by Noelle Adams
But a vice kept clamping down around his chest, his lungs, until he couldn’t take a full breath.
“Baron,” Howard said, leaning forward in concern. The older man normally called him “Mr. James” now, but he’d known him since Baron was six. “Are you all right?”
He wasn’t all right. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t do what his father had done. He couldn’t deal with a brother who hated him this much.
He tried to say he was fine but couldn’t get a single word out.
He surged to his feet in a panic and strode out of the office, through the executive suite, into the hallway.
He blindly ended up at the restroom door so he pushed his way in.
He leaned over the sink, willing his heartbeat to subside.
He’d skydived. Jumped off cliffs. Run with the bulls. Raced cars in crazy, dangerous stunts.
But never had he felt like this—so completely helpless, so incapable of doing what he needed to do.
He splashed water on his face and then walked the halls until he’d gotten himself together again.
He still had to go back to his office and talk to the lawyers about dealing with Steven. He still had to try to do his father’s job and not run this company into the ground.
No matter how much he wanted to go back to the life he’d had last year, none of this was going away.
***
Baron finally got to bed after two o’clock. Then he woke up with a gasp at 4:17 the following morning. The sun hadn’t yet rose, and he was soaked with sweat—hot, breathless, frustrated, and hard.
He’d dreamed of Leila, a disconnected mingling of sensual images without any plot and held together only by the building of frantic, carnal sensations.
He heaved himself out of bed, wincing at the ache of his pulsing arousal. He limped to the bathroom and got into the shower, hoping the cold water would wash away both his physical desire and the fuzziness from too much stress and too little sleep.
When the cold water failed to dispel his erection, he took care of it with his hand.
After dressing and drinking two cups of coffee, he felt more in control, so he went into the office early to get ready for the meeting at eight.
Though the lawyers had assured him that his father’s will was sound and there were no grounds for overturning his father’s decision to leave everything to Baron, it was likely to be a long, drawn out, legal battle.
He barely had time and energy for his responsibilities in running his father’s company. Now he’d have to deal with his brother on top of everything else.
He couldn’t keep having panic attacks like he’d had in his office last night.
That meant he had to stay in control and not let himself become distracted.
Spending time with Leila and the girls had simply been an experiment, after all—to see if there was room for something like that in his life—but sometimes experiments failed.
There was too much in his life already. He couldn’t handle anything more.
He wouldn’t call Leila again or accept any further invitations.
He was the kind of man who could make such a decision and keep it.
* * *
The meeting lasted until ten that morning, leaving Baron just enough time to meet with the president of Benton College at 10:30.
This would be the last time he’d have to go to campus, since the purchase of the church would be finalized.
Visiting the church always felt like a respite, made him feel close to family, but he needed to focus on other things now, so it was time to get this over with.
After a successful meeting, Baron walked back to his car, trying to avoid the students who swarmed out of the buildings around him. A class session must have just ended.
Despite himself, Baron glanced up to the window he knew belonged to Leila’s office in James Hall. She didn’t teach any classes on Fridays. He knew that from the schedule on her college web page but, of course, he couldn’t possibly tell if she was currently in her office or not.
It no longer mattered to him, anyway.
Baron sidestepped a group of students who were either heading to their next class or maybe, by the looks of them, back to their dorm rooms to sleep.
Then he turned his head once more to glance back at James Hall.
And collided with someone in front of him.
The woman huffed and dropped a pile of papers, and Baron bit back a curse at the jarring surprise.
His eyes finally focused on who he’d run into.
“Leila!” His heart jumped oddly. She looked beautiful and discomposed, her hair slipping out of a long braid, her glasses slipping down her nose, and more papers slipping out of her hands.
His heart jumped again when she broke into a smile as she processed his presence. “Baron,” she said, sounding glad to see him, “I’d have thought you’d be a little better at watching where you walked.”
“Sorry.” He leaned down to help her pick up her scattered papers. He wasn’t about to admit that he’d been looking behind him toward her office, and he couldn’t think of any acceptable excuses for being so inattentive, so he just glossed over the issue. “Although I notice that your powers of perception left something to be desired as well.”
She snickered and straightened up with a messy pile of papers in her hands. “I was reading,” she admitted with blithe sincerity. “You won’t believe some of these papers that students turn in.”
“I thought you didn’t teach on Fridays.”
“I don’t. I was just proctoring an in-class essay for a colleague.” Leila gazed up at him, her expression torn between interest and something almost shy. “What are you doing on campus? Another meeting about the church?”
He wondered if she thought—hoped— that he might be here to see her. After all, he had kissed her last night.
He wanted to again, his body reacting to sensual line of her lips, the fragrance of something fresh and floral that surrounded her, the hint of cleavage he couldn’t help but notice above the V-neckline of her draped top.
He cleared his throat and managed to remember her question. “Yes. Another meeting.”
“So everything is going smoothly with that?”
“Yes. Why do you ask?” His voice sounded defensive. He wasn’t sure why.
