Unwrapping the Playboy / The Playboy's Gift

Maybe he’d given his sister too much credit.

Or maybe, just maybe, for once in her life she’d respected his privacy the way he really didn’t respect hers. Everything was fair when it came to siblings, at least that had always been his rule of thumb. He’d invoked it because he did care about Kate, and acting as if he had the right to know everything that concerned her just made it easier to watch over her.

But now the tables had turned and it was his life that was caught in his mother’s crosshairs.

And he didn’t like it one damn bit.

Rather than label Lilli as a woman from his past, or more accurately, the woman from his past, he said only one salient thing.

“Mom referred her.”

Kate’s grin materialized on her lips at the speed of light. “Well, like you once said, everyone needs a hobby.”

He scowled. “That was when she was bugging you, not me.”

Kate seemed to take pity on him. She was too happy these days to be vindictive. “Well, I’ve got to admit that Mom’s taste is pretty good. Why don’t you give this woman a chance once you’ve handled her, um, case,” she concluded with a wicked wink.

“I already did once.”

“You fooled around with a client at your initial meeting?” Kate asked him, stunned.

“No,” he bit off in disgust.

“Enlighten me. Exactly what do you mean, you already did once?”

He waved his hand dismissively. “Never mind,” he retorted. “Just tell Mom to stick to catering and not match making.”

“Sorry,” Kate called after him as he walked out. “She won’t listen to me if I say that. Under the circumstances, I don’t have a leg to stand on.”

That made two of them, because his own legs felt wobblier than hell right now. Eight years and she still had that kind of effect on him, despite everything that had happened.

He closed his eyes and sighed. He should have gone on vacation this week the way he had initially planned. Served him right. If he’d taken that holiday, then his mother, with her soft, chewy-on-the-inside, chewy-on-the-outside heart would have volunteered Kate to help Lilli with her case, and he could have gone on his way, mercifully in the dark, his world on an even keel.

Instead, he felt as if he were sitting on top of the San Andreas Fault, shaken up for all he was worth. And for what? Once this was over, once he won exclusive custody of her son for her, Lilli would be on her way again.

On her way and out of his life.

She’d done it once—there was no reason to believe she wouldn’t do it again.

He told himself to remember that if he felt his “handsoff” resolve weakening anytime in the foreseeable future.

Chapter Five

Lilli saw that her mother’s car was parked in the driveway when she pulled up to her house.

Given the hour, that meant that her mother had already picked Jonathan up from school and returned. It was amazing how easily all three of them had adjusted to this routine. Less than a month ago, she and Jonathan had been living near Santa Barbara, cocooned by the almost idyllic life there. Erik Dalton had been dead for four months and she was adjusting to the idea that she didn’t have to worry about him suddenly turning up on her doorstep and for some twisted reason beyond comprehension, demanding access to his son.

Then Elizabeth Dalton had happened and everything she’d always feared came to fruition. Lilli had packed up, sold everything and come back to her hometown. She knew she couldn’t hide, but she felt that she needed her mother’s moral support in order to fend off the other woman.

She’d worried about Jonathan adjusting to being uprooted this way, but she realized now that she needn’t have. Unlike his father, Jonathan was happy, easygoing and even-tempered, and she was immensely grateful for that.

The moment she put the key in the door, Jonathan came running.

“Hi, sweetheart.” She greeted the light of her life with a fierce hug. It was returned.

Someday, all too soon, that would change. Preteen boys didn’t think it was cool to pal around with their mothers. But for now, she would enjoy his affection for all it was worth.

“Know where your grandmother is?” she asked him. He pointed toward the kitchen. “Thanks. As you were,” she told him. This week, Jonathan was considering soldiering as a career choice, so she played along. Last week, he’d thought he might give ranching a try and she had gotten a book on the different breeds of horses for him. She was going to be a hands-on mother all the way, she thought, heading for the kitchen.

Maybe, if Erik’s mother had been that way, he wouldn’t have turned out to be so despicable. But then, she reminded herself, she wouldn’t have Jonathan in her life.

