Beautiful Surrender (The Surrender Series Book Three) (6 page)

His
face softened. “Not this week, sorry. Flying out tomorrow morning until Friday.
I will call you every night, though. My schedule can slow down, Kristen, and it
will. It’s just going to take some time.”

“Okay.
I’ll look forward to those calls, then.”

“Me
too.”

Sure
enough, he called me every evening that week. The work week was otherwise
pretty boring—fleshing out Vincent’s BRIC strategy and continuing research on
Selena Devries—but I began to look forward to talking to him every night so
much that the days flew by. I appreciated that Vincent was making an effort
after the events the previous weekend. Seeing the way he had been so violent
with Marty had shaken my confidence in him, but his tender side was still
there. It would be interesting to see how this would continue at his nephew’s
party.

Saturday
morning finally came. Vincent picked me up from my apartment in a silver Aston
Martin at nine in the morning. Traffic getting out of the city was a drag, as
usual, but we spent the time chatting idly. It was an important step for us to
build our relationship back up after it had been badly shaken with our fight.
The whole day was important for that reason.

We
arrived a little after ten-thirty and pulled up in front of a tidy suburban
ranch-style home. The lawn was freshly mowed, and there were balloons on the
mailbox announcing a birthday party. We parked on the street. Vincent had
brought a birthday present wrapped in balloon wrapping paper, and I handed it
to him as we got out of the car. We walked down the street and up the driveway
to the house.

“So
your nephew’s name is Brady?” I asked Vincent, reading the sign on the mailbox.

Vincent
smiled and grabbed my hand. The present was in the other. “Yup. He’s turning
three today.”

“Did
you pick out his present, or did your secretary Lucy?”

He
scoffed. “I would never delegate such an august task. I picked this sucker out
online months ago.”

His
mock offense at my question surprised me. “What is it?”

“This
awesome train,” he said enthusiastically. “The TrackMaster 500X. It makes
twelve different sounds and has an automatic headlight for tunnels.”

“Tunnels?”

“Blanket
forts, tunnels, wherever it’s dark. Point is, the kid’s going to be an engineer
like his uncle. He
loves
trains.”

I
nodded. Vincent was very enthused about this party, especially blanket forts.
To be fair, I remembered loving making blanket forts as a kid. My inner child
was in line with his inner child on that point.

“Who
wrapped the present?” I asked, eyeing the perfect bows.

He
laughed. “You caught me. That task I did delegate. It looks good though,
right?”

I
nodded. “Yeah, I think she deserves a bonus.”

“I’ll
take it under consideration.”

We made
it to the porch, where we were already able to hear the high-pitched screams of
a child running around and playing. The door was unlocked and Vincent stepped
inside the house unfazed by the noise. I followed after.

We were
greeted in the foyer by a blond, slim woman standing around five six. She had
her hair tied back in a simple bun and wore a well-fitting dark blue blouse
with black pants. By my first impression, she looked slightly younger than
Vincent. I eyed the plate of snacks she was carrying: apple slices with peanut
butter. My stomach growled.

“Hello,
stranger,” she said, smiling at her brother. Her voice was warm and confident.
I could see the resemblance between her and Vincent both in appearance and in
the confident way she carried herself.

After
beaming at her brother for a moment, she turned to me. “And you must be
Kristen.”

She
extended her hand and I took it. Her handshake was firm. “You’re Giselle.”

She
smiled warmly. “As well as ‘Mommy’ and ‘Mrs. Harper.’ I’m glad you two could
make it.”

“Wouldn’t
miss it for the world,” Vincent said.

The
child causing all of the noise behind Giselle spotted us. His dark brown eyes
opened wide and he tottered over wearing his cone-shaped birthday hat, followed
by a man with black hair and a bright smile. “Uncle Vincent!”

Vincent
squatted down on his heels and gave Brady a big hug as the man following him
took his place beside Giselle. Seeing Vincent in his blue jeans and white polo
shirt in this family setting revealed a new side of him. “Hey buddy, how’s it
going?”

