Unwrapping the Playboy / The Playboy's Gift: Unwrapping the Playboy

Given the hour, that meant that her mother had already picked Jonathan up from school and returned. It was amazing how easily all three of them had adjusted to this routine. Less than a month ago, she and Jonathan had been living near Santa Barbara, cocooned by the almost idyllic life there. Erik Dalton had been dead for four months and she was adjusting to the idea that she didn’t have to worry about him suddenly turning up on her doorstep and for some twisted reason beyond comprehension, demanding access to his son.

Then Elizabeth Dalton had happened and everything she’d always feared came to fruition. Lilli had packed up, sold everything and come back to her hometown. She knew she couldn’t hide, but she felt that she needed her mother’s moral support in order to fend off the other woman.

She’d worried about Jonathan adjusting to being uprooted this way, but she realized now that she needn’t have. Unlike his father, Jonathan was happy, easygoing and even-tempered, and she was immensely grateful for that.

The moment she put the key in the door, Jonathan came running.

“Hi, sweetheart.” She greeted the light of her life with a fierce hug. It was returned.

Someday, all too soon, that would change. Preteen boys didn’t think it was cool to pal around with their mothers. But for now, she would enjoy his affection for all it was worth.

“Know where your grandmother is?” she asked him. He pointed toward the kitchen. “Thanks. As you were,” she told him. This week, Jonathan was considering soldiering as a career choice, so she played along. Last week, he’d thought he might give ranching a try and she had gotten a book on the different breeds of horses for him. She was going to be a hands-on mother all the way, she thought, heading for the kitchen.

Maybe, if Erik’s mother had been that way, he wouldn’t have turned out to be so despicable. But then, she reminded herself, she wouldn’t have Jonathan in her life.

Everything happens for a reason. Everything but losing Jonathan, she amended fiercely. That was never going to happen.

Her mother came out of the kitchen. “I thought I heard you.”

“Hi, Mom. Do you think you can stay a little longer? I’m not in for the night yet,” she told the older, petite woman as she headed for the room that she’d claimed as her office. It was still very much in a state of disarray, with boxes piled up in the corner.

She tried to remember which carton she’d packed the metal box in. It contained all their important documents. She’d done that so that if there was ever a natural disaster, all she had to do was grab one box—after she grabbed Jonathan.

Following her only child into the small room off the kitchen, Anne McCall asked, “Did you see him?”

Lilli knew that the “him” her mother referred to was Kullen.

“Yes,” she answered, opening up the carton closest to her. “I saw him.” The metal box wasn’t in it. She shoved the carton aside.

“And?”

Lilli turned her attention to the next carton. She struck out again. “And he’s going to take the case.”

Anne shifted around so that she could see her daughter’s face. “And?”

Third time was the charm. With a triumphant sigh, Lilli removed the dark gray metal box from the last carton she’d opened. In the background, she heard the familiar, soothing theme song of one of Jonathan’s favorite afternoon programs, an imaginative show where a robot given to self-repairing took his viewers through the vivid pages of history.

As she opened the metal box, Lilli glanced at her mother.

“And?” she echoed, unclear as to what her mother was driving at. She took a guess. “And he told me he thinks we have a good chance to win even though the woman is—” she dropped her voice and came closer to her mother, not wanting to take a chance that Jonathan might overhear her “—the first known recorded case of a barracuda without fins.”

Despite the fact that the woman was making her life a living hell, Lilli was not about to bad-mouth Elizabeth—or the man who had, through no desire of his own, been his father. Jonathan deserved better than that. She wanted her son to grow up exposed to as little hatred as was humanly possible. God knew there would be time enough for him to see what the world could be like when he became an adult.

Her mother continued to eye her. Lilli got the distinct impression that she was waiting for something more.

And then she asked, “Didn’t you say that you once dated him?”

Caught completely off guard when her mother had produced Kullen’s name out of the blue, saying that she had a referral from a reliable source that Kullen Manetti was an excellent lawyer, Lilli had been forced to explain why she’d appeared so stunned. She had fallen back on a half truth. She’d admitted that she’d known him in college and that they’d gone out a couple of times. She had deliberately avoided telling her mother that Kullen had proposed to her and that she’d left town right after that.

She had left not because she’d discovered that she was pregnant, but because she had been afraid that she would allow her fears to get the better of her and would say yes to Kullen. And then she would have had to tell him that the baby wasn’t his. To have allowed him to think that he was the father would have been the very height of deception. She’d had no doubt that Kullen would have always wondered if she’d married him because she’d loved him, or as a matter of convenience. That would be no way to run a marriage.

So she’d left. Left without telling him anything because it was too hard to share the shame of what had happened. Or worse, for him to have insisted on going through with the wedding and marrying her out of pity.

She knew logically that none of this had been her fault, but somehow, she still felt as if it was.

Until she held Jonathan in her arms.

The moment she looked down into his small, perfect little face, the love that welled up within her drove out everything—guilt, shame, anger. All that remained was love.

And that love was fiercely protective. No way in hell was she going to allow Elizabeth Dalton to get her grasping, perfectly manicured hands on Jonathan.

“Yes,” she admitted, “I did say that.” She was in no mood for a chorus of “Matchmaker, Matchmaker, Make Me A Match.” “Mother,” she said pointedly, “I’m up to my neck in the fight of my life. This is no time to play the dating game.”

Never one to push, Anne nodded. “I’m sorry, dear, you’re right. I was just looking for a way to divert you and alleviate your tension.”

Having retrieved Jonathan’s birth certificate, Lilli took out several other legal documents and began to feed them into the scanner. She wasn’t about to take a chance on losing anything.

“What would really alleviate my tension,” she told her mother, “is if that woman would disappear from the face of the earth.”

“You know,” Anne began thoughtfully, “my cousin Sal knows a few people who—”

Dear God, her mother wasn’t taking her seriously, was she? “Mother!” Lilli cried sharply.

“Just kidding,” Anne countered. “Sadly, the only people my cousin Sal knows are gambling addicts. They wouldn’t be any help in a situation like this.” She watched as Lilli scanned another document. In less than a minute, the printer spit out a perfect copy. “What is it you’re doing?” she asked.

“I told Kullen that I’d bring by these documents he wanted tonight.”

A note of concern entered Anne’s voice. “You’re going to his office at night?” While Bedford had been deemed one of the safest cities in the country with a population of over one hundred thousand for several years in a row now, Anne was never one to tempt fate.

Lilli briefly thought of just nodding and letting the matter go, allowing her mother to think that she was going back to meet with Kullen in his office. But that would be lying, if only by omission, and she didn’t believe in lying. The most she ever did was keep her own counsel, refraining from going into detail. Even her mother didn’t know the full story surrounding Jonathan’s conception. Mercifully, her mother respected her privacy. She couldn’t pay her back by letting her believe what wasn’t true.

“I’m bringing these over to his house.” Another sheet emerged from the printer and she added it to the others.

“Oh.”

Lilli’s head shot up. The two-letter word sounded far more pregnant than she had ever been. “Not oh, Mom. It’s just more convenient that way, that’s all.”

Anne nodded, a knowing smile curving her mouth. “Yes, I know.”

No, you don’t. “Kullen needs to get up to speed as fast as possible.”

Anne seemed to struggle to keep the grin from taking over her entire face. “And can he? Get up to speed fast?”

All that was missing was a nudge-nudge, wink-wink comment. “Mother, if you’re asking me if I ever slept with Kullen Manetti, no, I never slept with him.”

Anne held up her hands as if to innocently fend off another volley of words. “I didn’t ask.”

“Not in so many words,” Lilli allowed, “but, yes, you did.”