“You next,” she whispered to Trey as she returned the box to its nest and resettled her backpack.
“Not me,” he said. “I’m not superstitious. I don’t believe in magic.”
With a shake of her head, she grabbed him and guided him firmly toward the lovely figure. Mia linked their hands and lifted them to the swoop of marble. She held his there, sandwiched by hers, and then somehow their fingers were tangled and she was standing close to his back, nestled against him, the two of them as one.
The marble seemed to vibrate beneath their touch. Mia sucked in a breath, held it, and then Trey glanced over his shoulder at her face. The night went still.
Her heart beat slowly, but she thought his must beat in the same rhythm, the two of them, alive in this moment. In sync.
Oh, no. The words whispered in her mind, but they were her very own this time. Her own instincts expressing dismay.
Yet she didn’t move. The night closed around them like a velvet cloak, providing a private place for a private moment between two people who might never have met and yet who had, despite their differences. And despite every reason against it, she’d never felt this close to any other man.
Then an angry French voice shot out of the darkness. Mia stiffened and a flashlight arced over their surroundings, once, twice, only to hone in on the two of them like a spotlight. Trey whirled to face the threat, pushing her behind his bigger body.
She peered around his arm to see a hulking presence in the uniform of a security guard. He spoke rapidly, too quick for her to understand though his meaning was quite clear regardless. They were where they shouldn’t be.
To confirm it, she caught a word in the barrage of rebukes. Gendarmerie. Police.
Mia ducked around Trey, stepping into the harsh light. “Sir,” she said, trying to gather her thoughts in a second language. “Sir. Please. S’il vous plait.”
Additional French words escaped her, her vocabulary evaporating.
So she resorted to English. “I’m sorry. You see, we need the luck. My lover,” she glanced back at Trey, “we’re meant to be together. Fated. But his family, you see they don’t understand we’re soul mates, and we need the…the…bonne fortune.” The phrase for good luck tumbled off her tongue.
“Just introduce us as Romeo and Juliet and get it over with,” Trey grumbled.
“The French love lovers,” she said out of the side of her mouth.
“Everybody loves extra cash in their pocket,” he countered, and produced some folded Euros that he held out to the man.
After a moment’s hesitation, the charged atmosphere changed from hostility to downright bonhomie. The handful of cash bought them an actual smile and then an escort by flashlight out the main entrance.
With a wave for their new pal, by tacit agreement they returned directly to the apartment building—this time by taxi. In the foyer, Trey pulled more bills from his pocket and fanned them in front of her. “What will it take to get you to make a couple of cups of my mother’s coffee?”
“Put your money away,” she said, and marched for the elevator. “I don’t accept bribes.”
Upon reaching the penthouse apartment, she set aside her backpack and they both stripped off their fashion-backward jackets. Then he followed her into the kitchen and watched her use the French press to make two steaming cups. After a short rummage in a cupboard, he discovered a packet of small cookies.
As she slid his coffee along the countertop toward him, he narrowed his eyes at her. “Okay, what’s up? Something’s happened. What’s bugging you?”
Could she be truthful? Could she tell him she was desperate to gin up some dissatisfaction with him, some way to forget how all evening he’d been both fun and funny? The consummate co-adventurer.
Then there was that…that…togetherness, when they stood, body-to-body with barely a breath between them, touching the statue.
“You could at least blame me for getting threatened with arrest,” she said, her tone sulky.
For some maddening reason he seemed to find that amusing. “Well, it is somewhat disappointing that I didn’t have to call Devlin or Brock and beg to get bailed from jail in Paris because of…what would we have been taken in for exactly? Unlawful fondling?”
“There wasn’t any ‘fondling.’”
He lifted his cup and met her eyes over the rim. “To my everlasting regret.”
Bad man! “Don’t go getting flirty with me,” she said, frowning and scurrying back to put two feet between them. “Be angry or annoyed or something helpful like that.”
His lips twitched. “I do have one complaint.”
“What’s that?”
“You owe me some skin.”
The hand holding her own coffee arrested on its way to her mouth. “Huh?” Her flesh prickled beneath her secondhand clothes. Was that some gambit to get her naked? “What do you mean exactly?”
He set his beverage down and began to lift the hem of his sweater, taking the white undershirt he wore beneath with it. “I mean I left behind an inch or two of mine crawling through that fence.”
“No,” she breathed, and dropped her cup to the counter on her way to getting closer to him. “Let me see,” she demanded, but he grabbed her hands and yanked her toward him instead.
With an oomph, she landed against his chest and then he was kissing her, his lips still cold from their nighttime activities, but his mouth hot, so hot, from the coffee and from whatever impulse made him eager to kiss her again.
“I’ve been wanting to do that all night,” he murmured, and she abandoned herself to her own desires, kissing him back, her body as flush to his as she could make it.
He groaned, his hands sliding down her back to cup her bottom and tilting her hips so his heavy shaft rocked against her at a place that made her moan. She opened her mouth to the deep thrust of his tongue and she parried with her own, teasing too.
Lifting his head, he groaned again. “You do something to me. A spell.”
