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Miranda put her hand on his cheek. “I don’t want you to get hurt, if she doesn’t want to see you.”
He appreciated that Miranda wanted to protect his heart.
Nate capitulated, because it would be a huge blow to have his own daughter turn her back on him to his face. “Fine. Maybe you’re right. Only I don’t know that I’ll be able to let it go if she declines and sends Cody back here with bad news.”
“One step at a time. You know who she is. Hopefully soon you’ll know what really happened and why you were denied your daughter.”
He was relieved to see that Miranda’s initial hurt and anger had faded, and now she was perturbed that he’d been left in the dark about having a child. “I’ll go speak to Cody and have him on the next plane to Texas.”
“How do you know that’s where she is?”
“That’s where Jessica and her father lived. He owns and runs Sutherland Industries. I’m sure Cody can do some Internet digging and get more information on her before he leaves.”
“He’s probably already gotten started.” Miranda left the bedroom ahead of him.
Nate let out a relieved breath that they’d gotten through the initial shock. He bet Natalie and Haley had a lot of questions for him. He had a lot himself and no real answers to give his girls.
And he hoped he could answer any questions Summer had, and they could forge a relationship. He’d missed twenty-five years of her life. He didn’t want to miss a single second more.
Chapter Three
Cody arrived at the Sutherland offices in Dallas two days after the Weston family received the news about Summer. He wasn’t surprised by Nate’s request that he make the initial contact with Summer. Nate’s emotions were all over the place. Most of the time, he was happy and excited, albeit with a healthy dose of wariness. Other times, his anger spilled over as he blamed Jessica Sutherland for keeping his daughter away from him.
Cody heard an earful about the spoiled rich girl who ran away from home one summer looking for a chance to stretch her wings and rebel a little. She’d made it all the way from Texas to the California coast and Carmel, where she met Nate on the beach. She had a romantic notion about living near the ocean—surfing, bonfires, fun in the sun with new friends. But it soon became clear Nate’s going-nowhere job that paid shit, his tiny apartment, and his mounting school debt didn’t offer the country club benefits she grew up with. Before long Jessica was looking for ways to convince Nate to let her use her family money to upgrade them to the lifestyle she enjoyed and missed.
Nate wasn’t the kind of guy to take a handout. Cody thought a woman would appreciate that trait in a guy who wanted to provide for himself and her. Instead, Jessica went back to the life she lovedmore than the boy she spent the summer with and never contacted again.
Cody was all for finding Summer and getting some answers, but he’d had to fight Nate to wait a couple days so they could get some basic background on the woman. He didn’t want to go in blind.
Nate was a wealthy man now. Cody didn’t want anyone, not even Nate’s daughter or her selfish mother, coming after him for money, not after he’d been denied his daughter all this time.
As a lawyer, Cody knew the value of doing his due diligence. So he hired a local Texas private investigator to do a background check and gather information on Summer Sutherland Weston, the woman who never really smiled.
He thought again of all the pictures the private investigator had taken over the last two days. There were pictures of her at the local coffee shop ordering her morning high-octane fuel: a double espresso. There were photos of her eating lunch alone, sitting on a bench under a shady tree. Of the fifty or so photographs, the only photo he’d seen where she actually looked happy showed her crouched down petting an oversized puppy as a man and young girl stood beside her. That frozen moment had disturbed him the most.
On one count, he’d been struck by her smile and how it changed her face completely. She was beautiful without the smile, but with it she was a punch in the gut—stunning.
And then he’d looked at the man looking down at her with an appreciative grin on his face and lust in his eyes, and Cody got hit by a wave of unfamiliar jealousy.
He’d been surprised both by his reaction and by the fact that it had hit him so hard and swift from only looking at a photograph.
He didn’t even know her, and yet...
He was a man who trusted his gut instincts, because they usually proved to be right. They’d saved him in his personal life when the woman he’d thought he loved turned out to be a cheater withthe acting skills of an Oscar winner. He’d fallen hard for her sinful body and her deceptive smile until his gut had told him to surprise her at her place instead of meeting her at her favorite restaurant. Something told him she was holding something back.
Turned out, she was hiding a boyfriend. Cody had caught her just outside her apartment, saying good-bye with her tongue down his throat and his hand on her ass. She was even wearing the stunning diamond necklace he’d given her just two days before.
He’d been played for a fool. That had been a first for him. It was the only time he’d given his heart to a woman and opened himself up to be hurt. He’d learned his lesson and kept his heart on lockdown from that moment on, except when it came to family.
He still dated. With caution. And a mutual understanding to keep things fun and casual.
Cody stepped off the elevator into the executive offices on the twenty-second floor of the Sutherland Industries building and stopped short, struck by the beauty across the office. Summer Weston stunned in photos. In person, she could bring a man to his knees.
Even him, he reluctantly admitted to himself, because he couldn’t deny the intense attraction he had to her.
Those gorgeous blue eyes, the color of a bright summer sky, were offset by her dark brown hair. Too bad there was no joy or laughter in those eyes. He wondered what in her life had made her so reserved and sad. And then his damn gut clenched when she traced a finger over her cheek and tucked a strand of rich brown hair behind her ear before answering the phone with an efficient greeting. He wanted to follow the curve of her cheek with his tongue and lips as he buried his fingers in the mass of mahogany silk.
He shifted his weight and just watched her.
