Chapter 50

"No one ever captured my heart like your mother did, and I wouldn't settle for second best. Tessa, will you take this ring? I know it was meant for your mother, but I would like for you to have it, so you know that she was loved, and so you know that I would like to care for you as well, if you'll let me!" Nathan held out the ring to her once again.

"I'm not sure, Nathan. Can I have sometime to think about it? I would like some man to fall in love with me someday and put his ring on my finger," she said softly not daring to glance at AJ. "Can you understand? Maybe, someday soon I'll be able to take mother's ring and wear it, but now is too soon."

"I do understand that Tessa, but you wouldn't have to wear it on your engagement ring hand. You could wear it on your right hand, it would be something to remind you that your mother was very special, just as you are."

"Alright if it'll make you happy, I'll wear it on my right hand. But I'll pick the man who puts the one on the left hand, remember that," she replied taking the ring and slipping it on her right hand. The ring was a perfect fit and made her sad to think it should have been her mother's. It would have made her mother so happy and she would have grown up differently.

"I am sure that when the time comes you'll find the right man to love you like you deserve to be loved, Tessa. In the meantime I hope that we'll have a lot of time to get to know each other before that happens. I'll be moving into the White House in just over a month, but until then there is plenty of room here. I'd be pleased if you would come and live here with me."

"I don't have a place to live, here, so we could give it a try and see how it worked," she smiled at him.
"You have to remember I'm not a child, so, no piggy toes before bed."

AJ tried to stifle a laugh in his hand at the image of the great and powerful Nathan Lassiter playing piggy toes with the full-grown Tessa. Then he was surprised by the stab of...jealousy? that he felt at the thought.

"That is fine, daughter! I make you a promise not to 'piggy toes' you before bed," then he added almost under his breath, "It will be easy since I have no idea of what that is!"

"One other thing, I'm an artist and can't paint with people all around me. I need silence and a place to be alone with my models!"

"As long as the models are cleared by the secret service agents there is no reason that you couldn't be in a room alone with them to paint. There would be a guard at the door though. And since you paint, Tessa I wanted to ask you if you might consider painting the portrait that I will have to have done to hang in the White House next to all the other Presidential portraits?"

Once again AJ was trying to stifle laughter, imagining Lassiter posing as he had for Tessa!

"I would love to, Nathan, after all I painted AJ's portrait and called it 'A Tribute to the Military'," smiled Tessa innocently. "So I would love to give your portrait a try."

AJ had just taken a sip of his coffee when she told her father about his portrait and ended up spraying it across the room. "Tessa!"

"That sounds wonderful! I would love to see that, and maybe we could feature it in the next campaign add that we do for our boys in the service!"

"I'm sure that would really draw them in, however I was planning on using it for my next show so I can't let you use it for your campaign. Sorry, Nathan, but my agent would have a fit," she calmly replied, reaching to pour more coffee. "More for you, AJ? You're being awfully quiet for someone who talked me into coming to Washington."

"Tessa, you are NOT using that picture in your show!" AJ informed her.

To be continued…