Everything happens for a reason. Everything but losing Jonathan, she amended fiercely. That was never going to happen.

Her mother came out of the kitchen. “I thought I heard you.”

“Hi, Mom. Do you think you can stay a little longer? I’m not in for the night yet,” she told the older, petite woman as she headed for the room that she’d claimed as her office. It was still very much in a state of disarray, with boxes piled up in the corner.

She tried to remember which carton she’d packed the metal box in. It contained all their important documents. She’d done that so that if there was ever a natural disaster, all she had to do was grab one box—after she grabbed Jonathan.

Following her only child into the small room off the kitchen, Anne McCall asked, “Did you see him?”

Lilli knew that the “him” her mother referred to was Kullen.

“Yes,” she answered, opening up the carton closest to her. “I saw him.” The metal box wasn’t in it. She shoved the carton aside.

“And?”

Lilli turned her attention to the next carton. She struck out again. “And he’s going to take the case.”

Anne shifted around so that she could see her daughter’s face. “And?”

Third time was the charm. With a triumphant sigh, Lilli removed the dark gray metal box from the last carton she’d opened. In the background, she heard the familiar, soothing theme song of one of Jonathan’s favorite afternoon programs, an imaginative show where a robot given to self-repairing took his viewers through the vivid pages of history.

As she opened the metal box, Lilli glanced at her mother.

“And?” she echoed, unclear as to what her mother was driving at. She took a guess. “And he told me he thinks we have a good chance to win even though the woman is—” she dropped her voice and came closer to her mother, not wanting to take a chance that Jonathan might overhear her “—the first known recorded case of a barracuda without fins.”

Despite the fact that the woman was making her life a living hell, Lilli was not about to bad-mouth Elizabeth—or the man who had, through no desire of his own, been his father. Jonathan deserved better than that. She wanted her son to grow up exposed to as little hatred as was humanly possible. God knew there would be time enough for him to see what the world could be like when he became an adult.

Her mother continued to eye her. Lilli got the distinct impression that she was waiting for something more.

And then she asked, “Didn’t you say that you once dated him?”

Caught completely off guard when her mother had produced Kullen’s name out of the blue, saying that she had a referral from a reliable source that Kullen Manetti was an excellent lawyer, Lilli had been forced to explain why she’d appeared so stunned. She had fallen back on a half truth. She’d admitted that she’d known him in college and that they’d gone out a couple of times. She had deliberately avoided telling her mother that Kullen had proposed to her and that she’d left town right after that.

She had left not because she’d discovered that she was pregnant, but because she had been afraid that she would allow her fears to get the better of her and would say yes to Kullen. And then she would have had to tell him that the baby wasn’t his. To have allowed him to think that he was the father would have been the very height of deception. She’d had no doubt that Kullen would have always wondered if she’d married him because she’d loved him, or as a matter of convenience. That would be no way to run a marriage.

So she’d left. Left without telling him anything because it was too hard to share the shame of what had happened. Or worse, for him to have insisted on going through with the wedding and marrying her out of pity.

She knew logically that none of this had been her fault, but somehow, she still felt as if it was.

Until she held Jonathan in her arms.

The moment she looked down into his small, perfect little face, the love that welled up within her drove out everything—guilt, shame, anger. All that remained was love.

And that love was fiercely protective. No way in hell was she going to allow Elizabeth Dalton to get her grasping, perfectly manicured hands on Jonathan.

“Yes,” she admitted, “I did say that.” She was in no mood for a chorus of “Matchmaker, Matchmaker, Make Me A Match.” “Mother,” she said pointedly, “I’m up to my neck in the fight of my life. This is no time to play the dating game.”

Never one to push, Anne nodded. “I’m sorry, dear, you’re right. I was just looking for a way to divert you and alleviate your tension.”

Having retrieved Jonathan’s birth certificate, Lilli took out several other legal documents and began to feed them into the scanner. She wasn’t about to take a chance on losing anything.

“What would really alleviate my tension,” she told her mother, “is if that woman would disappear from the face of the earth.”

