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Unwrapping the Playboy
Marie Ferrarella
The Playboy’s Gift
Teresa Carpenter

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Unwrapping the Playboy

Dear Reader,

If you’ve been around me for any length of time, you might have noticed a pattern forming. I begin a series by setting limits for myself. Three books, four books, five books. All the series I plot have a finite number. Once I’m in the world I created, I can’t say goodbye. MATCHMAKING MAMAS was supposed to be about three lifelong best friends meddling in their daughters’ lives in order to find the perfect match for them. Three friends, three daughters, ta-dum, end of story. Well, not quite.

One of the friends has a son in addition to a daughter … and then, there are those handy relatives, who also need to find true love.

So, you see, I can’t seem to help myself. I’m a compulsive storyteller and there’s nothing I love more than a sequel. I know I should try to find a local branch of storytellers anonymous to join, and I would—if I wasn’t having so much fun. As always, I thank you for reading and with all my heart I wish you someone to love who loves you back.

Love,

Marie Ferrarella

About the Author

USA TODAY bestselling and RITA® Award-winning author MARIE FERRARELLA has written more than two hundred books, some under the name of Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide. Visit her website at www. marieferrarella.com.

To Charlie,

who had my heart

from the moment he walked into

my second-period English class

when I was fourteen.

Chapter One

“Kullen, you need a woman in your life.”

Kullen Manetti smiled at his widowed mother across the small table at Vesuvius.

Not bad. This had to be a new record. Theresa Manetti had managed to go through the main course before she’d brought up the subject. His lack of a better half was, after all, one of his mother’s top-ten topics whenever they spent more than a few moments in each other’s company.

Since his sister, Kate, had succumbed some six months ago to the charms of one bank manager by the name of Jackson Wainwright, leaving him the last man standing and holding down the “single” fort in their small group of second-generation friends, his unwedded state had become his mother’s number one favorite topic.

But his mother, bless her, had just missed one very obvious point with her comment.

“Mom, I have lots of women in my life,” Kullen reminded her.

Theresa’s blue eyes narrowed just a bit as she stuck to her guns. In the last year, she and her best friends, Maizie and Cecilia, had arranged successful pairings for their three stubbornly single, career-obsessed daughters. Theresa had become far more confident about her abilities and her judgment than she’d been prior to this venture.

Granted, she did run her own business and had for a number of years. But on the home front, she was the quietest and shyest of the threesome, women she’d been friends with ever since they’d met—and bonded—in the third grade.

Maizie, a self-starting real estate broker, had spearheaded what she had initially referred to as Operation: Matchmaking Mamas. Cecilia had been the one who’d backed her wholeheartedly despite veiling her enthusiasm with a bit of sarcasm. But then Cecilia had always been a tad sarcastic.

As for Theresa, her way was to cross her fingers and fervently pray. On occasion, she would say something—completely unobtrusively—about wishing she could see her son and daughter settle down. Both Kate and Kullen were lawyers at what had once been their father’s topflight family law firm. For all intents and purposes, Kate had been married monastically to her work for quite some time, while Kullen, equally as sharp, had somehow managed to be successful while still systematically enjoying the company of every attractive, unattached woman in a fifty-mile radius. He had no qualms about branching to outlying areas once his immediate supply was exhausted. No relationship—if it actually could be called that—went beyond a few weeks. Six weeks was the limit and those, in Kullen’s opinion, were considered to be long term, as well as exceedingly rare.

It hurt Theresa’s heart that her handsome, successful, dynamic son had no desire to find that one special woman who promised to turn his world on its ear and make him want to be—please, God—monogamous.

“A decent woman in your life,” Theresa now qualified firmly.

Beaming, Kullen leaned in closer. “Ah, well, for that I have you,” he told her, brushing a quick kiss on his mother’s temple. “And Kate. And, of course, those delightfully charming, probing friends of yours, Maizie and Cecilia.”

His mother, he knew, got together with the latter two at least once a week to play poker—allegedly. What they did, in actuality, was strategize. Now that Kate, Nikki and Jewel were spoken for, he imagined that the women were pressed for a new project. Well, much as he loved his mother and her friends—women he had thought were his aunts for the first ten years of his life—their next project sure as hell wasn’t going to be him.

Theresa drew up her small frame and sat schoolgirl straight in her chair as she scrutinized her firstborn. Kullen was tall, dark and handsome, just as his father had been. Except that Kullen’s features were finer, chiseled. Almost aristocratic in appearance. That he got from her. His wandering eye, well, that was anyone’s guess.

“Kullen—”

He knew that tone. Knew, too, that it was in his best interest to cut her off as quickly as possible before she built up a full head of steam. He didn’t want to end this pleasant lunch on a sour note. These days, the pace of his life had picked up, especially since one of the senior partners, Ronald Simmons, had retired last month. Consequently, he didn’t get the opportunity to visit with his mother as often as he liked.

All things considered, he really did enjoy his mother’s company. Theresa Manetti was kind, sympathetic and giving and he loved her for it. In true selfless-mother fashion, she put her family before herself.

His father, Kullen thought and not for the first time, had been an exceedingly lucky man. Unfortunately, Anthony Manetti had been far too consumed with his work to notice just how lucky he was. From its very inception, the family law firm, then known as Manetti, Rothchild and Simmons, had been his father’s life, and it wasn’t until he and then Kate had joined the firm that Anthony Manetti had taken real notice of either one of them.

Kate, Kullen knew, had had it particularly hard because, on top of being a perfectionist, their late father had been a chauvinist. Until his dying day, Anthony Manetti believed that anyone of the female gender—outside of a few outstanding women in world politics—was not as mentally equipped as a man in any field. Especially the law. He demanded twice as much from Kate just to put her on equal footing with the other junior lawyers in the firm.

Too bad, Dad. You had the devotion of two good women and you never even knew it, Kullen thought, even as he verbally headed his mother off at the pass.

