Three Wishes(34)
Author: Kristen Ashley

“Not soft, Victor. That deal’s a train wreck,” Nate responded calmly.

“Two weeks ago, you would have been all over this,” Victor volleyed.

“Two weeks ago, those papers were on my desk. I read through them and tossed them in the bin,” Nate returned.

Victor’s eyes rounded. “Jeff brought this to me two days ago.”

“Jeff wants the deal and I also told Jeff no.”

No more needed to be said about Jeff or the deal. Jeff had lost the company enough money making foolish decisions, not taking advice and not thinking things through

Nate, however, had been the driving force behind their success and both Victor and Jeff knew it. Victor was always a ruthless risk taker but it was Nate who assessed their options and advised the route. Victor always took Nate’s advice. Nate, in turn, had never been wrong and Victor had never been sorry.

Furthermore, Jeff was a sore subject for Nate especially after dinner the other night and Victor knew that as well. Knew it well enough to make certain that Nate didn’t see Jeff anywhere, not at the house or at the office.

Victor threw the dismissed papers on Nate’s desk and then sat back.

“So, no deal. Let’s talk about something else. How’s Lily?”

The phone rang in his outer office and no one answered it. His secretary was out sick and HR was having troubles getting a temp to replace her.

Nate ignored it and told his father, “She’s fine.”

“You gonna marry her?” Victor asked.

At this blunt query, Nate decided to turn his attention to the window again.

“Son, I asked you a question,” Victor said quietly but kindly. He was never menacing to Nate, as he still could be, very much so. Firstly, Nate wouldn’t respond to it. Secondly, Victor held Nate in too much esteem. Thirdly, Nate was not the type of man who could be menaced.

“I think Lily needs things to slow down,” Nate finally answered.

“Take my advice,” Victor said and Nate’s eyes shifted to him again, “get the girl pregnant. It worked for me with Laura.” After saying this, he grinned cheekily.

Nate nearly flinched at his words but he stopped himself.

“Victor, you’ve been married thirty years and Jeff’s twenty-eight.” Nate didn’t believe his father and thought he was being purposefully shocking to get his point across.

“She lost it. It was a boy,” Victor announced and Nate stared in stunned surprise as Victor’s jaw clenched. Nate had never heard this story. “She says it took her fourteen years to get him back.”

At these quiet words, Nate felt like Victor had punched him in the gut. He didn’t let on to this extreme reaction, he just nodded once to his father.

Then, the mood already turned, Victor decided to go with it.

“Laura was the best thing that happened to me. I was a thug, worse, and I had no business being with her. I knew it, Nathaniel, right to my bones. But nothing was going to stop me from having her, nothing. It wasn’t the right thing to do, f**k, wasn’t even the nice thing to do but I did it. I got her pregnant and I did it on purpose. I’d have done anything to bind her to me.”

Nate kept his silence and kept his outward calm but his father’s words were slamming into him like hammers.

“You and me, son, we’re a lot alike. I don’t know the way you process things because you’re a helluva lot smarter than me, but I know how you think.”

Nate turned his attention back to the window.

Then he told his father, “Lily was a virgin.”

“I know,” Victor replied.

Nate’s body stilled at this comment. Victor, somehow, always seemed to know everything.

Even though Nate didn’t ask, Victor went on to explain, “She confided in me you were her first date.”

Nate’s eyes turned again to his father at that bit of news. He could barely credit it.

As usual Victor seemed to know what Nate was thinking even though he hadn’t said a word. “I know, shocked me too but I swear she wasn’t lying. She was nervous as a cat.”

This made Nate smile.

Victor went on. “Lucky you had a motorcycle that broke the ice.” With that, Victor grinned at him.

Uncharacteristically, Nate decided a confidence was in order and he shared his plan.

“She hasn’t brought up the subject of birth control.”

Victor watched him closely. “I reckon you haven’t been seeing to it.”

Nate shook his head, this he also did once.

Victor beamed. “We think alike, you and me, always have.”

As Victor had said, it wasn’t the right thing to do and it certainly wasn’t a nice thing to do but Nate didn’t care. If he thought she was likely to leave him, he would have chained her to the bed. Making her pregnant would bind her to him for life. He knew that and he wanted it and he was going to do it.

If she was pregnant, she wouldn’t leave him. Family meant more to her than anything in the world. She made that perfectly clear, not only in the way she spoke of her own but in the way she treated his.

When she found out about him, whether he told her or Jeff told her or Victor or Laura let something slip, she wouldn’t be able to leave. She could move out now, divorce him if they were married, but she’d never break up a family. He, like his father, knew this to his very bones.

The phone rang again in the outer office.

“You gonna get that?” Victor asked, getting up from his chair.

“I’ve work to do, I want to be home early tonight.”

“Don’t blame you,” Victor muttered, lifted his hand casually in farewell and left.

Nate went to work.

He had no idea his life, for the second time in as many weeks, was about to be rocked to its very foundations.

* * * * *

Nate did get home early. He’d been meaning to tell Lily they were moving and had never gotten around to it. They always had much better things to do.

The movers would be there the next day to start packing and would be moving them the day after that. He wanted to talk to Lily about having them move whatever she needed from her house in Somerset.

However, he arrived home to an empty flat.

He hadn’t called her to tell her he was coming home early and expected she’d gone out somewhere. She was nearly obsessed with the idea of finding a job. Or she could be with Laura.

He picked up the phone and dialled his mother.

“Nathaniel, my dearest, I’m so glad you called. Would you and Lily like to come over for dinner next week?”