Fiona. I need your help.”
There it was. Her weakness. Her Achilles’ heel. Growing up in a succession of pleasant but unexceptional foster homes had taught her that becoming indispensable to the family in question secured a roof over her head.
She’d been self-sufficient for over a decade now—ever since she had aged out of the system. She had money in the bank, and her credit rating was unblemished. This perfect little house was almost paid for. Pleasing people was a habit now, not a necessity. A habit she had vowed to break.
But when she actually peeked at Hartley’s face, her resolve wavered. “You look terrible,” she muttered, still with her hand on the door blocking his entrance. Her statement wasn’t entirely correct. Even haggard and with dark smudges of exhaustion beneath his eyes, Hartley Tarleton was the most beautiful man she had ever seen. Muscular shoulders, slim hips and a smile that ought to be outlawed on behalf of women everywhere.
They had first met more than a year ago at the wedding of mutual friends, Hartley a groomsman and Fiona his matching attendant. He had escorted her down the aisle during the ceremony. Later that evening, after a raucous reception that involved copious amounts of extremely good wine and plenty of dancing, he had removed her ghastly fuchsia bridesmaid dress...in her very own bedroom. Where she had invited him to join her.
That night, their physical and emotional connection was immediate and seductive—impossible to resist.
When she woke up the following morning, he was gone.
Today, his coffee-colored eyes—so dark as to be almost black—glittered with strong emotion. “Please, Fee.” His voice was hoarse. “Five minutes.”
What was it about this man that tore down every one of her defensive barriers? He’d walked out on her not once, but twice. Was she a masochist? Normally, she didn’t fall for stupid male flattery. But she had actually believed Hartley had been as caught up in the magic of their tantalizing attraction as she’d been.
Sighing at her own spineless behavior, she stepped back and opened the door wider. “Fine. But five minutes. Not six. I’m busy.”
It was a pitiful pretense of disinterest. When he stepped past her, the familiar crisp, fresh scent of his shave gel took her back to a duet of nights she had tried so desperately to forget.
Hartley crossed the room and sprawled on her sofa. She remained standing, arms folded over her chest. The first time they met, he had worn a tuxedo befitting his inclusion in the wedding party. Nine months later when he had shown up on her doorstep without a word of explanation for his long absence, he’d been in faded jeans and a pale yellow cotton shirt with rolled-up sleeves.
Today, his hand-tailored suit screamed money. Despite his almost palpable misery, he looked like a rich man. In other words, not the sort of person Fiona should date. Or sleep with. Or include in any kinds of future plans.
The silence stretched on. Hartley leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees, head bowed. He was a man who always knew what to say. The kind of guy who could summon a woman’s interest with one mischievous, wicked quirk of his eyebrow.
Now that she had let the big, bad wolf into her house, he was mute.
The uninterrupted, empty silence finally broke her. “What do you want, Hartley?”
The five words were supposed to be inflected with impatience and disinterest. Instead, her voice trembled. She winced inwardly, hoping he hadn’t noticed. If ever there was a time for a woman to seize control of a situation and play the hand on her terms, this was it.
He didn’t deserve her sympathy.
At last, he sat up and faced her, his hands fisted on his thighs. There were hollows in his face that hadn’t been there before. Unmistakable grief. “My father is dead,” he croaked. The expression in his eyes was a combination of childish bewilderment and dull adult acceptance.
“Oh my God. I’m so sorry.” Despite her anger, her heart clenched in sympathy. “Was it sudden?”
“Yes. A stroke.”
“Were you in Charleston?” They had discovered at the wedding that they both lived in the beautiful low-country city, but clearly they moved in different circles most of the time.
“No. But it wouldn’t have mattered. He was gone in an instant.”
“I don’t know what to say, except that I’m very sorry, Hartley.”
“He was old but not that old. It never occurred to me I wouldn’t get the chance to say goodbye.”
She wanted to sit down beside him and hug him, but she knew her own limits. It was best to keep a safe distance. Sliding into Hartley Tarleton’s arms made her reasoning skills turn to mush.
His jaw firmed. “I need you to go to the funeral with me. Please.” He stood and faced her. “I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t so important.” The muscles in his throat flexed as he swallowed. He needed a haircut. When one thick lock fell over his forehead, he brushed it aside impatiently.
She had seen him naked. Had felt the gentle caress of his big, slightly rough hands on every inch of her sensitive skin. That other Hartley made her body sing with pleasure...made her stupid, romantic heart weave daydreams. But she didn’t know him. Not really.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea, Hartley. We’re nothing to each other. You made that abundantly clear. I don’t want to go with you to the funeral,” she said firmly, trying to sound tough and no-nonsense and not at all like the type of woman who let a man disappear for days and weeks on end with no explanation and then three months ago took him back into her bed...again.
“You don’t understand.” He moved a step in her direction, but she held him off with a palm-out stance.
“No touching,” she said, reading his playbook. She wouldn’t let him soften her up.
He shrugged, his expression harried. “Fine. No touching. But I need you to go to the funeral with me, because I’m scared, dammit. I haven’t seen my brother or sister in over a year. Things have been strained between us. I need a buffer.”
“Charming,” she drawled. “That’s what a woman wants to hear.”
“For God’s sake, don’t be difficult, Fee.”
His scowl would have been comical if his behavior hadn’t been so atrocious. “I’m perfectly reasonable and rational, Mr. Tarleton. You’re the one who seems to have lost your mind.”
He ran a hand across the back of his neck, a shadow crossing his face. “Maybe I have,” he muttered. He paced restlessly, pausing to pick up a nautilus shell a friend had brought her from Australia. It had been sliced—like a hamburger bun—with a fine-gauge jeweler’s saw to reveal the logarithmic spiral inside. Hartley traced the pattern with a fingertip, the gesture almost sensual. “This is beautiful,” he said.
“I just brought it out of my studio. I’ve been working on a series of four watercolors...a galaxy, a hurricane, this perfect shell. The pattern occurs in nature more often than you might think.”
He closed his palm around the opalescent wonder and shot
