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

Exactly five minutes later, he opened his door and strode over to Kate’s office two doors down. Reaching it he knocked exactly once on the frosted glass. Too impatient to wait the mega-second for a response, he opened the door and walked in.

Books were spread out and open all over his sister’s desk.

Engrossed in her research, Kate looked up sharply when she heard him walk in. “I didn’t say come in.”

“But you would have,” he pointed out glibly.

“I could have been with a client—or making out with Jackson,” she answered.

He shrugged, closing the door behind him. “Then you would have thrown me out and I would have waited in the hall.”

“Waited,” she repeated mockingly. “You don’t know how to wait. This sounds serious.” She pushed the book in front of her aside. “What’s up?”

“Did you know about this?” he demanded.

“Well,” she said carefully, “that all depends.”

“On what?” he asked her suspiciously, his eyes narrowing as he scrutinized her.

“On what ‘this’ means. If you’re asking about Selma’s birthday, yes, I know about it. Actually, I was the one who found out that it’s next week—”

Raising his voice, he cut in. “I’m not talking about Selma’s birthday.” He was exasperated. When she got all wound up, Kate could fire more words per second than any living human. He knew from experience that he only had a couple of seconds to get out in front of that before she picked up her pace. “I’m talking about my newest client.”

“You have a new client,” Kate deadpanned. “How nice for you.” She shook her head. “Right now, my plate is so full that if you’re trying to palm him—”

“It’s a her,” he corrected.

“Her,” she amended without losing a beat, “off on me, I just might be tempted to kill you, and then Jackson is going to have to marry me quickly so I can get conjugal rights in prison.”

He was trying to pin her down and she was making jokes, he thought darkly. “So then you don’t know about her.”

“I might,” Kate allowed. “Depending on what her name is. Is it somebody famous?” She looked at Kullen more closely. “Kullen, you’re scaring me. Why aren’t you talking?” Leaning forward, she gave him her full attention. “Just who is your new client, Kullen?”

For a second, because he didn’t want to go into explanations, he debated just turning around and walking out. But if he did that, his sister’s curiosity would go into overdrive and she would hound him until he did tell her.

So he watched Kate’s face as he said, “It’s Lilli McCall.”

The name didn’t seem to mean anything to her.

“Okay,” Kate said, drawing out the single word as if it was comprised of four syllables. She waited for something more substantial to follow.

“You’re not familiar with her name?” he pressed suspiciously.

“Should I be?”

Granted, he’d never talked about Lilli, preferring eight years ago to keep her to himself like some special treasure that he’d mined by accident. And then, when she had done her vanishing act, he’d never told anyone about her because then he would have had to admit that she’d devastated him.

So his secret love remained a secret.

Or so he’d thought at the time.

But even so, he figured that Kate with her insidious way of delving into everything, especially his business, would have sensed that something was up, which would have led her to find out about Lilli.

Maybe he’d given his sister too much credit.

Or maybe, just maybe, for once in her life she’d respected his privacy the way he really didn’t respect hers. Everything was fair when it came to siblings, at least that had always been his rule of thumb. He’d invoked it because he did care about Kate, and acting as if he had the right to know everything that concerned her just made it easier to watch over her.

But now the tables had turned and it was his life that was caught in his mother’s crosshairs.

And he didn’t like it one damn bit.

Rather than label Lilli as a woman from his past, or more accurately, the woman from his past, he said only one salient thing.

“Mom referred her.”

Kate’s grin materialized on her lips at the speed of light. “Well, like you once said, everyone needs a hobby.”

He scowled. “That was when she was bugging you, not me.”

Kate seemed to take pity on him. She was too happy these days to be vindictive. “Well, I’ve got to admit that Mom’s taste is pretty good. Why don’t you give this woman a chance once you’ve handled her, um, case,” she concluded with a wicked wink.

“I already did once.”

“You fooled around with a client at your initial meeting?” Kate asked him, stunned.

“No,” he bit off in disgust.

“Enlighten me. Exactly what do you mean, you already did once?”

He waved his hand dismissively. “Never mind,” he retorted. “Just tell Mom to stick to catering and not match making.”

“Sorry,” Kate called after him as he walked out. “She won’t listen to me if I say that. Under the circumstances, I don’t have a leg to stand on.”

That made two of them, because his own legs felt wobblier than hell right now. Eight years and she still had that kind of effect on him, despite everything that had happened.

He closed his eyes and sighed. He should have gone on vacation this week the way he had initially planned. Served him right. If he’d taken that holiday, then his mother, with her soft, chewy-on-the-inside, chewy-on-the-outside heart would have volunteered Kate to help Lilli with her case, and he could have gone on his way, mercifully in the dark, his world on an even keel.

Instead, he felt as if he were sitting on top of the San Andreas Fault, shaken up for all he was worth. And for what? Once this was over, once he won exclusive custody of her son for her, Lilli would be on her way again.

On her way and out of his life.

She’d done it once—there was no reason to believe she wouldn’t do it again.

He told himself to remember that if he felt his “handsoff” resolve weakening anytime in the foreseeable future.

Chapter Five

Lilli saw that her mother’s car was parked in the driveway when she pulled up to her house.