he said. “I owe you an apology. Can we please start again?”
He put out his hand. She hesitated a moment before grasping it. The second she did, he was instantly struck by that jolt of awareness he’d felt the first time he’d met her. Despite everything that had transpired since he’d left her bed, the connection between them remained. He wanted to cling to it, to her. The notion was both atypical of him and utterly compelling at the same time.
“Please don’t worry,” she said. She pulled free of his clasp with a jerk. “Now, shall we get down to business?”
“Business.” He nodded. So that was how she wanted to play it. To act like they’d never met before. To pretend that they’d never touched or kissed. That he had never been buried so deep inside her body that he’d begun to lose all sense of himself, instead reveling in her glory. Was it really possible for her to forget all that? He knew full well it wouldn’t be possible for him.
If he hadn’t seen the telltale flush of color that bloomed at the opening of her blouse when they’d shaken hands, he might have thought she’d been unmoved by their physical contact. But that hint of color, that evidence of the heat that had burned between them, told him far more than her demeanor. He was the king of compartmentalizing things. Of course he could play it her way. That didn’t mean he’d like it.
“Come this way.” He led her over the foyer’s parquet flooring and turned right down a short hall. He gestured for her to go ahead of him into the slightly less formal living room, where he spent much of his leisure time while at home. “Please, take a seat. Can I get you something? Tea, coffee? A cool drink?”
“Just water, thank you,” she said as she settled herself into one of the comfortable fabric-covered chairs arranged conversationally around the large wooden coffee table.
It only took a moment to grab a bottle of mineral water from the fridge and a couple of tumblers. He returned to the living room and poured water for each of them.
“I appreciate you being able to come out at such short notice.”
“We pride ourselves on our service, Mr. Marshall,” she said primly as she unfolded the cover from a tablet. A light touch of her fingertip and he saw the device come to life, much like he had not so very long ago beneath that very same touch.
“Ronin,” he corrected.
They’d been intimate together—so deeply intimate. They might be discussing business, but he refused to sit there and listen to her call him Mr. Marshall.
She inclined her head but still avoided using his name. “Now, what is it exactly that you need from us?”
“Everything,” he said.
For a moment grief and helplessness surged to the forefront of his mind, but he resolutely pushed the feelings back. He had to keep control of himself...but his usual cool rationality had never been so hard to reach. CeeCee and R.J.’s funeral had been hell in every sense of the word. It had made everything so real, so final. His parents had gone directly from the wake to the hospital. He’d wanted to go, too, but this meeting took precedence. He couldn’t bring the baby home until he had something to bring him home to.
A ripple of fear rolled through the back of his mind. What if he’d bitten off more than he could chew with the decision to raise his nephew himself? For the briefest second he considered what his cousin Julia had said to him after the funeral. Already a mother of two, she and her husband had offered to bring CeeCee’s son up in their family. It made sense, she’d said. She was already geared up for small children, and with her, her husband and her two daughters—both in primary school—the baby would have a wonderfully stable home. As she’d pointed out, being the infant’s guardian didn’t mean he had to actually raise him. He could still make sure the little boy had the best of everything without having him directly under his roof. With his long working hours, frequent travel and lack of a wife or committed girlfriend to share the load, Julia had claimed that Ronin’s life simply didn’t have room for a baby in it.
But it had been clearly outlined in CeeCee’s and R.J.’s wills that they had wanted him to care for any children of theirs should anything ever happen to them. Ronin raised a hand to his eyes and swiped at the burning sensation that stung them. He owed it to his sister to fulfill her wishes. Besides, he’d assessed this from every angle already, and he was committed to seeing it through. And, as with any issue he troubleshot, that meant getting the right people in to help with the job. People, who in this case, had turned out to be Ali Carter.
He continued, “Look, I don’t have the first idea of what to do.”
“Then it’s a good thing you called Best for Baby,” Ali said, oblivious to the turmoil that was churning inside him. “So, correct me if I’m wrong. You have absolutely nothing here in preparation for the baby.”
“That’s right,” he confirmed. “CeeCee was fiercely superstitious about buying anything before the baby was born. And she forbade anyone else from buying things. There wasn’t even a baby shower, at her insistence. We tried to persuade her otherwise, but she was nothing if not determined.”
A small frown flittered across her face so swiftly he wasn’t sure he’d seen it. She drew in a deep breath and let it go slowly.
“And when is the baby coming home?”
“He should be released in about ten days’ time, if all goes well.”
She typed a note on her tablet. Even though she hadn’t commented on the short time frame she had to work with, he had the impression she disapproved somehow. He knew his request was unusual, but this had mostly been covered in the contract, so he couldn’t believe she was surprised by it. But then what was the problem? Maybe she was still angry with him for walking out on her in Hawaii. He had never been one to leave issues to fester. This thing between them needed to be brought out into the open.
“Look, Ali, about that night—”
She looked up from her note-taking.
“That night? Oh, you mean that night. Let’s not talk about it shall we.” She gave him a smile that was no more than a mere upward twitch of the corners of her full lips, utterly devoid of warmth. “I’d prefer it if we could confine our discussion to the task at hand.”
Well, he’d tried. She didn’t want to talk about it. That was just fine. A pity though, he thought, as his gaze followed the chain of silver beads that slipped inside the neckline of her blouse. He had a feeling that getting to know Ms. Alison Carter all over again would have been a very interesting exercise.
* * *
Ali focused on the ten-inch screen she held in front of her, building a checklist of all the things she’d need to tackle if she took this job on. She gave herself a mental shake. Who was she kidding—if? Best for Baby wouldn’t and couldn’t turn down this job. Deb had shown her the signed contract. They were bound to work with this...this man!
A near overwhelming surge of fury threatened to break past her carefully controlled professionalism. How dare he cheat on his pregnant wife with her? How dare he cheat on his wife, period! Having been victim to an unfaithful husband herself, an affair with a married man was the last thing on this entire earth she would ever have willingly embarked upon. She’d rather die than be the other woman, than be the cause of the kind of pain and grief she’d gone through. Betrayal, on any level, was cruel—but this went several levels deeper than that.