“You know,” Anne began thoughtfully, “my cousin Sal knows a few people who—”

Dear God, her mother wasn’t taking her seriously, was she? “Mother!” Lilli cried sharply.

“Just kidding,” Anne countered. “Sadly, the only people my cousin Sal knows are gambling addicts. They wouldn’t be any help in a situation like this.” She watched as Lilli scanned another document. In less than a minute, the printer spit out a perfect copy. “What is it you’re doing?” she asked.

“I told Kullen that I’d bring by these documents he wanted tonight.”

A note of concern entered Anne’s voice. “You’re going to his office at night?” While Bedford had been deemed one of the safest cities in the country with a population of over one hundred thousand for several years in a row now, Anne was never one to tempt fate.

Lilli briefly thought of just nodding and letting the matter go, allowing her mother to think that she was going back to meet with Kullen in his office. But that would be lying, if only by omission, and she didn’t believe in lying. The most she ever did was keep her own counsel, refraining from going into detail. Even her mother didn’t know the full story surrounding Jonathan’s conception. Mercifully, her mother respected her privacy. She couldn’t pay her back by letting her believe what wasn’t true.

“I’m bringing these over to his house.” Another sheet emerged from the printer and she added it to the others.

“Oh.”

Lilli’s head shot up. The two-letter word sounded far more pregnant than she had ever been. “Not oh, Mom. It’s just more convenient that way, that’s all.”

Anne nodded, a knowing smile curving her mouth. “Yes, I know.”

No, you don’t. “Kullen needs to get up to speed as fast as possible.”

Anne seemed to struggle to keep the grin from taking over her entire face. “And can he? Get up to speed fast?”

All that was missing was a nudge-nudge, wink-wink comment. “Mother, if you’re asking me if I ever slept with Kullen Manetti, no, I never slept with him.”

Anne held up her hands as if to innocently fend off another volley of words. “I didn’t ask.”

“Not in so many words,” Lilli allowed, “but, yes, you did.”

Anne sighed, shaking her head. It was obvious her mother’s heart literally ached to see her look so upset.

She sighed. “Too bad that you and Erik weren’t able to work things out. Then, even though he died in that accident, maybe all this could have been avoided.”

She’d never told her mother the circumstances involved in her getting pregnant. The words rose up now, scratching her throat, trying to get free. But if her mother knew the truth, it would only cause her anguish. And although Lilli would feel better finally telling someone, finally getting it all out in the open, she couldn’t do it at the price of wounding her mother.

So she kept her peace and nodded. “Yes, too bad. But all that’s water under the bridge, as Grandma used to say. And who knows, Mrs. Dalton might have still wanted to fight me for Jonathan’s custody. She lost her only son and she seems to think that you can replace one person with another as long as the gene pool is basically the same.”

Slightly shorter than her daughter, Anne ran her hand over her daughter’s blond hair, an endless font of love evident in the simple gesture.

“Sure you don’t want me to go over there and have a talk with her?” she offered. “I’m more than willing to do it.”

Lilli laughed, shaking her head. “No thanks, Mom. One battle in court is about all I can handle at a time. There’s no telling what you might do. I saw you get angry once,” she recalled. “Not a pretty sight.”

“Offer’s on the table anytime you want to take me up on it, honey.”

Finished copying, Lilli filed the copies of the documents in a light blue folder. Leaving the folder on her desk, she rounded it and put her arms around her mother.

“Thanks, Mom, I’ll keep that in mind.” Lilli gave the older woman a quick, heartfelt hug. “You’re the best, Mom.”

“Glad you finally noticed that,” Anne said with just the right amount of dryness. “And don’t worry about hurrying back,” she said as Lilli turned toward the desk again and slipped the documents she’d just compiled into the recesses of her large black rectangular purse. The latter could have doubled as a briefcase and not a small one, either. “I was thinking about spending the night here anyway.” Her mother’s light blue eyes seemed to dance as she told her, “I brought some of your old storybooks over to read to Jonathan.”

Lilli smiled warmly and predicted, “He’ll get a big kick out of that.”

