“Oh, and Land, do me a favor?”
Caught up in his melancholy, Landon’s voice came out a little wistful when he spoke. “Anything.”
“Don’t have sex with Kimber until I get my son out of the house. You know, as a courtesy.”
“I wasn’t—I didn’t—”
A rogue grin broke across Evan’s face. “Oh, brother, your colors are showing.” He walked out the door and Landon started to shut it, stopping in time for Evan to poke his head back in and give him a wink. “See you Sunday.”
“Not if I see you first,” Landon said, then shoved him out the door and shut it.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Kimber’s nerves had settled some since Evan’s unsettling arrival earlier today. By the time he’d returned with a sugared-up Lyon, she’d managed to convince herself that Evan wouldn’t tell on her and that Landon would never be the wiser.
Since Lyon was powered by ice cream for the rest of the afternoon, she’d had her hands full. His dinner had been spoiled as well, so he’d hardly touched the tuna casserole she’d whipped up stove-top. After a bite of it, she knew why. She’d certainly never snag a man with her cooking skills.
Landon hadn’t come home early tonight, either, which disappointed her. Not for her sake, but for Lyon’s. The boy had asked for his uncle Landon and insisted on waiting up. She let him, lying on his bed next to him and watching Man of Steel as promised. He had finally fallen asleep—miraculously during the loudest crash-bang-boom section of the movie—but Landon still wasn’t home when she shut off the television and sneaked out of Lyon’s room.
Back in her own bedroom, she left on her comfy leggings but slipped out of the bra pinching her breastbone. She debated lounging around without one, but thought the gray T-shirt with a beaded owl taking up the front would likely create enough camouflage to hide any nipple protrusion.
Figuring she’d more than earned a glass of wine, she went on a hunt, nearly crying with relief when she found an abandoned bottle in the back of a cabinet in the kitchen. She didn’t think it was being saved for a special occasion. Moreover, she didn’t care. Landon told her to help herself and that’s exactly what she planned on doing.
She unlocked and opened the balcony door, swinging it closed behind her. Abandoning the monitor on a small table in front of the wicker patio furniture, she took to the railing overlooking the lake. Lake Michigan was calm in the warm night air, ripples on the water’s surface reflecting the moonlight like a blanket of diamonds on its near placid surface.
The red wine trickled down her throat, leaving a pleasant trail of heat. She closed her eyes and took what felt like her first full breath of the day. How did parents do this every day, every week? Every year? Everything she’d needed had been at her fingertips, including a housekeeper scheduled for a three-times-a-week visit, and Kimber had needed this glass of wine as desperately as the air she breathed.
She opened her eyes and sipped again, her vision going blurry as she continued to appreciate the moment. This one silent moment where she wasn’t cooking or cleaning or chasing around a little boy with energy to burn. If she had to work and care for a child, and satisfy a lover… how would she manage to do it all?
The thought of a lover shoved last night into her brain, front and center. The way Landon had slipped his fingers into her shirt, brushing a seemingly innocuous part of her body. But it hadn’t been innocuous. As it turned out, the underside of her arm was as sensitive as if he’d touched her somewhere much, much more intimate.
Her neck flushed, her body flooding with desire as she remembered the look in his eyes. The mix of green and blue yesterday against his blue business shirt. He’d looked at her with a hunger that wasn’t meant for nannies or friends of the family. Landon looked at her like she was a woman. Not like Mick had looked at her, like a friend or a fling. And not the way her parents looked at her, like she’d frozen in time at age sixteen and hadn’t yet managed to rope her life in to some semblance of shape.
No, Landon looked at her like he knew she could hold her own. He didn’t overpower her with sensuality or downplay her emotions when she spoke. He listened. Like what she said mattered.
But he hadn’t offered much conversation of his own last night, had he? He’d been silent while she’d told him about her college life, even delving into the mess she’d made of buying Hobo Chic with Mick.
