The Perfect Gift

C H A P T E R 🎄2

L I S A

In boardrooms across America, I was known as the Ice woman. I dealt with business with cold, shrewd certainty.

Sometimes people called me detached, but they were wrong. I was always fully invested in the moment.

I just kept it off my face and out of my voice. I never let them see me sweat.

And yet, standing in the Greenfield Gallery in the small but charming Vermont town, the Ice woman was about to melt.

I struggled to maintain my composure, mustering every ounce of willpower I had at my disposal to keep from reacting.

It's her.

After all these years of searching, she just walks in the door. No preamble. Just right through the door.

Oh, how I'd prepared for the day when I would finally meet her again.

My mysterious Rosie, the woman who'd led me through a torrid, sweaty affair in Cabo San Lucas years ago.

I'd wished that night had never ended. In many ways, for me, it never had.

There had never been a mystery I couldn't solve, a puzzle I couldn't put together, or an enigma I couldn't unravel.

Until Rosie.

She had vanished off the face of the Earth.

I hired private investigators, scoured the world wide web, used all the person-finding software I could lay my hands on.

It turned up nothing.

Rosie stared at me from across the aisle, all color draining from her face. She recognized me. I knew that for certain.

Her light brown eyes remained as bright as I remembered. Her slender frame now sported more of the womanly curves my fingertips never forgot. Her honey-blonde hair was a bit longer, reaching the base of her back and gleaming like silk.

I'd been waiting for this exact moment for five years.

I had so many things prepared to say, but they all went out the window when I saw the one thing I hadn't expected.

The little boy holding her hand.

My first emotion was sheer, utter despair. I had failed to find Rosie, and she'd wound up married to someone else. Someone she'd started a family with.

But then, I looked at his face. The eyes, the nose, the distinctive Manoban's eye shape.

No fucking way. It can't be. There's no possible way.

I guess he's about the right age, but what are the odds?

A woman like Rosie would definitely be married by now. Or at least a steady partner.

And the fact of the matter was, I was terrible with faces. I could remember names at the drop of a hat, but faces always gave me trouble.

Does that kid look like me? I sure think he does. There's just something about him.

But I can't be sure.

I became aware of the fact that we'd been staring at each other for a long time. Well, okay, it was probably only a few seconds, but it felt like an eternity.

At that moment, I could have done a lot of things. I could have launched into one of my prepared speeches, one of the many I'd written in my head should I ever meet the mysterious Rosie again.

I could have asked her, up front, if the kid was mine. That would have been the most direct, if also the most awkward, way to proceed.

But I didn't do any of that.