Читать книгу His Baby Agenda - Katherine Garbera - Страница 10

Four

Talking about the night Stacia died always made Kingsley feel anger and resentment. He’d had it all until then. He’d felt untouchable—in part thanks to his family’s money. School had come easily to him and he’d been on the dean’s list every semester. He hadn’t won the Heisman Trophy, but he had been mentioned as a first-round draft pick. His life had been, well, charmed, and he’d taken it for granted.

He’d slept with Gabi, knowing that she came from a good family. He had imagined she’d be the perfect accoutrement for the idyllic life he pictured for himself. One where he outshone his older brother, where after he’d won the Super Bowl he’d retire and have the perfect family. He figured he’d play hard and when Gabi graduated he’d think about settling down with her.

But after the arrest those plans had disappeared. He’d been shocked that he hadn’t been able to talk the cops out of arresting both him and Hunter. It had been inconceivable that anyone would think Hunter would have killed Stacia. Despite his name, Hunter didn’t really have a killer instinct. Which is how they’d ended up being labeled the Frat House Killers.

Sitting in the sun with Gabi just reinforced his need for revenge. To find out who had killed Stacia and make them pay for the plans they’d interrupted, for the life they’d taken. And the years they’d lived with the stigma of being murderers.

Gabi pushed her sunglasses up to the top of her head and leaned forward.

“You look scary. Is that your don’t-sack-me face?”

He forced a smile because he could tell that was what she wanted, but this lunch simply reinforced all he’d lost. If he hadn’t been accused of murder, maybe he would have married better. Maybe Conner’s mother would still be alive if he hadn’t been so...uninterested in anything except making enough money so he could go after his revenge.

“Yeah. You’d be amazed at what it takes to stop a three-hundred-pound linebacker.”

“I shudder to think of facing someone like that. I’m sorry I brought up Stacia. I can tell that it still bothers you,” she said.

“Her killer was never brought to justice. Someone thought that Hunter and I would take the fall for them. They were wrong,” he said.

“Maybe the cops will find that person,” Gabi said.

Doubtful. Especially since most of them believed he and Hunter had gotten off because of their family money. But he didn’t want to get into that with Gabi. He needed to know if she remembered anything else about that night. Hunter thought someone might have drugged them before Stacia was killed. Gabi was still on campus after the party, so she might have heard something along those lines. But for right now he wanted to enjoy this lunch.

He’d had some hot dreams about Gabi last night. Maybe it was the fact that they’d only had that one night together or maybe it was because she was under his roof again, but he wanted her. He wanted to see if the kiss, the sex he remembered with her had been real. Or just another illusion that would be shattered by reality.

“You’re staring again.”

“I’m wondering what it would be like to kiss you,” he said.

She flushed under her tan and licked her lips. Her mouth had fascinated him from the first moment he’d met her. Her lips were full and lush. She’d never worn lipstick in college and now she wore something that made her lips shimmer but didn’t add color to them.

“Well, stop wondering. I’m in your house to be a nanny, not to assuage your curiosity.”

He threw his head back and laughed. “Assuage?”

“Yes, got a problem with it?”

“Not at all. It’s just that I figured since you worked with kids—”

“I’d talk like a toddler?” she asked.

He shook his head. She rattled him and made his legendary charm disappear. It was unnerving and at the same time exciting. She was still different from every other woman he’d ever known.

“My curiosity still needs to be assuaged.”

She shook her head and lifted the cloche off the plate in front of her. “I have to get to my meeting, so let’s eat.”

“Don’t like talking about kissing me?” he asked.

He took his lid off as well and saw that Mrs. Tillman had prepared fish tacos. His favorite. Gabi took a bite and chewed carefully.

Hell, he needed to kiss her and take her to his bed. Get over this odd infatuation he had with her. What else could he call watching her chew and thinking it was cute?

He took a bite of his taco, glad as hell that Hunter had gone to Malibu for a few weeks. He didn’t want his friend to see him mooning over Gabi.

Was that what he was doing?

“So, while you are gone, is it okay to ask your housekeeper to watch Conner if I need to have a conference call?” she asked. “I will do my writing and paperwork either while Conner is having his nap or at night while he’s sleeping. But I’m in the middle of placing two nannies with some rather high-profile clients and I don’t want to lose their business.”

“Yes, that will be fine. She’s not interested in being a full-time nanny but will help out as needed.”

“Great. Now, when will you be back?”

“In a week. Do you feel like you can handle Conner?”

“Certainly. He seems pretty well adjusted. You’ve done a good job with raising him,” she said.

“I had some excellent advice,” he said. “I bought your book.”

She shook her head. “Lots of people have bought my book and still have kids that are out of control. You seem to actually listen to him, which is key.”

“Well, I like my son,” Kingsley said.

“That’s a good thing.”

“I like you, too,” he said.

“Don’t. We have a business relationship.”

“I know that. But what’s to preclude us from having more?”

“Common sense,” she said.

* * *

Maybe it was being back in Cali or just being around Gabi, but he felt young again. Free in a way he hadn’t been since their one night together. She made him want to be the man who had dreams. Not the man who was focused on vengeance.

But the dreamer was gone. And he was a taker now.

He wanted Gabi.

