Unwrapping the Playboy / The Playboy's Gift

He’d been so sure, so very sure that they would.

Which was why his entire world had fallen apart when she had disappeared from his life.

At first, he’d thought that Lilli had been kidnapped. He was incredibly, stupidly certain that the woman he loved above everything else on earth wouldn’t have just taken off on him. Especially not after he’d proposed to her.

But she had.

Lilli had just disappeared, leaving a note on his desk. The note had fallen on the floor between the wastepaper basket and his desk. He hadn’t found it until, lost in a frenzy of frustration and helpless anger, he’d kicked the wastepaper basket aside. Falling over, it had spilled its contents, but it was then that he’d seen the small white note card with two words in her handwriting. Two words that twisted a knife right into his chest.

“I’m sorry.” That was all she’d written. Just, “I’m sorry.” And that was supposed to explain her departure and compel him to go on living his life. A life that no longer contained her.

Sitting opposite Lilli now in his dining room, a room he rarely used except when he needed to spread out a massive collection of legal papers, it all came back to him with the force of a detonating bomb. Everything he’d felt, everything he’d gone through with her and then, without her. The good, the bad and, finally, the anger. He’d been a fool because he’d loved her and would have done anything for her. She hadn’t cared enough to explain things face-to-face.

But now, after all these years, he had his answer. He knew why she’d left.

Even so, he wanted to ask her why she’d tossed him aside like some kind of used tissue, without the courtesy of an explanation.

Without a chance to fight for her and prove he was the better man.

The words vibrated on his lips. But after all this time, he had his answer. It was cruelly obvious. Lilli had abandoned him for Erik Dalton, the only heir to an incredible fortune that he had done nothing to deserve. The rumor was that he had never been turned down, especially not by a woman. A morally bankrupt playboy who was the very poster child for the stereotypical rich kid with a heart of lead, Erik Dalton had gotten every woman he had ever set his sights on.

All he had to do was crook his finger and women fell from the sky, eager for his attention, eager to have some of his generosity touch their lives. He went through money as if it was of no consequence to him. There was always more.

Was that it? Kullen wondered now. Had Lilli been blinded and won over by the allure of materialistic goods? He’d always seen her as pure and unfazed by material wealth. It was obvious now that he’d been blinded, too. Blinded by his feelings.

Had there been a price tag on her affections after all?

The Lilli McCall he’d loved so fiercely had been an honorable woman. But then, the Lilli he’d loved would have never abruptly left him with a marriage proposal still warm on his lips.

“Why are you fighting this?” he asked her quietly, without preamble.

Polishing off her third slice of pizza and finally feeling full, Lilli looked up at him sharply. The question had come out of the blue and she didn’t know what he was referring to. The first thing that occurred to her by “this” was that the feelings were still there, carefully encased in Bubble Wrap and stored away. Feelings that belonged exclusively to him.

So Lilli waited for him to elaborate and prayed that she could answer him without raking over old scars.

“I could try to broker an arrangement between you and Elizabeth Dalton for joint custody. Lay down a few ground rules—”

Lilli continued staring at him, growing more stunned. Why was he saying this? Had that dreadful woman’s lawyers gotten to him, bought him off? She hadn’t thought that would be possible, but now she wasn’t so sure.

Wasn’t there anyplace left for her to turn to?

“No,” Lilli said firmly before he could continue, then repeated the word in a louder voice. “No!”

“Heard you the first time,” Kullen assured her matter-of-factly. And he grew serious, leaning over the table. Leaning closer to her. His eyes pinned her down. “Now, tell me why.”

Her eyes darted along his face, as if trying to fathom the secret behind Kullen’s words. Finally, she asked, “Why what?”

“Why you’re so against this when obviously, at one point, you must have been all for it. To hitch your star to the Dalton fortune.” She opened her mouth to speak but he talked louder and faster. The cynicism was impossible to miss. “I mean, the lure of all that money, the comfort it could bring—hard to imagine turning your back on all that. It had to be a whole different world for you. For anyone. The kind of money the Daltons have is the stuff that fairy tales are made of.”

Oh, God.

She pressed her hand against her abdomen, certain she was going to be sick. “They got to you, didn’t they?”

Kullen’s dark blue eyes were cold. Flat. And accusing. “Not to me.”

