and Marie both stared at him.
Okay, so maybe he could have been a little subtler. But the truth was that he didn’t exactly intend for Marie to find out how really small the world was until some point down the road. Like maybe never.
“What’s this nonsense? Of course you’re going to stay,” Frankie said, easily wrapping his arm around his daughter’s shoulders, and then Ian’s, and maneuvering them both through the kitchen door. “Your mama made your favorite.”
Marie made a move Ian admired and wished he could emulate as she ducked right out of her father’s grasp. “I know, I know. But the truth is I’m not feeling very well right now.”
Ian eyed her. Sure, her color was high and her eyes overly bright. But he’d bet dollars to doughnuts that her physical state had nothing to do with any sort of illness. Rather her reaction was more likely due to the stimulus behind his own uncomfortable response: feeling her against him.
Frankie finally released him and Ian moved off to the side of the room, watching as Marie’s mother swooped down on her, making a ceremony out of laying her hand against her forehead and cheeks checking for a temperature. Ian hid his smile and shoved his hands in his pockets. Oh, Marie’s temperature had risen all right. But a fever wasn’t to blame.
Ian knew what it was like to be the baby of the family. Much fussing and cooing and clucking had gone on in his house while growing up.
He also knew what it felt like to want something he knew he shouldn’t have.
He moved the back of his collar away from his neck, finding his skin more than a little hot. To think, he’d gone thirteen years without letting the Bertellis in on how he really felt about their daughter. Now, after an accidental meeting or two he was a hairbreadth away from giving it all away.
Damn, she was beautiful. Even in her old sweatshirt and jeans, Marie Bertelli made him want to…well, get her out of that sweatshirt and jeans.
“I’m fine, Mama,” Marie said, swatting Francesca’s hands away from her face. “Just a little tired, that’s all.”
“You wouldn’t be tired if you were staying in the house. Late nights, parties, dates with ax murderers. Lord only knows what’s behind your not getting enough sleep.”
“I get plenty of sleep.” Ian watched her walk to the counter and pick up a bottle of red wine. “I’ve just been feeling a little stressed lately.”
Ian watched her face blanch, as if she’d just said something she hadn’t meant to. She popped the cork on the bottle of wine, then poured a healthy portion into a water glass.
“Stressed. Stressed. Of course you’re stressed. Having to worry about keeping a house all by yourself.” Her mother took the water glass, then poured the wine into a goblet without missing a beat.
Marie rolled her eyes and stared at Ian. He grinned. “It’s an apartment, Mama, and… Oh, never mind.” She swiped the wineglass and took a deep gulp from it. When she finished, her lips were a provocative shade of red, contrasting against the pinkness of her tongue as it flicked out to lick the corner of her mouth.
She narrowed her gaze on him. “What is he doing here anyway?”
Ian raised his brows. It had been awhile since someone had talked about him in the third person while he was still in the room.
And this particular room had just grown very, very quiet.
For a big man, Frankie Sr. could pull off uncomfortable remarkably well. And given Francesca’s avoidance maneuvers as she returned to preparing dinner, Ian got the impression that she knew exactly what was going on.
The only person who didn’t know was Marie.
And Ian knew she wasn’t going to be very happy about it.
Frank cleared his throat. “Marie, I want to tell you the real reason I wanted you here tonight.”
Ian stared at the older Italian. Frank had told him that he’d wanted to meet briefly. Hell, dinner hadn’t even been mentioned, much less Marie’s possible presence.
Not that it mattered, Ian reminded himself. Frank had no idea about Ian’s past with his daughter.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Marie said dryly.
Ian glanced at her. Could he have been wrong? Did she already know?
“Marie,” Frank said again. “I’ve hired Ian on to act as my attorney.”
Where Marie’s face had been filled with color only a moment before, it was now paper white. She blinked several times as if trying to absorb the words, to make sense out of them.
Obviously she hadn’t known—not only about her father hiring Ian on, but about the trouble he was in.
Oh, boy.
And if things weren’t complicated enough, Ian was afraid that if he and Marie were forced to be in the same room for any extended period of time, he was going to sleep with her.
Again.
Well, okay. Maybe that part wasn’t so bad….
3
THE FOLLOWING MORNING Marie paced the waiting room outside Ian’s office, hearing an odd sort of ticking in her head. Either somewhere in the high-tech offices of McCreary, Lopez and Daniels, Attorneys, there was a loud timepiece, or her own internal clock was counting off the seconds. And, no, it wasn’t her biological clock. She didn’t believe in such things. She had no real craving for children. At least not yet, anyway. Besides, at twenty-six, her biological time clock, if she did have one, hadn’t even kicked on yet.
Had it?
Marie stopped in front of the receptionist’s desk. “Is there a clock around here somewhere?”
The young blonde wearing slim black headphones blinked at her. “It’s just after ten.”
Marie stared at her.
“More precisely, two minutes after ten,” the receptionist said, glancing at her watch.
Marie rolled her eyes. “That’s not what I meant.” She waved her hand and resumed pacing. “Oh, never mind.”
Okay, so last night the last person she expected to run into at her parents’ was Ian Kilborn. That alone would be enough to knock someone a little off-kilter. But she’d also run into him earlier that day and felt some peculiar yearnings she had thought she had locked up tight. As a result, her hormones had shifted into overdrive, reminding her that it had been a good long while since she’d played footsy with anyone between the sheets.
Then to find out that her father had Ian and his firm on retainer…
Tick tock, tick tock.
Marie squeezed her eyes shut, trying to halt the internal countdown, afraid of what would happen when the hand counted down to one.
Her mother…well, her mother had basically played