So? He doesn’t spill his guts to virtual strangers. That only means he’s normal.
But they weren’t strangers. She’d spent the summer with Landon and his entire family. She’d celebrated Angel’s birthday, gone with them to the lake for their annual vacation, had eaten dinner with them every evening… Maybe that familiarity was why she felt so attracted to him now. Because even though she didn’t feel sixteen, parts of her body still reacted like she was. Her heart, for example, that fluttered at the thought of seeing Landon come home tonight. And the slight shake in her hand, rattling her wineglass, revealing her self-consciousness and frazzled nerves.
Ridiculous, those nerves.
He was a man and she was a woman. Flirting, attraction was a very real possibility. An acceptable side effect. Just because they’d shared some sly glances and comments laced with innuendo didn’t put her at a disadvantage.
She bypassed a pair of Adirondack chairs on the sprawling balcony and sat on the wicker sofa. Weighed down by her thoughts as much as her vain attempt to unravel the mysteries of the universe, she leaned her head back and cleared her mind.
Many of the neighboring buildings’ windows were lit, their occupants rummaging around the kitchens while televisions flashed in the living room. Turns out the rich lived much like everyone else did. Just with an infinitely better view.
She heard the balcony door open and turned her head. Landon stepped out, jacket off, sleeves cuffed, tie in place. Not exactly casual, but two out of three wasn’t bad.
“There you are.” His smooth voice poured over her like honey, sliding into her stomach and making her aware of that man-woman tension she’d been contemplating seconds ago. She ran her eyes over his forearms dusted with light brown hair, admired the elegant stride of his long body as he walked toward her.
Her next words exited on a soft sigh. “Here I am.”
“I can join you,” he said. “Unless you’re having a moment of peace. If so, I’ll leave this and go.” He held up the wine bottle she’d opened.
“I hope you don’t mind that I opened it.”
“I was saving it for when I finished up with the Windy City account, but that’s okay.”
“What?” He tipped the bottle and she covered her glass with her palm. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
He raised an eyebrow. “I am.”
Removing her hand, she pressed it to her chest to alleviate her pounding heart. “Don’t do that.”
He finished the pour and turned the bottle to catch a lingering purple drop. “Sorry.” He didn’t mean that. She could see the amused gleam in his eye.
“I didn’t know you had a mean streak.”
“Older brother curse.” He was standing. He gestured to the couch, a question on his face. She nodded and he sat next to her. Not too close, but her chest tightened as if he’d sat down and pulled her onto his lap.
Mmm. She’d like that.
She gave her head a brief shake. Whenever he was near, her body went into some kind of high alert, her nipples thermometers registering his specific brand of body heat. She crossed her arms over her breasts, wishing she had left her bra on. Of all the nights to go commando.
He draped his arm along the edge of the sofa behind her head like he had last night. Casually. Calmly. Like he was content to sit on the balcony with her and savor his scotch. If it wasn’t for the tightness around his eyes and the lines bracketing his unsmiling mouth, she would have believed he was both calm and content.
She wondered if he had anyone to talk to in his world.
“How was your day?” Lame, she chastised herself, but it
was a start.
“T.G.I.F. Yours?”
That wasn’t an answer. One of those wasn’t even a word. He’d given her an acronym, then followed it with a question.
“I couldn’t be more tired if I tried,” she answered honestly. Your turn, mister. “Did you reimage the best potato chip in the world?”
He grunted. A definitive no.
“Probably too much to hope that you’d get it done in a week, right?” she guessed. She had no idea how long these sorts of things took, or how long it took for a brand switch to go from concept to completion.
He sipped his scotch. Licked his lips. Remained silent.
Okay. She’d go for the direct route. “You wanna talk about it?”
He slipped his finger and thumb under his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “You don’t want to hear about it,” he blew out on a sigh.
