her own sanity, she had to keep this strictly business. She was twenty-eight and finally felt that she was getting her life on track. She wouldn’t let a man like Kingsley derail that.
“Oh, I thought you meant if I’d still want you,” she said, trying to turn the tables on him.
“Do you?”
She dashed to the side, ducking out from under his arm. “I’ve sort of outgrown bad boys.”
“Have you?”
“All girls do when they grow up,” she said. “Melissa will send over a contract. Good day, Kingsley.”
Kingsley wasn’t sure if he’d won or lost the battle with Gabi. She’d always had the unique ability to throw him. Even in college before...everything had gone crazy, she’d rattled him. But the past ten years had changed him. And though he’d enjoyed flirting with her—hell, he was a red-blooded male, of course he enjoyed flirting with her—that wasn’t why he was back in California, and he had to stay focused.
He got in his Porsche 911, driving a little over the speed limit as he headed to his new home. The mansion he’d purchased was perched on a cliff above the Pacific with a path to the beach that he intended to use frequently with his son. He’d been working hard—well, running from his past was more like it—since he’d left California. Now he was back and he knew one thing: he couldn’t raise his son in a world where he had had to face that kind of stigma.
It was one thing that Stacia’s death had left Kingsley mired in scandal. But he wouldn’t let it touch Conner.
His phone rang, blasting out “Bad to the Bone.” He hit the answer button on his hands free.
“What’s up, Hunter? Is Conner okay?”
“He’s fine, the little devil. I’m worn-out. I think he’s got the makings of a running back,” Hunter said. “Did she agree?”
Hunter wasn’t the playboy the media made him out to be. Kingsley knew they’d still be best friends even if they hadn’t been linked together in Stacia’s murder. He was closer to Hunter than he was to his own brother.
“Yes, she did. I didn’t mention anything about Stacia. I want to get Gabi out to my house so I can be subtle about the questioning,” he said.
“Hey, it’s your plan. I’m happy enough to let you set the pace. I just want to get some answers,” Hunter said.
Hunter could barely remember the entire night. And that was a little worrying, since his friend hadn’t been a big drinker in college. One theory they had was that someone had put a drug in Stacia’s drink—she and Hunter had been dating—and that Hunter had ingested some of it over the course of the night.
“When will you be home? I’ve got a meeting with Tristan Sabine in forty-five minutes.”
“I’ll be there in twenty,” Kingsley said. Tristan was one of the founders of a chain of nightclubs called Seconds. In fact, Gabi’s cousin Gui was another owner. Hunter had recently purchased a franchise of the club and opened it in San Francisco, to much success.
“Sounds great,” Hunter said. “I’m glad we’re back here. It’s way past time we got some answers and gave Stacia’s ghost some peace.”
And themselves, Kingsley thought. They’d never been able to live with Stacia’s murder or the fact that it had never really been solved.
He disconnected the call and concentrated on the traffic, but his mind wasn’t really on the past or the drive. Gabi dominated his thoughts the same as she had back in college.
She’d changed.
Really, idiot?
But that was the best he could do. She had changed. It wasn’t just maturing—it was more than that. There was a level of confidence that hadn’t been in her at eighteen. A level of self-assurance that enabled her to stand her ground with him.
He admired that.
He wished...hell, there wasn’t a day that had gone by in the past ten years that he hadn’t regretted what he’d said when she’d come to see him in jail. Regretted it only insomuch as he knew he’d hurt her. He didn’t regret that he’d gotten her out of the jailhouse before the press had descended. He’d kept her safe from the scandal that had rained down around him and Hunter.
But now...
The woman she was today could handle things that the girl she’d been hadn’t been able to. That didn’t mean he still wouldn’t protect her. He had to get his revenge and keep Conner and Gabi from being hit with the fallout. That was going to take all of the skills he’d learned on and off the football field. Things such as faking out the rushers, keeping the press from seeing past his smile and definitely winning.
He pulled to a stop in the big circle drive in front of his house. The front door opened just as he shut off his car and stepped out of it.
Conner came running down the steps, laughing.
“Daddy!”
Kingsley scooped up his son and kissed the top of his head. Conner had Kingsley’s own blue eyes, but Jade’s reddish-blond hair.
“Get back here, imp,” Hunter said, skidding to a halt in the doorway.
“Um, why was my son running outside?” Kingsley asked.
“’Cause he’s spoiled,” Hunter said.
“I am,” Conner said.
Kingsley was pretty sure that Conner had no idea what spoiled meant, but he and Hunter were very close and Conner almost always agreed with his favorite “uncle.”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Nothing. He’s quick. I turned my back for a second...”
Kingsley laughed. His son had caught him like that as well. Hunter was right; he’d make a good running back one day. But only if Kingsley cleared up this mess with Stacia’s murder. He didn’t want Conner facing questions about his father in the pressroom someday.
Kingsley walked into the house carrying his son. He put him down when they were in the foyer.
“You heading out?” Kingsley asked.
“Yes. I’m going to stay at my place in Malibu for the next few weeks, but if you get any information I’ll come back.”
“Sounds good. I’ll keep you posted. I’ve got Gabi moving in here and I think I should have something to go on soon.”
“Good. The sooner we get to the bottom of the Stacia situation the better.”
Hunter left and Kingsley watched his friend go until Conner tugged on his hand.
“Who’s Stas?”
“An old friend of Daddy’s. Good news, Con, we’ve got a new nanny coming to live with us.”
“Like Peri?”
Nothing like Peri. For one thing, Kingsley had never gotten excited by the prospect of Peri living in his house. He tried to tell himself that he was only feeling that way because he could finally get to work on figuring out the past, but he knew it was lie.
He wanted more than that one night with Gabi. He wanted to know that what he remembered of their embrace had been real, and he wanted in his own mixed-up way to somehow make things up to her for their one-night stand.
* * *
Gabi paced her office for a few minutes after Kingsley left. She wasn’t sure how it had happened but somehow she was back to being a nanny. A live-in nanny to a three-year-old she’d never met in the house of the only man she’d never been able to forget.
Ugh!