BILLIONAIRE FOR KEEPS: Book 3 (Point St. Claire, where true love finds a way) by Robyn Grady Page A

you. Nothing else. No interruptions. No diversions. I want to get back to our lives, exactly like it was before.”
    Her stomach somersaulted as she nodded. Even smiled.
    “I’m sorry.” She really was. But, “That’s not enough.”
    Not anymore.

Chapter 11
    The clock on the mantle was the loudest Vanessa had ever heard. Didn’t help that the room was cluttered. Stuffy. That her host had the exact same unusual gray eyes as Griffin. Only older.
    And sadder.
    Maureen Hayes indicated Vanessa should take a chair next to the mantle, and that clock, while she picked up her knitting and started to pearl so fast, her fingers and yarn were a blur. She didn’t even need to look. 
    “You were a girlfriend of Giffy’s?”
    Vanessa paused. Did she say Giffy? She cleared her throat. “Your son and I had a relationship.”
    “So handsome and focused. I’m glad it worked out for him. His education. Boston. It’s too quiet here for a boy like mine.”
    “I used to spend summers here with my family when I was young.”
    “You remember our Bait and Tackle shop? Giffy kept it running after his father finally left.”
    “Griffin told me.” That clock suddenly sounded even louder, so Vanessa spoke louder, too. “He and his dad didn’t get on so well?”
    “His father was a skunk. I told Giffy he needed to be different. Make better choices even if they seemed hard at the time.”
    “Like leaving your husband instead trying to make it work?”
    Maureen’s needles stopped clicking. “Stanley never wanted to be a father. Said that right from the start. I kept hoping and praying coz that’s what a girl in love with a baby on the way does. Hope and pray. Pray and hope.” The needles clicked again. “That’s your problem, isn’t it? That’s why you’re here.”
    Vanessa froze. Maureen couldn’t know. No one knew.
    “Giff never hated his father,” Maureen went on. “He loved him. Idolized him. Time and again that SOB let his son down. Ever since, Giff’s been determined not to turn out the same. Overcompensation ―that’s the word. You ask my son to do something, consider it done and dusted.”
    Vanessa found a smile. “He is very…persistent.”
    Maureen whipped her knitting around and started a new row.
    “I could knit all day long,” she said. “Evenings, too. Dog coats. Sweaters. Socks. Bonnets and booties.” When Vanessa stiffened, Maureen paused and then set down her needles. “You have to tell him.”
    When the older woman’s gaze dropped to Vanessa’s belly…well, what was the point in pretending?
    You have to tell him.
    Vanessa nodded. “I know.”
    She could already see the look on Griffin’s face. Hear him say they would work it out. And they would. But that didn’t automatically mean marriage. How could it when one person didn’t trust the other?
    “No matter what happens between you and my son,” Maureen said, leaning forward in her chair, “I’m not going anywhere. I always wanted a daughter.” Her gray eyes sparkled as she smiled. “A grandbaby, too.”
    Tears came to Vanessa’s eyes.
    That’s what she’d come here to hear.
    *
    Back at her cottage, Vanessa poured some milk and then heard that now familiar scratching. Sure enough, her white cat was there again out back. Like before, she dragged the door open. The cat padded in.
    Back in the kitchen, she poured a saucer of milk and the cat dived in.
    Crouching down, Vanessa rubbed between the soft ears, around its neck. No collar. No home?
    “But you’re not skin and bone. You must have a family somewhere. Or maybe you just go from door to door.” She kept rubbing and decided. “Wanna bunk here for a while? There’s plenty of milk.”
    The cat looked up, licked its frothy chin and meowed for the first time.
    Vanessa smiled. “Okay. Roomies it is.”
    The cat curled between her legs.
    “And a name...” It came to her in a blink. “How’s Missy?”
    The cat meowed again, louder this time.
    She walked out into the living