Winning His Heart: The Millionaire's Homecoming / The Maverick Millionaire. Melissa McClone

into the chair.

      He looked like he hadn’t even heard her.

      “Because, Duh-veed, it would be very embarrassing for you if I had to pull a sliver out of your derriere.”

      “That would be awful,” he agreed, but absently.

      Suddenly, she was worried about him. He seemed oddly out of it since he had taken that phone call. Now he was scowling at his computer screen.

      “Hey,” she said softly.

      When he looked up he could not hide the stricken look on his face.

      “David? What’s wrong?”

      “Nothing.”

      “That’s a bald-faced lie,” she said.

      “You’ve got to quit calling me a liar,” he said, but even that was a lie, because while the words were light, his tone sounded as if his heart was breaking.

      She had never known a stronger man than him. Not ever. And so it was devastating to watch him turn his computer to her so she could see what he was looking at.

      The strongest man she knew put his head in his hands, and she thought he was going to weep.

       CHAPTER FIFTEEN

      KAYLA TURNED HER ATTENTION to the screen to give David a moment to compose himself. It took her a minute to figure out what she was looking at. And then she knew. It was some kind of retirement home. Unbelievably posh, and yet...

      “Oh, David,” she whispered.

      “I have to put her name on a list. If they have an opening,” he said, his voice a croak, “I have to decide right away. I need to go meet with the director and look at the facility in person this afternoon. I’ll come back in the morning.”

      “I’m going with you,” she said.

      She could not leave him alone with the torment she saw in his face.

      He looked at her as if he was going to protest. But then he didn’t.

      “Thank you,” he said quietly.

      “I’ll go pack an overnight bag. And make arrangements for Bastigal to go to the kennel.”

      And it wasn’t until she was in her room packing that bag that Kayla considered the implications of it. She sank down on the bed.

      Life seemed, suddenly, to have been wrested from her grasp, to have all these totally unexpected twists and turns in it.

      But there was something about making this decision to go with David that felt as if she had been lost in a forest and suddenly saw the way out.

      She needed to be there for him. His need and his pain were so intense, and she needed to be there, to absorb some of that, to ease his burden.

      Kayla realized there was the potential for pain here, tangling herself deeper in his world. And yet, she had to do it.

      The word love whispered through her mind, but she chased it away. Now was not the time to study this complication.

      Wasn’t it enough to know that something amazing was happening, and that it was happening to both of them?

      She didn’t have to—or want to—put a label on it. She just wanted to sink into the sensation that they weren’t, either of them, as alone as they had been just a short time ago.

      And she wanted to sink into the feeling of gratitude, that all the events of her life, even her difficult marriage—or maybe especially that—had prepared her for this, made her exactly the person she needed to be to rise to this challenge and more: embrace it.

      * * *

      David was so grateful that Kayla was there with him. It took his mind off what he was about to do. As they drove to Toronto she was the most pleasant of diversions—the way the wind caught in her hair with the top down, how childish she was in her wonder about the car, her lemony scent—what kind of ice cream stain was she trying to get rid of now?—tickling his nostrils.

      He wanted to take her for lunch at a place he favored downtown, which was coincidentally close to the “retirement” home, but she took one look at his face and knew he was not up to even the rudiments of ordering a meal.

      Instead she had him stop by a food truck, got out and ordered for both of them, and they sat in his car and ate.

      “I’ll try not to spill, Duh-veed,” she said, but quickly saw he was not even up to teasing. She put out her hand and he took it, and it seemed after that he would never let go.

      He left the car—she insisted he put the roof up, otherwise he was so distracted he might have left it down—and they walked to Graystone Manor. David knew from the video that it was a converted sandstone house that had belonged to a lumber baron at the turn of the century. It had a specialized wing for dementia and Alzheimer’s patients.

      The director, Mark Smithson, met them at the door. He was kind and soft-spoken, but nonetheless it reminded David of consulting with a funeral director over his father’s ceremony many years ago.

      It was a beautiful facility. The rooms were like good hotel suites, the colors were warm and muted, the quality of the furniture and art was exquisite.

      As Mr. Smithson talked about their programs for patients with all forms of dementia—people first, illness second, life maps and memory boxes, gardening and crafts—David knew he had come to the right place. He wondered if he should have made this decision long ago.

      Still, it was with great sadness that he made the deposit and filled out the forms for his mother.

      “We could have a vacancy very quickly,” Mr. Smithson warned him, kindly. “You will only have forty-eight hours to make up your mind.”

      A vacancy. David realized his mother could come here when someone else died. He could not trust himself to speak.

      Again he was aware of his hand in Kayla’s, and that that alone was giving him the strength to do the unthinkable and unspeakable.

      When they left, she remained silent. She did not try to reassure him, or comment on the visit.

      Fifteen minutes later, Kayla led him past the uniformed doorman into the lobby of his building. David felt as if he were the Alzheimer’s patient, dazed and disoriented.

      His condo was Yorkton—arguably Toronto’s most affluent neighborhood—at its finest. His company had bought an aging hotel and completely gutted and refurbished it into condos. The lobby, with its Swarovski crystal chandelier, artfully distressed leather furniture and authentic Turkish rugs, could easily compete with the best five-star hotels in the world.

      Each condo took up an entire floor of the building; their size was part of the reason they had commanded the highest prices ever paid in Yorkton for real estate.

      The elevator, using the latest technology, was programmed to accept his fingerprint. He touched the panel and it began to glide upward to his penthouse.

      “But what about company?” Kayla asked, her voice hushed as if she was in a church.

      “I can give them a code.”

      “Oh.” She seemed subdued. As the elevator doors whispered open, Kayla looked like a deer frozen in headlights. Her eyes went very wide and David saw his living space through her perspective.

      “This is like a movie set,” Kayla said.

      “Feel free to look around,” he invited.

      Kayla glanced at him and then moved into his space, her mouth a little round O of astonishment and awe.

      The space the elevator opened onto was large and open. The original plank flooring had been restored to distressed glory, stained dark, and it ran throughout.

      Low-backed