Page 18 of Swept Away (Men of War #1)

G EMMA

The following week.

Wednesday

“Mew, mew…”

“Not now, Gizmo,” I shout as the kitten keeps vocalizing on the windowsill while I try to finish one of my projects.

He keeps doing whatever he feels like doing. And I struggle to write the last few words before finally closing the document.

“There. Ugh… This was tough,” I mutter to myself, pushing the chair back and rising quickly.

“Where are you?” I ask, walking across the room and no longer seeing him on the windowsill.

He was here moments ago.

His bowl of food is untouched.

I swear to God, he is such a prince.

“Gizmo?”

I call him, walking around my place and checking the tree for the tenth time without much luck, before his soft coat brushes against my legs, and I tilt my eyes down.

“There you are,” I say softly, picking him up and pressing my cheek against his coat.

He purrs, and I melt. As always.

Not only does he play me like a fiddle, but he’s also making me fall in love with him, keeping me on my toes.

I still hold him when a car pulls up across from my building, and I inch closer to glance out.

The cab doors open, and two women slide out, still chatting with the driver.

One is about my mother’s age.

The other one is older.

The younger woman holds the door for the other one, and once they both step on the sidewalk with a couple of travel bags next to them, the car pulls away.

They flick their eyes to my place, and I instinctively pull back and hide behind the curtain.

I can’t tell why, but their presence here suddenly makes me nervous.

I spin around and look at the wall clock. It’s four in the afternoon. And I don’t expect guests.

Words drift through the air as they talk about the buildings, so whatever has brought them here has nothing to do with me.

On cue, my phone rings next to my computer.

Mumbling something unsavory under my breath, I put Gizmo on the chair, move away from the window, and, holding my robe together, I pick up my phone and look at the screen.

It’s an unknown number, and my pulse races for a second.

It can’t be them.

They didn’t say they’d call me.

Still, my heart dances in my chest, and why wouldn’t it?

As much as I wanted to say goodbye to them, return to my normal life, focus on my work, and simply forget about them, things didn’t quite work that way.

For one, the sex was amazing, and although I was convinced I’d get back to my everyday life and wouldn’t think about them, well… Let’s say I lusted after them even more after they left.

Their leaving was a blessing in a way, or we wouldn’t have ever stopped fucking.

They flew out on Sunday. And I don’t expect them to come back for a few more days.I don’t know how many exactly.

They're taking care of some business overseas–they flew to South America–and I didn’t want to ask too many questions, especially since they weren’t keen to offer more information.

They didn’t act as if they were doing anything in secret.Yet they didn’t feel the need to share their private affairs with me, which works for me.

I wanted them gone–I’m joking, of course–so I could focus on my work.

Now that I’ve finished my projects, I can collect my money and have a few days for myself–a rare occurrence this summer since I have worked almost every day.

My thumb moves over the screen without touching the accept button. I’m still pondering. What if it’s them?

I hope everything is all right.

Having mixed feelings about it, I finally take the call, bring my phone to my ear, and speak.

“Yes?”

Static comes to me first, and then the distorted sound of some garbled voices.

“Hello?” I say again before a woman’s voice draws in closer, and I hear my mother speak.

“Gemma?” she says in her unmistakable sweet voice.

The corners of my lips lift into a smile.

“Mom…? Where are you?” I ask, grappling with surprise.

Tina Stone–Vines, my beloved mother, gives me one of her signature crystalline laughs.

“I wanted to call you and give you the news first before you talk to Lizzy.”

Lizzy is Charlize, my mother’s sister.

She is the aunt who allowed me to live in her apartment, which is the place I’m currently occupying.

My smile dies out.

“Is everything okay?” I ask, worried.

She laughs, entertained.

“Of course it is. Why do you always have to assume the worst about me?”

I smile again.

“I don’t know. The fact that I haven’t heard from you in like three months. Where are you now?”

“We hopped on another cruise. And we’re headed to Aruba.”

“Um… we?”

“Uh-huh,” she says, a grin tinging her voice.

There’s a reason my mother’s last name is hyphenated. She’s had a very tumultuous romantic life.

She loves the idea of falling in love, and she absolutely despises being sidetracked by anything negative in a romantic story.

Be it a short, exhilarating adventure, or a well-thought-out, old-style courtship followed by a marriage proposal.

Whether her stories always reach their satisfying end is less important as long as she enjoys a blooming romantic relationship.

In that regard, she and I couldn’t be more different.

As her hyphenated last name also suggests, she’s been married twice. Those two names belonged to her first and second husband, respectively.

She was briefly married to Christopher Stone, whom I don’t know much about since my mother left him before I was born.

And yes, she was pregnant with me when she left him and got married to Joshua Vines, my father.

My mother has never truly opened up about her first marriage. All I know is what she’s told me. She said it was a mistake and she shouldn’t have gotten married.

Christopher was a possessive man, and she didn’t feel like they were a good match.

She had an affair with Joshua and then married him.

Despite all that drama, she kept the two men’s last names like they were souvenirs.

I never met Christopher Stone.

My mother said the man left the country and settled down with a new woman in the Philippines.

Perhaps.

Who knows?

And Joshua was married to my mother for exactly eight years after I came into this world.

He found a new woman and fell in love, and my mother couldn’t be happier.

Sounds weird, but that’s how she sees these things.

She took it as a stroke of luck as she was once again free to love someone new.

An early retiree, she’s spent the last few years traveling the world, alone, but always keeping an eye out for someone new.

