You Were Meant For Me

Chapter 1-1

Chapter 1

“Please fasten your seatbelt, Miss Peyton. We’re heading into some turbulence.”

Tess’s French-manicured fingers clenched the arms of the leather seat as the plane shuddered and bucked. Not because she was afraid of flying—her father’s pilot was ex-Air Force and could fly anything—but because the Indian food she’d gotten from that sketchy takeaway on the drive to Heathrow was making a bid to come back up.

You will not throw up. You do not have time for food poisoning.

The evidence of her packed schedule was laid out on the table before her, in all its painstakingly bullet-journaled glory, in the pages of the planner that dictated her life. If it wasn’t in the planner, it simply didn’t happen. Puking her guts up somewhere over Alabama wasn’t in it. Ergo, she would not be sick. End of story. And what Peytons wanted, they usually got if they worked hard enough.

She breathed through the roiling of her stomach and tried to focus on the reports she needed to get through before they landed. Her father would expect an update on the latest London project, and she needed to be on the ball to prove she had not only handled the additional responsibility he’d given her, she’d waded into the shitstorm and made it come up aces. That would be important when she proposed what she really wanted: that he allow her to take a greater role in operations of the home office in Denver.

Not that either of those things was the point of this trip to Mississippi. No, her powerful, successful, brilliant father had moved there to be with his new wife. Tess still couldn’t quite wrap her brain around the fact that her dad had gone to Vegas of all places. Sure, Peyton Consolidated had a hotel on the strip. But absolutely no one expected multi-billionaire Gerald Peyton, III to be married by an Elvis impersonator wearing gold lamé. Video footage had been leaked by a gossip blog and gone viral. Speculation had run rampant. Tess had her own concerns about the haste of the marriage, but during their brief meeting a few months before, when the newlyweds had swung through London on the way home from their Paris honeymoon, she couldn’t deny that Sandy seemed to adore her father, and he was likewise smitten. He was happy. Happier than she’d ever seen him. It wasn’t in her to begrudge him that after the misery of his marriage to her mother.

Hell, she’d envy him if she truly believed a commitment like that was really real and could really last. But she didn’t believe it. Not deep down. Six weeks ago she’d had her own shot at that kind of happiness. She’d been looking for adventure. Romance. A chance to step outside the tower walls and be someone besides Tess Peyton, someone without all the attendant responsibilities that went along with the family name. So she’d gone up to Scotland for the weekend, in search of her own hottie Highlander. Except instead of a kilted Scotsman, she’d found an ex-pat American, with a voice like honeyed whiskey and a mouth made for sin. He’d given her everything she’d wanted—and so much more. One night turned into two, then two turned into four, and before she’d known it, a week had gone by. The best damned week of her life.

But her uncharacteristic bid at recklessness, at going off-plan, hadn’t ended with wedding bells. It had just ended. She’d seen to that, hadn’t she? Nowhere in her planner did it spell out 1) Meet the man of your dreams. 2) Fall in love. Therefore, it hadn’t happened. So there was no sense in dwelling on it. No sense remembering the taste of him or the feel of his hand in hers. No sense thinking about how he’d looked, sleeping and sated, the last time she’d seen him. When she found her fingers stroking over the delicate filigree of her necklace—the necklace he’d given her—Tess dropped her hand, shutting down that line of thinking with the same ruthlessness she used to hold back the nausea, and went back to the reports.

By the time she’d white-knuckled her way through half a dozen more pages, the air had smoothed out and so had her stomach.

Jon came over the onboard intercom. “We’re about fifteen minutes out, Miss Peyton. Starting our descent.”

Thank God. It would still take time to get from the county seat of Lawley out to the tiny town of Wishful, but God willing, she could be face down on the glorious bed in the penthouse at The Babylon in another hour, falling into blessed unconsciousness. Right this moment, nothing sounded better than that.

Flagging where she’d left off, Tess made a few more notes on things to follow up on when she called to check in with her team tomorrow morning. Then she gathered up her paperwork, stowing it neatly in the relevant folders and squaring the edges before sliding the pile into her Italian leather briefcase, alongside her favorite fountain pens. The tidy little MacBook went next, and finally her planner in the outside pocket. By the time the jet touched down, she had her game face on, ready for whatever got thrown at her next.

At least until she stepped off the plane.

Her father was waiting on the tarmac wearing jeans and a long-sleeved polo shirt. On a work day. As she descended the short flight of steps, he took off his aviator sunglasses and hooked them into the neck of his shirt, a broad grin lighting his face.

“There’s my baby girl!” He scooped her off her feet, all but squeezing the breath out of her.

“Wait a minute!” Her jet-lagged brain was having trouble shifting to seeing the weekend version of her dad during business hours.

He set her down, frowning. “Problem?”

Tess relinquished the briefcase and threw her arms around him, squeezing back. “That’s better. Hi, Daddy.” She nuzzled her cheek against his shoulder, feeling some of the stress knots relax at the strength of his embrace. She’d cut off a limb before admitting she needed some of his strength right now, but she’d soak it up nonetheless.

“Good flight?”

“Productive. I’ve got the latest figures on the Piccadilly project and some ideas of how we might cut costs without sacrificing quality.”

He waved that off. “All that can wait.”

Tess blinked. “Okay then.” If he wasn’t going to jump immediately into business mode, neither would she.

“Your bag, Miss Peyton. Good afternoon, sir.”

She worked up a smile. “Thanks, Jon.”

Her father shook the pilot’s hand. “Thanks for delivering my daughter safely.”

“Always a pleasure.”

Tess shouldered the briefcase. “I’ll see you next week.”

The pilot saluted and headed to do the post-flight check of the jet. Her father grabbed her suitcase and led her toward the terminal.

Tess fell into step beside him. “Is Sandy with you?”

“At home putting together a big family dinner in your honor. Everybody’s coming.”

“Who exactly is everybody?” She hoped she didn’t sound as wary as she felt, but the idea of peopling after the long flight wasn’t remotely appealing.

“The whole family. Sandy’s mom, Helen—you’re gonna love her. She’s a spitfire. Not at all like Grandmother Peyton. Both Sandy’s brothers and their wives. Sandy’s son and his wife, and all the cousins and their respective significant others.” Seeing the wince she couldn’t hold back, he laughed. “I know, it’s a lot for us, but I promise, you’ll get used to it. They’re great people, and they can’t wait to meet you.”

Resigned to the fact that face planting was going to have to wait, Tess looped her arm through her father’s. “Then you had better give me the Cliff’s Notes bios of everybody so I can keep them all straight.”