Her mouth trailed along his jawline, prickly with whiskers and she thought of how they might feel elsewhere, on the inside of her elbow, on the outer curve of her breast. “You don’t believe in magic.”
“If anyone could make me change my mind...” He found her mouth for yet another kiss, lavish and lascivious and so fiery it put the teenagers’ fumblings to shame.
This time, she broke free to haul in a breath. “You’re good at this.”
He grinned, and lifted her onto her toes with a boost at her butt. His mouth dropped a peck on her nose. “I take it you don’t object?”
God, she liked this playful version of him, so different than the tired businessman who’d stepped out of the taxi that first day. She threw her arms around his neck, tugging him down to trace his mouth with the tip of her tongue. A tremor coursed through his body, sending a flash of heat over hers. It was heady stuff, to know she affected him as much as he affected her.
He took over again, his lips hard and his tongue demanding and she let herself be led wherever he wanted to go, thrusting her breast into his hand as it slid beneath her sweater and cupped her there.
His thumb passed over the crest and she quivered, her head dizzy with a building desire. Dampness rushed between her thighs and she shoved her fingers into the back of his short hair, the strands like mink against her skin. Then he pinched her nipple and she gasped, her body jerking, more wetness gathering at the juncture of her legs.
Her nails dug into his scalp and he lifted his head, his gaze burning into hers. “Mia.” His throaty voice was like a stroke down her spine.
She shivered again. “Yes?”
“What do you want to do about this?”
To avoid his eyes, she rested her forehead against his chest, feeling the steady, heavy thud of his heartbeat. “Um…how about you?”
He moved back, putting space between them, both of his hands moving to the relatively safe zone of her waist. “I like you, Mia Thomas. I don’t want to hurt you or play with your f
eelings.”
“I don’t want to hurt you either,” she said, looking up, and decided upon pure honesty. “But…but I do want you, Trey Blackthorne.”
“For this moment?”
She nodded. “For this moment. No thought about anything but now. No concerns for the future. Or thoughts about the past.”
“Or thoughts about the past,” he repeated, like a promise.
Then, grinning in what seemed to be perfect accord, they moved into each other again. Her blood ignited, her belly tightened in sweet anticipation.
The sound of a key in the front lock acted like a dousing pail of cold water.
Chapter Six
Trey’s head shot up and he looked toward the noise at the entrance to his mother’s apartment. “No,” he said. It couldn’t be. Not since his little brother Logan had burst into their King Harbor boathouse when Trey had been hoping to reach second base with Natalie Schroeder had he been so thwarted.
And so frustrated.
Muttering a curse, he put Mia from him and ran both hands through his hair, smoothing any disorder and willing his pulse to calm and his hard-on to subside. “Mom?” he called out. “Is that you?”
His gaze flicked to his kitchen companion to see that she was straightening her clothes. Then her hand went to her coffee and eyes on him, she lifted it for a hefty swallow.
“All good?” he asked in a low voice.
She nodded, her gaze filled with both regret and amusement. “I haven’t felt sixteen since…well, sixteen.”
He grinned, then couldn’t help but reach out and cup her cheek. His thumb stroked a line over the cinnamon dust of freckles there. “Rain check?”
Her lashes swept down. “Oh, I—”
“Oh, I owe you,” he said and felt her answering smile as well as saw it. “More kisses, Mia. More…everything.”
“If you’re sure—”
“Yes.” Her skin had heated beneath his touch and his blood chugged southward again. “I’m so damn sure.” Another rustle from the front of the apartment snagged his attention, and before he forgot where he was in the pleasure of who he was with, he called out a second time. “Mom?”
“It’s me,” Claire said.
“You’re back early.” He forced himself away from Mia and out of the kitchen, wondering if his mother had lost her uncanny knack of knowing when one of her boys was up to mischief.
She didn’t even glance at him, though, as she fussed with her roller bag and parcels.
“Let me help,” he said, striding forward to draw a large soft-sided tote from under her arm.
“My art portfolio,” she murmured, then began unwinding her blue scarf, its edges decorated with flowers and leaves that he thought she might have done herself—he vaguely recalled her with that fabric in hand along with a needle and thick thread. “Be careful with it.”
“Of course I will.” He set it atop the table beside the door. “Did you run into a problem?”
“No, no.” His mother didn’t meet his gaze. “Our instructor learned that a villa in Ghent has come available. We’ve decided to go there for a few days and we’re scheduled to leave from the Gare du Nord in the morning.”
“In the morning?” He frowned. “Mom, you can’t just run out on me again—”
“We’ll have our talk,” she said. “I promised you and I promised myself.”
“Hi, Claire.” Mia strolled in from the kitchen. “I’ve just put on the kettle to brew some of that tea you like so much.”
His mother brightened. “I’m so happy to see you, honey.” She shot a glance at Trey. “Does this mean you two have been…”
“Sightseeing,” he put in. “I’ve kept to my part of the bargain.”
“Right, right.” Her smile appeared forced. “You’ll have to tell me all the places you’ve visited.”
“Mom.” Trey sighed. “Can we just get this over with? Have our conversation without any more stalling?”
Her hands came together at her waist. “Yes. We should.” She glanced at Mia.
“I’ll go,” the younger woman said, already on the move.
