Safe in the Tycoon's Arms (Harlequin Romance)

by Faye, Jennifer

  “Not until three. It’s best if my ex and I keep our time together at a minimum. Molly has enough to deal with. She doesn’t need to see her parents arguing.”

  “You still have a couple of hours until you have to be back. Why don’t you take a nap and later I’ll give you a ride to the hospital?”

  His offer filled her with a warmth that she hadn’t felt in a long time. “I couldn’t ask you to do that. You don’t even know me.”

  “You aren’t asking. I’m offering. And after I kept you up late last night, I owe you this.”

  “But it isn’t necessary—

  “It’s still drizzling outside. You don’t need to get wet again. So do we have a deal?”

  “How is it a deal? What do you get out of helping me?”

  “Let’s just say it feels good being able to help someone.”

  She had a feeling there was more to his statement than he let on. Was he wishing that someone would help him? What could a wealthy, sexy bachelor need help with?

  She looked into his blue-gray eyes. “Are you sure?”

  “I am. Now do you promise you won’t go sneaking off again?”

  She was exhausted. And he seemed determined to be a Good Samaritan. What would it hurt to accept his offer?

  “I promise.”

  * * *

  A ball of sympathy and uneasiness churned in Lucas’s gut. He knew all too well the hell a parent went through when they felt as if they’d lost control of their children’s safety. When his ex-wife had up and left him, she’d written only a brief note saying she’d take good care of their little girl. Until his private investigator had tracked her down in California, he hadn’t been able to function.

  This thing with Kate hit too close to home. But how could he turn his back on her when her daughter was in such shaky circumstances?

  He needed time to think. In fact, that’s all he’d been doing since Kate went upstairs to lie down. But it was almost three and he hadn’t seen any sign of her. The memory of her pale face and the dark smudges under her eyes had him thinking she was still asleep. Perhaps she’d forgotten to set the alarm on her phone. Or maybe she was so tired that she’d slept right through it. He couldn’t blame her.

  He should wake her, but the thought of going upstairs left a sour taste in his mouth. He hadn’t been upstairs in a long time. There was nothing up there but gut-wrenching memories of everything he’d lost—his family...his little girl.

  Still he had to do something. He’d given his word that he’d get her there on time. The thought of a little girl—the image of his own daughter crystallized in his mind—sick and alone spurred him into action.

  He moved to the bottom of the steps. “Kate!” Nothing. “Kate, are you awake? It’s time to head to the hospital.”

  He waited, hoping to hear a response or the echo of footsteps. There were no sounds. Surely she hadn’t left again without saying anything. Unease churned in his gut. No. She’d promised and he sensed that she prided herself on keeping her word.

  “Kate, we need to go!”

  The seconds ticked by and still nothing. There was only one thing left to do. His gaze skimmed up the staircase. He’d been up and down those stairs countless times throughout his life and he’d never thought anything of it. Then came the day when he’d climbed to the second floor only to find his wife was gone along with his baby girl. The memory slugged him squarely in the chest, knocking the breath from his lungs.

  That never-to-be-forgotten night he’d cleared out his personal belongings and moved to the first floor. He’d wanted to avoid the memories...the pain. Now because of Kate and her little girl, he had to climb those steps again.

  Putting one foot in front of the other, he started up the stairs. He faltered as he reached the landing with the large stained-glass window, but he didn’t turn back. He couldn’t. This was too important.

  He turned, taking the next set of steps two at a clip. His chest tightened and his hands tensed.

  Don’t look around. Don’t remember. Just keep moving.

  His strides were long and fast. He kept his face forward, resisting the instinct to survey his surroundings, to let the memories crowd into his mind—not that they were ever far away.

  Lucas stopped in front of her door and blew out a pent-up breath. He rapped his knuckles on the heavy wood door. “Kate, are you awake?”

  Nothing.

  He knocked again. Still no response.

  Was it possible she was sick? Walking around in the cold air while soaking wet certainly couldn’t have done her any good. And he wasn’t going downstairs until he knew she was all right.

  He grasped the handle and pushed the door open. The drapes were drawn, allowing shadows to dance across the spacious room. When his eyes adjusted, he spotted Kate sprawled over the king-sized bed. Her breathing was deep. The stress lines were erased from her beautiful face. And her pink lips were slightly parted and very desirable.

  He squashed his line of thought. Now wasn’t the time to check her out, no matter how appealing he found her. Relationships weren’t in the cards for him. In the end, people just ended up hurting each other. And he wanted no part of that.

  “Kate.” His voice was soft so as to not scare her. When she didn’t stir, he stepped closer. “Kate, wake up.”

  She rolled over and stretched. The robe fell open, revealing a lace-trimmed pink top that hugged her curves and rode up, exposing her creamy white stomach. The breath caught in his throat. She was so gorgeous. He shouldn’t look—he should turn away. But what fun would that be? He was, after all, a man. A little glimpse of her fine figure wouldn’t hurt anyone. Right?

  Her gaze latched on to him and the moment ended. She bolted upright.

