His Forever Girl (New Orleans' Ladies #4) - Liz Talley Page 0,11
they’d fit together so well, just because he’d made her heart gallop, her body sing, and her soul shine brighter, didn’t mean they were moving toward anything serious.
No. Tess couldn’t allow herself to go over the cliff after one night with a man. That was movie crap. Not real life.
But when she looked at Graham, she could almost believe in love at first sight.
“I know so,” he said, kissing her again, taking away any doubts she had about a guy walking into a bar and tying a girl up with ribbons of fate.
Tess pulled herself away and jogged to the bar between the kitchen and living area. Picking up her phone, she handed it to him. “Here. Put your info into my phone. Where’s yours? I’ll put in mine.”
They tapped the info into each other’s phones. He handed Tess her phone, and she set it on the bar and directed him to the table. “I’m not the greatest of chefs but I can manage eggs and toast. Then I have to run. I need to go by my office before my meeting at nine o’clock.”
“That’s fine. I need to get going, too. I’m stopping by Emily’s school and I need to hit Houston before rush hour. And you never told me where you work. Is it—”
The harsh shriek of the teakettle going off interrupted him. Tess turned around and snatched it off the burner, accidently touching the hot kettle to her wrist.
“Ow!” She set the kettle on another burner and ran some cold water over her arm. Total klutz… or maybe she was nervous about talking about something that felt too good to be true.
“Let me get ice,” he said, scrambling to the freezer.
Thirty minutes and two pieces of burnt toast later, Tess stood outside her apartment dressed in her best go-to-meeting business dress that happened to match the deep pink burn on her wrist. Graham wore his suit, tie stuffed in pocket, shirt open at the neck. His tousled dark hair made him look exactly what he was—a businessman who’d gotten lucky… and not much sleep.
To Tess he looked terrific.
They kissed, a slow, sweet one laden with goodbye and tinged with possibility.
“I’ll call you soon,” he said.
“Good,” she said, running a hand along his jaw. “I’ll be waiting.”
A month later
FRANK ULLO SHOVED the lab report from his oncologist’s office into the top drawer and spun his chair toward the bulletin boards. Pinned up were various sketches of Mardi Gras floats dated from 1967 to present. Elaborate plans cobbled together into breathtaking beauty. His life’s work sprawled across a wall—a reminder of what he’d built and sustained… and what he was about to hand over to the man sitting on the other side of his desk.
Doubt fluttered in his gut before he centered himself. He had to keep emotion out of this decision. Had to remember what he did now was for the best… even if it was a bit chickenshit of him.
Then he touched the photo on his desk as he often did. A tap for luck. In the silver frame smiled three dark-headed teenaged boys and a fierce little girl who snarled at the camera. Frank cherished this particular picture of his other life’s work: his children. Each boy stared back at him, intelligent, smirking with their father’s Italian temperament. Their chins jutted out with their mother’s Irish stubbornness.
And centered in the middle was Therese, his Tess.
His hellion with dark blond hair and eyes blazing a path to the heart. A difficult child, Tess challenged everyone around her as much as she blessed them with her warmth. The girl never took no for an answer and wrapped her older brothers around her proverbial pinky. Tess was never a princess… more like a bruiser in soccer cleats with a crooked hair bow and bandages on her knees. Tess—his sunshine girl with an unceasing passion for all she did.
And he felt very, very sure she would hate his guts for what he was about to do.
He tapped the photo again, making sure it faced him.
Then picking up the phone, he dialed Billie. “Hey, ring Therese. I need to talk to her.”
Billie gave him her usual monotone. “Whatever you want, Boss.”
Frank pressed his hands against the ink blotter and looked across his desk at Graham Naquin, the man he’d hired to become the next chief executive officer of Frank Ullo Float Builders. “This ain’t gonna be easy. My vice president of operations don’t know about this.”