three gone. If she had, Amy would have known I’d give up everything—” Her rush of words ran dry. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“Because I didn’t have a family I was close to?”
Although he’d crushed her heart when he’d left, she scanned his questioning gaze now and found she didn’t want to hurt him. But the truth was too obvious. She pressed her lips together and nodded.
He broke their gaze, threw the stick, and Shadow sped off again. “Have you spoken to a lawyer?”
“My father’s. He said babies are a full-time job, and Leeann has the resources and sense of commitment Meg needs. But he’s being narrow-minded. There’s no reason I couldn’t find work here and settle down.”
“Would you want to?”
Images of Hawaii at sunset and the iridescent greens of Germany in spring clicked like snapshots through her mind, but she pushed them aside. There was no question. She would give it all up tomorrow.
But if Gage had implied that people who moved around somehow lacked a sense of responsibility…“I doubt you’re in a position to cast any stones,” she replied.
He flicked open his jacket button and his deep chest expanded beneath his crisp white shirt as he leant back more. “Oh, I understand a wandering spirit, Jenna. Owning stock in companies across the globe gives me a reason to migrate regularly and often. I don’t like to grow roots.” His approving gaze brushed her cheek. “Neither do you.”
A tingling rush swept over her skin, but she wouldn’t respond based on physical awareness. Instead she fell back on cynical amusement. “Well, who’d have guessed? We’re practically a match made in heaven.”
“Heaven’s a little too tame for us.”
When his eyes crinkled at the corners, a delicious warmth seeped through her veins.
So, after all this time, at their deepest level, they knew each other still. She felt so fragile—so much in need of his strength—she could almost forget the heartache of that summer, fall into those powerful arms and actually forgive him.
A phone rang. Gage slipped the cell from his belt and checked the display. “Excuse me. I’ll be five minutes. Ten tops.”
Letting go of the tension, she inhaled a lungful of pine air and Gage’s frighteningly familiar scent. Then she stood and moved away, leaving Gage to his call.
Her laptop and Internet connection were still open in her father’s study. She’d been about to hit SEND and decline an offer on a story about a chain of bed-and-breakfasts from Tuscany down through to Campania when Shadow had barked and she’d crossed to the French doors. A tall dark stranger had been walking up the path from the arched iron gates. Two disbelieving seconds later she’d realized her visitor was none other than the man she’d fallen in puppy love with after her first year of college.
Jenna passed through those French doors now, crossed the spacious room decorated in forest-green leather and handcrafted oak, then folded herself into the chair set before her laptop. Her gaze settled on the photo her father had kept on his desk—herself and Amy, aged eight, in Cinderella dress-up. Amy, the nurturing one, was fixing Jenna’s lopsided tiara.
Jenna picked up the photo, as she’d done so often these past days. But this time her thoughts drifted back to her visitor.
Gage and his mother had lived in a house next door, which had been supplied by her father. For five years she’d glimpsed her young male neighbor only at a distance. Then she’d come home from college that summer and the brooding ruffian had grown into a man—deep-chested, muscled and sexy in a dangerous way that had left her breathless whenever he’d looked at her with a slanted smile that said he’d noticed her too.
Puppy love. The term was too naive for the wonderfully wicked feelings he’d planted and nurtured within her. Far more explicit phrases came to mind.
The simmer of remembered longing trickled through her bloodstream then swirled and sparked like a lit match down below. But she shrugged off the smoldering sensation. Her father had said Gage wasn’t the type of man a young woman should get involved with.
Jenna rested her forearms on the desk.
Twenty-nine wasn’t so young.
“I managed to end that call sooner than I’d thought.”
Jenna jumped at the deep voice at her back. She swung around and felt her heart beat faster. Gage’s striking silhouette consumed the doorway, eclipsing a good portion of the golden afternoon light.
How many lovers had he had in twelve years? How many times had she secretly wished she’d sampled him herself?
As he moved forward, she tamped down that thought and, after replacing the photo, eased out of her chair.
She searched for something to say. “So, another business deal in the bag?”
“Afraid not. And I won’t lay more chips on that table just yet.” He flicked back his jacket, set his hands low on his hips and took in the room—the wood-paneled walls, the limestone fireplace, the wingchair where she’d once curled up on her father’s lap while he read his botany books and explained the pictures.
“So was Leeann bequeathed the house as well?”
Jenna slid her attention from the chair back to Gage and gave him a wry smile. “Leeann’s been generous enough to let me stay while I’m here. She and Meg are in the penthouse in town.”
“Do you have savings? I presume you won’t starve.”
She might not be wealthy by his standards, but who was? “I haven’t lived off my father since I left college and found my first freelance job overseas.”
He came closer and her center warmed as that lit match flickered and leapt high. It wasn’t the place—certainly not the time—and yet the burning physical response to his being near was automatic, a literal knee-jerk reaction. Did he have that effect on all women? The answer was obvious: no question about it.
“You really don’t care about the business, the house?” he asked, a curious light in his eyes.
That inner warmth wavered and fell away.
“My family, bar one, are gone. No, Gage, I don’t care about the money.”
Landing back in reality, all the pain fresh again in her mind, she crossed to the door. For more reasons than one, it was time to end this reunion.
“Thank you for making the trip. If you don’t mind, I think it’s best you leave now.”
Deep in thought—also ignoring her suggestion—he moved to the desk. “I’ll speak with my lawyer.”
Over a decade on and still he didn’t listen. “I just told you—”
“Not about the money. About your niece.”
She shut her eyes and groaned. “Please don’t.”
The last thing she needed was a Family Court judge bristling over the heavy-handed tactics of a multimillionaire who thought he could buy anyone and anything.
He eased a thigh over one corner of the desk and laced his hands between his long, clearly muscular legs. One dark eyebrow flexed. “What if it means getting custody of your niece?”
“Gage, please. This isn’t a game.”
But the steely look in his eyes said he was very serious.
He picked up a miniature globe and spun the sphere. Asia, Europe, America flew round in a blur of bright colors. “I must say, I’m not wholly convinced you’ll be happy giving up your lifestyle. God knows, I wouldn’t be.”
Self-righteous heat scorched her cheeks. “No problem for you.” Her smile was thin. “Stay single.”
His lips twitched as if she’d