“So will I,” Anne confessed. “When I’m not tearing up,” she added. She watched her daughter zip up the purse. “Got everything?” she pressed.

“Everything,” Lilli echoed, taking no offense at her mother double-checking her. She was only acting out of concern. Lilli hefted the purse and slid it onto her right shoulder.

“Then, good luck,” Anne said, following her to the front door.

Passing the family room, Lilli stopped for a moment, peering in. She wondered if it was normal to have her heart swell every time she looked at her son. “I’ve got to go out again, Jonathan. But I’ll be back soon.” She knew he liked her to touch base with him. “Don’t forget your homework.”

Jonathan pretended to hang his head, like a prisoner sentenced to twenty years hard labor. “I won’t forget, Mom.”

Lilli turned toward her mother. “And don’t you do it for him, either,” she warned.

Anne’s nearly unlined face was the picture of innocence. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

A small laugh escaped Lilli’s lips. “I don’t believe you.” Her mother was a pushover and they both knew it. Moreover, Jonathan knew it. But it was time to go. “I love you,” she called out to her son.

“Love you back,” Jonathan answered, his attention already back to the robot on the screen.

Who could ask for more than this? Lilli smiled as she went out the front door. Whatever it took, she would keep that boy in her life.

Rather than terminate early, court had taken longer than Kullen had counted on.

And then, leaving, he’d gotten tangled up in the traffic jam from hell. His temper, usually level, was definitely the worse for wear tonight.

He needed to unwind.

He didn’t have the luxury.

Kullen had been in his house exactly three minutes when the doorbell rang. The kid from the pizzeria had to have made every single light, he thought.

He’d ordered takeout on his way home. The restaurant’s number was one of the first on speed dial on both his cell phone and his landline at home. Convenience was a high priority for him, given his drive-by lifestyle.

Digging money out of his wallet, Kullen crossed back to the foyer. He threw open the front door, holding up two twenties.

“I thought I was supposed to pay you,” Lilli said drily. And then she made the only logical assumption from the look of surprise on his face. “You forgot I was coming by with the papers, didn’t you?”

He hadn’t forgotten. How could he? Lilli had been on his mind all afternoon, creeping, entirely unbidden, into his thoughts. During the court case, images of Lilli, past and present, kept materializing in his mind’s eye. Being on his game had been particularly difficult this afternoon.

“I ordered takeout,” he told her. “I thought the delivery boy would be here before you.”

“More restaurant food?” she asked as she entered. She made it personal before she could think not to. “Don’t you ever have anything healthy to eat?”

“Pizza’s healthy,” he countered, arguing like a true lawyer. “It has all the major food groups,” he said when she looked at him skeptically. “Cheese, tomatoes, meat, bread,” he enumerated.

“And a ton of salt.” And that negated anything good the pizza might have to bring to the table.

“That’s what makes it edible.”

For a moment, she was propelled back into the past. The past when she had finally succeeded in banking down her demons and had thought that maybe, just maybe, she would be able to find a little happiness with Kullen.

Before the roof caved in on her world and she discovered she was pregnant.

The next beat, the moment was gone.

“What do you have in your refrigerator?” she asked. Maybe she could come up with some kind of dinner for him. Almost anything was better than pizza, temptingly aromatic though it was.

“Shelves.”

It was hard not to laugh. “Anything on those shelves?”

He thought for a second, envisioning the inside of the refrigerator the last time he’d looked. “A couple of leftover takeout things that I’m debating donating to science.”

She grinned, oblivious to the fondness that had slipped into her voice. “You never learned how to cook, did you?”

There was nothing wrong with that. He knew lots of people who didn’t cook. That was why God had made restaurants.

“Never saw the purpose,” he told her. “Besides, most days I either order in or go out for lunch. Same applies to dinner.”

She shook her head. “It’s not healthy to live like that.” The doorbell rang and he went to answer it. “The people in Tibet don’t eat takeout and they live a very long life,” she said, refusing to let up, “subsisting on yogurt and vegetables.”

He laughed shortly. “It’s not a long life, it only seems like a long life because they can’t find a decent steak.”