“No reason,” she replied, clearly taken aback by his tone. “I just care about that little church and want to see it rebuilt.”
For some reason, it felt like she was putting pressure on him too—one more person who wanted him to live up to expectations he could never meet. “I know what you want. I’m working on it.”
Her expression didn’t really change—and certainly her posture didn’t—but something intangible in her presence seemed to shrink away from his cool, distant tone. “Good,” she said lightly. “I’m glad to hear it.”
She smiled up at him again, but it wasn’t quite so sincere. “It was good to see you. Maybe I’ll see you around.” Then she walked past him, back toward James Hall.
Baron stood frozen in place for a moment. This was good. It was what he’d wanted. She’d gotten the message. He could withdraw from her now without incident, without entanglements, without distractions.
But something stronger, deeper rose up as he processed her expression and realized that he’d hurt her feelings.
He’d kissed her last night. And treated her like shit this morning.
A glimmer of recognition told him this was something he’d done to other women innumerable times before.
It shouldn’t matter. He needed to break free of this. He’d had a panic attack last night because there was too much in his life, and he just couldn’t take on anything more.
He turned around. “Leila,” he called out. “Wait.”
She stopped and turned back, a question on her face.
“Sorry about that.” He took four steps over so he was beside her again. “I have a bad habit of being an ass sometimes.”
“Everyone is sometimes.” She peered
up at his face, her vivid eyes observant, searching, still slightly distrustful. “So what’s changed?”
He swallowed, not even close to being able to answer that question. “Maybe I’m not always an ass.”
For a few seconds, Baron wasn’t sure how she would react. Then she finally broke out into rippling laughter. Holding her pile of papers to her chest with one arm, she patted his chest with the other in a gesture that was both casual and frighteningly intimate. “You’re a very confusing man. Did you know that?”
“I had my suspicions.”
She laughed again. Then glanced down at her watch. “Hey, my old dissertation director is on campus this weekend. She’s giving a lunch lecture today on the Great Awakening history in this area. Since you’re interested in the church, you might find the lecture interesting too. You want to come?”
Baron had a conference call scheduled in a half-hour, and he was supposed to be cutting Leila out of his life completely.
“Sure,” he said, “Sounds fascinating.”
Leila grinned, the smile transforming her face into something absolutely breathtaking. For the life of him, he couldn’t believe that someone, that Leila, was smiling at him like that.
“Great,” she said, “Do you mind if we stop by my office first? I want to dump these papers.”
“No problem.” Baron fell in step with her as they went into her building. While she was in her office, he called MaryAnn and tried to ignore her surprised disapproval when he said he wouldn’t be back in the office until after lunch and she should reschedule the conference call.
This was foolish, he told himself as he hung up. He was blatantly defying his wise decision to pull himself away from Leila and her family.
But he couldn’t stand the expression in her eyes when he’d treated her coldly, and he wasn’t prepared to lose the look on her face now—still a little questioning but full of laughter and something like hope.
After all, it was just a lunch lecture. Nothing serious. Nothing life-changing.
How much damage could one lunch do?
***
Baron wondered if Leila had dressed up for him.
They weren’t really on a date. He’d asked her to lunch again, ostensibly to follow up on their discussion after the lecture last Friday and for him to ask her more about the history of the church.
He was genuinely interested in the church because of its connection to his parents, but that wasn’t really the reason he’d asked her to lunch.
He wanted to see her again. He wasn’t, however, sure what her reaction would be if he’d simply asked her out to dinner or the symphony. He also wasn’t convinced that dating her was the best idea.
So another lunch it was. Until things fell more clearly into place.
Leila hadn’t appeared surprised by his lunch invitation, and she’d accepted without hesitation. Her attitude, when they met at a bistro near campus and he walked her backed to James Hall afterwards, was casual and friendly. She wasn’t flirtatious. She didn’t appear to be trying to impress or allure him. She’d seemed slightly annoyed when his phone kept vibrating with work calls and messages that just wouldn’t stop—even for lunch—but she mostly just treated him like a regular person.
He did wonder, though, if she’d dressed up for him.
Her outfit was perfectly appropriate for work, and it fell well within her characteristic style. The soft, thin sweater was clingier than what he’d seen her wear before, though, and it had a low enough neckline to allow him to catch a mesmerizing hint of cleavage. The brown pencil skirt she wore was incredibly sexy, as were the very high heels.
If she’d chosen that outfit for his benefit, Baron was fully appreciative.
Although he would have been able to concentrate better on their conversation as they walked back to campus if he hadn’t been continually distracted by the way the pendant on her necklace kept slipping into her cleavage and the way her skirt hugged the curves of her ass.
“Don’t you think so?” Leila asked, stopping in front of the main door of James Hall. She tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. The rest of it was secured in a knot at the nape of her neck.
Baron couldn’t for the life of him remember what she’d just been talking about. Taking a cue from the direction of her question, he murmured a vague acquiescence.