“Really, Mom, I would think that you and your ladies would be far more interested in tackling your own lives, or if you must, gang up on poor, lonely Cousin Kennon.”

Like his sister and her two friends, his cousin Kennon was one of those exceedingly busy career women—she had her own decorating business—who maintained that they were far too preoccupied to invest themselves in a relationship. In his opinion, Kennon was perfect for his mother’s next project.

He was not.

On the contrary, he, Kullen Manetti, was having a lot of fun and absolutely none of his so-called dalliances—his mother’s word—were serious. Which was just the way he liked it.

This way, nothing got bruised. Not his ego, not his heart.

Both had been painfully battered once before, and it was more than enough for him. But it had happened so long ago and now felt like something he’d read about in a book or seen in a movie. Not real heartbreak.

Except that it was real.

But he’d been another person then. Naive and dumb. He liked himself better now: sharp, successful, with more than enough phone numbers of eligible young women.

Theresa tilted her head ever so slightly—a habit that Kate had picked up—and repeated with a smattering of confusion, “Our own lives?”

“Yes, last time I checked, neither you, Maizie or Cecilia were making any plans to walk down that flower-laden aisle—or even check into a hotel,” he added with a mischievous, wicked wink, then asked, “Or have you been holding out on me?”

When he looked like that—especially with that grin—Kullen reminded her of Anthony the very first time she’d ever seen him, Theresa thought as a wave of affection washed over her. Back then, Anthony hadn’t been so driven. Before life took over, Anthony Manetti had been romantic and fun, in addition to heart-stoppingly good-looking.

She missed both men terribly—the boyishly charming man Anthony had initially been and the dynamic, brilliant man he became. She just wished he hadn’t left her out of the second phase. In retrospect, their time together had been much too short. Anthony had been—and always would be—the one true love of her life.

“No, I’m not ‘holding out’ on you, Kullen. Being married to your father was enough for me,” Theresa told her son. “I consider myself one of the lucky ones. I had my happiness.” She knew that Maizie and Cecilia felt the same way about their late husbands. “It’s the kind of happiness I want for your sister—and for you.”

There was humor in his magnetic blue eyes as Kullen replied, “Oh, I’m happy, Mom.”

Her son dated women whose IQ’s rivaled those of three-day-old blueberry muffins and they both knew it. Gorgeous or not, the whole lot of them were what her generation had referred to as bimbos.

“Genuinely happy,” Theresa emphasized. She tried to word it tactfully. “It’s the difference between gorging yourself on a box of chocolates and having something substantial to eat that’s nutritious and good for you. One does nothing but give you excess, artery-clogging fat, the other makes you healthy and strong, able to live your life to the fullest.”

Kullen laughed, shaking his head. “Trust you to fall back on food analogies.”

While Maizie had her own real estate company and Cecilia ran a high-end cleaning service, his mother had created an enterprise from her own outstanding talent. A masterful chef, his mother owned her catering business. The woman could make a feast out of a discarded old shoe and have people begging for more.

However, he had no intentions of his mother making anything out of him, least of all a candidate for a blind date.

“No offense, Mom, but I’m not a meat-and-potatoes kind of guy. I’ve got a sweet tooth and chocolates suit my needs just fine.” He looked at her with affection, knowing that she said what she did out of love and he couldn’t really fault her for it. But he did have to be honest with her. “And I don’t intend to change anytime soon.”

Theresa was not discouraged. “Kate felt the same way.”

“Kate wasn’t happy,” he reminded her. “I am.” Long since finished with both his dessert and coffee, he moved both aside and leaned in closer to his mother. “Right now, you’re batting a thousand, Mom. If you put me into the mix, you’re going to see your average drop to five hundred.”

Theresa sighed softly. “It’s not even baseball season.”

Kullen’s amusement increased. He knew the effort his mother had made just to be knowledgeable about something that was near and dear to his heart, and he loved her for it. Had things turned out differently eight years ago, he might have married someone a lot like her. But then, he’d made a fatal error in judgment.

All ancient history, he reminded himself. He had since discovered that they’d broken the mold when it came to women like his mother. Another reason for him to remain a confirmed bachelor. Why enter a relationship where arguing and discontent lay in wait for him? He was far better off the way he was—free, and happy to be that way.

“It wouldn’t drop to five hundred,” his mother said with feeling. When he looked at her with a slightly bemused expression, she went on to say, “You’re forgetting Nikki and Jewel.” They were Maizie and Cecilia’s daughters, both successfully paired with men who were nothing short of fantastic.

“No, I didn’t forget Nikki and Jewel, and even if I did, you’d be here to remind me.” He had no intention of going around and around about this. “Go out a winner, Mom,” he advised. “It’s always the best way. That’s why the Seinfeld cast called it quits after nine seasons. They knew that it was nice to go out on top.”

That could not win her over. Theresa pressed her lips together, wishing that Kullen would listen to reason. Worrying that something would go wrong in the very near future.

“This isn’t a TV comedy series,” she told him. “It’s your life.”

“Yes,” he agreed pointedly, “it is.” It was his life and he wasn’t about to allow it to get railroaded just to satisfy his mother’s dreams and the machinations of her two friends. “And I’m not twelve years old anymore,” he reminded her. At thirty he had long since become his own man.

“If you were,” Theresa folded her hands before her on the table, “we wouldn’t be having this conversation. I know enough about the law to know that it’s illegal to get married at twelve—in any state.”

“We’re not having this conversation,” Kullen said with a touch of humor as he rose to his feet. The check had been paid between dessert and coffee. “And I’ve got to be getting back to the office.” Kullen bent over and kissed her lightly. The faint scent of jasmine, his mother’s favorite fragrance, greeted him. “Got a full schedule laid out for this afternoon.”

Theresa suppressed a smile. She knew all about his full schedule for this afternoon. Knew something about it that he didn’t. Composing herself, she allowed a smile to enter her voice as she murmured, “My son, the successful lawyer.”