“I’d love that tea, though,” Claire said quickly. “Do you mind?”
Mia reversed direction. “Of course. I’ll be right back.”
Trey took his mother’s elbow in a gentle grasp and led her into the living room. They both took seats on one of the light green couches. The night seemed to press in from the large windows and he stood to turn on more lights.
Looking worried, Mia brought in a tray of cups and saucers and those cookies he’d found on a small plate. Claire took her tea with a grateful smile. Trey lifted his coffee and swallowed a fortifying sip.
“Now I’ll go,” Mia said. “It’s good to see you again, Claire.”
The older woman reached out a hand. “Might you stay? I could use…a friendly face.”
“Mom.” Trey stared at her, aghast. “I’m the enemy now?”
“Of course not. It’s just…” She looked down at her cup.
He shot a glance at Mia, feeling up against a wall. “Do you mind joining us?”
With another worried glance at his mother, she shook her head then took a seat on an adjacent chair.
Trey returned to his place. “Out with it, Mom. What’s this big mystery?”
She pulled in a long breath. “First…first you should know that your father and I love you very much.”
His heart slammed against his ribs, his mind leaping to a conclusion. “Are you ill?”
“No.” She shook her head.
“Dad? I know he’s supposed to be watching his cholesterol—”
“No.”
“Well, I know I’m fine. All the Blackthorne executives had physicals three months ago.”
His mother’s smile appeared genuine now. “Yes. That was good to have confirmed, of course, though you’ve never been sick beyond the usual colds.”
“I come from good stock. Look at how hale Nana is at eighty-six. Blackthornes age well.”
The tea cup rattled as his mom set it in the saucer, her skin paling.
Unsure what else to do, Trey tried lightening the heavy atmosphere. “Though there was that time I broke my tailbone falling down the stairs during flashlight tag. Dev proved early to be a pain in my ass. You and Dad should have stopped at one son instead of four.”
His mother looked up, her expression anguished. “We meant to. We thought we’d only have the single child.”
Trey forced out a chuckle. “I won’t have that conversation with you, Mom. I shouldn’t have to, because I believe it was you who presented that very odd book to explain the process to me when I was eight. It starred gophers, if I recall correctly.”
She didn’t laugh.
“Mom.” He pushed both hands through his hair. “What the hell is it?”
“Thirty-five years ago was a different time.” She set aside her cup and saucer, then folded her hands together, knuckles whitening. “So many technologies were new, so many others not even dreamed of yet. Now I read they catch criminals using DNA and extended family trees.”
“In case you’re thinking of the rumored whisky bootlegging,” Trey said, “even if it is true, the statute of limitations would have run out by now.”
She looked up, clearly distracted. “What?”
“Jason can tell you that whole story when you come home.” He paused. “You are coming home?”
“This…what I have to tell you is separate from that. Or mostly separate from that.”
Trey shot a look at Mia, though he didn’t know why. He doubted she understood what was going on either. Then he focused back on his mother. “All right. To recap. New technologies, new criminal detection capabilities.”
“We went to the very best clinic. All the way across the country in Washington State. And they recommended we keep it a complete secret.”
“A clinic?” Trey couldn’t puzzle it out. No one was sick, she’d said.
“Thirty-five years ago, we paid f
or exclusivity and were assured of complete confidentiality.”
He stilled. Thirty-five years ago. The first real clue.
“You see, your father didn’t want anyone to know there was a fertility issue at all and especially that the doctors determined the problem was his.”
“What?”
His mother shifted uncomfortably. “Very few, uh, swimmers. And low motility, they said.”
“What?” Low sperm count, a fertility clinic across the country. The pieces were starting to come together. “This is about, well, me?”
“Yes.” Mom looked down. “About you.”
“Are you saying I was conceived in a petri dish?” He didn’t know much about the process of…IPF? No, IVF. It had to have been a fairly new procedure at the time.
Her gaze moved up to his. “So to speak. And I’ve been worrying and worrying about not telling you since forever, but especially once those home DNA tests cropped up. My friend Dora Madigan’s son-in-law, you know the one, Geordie Browne, who went to DC to do something secret for the government? He has that limp leftover from an auto accident, and you barely notice it, but Dora says—”
“Mom, I don’t know this Geordie Browne, and at this moment I don’t care about him either. What the hell are you trying to tell me?”
“Geordie Brown’s father had a fling during college and got a girl pregnant. He has a sister he never knew about—until he took a test that his wife gave him at Christmas. For fun. They merely were curious to find out if he was truly part Sicilian.”
Trey rubbed at his forehead, trying to process. Sicilian-or-not Geordie he discarded as irrelevant. “Are you saying Dad had a college fling? That we have a sister? And that you and Dad needed help getting pregnant with me?” He pressed his fingertips to his skull. “I’m not following.”
“Just the last,” his mom said. “We needed help getting pregnant with you and thirty-five years ago we visited a fertility clinic.” She paused to take a long breath. “Where my egg was, um, fertilized by anonymous donor sperm.”
Silent, Trey replayed the essential bit in his head. My egg was fertilized by anonymous donor sperm. “Say that again,” he finally said.
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