turned to the receptionist, who still hovered in the doorway. “Thank you, I think we’ll be fine now.”
The woman looked from Kayla to Van and back again. Van seemed to come to attention.
“Yes, thank you, Anita. Could you please call Dani and tell her I’ll be delayed for lunch today. Perhaps we can reschedule for dinner instead.”
“Yes, sir, right away. Are you sure about...?” Anita gestured vaguely toward Kayla and the baby.
“I think I can handle them,” he said firmly.
His eyes remained locked on Kayla’s—silently demanding an explanation. At his words, Kayla couldn’t help but feel a tingle run down her spine. Part anticipation, part fear, part sensual memory. But Van had made it perfectly clear when he’d left her without a note or a word since that he was very definitely not interested in her. She shored up her defenses and clutched Sienna to her a little more tightly, earning a surprised squawk from her little girl. Again, she wished she hadn’t had to bring her precious child into this meeting. If she’d had any other choice, she’d have taken it.
As soon as the door closed, Van spoke.
“Kayla, why are you here?”
She drew in a deep breath. “Like I said, I need your help.”
“And a phone call wouldn’t do?”
It stung to hear him sound so dismissive, but it served to strengthen her resolve. “No, it wouldn’t. Last time we saw each other—” Her mouth dried and she swallowed to moisten it. She began again, more resolutely this time. “After Sienna’s funeral, you said to call you if I needed anything.”
“And I meant it. But, Kayla, even you have to realize that you can’t just waltz into my place of business and expect to see me straightaway.”
“I’m sorry, but it’s really important—otherwise I wouldn’t have...”
Darn, she should just come right out with it. She looked up at him and saw a stranger. Gone was the boy next door—the one who’d received more beatings from his father than he’d ever earned, the one who’d allowed her sister to befriend him and bring him into their home, the one who as a teenager had gotten her out of more scrapes than she could remember. Gone was the soldier, gone was the passionate lover who had rocked her entire world. In his place stood a cold, controlled and distant individual. A man so unfamiliar to her now that she began to wonder if she’d ever really known him at all.
“Is it to do with her?” He gestured toward the baby.
“In a way, yes. Do you want to hold her?”
Without waiting for an answer, Kayla crossed the short distance between them and held Sienna out to her father. It should have been a beautiful moment but Van looked alternately horrified and annoyed as he instinctively put his hands out to receive his daughter.
“There, see? She’s not that bad, is she?”
For a second Sienna seemed as though she’d cry and looked back at Kayla, her lip starting to wobble. Kayla forced herself to smile at her baby girl and make an encouraging sound. It seemed to work because Sienna turned her attention back to the man holding her—one dimpled little hand gripping the lapel of his suit jacket, the other reaching up for his mouth. Kayla stifled a giggle at the look on Van’s face. You’d have thought she just handed him a live grenade.
There was a knock at the door to his office and an exquisitely groomed woman walked in without waiting for Van’s response.
“Sorry to bother you, Donovan, but I was already in the parking garage downstairs when Anita called, so I thought—”
She stopped dead in her tracks as she looked at first Kayla, then Van holding a baby.
“I see you’re busy. I’m so sorry. I’ll come back later.”
“No, Dani, wait. Please.”
Van thrust the baby back to Kayla, eliciting a howl of disapproval from Sienna. “Don’t say anything,” he growled quietly at Kayla before moving to the other woman’s side.
Kayla rolled her eyes at him, then faced the new arrival and, juggling Sienna on one hip, put out her free hand. “Hello,” she said. “I’m Kayla. My sister and I grew up with Van.”
The woman moved to accept Kayla’s proffered hand. “Dani Matthews,” she said smoothly but not without directing a speaking look Van’s way.
The look Van shot Kayla could have cut through steel.
“If you’ll excuse us a moment,” Van said to Dani, waiting for her nod of acceptance.
Polished and unflappable, she inclined her head in the most fluid of actions, the movement making the perfectly blunt-edged cut of her hair swoosh forward a moment before reassuming its almost regimental perfection with not a strand out of place. Kayla found herself fascinated by it. How was that even possible with the humidity of a regular San Francisco fog? Her own hair was a perpetual tousle of long blond waves no matter what she did with it.
“Thank you,” he murmured. “I’ll be back shortly.”
“Take your time,” she replied with a charming curve of her lips, but Kayla could see her eyes remained full of questions.
Without wasting another second, Van took Kayla by her upper arm and steered her out of his office and toward Reception. She made a sound of protest but he ignored it until he’d shown her into a small conference room and the door behind them was closed.
“No more beating around the bush, Kayla. I want answers from you and they had better be good.”
“Van, I wasn’t kidding around. I really need your help.”
Sienna whimpered a little and Kayla smoothed her hand over the baby’s head nervously. Suddenly this didn’t seem like a good idea after all. But she’d thought and thought and she hadn’t been able to come up with any other way she could raise the money she needed.
“What’s wrong with her?” Van demanded, the roughness of his voice making Sienna’s whimper grow louder.
“She’s hungry, and in a strange place. This is messing with her routine. I’m sorry. The timing of this is all out of whack, isn’t it? I should have thought this out a bit better.”
Even now her breasts tingled with that full heavy warning that accompanied nursing.
“You think? But when has that ever stopped you?” he muttered.
She ignored his question. “Five years ago you offered to be there when I needed someone. Did you mean what you said?”
She had to hope that his offer still held. Without it, she had nothing and no one and her plans for the future, her promise to her sister, would all be shattered.
Van flashed a glance at his wristwatch. A Breitling with more whizzes and bangs on it than her food processor, she noted, unimpressed. But his action was a reminder for her, as well. Time was fleeting.
He flung her another look of irritation. “I
