Blame It on the Blackout by Heidi Betts Page A

firmly against his.
    â€œLet me tell you about my family,” she said, a wealth of warmth and affection clear in her affectionate tone.
    â€œMy father is a civil engineer. He’s been at the samecompany for twenty-five years, beginning as a low-level assistant and working his way up to Vice President. My mother has worked as an elementary teacher all her life. They met in college, got married right after graduation, and had my brother, Adam, before their first anniversary. I came next, and then Jessica. Both of my parents worked full-time through all of our childhoods, but I don’t ever remember a time when they weren’t there for us. We sat at the dining-room table every night for dinner, shared the day’s events. We went on picnics and took vacations, played checkers and board games and Frisbee, went to the beach and the community pool. Some of the best times of my life were spent with Mom, Dad, Adam, and Jess. I can’t wait to get married and start a family of my own so I can recapture some of that early happiness and show my own children how it feels to be loved and adored, unconditionally.”
    With the hand he wasn’t holding in a near-death grip, she patted his knee. “Now, do you want to tell me again that a man can’t be a successful entrepreneur and doting father at the same time? My father certainly managed well enough, and my brother is following firmly in his footsteps.”
    He understood what she was trying to say and envied her blissful, storybook upbringing. But it still sounded like a fairy tale to him. And in his life, was every bit as fictional.
    â€œI’m glad you have happy memories of your childhood,” he told her judiciously, “and that your parentswere able to find time for the three of you, given their busy schedules. But your father and brother obviously come from different stock than the men in my family. For me, it’s just not possible, the same as it wasn’t possible for my father or his father.”
    When Peter cocked his head and met her gaze, he saw the sadness and sympathy in her eyes, and almost resented it. With a sigh, she loosened her fingers from his grasp and uncrossed her legs, moving back to her own side of the roomy, first-class leather seats.
    Retrieving her glass of wine, she took a healthy sip and then said, “I hope you’re wrong, Peter. I truly, truly do. Because you deserve to be a husband and father, and to prove yourself wrong.”
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    They arrived at the downtown Manhattan hotel a few hours later, tired and uncomfortable from the tack their conversation had taken on the plane. After that, they’d barely spoken unless necessary.
    For her part, Lucy found herself distracted by Peter’s confession and the picture he’d painted of his childhood. It explained so much about him.
    Why he dated beautiful but vacuous women with no thought past the night they’d spend in his bed. Or the ones obviously interested in little more than his money, whom he seemed to use and discard as easily as yesterday’s newspaper.
    It suddenly all made perfect sense. He surrounded himself with people who wouldn’t expect too much ofhim, wouldn’t pressure him to make promises. Because the idea of committing to anything more permanent than a goldfish scared Peter straight down to his boxer shorts.
    Which might also be why, up until that Friday night in the elevator at the Four Seasons, he’d never made a single move on her. Never seemed to notice her feminine existence, let alone the hints she dropped to let him know she wouldn’t turn him down if he did.
    And now, she wasn’t sure how to feel. She’d spent so long being half in love with him, and then getting to experience the long-awaited, earth-shattering sensation of making love with him, that she found it hard to let go of the fantasy she’d built in her mind.
    Given his strong aversion to marriage and family, however, she would