He paused for a moment. If he didn’t know better, he would have said she was scheming. “You know, Mom, for some mothers that would be more than enough.”

She couldn’t resist answering him on this point. Someday, she mused, he would put all the pieces together. But right now, they would have to remain “pieces” just a tiny bit longer. “I’m not ‘some’ mother, Kullen. I’m your mother.” He looked at her quizzically. She went a step further. “And as your mother—”

“You have been delightful company,” he told her, cutting in before the conversation made yet another U-turn to the subject of his dating. “‘Bye. I’ve really gotta go.”

And with that, he began to make his retreat. But her voice stopped him.

“Kullen—”

Something in his mother’s voice caught his attention. He turned around and waited. “Yes?”

Because she was an honest woman, Theresa felt compelled to be up-front with her son. In this case, that would entail telling him that last weekend she had catered a rather large charity luncheon for Anne McCall, Lilli McCall’s mother. The conversation got around to their children. When Anne had told her that her daughter was back in Bedford and, coincidentally, was in dire need of a good family lawyer, Theresa’s heart had begun to race.

More than anything, Theresa wanted to tell her son that she’d been quick to mention he had become a lawyer and that she’d given his number to a greatly relieved Anne. She very much wanted to tell him that this afternoon he would be seeing Lilli, a woman, she’d discovered quite by accident, that he’d dated briefly in law school.

But because Theresa knew that he would see this as a setup on her part and thus would most likely palm the whole case off on Kate, Theresa forced a smile and merely told him, “Have a nice afternoon, dear.”

Returning her smile, he said, “Thanks, I will.” And then, her six-foot-two, dark-haired, handsome son went off, utterly unsuspecting, to start his afternoon.

And just possibly, Theresa fervently hoped, to begin the rest of his life.

Lilli McCall wasn’t sure that this was such a good idea.

Before leaving the house, she’d picked up the phone three times to call Kullen’s office to cancel her appointment. But each time she began to press the numbers she stopped. If she broke this appointment, she would have to find another lawyer. And find one in a hurry.

Time was running out on her. She couldn’t just close her eyes and pretend that everything was all right—because it so wasn’t. It hadn’t been all right since she’d opened Elizabeth Dalton’s registered letter several weeks ago, completely out of the blue. The letter that had made her move back to Bedford in hopes of eluding the woman. She should have known better. The woman had tentacles that reached everywhere.

A second letter had found her here.

The letter, written on fine linen, dripped with condescension and sarcasm. Worse, it had contained a threat that even a seven-year-old couldn’t miss.

A threat that she wouldn’t allow to happen. She intended to fight Elizabeth Dalton with her dying breath, if it came to that.

But that meant going to court—or at least getting a damn good lawyer who would not just fight the good fight for her, but win.

Win by any means possible.

If she could fight a clean fight, she would, but she wasn’t so naive she believed for one moment that Elizabeth Dalton intended to fight fairly. The widow of a man who had been heir to a pharmaceutical empire, she detested people who opposed her and loved getting her way.

Loved winning.

Lilli had no doubt that the rich socialite would instruct her lawyer to use every dirty trick in the book to get what she wanted.

And what the woman wanted was her son.

Elizabeth’s grandson.

The problem was that she didn’t know any lawyers, good or bad. Why should she? Despite three quarters of a year of law school behind her, she’d never needed one before, never knew anyone who’d needed one before, which now left her at a terrible disadvantage.

But she knew Kullen. Knew that he was good and kind and caring, so that was a start. Because he had turned out to be a lawyer and was still right here in Bedford, maybe fate was finally being kind to her.

Still, arriving ten minutes early for her appointment, Lilli sat in her small, tidy blue car in Rothchild, McDowell and Simmons’s parking lot, debating one last time the wisdom of what she was about to do. Debating, again, canceling her appointment.

She’d even pushed his office number on her keypad, her finger hovering over the send button, before she flipped her phone closed, shoved it into her purse and then got out of the car. She all but marched into the six-story building. But when she stepped into the elevator, Lilli felt not unlike a doomed soul walking the last mile. Or riding up to it, as it were.

Jonathan, think of Jonathan, she told herself. Jonathan is all that matters. You have to keep him out of that woman’s clutches. Or she’ll turn him into a carbon copy of his father.

And that, Lilli knew, would be a fate worse than death.

The elevator door opened all too quickly and she got out.

As she walked the short distance to the impressive offices of Rothchild, McDowell and Simmons, Lilli fervently prayed she was doing the right thing.

Because she was putting her son’s future—and his fate—into the hands of a man she’d walked out on all those years ago.

Chapter Two

There were days, Kullen thought, when life seemed like a reenactment of the Indianapolis 500. But instead of cars, the minutes and hours madly whizzed by him. It was all he could do to keep things remotely straight.

If he were honest, he doubted he could keep his sanity if it wasn’t for the woman his father had hired as his chief secretary so many years ago.

Selma Walker was no longer a secretary. These days, she was an administrative assistant, a title that seemed to annoy her at times, or “vex” her, as she was wont to say. She liked “calling a rose a rose,” and she was a secretary. A damn good secretary. And proud of it.

Selma was only slightly less old than the proverbial hills. A small, thin bit of a woman with unnaturally black hair, she was, despite her steamroller attitude and undisclosed age, sharp as a tack. It was Selma who kept Kullen’s—as well as everyone else’s—schedule straight. She personally filled in appointments on his desk calendar as well as, reluctantly, his computer. She really distrusted anything electronic and this included the elevator. Every morning and evening, she took the stairs.

The woman had told him more than once that she liked the feel of pen and paper and that, come a power failure—or a sunspot—everything electronic would be rendered useless. At that point, all the old-fashioned methods, heavily relying on brain power, would be called into service because the traditional methods, she maintained, were the best.

