Page 6 of Overnight Inheritance

“Widowed.” He didn’t look up as he slipped a bib over Alfie’s head and laid the plate on the high chair’s tray.

Her heart clenched tight. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have pried.”

“It’s okay. You’re hardly the first person to ask. We get that question a lot,” he said, finally looking up. There were those eyes again. Ocean blue and too magnetic for her peace of mind. She needed to focus.

She had a million questions—how did he run Bellavista Holdings when he was a single parent to a baby?—but she didn’t know him well enough to ask.

“Okay, I’m ready,” he said, squaring his shoulders.

“For what?” she asked warily.

“You said at the door that we weren’t done, and I said it would have to wait. You can continue now.”

“Oh, right.” It seemed wrong to be cranky at a man in front of his infant son, so she said, “You know, I’m still getting my head around our family connection. Sarah told me that your grandfather built this place at the same time my grandfather built the one next door.”

He blew out a breath and nodded. “They were best friends. They’d hoped the connections would travel down the generations, but, as you know, it wasn’t to be.”

“Did you know your grandfather?” She watched Alfie concentrate as he picked up a blueberry and popped it into his rosebud mouth.

“I knew my grandparents well.” A smile flitted across his face. “And yours. My own parents didn’t like having me underfoot and would send me up here to stay as often as they could.”

“I’m sorry—that must have been rough.” To have your own parents not want you must be an awful feeling. She might not have had any contact with her father, but that was a completely different thing to growing up with a parent who didn’t want you around. Her mother had spent time with her and Heath every chance she got.

“It wasn’t so bad.” His eyes had a faraway look for a long moment. “I much preferred being here with Nan and Pop. If it had been up to me, I’d have grown up with them.”

“Does your father spend time here now?”

“Here?” He handed Alfie a sippy cup. “Never sets foot in the place. Too far from the bright lights and easy convenience of city living. Besides, the house is mine—Pop left it to me—and my father likes to be in places where he rules the roost.”

Alfie finished his fruit platter and waved his arms in the air. Sebastian wiped them over with a damp cloth and then lifted his son out of the chair and held him against his well-muscled chest. Again, she had to remind herself to focus on the issue at hand.

“I have to tell you, Sebastian,” she said, leaning back, “you seem to be volunteering a lot of information for a business rival.”

He coughed out a laugh. “I’d hardly call itvolunteering. You’re asking a lot of questions. I’m just trying to answer them.”

“Unless,” she said, undeterred, “this is all calculated. You’re trying to give the appearance of transparency, while hiding the real secrets deep.”

“Or—” he raised an eyebrow pointedly “—I have nothing to hide.”

“That’s what you want me to believe.”

“Because it’s the truth,” he said as Alfie patted his cheek—a pale hand against his father’s olive skin.

She regarded him for a long moment. “I’m going to work this out, Sebastian Newport. Workyouout.”

He grinned. “You know, I think you meant that as a threat, but I’m strangely looking forward to it.”

Mae walked down Sebastian’s driveway, then back up the path to Sarah’s house—no way to cut through between these houses. A thick hedge ran the full length of the border, ensuring that no one accidentally had to see anyone from the other’s house. Two houses, built side by side by best friends, now divided by an impenetrable tangle of leafy shrubs—the symbolism was not lost on her.

As the house came into sight, she saw Sarah’s driver and all-round right hand, Lauren, depositing a couple of bags into the trunk of her aunt’s black Suburban and waved.

Lauren called out, “Heading back to Manhattan in about twenty minutes, Mae,” and went back inside.

Heath appeared with a backpack and smiled when he caught sight of her. “You missed breakfast.”

“I’ll grab something to eat in the car,” she said, still distracted by her conversation with Sebastian.

He slid the backpack into the trunk alongside the other bags, then turned and leaned back against it. “Did you take a walk?”

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