but I’ve got to go. Dinner meeting tonight.”
“With?” Kell asked. In the background Dec heard the sound of the evening financial news show that Kell watched religiously. He was a genius when it came to reading the market, which was in no small part the reason for their success.
Dec had always marveled that he and his cousins, Kell and Allan, each brought something unique to the table that no one else could. They made a very strong triumvirate, and though he knew he wasn’t a blood Montrose, he was definitely a necessary part of Playtone Games.
“Cari,” Dec said at last. “I’m having dinner with Cari.”
“Good. I suspect that you will keep her off balance and maybe you’ll be able to find out what she is hiding.”
He intended to find out all of her secrets, he thought as he ended the call with his cousin. He wasn’t as concerned that she was hiding something that would affect the takeover; frankly, at this point there was nothing else for the Chandlers to do to save Infinity Games.
He pulled into the parking lot at the Marina del Rey Yacht Club and parked his car. The Playtone offices were in Santa Monica just a few short miles from the Infinity Games offices. Something that Kell had done deliberately to make sure that every day when first old Gregory Chandler and now his heirs had gone to work they’d have to drive past the competition.
Tonight he wanted to see if there was anything real between him and Cari. There had to be a reason other than revenge that he was back in her life. He realized that he wanted to move Cari from competition to lover. His time in her bed had been too short and being this close to home always made him long for things he knew he didn’t need and couldn’t have. But for tonight he was planning to ignore all of that and just enjoy himself.
Cari stood in the foyer of her own house holding her son in one hand and her cell phone in the other. Canceling dinner wouldn’t be construed as running away, she cajoled herself. But then DJ reached up and put his tiny hand on the collar of her shirt and made that sweet little sound. “Mamamama.”
“Ugh,” she said, tossing the phone on the hall table and walking back across the Spanish-tiled floor to the kitchen. She put DJ in his high chair and then leaned back against the cabinet. “What am I going to do?”
He just stared at her as she placed a teething biscuit on the tray in front of him. His eyes were brown. Not just any brown, but Dec brown. She knew that if she canceled this dinner, it would be solely due to cowardice. She knew that. Yet she was more afraid tonight than she had been this morning.
It had been one thing to see Dec in the office where she wore her business suit and had a certain air of authority, but this dinner—no matter how she tried to spin it—was more than business. He’d kissed her. And her body had almost betrayed her secret. She knew she had to tell him about DJ before he found out.
She touched her lips and remembered every sensation of his body pressed to hers. God, she thought, this was nuts. Just cancel and then run away.
Dec might be all into her at this moment, but their past told her that he moved on. His own words told her that he wasn’t ready for commitment, and though a lot had changed in the eighteen months they’d been apart, she knew she couldn’t just spring DJ on him. She owed herself, her son and even Dec more than that.
Some things once done couldn’t be undone.
Her grandmother used to say that to her all the time when she’d been young and headstrong. Wanting to adopt a puppy or bring another cat or rabbit into the house. Grandma was always cautioning Cari to remember that when other lives were brought into the equation, it changed.
She gave herself one last look in the mirror. “Tell him tonight.”
But the look in her own eyes and that feeling in her heart told her that telling him wasn’t going to be easy.
But even though she wasn’t a bossy woman like Emma or a badass rebel like Jessi, she’d never been a coward. And running away wasn’t her style. Besides, she knew it was past time to tell Dec about his son. Until she did, he’d have one thing over her—guilt. She felt guilty about him not knowing about his son.
“I’m going,” she said, smiling at DJ.
He clapped his hands and smiled back at her. She laughed at his toothless grin and drool-covered face. Truly he was the most adorable baby in the world. She scooped him up again and walked resolutely down the hall to her bedroom. She put his blanket in the middle of her bed and propped pillows around him to keep him in place.
He sat in the center, happily chewing on his biscuit while she puttered around getting ready for her date and awaiting Emma, who was going to babysit, along with her son, Sam.
The doorbell rang, and from the security monitor in her bedroom she saw not only Emma and Sam, but also Jessi. She wasn’t ready for both of her sisters. Not tonight. She was so unsure, and hell, she had to admit, scared, that she was tempted to blurt out her secret to her big sister Emma. Then Emma would excuse her and—
Stop it.
She hated that she still sometimes wanted someone else to make decisions for her. She was a grown woman and a mom now. It didn’t matter that it would be easier if she just gave up control of her life. She had to step up.
She pushed the intercom button. “Come in. I’m in the bedroom getting dressed.”
She hurried into her closet and grabbed a retro-style cocktail dress that she’d gotten from ModCloth at a bargain. She didn’t need to save money, but her mother had drilled into her that it was better in her pocket than in someone else’s, and she’d always been frugal.
“Let’s see what you are wearing,” Jessi said as she led the way, ignoring DJ and coming into the closet to stand next to her. Her sister had an aversion for babies and was the first to admit she liked to keep her distance from children until they could walk, talk and order a drink.
She spun around so that Jess could see what she was wearing. The dress was slim-fitting, in a regal purple color that made her pale skin glow. It had a fitted bodice with thin spaghetti straps and a velvet ribbon that accentuated the slimness of her waist. She’d put on a strand of black pearls that their father had given their mother for a long-ago birthday and that Cari had inherited when her parents had died in a tragic boating accident, but she’d changed her mind at the last minute and now wore her usual charm necklace instead.
“Gorgeous, darling! Are you sure this is just a business dinner?” Jessi asked.
“Yes,” she said, though the heat of her blush made her realize that she wasn’t as confident in that answer as she should be. “What else could it be? He’s a Montrose.”
“Don’t forget it,” Jessi said as they both walked back into the bedroom.
Emma gave her the thumbs-up. “You look good,” she said. “What are you not supposed to forget?”
“That Dec is essentially my enemy.”
“Dec?”
“That’s his name.”
“His name is Declan, Cari. And you said it like…” Emma watched her shrewdly.
She
