Something Unexpected by Vi Keeland
CHAPTER 9
Nora
LATER THAT EVENING, I went down to the lobby to meet Louise for dinner. She’d texted and told me she made reservations at a fancy place, but I hadn’t asked if Beck was joining. When I asked the dress code, she told me to wear the royal blue dress I’d bought at a cute little boutique the other night. It was a slinky, one-shoulder number with a curve-hugging bodice and slit that probably could’ve used two-sided tape so I didn’t get arrested again. I paired it with the set of heels I’d brought that matched anything—four-inch silver stilettos with a thin strap that wrapped around the ankle. A few heads turned as I waited, and it made me feel good after the last week in grungy beach and travel wear. Sometimes I forgot how much I enjoyed indulging my feminine side.
I’d told myself I’d gotten all dressed up for me, but when Beck stepped off the elevator and saw me standing there, he walked smack into the person in front of him. Maybe it wasn’t all for me.
He didn’t even pretend to hide his admiration as he approached. Oddly, I appreciated that he didn’t mask his physical attraction. Too many men pretended their interests were virtuous when they only wanted to get laid.
Beck wore a three-piece, definitely custom suit. It checked more than a few of the boxes on my Christmas list. Knowing there was a chiseled body underneath made me want to unwrap it even more. So I was definitely glad Louise was joining us. A girl only has so much willpower, especially one who hasn’t been laid in forever.
“You’re wearing my favorite color,” Beck said. “Maybe I should say it looks horrible on you so we can argue. But I’m not a liar. You look beautiful.”
I blushed. “Thank you. You don’t look so bad yourself.”
He lifted an arm and pushed back his shirtsleeve, revealing a set of expensive-looking cufflinks and his even more expensive chunky watch. “Am I early?”
I shook my head. “Right on time. Louise should be down soon.”
He nodded. “When she texted me to wear a suit for dinner, I thought about telling her I was just going to order room service. I’m glad I didn’t, or I would’ve missed that dress.”
My phone buzzed from my purse at the same time Beck’s did from somewhere inside his suit jacket. We looked at each other.
“Is that a coincidence?” I said.
“Don’t know.”
We took our cells out and read at the same time. It was one text written to both of us.
Louise: Sorry for the late notice. I’m going to skip dinner tonight. Feeling a bit tired. I’ll order room service if I get hungry. You two enjoy. The reservation is at the Royal Bahamian here in the hotel.
Shoot. I shook my head. “I’m going to call her. Just to make sure it’s only that she’s tired and not anything more.”
“Good idea.”
Louise answered on the second ring. “Hello, darling. I’m fine. It’s my age, not the cancer.”
I smiled. “How did you know why I was calling?”
“Because you act happy-go-lucky, but deep down you’re a worrywart, just like my grandson.”
I lifted my eyes to meet Beck’s. “I am nothing like your grandson.”
Louise chuckled. “Maybe you two can make friends over dinner. I adjusted the reservation. It’s under my name. Try to enjoy it.”
I sighed. “Get some sleep. I’ll text you in the morning.”
“Goodnight, dear.”
I swiped off.
“She’s okay?” he asked.
“I think so. She sounds fine.”
He nodded. “Why did you say we are nothing alike?”
“Oh. Because she said I was a worrywart like you.”
“I’m glad you are. Before I came, I thought you were someone very different.”
I gripped my hips. “Who did you think I was?”
He put his hand at the small of my back. “Why don’t we head to dinner and save the argument for dessert. Where is the restaurant?”
“It’s here. The Royal Bahamian. I saw a sign for it on my way to the beach this morning.”
He held his other hand out. “Lead the way.”
The restaurant was at the back of the hotel, with open windows and some tables facing the water. We gave Louise’s name to the maître d’ at the podium, and he smiled.
“Ah yes, our special guests for the evening.”
Beck and I looked at each other. Before I could ask what that meant, we were directed to follow. We walked toward the back of the restaurant, so I thought we were going to be seated at an ocean-view table. But then the maître d’ turned and led us down a hidden set of stairs. When we got to the bottom, he opened a door, and we were outside on the beach.
A table for two had been set up along the water’s edge, under a rustling palm tree that the trade winds had bent to form an arch. White linens blew in the light breeze, while a glass hurricane lamp protected the candle in the middle from going out. I looked around. There wasn’t another table anywhere on the beach.
