Jessie laughed self-consciously. “You’re biased.”
“You bet I am. But I’m also proud of you.”
“And I’m proud of you,” she said, finally able to look Fin directly in the eye. “I think you’re amazing.”
Fin’s blinked back tears. “How did you find me?”
“Sister Tarsisius.”
“Excuse me?”
Jessie grinned. “The head nun at St. Theresa of the Little Flower finally told me your name. It took some tracking, but based on what my mother told me before she…” Jessie trailed off and sighed. “My mother—my adoptive mother—passed away three years ago.”
“Oh, honey.” Fin’s shoulders slumped in sympathy. “I’m sorry. I bet you were close to her.”
Jessie watched Fin for signs that talk of her adoptive mother might be uncomfortable. She didn’t know why it would be, but then, she’d never been in a situation like this before. “We were very close. And I’m close to my father, too.”
“He’s in Colorado?”
“Yes, I grew up on a ranch outside Colorado Springs.”
Fin beamed. “You’re a cowgirl.”
“A horse girl. But my dad is a rancher. He’s the real deal.” Jessie stopped for a moment. “I mean my adoptive dad.”
Fin took her hand and clasped it between both of hers. “Honey, you don’t have to qualify that. Your parents raised you and loved you and did a supremely fine job of both. I owe them a debt of gratitude.”
Jessie cursed the tears that welled up again. She laughed and took a swipe at her eyes. “I think we better get a box of tissues.”
“Oh, yes. We will need tissues…and time.” Fin’s voice cracked slightly. “I want to be alone with you, and absolutely no interruptions from anyone until we’ve caught up on twenty-three years.”
Chloe cracked the door open and inched her face in. Her dark eyes flashed at the sight of the two women embracing.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
Jessie stiffened. Would Fin want the world to know about her daughter?
“We are wonderful!” Fin exclaimed. “But, Chloe, you need to do me a favor.”
Chloe opened the door a little further, frowning as she regarded Fin, then Jessie. “Are you guys crying?”
Fin stepped forward protectively. “We are having a moment, Chloe. All women are entitled to moments.”
“Of course,” Chloe agreed, still a little tentative. “What do you need, Fin?”
“Cancel every single thing on my calendar for the rest of the day, and all of next week.”
Chloe almost choked. “Are you serious? You have some critical management meetings, including one with your father.”
“My father can take a leap from the top of this building.” The other two women gasped slightly but Fin just smiled. “He owes me this time and I’m taking it.”
“But what about the contest?” Chloe asked. “And the bottom line?”
“The bottom line just moved,” Fin said brightly, putting her arm around Jessie and squeezing her shoulders. “And Cade can look after it for the next few days.”
Chloe blinked again and struggled for a response. “Okay. If you say so.” She looked hard at Jessie, as though she were really seeing her for the first time. “And, I guess, you’re still shadowing Fin.”
“Yep.” Jessie grinned at Fin. “You might say that.”
“We’re taking the rest of the day off,” Fin announced.
“No explanations to anyone. Just inform everyone that I’m taking personal time and do not want to be disturbed, for any reason.”
Chloe nodded, backing out of the room. “Do you want to tell all this to Cade before you leave?”
Fin opened her mouth, and then froze as though she was rethinking her response. She looked at Jessie. “I bet you want to talk to him.”
Did she? What satisfaction would it give her? He’d apologize or maybe he’d be mad she didn’t tell him, or he’d offer some explanation for why he asked her out when all he was doing was investigating her.
She could still hear the words she’d caught him saying as she marched up to Fin’s office, her confession ready.
I only went after her in the first place because I was so suspicious of her.
Is that why he slept with her? Did he think she’d confess her traitorous activities in the throes of all that sexual pleasure?
Distaste spiraled through her. No. There was nothing left to say to Cade. At the bottom of all their misunderstandings was a big bad case of distrust. He was determined not to make a mistake and she turned out to be one giant error in judgment for him.
