Claiming His Love-Child

Especially if she crept out of your bed before dawn and left you feeling as if you were the only one who’d just spent a night you’d never forget.

Damn it, this was crazy. Why waste time thinking about a woman he’d seen once and would probably never see again? He was starting to behave like one of the attorneys at his firm. Jack was a dedicated fisherman, always talking about the big one that had gotten away. That’s what this was starting to sound like. The sad story of Cullen O’Connell and The Woman Who Got Away.

Cullen opened the fridge again. It was empty except for another couple of bottles of water, a half-full container of orange juice and a lump of something that he figured had once been cheese. He made a face, picked up the lump with two fingers and dumped it into the trash.

So much for having breakfast in.

Maybe that was just as well. He’d pull on a T-shirt, put on sneakers, go down to the deli on the corner and get himself something to eat. Solve two problems at once, so to speak; silence his growling belly and do something useful, something that would end all this pointless rehashing of the weekend he’d spent with the Perez woman.

Yeah. He’d do that. Later.

Cullen opened the terrace door and stepped into the morning heat. The little garden below was quiet. Even the birds seemed to have gone elsewhere.

First he’d try thinking about that weekend in detail, concentrating not just on what had happened in bed but on all of it. A dose of cool logic would surely put an end to this nonsense. Sighing, he sank down in a canvas sling back chair, closed his eyes and turned his face to the sun.

His old Tort Law prof, Ian Hutchins, had invited him to fly out and speak to the Law Students’ Association. Cullen hadn’t much wanted to do it; he had a full caseload and what little free time he could scrounge, he’d been spending on Nantucket, working on his boat. But he liked Hutchins a lot, respected him, so he’d accepted.

A week before Speaker’s Weekend, Hutchins had phoned to make last-minute updates to their arrangements.

“I’ve asked my best student to be your liaison while you’re here,” he’d said. “Shuttle you around, answer questions—well, you remember how that works, Cullen. You were liaison for us several times while you were a student here.”

Cullen remembered it clearly. People called it a plum assignment and, in some ways, it was. The liaison networked with the speaker and drove him or her around in a car owned by the university, which invariably meant it was in a lot better shape than the student’s.

Still, it was almost always a pain-in-the-ass job. Pick up the speaker at the airport, drive him or her here, then there, laugh at inane jokes about what it had been like when the speaker was a student on campus. When Ian added that Cullen’s liaison would be a woman, he almost groaned.

“Her name,” Ian said, “is Marissa Perez. She’s a straight-A scholarship student with a brilliant mind. I’m sure you’ll enjoy her company.”

“I’m sure I will,” Cullen had said politely.

What else could he say? Not the truth, that he’d met enough brilliant female scholarship students to know what to expect. Perez would be tall and skinny with a mass of unkempt hair and thick glasses. She’d wear a shapeless black suit and clunky black shoes. And she’d either be so determined to impress him that she’d never shut up or she’d be so awestruck at being in his presence that she’d be tongue-tied.

Wrong on all counts.

The woman standing at the arrivals gate that Friday evening, holding a discreet sign with his name printed on it, was nothing like the woman he’d anticipated. Tall, yes. Lots of hair, yes. And yes, she was wearing a black suit and black shoes.

That was where the resemblance ended.

The mass of hair was a gleaming mass of ebony waves. She’d pinned it up, or tried to, but strands kept escaping, framing a face that was classically beautiful. Gray eyes, chiseled cheekbones, a lush mouth.

Perfect. And when his gaze dropped lower, the package only got better.

Yes, she was tall. But not skinny. Definitely not skinny. The businesslike cut of the black suit couldn’t disguise the soft curves of her body. Her breasts were high, her waist slender, her hips sweetly rounded, and not even the ugliest pair of sensible black shoes he’d ever seen could dim the elegance of legs so long he found himself fantasizing about how she’d look wearing nothing but a thong and thigh-high black stockings.

Cullen felt a hot tightening in his belly and a faint sense of regret. The lady was a babe but she might as well have been a bow-wow. There were unwritten rules you followed on these weekends. He did, anyway.

