‘You don’t embarrass me,’ Jack said, frowning.
She moved past him with a proud toss of her head. ‘Yeah? Well, I’m not so sure you won’t be embarrassed if the press goes snooping into my background.’
Jack let out a long breath. ‘You have no reason to feel ashamed of your background. I know it was tough on you growing up in foster care but look at you now. You’re a successful businesswoman.’
Harper picked up a baby blanket and folded it into a neat square, then held it against her body. A flicker of uncertainty passed over her face. ‘I’m not sure I can be as successful as I want to be with a baby to look after.’
Jack moved closer and took the blanket from her, placing it on the arm of the nearest sofa. He took her hands in his and was secretly delighted she didn’t resist his touch. ‘I guess it’s a tricky balance for any parent, be they a mother or a father. How do you provide for your family and model a good work ethic while being available and present for your child’s needs? It seems almost impossible to get it right.’
Harper lifted her gaze to his. ‘Did your mother work or stay at home with you?’
‘She stayed at home but sometimes I wish she hadn’t.’
‘Why?’
Jack released her hands and stepped back. ‘My father became ill during my childhood with Parkinson’s Disease. She didn’t get the chance to resume her career as an architect because my father needed a lot of care, particularly towards the end.’
‘Did she want to resume her career?’
‘She says not, but she didn’t have an easy time with my father,’ Jack said. ‘He wasn’t always difficult, but as the disease progressed he became so. It was tough on her, tougher than she would ever admit, even now. If she’d still had her career, it might have given her an outlet. But my father refused to have anyone but her look after him.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’
Jack didn’t like thinking of just how difficult things had been at times. The sacrifices he and his mother had had to make. The years of hard work to bring things back in the black after his father’s mismanagement. ‘I was away at boarding school by then, so I didn’t always see how difficult things were for her or I might have been able to convince my father to engage the services of a professional carer. The business began to struggle and my mother blamed herself for not keeping a closer eye on things, but it wasn’t her area of expertise, plus my father didn’t delegate well. He refused to accept his limitations.’
‘I read somewhere you built the business back up to what it is today,’ Harper said. ‘But was it your choice of career?’
No one had ever asked him that question before. Not even his mother. Everyone had assumed he would gladly follow in his father’s footsteps and take over the hotel business as his father had done with his own father, Jack’s grandfather. The Livingstone luxury brand was an institution that could not fail, certainly not on Jack’s watch. So, upon his father’s death, Jack had bludgeoned his own creative dreams into oblivion, determined to rebuild the family business to honour the legacy of his grandfather and father. He could not remember the last time he had picked up a paintbrush and a set of watercolours. It was a part of his life he had cordoned off like a locked room in a castle that no longer had a key. ‘I would never have made the money I make today doing anything but what I’m doing.’
‘But what didyouwant to do?’
Jack gave an on-off smile to signal the subject was closed and picked up the room service menu. ‘I’m going to order some dinner for us. What would you like?’
A short time later, Harper sat at the dining table with Jack. But for once in her life her mind wasn’t on food. She kept mulling over the things he had told her about his background. She had always been envious of people who grew up with enormous wealth. They hadn’t had to struggle to put food on the table and keep a roof over their head. They hadn’t slept under an old coat instead of fine wool blankets or feather and down quilts. But Jack’s refusal to discuss his own career aspirations made her wonder if he, like his mother, hadn’t been able to pursue his own choice of career due to the responsibilities that fell to his shoulders on his father’s illness and then death. Jack had certainly turned the Livingstone Hotel brand into an eye-popping success. There were boutique hotels all over the globe that paid testament to his hard work. The company was one of the most profitable brands in the world and only the rich and famous could afford to stay in a Livingstone Hotel. Which made it highly ironic that she was now living in one with Jack. She wasn’t exactly on the poverty line any more but she didn’t move in the circles Jack did. If he continued to insist she marry him for the sake of their baby, how would she navigate his world of high-end luxury, of liveried staff and private jets?
‘You’re not eating,’ Jack said. ‘Would you like something else? A dessert, perhaps?’
Harper pushed her plate away. ‘How do you do it?’
‘How do I do what?’
She waved her hand to encompass the luxury suite. ‘Live like this? In a hotel, I mean. Don’t you feel...a little claustrophobic?’
Jack put his wine glass down on the table. ‘I travel so much that I’m only in one place for a night or two.’
Harper picked up her water glass for something to do with her hands. ‘Is that why you only have one-night stands?’
His mouth twisted in a rueful manner. ‘It suited me to keep things casual.’
‘But now?’
His gaze met hers with a directness that was a little unnerving. ‘We have a child to raise. We can’t be casual about that.’
Harper looked down at the ice cubes in her water glass. They were slowly melting, becoming one with the mineral water. Was that what was going to happen to her? Her resolve to resist Jack would melt until she couldn’t keep herself separate, couldn’t live without him? Needing someone was not something she ever wanted to do. Of course, she needed her friends and loved them dearly. But loving a man in a romantic sense had never been on her radar. That was why that night with Jack had been so out of character for her. She had never been so captivated by a man before. She had never been so distracted by a man’s charm and banter that she had walked away from her work responsibilities to indulge in a stolen hour or two of toe-curling passion.
Harper looked up from her water glass to meet his gaze once more. ‘But you didn’t grow up in a hotel, did you?’
‘No, we had a home in Buckinghamshire.’ He picked up his wine glass again but didn’t bring it to his lips. He tilted the glass from side to side, watching as the blood-red wine swirled against the bowl of the glass. ‘It was one of the first things we had to sell after my father died. It broke my mother’s heart to leave.’ He lifted the glass to his lips and took a sip, before putting it down on the table again. His expression gave nothing away but Harper sensed he too had bitter regrets about losing his family home.