“I don’t want to talk to him,” Jessie said quietly.
“But I want to talk to you.” Once again, he stood in the doorway, his gray gaze looking far less accusatory than the last time he’d walked in on her. “If I could.”
Cade had never, ever seen Fin cry. But there she was, tearstained and shuddering. She glanced at Jessie and nudged her with an elbow. “Go.” She tilted her head toward the empty conference room adjacent to her office. “You should talk to him before we leave.”
Cade shot Fin a grateful look as Jessie quietly walked to the conference room. Once in there, she went immediately to the bank of windows and stared out at New York, while he closed the door behind him.
Where the hell should he start? Knowing women as he did, his gut told him to get the hard stuff out of the way as soon as he could.
“I’m sorry, Jess.”
She didn’t turn from the windows. “For what, Cade? For asking me out under false pretenses, for making assumptions about my motives, or for threatening to call security when I wanted to talk to Fin?”
She finally turned, the backlighting from the windows enhancing the flare in her green eyes. The look she gave him stabbed as much as the bitterness in her voice.
“All of the above,” he said, propping a hip on the corner of the conference room table. “I should have trusted you. I shouldn’t have made the comment about security. And I didn’t ask you out just to find out the truth.”
Her tight grimace told him exactly how much she believed that.
“And, more than anything, Jess, I didn’t make love to you for any reason other than the fact that it felt…” Good? Amazing? “Real.”
She closed her eyes and didn’t respond.
After a moment, he asked, “Why didn’t you just tell me?”
“Fin had a right to know first.”
Of course she did. That much he’d figured out in the last ten minutes as he sat in his office and tried to piece it all together.
“Anyway, Cade, you wouldn’t have believed me.” She crossed her arms and took a step toward him. “I’m not going to get ugly or nasty. What just took place in that room, with Fin, is the most monumentally happy thing that’s happened in a long time. I’ve waited…my life, really, to know if—” Her voice cracked and he instinctively reached for her.
“Jessie, I’m happy for you.” She stiffened as he took her shoulders. “How did you know Fin is your birth mother?”
She met his gaze. “I found out her name and saw she’d listed herself on an adoption finder’s Web site.”
“So, you came here just to meet her?”
She slid out of his light grasp. “I do have a degree in graphic design and a minor in fashion, if that’s what you’re implying.”
He blew out a breath. “I’m not implying anything.” They had so far to go to get back to the closeness they’d had last weekend.
“When I found out that Finola Elliott, the woman who’d edited my very favorite magazine, was my birth mother, well, it just made sense. The fashion and design gene,” she said with a weak smile, “must be pretty strong. I wanted to get to know her, to determine if she really wanted to meet a child she’d given up for adoption. So I applied for the internship.”
“Why did you avoid her, then?”
“I thought she’d take one look at me and see this.” She indicated her face
with two hands.
How could he have missed how much she resembled Fin? The arch to her brows, the slight upward tilt in her green eyes, even the delicate jaw and that pepper spray of freckles. “Funny how you don’t see things when you aren’t looking for them,” he mused. “Even if you hadn’t worn those glasses, I don’t think I would have made the connection.”
For a moment, she just regarded him, doubt and pain so evident in those wide green eyes. “You really hurt me,” she finally said.
The simplicity of the statement cut through him. “God, I’m so sorry, Jessie. Can you forgive me?”
He waited while she decided, while she searched his face and, no doubt, her heart. “I can forgive you, Cade. I can even understand why you would think what you thought.”
He reached for her, but she stepped back, avoiding his touch.
“But I saw your true colors, Cade.”
“My true colors?” He hated the sound of that. “I was watching out for—”
She silenced him by holding up one hand. “You did what you thought was right. You put your company and work first and that’s very admirable.”
“But?” There had to be one.
“But you made love to me and all the while you doubted me.”