She should respect that he didn’t want to talk about it. But she couldn’t imagine who else he had to talk to. As the boss, he couldn’t let his employees know he had doubts. And while she couldn’t be sure, it was a safe bet that Lissa and Landon hadn’t exactly lent their ears to one another.
That left… well… that left her.
“How do you know I don’t want to hear about it?” She’d love to hear him talk about anything. Love to just sit here and listen to his deep voice interrupted every so often by a sip of scotch.
He dropped his hand and peered into his glass. He was silent for so long, she’d begun feeling guilty for backing him into a corner. He surprised her by speaking.
“You want to hear me rant about how I have a team of imbeciles assigned to the most important account of my career?” he said, eyes on his glass. “Tell you how, no matter which way I attempt to steer them, they mutiny and run us into the nearest iceberg? Or maybe you’d like to hear about how I stomped into the boardroom like a lunatic and demanded we reconvene tomorrow morning?”
“On a Saturday?”
He sent her a dry look.
She returned it with a weak smile. “Sorry.”
He let out a sigh. “And I know you don’t want to hear how I realized on my way home tonight that I’m placing blame where it doesn’t belong. Railing on the best designers in the business because I am the one who’s hit a creative block.” His lips pressed together, then he spoke, almost talking to himself now. “Every direction I try to take the design, it runs me ashore.”
“That’s a lot of boat references,” she quipped.
He squinted at the buildings in the distance, his lips tipping into more of a sneer than a smile. A light winked out, then another. “I can’t believe I admitted that,” he muttered quietly.
Kimber had given up on getting things one hundred percent right one hundred percent of the time. Hell, she was lucky to get things half right a third of the time. “You still suffer the delusion you’re not allowed to make mistakes, don’t you?”
He met her eyes and uttered a stern, “Yes.”
She grinned. He was kidding. She was starting to pick up on his dry sense of humor. “When I find my brain in the way”—she paused to roll her eyes—“which doesn’t happen all that often, I go with what feels right.”
“What feels right.” He repeated her words like she’d spoken them in a foreign tongue.
“Yes. You do have feelings, don’t you?”
He answered with a bland blink. He wasn’t Mr. Control all the time. Regardless of what he wanted people to think, she knew better. He wasn’t who he pretended to be on the outside. The buttoned-up-and-down CEO who rarely let go. The rigid, disciplined man who checked his and Lissa’s relationship off like a task on his to-do list. He could hide at work, even in public, but not in his home.
She’d seen him interact with Lyon enough to see the man practically melt in the presence of his only nephew. As if there’d been any doubt considering the piles of Lego sets and game boards he’d overstocked the boy’s bedroom with. And, on a very personal level, she had seen the heat in Landon’s eyes when he looked at her. Had felt the very real attraction between them last night. That hadn’t been a mirage.
“Don’t you ever go with your gut?” she pressed when he remained silent. She couldn’t help herself. She wanted to talk to him. Especially after his out-of-character monologue. She was right. He did need someone to unload on.
One thick, dark blond brow rose. “My gut.”
He’d gone back to echoing her every question rather than answer. Avoidance. Well, she was no longer in the mood to let him off the hook. “Yes. Don’t you ever use something other than your big, thinky brain?”
The brow went higher, along with one corner of his mouth. “Did you just use the word ‘thinky’?”
Stubble had pressed through his sharpened jaw, making him look a tad dangerous, even in half an Armani suit and designer tie. She had the overwhelming urge to reach out and touch his cleft chin, maybe run a fingertip along his lips. She’d longed to feel even the briefest brush of his mouth last night, only to be thwarted by a parched six-year-old. She wanted to shift her gaze to the monitor to see if Lyon still slept, but knew that Landon would read her as clearly if she said All clear! Let’s make out.
“Which, by the way, is not a word,” he added as she blinked out of her thoughts.
“You know what I mean.” She leaned her shoulder against the back of the sofa, moving a smidge closer to him. “Do you ever follow your heart?”
