Page 52 of An Heir Made In Hawaii (Hot Winter Escapes)

He wasn’t sure how long he stayed there, hands clenched at his sides, his gaze trained on her as if he was trying to memorize every detail of her face.

Finally, he turned and walked away.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

NICHOLASSTAREDDOWNat the paper in front of him. The contract he had been coveting for over a year finally signed on the dotted line.

There was no satisfaction; there was no excitement. There was only the hollow feeling that he had lost something far more precious than seeing his dream for the Hotel Lassard come to life.

His extended trip to London had lasted all of two weeks. He had arrived to evaluate one of the new properties going up on the north end of the city, only to find that a shortage of supplies had postponed the project indefinitely. He visited several other properties, staying for a day or two at a time. But all along he’d felt restless, a yearning to go back to the place that had started to feel like home.

He finally convinced himself that he was missing the shores of the lake: the distant Alps and the sight of the mystical castle standing guard over the town. Except when he had arrived and driven up the road leading to the hotel, he’d experienced nothing but a cold, bitter disappointment.

Home was no longer a place. Home had become a person, a woman he missed with every fiber of his being.

It would change, he kept telling himself. This was exactly what had happened to his parents, and to him, after David’s death. Something in him would change. This sense of loss would lessen, leaving him a shell of what he needed to be to be the best person for Anika. The best father for their child.

For the most part he kept to the hotel, using the office to oversee the other properties. He booked a few visits to their resort in Dubai, the hotel in the Caribbean, the new resort going up on the peak of the Rocky Mountains in the middle of the United States. Everything he had been working for the past few years was coming to fruition.

Eventually it would satisfy him again. He just needed to get over this bump.

“Sir?”

Nicholas looked up to see his secretary standing in the doorway.

“Yes?”

“There’s a woman here to see you.”

Nicholas’s heart hammered against his ribs. Slowly, he stood and walked to the door, keeping his pace as casual as possible.

“Darling!”

Nicholas’s mother, Helen Lassard, walked to him, a wide smile on her face that dimmed when she took in his expression.

“I’m sorry, have I come at a bad time?”

He forced a smile onto his own face. “Not at all. I’m sorry, I’ve just had a lot on my mind. It’s great to see you, Mother.”

They hugged. She looked good, probably the best in nearly twenty years. The gauntness that had chiseled out her cheeks and made her look frail had disappeared. Her auburn hair was cut and colored to perfection, a classic bob around her heart-shaped face. A few more wrinkles here and there. But he was grateful to note the more noticeable ones were at the corners of her eyes and on the sides of her lips. “Smile lines,” she had told him in the fall. There had been a time once when he had thought she might never smile again.

“Your father’s been bragging about the Hotel Lassard at Lake Bled. I had to come and see your success for myself.”

He took her on a tour of the hotel, showing her everything from the glamorous spa with its Roman bath–inspired grotto to the restaurant with its floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the lake. He took pride in her compliments, acknowledged the accomplishments that he had made with his latest hotel.

“And how goes your quest to secure the property next to the hotel?” she asked as they walked out the front door and into the coldness of a February morning. “The last time we spoke you wanted to add it as an expansion for the hotel. You were quite enthusiastic about it.”

“I received the signed contract this morning.”

He felt his mother’s gaze on him.

“You don’t sound too happy about that.”

He shot her another forced smile.

“It’s nothing. Just tired. The traveling I’ve been doing, the grand opening and now the addition of this contract, while very welcome, will mean longer hours trying to get everything prepared for next summer.”

Whether she bought his excuse or not didn’t really matter. He just wanted to get in the car and drive as far away as possible. On cold mornings like this, if he looked out the balcony doors of the penthouse to the west, he could see the weather vane on top of the inn’s tallest turret poking above the branches.

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