“It’s
my birthday!” Brady apparently hadn’t quite learned volume control yet.

Vincent
didn’t even flinch at his nephew’s high-pitched screaming. “I know. I got you a
present!”

The boy
screamed in delight. The little guy was super cute and very excited, if a
little loud.

Vincent
stood back up and shook hands with what I assumed was Giselle’s husband, eyeing
him firmly. “Good morning, Rob.”

Rob
returned the gesture. “Vincent.”

Vincent
put his arm around me. “Rob, this is my girlfriend Kristen. Kristen, this is
Giselle’s husband Rob.”

“Good
to meet you,” Rob said. He had kind, gray eyes, and looked to be a similar age
to Giselle. His build was smaller than Vincent’s, but I thought he and Giselle
made a cute couple.

Rob
reached down and patted Brady on the back. “Brady, this is Kristen. Say hello.”

Brady
ran up and wrapped his arms around my leg, gripping the fabric of my jeans. “Hi
Kristen.”

Brady
was too cute. I squatted down as Vincent had. “How old are you?” I asked him. I
wanted to show Vincent that I was comfortable with children too.

Brady
looked at Giselle and then back at me.

“Tell
him how old you are, Brady,” Giselle said.

He
looked at me a little longer and appeared to decide I was okay, to my relief.
“I’m three,” he squealed.

“Good
job!” Giselle said.

Emboldened,
he grabbed my hand. His cute little fingers wrapped around one of mine. “Let’s
go play trains!” he said enthusiastically.

I
smiled and followed him. Vincent stayed behind to talk to his sister and
brother-in-law.

As
Brady led me to his play area, I looked around at the house and all the little
touches Giselle had put on her home. Lamps, candles, vases, mirrors: everything
was in good taste and combined attractively. It was hard to imagine a life
where managing the household was a significant part of what you thought about.
Riley and I looked after ourselves, but we were pretty low-maintenance and kept
decorating simple.

When we
got to his play area, the floor was littered with an array of trains, train
track decorations, and even a stuffed conductor. A train track in a big figure
eight was spread amidst the chaos. Vincent was right: Brady loved trains. As
clean as the rest of the house was, Giselle had clearly decided that Brady’s
play area was a place where messiness could reign.

I got
down on my knees to be down on Brady’s eye level. He eyed me earnestly. “Which
one?” he asked.

Scanning
the floor, I took a red train in my hand and put it on the track. Brady hit the
switch on the control center at the track’s control house and the train zoomed
around. He laughed approvingly.

“Which
one for you?” I asked him.

In
response, he got up and ran over to a shelf where a child-sized blue conductor
cap was hanging on a hook. He picked it up and threw it sloppily on his head
before tottering back over. He plopped down next to me and picked a black train
to put on the track.

Brady
wanted to play with me, but once he started he was in his own little world,
watching the trains. After a minute of watching him I heard a familiar voice
behind me.

“I got
him that cap,” Vincent said. He took a seat next to me and watched Brady
maneuver his train in silence. A warm smile was on his face the entire time.

Brady
played with his train for a while longer before he noticed Vincent had taken a
seat at the play area. When he saw Vincent at last, his brown eyes lit up anew.

“Uncle
Vincent! Which one?”

Vincent
picked out a yellow train to add to the track. Whether it was the train track
itself or playing with Brady, he was enjoying this moment in a playful way that
I hadn’t seen before.

“Hey
buddy,” Vincent said after a moment, “why don’t we build a tunnel for our
trains?”

“Yeah!”
Brady yelled.

I
watched as Vincent got a chair from another room and returned with a blanket.
He put the chair at one end of the figure eight, and Brady helped him with the
blanket as well as he could. Soon they were racing the trains under their
makeshift tunnel.

