Liz Talley - His Forever Girl

She tried to slide quickly by him, but he reached out. “Wait, Tess.”

“Please don’t touch me,” she begged, her voice almost at a whisper. She really couldn’t stand the tenderness in his touch. He felt sorry for her. That was all. And something about that hurt more than if he’d been the ruthless son of a bitch she’d wanted to paint him as.

“What can I do to make this right?” he asked, his voice plaintive and so freaking sincere.

“You can’t. Only I can make this right by moving on and proving I can be more than daddy’s little girl. The best you can do is to take care of this company. There are a lot of good people here and they deserve better than a half-assed job by their new boss.”

She wrenched her arm from his grasp and climbed the steps that would lead her to a place she loved...a place where she no longer belonged.

Quitting had been her choice and it had been one she had to make. Her assumptions had gotten her nothing but wounded pride, but she knew she wasn’t part of this business merely because her name was Ullo. She was good at her job. She’d brought in new accounts and the floats she oversaw were detailed and cost-effective. She hadn’t done well because her father owned the company...she’d done well because she’d pushed herself to live up to his name.

And now she would take her experience and foresight to a new company. She would show the world—and her father—just how good she was.

“Tess?” Graham’s voice carried on the river breeze.

He stood etched hard against the muddy waters and soft emerging spring green of the brush along the riverbank.

“I’m sorry.”

Tess lifted her chin. “At least someone is.”

CHAPTER SIX

GRAHAM TWISTED THE KEY in the door of the apartment he’d rented two weeks ago and pushed inside.

What a crappy day.

The dim room was hardly welcoming with an old leather couch that had a rip in the arm, a big-screen TV perched on a less than sturdy table and a single flowered armchair donated by his brother’s girlfriend. The place looked pathetic, but it would have to do until he could afford some new stuff. Currently, he had bills due and wanted to take Emily camping at the beginning of summer.

The contract he’d signed had given him a nice salary, a large enough expense account and a car. Soon, he’d be back to where he once was, replenishing his meager savings and funding the retirement fund he’d depleted. The severance package NASA had given him had helped buffer the loss he’d taken on the sale of his condo. Damn housing market had tanked and he’d been upside down on the gated executive condo he’d bought five years ago. He’d been relatively smart with his money, thank God, but it still hadn’t been enough to weather all the notes and student loans he’d collected over the years. Growing up poor made a man want things and Graham had been no exception—something he regretted when he’d looked at where he’d spent his money.

But this was to be his new start. Landing the Ullo job had been like gravy on the grandest of Thanksgiving dinners. Running a successful multi-million-dollar Mardi Gras company would take him back to his roots, allow him to use his skill set in a way NASA never had. While the mechanical engineer in him loved the technical aspects of cutting-edge innovation, the artist in him had mourned the loss of pushing past the boundaries creatively.

But now his success tasted like last night’s dinner coming back up.

Tess.

When she’d walked into Frank’s office, a myriad of emotions had galloped across him, starting with delight and ending in bitter regret.

She was right. He was a bastard.

He reached for the remote, tuned the TV to Sports Center merely so he could hear another human voice and then he went to the kitchen to find last night’s leftover takeout.

His phone jittered on the bar.

Emily.

His heart brightened.

“Hey, sweetheart,” he said.

“Daddy!” she cried, a smile in her voice.

“What are you doing?”

“I had homework today,” she said excitedly.

“Wow, you’re already doing homework in second grade?”

“Dad,” she said, using a teenage voice. “Of course. Most kids don’t like homework, but I do.”

“That’s because you’re a smarty pants.”

She giggled, and he tucked that laughter into his soul. He’d screwed up a lot of things in life, but Emily had been the one perfect example of how an emotionally infantile man could grow into something better than his own father. Graham had made being a good father a vow.... Another reason he’d been adamant about returning to New Orleans. “I can’t wait to come to your house. There’s a pool there, right?”

“Yep, and a tennis court.”

“I don’t know how to play tennis,” she said, her voice a little breathless. He could hear the rattle of cabinets in the background.

“Maybe you can take lessons? That would be fun, right?”

“Maybe,” she said, chewing something. “I’m not good at sports stuff.”

“You don’t have to be good. It will be fun just to be out in the sun, moving around.” Graham had noticed Emily had started putting on some unhealthy weight. Monique had laughed it off, talking about Christmas cookies and king cake, but Graham suspected Emily was left too often to her own devices after school, snacking and sitting in front of the TV glued to the Disney channel. Being here would give him a better handle on her health...a better handle on building a stronger relationship with his daughter. “Where’s your mom?”

“She’s with Josh. They’re in a meeting or something. I’m in her office. I did my homework and now I’m eating a snack and watching Saved by the Bell.”

Saved by the Bell?

“It’s an old show. Mom said she watched it when she was little. Isn’t that funny?”

“Yeah, princess, it is. Look, I’m going to pick you up on Thursday, okay?”