  “Lucas. What are you doing here?” She glanced down, cinching the robe closed. “I mean I know it’s your house and all...but what are you doing in my room...umm, your guest room.” She pressed a hand to her mouth, halting the babbling.

  “I tried calling up the steps and even knocked on the door, but you were out to the world.”

  “What do you want?”

  The question was a loaded one and set off one inappropriate response after the other. The first of which was for her to move over in bed. The next thought was for her to kiss him.

  He cleared his throat, hoping his voice would sound normal. “It’s time to go back to the hospital.” He turned for the door. “I’ll meet you downstairs.”

  Drip... Drip... He paused and listened. Drip...

  Lucas turned on his heels. “Is the faucet in the bathroom leaking?”

  “Umm...no.”

  “But that sound. Something’s dripping.” He squinted into the shadows. Frustrated, he moved to the light switch. “Can’t you hear it?”

  “Of course I hear it. I’m not deaf.”

  He flipped on the overhead light and spotted a wastebasket in the corner. A quick inspection of the ceiling showed water gathering around the bloated section of plaster. Droplets formed and dropped. Bits of fallen plaster littered the floor.

  “What the—” He remembered his manners just before cursing. His mother had been the epitome of proper form. Carringtons should never lower themselves with vulgar language, she’d say. Especially not in front of guests.

  “It’s been like that since the rain started. You need a new roof.”

  His jaw tightened. “Thanks for pointing out the obvious.”

  “I told you when we met that I’m an interior designer. I know more about houses than just how to properly hang a painting.”

  “So you do roofing, too?”

  She smiled. “No, I’m not a roofer, but that doesn’t mean I can’t find someone qualified to do a rush job. Because if you’d look around, you’d realize that isn’t your only leak.”

  This time he
didn’t care about his manners. “Damn.”

  He’d turned a blind eye to the house to the point where he had no idea this place was in such bad condition. This went far beyond the mopping and cleaning he’d envisioned. There was considerable damage to the ceiling that was now bowing, and the crown molding was warped and crumbling.

  Kate listed everything she’d noticed that needed repair. Unable to bear the guilt over the devastation he’d let happen to his childhood home...to his daughter’s legacy, he turned his gaze away from the ruined plaster. Kate continued talking as though she was in her element. Who knew that fixing up old houses could excite someone so much?

  She got to her feet and straightened the bed. “If you want I can make a few phone calls to get people in here to start fixing things up. Maybe they can change things up a little and give this place a makeover—”

  “No. I don’t want people in here, making changes.” He ground out the words.

  A frown creased her forehead. “Of course there will have to be changes. Nothing ever stays the same. Life is one long string of changes.”

  The only changes he’d experienced lately were bad ones that left him struggling to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Like his last visit with his daughter in California—when she’d turned away from him because he was now a stranger to her.

  “Listen to me,” Kate said, moving to stand right in front of him. “You’re going to have to make some decisions about this place. You can already see the neglect is taking its toll. Once it’s fixed up, you can move out of that tiny room in the downstairs—”

  “I’m happy there.”

  She frowned at him as though she didn’t believe a word he said. “Perhaps then you might consider moving to someplace smaller and selling this house to some lucky family who will appreciate its charms.”

  He glanced around at the room. This had been his aunt’s room, back when he was a kid. In this room, he’d always felt safe and accepted just as he was. This house was a scrapbook of memories, some good, some not so good. He couldn’t turn his back on it all.

  Ghosts of the past filled his mind. The walls started to close in on him. Each breath grew more difficult. He needed space—air. He headed for the door, ignoring Kate’s plea for him to wait. With his gaze straight ahead, he marched down the hall, his breathing becoming more labored. It felt as though the oxygen had been sucked out of the house.

  No matter how much he hated to admit it, Kate had a point. This mansion was in worse shape than he’d ever imagined. His shoulders drooped beneath the weight of guilt. His parents and grandparents would be horrified if they were still around to see the neglect he’d let take place. They’d entrusted him with the care of the Carrington mansion and he’d failed. His chest burned as he rushed down the stairs.

  Even if he someday won over his little girl—if she no longer looked at him like a scary stranger—he couldn’t bring her here. He couldn’t show her the numerous portraits of her ancestors that his ex-wife had stashed in the attic. The dust. The peeling and cracking plaster. And most likely mold. It just wasn’t fit for a child—or for that matter, an adult.

  In the foyer, he yanked open the front door. The cool breeze rushed up and swirled around him. He stood in the doorway as the rain pitter-pattered on the pavement. He breathed in the fresh air—the coolness eased his lungs.

  As his heart rate slowed, his jumbled thoughts settled. Kate was right. The house did need more repairs than he’d ever thought possible. And he was way past putting it off until another day. Then a crazy idea struck him. But could it work?

  CHAPTER SIX

  UPON HEARING KATE’S approaching footsteps, Lucas turned. “You’re right.”

  “I am?” Her pencil-thin brows rose. “Is this your way of apologizing? And perhaps asking me to make those calls for you?”

  “Yes, that was an apology.” Why did she make him spell everything out? He thought he’d made it clear from the start.

