Here we go.
Hayden shot Tate an apologetic smile, feeling instantly guilty that she hadn’t warned him. Anyone she’d dated as an adult had no reason to meet the fam, and the guys she dated when she was living at home weren’t exactly the kinds of guys to bring home to mom.
“Mother, your heart,” Patti warned Winnie.
“Don’t worry about my heart,” Winnie snapped. “Worry about smuggling in a cocktail. It’s long past five o’clock. Keeping an old woman from one of her only pleasures in life is criminal.”
What’s her other pleasure in life? Bossing around my mother? Hayden wisely kept the snide thought to herself.
“Well?” Winnie speared Tate with a glare. “Introduce yourself.”
“Tate Duncan,” he replied coolly, hands tucked into his pants pockets. “I’m also Wesley Singleton, but that’s a long, complicated story.”
Hayden gaped at him before turning back to her grandmother.
“Never heard of you.” Winnie’s frown pulled the corners of her mouth lower.
Hayden looked up to tell Tate they could leave—no one should be subjected to her grandmother’s abuse, but he chuckled good-naturedly.
“I’m not surprised,” he said. “My reality show airs late at night, and I keep my celebrity appearances to a minimum.”
“Smart-ass.” But Winnie’s mouth curled at the edge. Was it possible that Tate was winning over the world’s biggest critic? It’d been a long while since Hayden’s grandmother had regarded anyone with respect, so the experience was unique.
Patti, meanwhile, didn’t catch the joke. “You have a reality television show?”
“Not yet,” Tate’s smile remained. Amazing.
Hayden gestured toward the hallway. “Can I talk to you in private, Mom?”
“What’s wrong with in here?” Winnie demanded.
“Nothing’s wrong, ma’am,” Tate answered for them.
“Ma’am,” Winnie barked, amused.
Had Hayden ever heard that sound come from her most embittered family member?
“I’ll be right back, Mother,” Patti told Winnie as she walked for the corridor. Winnie’s call of “and bring me a cocktail on your way back!” followed her out and then the volume on the television skyrocketed.
“She’s really very sweet,” Hayden’s mother explained to Tate once they were outside of the room.
Hayden barely banked an eye roll.
“No judgment from me,” he said easily. When Hayden looked up at him she was surprised to see the sincerity on his face. He meant it. He wasn’t standing in judgment of her or her family tonight.
Hand around her waist, he tucked her close, and Patti didn’t miss it.
“You two seem close. Hayden and I used to be that close.” She sent a woe-is-me look at her only daughter. “I’m glad for her though.”
Hayden hated that she was skeptical, but her mother had accused her of “flitting” to London instead of spending time with her family.
“Are you the one who took her to London?”
“Mom—”
“Yes. To meet my birth parents.”
“Oh.” Patti’s ears pricked at the barest whiff of gossip. But then she faced Hayden, guns blazing. “You met his parents. And this is how you choose to introduce him to us?”
“That’s not... We’re not...” Hayden closed her eyes and pulled in another deep breath, staunching her knee-jerk reaction. She didn’t owe Patti an explanation about why she did anything. “Why is she really here, Mom?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you should look into rehab if Grandma Winnie’s drinking so much she’s blacking out.”
“Blacking out? Who told you that?” Patti’s eyes widened, flicking to Tate first as she offered a shaky smile of embarrassment. “This is hardly the place to air family grievances, Hayden. Your grandmother is ill.”
“Yes, very.” Hayden couldn’t help agreeing. “She has been sick with this illness for as long as I can remember. You can’t stop her. I can’t stop her. I came as a courtesy...”
“A courtesy!” Patti let out a sharp, humorless laugh. “Well, my, my. Excuse us for interrupting your glamorous life. By all means, go and enjoy a fabulous night with your celebrity boyfriend. If you’ll excuse me.” She saved one last disingenuous smile for Tate before stomping back into the hospital room.
Drained and exhausted from that brief interaction, Hayden shook her head at Tate, at a loss for what to say.
He suffered no such loss.
“I don’t remember if I told you...” His arm still looped at her waist, he walked with her toward the exit. “You couldn’t look more beautiful if you tried. I like you in red.”
She shook her head. He was too much.
“Did you also know that your celebrity boyfriend knows the chef at the Brass Pony personally?”
“I did not.” She was grinning, a feat in and of itself.
“It’s true. Any special requests you have for your glamorous dinner are well within reach.”
Warm browns, golds, and greens made up the décor at the Brass Pony, along with gilded frames holding mirrors and paintings of horses and landscapes. The tables were lit by low candles on crisp, white tablecloths, the silverware was gold and the glassware copious.
Upon entering, Hayden took her first full breath in hours, embarrassed more by her own behavior than her family’s. What must Tate think of her? That she’s completely intolerant?
“Mr. Duncan.” A man in a smart blue suit, his hair dusky blond, regarded Tate with both surprise what could’ve been a borderline nervous smile. “I haven’t seen you in a while.”
“Jared.” Tate’s hand on her back, he ushered her forward, then offered that hand in greeting to the manager of the Pony. “Apologies for my behavior last time I was in here. You caught me on one of my worst days. This is Hayden Green, she owns the yoga studio down the street.”
“A pleasure, Hayden.” Jared nodded his greeting then said to Tate, “Glad to have you back. Your usual table?”
“If it’s available.”
“Right this way.”
Hayden had been to the Brass Pony once since she moved here. The food was exquisite; the atmosphere on the stuffy side, but it had its merits. For one, it was quiet. It was also tidy. Bussers, waitstaff and hosts were dressed in black pants, long black aprons and white shirts with the restaurant’s green logo on them.
Tate’s “usual table” was located in a back corner, the C-shaped booth tall and private. From her spot in the center of the C, the restaurant’s patrons were visible, but Hayden and Tate were shielded from prying eyes.
In short order they were served a bottle of wine, goblets of water and a special made by the chef that Tate requested.
All part of dating a billionaire, Hayden thought with a wry smile.
Fiddling with her gold fork, Hayden tried to think of a way to explain her behavior tonight. Explain that she’d endured years and years of neglect and verbal abuse from her grandmother and mother. Explain that while Hayden loved them, they were complicated to know and even more complicated to like.
Before she could arrive at any arrangement of those words, though, Tate spoke.
“My parents—the Duncans—aren’t perfect, either, you know.” His blue eyes sparkled in the candlelight.
“Yes, but are they manipulative?”
“They can be.” He lifted his wine. “They’re parents.”
“I don’t want you think that I’m this uncaring, selfish—”
He reached for her hand, shaking his head to stay her words. “Don’t. You already know what I think about you.”
Did she? He must’ve seen the question on her face.
“Giving. Caring. Selfless. Beautiful. Strong. Patient. Enduring. Really, really amazing in bed.” He grinned and she pulled her hand away to shove his arm.
“Do you see where we are? Behave yourself.”
“I’m tired of behaving myself. You should know that better than anyone.”
“Are you a rule breaker now?” she teased.
“More like the rules I put stock into were broken for me. I’m enjoying not heeding them. And so should you.”
She sipped her wine, both rich and complex, like the man who ordered it. “I’m not heeding any rules.”
Not her mother’s rule that Hayden should be involved in every family emergency. Not her own warning her not to get serious with a guy, or allow herself to be spoiled unnecessarily. And dining “off” the menu and letting her date treat her to a trip to another country definitely counted as her being spoiled.
No, she wasn’t following any rules, which she knew damn well could lead to breaking even more of them. But as she met Tate’s eyes over their appetizer of crisp calamari, she couldn’t dredge up any motivation to change.
Although...maybe he’d changed her already.