“I didn’t. Not after I’d spent any time with you at all.” How could he get her to believe him? “But then I heard you on the phone talking about secrets. When you wouldn’t answer me, it all made sense,” he repeated, hearing the miserable defense fall flat between them.
“It doesn’t make sense to me.”
“Jessie.” This time he grasped her hands and pulled her against him, wrapping his arms around her. “Please give me another chance.”
He lowered his head and kissed her soft, sweet-smelling hair. He’d give her time. He’d give her the opportunity to handle what was surely going to be an Elliott-rocking event. But then he would show her that…
That what?
She slipped out of his hold. “Cade, I’ve waited too long for this day to let it be ruined.” Then she walked back into Fin’s office without turning around.
He closed his eyes and let the ache roll over him. When he opened them, his gaze landed on a burst of yellow on the layout wall. In the picture, she looked so sexy, so pretty, so fresh. All the stuff he loved about Jessie captured in one candid shot.
Loved?
Oh, yeah. Why fight it? This was love, and this was real.
And this might very well be over.
For a man who hated making mistakes, he’d just committed a whopper.
Sipping the dry chardonnay after a long and satisfying dinner at Fin’s apartment, Jessie tucked her bare feet under her and looked out at the darkened skyscape of New York and the smattering of lights throughout Central Park.
It had taken a full fifteen minutes just to absorb the view from Fin’s magnificent Upper East Side apartment. But it had taken the remainder of the afternoon and well into the evening for Fin and Jessie to absorb the overwhelming newness of their relationship. For hours, they’d talked about everything. And still they hadn’t covered a few important topics.
Like who was Jessie’s father, and why had Fin decided on adoption.
Instead, Fin seemed focused on inhaling moments of Jessie’s life that she’d missed. How old Jessie had been when she took her first steps, when she talked. What her high school years had been like. Why she was so mysteriously drawn to fashion and design. What it had been like to grow up on a Colorado ranch.
But now, as night took hold of the city, Fin finally seemed ready to share.
“I always told myself if I found you, I might be able to forgive my parents.” Fin fingered the fringe of a silky throw pillow she cradled in her arms, her high heels long ago abandoned for comfort as she, too, tucked herself onto the same sofa with Jessie.
“So what happened back then?” Jessie asked gently. “How did you…” She wanted to ask, “How did you get pregnant?” but that seemed like a laughably stupid question. Still, more than anything, she wanted to know about her biological father. But she’d take her cues from Fin. “How did you finally make the decision to give up your baby?”
Fin let out a soft, unladylike snort and flipped back her shoulder-length hair, rolling her eyes to the ceiling. “I didn’t make the decision, honey. I was fifteen, the daughter of the most intimidating, controlling man you’d ever want to meet who was married to a woman who didn’t dare oppose him, at least not publicly. And don’t forget, I’m an Elliott and we have quite a reputation to maintain.”
The image of a scared, troubled, pregnant teen in that particular scenario clashed with the ambitious, dynamic woman Jessie had come to know. Her heart clutched a little as she related to how frightening it must have been for Fin.
“I’m sorry,” Jessie whispered.
Fin’s eyes flashed. “It was not your fault, honey.” She plucked at the fringe again, studying the pillow for a long time before she met Jessie’s gaze. “His name was Sebastian Deveraux. And, yes, I loved him.” Her expression softened as she offered up a wry smile. “As much as a fifteen-year-old can know about love.”
“Sebastian Deveraux.” Jessie let her biological father’s name play over her lips for the first time. “He sounds sexy.”
Fin laughed softly. “Oh, he was that.”
“Was?” The word slipped out before Jessie could check herself. “Do you know where he is now?”
Fin sat up, reaching over to touch Jessie’s hand. “He died, sweetheart.”
Jessie sucked in a soft breath. “When?”
“About five years after you were born, he was killed in a car accident. I never saw him again, after my parents found out I was pregnant. He was from the same kind of family, with all the trappings of our country club lifestyle, and his parents were no happier about the situation than mine. They sent him to a military academy shortly after mine sent me to a ‘finishing school.’” She made air quotes around the term. “Which, as you know, is a euphemism for St. Theresa of the Little Flower, where I had you.”
