 63 of Turning Up the Heat

“What happened? Why did you break up?”

“Why do you care?”

John sighed. “We got so off track, Tom. Our relationship wasn’t always like this.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

“And I know when we took that turn,” he said.

“Do you?”

“It was Carolina.”

“That was part of it. But we grew apart. It had been happening for a while. I thought I wanted to be just like you. You were my hero, larger than life. But it turns out you were only human.”

“I am. And I know you don’t like Carolina, and you don’t like what I’ve done with the business, and I’m sorry we butt heads so much. The curse of us both being stubborn men. Maybe you’re more like me than you want to admit.” Tom said nothing. “I want you to come back to work.”

He thought about the implications of going back to Cain Rum. “Not a chance.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know,” he said, not mentioning the plans he’d talked to Gemma about to start his own distillery. “I’ll figure it out.”

His father cleared his throat. He was clearly uncomfortable in the conversation. “I would like to work on our relationship,” he said. “Do you think we can?”

For all his life, Tom had wanted a better relationship with his father. Hearing him say the words gave him hope that it would be possible, especially since he no longer worked at the company. He nodded. “Let’s start over. I’m not ready to forgive you, and it won’t be easy, but let’s work on it.”

His father’s smile was small. “That’s all I could hope for,” he said. “What are you going to do about Gemma Rexford?”

“That question is no easier to answer,” Tom admitted.

“You say you love her?”

“I do.”

“Then go after her.”

“She was pretty adamant that I shouldn’t.” She wanted to be single, not tied down. She’d made that clear.

John cleared his throat. “If you love her, you have find a way to make it work.”

Tom rolled his eyes. “You’re not exactly the one to be giving out relationship advice.”

“I know it doesn’t make sense to you, but Carolina and I do love each other. That was something I never had with your mother, and you know that.”

“You and mom were only together because it was convenient.”

“It worked for both of us. She liked the status of being a Cain, and I like having her on my arm. I’m sorry that isn’t a healthy household to grow up in. But we both loved you. No matter how we showed it.”

Tom swallowed roughly. It was a hard conversation to hear, but he knew it was the truth. “I wish you could have been happier together.”

“Me, too. But we’re both happier now. And that’s the important thing. I just don’t want you to turn out like me and be an old man before you’re truly happy. If you can have that now—whether it’s with Gemma Rexford, or not—you should go for it.”

“How?”

“You’ll figure it out,” his father told him. He held out his hand, and Tom shook it. It was ridiculous, shaking his father’s hand instead of hugging, but that’s where their relationship was right now. They could work up to it. It would just take time. Maybe some time was what Gemma needed, too.

Several hours and many glasses of wine later, Gemma walked, unsteady, into her house. She’d had one hell of a week, and she’d needed fun with her ladies. She made her way to the kitchen. Her house was so quiet. She saw the second unlabeled bottle of rum that she and Tom had made, and she felt sad.

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