There was an allegation in his voice, and it didn’t take much for her to get his drift. She began to protest. “But I don’t—”

He cut her short, not wanting her to lie. “Oh, come on, Lilli. I’m your lawyer. If I’m going to be of any use to you, you have to level with me,” he insisted sharply. Angrily. “Tell me everything.” His mouth curved cynically. “Why aren’t you still part of the Dalton’s happy little family?”

How could he say that to her? Did he think she was some kind of gold digger? The one person, aside from her mother, who she thought knew her, accused her of being this awful person. It hurt more than she thought possible.

Lilli pushed her chair away from the table and stood up. She had to get out of here. “I’m sorry, coming to you was a mistake.” She picked up her manila envelope. He wouldn’t be needing them anymore. “This has been a waste of time for both of us—”

Kullen told himself that he should just let her walk out. It was in his best interest. Another man would have sat back and watched this little drama unfold, feeling a sense of vindication. Payback, as the old saying went, was a bitch. And she had earned her payback.

But he wasn’t another man. For better or for worse, he was who and what he was: The man who had once loved Lilli McCall with his entire heart and soul. Even now, he couldn’t avenge himself by leaving her to twist in the wind. She had come to him looking for help.

Kullen was on his feet, rounding the table and blocking her exit from the room. “I need the truth from you, Lilli. I need to know why someone like you would have gotten mixed up with someone like Erik Dalton in the first place. He had a reputation as the biggest womanizer around. I thought you were different—”

“I was,” she insisted. Which was why she was so haunted by what had happened. Why it had been so hard for her to get past it in the first place.

His eyes narrowed as he looked right into her. Aware that he was still holding her in place, Kullen dropped his hands from her shoulders. “Convince me.”

For a long moment, she said nothing and he thought she would walk out after all. But then she sighed as she pressed her lips together. He wanted to shake her, to shout at her and demand to know why she’d slept with a man like Erik Dalton when he’d had to work so hard to get her to trust him. To get her not to freeze up when he touched her.

That look in her eyes was back. That look that echoed an unfathomable sadness.

Kullen wanted to hold her more than anything in the world.

But he didn’t.

His hands remained at his sides. He waited for the explanation he felt he had coming to him.

There was a slight tremor in her voice as she said, “I suppose I have this coming.”

“We’ll talk about that later. Answer my question, Lilli.”

Every word ached. “I didn’t leave because I wanted to, Kullen.”

“Leave who?” he demanded. Was she talking about the father of her baby? Had he pushed her away when she told him she was pregnant? And why did that thought hold not the slightest bit of satisfaction for him? She’d left him and Erik had left her. That was supposed to be poetic justice. So why wasn’t it? “Leave Erik?”

She stared at him. “No, leave you.”

“Then why did you?”

“Because I had to.” Her voice throbbed with anguish. “I didn’t want to see your anger or your pity.” She pressed her lips together again, trying not to cry. “I couldn’t deal with that.”

“You’re going to have to be a little clearer than that, Lilli.” She looked as if she wanted to flee, he thought. He knew he couldn’t hold her against her will, but nonetheless, the idea was tempting. More than anything, he wanted her to make him understand why things had turned out the way they had.

Every word cost her. She didn’t want to look back into the past, into the abyss of mistakes that had been made. “I didn’t leave you because I was going to Erik. I left you because of Erik.”

“Clearer,” he instructed again, stone-faced.

The breath Lilli let out was shaky. “I was pregnant.”

Kullen’s expression hardened. Every time he thought of Lilli with that worthless bastard … when their own relationship hadn’t gone beyond heated kisses, at her request, a request he’d respected ….

“We’ve already established that,” he said.

She didn’t know how to tell him. She’d blocked all thoughts, all memory of events for so long. “The day you asked me to marry you was the best and the worst day of my life.”

The word worst jumped up at him, lit in glaring neon lights. “Nice to know I’ve still got it,” he said sarcastically.

She pushed on, knowing that she had to make him understand. She was afraid that he would stand by his word and not help her if she didn’t tell him everything. But, oh, it was so hard.

“It was the best day because I found someone good, someone who could make me forget. Someone I loved.” He looked at her sharply. She pushed on. “And the worst day because I found out I was pregnant.”

As her words pierced his heart, he came to the only conclusion he could. “You mean you were seeing Erik Dalton while we—”

“No,” she retorted. “Erik happened before I met you and there was no ‘seeing’ involved, no dating, if that’s what you mean.”