“This is for us?”
“Yes, madam. Is it not to your satisfaction?”
“Oh no. It’s amazing. I just… It’s very romantic.”
He smiled and looked between Beck and me. “Yes, it is.”
“Wasn’t our reservation supposed to be for three?”
The maître d’s brows drew together. “For three?”
I looked to Beck. “Are you getting the feeling I’m getting?”
He raised an eyebrow. “That my grandmother is upstairs in her room practicing calypso and not tired at all?”
“She also told me to wear this blue dress, which I now know is your favorite color, when I mentioned I was going to wear a pink one, my favorite color.”
“I’ll have to remember to thank her for that part.”
I looked to the maître d’. “Would you have another table? Maybe something inside?”
He frowned. “I’m afraid not. We’re fully booked this evening. Your reservation is for the Taste of the Sea Experience. It’s a seven-course tasting menu at this table only.”
“Maybe someone wants to swap with us. The couple by the stairs with the woman in the red dress looked lovey-dovey. I could ask them if they’d like to switch?”
The poor guy looked horrified.
Beck pulled his billfold from his pants pocket and peeled off some bills, handing them to the man. “This table is fine. I’ll take it from here. Thank you.”
The maître d’ couldn’t get away fast enough.
I raised my hands in confusion. “Why did you do that?”
“Because you’re being ridiculous.”
My lips pursed. “How am I being ridiculous?”
“Can we just sit and eat? It’s not going to kill you.”
“Whatever.” I rolled my eyes. “Let’s get it over with.”
Beck and I took our seats, and a waiter stopped by almost immediately with the wine list.
“Are you getting your usual whiskey?” I asked him.
“I’ll have wine. Whatever you pick is fine.”
I ordered a bottle of the red I’d been enjoying by the glass since we’d arrived. Once we were alone again, the only sound was the gentle lapping of waves against the shore less than five feet away. I watched the tide pull in and out a few times, mesmerized.
“It really is beautiful,” I said.
“It is.” Beck’s voice was soft, but I caught a touch of something in it. So I looked up to figure out what it was and found him looking at me in that way. He hadn’t been talking about the island.
“How about if we make peace for the evening?” I suggested. “A truce, perhaps. No arguing.”
“What fun will that be?”
I extended my hand. “Are you up for the challenge?”
Beck took my hand, but brought it to his lips with a smirk and kissed the top. The warmth of his lips spread through me.
“Sure.” He winked. “There’s more than one way to skin a cat.”
“You won’t be skinning anything, trust me.”
His grin widened. “I love a challenge.”
The waiter came back and opened our wine. After a taste, he filled our glasses and departed. Beck looked over the candle at me while he rubbed his bottom lip with his thumb—something I’d noticed he did often.
“What are you pondering?” I asked.
“Who says I’m pondering? Maybe I’m just quietly enjoying the company.”
I pointed to his hand, which was now on his wine glass. “You rub your mouth with your finger when you’re debating asking something. You’re not exactly a hard read.”
“I suppose that’s because I don’t usually find it necessary to hide what’s on my mind.”
“So?” I held my hand out, palm up. “Spill then. Why start now?”
“I was trying to keep within your pact to not argue.”
“Oh…” I nodded. “So whatever you’re thinking is going to piss me off?”
He shook his head. “I’m still trying to figure out why you’re taking this trip.”
I rolled my eyes. “Again with that?”
“There has to be fifty years between you. Even you have to see that it’s an unusual pairing.”
“Forty-nine, and I wasn’t aware of an age limit on friendships. Besides, you act like I’m doing your grandmother a favor by traveling with her, like she needs a chaperone or something,”
“She did get arrested just two days ago…”
“Whatever. She doesn’t need a chaperone, and some days I think she’s the one doing me a favor. Not the other way around. Some of the things we’re doing together are things I want to do, you know.”
“Like what?”
“Well, for example, we’re here in the Bahamas because I want to go to Exuma. We were supposed to be spending a few nights on this island to gamble a little and have some fun, and then we were going to take a boat over to another island this morning.”
“To do what?”
“To see my father.”
“He’s on vacation there?”
I shook my head. “He lives there. He owns a small hotel in Georgetown. I’ve never met him before.”
Beck’s brows puckered. “What do you mean, you’ve never met him?”
