Page 56 of The Hookup
Whose fault was that?
She had not experienced those moments which Savannah spoke of. She had no sweet, or flirtatious texts, no phone calls, no future plans. She didn’t even have much in the way of conversation. She had nothing to indicate that she meant anything to Luke outside of sex.
She'd told him once she was happy with it, and that she could handle it, but she wasn’t so sure anymore.
Chances were, soon, a few months down the line, she and Luke would move on. Dean might come back, or a few more years might pass, with more meaningless one-night stands and short-lived relationships. She would eventually meet someone who wasenough. A guy who would tick enough boxes so that her aging self would think he was ‘the one’—but he wouldn’t rock her world.
He would just be enough. And, like most women, she would settle for that.
“Why are you asking about me and Tobias?” Savannah looked at her suspiciously.
“No reason. I was curious, that’s all, especially now that I’m on my man-free diet.”
Savannah tilted her chin up.
“It’s given me the time to think about what I want,” Kay continued, hoping that it would be enough to convince her cousin.
“I knew this would help you,” said Savannah, smugness creeping into her tone. “You were starting to worry me when you were jumping from one man to the next without a moment alone.”
This was how Savannah saw her? “It wasn’t like that,” she replied, her face feeling hotter by the second. “I didn’t sleep witheveryone. Some guys I just made out with.”
Savannah blinked, and then a second time, but didn’t say anything.
“Sometimes, it only happened sometimes. I didn’t like being in Hong Kong. It was all work, work, work, and I didn’t have my circle of close friends around me, so I had to start all over with work people.”
“But you’re back now,” Savannah said.
“And having you and Jacob here is the best thing for me,” she agreed. Luke had a tiny place in her life, and once she figured him out, once she unraveled the broodiness beneath the mask he wore, she hoped he might be some kind of constant in her life. A dubious constant, but a constant all the same.
While she wasn’t lucky to have a guy who professed his love for her, or bought her chocolate, or pampered her after a hard day at work, he was still around, in the background, a phone call or text message away. It wasn’t ideal, hooking up just for sex, but it was better than nothing.
“A new baby in May,” said Kay, cleverly changing the subject before Savannah probed too deeply.
“A new baby, and we’re moving a month or so before then.”
“How comes it’s taking so long?” She’d seen pictures of the massive property. It was huge. Too big for a family of three. And she could only imagine how many millions it must have cost.
“It’s Tobias. He wants to build extra rooms. He wants me to get a live-in nanny, but I’m not sure about that. Not for the first year, I don’t think.”
Was this woman crazy? “Take all the help you can get! Isn’t the first year the hardest?”
“Yes, but I don’t think I need a nanny at all. I had Izzy helping out while we were away, and I was going to have her do more hours for me, but I don’t want to neglect Jacob. He’s going to get neglected when the baby comes, for a while, anyway. I managed to look after Jacob, and I worked, and I had Colt to contend with and all that nasty stuff, and I had no nanny then, except for my parents who looked after Jacob when I went back to work.” Savannah laughed. “I had no money either, with which I could have paid the nanny, but we did fine.”
“Yes, you did, hon.” Kay’s heart swelled with pride, knowing everything Savannah had been through, and to see her now, all her dreams had come true. Except that marrying a billionaire and living the jet-set life had probably never been Savannah’s dream. She had only wanted the best for her son, and she had wanted out of that awful marriage. “We’ll have to throw you a baby shower,” Kay decided.
“A baby shower?” Savannah laughed.
“We should go out and celebrate,” Kay suggested. “It doesn’t feel right sitting here and doing nothing.”
But Savannah didn’t look too enthralled by the idea. “Can we not?” she pleaded. “I can’t stand people noticing who I am. I can’t even shop in peace, at the moment. I’m hoping it’s because of the wedding, and I hope the news will die down soon, but the pregnancy news will probably come out soon, and it will all start up again.”
“We can go somewhere discreet. I’ll give you a hat and sunglasses.”
Savannah made an unhappy face. “I have a fundraiser event next week, and then Tobias’s yearly Christmas fundraising event for the adoption centers. I expect the baby news will have broken by then and things are going to get crazy for me again. Please…can we stay here, and veg, like we used to in the good old days?”
“Is it really that bad?” The way Savannah spoke of it, she made it sound like such a tortured life.
“Worse. It means you can’t ever have a bad day. You can’t. Even if you’ve got a headache, or you’ve read some salacious piece of gossip written about you, you have to be out in the public with a smile on your face. I completely get why Tobias loathes the press.”
