He took a mock-casual glance at his watch.
“Can I buy you lunch?”
She frowned. “I planned to have lunch with Joey at his child care. They encourage parents to visit during the day when they can.”
“You look like you need a drink more than you need to spend an hour in a room full of hungry toddlers.”
“You’d be surprised,” Rosalie replied, not entirely honestly. She might need a drink, but she definitely did not need to spend any more time with Morgan Danby.
Luckily he’d been too absorbed in his own thoughts while he’d held her to notice that whatever opinion her mind might have, her body wanted to do a lot more than have lunch with him. Her nipples stood at full alert behind the handy armor of her jacket, and her head still spun from the rush of blood to other, more vulnerable, parts of her body.
The man might as well wear a flashing red light on his head—he was danger in a hand-tailored suit. Especially this gallant, kind, and generally swoonworthy version of him.
“You look pretty shaken.” His rich baritone made her toes want to curl. “You might want to wait until you’ve calmed down before you see the kid again. No reason to upset him.”
She hadn’t thought of that, but saw no reason to admit it to him.
“I practice family law. I’ve been threatened before.” Although never by someone with a history like Paul Thompson’s. “And I probably will be again. We have an office protocol for when it happens.”
“You sure do. I practically had to fight my way past your receptionist to get in here.”
“Nice to know the system works.”
Morgan gave a rueful grin, then cocked his head to one side.
“Okay, don’t have lunch with me because you need to. Have lunch with me because you want to.”
“I don’t want to,” she lied.
Morgan took a deep breath. Her nerves tingled, but not in a good way. She wasn’t going to like what he said next.
“We need to talk. I hoped lunch would make it easier.”
“Make what easier?”
But she already knew.
“Telling you that Lillian’s about to file for custody of Joey.”
Rosalie went very still. Morgan wished he’d found a gentler way to get her to have lunch with him, but she was far too wary of him. Maybe with good reason.
When she didn’t say anything, he added, “I saw a Italian place down the street.”
She gave herself a little shake. “Carmelo’s.” Her voice had the hollow ring of resignation. “They have great food. Not fancy, but …”
“Not fancy is fine. Let’s go. Maybe we can beat the lunch-hour rush.”
Carmelo’s homey atmosphere was exactly what Morgan needed. Nothing here to raise the barriers Rosalie usually kept between them. Just good, homemade pasta and a mellow glass of drinkable red wine.
He made polite chitchat through the antipasto and offered a second glass of wine, which Rosalie predictably refused. While they waited for their pasta, he could see the wheels in her mind turning. He hoped her train of thought didn’t veer too far from where he wanted it to go.
“I can understand now why helping your stepmother get custody of Joey might have seemed like a good idea, if Paul Thompson was the alternative.” She shuddered and took another sip of her wine. “Is that why she wants him?”
“In part, but at base her reasons are much more selfish.”
He felt the first line of the barriers between them lock back into place.
“Since I never heard from her lawyer,” Rosalie said, “I thought maybe she’d given up. Unless the laws are different in Massachusetts than they are in California, she can’t have much chance of winning.”
“That’s what her regular attorney told her, but she hired a friend’s nephew, fresh out of law school, who squeaked past the bar exam and agreed to take the custody case.”
Rosalie looked away. He heard the clunk as the second line of barriers closed.
“I wish I could say you don’t have to worry about Lillian,” he said, “but I can’t. She’s decided I’m on your side now, and won’t discuss it with me.”
Rosalie’s gaze zeroed back in on his face. “Are you on my side?”
Unwilling to tip his hand, he shook his head. “Consider me a friendly neutral.”
“So why are you here?” She stopped and held up one hand. “Never mind. I can guess. You’re in town on business.”
At least her attitude was back. He’d decided he liked curvy women with attitude.
He leaned in a little closer, pleased she didn’t move away. She smelled of wine and hot peppers and some flowery perfume. He might never have smelled anything sexier.
“Actually, no. I wanted to stop Thompson before he got here. My timing was a bit off.”
“How did you know he was here?”
“Not everyone he trusts is blind or stupid enough to trust him.”
She nodded. “Unfortunately, your stepmother has a similar problem.”
When he frowned, she explained what Thompson had said about Lillian’s soon-to-be-unemployed maid. By the time she finished, the server had appeared with their food.
“Have you decided on a college yet?” Rosalie asked the young woman.
The server grinned. “Got a scholarship to the University of Southern California, like you.”
“Congratulations. You’ll be a lawyer in no time.”
The exchange lightened Rosalie’s mood enough for her make a little “um” sound after she tasted her spaghetti with roasted tomatoes and garlic. Time to pick up where he’d left off.
“Stopping Thompson and telling you what Lillian is up to weren’t the only reasons I’m here.”
“Oh?”
“No.” Morgan paused for added effect. “I’m also here to ask you out.”
She froze. Had he blown it?
He held his breath until she stabbed at her spaghetti with her fork. “Very funny.”
“I’m serious.”
She set the fork down and sighed.