This time, it was the delivery boy with his pizza. Kullen handed him the money, then took possession of the extra-large pizza. He turned around and closed the door with his back.

“I ordered pizza with everything,” he told her, carrying it back to the dining room on the other side of the family room. “You see something you don’t like, just take it off.”

She tried not to think what a loaded phrase that actually was. “What if I don’t like anything on it?” Lilli posed.

Kullen never missed a beat. “More for me.” He set the box down on the dining room table. “But I seem to remember that pizza was your weakness.”

No, you were my weakness, she thought. But that Lilli had to disappear a long time ago.

Kullen opened the box and the aroma, already leaching out of the box by any means possible, now robustly filled the air, arousing her dormant taste buds.

“It does smell good,” she conceded.

“Help yourself,” he said, gesturing toward the oil-soaked box. “I’ll get the plates and napkins.”

“I’ll get them,” she offered. It was the least she could do. “Just tell me where the kitchen is.”

“You can’t miss it. It’s the only room with a refrigerator in it,” he deadpanned. And then, when she kept on looking at him, he pointed over to the area just beyond the living room.

“Wise guy.”

A sense of déjà vu washed over him as he watched Lilli disappear around the corner. It brought with it a host of warm, soft memories that in turn aroused feelings that had long since slipped into exile.

Don’t go there, don’t go there, he warned himself.

But he knew that was easier said than done. He’d already crossed the line once. And each time it would get easier.

And all the more difficult to come back.

Chapter Six

They were doing justice to the pizza. Kullen had a hunch that they would. It was almost like old times.

Almost.

It would be easy, so seductively easy, to let his guard drop. To allow that feeling to overtake him, the one that had whispered that this was like old times—the times when he had struggled so hard to create and win. And finally had.

He had fallen for her the very first moment he’d ever laid eyes on her. The first time he’d glimpsed her face with its regal, aristocratic lines and felt his stomach muscles tighten into a knot so hard, he could scarcely breathe. There was no question in his mind that Lilli McCall was easily the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen.

But back then, his “pre-shallow period” as Kate referred to it, it had taken more than just looks, no matter how incredible, to captivate him. What had drawn him in was the sadness in her eyes. It made him ache for her and want to erase her pain. He had launched a full-scale, albeit subtle campaign to get to know her, to get close to her, a feat his best friend at the time, Gil Davis, had warned him was doomed to failure. Gil had had his finger on the pulse of the campus social circles and he’d said that Lilli McCall was a loner, a serious, self-contained fortress. Word was that no one really got close to her.

It was a challenge Kullen couldn’t refuse.

And the more he’d worked at getting closer, the more he’d found his own defenses going down. In the space of a few days Lilli had stopped being a challenge and had begun being someone he just wanted to help. Someone he was determined to get to trust him. They’d had several classes together and had been in the same study group. The latter had turned out to be his first triumph with her.

“C’mon,” he’d urged her cheerfully and relentlessly. “Law school’s tough. This is a communal effort to help us all survive. What one of us doesn’t know, maybe someone else does. It’s a give-and-take situation.” It had been his eyes that had held her, he’d later discovered, not any physical touch of the hand, something that she’d avoided religiously then. “You can’t deny us the benefit of your brain, can you?” he remembered coaxing.

When she’d finally, somewhat reluctantly agreed to study with him, he had wanted to shout his victory from the rooftops, but prudently refrained, pretending to take it all in stride.

That had been the real beginning. The beginning of what in time had turned out to be an all-too-short relationship that had, on the outside, held such promise.

He could still remember the first time he’d made her smile, the first time he’d heard the sound of her laughter.

And the first time she hadn’t stiffened when he’d kissed her.

There was no way to measure the intensity of the feelings he’d had for her. Feelings he would have bet his life were returned. In the short time they were together, he’d bared his soul to her and caught just the tiniest glimpses of hers. It had by no means been a balanced exchange, but that was okay. With Lilli things were different, all the rules were thrown out and new ones had taken their place. He was fine with taking the tiny, baby steps. As long as they eventually led to his goal.