She gave him a sharp look, and he wondered if he’d made a conversational gaff. Then she smiled and changed the subject. “Charlotte and Jane made you something. I’ve been directed to give it to you.”
Baron’s eyebrows shot up. “They made me something?”
“To thank you for the flowers you gave them at the party last week. It’s up in my office. Do you mind coming up?”
Baron had no idea what to say to such a thing, and he couldn’t imagine what the girls would have made for him or why they would have spent their time making it. So he just said, “All right,” and followed her into the building.
He caught Leila watching him out of the corner of her eye as they stood side by side in the elevator. As if she still couldn’t quite figure him out.
Which made perfect sense. Baron couldn’t really figure out what he was doing either.
He couldn’t seem to stop doing it, though—no matter how much more sense it made to pour his limited energy and emotional resources into everything else he had going on in his life.
“Thanks for lunch,” she said, breaking a minute of silence.
He hid a smile in response to the hint of amusement in her eyes. “You’re welcome. Thank you for having lunch with me.”
She appeared to hide a smile too. “You’re welcome. I enjoyed it.”
She stepped off the elevator before him, and Baron was treated to the sight of the provocative sway of her hips and the sensual line of her legs, accented by her ridiculously high heels.
Spurred on by some impulse that he really should have suppressed, he asked, “Do you wear those shoes a lot?”
Leila had been fumbling in her leather bag for her keys, but she glanced down at her feet at his question. Her slightly guilty expression revealed the answer, but she responded gamely, “Sometimes. They’re a little too high to be practical, but they look good with this skirt.”
“They do look good with that skirt,” he affirmed, surprised when his voice came out rather husky.
Leila’s cheeks reddened slightly, but she slanted him an ironic look. “Nice save. At first it sounded like you were questioning my choice of shoes.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it. I was just appropriately impressed by your ability to walk in them.”
“Oh. I see.” Leila laughed as she opened the door. “It just takes practice.”
Then, as if some malicious fate intervened, her ankle twisted on her first step into the office. Her knee buckled, and she caught herself on Baron’s arm.
“Don’t say a word,” she warned, still half-laughing as she clung to his arm and regained her balance.
Part of Baron wanted to smile in response to her amused expression and clever irony, but the rest of him was suddenly overwhelmed by the proximity of her body, her scent, and her warmth. He’d reached out to stabilize her when she’d stumbled, and now his hand lingered on her shoulder, sliding against the soft knit of her sweater.
When Leila leaned down to slip her shoe off and then back on her foot, her neckline dipped low, and Baron was treated to the sight of her lush breasts, barely covered by the lace of her bra.
He swallowed as his body started to react.
“All is well,” Leila said cheerfully, evidently unaware of the response she was provoking in him. “Shoe and ankle are both fine.” She dropped her bag on the floor and reached up to check her hair. “Damn it,” she muttered, when she discovered her hair was no longer neatly restrained.
Baron watched, absurdly mesmerized, as she reached up with both hands to take a clip out of her hair and then attempted to roll it back up in the knot. Her thin sweater stretched against her breasts, revealing a faint outl
ine of nipples.
A rush of desire buzzed in his head and tightened in his groin. Attempting to make natural conversation, he asked, somewhat inanely, “Can you get it back up in the knot without a mirror?”
Leila scowled at him, but without any heat. Her eyes were still glinting with amusement. “It’s not a knot. It’s a chignon.”
Baron had no idea what a chignon was, and he didn’t really care.
“Damn it,” Leila said again, as the clip failed to fasten her hair.
Before she could twist it up again, Baron reached a hand out to stop her. “Leave it,” he said, his voice again huskier than it should have been.
Leila frowned in confusion and dropped her hands. She peered up at him questioningly and finally seemed to process the full extent of his mood. Her face flushed even more, and she licked her lips, although he didn’t know if that was from nerves or from interest.
Her hair had tumbled down around her shoulder, and Baron reached out to trace his fingers down one of the tousled waves.
“Baron?” Leila's voice was barely a breath.
His hand moved from her hair to her face, and he waited to see if she would withdraw.
She didn’t. Her mood had shifted to match his, and she looked warm and breathless, her head tilting into his hand and her eyes hot and intense.
Thinking of no good reason to restrain himself anymore, he leaned down into a kiss.
She responded immediately, wrapping an arm around his neck and shifting her body closer to his. A wave of heated gratification washed over him as he tangled his fingers into her loose hair and deepened the kiss.
Leila moaned softly into his mouth and reached blindly behind him to close her office door. Possessed by the kind of helpless desire he hadn’t experienced in years, Baron pressed her body into his, one of his hands sliding down to cup her ass.
When his arousal pushed into her middle, Leila tore her mouth away and gasped, “Oh God, Baron!”
For a pained moment, he wasn’t sure if it was an exclamation of pleasure or the prelude to saying they should stop. He knew this was too fast, too much—when nothing for either of them was clear.
But then she rubbed herself against his groin and grabbed his head again, pulling him down into another kiss.