If Selma had an actual failing, other than her less than sunny disposition, it was her handwriting. Surprisingly for one of her generation, it was far worse than chicken scratch. When this was pointed out, she took umbrage, tersely saying that she could read every word. This placed her in a very small group that numbered exactly one.

Which was why, although he’d glanced at his desk calendar, Kullen wound up caught completely off guard when he heard the knock on his door and instructed the person on the other side, his new client, to come in.

Up until that point, all he’d known about the new client was that she was female and single. He’d learned to recognize what in Selma’s handwriting passed for either “Mrs.” or “Mr.” The former had one scribbled letter more. The third title, Ms., Selma refused to acknowledge or insert. To her, unmarried women were Miss, not Ms. She insisted that Ms. was an abbreviation for manuscript and wouldn’t attach it to a human being. Thus, the name he’d fleetingly looked at had no title before it.

While the client’s actual name was a mystery to him, Kullen saw no reason for concern. The name of this single female would inevitably come out during the introductions. He’d long since given up verbally dueling with Selma over her handwriting, preferring to have his wits challenged by his new client rather than his stubborn administrative assistant.

Knowing his new client’s gender and general marital status left Kullen entirely unprepared for the actual sight of that same new client when she entered.

Eight years had passed but he would have known her anywhere.

Lilli.

For the longest time, Lilli’s delicate, almost waif-like image had been stitched on his heart and even now, although shut away, it still occupied a small, darkened corner of his soul.

Surprise, joy and anger swirled around within Kullen. Along with deep confusion. Why was she here?

It took him a second to remember that regular breathing was essential to keep from keeling over, head first, onto his desk, and that he’d stopped breathing the moment he’d seen her enter.

Rising to his feet, Kullen felt as if his body didn’t quite belong to him. Felt, instead, as if this was a small segment of a recurring dream that still, on occasion, haunted him. Breaking up into tiny fragments once he was fully awake.

But he was awake now.

Wasn’t he?

“Lilli?” he whispered uncertainly.

Part of him expected the client to eye him quizzically, not recognizing the name because there was no earthly reason for this to be the woman who had bolted out of his life the night after he’d produced an engagement ring and asked her to marry him. Not only bolted, but disappeared without a trace. No one knew where she’d gone or why she’d suddenly dropped out of law school—and, for all intents and purposes, out of life.

But this was Lilli standing before him. Kullen would have bet his soul on it.

The next moment, as a small, incredibly sad smile curved her lips, his silent wager was validated and he held on to his soul a little longer.

“Hello, Kullen.” The slender blonde he’d once envisioned spending the rest of his life with stood behind the black leather, ergonomically correct chair that faced his desk, making no move to claim it. “May I sit?” she asked him in a soft, melodic voice that seemed to drift to him on an invisible cloud.

He felt as if he’d just been struck dumb. It took another long moment for him to engage his brain properly, to clamp down on the cauldron of emotions still bubbling up.

“Yes. Sit. Please.” All things considered, he was surprised his tongue still worked.

Kullen gestured toward the soft leather chair. Belatedly, he slowly sank into his own. It amazed him how, despite her rather diminutive size, Lilli seemed to fill up the room with her presence.

He couldn’t take his eyes off her, a very small part of him still fully expecting her to disappear because his mind was playing a terrible trick on him.

But it wasn’t playing a trick. Taking a deep breath, he went on automatic pilot, saying things he’d said to other clients scores of times before. Doing his best to shake off this surreal feeling that held him captive.

“Can I offer you something to drink?” he asked, nodding toward the narrow black-lacquered side table, where various necessities of life stood at the ready. “Coffee? Tea? Bottled water?”

She shook her head with each choice. “No, thank you. I’m not thirsty.”

He nodded, rigidly taking his seat again. “All right then, maybe you’ll tell me what you are,” he suggested tersely.

Kullen caught himself before he went any further. With effort, he banked down the bitterness swelling in his chest and crowding his throat. He squared his shoulders ever so imperceptively and asked the only logical question.

“What are you doing here, Lilli?”

She cut to the heart of it, because she knew he had every right to turn her away.

If he did that, she didn’t know what she would do.

Start over again, the way you did the last time.

In the years since she’d abruptly left him, Lilli had discovered that she was stronger than she’d ever believed. It was amazing how someone small and helpless depending on her could transform her. She was a survivor now.

“I’m here to ask for your help,” she said.

The simple words seemed to pierce his chest.

Kullen wanted to know what gave her the right to surface now, after all this time. What gave her the utter gall to ask him for his help?

Eight years ago he would have done anything for her. All she had to do then was to ask. He would have been willing to literally give up his life for her. She had to have known that. But even so, she had all but spit in his face. And left.

The seconds stretched out into a minute as he sat, looking at her. Studying her. Finally, in a deceptively calm voice, he asked, “So all the other men in the world are dead?”

She stared at him, confused. The question made no sense. “Excuse me?”

“That was the way you made me feel when you took off, that you wouldn’t have anything to do with me even if I was the last man on earth. Since you’re here, I’m assuming that for some reason, all the other men in the world have been mysteriously terminated, although I have to say I don’t see how that’s possible, since I passed a few of them in the hall not fifteen minutes ago.” He lifted his shoulders in a casual, dismissive shrug. “I guess I must have missed the Armageddon that took place in the last ten minutes.” He leaned forward over his desk, his voice lowering to a rumble. “Or did it happen in less?”

Lilli recoiled emotionally despite sitting ramrod straight.

She knew she had that coming. That and probably more. Lost in her own predicament, she’d treated him shamefully.

Lilli took a breath. She should have known better than to come. Though Kullen had every right to be angry at her, even to hate her, hearing his cold, emotionless voice as he addressed her hurt far too much for her to withstand.

Hurt, because even with everything that had happened, everything that she’d done, she knew in her heart that Kullen Manetti was the only man who had ever mattered to her. The only man who would ever matter to her.

