A Touch of Persuasion. Janice Maynard

while that may have been okay six years ago, now she had a daughter to think about. Sexual reminiscing with Kieran Wolff was not only self-destructive and stupid, but also detrimental to her role as a parent.

      “Enough,” she said hoarsely, tearing herself from his embrace and warding him off with a hand when he would have dragged her back for another kiss. “I mean it,” she said. “We’re not doing this. You can’t seduce me into agreeing to your terms.”

      “Give us both more credit than that, Olivia. What happened just now proves that we’ve always had chemistry… and still do.”

      “If you’re expecting to pick up where we left off, you’re destined for disappointment.”

      “Is that so? From what I could tell, what just happened was a two-way street.”

      “It’s late,” she said abruptly. “I have to go.”

      He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned a hip against the back of the sofa, his eyes narrowed. From the look of him, no one would guess that sixty seconds ago he’d been kissing her senseless. “You can’t run from me, Olivia. Closing your eyes and thinking about Kansas is a child’s game. I want some answers.”

      Her phone chimed to signal a text, and she pulled it from her pocket, glancing at it automatically. Her mother’s words chilled her blood.

      Kieran touched her shoulder as she sank to a seat. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

      “The flight was delayed. My mother has a stalker fan, and he showed up at the airport.”

      He squatted beside her, his mere presence lending comfort. “What happened?”

      “When he tried to burst through a checkpoint, calling her name, TSA arrested him.”

      He frowned. “I don’t like the thought of Cammie being exposed to something like that.”

      “First of all, my parents take security very seriously, and second of all, this is none of your business. I’m her mother. It’s up to me to keep her safe.”

      From his vantage point crouched at her side, their gazes collided. “You don’t have to do this alone anymore,” he said quietly, the words like a vow. “Any child with my blood running in her veins has the protection of the entire Wolff clan at her back.”

      She swallowed hard, near tears, missing her daughter and feeling out of her depth. “A child is not a belonging. She’s her own person. Even if she is only five.”

      “You think I don’t know that? I was a year younger than she is now when my mother was killed.” He sprang to his feet, pacing once more. “My brother Gareth was the only one of us really old enough to understand and remember the details, but I lived it, and those terrible days are buried somewhere in my psyche… the confusion, the loneliness, the knowledge that my world was never going to be the same. No child should lose a parent, Olivia, even if she thinks she has only one.”

      Guilt reached inside her chest and squeezed hard. Kieran Wolff had hurt her badly. Did she have the right to make her daughter vulnerable to his undeniable charm? Conversely, was she wrong to deny her child a father, even an absentee one? The same questions had haunted her for half a decade.

      Her head ached. “We’ll visit for a long weekend,” she said, her voice tight. “As soon as Cammie gets back from Europe. But that’s all it will be. All it will ever be. And if you break your word to me, I’ll take her away and never speak to you again.”

      His lips quirked in a half smile. “Mama Bear protecting her cub. I like seeing you in this maternal role, Olivia. It suits you.”

      She gathered her purse and the light sweater she’d brought with her. “No one and nothing in this world means more to me than Cammie. And you’d do well to remember that. Good night, Kieran. Pleasant dreams.”

      He followed her to the door, having the temerity to press another hard kiss to her lips before allowing her to leave. “I’ll dream,” he said, brushing her cheek with the back of a hand. “But I have a feeling that pleasant won’t be the right word for it.”