“Cool,” she said, her attention waning, most likely caught by the campy sitcom. He thought he heard the sound of Screech’s voice.

“Tell your mom to call me later, okay?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Emily? What did I just say?”

“Uh—” She paused. “I don’t remember.”

“Tell your mother to call me.”

“Oh, right. Bye, Daddy,” Emily said, still distracted, but Graham would take it. He loved every minute of hearing her breathless little girl voice. Something about her innocence buffered the guilt floating inside him...made his day not so crappy if only for a few minutes.

God, he wanted to do better by her.

And he would.

“Bye, pumpkin,” he said before pressing the end button. Tossing the phone on the counter, he sighed and wiped a hand over his face. He had to get his shit together. That’s what a good father did.

He had to be there physically for Emily, picking her up from after school care, spending weekends proving he wasn’t the same as his old man. He wouldn’t chase sparkly things or shirk his duty to his child. Emily was the reason Graham couldn’t bow out of Ullo.

It had been so long since he’d felt confident about who he was. He’d gotten a taste of it that night exactly a month ago when he’d met Tess. That night, he’d been the man he’d once been—the man who had not only dreamed but made things happen. The man who hadn’t failed with Monique, who had never been laid off, who had never paid a bill late, who had never taken medicine to pull himself out of depression. That magical night had given him a piece of himself back, cracking open the door to a new tomorrow.

But then he’d slammed it closed out of fear. Out of embarrassment of who he’d become. Yeah, it was a stupid reason to toss a chance for happiness with Tess away, but something inside him had balked about coming to her with so little to offer.

Panic had grabbed him by the throat. No matter how well he’d presented himself in his pressed suit and expensive shoes, buying drinks like he had a bankroll in his pocket, he’d known he’d been a facade of the man he’d once been.

All he could think about was his father with frayed cuffs and a shitty-ass excuse for why he couldn’t afford to pay school fees. He’d looked in his bathroom mirror and seen the man who’d failed so often, who’d cared so little he’d rather take his life than get a job beneath him and show his sons how real success worked. The fear of turning into that man ate at him and convinced him to wait to call Tess until he was in a better place.

“Shit,” he said to no one...because no one was there. Story of his life. “Ah, you’re pathetic. You effed up with Tess. Game over.”

His words echoed in the apartment and as he looked at the Chinese takeout box in his hand, he felt anger wash over him. So he lived in shitty circumstances now, and he’d blown any chance he had with a woman who had made him feel the way he hadn’t felt in years—whole.

But it was a new day. A new beginning. He had a job, a challenge and a daughter who needed him. No time for feeling sorry for himself.

He was Graham Naquin—over-educated, nearer to forty than thirty and possessing all his teeth.

He was in it to win it.

The world was his oyster.

He would kick ass and take names.

Because he refused to be the man who’d raised him. He might have been down, but he wasn’t out.

Graham Naquin was a fighter.

* * *

TESS SIPPED THE lukewarm café au lait and studied Gigi who glowered like a jail warden.

“Draw unemployment,” she said, her red eyebrows drawn together.

“No. I don’t want unemployment. I’m getting another job.” Tess stared at her computer, trying to figure how best to position the experience she had. It was damn hard writing a resume with a single company as your only employer.

“Where?” Gigi pushed her tight red curls off her face and sucked on the straw of her iced tea. Gigi hated coffee but loved Cuppa Joe’s with its bright red couches and black lacquered tables. Soft ’80s rock flowed through the speakers and modern art displayed at irregular angles decked the walls. It had a cool, comfy vibe, so they met here as regularly for Wi-Fi and coffee as they did at Two-Legged Pete’s for drinks with more kick.

“Not sure. I love design work and haven’t been able to do as much of it for the past few years because I’ve been working with clients. Maybe I’ll freelance.”

Gigi snapped her fingers. “Didn’t your father say this dude started a Mardi Gras float company way back when?”

“No, Graham told me the company he interviewed for was something he’d done before.... Wait, uh, maybe he did say he started a company, but I haven’t a clue which one. There are a lot of smaller ones.”

“Give me that,” Gigi said, tugging Tess’s laptop toward her. “Let’s see what we can find on him.”

Tess scooted her chair closer, wondering why she hadn’t already done that. She often used social media to scan the guys she dated, but Graham had said he wasn’t on Facebook.

Gigi typed away like a flame-tipped woodpecker on crack as Tess sipped her coffee and looked around at the world still turning even though hers had crashed that afternoon. How could people still laugh, still make jokes, still flirt across the room? Didn’t her sadness permeate their happy, shiny faces?

“Bingo!” Gigi crowed, sitting back with a smile. “You’re never going to believe this one.”

Tess tipped the computer so she could see the screen. “Holy crap. Upstart?”

“Yeah, that’s crazy, huh?”

Tess reeled with the news. Upstart, run by the effervescent Monique Dryden, had grown to become Frank Ullo’s staunchest competition...and Graham Naquin had been one of the founders?