He never hit on the students he met, any more than he mixed business with pleasure in his professional life back home.

Still, as he walked toward her, he liked knowing he’d spend the next couple of days being shuttled around by a woman so easy on the eyes.

“Miss Perez?” he said, his hand extended.

“Ms. Perez,” she replied politely.

She held out her hand in return. He took it and the brush of skin against skin rocked him to his toes. ZTS, he told himself. The old O’Connell brothers’ explanation for what happened when a man met a stunning woman. Zipper Think Syndrome. He looked at the lovely face turned up to his, saw her eyes flash and had the satisfaction of knowing she’d felt the female equivalent of the same thing.

Maybe not. Maybe he’d just imagined it, because an instant later, her expression was as bland as when he’d first spotted her.

“Welcome to Berkeley, Mr. O’Connell.”

After that, it was all business. She drove him to his hotel, made polite but impersonal small talk through a standard hotel meal in a crowded dining room, shook his hand at the elevator in the lobby and said good-night.

The next morning, she picked him up at eight, chauffeured him from place to place all day and never once said anything more personal than “Would you like to have lunch now?” She was courteous and pleasant, but when he opened the restaurant door for her—something he saw irritated her—and their hands brushed, it happened again.

The rush of heat. The shock of it. And now he saw it register on her face long enough for him to know damned well it really had happened, though by the time they were seated, she was once again wearing that coolly polite mask.

He watched her order a salad and iced coffee, told the waitress he’d have the same thing, and contemplated what it would take to get that mask to slip.

Minutes later, he had the answer.

When he’d had the dubious honor of shuttling Big Names from place to place, he’d boned up on their most recent cases and on things in the news that he’d figured might interest them.

His Ms. Perez had done the same thing. He could tell from the always-positive, always-polite references she made during the course of the morning. She’d read up on his own work and reached conclusions about his stance on the work of others.

What would happen if he rocked her boat? Their salads arrived and he decided to find out.

“So,” he said, with studied nonchalance, “have you been following Sullivan versus Horowitz in Chicago?”

She looked up. “The women suing that manufacturing company for sexual discrimination? Yes. It’s fascinating.”

Cullen nodded. “What’s fascinating is it’s obvious the jury’s going to find for the plaintiffs. How the defense could allow seven women on a jury hearing a case that involves trumped-up charges of corporate discrimination I’ll never—”

Score one. Those gray eyes widened with surprise.

“Trumped up? I don’t understand, Mr. O’Connell.” Maybe it was score two, or had she simply forgotten to reciprocate on the first name thing?

“It’s Cullen. And what don’t you understand, Ms. Perez?”

“You said the charges were—”

“They’re crap,” he said pleasantly. “Shall I be more specific? It’s nonsense that a company shouldn’t have the right to hire and fire for reasonable cause. The manager of that department should never have loaded it with so many women. Not that I have anything against women, you understand.”

He smiled. She didn’t. Score three.

“Don’t you,” she said coldly, and put down her fork. Oh yeah. Definitely, the mask was starting to slip.

“The only reason you believe all that claptrap about affirmative action,” he said lazily, “is because you’re going to benefit from it. No offense intended, of course.”

That had brought a wash of color into her cheeks. It was a stunning contrast—the brush of apricot against her golden skin—and he’d sat there, enjoying the view as much as he was enjoying the knowledge that she was at war with herself.

Was she going to “yes” the honored guest to death, or tell him she thought he was an asshole?

“Hey,” he said, pushing a little harder, “you’re female, you’re Hispanic…Life’s going to be good to you, Ms. Perez.”

That did it. To his delight, what won was the truth.

“I am a lawyer, like you, or I will be once I pass the bar. And I am an American, also like you. If life is good to me, it’ll be because I’ve worked hard.” Ice clung to each syllable. “But that’s something you wouldn’t understand, Mr. O’Connell, since you never had to do a day of it in your entire, born-with-a-silver-spoon life.”

Whoa. The mask hadn’t just slipped, it had fallen off. There was real, honest-to-God, fire-breathing life inside his well-mannered, gorgeous gofer.

She sat back, breathing hard. He sat forward, smiling.