“Well, like you, my mother died when I was young. I was only three when she got sick. I don’t even remember her, only from pictures. She was married to William, who I thought was my biological father until I was eighteen. Turned out the man who raised me by himself was my stepfather. He’d met my mother when she was five months pregnant with another man’s baby and never cared that I wasn’t his child. William was madly in love with my mother. Still is. Never remarried. He’s the most amazing human I’ve ever met. When he told me the truth, he said he and my mother had never planned to keep it a secret, but after she died, he didn’t want to take away the only other parent I’d ever known.”
“Wow. Does your biological father know you exist?”
I shrugged. “I suppose. He did at one time, at least. My mother told him she was pregnant, and he sent some checks to help out when I was born. But William told him if he wasn’t going to be involved in my life, the checks weren’t necessary. He could take care of his family without a stranger’s assistance. That was the last they heard from Alex Stewart. About five years ago, I did one of those 23andMe tests, and I got a few hits on my father’s side. But no first-degree relatives like siblings or my father or anything. Then one day last year, I received an email saying I had new relatives. That happens frequently when you’re on that site. Usually it’s like a fifth-degree cousin or a great-great aunt. But that time when I went in to check, it said my father’s name and the relationship was parent. He must’ve been notified of it, too. So I assume he knows I’m still kicking around.”
“Did you ever make contact?”
“Nope. And neither did he. But I did research him online. That’s how I found out he lives in the Bahamas now. Apparently he became an executive for a large hotel chain, and when he retired early, he bought a run-down hotel here and brought it back to life. I found an article when I was looking into him.”
“If you got the email a year ago, what took you so long to come see him?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t have that feeling of abandonment like some people do who never got to know their parents. I don’t have questions I need answered or blame to hit him with. I guess I never had a sense of urgency.”
“Why now then?”
I shrugged. “It just feels like the right time, I guess.”
Beck nodded. “So what’s your plan? Walk up to him and tell him you’re his daughter?”
I sighed. “I don’t have one.”
“Sounds about right.”
I chuckled. “Shut up.”
Beck smiled. “You know your eyes lit up when you talked about your stepfather.”
“He’s truly an amazing man. Some women have issues because their father left or wasn’t a stand-up guy who set a good example of how a woman should be treated, and it causes dysfunctional relationships with men. My daddy issue is that no one can live up to the standard William set. He’s wise and fair, tough when he needs to be, but also a big teddy bear.”
“If my daughter grows up and describes me half as good as that, I’ll feel like I did my job in life.”
My eyes roamed Beck’s face as I sipped my wine. “I bet you’re a really good dad.”
“I try. I had a good parenting example to follow in Gram, and while my ex wasn’t the greatest wife, she’s a pretty good mom. But it sounds like we both got lucky that the right people jumped in to take over when we needed them.”
My eyes welled up unexpectedly, and I took a deep breath, fighting tears and searching for something to say. “I’m sorry Louise is dying. I can’t even imagine William...”
Beck reached across the table and swiped his thumb across my cheek, catching a tear. “Well, this evening took a turn for the depressing pretty quick, didn’t it?”
I laughed and blotted my eyes with my napkin. “Let’s talk about something more fun. Tell me about your brother, Jake. Your grandmother said you two are nothing alike.”
Beck shook his head. “That’s a compliment. Jake is ten years younger than me, but it often feels like he’s my child. He works for me.”
“What does he do?”
“I’m not really sure. I’ll let you know when I figure it out.”
I laughed. “No, really.”
“He does marketing and public relations. He’s actually pretty good at it. But don’t tell him I said so. He came on board right out of college. I’m good at in-person stuff. Get me a meeting, and I can land most clients. But I’m not great at the non-in-person presentation prospective clients see—websites, prospectus design, getting articles printed in magazines. Jake has a boyish quality to him. He’s never not smiling and always needs his shirt ironed. But it works for him.”
“That’s funny. Meanwhile you’re brooding, impeccably groomed, and there’s nothing boyish about you.”
Beck’s eyes glinted in the candlelight. “I’m glad you noticed. I’m all man, sweetheart.”
I felt my cheeks heat. Luckily, the waiter arrived with our first tasting course, a single homemade potato chip with caviar atop. Absolutely delicious.
I wiped my mouth with my napkin. “So tell me, Beck. Why are you divorced?”
He sat back in his chair. “That’s a big question.”
