Conception (The Wellingtons #4) - Tessa Teevan Page 0,81
so tight with my family. Clay’s the same way as me. He and I have plans for the company. We always have. We want to take it to the next level. I’ve worked my ass off for this for my entire life, and I can’t wait to make my dad proud.”
Amelia gives me a playful bump with her shoulder. “Don’t you think he already is?”
“Yeah, I suppose so. What about your future? Your dreams? Where do you see yourself in ten years?” I ask, because with each passing day that I get to know her, I’m more interested, more invested in what she wants beyond this summer.
Would she stay in Tennessee for me? Would I even ask? Would she be content married to a workaholic? Would that even be fair to her?
All signs point to no, and the last one? It’s the one that stops me from going down that line of thinking. Because I know my future. I know my plans. I know my goals. And if I’m going to be as successful as I plan on being, there’s no room for a woman. Even if I may have already met the one woman who’d be worth sacrificing it all for.
I’m all in at my job. This summer, I’m all in on Amelia. I’m just not sure how to make the two coexist.
Her voice breaks through my thoughts. “I don’t know, Knox. I’m not like you. I didn’t grow up wanting to be a meteorologist like Dad. I didn’t even pick up photography until after my parents died. I still don’t know if I’ll be able to earn a living doing it. And I’m okay with that. I have some money stored away from their estate that I can live on while I roam the world. I just want to go everywhere my mom dreamed of but never had the chance. Spend a couple of years abroad, and after that, I’ll figure something out.”
I envision Amelia in exotic locations, her camera pressed against her face, her eyes focused on getting the perfect shot. I think of her alone, traveling the world, meeting all sorts of people—men—and something inside me twists into knots.
“Well, damn,” I mutter.
She takes a quick snap from the Polaroid camera she brought along on today’s hike. “I don’t know what expression I just captured,” she says, “but I think calling it ‘brooding male’ wouldn’t be far off the mark. What’s on your mind?”
“The two of us. We’re so damn compatible, but our futures couldn’t be more different. Mine’s static. Rigid. Like you said, already planned. Yours is fluid. Ever changing. Carefree.”
A smile creeps onto her face, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. She bends over to pick up a stick then draws a couple of perpendicular lines in the dirt, labeling one K and the other A. She traces a circle around the middle, where they meet. “This is us. Two intersecting lines that met when they’re supposed to and then never again. They continue on their paths that were set out for them. That’s why this works. We both know it, no surprises. And we’ll always have fond memories to look back on in the years ahead.”
She says it so matter-of-factly. But… What if that’s not what I want anymore? What if I allow Amelia in, with hopes of a future beyond this summer?
I thought I had it all planned out. I thought I knew what I wanted. I thought so many things, yet in one summer, Amelia’s shown me that I’m more than just a son. I’m more than just a businessman. Or I could be. I want to be.
But hell, she’s right. We want different things. We don’t fit into each other’s lives beyond what we have now.
And that fucking blows.
“But who knows, Knox?” she adds, bringing me out of my head. Cherry-red lips curve into a smile aimed in my direction. “Maybe I’ll become some hotshot photographer, you’ll take your dad’s business to the next level, and we’ll wind up at some swanky cocktail party in New York City or art gallery in Chicago where I might use my feminine wiles to entice you to buy some of my work.”
“Or we could make plans to meet at the top of the Empire State Building in ten years, New Year’s Eve, stroke of midnight.”
Amelia stops short, lowing her camera to look at me. “All this time and you haven’t let on that you’re a romantic at heart.”