“Nice,” he said. “Very nice.”

“I’ll phone Professor Hutchins. He’ll arrange for someone else to drive you around for the rest of the time you’re here.”

“Did you hear me, Ms. Perez? That was a great performance.”

“It was the truth.”

“Sorry. Wrong choice of words. Mine was the performance. Yours was the real thing. Honest. Emotional. Wouldn’t do in a courtroom, letting it all hang out like that, but a really good lawyer should have at least a couple of convictions he or she won’t compromise on.”

She glared at him. “What are you talking about?”

“I told you. Integrity, Ms. Perez. And fire in the belly. You have both. For a while, I wasn’t sure you did.”

He picked up his glass of iced coffee and took a long sip. God, he loved the look on her face. Anger. Confusion. Any other place, any other time he’d have used that old cliché, told her she was even more lovely when she was angry, but this wasn’t a date, this was what passed for a business meeting in the woolly wilds of academic jurisprudence.

Besides, she’d probably slug him if he said something so trite.

“I don’t…What do you mean, you were performing?”

“Monroe versus Allen, Ms. Perez. One of my first big corporate cases—or didn’t your research on me go back that far?”

She opened her mouth, shut it again. He could almost see her mind whirring away, sorting facts out of a mental file.

“Mr. O’Connell.” She took a breath. “Was this some kind of test?”

Cullen grinned. “You could call it that, yeah, and before you pick up that glass and toss the contents at me, how about considering that you’ve just had a taste of what you may someday face in the real world? You want to blow up when stuff like that’s tossed at you, do it here. Out there, you’ll be more effective if you keep what burns inside you. Discretion is always the better part of valor. Opposing attorneys, good ones, search for the weak spot. If they can find it, they use it.” He smiled and raised his glass of iced coffee toward her. “Am I forgiven, Ms. Perez?”

She’d hesitated. Then she’d picked up her glass and touched it to his. “It’s Marissa,” she’d said, and for the first time, she’d flashed a real smile.

Cullen got to his feet, slid open the terrace door and went back into the coolness of the living room.

The rest of the afternoon had passed quickly. They’d talked about law, about law school, about everything under the sun except what happened each time they accidentally touched each other. She’d dropped him at his hotel at five, come back for him at six, driven him to the dinner at which he’d made a speech he figured had gone over well because there’d been smiles, laughter, applause and even rapt concentration.

All he’d been able to concentrate on was Marissa, seated, as a matter of courtesy, at a table near the dais. No black suit and clunky shoes tonight. She’d worn a long silk gown in a shade of pale rose that made her eyes look like platinum stars; her hair was loose and drawn softly back from her face.

The dress was demure. She wore no makeup that he could see. And yet she was the sexiest woman imaginable, perhaps because she wasn’t only beautiful and desirable but because he knew what a fine mind was at work behind that lovely face.

Even though he figured it might kill him, he did the right thing.

He never so much as touched her elbow or her hand during the after-dinner reception and when she drove him back to his hotel for the last time, he sat squarely on his side of the car and kept his eyes on the road instead of on the curve of her thigh visible under the clinging silk of her gown.

“Thank you for everything,” he said politely, once they reached the parking lot.

“You’re welcome,” she said, just as politely, and then, so quickly it still stunned him, everything changed.

To this day, he didn’t know what had happened, only that what began as a simple handshake changed into a fevered meeting of mouths and bodies.

“Don’t go,” he’d whispered, and Marissa had trembled in his arms as she opened her mouth to the searing heat of his.

They’d gone to his room through the back entrance of the hotel because they couldn’t stop touching each other and when he undressed her, when he took her to bed…

“Oh man,” Cullen muttered, and he stripped off his shorts and headed for the shower again.

THIS time, after he toweled off, he shaved, put on a pair of khakis and a black T-shirt and reached for the telephone.

He needed a change of scene. That was a no-brainer. It was a little late to make weekend escape plans—the roads would still be crowded—but he knew all the back ways to reach the airport at Nantucket. Yeah. Maybe the best choice was the closest choice.

His cottage, and his boat.

