Summer Escape With The Tycoon. Donna Alward

It’s not exactly the most optimistic and hopeful occupation in the world. It can be downright depressing.”

      “So why do it?”

      She sat back. “Ah, now that is the question, isn’t it?” Her voice was deceptively light, and she was saved from answering when a server came out with another platter, this time with handmade fruit tarts.

      They both selected a tart but he wasn’t deterred. “So why are you a divorce lawyer if you don’t like it?”

      “Because I’m twenty-nine years old and a full partner,” she said, but her gaze didn’t quite meet his. She bit into the tart and crumbs went fluttering to her plate. “Why are you in your line of business?”

      He looked out over the vines for a moment before turning back. “Because I joined the company right out of school and worked my way up. And then I bought it when I was thirty.”

      “And that was...”

      “Almost five years ago.”

      He was thirty-four and what did he have to show for it? A huge bank balance but not much else. No wife, no kids... God, if he didn’t have time for a wife, how could he ever be a good father? He wouldn’t even know where to start. His own father had taken off when Eric was twelve, leaving him, his brothers and his mom to pay off the debts he’d racked up as well as paying the bills. Eric got a paper route and mowed grass until he was old enough to work. Then he got a job with a landscape company in the summer and did snow removal in the winter to help with finances. By the time he was seventeen, he was running his own crew at the company and it paid his way through university—he’d done his degree at McGill so he could stay at home and commute, saving dorm costs. His brothers had all taken similar paths. Work. Some postsecondary schooling at community college. Except they’d gone into business together, while Eric had moved on.

      From the moment his dad had abandoned his responsibilities, Eric and his brothers had begun shouldering them as a team. When he decided not to join in the car dealership with them, it had been seen as a betrayal. His relationship with his family had suffered because of it. And yet if anything happened to the dealership now, Eric knew that he’d be able to step in and provide his family with the security they’d need. He never wanted any of them to go through what those early days had been like. He was the oldest. Perhaps the younger boys didn’t remember as well, but he did.

      “Where’d you go?” Molly’s soft voice interrupted his thoughts. Her tart was gone but his hadn’t yet been tasted.

      He gave his head a little shake. “Sorry. Just thinking.”

      “I could see that. But it didn’t look like happy memories.”

      He shrugged and picked up the cherry tart. “Honestly, I was just realizing that I haven’t really stopped working since I was twelve years old.”

      “Then a vacation is long overdue,” she answered and lifted her glass. “I know you’re not crazy about divorce lawyers, and I’m not crazy about autocratic people who barge into my hotel room. But maybe we can call a truce? Make a pledge of civility?” She lifted her glass. “What do you say? To long-overdue vacations.”

      A pledge of civility? His problem wasn’t going to be being civil. It was going to be reminding himself that he wasn’t interested, because she was more intriguing by the minute. He lifted his glass anyway. “To long-overdue vacations.”