She kept him at arm’s length, which was one thing he wasn’t going to allow. She was part of the reason he was here. Not just revenge.

Okay, that wasn’t entirely true. But now that she was under his roof, his focus was changing. He still craved revenge on whoever had set Hunter and him up, but he also desperately wanted Gabi.

It was her fault.

She sat across from him in the midday California sun, watching him as though she wanted more, too.

Maybe she’d been waiting, too. Waiting for him to come back into her life.

Yeah, right.

Hell.

What if she was involved with someone? Why wouldn’t she be?

“Do you have a boyfriend?” he asked. “Is that why you are busy espousing common sense?”

She shook her head. “So the only reason a woman wouldn’t want to throw away her professionalism with you is because she’s involved with someone else?”

“This feels like a trap,” he said. “I just wanted to know if there was a man in your life.”

“There are a lot of them,” she said.

That didn’t fit with the woman he thought he knew. But then he had to admit that reading her column and her book didn’t give him any special insight into her personal life.

“Fair enough.”

She laughed in a very kind way. It was something he hadn’t heard in a long time. Women didn’t usually laugh around him.

“What?”

“You are so transparent.”

“Am I?”

“Yes.”

“What do you see?” he asked her. He had the feeling she was toying with him and that feeling of being free took him again. It had been a long time since anyone had teased him.

“I see a man who wants to kiss me.”

“I told you that,” he said.

“But you aren’t the kind of man who’d poach so you want to know if I’m taken.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing. It makes me like you a little bit more.”

That sounded like a good thing, but with Gabi he wasn’t sure. “Thanks.”

“Don’t sound scared. It is a good thing. You came into my office trying to get your own way instead of asking the way most people would. So why are you being so polite about this?” she asked.

Damn.

Of course she’d see what few others did. He rubbed the back of his neck and the feeling of freedom slipped away. The chains of the past were once again wrapped around his neck and ankles. Tying him to that one night, that one event. He didn’t want to tell her that it was the fact that Stacia had been raped that night that had also stayed with him. The DNA evidence had been inconclusive and he had no memory of sleeping with anyone other than Gabi, but he wanted to give no woman the chance to say he’d taken her against her will.

“Let’s just say consent is a biggie in my book,” he said.

“It is in mine, too. But one kiss, Kingsley—I wouldn’t begrudge that.”

“If I took it you might later,” he said.

She put her hand on his. “Do you know why I’m afraid to let go of common sense?”

He had a few thoughts on the matter—she might not want to kiss him, which, given the sexual attraction he felt around her, he hoped wasn’t the case. She might have a boyfriend, but he was beginning to think that wasn’t the case, either. But the real reason? Only Gabi knew that. She protected her secrets behind her pretty brown eyes like an armed security guard.

“Not really.”

“You make me forget all of the caution I carefully built into myself over the last ten years. You make me want to be the freshman girl who took a senior football player back to her dorm room. And that’s not smart. And this is the tricky part—I usually think of myself as a smart woman, so kissing you...well, that would be dumb.”

He realized she was talking and rationalizing to keep herself safe. Hell, he didn’t blame her, but every male instinct he had was saying she was his. He’d claimed her that night all those years ago and he wanted her back again.

But he had a son.

He had a mission in California.

He owed Hunter and himself a chance to clear their names.

Something he knew he couldn’t do if he took Gabi to his bed again. She cluttered his mind. She made him want things he had lived a long time without.

But one kiss?

Surely, one kiss wouldn’t do that much damage.

One kiss.

“One kiss,” he said.

“What?”

“One kiss. That’s all I’m asking for. What could it hurt? We are both wondering if our memories are right and if that fire between us was really as scorching hot as we remember.”

“Are we?” she asked, but she took her sunglasses off her head, set them on the table next to her plate and put her hands on the armrests of her chair as if she were about to stand.

“Yes. You know it and I do, too. Common sense isn’t going to withstand curiosity,” he said.

“You’re right,” she admitted, standing up and walking over to him.

He scooted his chair back and before he could stand, she sat on his lap, wrapping her arms around him and tangling her hands in the hair at the back of his neck. Last time she’d been in his arms she’d been a girl, scared and unsure. This time she was a woman and knew what she wanted.

“One kiss, Kingsley. Better make it count.”

He intended to.

* * *

Gabi knew she’d dared him to kiss her. Okay, so maybe she thought that way she’d be able to say he’d forced her into it later, though she knew that wasn’t true.

There weren’t many things she truly wanted for herself but Kingsley was one of them. There was no denying that despite the coldhearted way he’d dumped her at the police station she still wanted him. Still wanted this embrace.

She wanted to tell herself that he’d been so cruel that night because he’d been trying to protect her, but deep inside she had to admit that even if he hadn’t, he was still hot. Still the one man she looked at and felt the kind of sexual longing that made her forget common sense and reason. He made her want to act like...well, like this.

Sitting on his lap in the midafternoon California sun for the entire world to see. Except there wasn’t anyone else around. It was just the two of them.

She’d never really had Kingsley to herself during their brief courtship. He’d been big man on campus and everywhere they’d gone people knew him, had high-fived him and wanted to talk to him.

This was different.

He was different.

Hell, so was she. She’d been different for a long time now. But suddenly his mouth moved over hers and she forgot all of that.