Cullen punched in the number of the couple who took care of the cottage. The woman answered; he asked how she was, how her husband was, how the weather was…and then he heard himself tell her he’d just phoned to touch bases and no, he wouldn’t be coming out for the weekend and he hoped they’d have terrific weather and enjoy the three days, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

He hit the disconnect button, ran his hand over his face. Okay. Obviously, he wasn’t in the mood for a weekend of sailing. Well, what was he in the mood for? Something other than rattling around here, that was for sure.

Who to call next? Keir, to ask what time the barbecue was on? His mother, to tell her he’d be home after all? Or should he head for one of those other parties, maybe that one in Malibu? That was a better idea. His family would take one look at him, ask questions he couldn’t answer.

Hell.

Cullen grabbed his address book. He’d call the redhead he’d dated a couple of times the past month. She was pretty and lots of fun, and if he hadn’t called her in a week or two, it was because he was busy.

He hadn’t taken her to bed, either.

How come?

Perhaps this was the weekend to remedy that oversight. The lady had made it very clear she was more than ready to join him in the horizontal rumba.

Cullen smiled, thumbed open the address book, flipped to the page that had her number on it…

“Crap!”

He slammed the book shut, took a quick walk around the room and tried to figure out what in hell was going on. No sailboat. No gorgeous redhead. What did he want to do with the weekend?

The answer came without any hesitation and he acted on it that same way, not fighting it anymore, just grabbing the address book and telephone again, punching in a series of digits before he could change his mind.

“Flyaway Charters,” a cheery voice said. “How may we help you?”

“You can tell me how fast you can get me to Berkeley,” Cullen said. “Yeah, that’s right. Berkeley, California.”

CHAPTER THREE

BY THE time the chartered Learjet landed in California, Cullen had come to the conclusion he was crazy.

He’d flown 3,000 miles in six hours, gone from East coast time to Pacific coast time—something that always left him feeling vaguely disoriented—and now, as he stepped onto the tarmac, he was engulfed by air so hot and humid it made the weather he’d left behind seem like an arctic paradise.

And for what?

What in hell was he doing?

He’d never chased after a woman in his life. Well, not since the seventh grade, when he’d made a fool of himself over Trudy Gershwin, but seventh grade was long gone. He wasn’t a kid. Neither was Marissa Perez. She was history and so was the night they’d spent in bed.

History? Cullen slung the strap of his carry-on bag over his shoulder as he walked toward the terminal. That night was barely a blip in the fabric of his life. Who gave a damn why she’d slept with him, then vanished and refused to take his calls?

Trouble was, he’d reached that conclusion somewhere over the pastures and fields of the Midwest, a few hours and fifteen hundred miles too late. He’d come within a breath of telling the pilot to turn the jet around.

He’d thought about phoning his brothers. One or the other would give him good advice.

Hey, bro, Sean or Keir would say, you know what your problem is? You’ve got a bad case of ZTS.

Yes, he’d thought, I do. He’d smiled, even reached for the phone…and then he’d realized that first he’d have to tell the whole story, the weekend in California, making a fool of himself with Marissa, the infuriating months since then.

Besides, this wasn’t ZTS. He wasn’t thinking with his gonads, he simply wanted answers. Closure. The word of the day.

So he’d sat back, finished the flight and now, as he stepped into the welcome chill of the terminal, Cullen told himself he was glad he had.

Closure. Right. That’s what he wanted, what he was entitled to, and, by God, he wasn’t going home without it.

He found the rental car counter easily enough, managed a “hello” he hoped was civil and slapped the confirmation number of his reservation on the counter.

“Good afternoon, Mr. O’Connell,” the clerk said, her smile as bright as if she were about to hand him a winning lottery ticket instead of the keys to…

A four-door sedan? Cullen blinked as he read the paper she slid in front of him.

“There’s some mistake here, miss. I reserved a convertible.”

The blinding smile dimmed just a little. “I know. But this is a holiday weekend.”

“And?”

“And, it’s all we have left.”

He knew she meant he was lucky to get anything with an engine and four wheels. She was right, too, and really, what did the type of car he drove matter? He wasn’t here for a good time; he was on a safari to Egoville because, yeah, the simple truth was this was all about ego. His. The Perez babe had dented it, and he was here to set things right.