She watched her hand lift of its own volition and feather the silken hair over his temple before resting her fingertips there and tapping lightly. “Instead of your brain.”
* * *
Landon stilled when she touched him. It was the softest, barely there brush of her fingers, but it made his scalp tingle like a colony of ants skittered across his skull. And his head wasn’t the only part of him tingling. So were parts in his southern hemisphere. Her head was cocked just so, her shimmering green eyes bare of any makeup. All he wanted to do was sift his hand into her fiery waves and taste that mouth.
Thinky brain be damned.
He settled for lifting a piece of her hair that’d been brushing his hand since she’d turned to face him. As he rubbed the thick strands between his fingers, he realized how intimate touching her like this was. They faced each other, her fingers pressing gently against his temple, his hand in her hair.
He swallowed thickly, remembering she’d spoken last. “No. I don’t follow my heart,” he said, talking about two things simultaneously.
She pulled her hand away and studied him, her pink mouth sliding into an adorable little pout. “Why not?” She looked like he’d just told her unicorns weren’t real. Like the Easter Bunny was a sham.
“Because it’s not smart,” he said, his voice gruffer than he’d intended. “You cannot build a multimillion-dollar advertising business by ‘going with your gut.’ ” And he sure as hell hadn’t profited the one time in his personal life he’d followed his heart. He’d been willing to change his entire life for Rachel; had altered his future plans to support his girlfriend and their unborn baby. And what had she done? Thrown him away. Ridded herself of him, their future. Our baby.
He winced, pain slicing his heart. He hated reminders of that time in his life. Hated how utterly out of control he’d been back then. How powerless he was to stop an event Rachel had set in motion. Once he’d grieved, once he’d had some distance and looked back at them in a practical, pragmatic way, it was obvious how ill-fated he and Rachel had been. But up close, he hadn’t seen their imminent demise. Not at all.
Yes, his heart had been his worst enemy back then. Not Rachel’s though; she’d been thinking clearly. Had suffered no such qualms about walking away from him, from college, from being a mother.
That was the only time in his life he’d ever allowed his heart to blind his brain. And since the brain’s sole job was to process information, it seemed wise to use it instead of the organ that at best was unreliable, and at worst, put a majority of the nation into an early grave.
>
His lips pulled into a frown. Kimber’s arrival back into his life had brought not only memories of first meeting her at his parents’ house, but had also stirred up the settled dust of his past. Well he preferred to keep the past where it belonged. In the past. Not irritating his every nerve ending.
“I always go with my brain,” he said solidly.
She had folded her arms over her chest, jostling her breasts beneath her top in a way that he noticed there was nothing harnessing them there. No bra. God help him. She shuffled her shoulders and sent the small mounds sliding along the material. He averted his eyes and took a drink of his scotch, wondering if she had any idea she was doing it.
“I follow my heart,” she contested.
Of course she did. He could read her like a large-print book. Could see that she offered herself as a sacrifice when the situation called, could see her need to belong. To fit. To be loved. Her desire for a whole and complete family, likely because her parents had split up when she was young.
Ideals he’d let go of a long, long time ago. He had a loving family—his siblings, his father, his cousins, his nephew. They filled the empty space in his heart that had once been earmarked for a family of his own. They’d have to do. Because he wasn’t going there. He couldn’t.
“Are you where you want to be in life?” he asked.
Kimber frowned, a neat little pleat slicing between her amber brows. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I didn’t mean anything other than what I asked.” He slipped his glasses off and dropped them on the table next to his drink. “You’re listening with your heart, getting hurt by something I didn’t say.”
She placed her wineglass on the table and sat back again, quiet as if considering his words. And fidgeting. She pulled on her earlobe, stroked her hair behind her ear, brushed her finger over the tip of her nose. She was like a nervous squirrel. It drove him crazy, and not in a good way… or in a very good way, depending on his perspective.
The Millionaire Affair (Love in the Balance) Page 8