by Noelle Adams
There was no trace of infatuation—or even admiration—on Leila’s face now.
He was good with women, though. He always had been.
He was sure he could remove the distance in her eyes and convince her to indulge in an evening with him.
He’d have to go back into the office tomorrow. The work didn’t stop just because it was Saturday. But for one night he could feel like Baron again.
So when the conversation broke up, he managed to maneuver Leila away from the others and then out onto the patio where the background noises faded into a murmur and the moonlight was soft.
She stared at him blankly, as if she wasn’t sure what had just happened. Her lips parted slightly in an expression that was unexpectedly delectable.
Baron was startled when his body responded slightly to the curve of her lips, her neck, her hips.
How could she be so incredibly beautiful when he’d known her all of his life?
“Do you want to just tell me what you’re up to?” Leila demanded, frowning up at him.
“What do you mean?”
“I can’t figure out why I’m the victim of this fake, charming act.”
Now Baron frowned. “Fake, charming act?”
“I’ve known you a long time, remember? And I’ve heard plenty of stories about you—some of which must be true. I know for damned sure you’re not interested in me.”
“Why wouldn’t I be interested in you?”
“Baron, really.” She looked impatient and pushed her hair behind her ear. “Never in your life did you show the slightest interest in me.”
Scanning her face, he realized that she was absolutely sincere. She clearly couldn’t fathom that he would ever be attracted to her.
“Baron?” Leila prompted. Now she was looking at him like he’d gone crazy.
“We were kids. A lot has changed. You’re a beautiful woman. Of course, I’m interested.”
She actually rolled her eyes. “Right.”
“You used to be attracted to me too. If I recall correctly, you thought my eyes were like smoldering coal in a fire, and my laughter wafted over you like—”
“Oh,” she gasped, her cheeks flushing even deeper. “You ass. I was twelve! And if you had any kindness in your heart at all, you wouldn’t bring up something like that to—”
Baron was suddenly hit with the urge to kiss her, to somehow capture, touch, connect with all of her gorgeous authenticity.
He rarely denied himself such urges.
He reached out and took her face in both of his hands. Leaning into a kiss, he felt his body tighten as she swayed toward him. Then her lips parted slightly beneath the brush of his tongue.
She smelled like something light and fresh, and her long hair tangled around his fingers as he slid a hand back to cup her head. She made a delicious, throaty sound into his mouth as she pressed against him, and his blood started to surge—into his head, darkening his eyes, and into parts lower.
He was starting to harden against her when she pulled away.
Her cheeks were flushed, and she was breathing unevenly, but so was he. For a moment, he had trouble catching his breath.
His body pulsed with arousal—so deeply he was genuinely shocked. He’d wanted to be himself again, but he didn’t normally react like this.
It had clearly been too long since he’d been with a woman.
“Wow,” she breathed, putting a hand up to cover her lips. “You’re a really good kisser.”
Something in his chest relaxed, and he began to feel himself toward familiar ground. “Then why did you pull away?”
The familiar ground fell away beneath his feet. She smiled sweetly. “Because you might have hated yourself in the morning if you’d had a one-night-stand with Dave’s little sister.”
Baron’s mouth fell open.
She left him there, and he was so surprised he didn’t move for a couple of minutes.
She had responded to the kiss. He knew she had. She’d been just as into it as he was, but she’d still walked away.
That just didn’t happen to Baron.
The only woman who had ever walked away from him was Molly, and that was after he’d rejected her first.
When he could finally wrap his mind around what had just occurred, he couldn’t decide if he was annoyed with Leila or intrigued.
Either way, he felt nothing at all like his old self.
***
On Wednesday of the following week, Baron was forced to conclude that today wasn’t his best day either.
He felt vaguely sick as he spoke to Bob Moore, the private investigator who’d worked for his father for years. “You told him what we’d discussed?”
“I did. He said it changed nothing.”
“You told him I’d give him—”
“He said he wanted nothing to do with you. He said not to try to contact him again.”
It hurt. More than he’d expected.
He and his brother, Steven, had never been close. It used to not bother Baron very much. Even after Steven had walked out on their family a few years ago, cutting all ties with his old life, Baron had been resigned rather than grief-stricken about it.
But last year Baron had finally recognized that his rootless lifestyle wasn’t making him happy. He’d done a few stupid things in the wake of that knowledge, including trying to win back Molly, the only woman he’d ever been close to.
That hadn’t worked out, which was probably just as well. So instead Baron had talked his father into sending a private investigator to discover Steven’s location and then trying to mend fences, to reshape their family.
They’d found Steven easily enough, but he’d rejected all advances.
Last month, Baron had renewed the efforts toward reconciliation, hoping his father’s death might have thawed his brother’s resentment, but Steven wanted nothing to do with anyone whose last name was James.
They were the only family either of them had left, but evidently Baron was the only one who wanted a family connection.
“Mr. James?”
