Desire September 2017 Books 1 -4. Yvonne Lindsay
Читать онлайн книгу.
eyes told her he was on board already.
“But we don’t want just your traditional ball,” she added. “We’re also looking for other options for entertainment. I was thinking about that photo booth you set up for St. Anne’s.”
“A photo booth?” Royce asked, the doubt clear in his tone.
“Oh, it isn’t your normal photo booth,” Jasmine assured him.
Dominic eagerly reached for one of the large photo albums on the table. “Check it out.”
He turned the pages slowly, giving them a chance to study the various options. “We created a background unique to the event and brought in props for the guests to use.” He pointed to a group of people in a rowboat in front of a mural of a lake with a decorative bridge over it.
“I was thinking a mysterious castle,” Jasmine offered.
The men batted ideas around for a minute. Against her hip, Jasmine felt her phone buzz. Since her family knew she didn’t answer during meetings, she assumed it was a client and ignored it for the moment. When the buzzing started again after a few minutes, she stiffened, all her earlier tension returning.
Trying to brush it aside, she tossed out some more ideas. But the third buzz was her undoing. Slipping the phone from her pocket, she glanced at the screen. Two missed phone calls and a text from her sister Ivy.
911
She looked up to find both men watching her. Her smile was probably strained but she offered it anyway as she stood. “If you could excuse me just a moment, gentlemen?”
“Nothing wrong with that beautiful baby, I hope?” Dominic asked.
Seeing Royce’s back straighten both unnerved her and ticked her off. “I certainly hope not,” she said, unhappy with the quaver that had entered her voice.
But she wasn’t backing down. She didn’t know what his beef was with single mothers and families, but it wasn’t her problem. There was no denying she wasn’t a perfect mother. She had no delusions about that. The learning curve of the last six months had been steep. Still, she’d go above and beyond for Rosie and the rest of her family.
Family was the one thing that came before her clients, regardless of what they thought.
As she stepped back out to the porch, she prayed it was something like another stalled car or a burst water pipe. Things were replaceable. People weren’t. Now that Rosie was a part of their lives, she simply couldn’t imagine it any other way.
“Ivy?” she asked as her youngest sister answered the phone. “What’s wrong?”
“I need you quick,” Ivy said, her voice trembling and breathless. “I’m at Savannah General.”
Jasmine’s heart thudded in her ears, cutting off Ivy’s voice. The hospital? So much for her day getting easier.
Royce watched Jasmine disappear out the door with her phone and was surprised at his personal concern. Ordinarily, he would have been put out. He didn’t have a problem with his employees dealing with life, as long as they did it on their own time. Normally he’d be formulating a few admonishing words after she’d kept him waiting this morning and then stepped out of a business meeting to handle what was obviously a personal call.
Instead, he sat here wondering what was wrong.
He turned back to find Dominic staring at the door with a frown on his face. The lines between his eyebrows said he was worried, too, but his expression turned more neutral when he caught Royce’s look.
“Would you like to go over a few portfolios while we wait?” he asked, his voice calm even though he seemed to have other things on his mind.
Eager for a distraction, Royce gave a quick nod. Besides, they were here on business. He needed to focus.
Dominic was quick thinking and smart, which gave him a leg up in Royce’s book. He pulled out examples of things he thought might work from the limited knowledge he had of their plans. Royce was impressed. He kept looking through one of the books while they discussed some photo booth ideas. Still, the whole time, his brain was ticking off the minutes that Jasmine had been gone.
What was going on? Did she need help?
As if his very thoughts had conjured her up, Royce turned the page to see a grouping of photos featuring Jasmine and her daughter. There was also another woman in the outdoor portraits, which seemed to have been taken at one of the local squares. The fountain behind them was familiar. The greenery provided a lush frame for the women.
“Oh, I’d forgotten which book those were in,” Dominic said, surveying the spread with a smile.
Despite admonishing himself to focus on the meeting, Royce found himself tilting the album farther toward him so he could study the group of women more closely. Jasmine was her usual elegant self, her summer dress full and flowing with a fitted bodice. This was his first time seeing her hair down around her shoulders. The thick mass blanketed her pale skin in soft waves, the sunshine creating glossy highlights in the dark color.
Rosie looked to be newborn, but there was no mistaking those black curls. The other woman looked down at the baby with a smile. But upon closer inspection, Royce thought he detected a pervasive sadness in the woman’s gaze that belied her indulgent expression as she watched the child.
Royce detected another subtle difference among the three. The third woman seemed sick. Her skin appeared a little gray, a little more aged than Jasmine’s.
Though the three were grouped close together on a picnic blanket in dappled sunshine beneath the trees, the other woman seemed to be more of an observer than part of the group. Still, Dominic was definitely talented when it came to composing a shot.
“The resemblance is remarkable,” Royce murmured. All that dark hair linked the women together. No male could penetrate their bond. Only it made him curious about Rosie’s father and whether she looked like him at all...
No. He refused to entertain any thoughts like that. It was too personal...too tempting...
“I know,” Dominic was saying. “Hard to believe they aren’t even related, isn’t it? You’d never know Jasmine wasn’t Rosie’s biological mother.”
Royce’s gaze snapped up to the other man. “What?”
Dominic’s eyes widened. “Well...”
Without me, she’d have no one at all. Jasmine’s words came back to him, haunting his mind.
“What do you mean, Dominic?” Royce forced himself to keep his voice nonchalant. He kept all urgency out of the question. Even though, suddenly, he wanted to know very, very badly.
“I’m not sure I should share Jasmine’s personal business,” Dominic said with a frown. “I spoke out of turn.”
“I understand. I just wondered because Jasmine seemed so natural with her daughter. I knew she was a single mother,” he added, sprinkling in the truth, “but I never would have guessed she hadn’t given birth to her.”
Dominic seemed to consider his words. “You’ve seen her with Rosie?”
“Sure. She brought her to the office the other day.” Royce wasn’t going to reveal any more details about that visit...details that would make him look bad.
“Oh, yeah. Rosie’s such a good baby. Jasmine can pretty much take her wherever and the little one is perfectly content. And will charm anyone within smiling distance.”
Which just resurrected images of the sleepy child grinning in Jasmine’s arms. They’d looked so perfect together, which made it hard to believe that Jasmine wasn’t the birth mother.
Royce tried to assimilate the new