The only man she’d ever loved—even if she had put him through hell. And he was better looking than ever. Then he’d been almost pretty. Maturity had found him and now he was breathtakingly handsome. She felt the attraction immediately. Just as she had all those years ago.

“This was a mistake,” she told him stiffly. Pushing against the floor, she moved back her chair. “I shouldn’t have come.” As she rose to her feet, she told him, “I didn’t mean to bother you.”

Logically, Kullen knew he should just let her walk out. It had taken him a long time, but he had managed to successfully reinvent himself, to become a different man. He didn’t want to go back to that place where feelings had such overwhelming power over him. That place where he’d ached so badly he didn’t think he could survive the night without the woman he loved.

He needed to remember that, remember the price he’d paid for letting down his guard.

For loving her.

The pep talk wasn’t working. He could feel himself weakening. Slipping.

Despite his resolve, something in those light blue eyes of hers spoke to him, pulled at him, just the way it had that first time so many years ago.

“What was a mistake,” he told Lilli crisply, struggling with the insane urge to take her into his arms and just hold her, “was your disappearing on me eight years ago.”

On the verge of leaving his office, Lilli stopped just shy of the door. She didn’t turn around. Her voice was flat as she addressed her words to the beveled glass. “I had my reasons.”

“Which you didn’t think enough of me to share,” he pointed out. He never meant to say this out loud, but the question tumbled out anyway. “Did you really hate me that much?”

Stunned, Lilli swung around to face him. “Hate you?” she echoed incredulously. “I didn’t hate you. I didn’t want to hurt you.”

“And that’s why you ripped out my heart and threw it down the garbage disposal? So you wouldn’t hurt me?” he demanded. “C’mon, Lilli, you can do better than that.”

She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to seal away the tears that had suddenly welled up. “You don’t understand,” Lilli whispered.

It wasn’t easy to hold his ground, not when everything inside him, despite all that had gone down, just wanted to comfort her. To hold her and remember what life had once been like.

Only self-preservation managed to hold him in check. “Then explain it to me.”

But she just shook her head. There was too much ground to cover. And too much time had passed. Had life not scarred her before he had come on the scene, Kullen would have been perfect for her. For the Lilli she’d once been.

Before.

Lilli shook her head again. “It’s complicated. I can’t …” Her voice threatened to break. “I’ve got to go.” Her hand went to the doorknob.

Kullen cut the distance between them in strides he didn’t remember taking. One moment he was across the room, the next, he was beside her. Closing the door with the flat of his hand, he became a physical obstacle that prevented her escape.

“Why did you come?” he asked, just barely taking the edge out of his voice. “What is it you need help with?”

Maybe things would be all right after all. Maybe coming here wasn’t a mistake. Lilli pressed her lips together as she raised her eyes to his. “I need help to save my son.”

His breath left him.

Kullen felt as if he’d actually been sucker punched in the gut. For a second, he allowed the words to sink in.

“You have a son?”

He could remember that when they’d been together those few short, glorious months, in the beginning she’d all but shrank away from his touch. The first time that had happened, he’d been more puzzled than offended. Challenged, charmed by her, he worked hard to gain her trust. And he’d taken her at her word when she’d told him that she wanted to go slow. He’d thought she was one of those rare girls who was serious about “saving herself” for the right man. Saving herself for her husband.

He’d been so crazy about her, he would have gone along with anything she’d said as long as it meant that she’d remain in his life. That eventually, she would marry him and be his.

He supposed that made him incredibly naive and stupid, in light of the situation—as well as what she’d told him just now. She hadn’t been saving herself; she’d just been keeping herself from him.

“Yes,” Lilli replied quietly. “I have a son.” And I’ll do anything to save him. Anything.

Kullen glanced down at her left hand. There was no ring on it. No ring and no faint, pale lines to indicate that there once had been. Had everything she’d once told him been a lie?

“What about a husband?” he asked her evenly. “He around anywhere?”

She raised her chin and her eyes met his. “I don’t have one.”

“Divorced?” he guessed. His temper started to flare. “Widowed? How about just separated from a significant other? Got one of those around?”

“No. No. No.” Lilli answered each question in turn.

Then, apparently, there was only one conclusion to be reached. The words were on his lips before he could think to stop himself. “Did I miss the announcement of another Immaculate Conception?”

The moment he said it, he saw the walls literally go up. He read her body language and blocked her as she reached for the door again. His anger had gotten the best of him. What he’d just said was beneath him, and he knew it.

“All right, I’m sorry,” he apologized. “But I did feel I had a right to say that.” The walls around her remained up. “When we were together,” he reminded her, “you said you were saving yourself.”

“I never actually said that in so many words,” Lilli pointed out. She hadn’t said those words because, through no fault of her own, they wouldn’t have been true. She’d let him believe what he wanted because the truth had been too painful for her to face.

Even now it was difficult.

His eyes narrowed. “Then I was just some idiot you were laughing at?”

“No!” she protested with feeling. “You were sweet and kind and sensitive—”

His scowl deepened. “In other words, an idiot,” he said.

She shook her head with feeling. “No, not an idiot, a hero.” Her eyes held his. He saw the passion within them as she told him, “You saved me.”

He had no recollection of any heroic act on his part, other than exercising an almost superhuman effort to restrain his raging hormones and abide by her wishes even though, more than anything on earth, he longed to be intimate with her.

“Saved you?” he echoed.

Lilli nodded. “If you hadn’t been so patient with me, so kind, if you hadn’t gone out of your way to be there for me,” she underscored, “I would have killed myself.” And she meant it. She’d been completely hopeless, and he’d given her hope.

I would have killed myself.

It was a phrase tossed around easily, especially by younger people. He was all ready to discount it, but he saw the look in her eyes. Young, talented, smart, she had everything to live for, but she was obviously dead serious.

“Why?”

She shook her head again. “I don’t want to go into that, Kullen,” she told him solemnly, then drew herself up to her short stature. “I’m sorry I wasted your time like this. Send me the bill for this appointment and I’ll reimburse you. It’s the least I can do.”