Man, acknowledging that nasty truth really put the icing on the cake.

Cullen glared, muttered something about inefficiency as he signed the papers and scooped up the keys. He started to stalk away but after a couple of steps, he rolled his eyes and turned back toward the counter.

“Sorry,” he said in a clipped tone. “I’m in a bad mood, but I didn’t mean to take it out on you.”

The clerk’s smile softened. “It’s the weather, sir. Everybody’s edgy. What we need is a good soaking rain.”

Cullen nodded. What he needed was a good soaking for his head. If he’d done that in the first place, he’d still be back home. Since it was too late for that, he settled for buying an extra-large container of coffee, black, at a stand near the exit door. Maybe part of the problem was that he was still operating on East coast time. Pumping some caffeine through his system might help.

It didn’t.

The coffee tasted as if somebody had washed their socks in it. He dumped it in a trash bin after one sip. And the sedan was a color that could only be called bilious-green. Five minutes on the freeway toward Berkeley and Cullen knew it also had all the vitality of a sick sloth.

Not a good beginning for a trip he probably shouldn’t have made.

Cullen fell in behind an ancient truck whose sole reason for existence was to make green sedans feel like Ferraris.

Beggars couldn’t be choosers.

His hands tightened on the steering wheel.

And that was the one thing he wouldn’t do with Perez. Beg. No way. He’d confront her, get in her face if that’s what it took, and he wouldn’t let her off the hook until she explained herself, but he wouldn’t let her think he was pleading for answers…

Even if he was.

Damn it, he was entitled to answers! A woman didn’t give a man the brush-off after a night like the one they’d spent. All that heat. Her little cries. The way she’d responded to him, the way she’d touched him, as if every caress was a first-time exploration. And the look on her face, the way her eyes had blurred when he took her up over the edge…

Had it all been a game? Lies, deceit, whatever a woman might call pretending she was feeling something in a man’s arms when she really wasn’t?

Cullen hit the horn, cursed, swung into the passing lane and chugged along beside the wheezing truck until he finally overtook it.

Whether she liked it or not, Marissa Perez was going to talk to him.

He had her address—she’d never given it to him but he’d found it easily by using her phone number to do a reverse search on the Internet. Another exit…yes, there it was.

Cullen took the ramp and wound through half a dozen streets in a neighborhood he remembered from his own graduate days. It was still the same: a little shabby around the edges but, all in all, safe and pleasant. He’d wondered what kind of area she lived in, whether it was okay or dangerous or what.

He hadn’t liked imagining her in a rundown house on a dark street. Not that it was any of his concern.

“What the hell’s with you, O’Connell?” he muttered, digging her address from his pocket. “You thinking of turning into the Good Fairy?”

Her building was on the corner. Cullen parked, trotted up the steps to a wide stoop and checked the names below the buzzers in the cramped entry. No Perez. He checked again, frowned, then pressed the button marked Building Manager.

“Yes?”

A tinny voice came over the speaker. Cullen leaned in.

“I’m looking for Marissa Perez’s apartment.”

“She don’t live here.”

He glanced at the slip of paper in his hand. “Isn’t this 345 Spring Street?”

“She used to live here, but she moved.”

“Moved where? Do you have her new address?”

“I got no idea.”

“But she must have left a forwarding—”

Click. Cullen was talking to the air. “Damn,” he muttered, heading back to his car while he took his cell phone from his pocket. He hadn’t intended to call. Why give her advance notice of his visit? Now, he had no choice.

And no success, either.

“The number you have reached, 555-1157, is no longer in service.”

He tried again, got the same message. What was going on here? Cullen called the operator and asked for a phone number for Marissa Perez.

There was none. Not a public listing, anyway.

Annoyed, he tossed the cell phone aside. There wasn’t a way in the world he could shake loose a privately listed number from the phone company. Back home, maybe, he could pull some strings, but not here.

Someone had to have her number or her address. The bursar’s office, the dean’s office…

Or her advisor. Ian Hutchins.