“Yeah,” Baron said, shaking his head hard. “Sorry. Okay. Give me a few days, and I’ll figure out whether we should do anything else.”
“Of course, sir.”
After he’d hung up, Baron sat for a long time staring at his computer screen, the email he’d been composing growing unfocused until it was just a gray blur.
The phone rang, and MaryAnn told him she’d had to schedule a two-hour meeting at the very end of the day.
He’d been sitting at this desk since six-thirty that morning, and he’d be here until at least eight in the evening.
He had seventy minutes until the first of several back-to-back meetings. He could keep trying to clear out some of his email. Or he could read and sign a new pile of documents, now sitting in his inbox. Or he could sit and stew about Steven and how he had absolutely no family left.
His eyes weren’t working, and it felt like his chest was constricting.
He wasn’t sure he could do this job. He wasn’t sure he could do any of this. He wasn’t sure he would ever be himself again.
He missed his father so much he could barely breathe.
His missed his brother, although he’d never really had him.
Baron suddenly lurched to his feet and grabbed his phone.
On his way out, he offered no explanation. Just told MaryAnn he’d be back in an hour.
***
Baron headed back to the church on the Benton College campus—the first place that crossed his mind as a temporary escape, a place that might actually feel quiet, peaceful, connected to family in a positive way.
As he walked over to the church, he glanced up at James Hall, one of the original buildings on campus from the nineteenth century. His father had donated the money to restore the building a number of years ago. How ironic that Leila would now be working there.
It occurred to him to go up and see if she was in her office. He hadn’t called or contacted her
in any way after the cocktail party, but he’d thought about her more than he’d expected to.
Maybe he should call her. The short time he’d spent with her on Friday evening had been the only thing that had really engaged him all week.
He was distracted by thoughts of her, so he’d almost reached the church before he heard the children’s voices.
“The Persians are coming! The Persians are coming!”
Baron blinked and glanced around the corner of the church building.
“Hey!” one of the girls cried, scrambling down from the little hill on which she’d been standing. “It’s the movie-star man!”
The other girl, also in blond ponytails, twirled around. “Hello,” she said with impressive courtesy for a child. “We were playing Therm-o-ply, just like you said.”
Baron raised his eyebrows. When he’d run across these two last week, they’d been at his heels while he was looking around at the church, so he suggested they play in the little valley between the mounds of earth a distance away. The serious one had asked what they were supposed to play, so he’d come up with the Siege of Thermopylae—mostly to distract them and keep them occupied until he was ready to leave.
He’d never have imagined they would take the ridiculous game so seriously and still be playing it a week later.
“Do you have any more games for us today?” the loud one said. She ran up to him with a sunny grin, and he decided the girl probably had only to give someone that smile to get anything she wanted.
“Do I look like a game player?” He tried to make his voice distant enough to discourage the girls from clinging.
They weren’t discouraged.
The loud one giggled, and the serious one replied, “No, but you could play with us if you wanted.”
“You can be the Persians!”
Torn between laughing and shooing them away so he could be left alone, Baron arched one eyebrow. “I’d be a terri—”
“How do you do that?” the loud one interrupted, contorting her face in a bizarre way.
The serious one seemed to know what her twin was talking about. “Like this,” the girl said, using her fingers to keep one of her eyebrows high while she tried to lower the other.
“Charlotte, Jane, don’t bother the man, please,” a woman’s voice called out—an older woman who sat on a bench nearby and knitted.
“We’re not bothering!” the loud one—either Charlotte or Jane—insisted. “He’s showing us how to do an eyebrow thing!”
Hit with a brainstorm, Baron gestured toward a large tree an agreeable distance from the church. “Here’s a game for you. Robin Hood hid in the trees to rob from the rich and give to the poor. Maybe you should try it.”
“Ooh! That’s a good game!” the loud one said.
“Okay,” the other agreed. “We’ll hide and you come by in a little while. Since you’re rich, we’ll rob you.”
“An admirable plan.” Baron wasn’t sure he’d be making it over to the tree for the girls to rob, but they looked so excited he didn’t have the heart to tell them “no” directly.
He started to walk around the church, trying to get a better sense of how much damage had been done from the storm and if the historic character could be preserved in the rebuild.
After a few minutes, a stir of noise from the direction of the tree made him glance over.
He started to walk toward the girls immediately and, when he got a better look at what was happening, he started to run.
“Charlotte!” the older woman screamed from the bench.
The loud little girl—whose name was evidently Charlotte—was hanging from a branch of the tree that was way too high for her to have climbed.
When Baron reached the tree, the other girl, Jane, was crying and looking up at her sister. “I told her not to go up all the way.”
“How’re you doing up there, Charlotte?” Baron called, intentionally keeping his voice light. If he scared her, she’d be more likely to fall.
“I was being Robin Hood, but I couldn’t shoot my arrow and I slipped.” Her voice broke on the last word, but she sounded more indignant than terrified.
“You’ll shoot the arrow better from down here. Can you get your foot on that branch below you?”