No, the least she could do was explain herself, but he knew better than to press her. Instead, as Lilli reached for the doorknob a third time, he asked, “Where are you going?”

“I have to find a lawyer.”

“I’m a lawyer,” he reminded her. “What’s wrong with me?”

“Nothing. But I thought that you don’t want to take my case—”

Kullen had no idea what he would do next or how any of this would turn out. Despite everything, he didn’t want to see her walk out that door.

“I didn’t say that. I don’t even know what your case is,” he reminded her. “What, exactly, is your case?”

She put it into terms as succinctly as she could. “It’s a custody battle.”

“Then there is a father,” he concluded. And whoever the man was, he wanted custody of the child they’d had together.

“No, there’s a grandmother.”

Saying the words, she caught herself almost smiling. The flamboyant Elizabeth Dalton would have balked at the label, telling whoever called her a grandmother what he could do with the label and where he could put it. In the eyes of the press, Elizabeth Dalton strove to be seen as an ageless, benevolent goddess of timeless beauty. Her image, her reputation, were all-important to her.

Lilli had no doubts that if Elizabeth won custody of Jonathan, her well-adjusted little boy would be a emotional wreck in a matter of months. Perhaps sooner. All she had to do was remember the way Elizabeth’s son had turned out. And what he did. It put cold fear into Lilli’s heart.

“Your mother?” Kullen guessed.

“No, Elizabeth Dalton,” she told him.

The mention of the high-profile socialite threw him for a moment. “The widow of the pharmaceutical heir?” he questioned. Lilli nodded. “What does she have to do with it?” he asked.

“She’s the one who wants custody of my son.” Lilli took a deep breath, as if trying to protect herself from the words she was saying. “And she’s already told me in no uncertain terms that she will stop at nothing to get it.”

Chapter Three

Like a traffic cop, Kullen held up his hand, stopping her before she went off in another direction.

“Back up. Why does Elizabeth Dalton want your son?” The flamboyant socialite took to the spotlight like the proverbial moth to the flame, but this sounded a little bizarre even for her. “Exactly what right does she have to him?”

As he waited for an explanation, he watched the wariness entering Lilli’s eyes. How many times had he seen that before? Eight years ago it had taken him weeks to get her to trust him, to realize that all he wanted was for her to be happy.

She pressed her lips together before saying, “I’d rather not go into all the details right now.”

There were those damn walls again. Isolating her. Keeping him out.

But this time it was different. This time it wasn’t personal. She’d sought him out in his professional capacity. She wanted his help as a lawyer, and as such he needed to establish some ground rules for them.

“If I’m going to be any use at all to you, Lilli,” he said, cupping her elbow and ever so subtly guiding her back to his desk, “I’m going to have to know everything.” He pulled out the chair for her but Lilli remained standing, in silent, stubborn defiance of his request. “Any lawyer will need all the details in order to properly represent you and your case.”

Her case.

That made it sound so austere, so clinical. It wasn’t a case, she silently insisted. It was a boy. A beautiful, sweet-tempered, innocent, blond-haired little boy. A little boy who was her reason for getting up in the morning, for her very existence. And she would die to protect him, to keep him safe and out of Elizabeth Dalton’s clutches.

Lilli was still silent. Kullen sighed, attempting another approach. He sat down. “All right, I’ll fill in the blanks. Stop me if I’m wrong. Elizabeth’s son is the boy’s father.”

He paused a moment for her to contradict him, even though he was certain that, given the circumstances, she couldn’t. Lilli sat down, but the uncomfortable silence continued.

“And now, out of the blue,” Kullen went on, “he and his mother want custody of the boy.”

Lilli looked down at her hands. “Not ‘he,’ just his mother,” she corrected woodenly.

Kullen went with the tide. “Okay, so the boy’s father doesn’t want him—”

“His father didn’t want him,” she said tersely, changing the tense that he’d used.

Kullen paused. “Did something happen to make Dalton change his mind?”

“No,” Lilli answered. Her voice sounded hollow to her own ears, stripped of emotion. It was the only way, even after all this time, that she could bring herself to talk about the man who had so savagely changed her life. “He’s dead.”

The moment she mentioned Dalton’s death, Kullen vaguely recalled hearing a sound bite on the news one evening summarizing Erik Dalton’s shallow life. If he remembered correctly, that was about six months ago. Thinking, he tried to summon up the details of the incident.

“It was a skiing accident, wasn’t it?” he asked.

Lilli shook her head. “Boating,” she corrected, then added, “From what I heard, he liked people thinking of him as some kind of a daredevil.” She used the impersonal pronoun he, unable to make herself even say Erik Dalton’s name.

Kullen continued studying her. There was so much she wasn’t saying, he thought. “And that daredevil image didn’t include being a father,” he guessed.

Lilli could feel hateful, disparaging words rising to her lips. She’d never hated anyone, but she hated Erik Dalton with the last fiber of her being. But she had always been a truthful person and, in all fairness, in this particular situation Dalton didn’t technically deserve to be called a self-centered scum.

She shrugged, trying to seem indifferent. “I never gave him the chance to turn that role down.”

Damn it, Lilli, I loved you. I would have put the world at your feet if you’d married me. Was this why you left? To run into this soulless jerk’s Armani-covered arms?

Kullen struggled to keep the anger out of his voice but he couldn’t help asking, “Exactly what was it that you did give him?”

Here come the tears again, she thought, fighting to will them back. Despite her mental pep talk to the contrary, she felt terribly vulnerable and exposed. She didn’t know why she felt that way, but she did.

Maybe it had to do with seeing Kullen after all these years.

Even so, Lilli absolutely refused to allow herself to cry, refused to come across as some helpless little waif, the hapless victim of a spoiled, overly privileged, rich narcissist who thought he was entitled to everything and anything he wanted.

