Marrying the Billionaire - Macie St. James Page 0,49
his fork and prepared to dig in. “I should never have said those things to you. I shouldn’t have lied to you in the first place. I was way, way out of line. I love you. That’s all that matters.”
Donna shook her head. “No. I was the one who was out of line. I’ve realized that I waste time worrying about what other people think, and worse, I put the pressure on you and Nate to make me look good. Instead, I should focus my energy on spending time with you and Nate and the women in your lives.”
Nicholas forced a bite of roasted potatoes down his throat. There was no woman in his life. Should he point that out?
Obviously, Donna quickly realized her mistake. “The women you choose to be in your life. I trust you to find the right person when you’re ready.”
She stared at him as though she was eagerly awaiting his response. She wouldn’t meddle, but he knew she had questions about Charlie.
“I thought I’d found that person.” He took a deep breath. Why was he sharing this? More importantly, why did it feel so good to say the words out loud? Nicholas shrugged, boiling all his issues down to one sentence. “She wasn’t that into me.”
He’d give his mom credit. She didn’t respond. He could tell by the way her eyes narrowed that a war raged inside that head of hers. She wanted to say something. She was dying to interfere. But she wouldn’t.
And that gave him hope that maybe, just maybe, her meddling was over.
“Did I ever tell you the story about how I knew your father was cheating?”
What in the world? Of all the things he expected his mother to say right then, that was the last of them. But he was curious where she was going with this.
“I don’t think so,” he dared to say. He went through the motions of eating, but he felt like his entire system had frozen as he waited for her to say more.
“He didn’t see me anymore.” She set her fork down and patted her mouth with her napkin. “It wasn’t just that he didn’t look at me with love in his eyes. He looked right through me like I wasn’t even there.”
“We noticed.”
Maybe Nicholas shouldn’t have admitted that, but it was true. He and his brother had noticed how distant his father had been in the months leading up to suddenly moving out. That was why it wasn’t a surprise that he decided to walk out and never get in touch with Nicholas or Nate ever again. He’d sent his child support payment as ordered by the court, and they’d stayed in the house without him, but he’d checked out of the family long, long before he moved out.
“I was hoping you didn’t,” Donna admitted. “I tried to keep things as stable as possible for you and your brother.”
“We noticed that, too. I can’t speak for Nate, but I definitely saw all you did to keep our routines the same and make up for Dad being gone. I don’t think we ever told you how much we appreciated that.”
His mother had tears in her eyes, and he wondered if he should maybe push the conversation back to small talk. He definitely didn’t want to make the mood any heavier than it had to be.
“Thank you for saying that.” She sighed and resumed eating. “I think I got off track there. My point was, there’s a way you and Charlie look at each other that… well, let’s just say I miss that feeling. It makes me long for the days when I was young and in love.”
As much as he’d been glad his mom had stopped meddling, he couldn’t help but latch onto what his mother had just said. Charlie looked at him a certain way? Sure, he’d thought that was exactly what he’d seen, but the fact that someone else was pointing it out…
“Don’t let fear keep you from falling in love.” His mother spoke those words fairly quietly, in a voice he barely heard. It was as if she wanted to convey advice without meddling, so that cryptic sentence was all she’d give.
“I could say the same for you, Mom.” Nicholas stopped eating for a moment and stared at his mom. She looked up, stopping mid-chew, her brow furrowed in confusion. “You haven’t dated since Dad left. That was a long time ago. It’s long overdue.”
“How do you know I haven’t dated? I have