The older woman had reached them, and Baron motioned for her to silence her panicked exclamation at Charlotte’s awkward maneuvers in the tree. The girl couldn’t seem to stabilize herself on the branch beneath her.
“Do you want me to be Will Scarlett, Robin Hood’s best friend, and come up there to help?”
“Yes, please.”
Jane had her fist in her mouth, trying to stop herself from crying as she stared up at her sister. Baron gave one of her ponytails a tug. “You can hold this for me,” he said, handing her his phone.
So Baron had to climb a tree. In his business suit. On the edge of a college campus.
It wasn’t exactly the way he would have chosen to spend the afternoon.
He probably shouldn’t have suggested the girls play around the tree, though, and the little girl was being remarkably brave. Plus, there wasn’t anyone else around who could climb up there after her.
So he climbed. He talked to her casually as he did, telling her about Robin Hood, Will Scarlett, and Maid Marion and about how, when she got down, she could play a lot better.
When he reached a high enough branch, he braced himself against the trunk to assess the situation. He didn’t want to put much weight on the branch Charlotte was hanging onto, so he balanced on the large branch beneath it and stepped out toward her.
“You ripped your sleeve,” Charlotte informed him, as he grabbed her and hauled her over toward the tree trunk.
“So I did.” Baron hadn’t just ripped up one of the sleeves of his jacket. He had also scratched the back of his neck. “You’ll have to pay for it, I guess.”
Charlotte giggled, not for a moment believing he was serious.
They managed to climb down to the lower branches, and Baron swung himself down to the ground and reached up to take Charlotte.
The girl extended her arms toward him, but he didn’t expect her to jump off the branch toward him at the same time.
She did jump, and the momentum threw him off balance.
The next thing he knew he was sprawled flat on the ground with a blond child on top of him.
He opened his eyes to see the other girl peering down at him with wide green eyes that suddenly looked eerily familiar. “You fell down.”
“I did.”
This was definitely not turning out to be one of his better days.
Charlotte was trying to pick herself up, but unfortunately that included elbowing him in the chest and kneeing him in the stomach. She stared down at him too with those same green eyes.
And suddenly Baron knew who the eyes belonged to. He knew who these disastrous girls belonged to.
Another pair of green eyes stared down at him, paired with an adult face and a very adult body.
“And I’ve told them over and over again that they’re not supposed to tackle strangers,” Leila said. Her voice was light, but her face was kind of pale, and he wondered how much of the dramatics she’d seen.
Now that he knew, the resemblance was glaringly obvious. These girls couldn’t belong to anyone except Leila. It had never even crossed his mind before, though.
“It was nice of you to play Will Scarlett for us,” Jane said, brushing away the remnants of her tears. “But I think we should play Therm-o-ply instead.”
Charlotte patted Baron on the chest, just as he was trying to sit up. “We’ll even let you be the Spartans!”
Baron finally managed to regain his feet, dirty, bruised, and torn in more than one place. He angled a look over at Leila, who had pulled Charlotte into a hug but was gazing at him with eyes that were mostly apologetic.
But a tiny part of her expression, Baron was convinced, reflected faint amusement. At him.
Not—not—his best day.
&nbs
p; Three
Eighteen years ago
“Give it back,” Leila demanded, making a lunge for Steven, who’d just grabbed her journal before she’d even known he was there. She’d wanted to write in privacy, but he’d found her in her favorite reading spot at a big rock near the stream that ran behind her backyard.
Baron and Steven’s house was less than a mile away, although they lived on a much more affluent street.
He laughed in that way he always had—like he was gloating, like he was better than everyone else—and held the mauve-colored journal out of her reach.
Angry and embarrassed both, she lunged for it again, this time tripping and falling to the ground.
He laughed again, opening the journal to a random page and starting to read aloud. He was twelve, just a year older than her, and he’d never once been nice to her. “Today I got braces. They make my teeth sore, and I hate how they look. But maybe I’ll look better when they’re off. I wish I was pretty. Then maybe—”
“Stop,” she yelled, jumping up and grabbing for her journal again. “Shut up.”
He was bigger than she was, and he held her off with a hand on her chest. She fought the pressure, so angry now she clutched at his shirt for some leverage to better reach his extended arm.
He had dark eyes like Baron—only they were always sharp and mean. He wasn’t as cute as Baron was, and he wasn’t good at school or at sports. He laughed again and said, “Wouldn’t it be nice to be pretty, Leila? What would you do if you were pretty?”
He turned back to the journal, and she could tell he was going to read again. She made an outraged sound in her throat and tried to grab at it, tackle him, anything it would take to get it back.
He pushed her away with more force than she’d expected. She stumbled backwards and landed on the ground hard, jarring herself so painfully she lost her breath.
Before she could orient herself enough to respond, someone else was suddenly there too.
She wasn’t exactly sure how it happened, but Steven ended up on the ground, landing awkwardly and with a loud huff.
Baron ended up with the journal.