Brady’s
enthusiasm for the whole activity was infectious. I could tell Vincent was
getting into it, and soon enough so was I, watching the trains fly by faster
and faster. Vincent was in the middle of talking to Brady about changing the
track to take better advantage of the chair when Giselle came into the room.

“Looks
like you guys are having a blast,” she said.

Brady
was very excited. “Trains!” he yelled.

“I see
that. Kristen, do you want to help me finish frosting the C-A-K-E? I think the
boys are occupied for a while and Rob just went out to grab some last minute
party supplies before Brady’s friends come over.”

I
looked up and sensed a hint of seriousness beneath her innocent veneer. “Of
course,” I said. “You two will be okay without me, right?”

Vincent
looked up from instigating a train crash. “I think so.” Brady was too engrossed
to notice us.

“Okay,”
I said. “Be back soon.” With that, I got up and followed Giselle into the
kitchen.

Giselle’s
kitchen was a total disaster, which was to be expected when you were throwing a
birthday party for a three-year old. Various kitchen implements were strewn
across the granite countertop, and a metallic mixing bowl was sitting next to a
fresh and delicious smelling round yellow cake. She walked over to the bowl and
began stirring the contents inside.

“Have
you ever baked a cake before?” she asked over her shoulder.

I
wasn’t very good in the kitchen. It was one of my failings: I had always been
too busy with school and then work to learn how to cook well. I was mostly good
with a microwave and doing basic things on a stove top, like warming up soup.
Baking a cake from scratch was beyond me.

“Not on
my own, no,” I said. “The most I’ve done is bake a cake out of a box with my
mother, but that was years ago.”

She
flashed a quick smile over her shoulder as she whisked the frosting. “Neither
had I, until I had to bake a cake for Brady’s first birthday. It was
hilariously lop-sided, but thankfully one-year olds don’t notice that kind of
thing.”

“It
looks like you’ve gotten pretty good,” I said.

“I’m
trying, anyway.” She waved me over. “Well, even if you haven’t done this
before, I’m sure you can give it a go. Just try and coat this evenly with
frosting. I’m going to work on the blue frosting for writing happy birthday.”

I took
the plastic frosting spreader from its place on the counter and went to work.
It wasn’t very different from spreading peanut butter and jelly on a sandwich,
which I was a pro at. I quickly got into a rhythm of taking a gob of frosting
and smoothing it out on the cake.

Giselle
watched me work for a moment and then set to work on the colored frosting. “So
you’ve been seeing Vincent for a little while now?” she asked.

“That’s
right.”

“How
did you two meet?”

I
laughed nervously. Apparently Vincent hadn’t told her much. I decided to be
truthful since the cat was out of the bag anyway. “To be honest, it’s a bit
scandalous.”

She
stopped whisking. “You weren’t married or something, were you?”

“No!” I
cried. “Why? Do you think Vincent would do something like that?”

“I
don’t, but people have a way of surprising you sometimes.”

I knew
all about that, but I had forgotten what Vincent told me about her history. I
wondered if he had told her about the situation with Marty. That was a private
thing: the only people who knew about it were Vincent and Riley. Well, and Kurt
and Bernie. It still upset me that he had done that.
That
had surprised
me. As sweet as he had been all week, I still wasn’t over it.

“I
guess that’s true,” I said. “Anyway, we actually met through work. I work for a
personal wealth management firm and head up his account.”

She turned
and looked at me. “Good for you! I hope you’re reining him in somewhat. Every
time he travels I worry he’s going to have some horrible accident with all the
risky sports he’s doing.”

“Oh,
you too?”

She let
out a short laugh and shook her head. “He seems to like you. I haven’t met a
girlfriend of his before.”

Here
was another surprise. The fact that Vincent had never introduced a girlfriend
to his sister, who he was obviously close to, made me feel special. My mind
shot to Ariel Diamond. If his sister had never met her, maybe things weren’t as
serious between them as I had thought, even if the tattoo was strange.