“Do I need to list the reasons why (a) you can’t want to ask me out, (b) I can’t want to go out with you, and (c) it’s a crazy idea in and of itself, no matter what either of us wants?”
He pulled back. “This isn’t a courtroom. I don’t need you to write me a legal brief with bullet points.”
“Call it a reality check, then. And it isn’t so different from a courtroom. You are trying to make a case.”
“There is no try. I am making a case. I want to get to know you.” He ticked each point off on his fingers. “You’re attracted to me.”
He paused, but she looked away rather than deny it. A good sign.
“And I already told you I’m a neutral party in your conflict with Lillian.”
The shuttered expression on her face told him it was time to bring out the big guns and let her see one of the real reasons behind his invitation.
“No, not neutral,” he corrected. “Not really, I’m on Joey’s side. Go out with me and prove that puts me on your side, too.”
Normally, he avoided emotional blackmail at all costs. He’d grown up in a hotbed of it. But nothing was normal about this situation. He needed to break through those barriers and Lillian hadn’t given him much time to do it.
Besides, it’d worked. He had Rosalie taking the idea seriously.
Before she could come up with more excuses not to take him up on his offer, he lifted his hand to tuck one finger under her chin and tilt her face up until their eyes met.
“Will you go out on a date with me?”
She gazed at him for a moment before she pulled away. “Who’ll take care of Joey?”
“Who usually watches him when you go out on a date?”
“I don’t date. I’ve never dated much.”
The wistful tone in her voice made him want to comfort her again. The impulse should have scared him silly, but he didn’t have time to think about it. He needed to get the conversation back on track to t
he next stage of his plan. Still, her reaction gave him a clue on where to start.
“It must have been hard to have so much responsibility all those years.”
The pang of sympathy behind his words was more real than he’d expected.
“My mother was pretty independent, until near the end.”
“You’ve spent so much of your life taking care of people,” he said with genuine admiration. “Your mother, now Joey. A lot of women would resent the kind of sacrifices you’ve made.”
She shook her head. “It’s not a sacrifice if you love someone.”
Not something he’d had the chance to learn one way or the other. “But you didn’t even have time to date.”
“It never seemed important to me.”
“It can’t be that you don’t like men.”
She lifted an eyebrow. “Can’t it?”
“No. We have too much sexual chemistry between us.”
She started to interrupt, but he didn’t give her the chance.
“Don’t try to deny it. Why else would I fly over two thousand miles to ask you out?”
Their eyes met, heating the air between them again to confirm his words.
“Because you have a backhanded plan to take Joey away from me?”
Her distrust stung, the more so because of how close it came to the truth.
“No—a backhanded plan to get to know you better.”
“I told you, I don’t date.”
The words came out harsher, colder than Rosalie intended. Even the word “date” set her nerves on edge. She’d dated enough to learn there wasn’t much point to it. After all, the purpose of dating was to fall in love, and love meant trusting a man. But men always walked, the way her father had. The way her one serious boyfriend in college had once he figured out her mother was more important to Rosalie than fraternity parties or ski weekends.
“If you don’t date, how do you begin a relationship?”
“I don’t want a relationship. I’m happy with my life the way it is.”
Brave words, but his knowing smile reminded her of how good it felt to be in his arms.
She was far too vulnerable to this man. She needed to get him out of her life before she did something stupid, like care about him. Or trust him.
She gave him a long, cool look. “And if I did want a relationship, you’d the last man on my list.”
Which was true. The attraction she felt for him, the deeper feelings he’d begun to arouse in her were far too dangerous. But he did as she’d hoped and took her words with a very different meaning. A sharp light sparked in his eyes.
“Given your attitude, I have to wonder whether, if Lillian wants Joey for a motherhood do-over, you want him because otherwise you’ll never be able to have a child.”
His angry blast hit too close to home. She shot to her feet.
“So this was all about Joey after all! Well, you can go to hell, Morgan Danby.”
Morgan absorbed Rosalie’s attack. He deserved it. But he couldn’t let her leave now. He reached out and caught her hand to stop her.
A jolt of white-hot need arced through him at the contact. Her eyes went wide with surprise, as if it burned her too. She didn’t pull away, but stared down at him, tiny quivers in her fingers the sole clue to how torn she was.
He released her hand. “I’m sorry. That was unforgivable, but please forgive me and stay.”
She hesitated for a moment before she sat again, the familiar wariness back on her face.
He reached for her hand, but she jerked it away and put it under the table.
“I did come here to ask you out on a date,” he began. “I can’t believe you’d say no just because you’ve dated some jerks in the past.”
She paled, opened her mouth, then closed it.
Oh, yes. The problem wasn’t the jerks she’d dated, but the mega-jerk who’d walked out on her and her sick mother.
“We don’t have to call it a date,” he hurried on to fill in the awkward moment. “Call it two people who enjoy each other’s company spending time together. What do you say?”
Rosalie fought to hold herself together. Literally. She felt split in two by her simmering anger and wariness of Morgan on one side, and the way her body still chimed from his touch, the undeniable chemistry, as he’d put it, between them. To go out with him would be to submit herself to an evening of emotional ping pong.