“Did you…” Jessie’s stomach tightened. “Did you think about keeping me?”
“Oh my God.” Fin flipped the pillow to the floor as she reached to hug Jessie. “You have no idea. When that nun carried you away…” Fin’s voice cracked as she leaned her cheek against Jessie’s. “I’ll never forget that moment as long as I live. That woman, that horrible woman in black disappearing with my tiny, wailing baby.” She shuddered and squeezed Jessie tighter. “They never let me hold you. The one nurse, though…she whispered, ‘You have a perfect baby girl.’”
Jessie’s heart tumbled.
“I’ve said those words to myself a million times since then,” Fin admitted. “I have a perfect baby girl. Somewhere.”
Jessie let out a soft moan as they clung to each other for a long time.
“Of course, I blamed my father,” Fin continued, as though she couldn’t stop now that she’d started the story. “He told them not to let me hold you, not to let me have one minute with you. I hated him for that and hated my mother for going along with it.”
“Oh, Fin.”
Fin shook her head. “You’d think a woman who gave birth to all those children would be more sympathetic.”
The impact of Fin’s words settled over Jessie. Would her grandparents refuse to accept her now? Worry gripped her. Would they want her to disappear again?
A light tap on the door of Fin’s apartment surprised them both.
“Doesn’t the doorman call you before someone comes here?” Jessie asked.
“Not if my visitor lives in the building,” Fin said, rising to answer the door.
“Who do you mean?”
“Get ready, Jessie. You are about to meet your first Elliott as an Elliott.” She padded in her stocking feet across the expanse of the living room to her front door. “That you, Shane?”
“Fin, what’s going on?” Shane Elliott’s baritone rumbled through the door. “Why did you run off today
? Chloe said—”
Fin whipped the door open and faced her twin brother. “Chloe said what?”
Shane looked beyond her, his gaze falling on Jessie. “So you did leave with her.” He looked back at Fin. “Chloe said you were crying and acting weird.”
“They were tears of joy, Shane.” Fin tugged the door wider and indicated for him to enter. “Come on in, I want you to meet someone.”
Jessie stood slowly. She’d met Shane Elliott once, at an EPH function, and had seen him in Fin’s office and around the building. It wasn’t like anyone could miss a version of Fin that came wrapped in six-feet-two of strapping male, complete with the moss-green eyes and just enough oxblood in his dark hair to brand him as all Elliott.
And her blood uncle.
Oh, Lord. It was one thing to reveal herself to Fin, but now that the deed was done, Jessie had to face all of the Elliotts, with no guarantee any of them would welcome her.
Shane stepped into the apartment, offering his easy smile to Jessie, but tempering it with a wary glance at his sister. “Are you in the middle of a meeting or something?”
Fin put her arm on Shane’s shoulder and guided him into the living room. Her eyes sparkled and her mouth tipped up in a secret, triumphant smile that gave Jessie a much-needed injection of confidence. She had Fin’s support. Wasn’t that all that mattered?
“Shane, this is Jessie Clayton.”
He nodded and reached out a hand in greeting. “I think we’ve met. Aren’t you a Charisma intern?”
Jessie tilted her head in acknowledgement as they shook hands. “Among other things.”
“Shane.” Jessie could see Fin’s fingertips tighten her grasp of Shane’s arm. “Look at her.”
He did. Hard and long. A bubbly brew of anticipation and dread numbed Jessie’s limbs.
“Look at her,” Fin repeated, abandoning Shane’s side to stand by Jessie and wrap an arm around her waist. “Guess who this is? Can’t you see?”
Shane frowned, saying nothing, studying Jessie, then Fin. The crease between his eyes deepened as he volleyed his gaze again. Then he took one step back, his jaw loose. “No.”