“We all needed some air, so we’re going to take a walk,” Ceri said, worried. Her eyes bounced off Piper’s face, onto Jaeger’s and her mouth fell open. “Wow, you’re—”
“Jaeger Ballantyne.” Jaeger smiled at Ceri, his eyes crinkled and Piper’s stomach flipped over once, twice. She’d forgotten how sexy his smile was, how it transformed his face from hard-ass to gorgeous. Jaeger shook hands with Rainn after the twins carried Ty’s stroller down the steps.
“I’m Ceri Brown, and that’s Rainn. And the cutie is Ty.”
Piper started to explain that Ceri was her nanny, that Rainn was her twin and that they lived in the apartment below hers, but she stopped. She didn’t owe him explanations of any kind!
Ceri managed to pull her admiring gaze off Jaeger to look at Piper. “Do you want to join us? We’ll be back in about a half hour.”
Piper bit her lip and shook her head. “I think I’ll skip. Jaeger needs to have a word.”
Ceri tipped her head to the side, curious. “How do you two know each other?”
“That’s a long and complicated story,” Piper replied. So long and so complicated. “I’ll see you in a bit, okay?”
Piper and Jaeger stood on the top step and watched Rainn tip the stroller back on two wheels. Ty’s belly laugh drifted over to her; it was another of his favorite games. There went her heart, she thought. Her kid and the two people as close to her as siblings.
“Cute family,” Jaeger said. “They are young to have a kid.”
Piper started to tell him Ty was hers, not theirs, but she just managed to catch the words. She darted a look at him, her interest caught by the emotion in his eyes. Longing, sadness, pain? Why would Jaeger Ballantyne—who’d routinely told the world he would follow in his uncle Connor’s footsteps and remain resolutely single—look envious of what he erroneously assumed was a young family on their way to a park? She had to be misinterpreting his look and his emotions, Piper decided. This was Jaeger Ballantyne, after all, who thought the world was overpopulated.
Who’d refused her calls and pretended not to know who she was.
He didn’t deserve her explanations.
At the corner, Ceri waved at them, and Piper rolled her shoulders.
“Are you here to make an offer for my stones?” Piper asked, wincing at the eagerness in her voice. Maybe this ordeal would be done sooner than she’d expected.
“I’m no closer to offering you a deal than I was earlier,” Jaeger replied.
Damn.
“Invite me in, Piper.” Jaeger reached past her to push open her front door. “We both know that we have a lot more than sapphires to talk about.”
Now he wanted to talk about what happened in Milan? And really, after all her unanswered phone calls, what was there to discuss? Apparently everything they’d needed to say had been captured in the last kiss they’d shared outside the hotel entrance. It had been tender and sweet, regretful and poignant but very, very final.
Thank you and goodbye, think of me occasionally, remember this time we spent together with a smile. Have a wonderful life.
A silent but powerful acknowledgment that when they met again, they would not pick up where they left off...
They hadn’t agreed to treat each other like strangers...but maybe it was better if they did. Jaeger still had the ability to keep her off balance.
“You’re giving me the silent treatment again. I can’t decide if it’s because your mind is revving or because you are being stubborn.” Jaeger bent his knees so their eyes were level. “Either way, we are doing this. We can talk either here or over a cup of coffee or, if the gods are smiling on me, a glass of whiskey. But we are going to have a conversation, Ms. Mills.”
Yeah, they were. Piper saw the determination in his eyes, saw the hard-ass negotiator who bought and sold valuable gemstones on six continents. Jaeger wasn’t going anywhere until he’d said whatever was on his mind. She had to be very careful to keep control of this conversation; they had to stay on topic. She wanted to know why he’d blocked her from contacting him after Milan, but Ty was firmly off-limits. As was the fact that she wanted him naked and panting.
Why did she keep thinking that?
She felt like she was standing in a field planted with land mines and she needed to carefully pick a path to safety.
“I would give a rare red diamond to know what you are thinking,” Jaeger said, breaking into her thoughts.
Piper blinked and refocused. She pushed her hair back and briefly closed her eyes.
“I’ll make us coffee,” Piper capitulated, resigned.
Jaeger put a hand on her lower back and pushed her toward the stairs leading up to her living quarters. “Sounds good. It would sound better if you offered a shot of whiskey with it. I’ve had a rough day, too.”
Piper took her cup of coffee into her den-slash-office and found Jaeger standing in front of the fireplace, admiring a series of ink and pencil drawings hanging on the wall, a tumbler of whiskey in his hand.
Piper hesitated in the doorway, taking a moment to catch her breath. Every inch of Jaeger’s six-foot-something frame reflected his masculinity; his legs were long and muscled, his hands were broad and his fingers blunt-tipped, his chest wide. He made her feel smaller, feminine and sexier.
Smoking hot she could deal with, sort of, but he looked so at ease in her messy space—and it felt so right for him be here, with her... The thought liquefied her knees.
“These are fantastic. Who is the artist?”
“She’s Danish. I bought those from a gallery in Copenhagen, and I’ve never found any more of her work. Pity, because she’s fabulous.” Wanting to delay the subject of Milan and her unanswered calls, she gestured to an oil seascape on the opposite wall. “That’s Joonie Paul, also unknown, equally fabulous.”
Jaeger, tall and broad and a work of art she could look at all day long, turned so those fabulous eyes met hers. “You obviously love art,” he stated.
“I’m an art appraiser. It comes with the job.”
Jaeger sat down on the ottoman, rested his forearms on his thighs, the glass almost disappearing in his big hand. He stared at the multicolored Persian carpet between his feet before raising his face. Under his gaze, Piper felt like a deer caught in the headlights, his eyes pinning her to her spot on the couch.
“Let’s talk about Milan.”
Okay, here we go. She was finally going to get an explanation about why he’d acted like a hemorrhoid. And his explanation had better be good...
“Apparently we met in Milan, at Ballantyne’s, in late April?”
Met?