“No,” she repeated, more to herself than to him. “I can’t.”
“What if we made it a three-way date?”
How many glasses of wine did he drink?
“What?”
He laughed. “I mean you, me, and Joey. If we take him to the zoo, say, I’d have chance to get to know him, and you’d have a chance to learn for yourself what a great guy I am.”
“I don’t think …”
“The problem is, you think too much.” The almost-fond look on his face took the sting out of his words. “You need to relax and let go a little now and then. Go to the zoo with me and Joey tomorrow. It’ll do you good. You might even enjoy it.”
How could she enjoy anything with Morgan around? He stirred desires she’d forgotten she had, raised hopes and fears she’d thought she’d long since gotten past.
She started to shake her head, then remembered how he’d lured her to lunch. Lillian had decided to file for custody of Joey. Much more was at stake than Rosalie’s battered heart.
She took another bite of her pasta to buy time.
Nothing sexual was about to happen between them with Joey in tow. While Morgan tried, for some inexplicable reason, to charm her into a real date, she’d be able to use the time to do what he’d suggested she do, win him over to her side, get him to talk his stepmother into dropping the custody suit.
She drained the last of her wine. “The zoo might work. We haven’t been there recently.”
“Should I pick you up?”
“No.” She’d need a way to escape if he stepped the least little bit over the line. “We’ll meet you there. What time?”
“Eleven?”
“Ten would give us more time before lunch and nap.”
“Sure.”
“I’ll see you then.” She pushed her chair back and reached for her purse.
He stood when she did. For a moment she was afraid he might touch her or volunteer to walk her back to her office. She needed to get away from him and regroup. She needed to get away from him, period.
Maybe he could read the urge to flee on her face, because he took a step back and gave a casual wave. “Bye.”
Joey was not in a good mood the next morning. Only the promise of a car ride prevented a full-scale tantrum while Rosalie tried to get him dressed. She didn’t tell him about the zoo until he got fussy after the drive there stretched out beyond his willingness to sit in his car seat.
“Nals!” he burbled. “Now!”
She turned off the freeway, well aware of the traffic around Griffith Park on a Saturday and how long it might be before they actually saw any “nals.”
A cloudy sky had kept enough people away that the parking lot wasn’t full. She pulled into a space near the entrance and began the laborious process of unloading Joey’s gear, keeping up a one-sided conversation with him through the open car window so he didn’t fuss.
“Giraffes and hippos and elephants and …” she recited as she wrestled with the stroller.
Strong hands took the unwieldy mass of metal and plastic from her and effortlessly flipped it open.
“And monkeys,” Morgan picked up her litany, “and tigers.”
Rosalie gasped and put one hand to her chest, where her heart beat wildly, then realized she must look like an old-fashioned heroine with the vapors.
“You startled me.” She reached into the trunk for the diaper bag.
Morgan reached for the cooler at the same moment. Their shoulders bumped. Her heart beat went from wild to frenzied, but she managed to pull away without letting on how much his presence affected
her.
“How did you spot us?” she asked as they stowed the various bags and bundles in the stroller’s compartments.
“This old Saab is like a billboard that flashes ‘frugal parent of a small child’ in neon lights. Hard to miss.”
She went to get Joey out of his car seat, glad for the chance to take a few full breaths.
“You need a SUV with all this stuff,” Morgan went on.
She settled Joey in the stroller and strapped him in.
“They use too much gas. Not good for the environment, or the pocket book.”
“They make hybrid SUVs these days.”
He took the handle of the stroller and pushed it toward the entrance to the zoo while she slammed the trunk shut.
“Not in my budget. Especially now I have a custody battle to fight.”
The reminder made her hurry to follow them, uneasy with leaving Joey in his step-uncle’s care even for a moment. What if he was still on his stepmother’s side after all?
Morgan must have sensed her reaction, because he let go when she grabbed the stroller and gave her a wry smile that made her pulse jump back to double time.
Rosalie was dismayed to discover that, despite the partly empty parking lot, there was a substantial line to buy tickets at the zoo entrance.
Joey was in no mood to sit and wait. Once they were in a crowd, where all he could see were legs and feet, he started to fuss.
“I’ll walk him around,” Rosalie told Morgan, who nodded.
The plaza around the entrance was dotted with other parents pushing other fussy toddlers in strollers. Older children lingered around the souvenir and snack shops. Joey took it all in, wide-eyed but blessedly quiet.
Until he saw the balloon man.
“Me! Me!” He bounced up and down in the stroller.
“I don’t think so.” Rosalie swallowed a wistful sigh. She’d always loved balloons. “Balloons break and make a big noise.”
“Balloons are so sad,” she’d heard her mother say again and again over the years. “They waste away to ugly little lumps of rubber. Not like flowers.”
Flowers are alive and die, Rosalie had always wanted to protest. She hadn’t, of course, but a little part of her still wanted the balloon she never got.
“Me! Me!” Joey continued, well on the way to a tantrum.
Morgan came up with their tickets. “Me what?”
Found: One Secret Baby Page 9