Page 37 of Acquiring Ainsley
“Me either.” He tapped out the beat of the next song on the leather steering wheel. “I don’t relax very much. Not my style.”
“Why am I not surprised? It’s all about the next acquisition, isn’t it? The next thing.”
He nodded. “I’ve spent the last decade climbing the ladder as fast as I can. Not going to stop now.”
We were getting close to our destination, so I turned my focus back to the directions that I needed to give him. “Turn here,” I said when we reached the outskirts of Belle Glade. “And take another left at the first light.”
Another five minutes, and we arrived at the two-year-old building with the words, Ross Recreation Center stamped across the front. I’d invested in it with the money I’d syphoned off my trust fund and some of the money Ashton had provided me, and now, admiring the large, blue, one-story building, sudden pride washed through me, strumming along my heartstrings. We parked in the visitor parking outside, and when we got out of the vehicle, Trevor had wide eyes and a slightly open mouth.
“I had no idea.”
“No one does.” I shut the car door. “And I like keeping it that way. Better to be anonymous. Well, as anonymous as having your name on a building can be.”
I joined Trevor at the front of the car, and we strode to the door of the facility. It wasn’t the largest rec center ever built, but my chest still swelled with pride when we entered it. Over the course of about eighteen months, I’d managed to pull this off, and to cobble together enough money to create a facility that housed an after-school program for 150 Belle Glade elementary school students, a gymnasium, game room, tutoring program, and playground.
When we walked through the front doors, Elizabeth, the assistant director, sprang up from behind the long reception desk. “Ainsley—we didn’t expect you today.” Elizabeth rushed around the desk and pulled me into a hug. “It’s so good to see you.”
“Good to see you, too,” I said into her fluffy, festive sweater, which featured outlandish embroidery and more than one stain. After we broke the hug, she smoothed it over her protruding stomach and blushed.
“We’d have made more of a fuss if we knew you were coming.”
“Nonsense.” I waved my hand. “Surprise visits are more fun, anyway.”
Elizabeth’s attention turned to Trevor, and she cocked her head as she regarded him. “I’m sorry, I don’t think we’ve met.”
“Oh, this is—This is Trevor McNamara.”
I faltered, unsure how to introduce him. It was one thing to pretend this business arrangement had a deeper meaning around people who digested society columns over their morning cereal, and quite another to expand this out to people who didn’t care who I married or how much social standing my last name had.
“He’s—”
“Ainsley’s my fiancée,” Trevor replied, then wrapped his arm around my waist in a smooth movement. Elizabeth let out an excited yelp. “She might not have mentioned me before. We reconnected recently.” He looked down at me, then smiled. “And things changed from there.”
“They did.” I grinned at Elizabeth. “I couldn’t be happier about it.”
And for the first time, there was more than just a kernel of truth to this statement. I was happy. For real.
“This is wonderful news.” Elizabeth clapped her hands together a few times. “I love this. You all are”—she moved closer—“you all are going to makegorgeousbabies.”
Trevor and I chuckled in unison. He shot me a wink over Elizabeth’s head of teased red hair.
Babies? Nope.I hadn’t even considered it.
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” I gently said to Elizabeth. “As I said, this has all been very sudden.”
“I know these things. I have a maternal instinct.” Elizabeth regarded us for a breath. “Since this is your first time at the center, Trevor, I’d love to show you around. We have a lot of things going on today, including in our arts-and-crafts room, where our older elementary students are decorating lunch boxes with decoupage and recycle cards.”
“I’d love that,” Trevor said.
And as we set off on our tour, we fell in line together. In fact, he grabbed my hand somewhere in the middle of the main hallway.
Neither of us let go.
“That was amazing,” I said about two hours later as we got back in my car and prepared to leave Belle Glade for Palm Beach once again. “I haven’t made pinch pots like that since art class in the fifth grade.”
“The kids loved you.” She closed her car door. “Especially those twins.”
“Yeah, we had a nice connection.” I started the engine and turned to her. “So, you did all this? This was your vision?”