Lilli stopped, momentarily too emotional to continue because she was reliving the horrible incident that had all but destroyed her life and turned her entire world upside down.

She looked as if she was going to bolt.

Not until you finish telling me. Kullen gently put his hands on her shoulders. He could literally feel her anguish, could sense her being torn between telling him and keeping silent.

“Tell me,” he urged quietly.

The war within her was reflected in her eyes. And then, she squared her shoulders, as if she were about to go into battle.

When she finally spoke, her voice was firm, quiet. Almost oddly removed.

“My first year in law school, I forced myself to accept an invitation to a frat party. I was so terribly shy and I knew I had to make an effort to get out of my shell.” A sad smile played along her lips. “I mean, who wants a painfully shy lawyer, right? There were a lot of people at the party….” Her voice trailed off.

“Including Erik?” he prodded.

She nodded. “Erik was there. He seemed nice, attentive.” Every word took effort to say. “Almost sweet.” A rueful sound accompanied the description. “Somewhere in the middle of the evening, he suggested that we go somewhere more private, get a ‘real’ drink.” She stopped.

“And you went with him?” He’d always pictured her being innocent, but never naive.

Lilli raised her chin defiantly. “No, I didn’t. I told him I had to get back home because I had a paper I needed to finish for Monday. He told me he could get a paper on any topic under the sun, and that shouldn’t interrupt the good time we were having.”

She shrugged helplessly, wishing she could change the rest of the narrative. Wishing that it had never happened. But that would mean she’d have to wish away Jonathan and she could never do that.

“I told him I wouldn’t feel right about that. That I needed to earn my grade. He laughed and said I was a rare person. I left the party and went home. None of the other girls I lived with were there.” She paused for a moment, taking a shaky breath. “He followed me. When the doorbell rang, I thought one of my roommates had forgotten her key. But it was Erik. He pushed his way in….” Her voice broke.

The horror of the situation suddenly hit Kullen with the force of an anvil dropping on his head. He called himself seven kinds of a jackass. Here he’d been feeling sorry for himself for loving her, and all along she’d been a victim.

“He raped you?” Kullen asked, struggling to contain his outrage.

She drew her lips together in a thin line, then nodded.

He stared at her, stunned. “Why didn’t you report him to the police?”

“Because I was ashamed.” It was so hard not to cry. Talking had sharpened all the edges of the incident. She could feel them all pricking her flesh again. “It would have been just my word against his. People saw him at the party talking to me. Walking me out to my car. They’d think that the sex was consensual and that I cried rape after the fact because he wouldn’t allow himself to be blackmailed.”

It seemed too fantastic for words, but Kullen was acutely aware of the dead man’s reputation. “Is that what he said?”

She nodded, avoiding his eyes. “He told me it was my fault. That I’d asked for it and that I couldn’t expect a guy to shut down after I ‘got his engine going.’” She drew in another shaky breath. “All I wanted to do was forget that it ever happened.” She smiled at Kullen and it all but broke his heart. “You almost made me forget. And then I found out I was pregnant—”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” He would have taken care of her—after he’d beaten that scum to a pulp.

“Because I didn’t want you to look at me with disgust, or pity—”

“So letting me think that something was wrong, that you’d rather run away and disappear than marry me, was better?” he demanded. She made no answer. “Didn’t you know me any better than that?”

She wasn’t going to cry. Please, God, don’t let me cry. “At that point, I didn’t know anything except that what I had once hoped for was now completely out of reach. I had a child on the way. A child I didn’t want.”

“There were options,” he told her quietly. Not options that he would have chosen for her, but they were hers to reject, not his.

She shook her head. “Not for me.”

“Then adoption,” he suggested.

Lilli shook her head. “My mistake, my burden,” she said firmly.

Her reasoning frustrated him. His anger against the dead man bubbled up within him and he had nowhere to vent it. His temper flared and it was a struggle to keep it under wraps. “He raped you, you didn’t rape him. How the hell was any of this your mistake?” he asked.

She’d told him what he needed to know. She didn’t want to talk about it anymore.

She waved away his question. “That’s all in the past. And in one of those ironic twists of fate, Jonathan is the best thing that ever happened to me.” Pausing, she looked at him, then softly amended, “Well, one of the best.”

She could sense that he wanted to ask more questions. Lilli looked down at her hands. She’d just stripped herself naked and felt utterly vulnerable.

“Satisfied?” she asked in a whisper.

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