I tilted my head. “I told you what happened between Richard and me. I think it’s only fair that I get to hear why you’re divorced.”
“Alright. It’s not pretty, but I would imagine most divorce stories aren’t. Married a woman I met while I was in grad school. She was from Nevada and didn’t have much family on the East Coast, except for an uncle who was a professor where we went to school. A few months after we started dating, a friend of mine told me he saw Carrie making out with Professor Burton. Carrie and I actually had a good laugh over it, because Professor Burton was her uncle. A few months after I graduated, Carrie got pregnant. I wasn’t ready to be a dad, if I’m being honest, but it was coming whether I liked it or not, so I figured I might as well go all in. Six months after Maddie was born, I came home early from work and found Carrie in bed with Professor Burton.”
My eyes went wide. “She was sleeping with her uncle?”
“That’s of course what I thought, too. Turned out the guy wasn’t her uncle. He wasn’t related to Carrie at all. But they’d been caught a few times together, him driving her around and stuff. So they’d told people he was her uncle so it wouldn’t raise suspicion. He’s thirty-one years older, so it made sense. She’d been sleeping with him since freshman year, and he’d been promising he was going to leave his wife for her. When he didn’t, she broke things off. Once we got married, the guy changed his tune and finally left his wife. Then Carrie was torn between the cushy life I was giving her and the guy she’d always wanted but could never have. When he started coming around again, she thought maybe she could have both. Ironically, I filed for divorce on our one-year wedding anniversary.”
“Holy crap. What happened between her and the professor?”
“They’re married now. He just turned sixty, and she’s twenty-nine.”
“Wow. That’s a crazy story. Makes Richard tracking me seem normal.”
He chuckled. “I’m glad my life can make you feel normal by comparison.”
The waiter came with our second course, and after we finished that, the plates kept coming every five or ten minutes for the next hour.
Each portion was so small—just a taste—yet I was stuffed by the end. I leaned back and patted my stomach.
“I’m so full. But everything was delicious.”
“It was. And I enjoyed the company. We seemed to have managed to keep to our pact.”
“We did.” I smiled. “Who knew you could be pleasant for that long?”
“Wiseass.”
When the waiter came back the next time, Beck asked for the check, but apparently Louise had pre-paid the bill. We walked back through the restaurant and down the hall toward the elevator banks. As we passed the lobby bar, I heard a familiar, robust laugh.
Beck and I looked at each other before turning toward the far end of the bar where the sound had come from. A woman and two older gentlemen were sitting together, all three of them and the bartender laughing loudly.
“Apparently Louise is feeling better,” I said.
Beck shook his head. “Why am I not the least bit surprised?”
We walked over together. When Louise saw us, her already-big smile widened. “There you are. How was dinner?”
Beck narrowed his eyes. “You would know if you hadn’t been too exhausted to show up. Speaking of which, you seem to have gotten a miraculous second wind.”
Louise didn’t seem to give two shits whether we knew what she’d done. “I did. Come join us. Meet my new friends.”
I took a seat, but Beck looked at his watch. “I actually have to run. I have a call with a business partner in China in a few minutes.”
“Oh, okay.” I forced a smile, but I was disappointed. As much as I didn’t want to, I’d enjoyed Beck’s company. He also wasn’t bad to look at across the table. “Have a good night.”
“You too.”
After he left, Louise and I had a glass of wine with the two men she’d met at the bar. It turned out they were a couple on their honeymoon. They’d both been married to women for most of their lives and had only come out in recent years. After we finished, they said goodnight and headed out to take a walk on the beach.
“Make sure you keep your clothes on down there,” Louise said. “We got ourselves in a bit of a pickle taking an evening skinny dip. Apparently that’s illegal here.”
The men chuckled. “Good to know.”
I watched them walk off. “God, imagine spending your life not living your truth like that. I’m glad they found a way to be who they are before it was too late.”
“So am I. Life is too short for regrets. Speaking of which, did you enjoy your dinner?”
I smiled. “Your grandson is very handsome, and tonight he was even good company. But I don’t think pairing is wise, for more than one reason.”
Louise waved me off. “I think you two could do each other some good. He needs to relax a little, and you could use someone to take care of you.”
“He lives in New York. I’m moving back to California at the end of the summer. Plus, it’s not the right time, Louise.”
“Sometimes we find the right person at the wrong time. And we just have to trust fate.”
