Three Wishes(12)
Author: Kristen Ashley

The minute Nate’s adoption was legal (after a few strings were pulled, favours were called in and palms were greased), Victor Roberts went legitimate. He would not saddle Nate with a glorified life of crime. Nate had become a gangster’s boy at eleven, he would be his own man, a gentleman, at twenty-one.

And thus Nate’s new life led him through different challenges: posh schools where Jeffrey made sure all the boys knew Nate’s background, this also kept Nate’s instincts honed as he’d been called out for nasty fistfights constantly just for the other boys to test their meddle against streetwise Nate (the other boys always lost, soundly); Cambridge where Jeffrey was thrown out for terrible marks; country clubs where Danielle tried to get Nate to take her virginity, this he did not do, instead a lifeguard did it while she convinced herself Nate was watching in jealousy but Jeffrey was watching and laughing; Sunday rugby matches where Nate, to Laura and Victor’s delight, always led his team to victory.

All the while Victor groomed Nate for his future. Victor did this alongside Jeffrey who took no interest and eventually just took himself off and was given a nominal post that came with a very good office where he could seduce a variety of women.

Victor took his own cunning and tapped his new genius son’s bright mind and together they found legitimacy and respectability, made masses of money and forged a relationship closer than blood.

Victor knew Nathaniel’s future was bright. He’d taken great pains to assure it. Nathaniel would make a good marriage if he’d simply stop sampling all the skirt that threw itself at him, Laura was getting distressed. He’d have beautiful children. He’d live in a beautiful home. He’d always take care of Jeffrey and Danielle out of duty and respect to Laura and Victor. And he’d be certain that Victor’s legacy was secure.

This Victor thought was assured.

But Nate never forgot where he came from, never forgot who he was, never forgot what he was, never trusted what he had and always knew he didn’t deserve it.

So he worked hard, harder than any man, to keep it, build it and make it strong.

So it would never go away.

So he’d never go back.

So it would never destroy him.

And he was beginning to feel his success.

And then came Lily Jacobs.

PART THREE

Chapter Six

Nate and Lily

Years later, it was the month of May and Nate was twenty-eight, Lily was twenty-two…

“We’re late,” Victor grumbled.

“I know,” Nate replied nonchalantly, lifting his chin in an arrogant gesture to the driver of the Rolls who was watching them walk down the crowded, tourist-clogged pavement outside Harrods.

“Your mother is going to skin us alive.”

Nate wanted to laugh at this ridiculous comment but he didn’t because Nate McAllister rarely laughed.

Laura Roberts didn’t have a violent bone in her body. She did have a fierce temper but Nate had only seen it twice in the sixteen years he knew her. And both times, the minute it blew, she was spent. Both times, it lasted less than ten minutes. She was the kindest, gentlest, most even-tempered creature he’d ever been honoured to know. That didn’t mean, however, that she didn’t have a steely determination when she wanted one of her children to do something they didn’t want to do, she just rarely got her way.

“She’ll get over it once she sees your anniversary present,” Nate noted just for something to say. He knew Victor was worried about the present. If there was nothing to like about the man who had become his father, and Nate thought that there was although many people disagreed, one had to admire him for his devotion to his wife.

Though an anniversary present for Laura was a challenge.

What did you give a woman who had everything, wanted for nothing and would have lived in a hovel happily if she simply had her husband with her?

“You’d make her night if you asked Georgia to marry you this evening,” Victor remarked.

He walked beside Victor to the waiting Rolls as Bennett, Victor’s chauffer pulled open the door to allow them entry. Nate had better things to do than be on this errand with Victor, many better, more pressing even urgent things to do.

But Victor had asked and no matter what Victor asked, Nate gave. That was the deal in Nate’s mind though not Victor’s). Nate owed Victor his life.

People were staring at the two men who obviously, by the look of their tailored suits, stylish silk ties, expensive shoes and gleaming watches, not to mention the chauffer-driven Rolls Royce, actually shopped at Harrods rather than visited as a tourist attraction.

Then again people often stared at Nate and most of these people were women.

He was uncommonly, one could even say impossibly, handsome. Very tall, lean, narrow-hipped, broad-shouldered with a wealth of thick, black hair that had just the barest blue sheen to make it interesting. He had strong features, a firm jaw, powerful cheekbones and a sensual lower lip. He also had glittering, dark eyes that although he didn’t know it (and wouldn’t have cared if he did), were the avid topic of many women he knew. Fights even broke out, were his eyes so grey they were nearly black or were they so blue they were nearly black? After much discussion, no answer was deemed acceptable so the battle raged on.

Nate’s sensual lips thinned at Victor’s words. He knew Laura wanted him to marry and settle down, give her grandchildren. But he was also relatively certain she didn’t want him to do it with Georgia.

“I’m not asking Georgia to marry me,” Nate stated firmly.

“Why not?” Victor asked and then went on. “She’s a damned fine woman.”

She was not a damned fine woman. She was a she-cat. She was nearly as bad as Danielle, if that could be credited. He’d caught Georgia snapping her birth control pills into the toilet, so he’d meticulously worn condoms. Then he’d caught her putting holes in the condoms, so he’d stopped ha**ng s*x with her altogether and began the weary process of scraping her off.

He should never have dipped his foot in the family pool. Georgia was Laura and Victor’s best friends’ daughter. Nate even liked Georgia’s parents, had known them for years.

They all had high hopes but Georgia was history.

She’d worked hard at gaining Nate’s attention, she was leggy, slender with beautiful auburn hair and she’d always been somewhat amusing in a dry, catty way.

Therefore, Nate had rewarded her for her dogged pursuit of him. And she had rewarded him for rewarding her. As good as it was with her, and it was good, it wasn’t going to last a lifetime.