  As for having her involved with the repairs, he wasn’t sure. Guilt niggled at him. Here she was with so much on her plate and she was worried about him...er, rather his house. This was all so backward. He should be offering Kate a helping hand.

  Wouldn’t things have gone more smoothly for him when his daughter went missing if he’d let someone in? Instead he’d closed himself off from the world. Lost in his own pain, Carrington Gems had teetered on the brink of disaster. Even today, he was still paying for the poor choices he’d made back then.

  Was that the way Kate was feeling now? He glanced into her eyes, seeing pain and something else...could it be determination? Of course it was. She might have had a case of nerves earlier, but he could see by the slight tilt of her chin and her squared shoulders that the moment had passed.

  Still, he wasn’t quite ready to throw in with a woman he barely knew...even if his aunt trusted Kate enough to open up his home to her. Still she seemed so excited when she talked about the house. He couldn’t make any decisions now. It’d take him some more thought.

  He glanced at his watch. “We should go. You don’t want to be late.”

  “But what about the roof?”

  “It’ll keep for a few more hours. We can talk it over when you’re done at the hospital.”

  He ushered her out the door into the gray, drizzling day. Deep inside he knew that Kate’s appearance in his life was about to alter things...for both of them. He didn’t know how, but he sensed change in the wind. And after years of trying to keep the status quo, this knowledge left him feeling extremely off-balance.

  But no one could understand how hard it would be for him to help this woman with a sick child—a child the same age as his own daughter...who no longer even recognized him. Regret pummeled him. He should have been home more and tried harder to work things out with Elaina, if only for the sake of his little girl. Then it would be him she was calling Daddy—not someone else.

  Silence filled the car, giving Lucas too much time to think about what he’d lost and how inadequate he felt as a human. He glanced over at Kate. “What has you so quiet?”

  “I was thinking about how to raise money for the surgery.”

  The streetlight turned green and Lucas eased down on the accelerator. “Do you have any family you can reach out to?”

  “No. My family is small and not close-knit. My mother was around when Molly first got sick, but she doesn’t have a lot of patience. The longer the tests and hospital visits went on... Well, now she’s off in Los Angeles, or was it Las Vegas, with the new flavor of the month. She calls when she gets a chance.”

  That was tough. Even though his mother had remarried after his father’s death and moved to Europe, he knew if he ever picked up the phone and asked for help that she’d come. She was never a warm and affectionate mother, but she did protect what was hers.

  “So without a rich uncle in the family and knowing I won’t qualify for a loan, I’ll have to organize a fund-raiser. Something that can be arranged quickly and without too much overhead.”

  He paused, searching for a solution. “I’ll help you as much as I can. You just hit me at a bad time as I’m fully invested in expanding Carrington Gems to the West Coast.” He didn’t bother to add that they’d hit one expensive stumbling block after the other with this project. In comparison to what Kate was facing, his problems paled considerably. “If I think of something that might work, I’ll let you know.”

  “Thanks. And my offer is still open to make those phone calls. I have some contacts in New York who can hook me up with a reliable crew.”

  The depth of her kindness struck a chord with him. “You’d really do that with everything you have going on?”

  “Of course I would. You let me stay at your house for almost a week, rent-free...even if you didn’t know it. I owe you so much.”

  He grew uncomfortable when people started tha
nking him. He wasn’t someone special—definitely not a selfless person like Kate appeared to be. He was a workaholic, who’d lost focus on his priorities and wound up with a house of memories and a business in jeopardy because he’d pushed too hard, too fast to gain the expansion into San Francisco.

  “You don’t owe me a thing. All I did was let you stay in a leaky bedroom. Not very gallant of me.”

  She sniffled. “You could have had me thrown in jail. Most other people who find a stranger in their house would call the police first and ask questions later.”

  Lucas slowed the car as they neared the hospital. Once he maneuvered into a spot in front of the main sliding glass doors, he shifted into Park and turned to her. “Listen, you shouldn’t put me up on a pedestal. You barely know a thing about me. Trust me, I have an ex-wife who would vouch for the fact that I’m no saint.”

  “You’re far too modest—”

  “Don’t let a little kindness fool you. I’m a Carrington. We don’t have hearts—instead, there’s a rough diamond in its place.” His fist beat lightly on his chest. “Harder and colder than any rock you’ll ever find.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “It’s true. My grandfather told me. I was too young to truly understand what he meant, but now I do—”

  “You definitely have a heart or you wouldn’t have been so kind to me.”

  “And you’re too sweet for your own good.”

  The way she stared at him with such assuredness made him want to be that man for her. The kind that was giving and thoughtful instead of focused and driven. For a moment, he was drawn into her dream—drawn to her.

  When she lowered her face, he placed a finger beneath her chin. He wasn’t willing to lose the connection just yet. Her eyes glinted with... Was it longing? His body tensed at the thought. How could this slip of a woman—a near-stranger—have such an effect on him? And why did he have this overwhelming urge to pull her close and kiss her?

  Without thinking of the consequences, he leaned forward. His lips sought hers out. They were soft and smooth. A whispered voice in the back of his mind said he should not be doing this. Not with Kate. Not with anyone.