“A note,” she replied. “I wrote him a note when Jonathan was born, telling him that I thought he had a right to know that he had a son. I also told him that I didn’t want anything from him. I intended to raise Jonathan on my own.”

She couldn’t read Kullen’s expression and waited for him to say something.

When he finally spoke, it wasn’t what she expected to hear. “That was rather foolish, don’t you think?” he asked. “By having nothing to do with Dalton, you were denying your son a life of privilege.”

His assumption made her angry. “No,” she contradicted firmly, “I was protecting my son and giving him a life filled with love.” She fisted her hands in her lap.

“I want Jonathan to be someone, to make something of himself and give a little back to the world. I want his life to count,” she told him with passion. “I didn’t want him to learn how to use people, how to treat them all as if they were beneath him.”

His eyes never left hers. “Still, Jonathan could have had every need seen to. He can still have that,” he pointed out.

Lilli watched him for a moment, heartsick and disappointed. Who was this person? The Kullen Manetti she remembered had a nobility about him. During one of their study sessions, he’d confided that he wanted to fight for the underdog. His father expected him to join his firm, but the thought of doing that left him feeling empty. After graduation he intended to go to work for a nonprofit organization, helping people who had nowhere else to turn.

Obviously somewhere along the line, he’d changed. He still looked like Kullen, but he no longer was that man.

Gripping the armrests on either side of her, Lilli pushed herself up to her feet again. “I guess you’re not the one to help me after all.” She steeled herself. “Sorry I wasted your time.”

“You’re repeating yourself,” he told her mildly. “I’ll be the one who tells you if my time’s being wasted.” She looked at him, perplexed. “Right now, I’m just playing devil’s advocate,” he continued.

“I don’t need a devil’s advocate,” she informed him tersely. “If anything, I need an angel, because I am up against the devil in this. Elizabeth Dalton has a battalion of razor-sharp lawyers on her side.” She might as well be up-front with him. “I can’t afford a battalion of lawyers.”

“I’m guessing,” he said kindly, “that you don’t have the kind of money it takes to hire one lawyer.”

She wanted to protest his assumption, but couldn’t. He was right and there was no point in pretending otherwise. Squaring her shoulders, she avoided looking into his eyes. If she saw pity there, it would destroy her. “I was hoping that I could pay the bill in installments.”

Kullen took no delight in watching her squirm, physically or mentally. “The firm takes a few cases pro bono—”

Her head shot up. “I’m not asking for charity,” she informed him, offended by the suggestion.

He knew he had to tread lightly in order not to crush her self-esteem—or insult her. “Nobody says you were. It’s up to our accountant to decide whether or not taking a certain case is the right thing to do. Doing a pro bono case helps with the tax forms,” he quickly interjected to keep her from protesting again. “It makes us look good. And from what I hear, the firm hasn’t taken on a pro bono case this year. When you come right down to it, you might actually be doing us a favor,” he told her.

Lilli sincerely doubted that. But she was desperate and she did need someone with legal expertise in her corner. She had no time to waltz around semantics. She needed to engage a lawyer soon if she had any hope of keeping her son.

So for now, she played along and pretended that she believed this fabricated story of his. “All right, if you put it that way—”

He smiled. “I do.”

She had to remember not to look at him when he smiled like that. Otherwise, she ran the risk of melting right in front of him. That mischievous, boyish smile of his always got to her, managed to get through her armor. He’d won her heart with that smile.

If only things could have been different….

But they weren’t, she reminded herself firmly. She had to deal in reality, not fantasies. The reality was that Elizabeth Dalton wanted to take her son away from her—and would, unless Lilli could fight her off. She felt like David, facing Goliath, and she needed a lot more than a slingshot and some rocks. She needed Kullen.

“Okay.” Releasing her grip on the armrests, Lilli sank down into the chair again. But she was still far from relaxed. Until this ordeal was over, she doubted she would ever relax again. “What do you need from me?” she asked, ready to tell Kullen as much as she was able.

So many things I can’t even begin to enumerate them. “To begin with, I’m going to need the boy’s birth certificate,” he told her.

It didn’t take a rocket scientist to guess why Kullen wanted to see it. He wanted to see the name in black-and-white. “I left the space blank.”

So, she hadn’t lost the ability to read his mind. “You didn’t list the boy’s father?”

Lilli shook her head. “No.”

Was she ashamed to put the man’s name down? Or had the pharmaceutical heir threatened her with something to make her leave the space blank?

“Why?”

Why did Kullen have to dig like this? Her reasons didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was that Dalton’s mother wanted to take Jonathan away.

But because Kullen was waiting and wanted an answer, she gave him one.

“I wanted nothing to do with Erik Dalton. Besides, Jonathan might have Dalton DNA, but he was—and is—my son. I loved him, I wanted him. And I was going to make a home for him. And that’s what I have been doing for the last seven years.”

“Any idea why Mrs. Dalton is suddenly suing for custody after seven years? Did you get in contact with her?” He watched her expression to see her reaction as he asked the question.

“To tell her how sorry I was for her loss?” Lilli guessed. “No, I didn’t.” She realized that Kullen might have thought she had done it for another reason. “To tell her that she had a grandson? Again, no.”

He wasn’t ready to lay this line of questioning to rest yet. “Did you send photographs to her son while he was alive, showing your son’s progress?”

“No. After I sent him the note telling him that he had a son I never wrote or had any contact with him again.”

He studied her carefully. Would he be able to tell if she was lying to him? He was no longer sure. “Then he never wrote back or tried to get in contact with you later on?”

“No,” she said with feeling. “He could have cared less about being a father. If anything, I’m sure he was relieved that I didn’t want him in Jonathan’s life in any manner, shape or form.”

But that left a very loose end. Leaning back in his chair, Kullen continued to study her as he asked, “Then how do you explain how Mrs. Dalton found out about Jonathan?” He gave her a way out. “Or don’t you know?”