She’s had boyfriends, but it wasn't anything serious enough to discuss with me.

And now I have a feeling she has found someone again.

“Care to tell me more?”

She chuckles again before pausing and gathering her thoughts.

“I found this young cool man,” she starts.

Oh, shit.

“Mom? How young are we talking here?” I ask, overwhelmed by second-hand embarrassment. “Please don’t tell me he could be my brother.”

She laughs.

“Absolutely not. He couldn’t be your brother. He’s just younger than me. And he proposed to me, so now we’ll spend some time in Aruba. And by the way, he’s a millionaire,” she tosses at me casually like she’s talking about the color of his hair.

“A millionaire?” I screech.

“Yes.”

“Since when are you hooking up with millionaires?”

“It just happens that he is one, and he has the money to fund our next adventure.”

“Which is?”

“We’re going on a cruise. I just told you.”

“Didn’t you just come from one?”

She laughs at how naive I am.

“That’s why I was calling you. So you know where I am. Everything is fine, more than fine. And I’m not alone. He’s taking good care of me. What about you? What’s new with you?”

The sudden shift in our conversation makes me stumble through a few words that make no sense.

“Me? I’m good. More than good. I’m actually pretty fine.”

She chuckles.

“Okay. I got that.”

“I found a cat, and I want to keep it,” I say to distract her.

“A cat? Where did you find the cat?”

“In a tree.”

I start talking about Gizmo while trying to make sense of what she just said.

This would be my mother’s third year overseas.

What she initially considered a random idea about spending her time in her first years of retirement has become a way of life and has now turned into a marriage proposal.

I’ll be damned.

This is my mother, the woman who worked in a bank her whole life, retired early, wanted to start a knitting club, and bought her first cruise as a birthday gift, having no intention to repeat that experience.

Although she’s never seriously considered remarrying, she’s about to tie the knot for the third time.

I don’t know how I feel about having a stepdad. One who is younger than my mother and a millionaire to boot.

I guess there are worse things in life than this.

“Have you talked to Charlize about it?” she asks.

“No, but she loves cats.”

“She does, but maybe you should talk to her about it. Perhaps she can find a home for the little guy.”

“What's wrong with this place?”

“Nothing, nothing.’

She sighs.

“I only hoped you’d say something about finding a boyfriend. There’s enough time for cats later.”

Her joke doesn’t quite land.

“I can have both.”

“Can you? And do you?”

I notice the play of words there and freeze for a moment before I chuckle slightly inappropriately.

“What? What’s so funny?” she asks.

“Nothing.”

She continues.

“Of course, you can have both, but you should find a boyfriend first and then introduce your furry friend to him.”

“He likes the cat.”

That was an unnecessary slip of the tongue.

Ugh.

“He?”

“The man who helped me with the cat.”

“Oh. He did? Someone helped you with the cat. Is he still around?”

“He’s traveling. On business. He and his friend.”

I cringe.

The pause prolongs at the other end of the line.

“Who is this man?” my mother asks suspiciously.

“No one.”

“Is he a neighbor?”

“No. I don’t think so.”

“How come he helped you with the cat?”

“He happened to be outside when the cat was roaming around. And he’s an animal lover.”

“Uh-huh. I understand. Are you seeing this man?”

“Seeing him? What? Like a boyfriend or something?”

“Yes.”

A smile flickers through her voice.

I puff dismissively and laugh.

“No way. You know me. I don’t have time for boyfriends.”

I huff again, trying maybe too hard to convince her.

“Right,” she says, totally unconvinced. “You’re saying he’s no longer there.”

“Yes, that’s what I just said. He and his friend, who’s also his business partner, run some sort of enterprise, and they travel a lot.”

“And you don’t know what kind of business it is.”

“I have no idea,” I say, dead serious, because it’s true.

“All I know is that it’s not my business.”

“What are their names?”

Her question catches me off guard, and I stumble a little, not knowing what to say.

Eventually, I opt for the truth.

“Mason and Carter.”

“Interesting.”

“What’s so interesting?”

“You’ve never told me the names of other male friends.”

“Because I’ve never had any.”

“Exactly.”

I freeze.

“Well, I hope they’re good people. If they’re not, they’ll deal with me.”

I laugh reassuringly.

“Don’t worry, Mother. I have nothing to do with them.”

The lie floats out of my mouth so perfectly that it almost rings true.

I have nothing to do with them today.

And I might not have anything to do with them again.

It’s not like they’ve given me a lot of information about their lives, and I surely don’t need to know that much.

Not at this point.

It’s not like we’re in love or something. Despite all the sweet words they have said to me.

I don’t even know if they’re coming back, or when they’re coming back exactly.

“All right. Talk to Charlize about the cat. And, um… Happy Birthday! I’m not so sure I can call you on Saturday, so I’d rather say this now.”

“Oh. Thank you. Don’t worry. You know me. I’m not crazy about celebrating my birthday.”

“Don’t I know that?” she says, laughing. “Oh, by the way. This is my new man’s phone number. You can use it for anything urgent. I’ll get a new phone when we… Honestly, I don’t know when. I’m not in a rush. You have no idea how much calmer I am now without having to answer all those stupid calls.”

Biting my lip, I smile.

People very well know not to call her. I’m not calling her. She’s allergic to the ringing of her phone.

Her words, not mine.

“Great. We’ll talk then,” she says, and a moment later, we end the call.