Page 205 of Boyfriend of the Hour

“What was that?” I wondered with slightly numbed lips.

“Peace.” Nathan smiled. “And something to remember when it’s gone in a few moments.”

I followed him out of the car, smoothing the green dress I’d worn on the plane. It was another piece from Wardrobe de Nathan, with a strapless silk bodice that gathered at my waist but floated demurely to just past my knees. It paired perfectly with the strappy wedge sandals that wrapped around my ankles. I knew Nathan liked it because of the way it bared my shoulders and matched my eyes; I hoped his family would like the way it mostly covered my legs.

Hand in mine, Nathan led me up the brick walk toward the front door of a mansion that seemed to stretch for miles in either direction. It was white with black shutters and at least three stories built of stone, columns, and windows. A mix of colonial and neoclassical styles, I was told, with eighteenth-century stonework blended with plaster additions and twin columns framing the front door.

“How old is this place?” I asked.

Nathan looked around with me. “The original house was built in 1783. There are a few different additions since then—I think the most recent is a pool house in the back, added in the seventies.”

I gawked. There was nothing like this in New York. Maybe a few small houses near Washington Square Park, a couple of old mills and things like that in the Bronx, but most of New York’s colonial past had been erased long ago to make room for the townhomes, apartment buildings, and skyscrapers the city was known for today. To a kid learning about things like the Lenapetribe or the Dutch settlers in elementary school, that history was nearly as mythological as the Loch Ness monster.

Nathan, however, had grown up in that history. It was as much a part of him as anything else, a kind of legacy.

Just another difference between us.

The oversized front doors opened, and a short yet imperious blond woman appeared in a navy-blue sweater set and tasteful brown mules that clipped like woodpeckers on the brick stoop.

Lillian Hunt. Otherwise known as the woman who hated my guts.

“Nathan!” she called. “Darling, you’re back! And with a guest, I see. So delighted you’ve finally moved on from—oh!”

I summoned my brightest, most charming smile possible. “Mrs. Hunt. It’s lovely to see you again.”

Lillian’s eyes narrowed before she turned to Nathan without even acknowledging me. “Whatis she doing here?”

“You didn’t tell them I was coming?” I murmured.

“Of course I did. My mother just likes to be dramatic.” Nathan turned to Lillian. “Mom, I was perfectly clear on the phone last week when I said Joni would be joining me after her surgery.”

“Yes, but I didn’t think youmeantit.” She eyed me up and down. “You have some nerve coming here, missy. I don’t know what sort of welcome you expected, but we are not interested in your sort at Huntwell.”

I fought the urge to cower into Nathan, but it didn’t last long. Only because I reminded myself that I’d never bowed down to a stuck-up bitch before, and I wasn’t going to start now. I didn’t care if she was my boyfriend’s mother.

“Then it’s a good thing I’m here as your son’s guest, not yours,” I said in a sickly sweet tone. I turned to Nathan. “Maybe you’re right, and it would be better to get an Airbnb somewhere nearby.”

He blinked. We hadn’t discussed that at all. The plan was simple: use the time to get back into his parents’ good graces enough that they would sign Isla’s guardianship over to him without a legal battle. It would be easier, he thought, if we stayed here instead of at an Airbnb, even with the tension between him and his family. And me.

This was the first time I reconsidered coming down with him. My presence would likely delay things, given how much his mother didn’t like me.

Nathan, however, had already decided that I was a necessity to him. And if anything, perhaps we could use my presence as a bargaining chip. Particularly if I annoyed Lillian to the point where she would give Nathan almost anything to get rid of me.

That, I could do.

But I recognized something else in Nathan’s mother he hadn’t yet identified: desperation. As the youngest in a family led by a grandmother trying to force teenagers and twenty-somethings to Mass and family dinners for years, I knew exactly what that looked like.

And I knew how to manipulate it too.

“What?” Lillian asked. She did a double take toward Nathan. “You would leave so soon?”

Right on cue. Just as I suspected, the woman’s backhanded techniques of manipulating Nathan’s life weren’t just about forcing him to lead his father’s company. They were ultimately the moves of a mother who wanted her children close. Even when they were a grown-ass, thirty-four-year-old man.

Nathan frowned at me, then at her. “Well, yes. If you won’t allow Joni to stay here with me, then we certainly would.”

Lillian’s pastel-painted mouth opened and closed as she looked between us. “But…but…”

It was everything I could do not to look smug.