Lilli laughed shortly. “Oh, I know. She said she was going through Erik’s things about a month after the funeral and she found my note telling him about the baby.”

“So he kept the note.”

He made it sound as if that proved there was some sentiment involved. Erik Dalton hadn’t had a good bone in his body. If there had been one, it would have fled, horrified. “If he consciously kept the note, it was probably to use as a bargaining chip at some future date in case he needed it.”

“Bargaining chip?” Kullen repeated. “Who would he be bargaining with?”

That was easy. “His mother. Seems she’s very big on continuing the family line.”

Now it was making sense. “And now that her only son is gone, she’s set her sights on her grandson.” It wasn’t a guess.

Lilli sighed as she pressed her lips together. “That’s about it.”

Since he’d got her talking, he pressed his advantage. The more information he had, the better he could serve her. “What happened after she found the note?” he asked.

The events were indelibly etched on her brain. And she would forever regret taking pity on the woman. Her mistake had been to put herself in the woman’s place and feel sorry for her.

“Mrs. Dalton called and asked if she could see Jonathan. She wanted me to bring him to the house so that she could meet him.”

He knew the answer before he asked, but he asked anyway. “And did you?”

Hindsight was completely useless—because there was no going back to rectify things. “In light of what she’d just been through, I thought turning her down would have been unnecessarily cruel.”

Lilli McCall really was too good to be true, Kullen thought. Careful, she ran out on you once—and obviously straight into the arms of her rich lover. Being played for a fool once is more than enough.

“So you went to see her with Jonathan,” he concluded for her.

Lilli suppressed the sigh that rose to her lips. Sighing wasn’t going to help, either. She had to do something, get aggressive and fight this woman on her own terms. “So I went with Jonathan.”

He’d started making notes to keep the events in their proper chronology. “And then what?”

“At first she seemed very nice. Her eyes literally lit up when she saw Jonathan. She said it was uncanny how much he looked like her own son at that age. That seeing Jonathan took her back, made her remember the past.” Lilli’s mouth hardened. “And then she talked about what she could do for Jonathan, how different his life would be if he lived with her. She started making plans as if I wasn’t even standing in the room. That’s when I panicked,” she confessed.

He didn’t blame her. Elizabeth Dalton was a statuesque, imposing woman who, he’d heard, enjoyed intimidating people. “How did the visit end?”

“Not well. Elizabeth asked me to leave Jonathan with her. I said no.” She lifted one shoulder in a semi-shrug. “She doesn’t like hearing that word.”

He just bet she didn’t. It probably surprised the hell out of her when someone as soft-spoken as Lilli stood up to her.

“She’s undoubtedly not used to hearing it,” he said. “So what happened after that?”

“The next afternoon, one of her lawyers got in contact with me. A very prim and proper little man who offered me money in exchange for giving up custody of my son. Offering me money,” she repeated with disgust. “As if Jonathan was some kind of a toy or inanimate commodity that was for sale.” Impassioned, her voice rose with each word. “Elizabeth Dalton ruined her son, I’m not going to let her ruin mine.”

He made a few more notes on the page, then turned to a fresh one. “I guess they’re right,” he observed.

“About what?” she wanted to know.

“That no good deed goes unpunished.”

“Do you think that if I hadn’t taken Jonathan over to meet her—?”

He cut her short by shaking his head. He put her mind at rest. This was not her fault. None of it. “Even if you hadn’t taken your son to meet his grandmother, I have a feeling the outcome would have been the same once she found out about Jonathan. And you’re right in your assessment. Elizabeth Dalton likes to pride herself on getting whatever she sets her mind to.”

Lilli could feel her stomach growing queasy. “Should I be worried?”

He gauged his answer slowly. “If you’re asking me if you should be getting your passports ready in order to flee the country, no. There’s no need to resort to drastic measures.” He took a guess at her next question and answered it before she could ask. “Do I think winning is going to be a piece of cake? No, I don’t. In general, a mother’s rights trump anything else that might be raised in a court of law.”

“In general,” she echoed. “But in this case?”

He wished he could tell her she had nothing to worry about. But he couldn’t, and she needed to be prepared. “In this case, Elizabeth Dalton has a lot of powerful friends. If she and her squadron of lawyers decide to win by fair means or foul, I want you to realize we’re going to have one hell of a fight on our hands.”

There was only one thing that she wanted to know. “Will we win?”

He didn’t deal in rainbows and fairy dust. He knew he should be prudent and cautiously tell her to be prepared for anything, because in this case they were up against a force of nature. A force of nature who numbered more than one judge in her inner circle of influential friends.

But he knew Lilli didn’t need cautious words. She needed hope. He couldn’t take that from her, couldn’t just dash any shred of hope she might have against the rocks of reality. No matter how much she’d hurt him, he couldn’t bring himself to be cruel to her.

So he gave her the most confident smile he had in his arsenal and nodded.

“Yes, Virginia,” he said, paraphrasing the famous line in the legendary Christmas story, “we’re going to win. It’s not going to be easy, or quick,” he predicted, “but we are going to win.”

Overwhelmed, Lilli hadn’t realized until just this moment how close she was to a complete meltdown. She was only a hair’s breadth away. The sense of relief, of hope, was huge. This time, she allowed the tears to flow. They slid fast and furiously down her cheeks, and registered in direct contrast to the smile that curved her lips.

“Thank you,” she cried, looking at him through eyes that had all but completely welled up. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” he warned her. “You can save that for when the case is finally over and we walk out of the courthouse victorious.”

She knew he was right. That this was far too early in the game to allow her emotions to get the better of her. Knew that they had a hard and very possibly long fight ahead of them.

But she couldn’t help herself. She’d felt alone and isolated for far too long.

And she had missed him.

In one unguarded moment, Lilli let her feelings bubble up and get the better of her. She threw her arms around his neck.

“Thank you,” she cried again, burying her face against his shoulder.

He felt her breath along his neck.

His stomach tightened in anticipation.