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“I amhischild, too! He’ll never forgive me for not looking for him.”
“There’s nothing for him to forgive, Summer,” Cody assured her. “I’ll tell him everything I learned here. He’ll understand it wasn’t your fault.”
Summer suddenly went still and a look of dawning understanding came into her eyes.
Charles’s gut fluttered with nerves.
“I only found out the truth because of the DNA test. And my father found out because his daughter took one, too.” She leveled her glare on him. “You put the DNA test in the raffle. You made sure I got one.”
Charles had hoped his plan wouldn’t seem so obvious.
Cody caught on, too. “Haley said the test kits were donated to her school.”
“From the very company Sutherland Industries now owns, no doubt.” She raised a brow at Charles. “All you had to do was tell me. It’s been twenty-five years. Why now? Why this way?”
“You think it’s easy to look you in the eye and tell you I lied to you about this and break your heart?” It cut him deep, and he deserved it. “I need to know that when I’m gone, you have someone else who loves you more than anything, the way I do.”
“He doesn’t even know me.”
“He wants to,” Cody assured her. “He wasn’t sure why you never reached out to him, so he sent me, hoping you’d agree to meet him.” Cody took a step closer to Charles’s granddaughter. “He sent me to bring you home.”
“Where is he?”
“Still in Carmel. I may not be the man in the moon, but I can make your wish come true. I have a plane waiting to take me home. Come with me. You can see him today.”
Summer’s eyes went wide. “Do you really think he wants me to come to California?”
Charles hated that Summer questioned whether Nate wanted anything to do with her.
Cody reassured her. “I know that’s exactly what he wants. I mean, he’d come to you for sure, but it might be best for you to come back with me. Give you and Nate some space away from here to connect.”
Summer raised a brow. “You mean away from my mother.”
Cody nodded. “Nate’s going to need some time to cool off before that reunion.”
“Summer isn’t going anywhere,” Jessica shouted. “She has a job and a life here.”
“The job, yes. The life—” Charles shrugged. “That’s debatable. Which is why I did this. Summer believed her father didn’t want her, so why would any other man?”
“I don’t think that,” Summer defended herself.
“Really?” Charles asked. “If you’re not here, you spend all your time alone in your condo.”
“Because all I do is work for you, I have no time for anything else. Even my friends tease that you keep me chained to my desk.”
Charles knew he needed to back off at work. She knew her job. She could run this company without him now. She deserved the personal life he’d always put on the back burner for himself and regretted. He wanted more for her. He knew Summer wanted more for herself, too, but was afraid of putting herself out there and getting rejected.
“You brush off every man who even looks at you like he wants a date. The ones who ask, you dispatch without even taking the time to get to know them.”
“That has nothing to do with my father and everything to do withher.” Summer pointed the finger at Jessica.
“I only ever wanted your happiness,” Jessica interjected.
“By pushing me to get married to one eligible bachelor after another.”
“I wanted you to find love and ensure a solid future for you.”
“You manipulated me. You went behind my back and set me up with a man you knew had a very specific agenda, and you didn’t care that he was using me. You never gave any thought to my feelings.” That experience had soured Summer on relationships.
