Unwrapping the Playboy / The Playboy's Gift. Marie Ferrarella

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      “If you were,” Theresa folded her hands before her on the table, “we wouldn’t be having this conversation. I know enough about the law to know that it’s illegal to get married at twelve—in any state.”

      “We’re not having this conversation,” Kullen said with a touch of humor as he rose to his feet. The check had been paid between dessert and coffee. “And I’ve got to be getting back to the office.” Kullen bent over and kissed her lightly. The faint scent of jasmine, his mother’s favorite fragrance, greeted him. “Got a full schedule laid out for this afternoon.”

      Theresa suppressed a smile. She knew all about his full schedule for this afternoon. Knew something about it that he didn’t. Composing herself, she allowed a smile to enter her voice as she murmured, “My son, the successful lawyer.”

      He paused for a moment. If he didn’t know better, he would have said she was scheming. “You know, Mom, for some mothers that would be more than enough.”

      She couldn’t resist answering him on this point. Someday, she mused, he would put all the pieces together. But right now, they would have to remain “pieces” just a tiny bit longer. “I’m not ‘some’ mother, Kullen. I’m your mother.” He looked at her quizzically. She went a step further. “And as your mother—”

      “You have been delightful company,” he told her, cutting in before the conversation made yet another U-turn to the subject of his dating. “‘Bye. I’ve really gotta go.”

      And with that, he began to make his retreat. But her voice stopped him.

      “Kullen—”

      Something in his mother’s voice caught his attention. He turned around and waited. “Yes?”

      Because she was an honest woman, Theresa felt compelled to be up-front with her son. In this case, that would entail telling him that last weekend she had catered a rather large charity luncheon for Anne McCall, Lilli McCall’s mother. The conversation got around to their children. When Anne had told her that her daughter was back in Bedford and, coincidentally, was in dire need of a good family lawyer, Theresa’s heart had begun to race.

      More than anything, Theresa wanted to tell her son that she’d been quick to mention he had become a lawyer and that she’d given his number to a greatly relieved Anne. She very much wanted to tell him that this afternoon he would be seeing Lilli, a woman, she’d discovered quite by accident, that he’d dated briefly in law school.

      But because Theresa knew that he would see this as a setup on her part and thus would most likely palm the whole case off on Kate, Theresa forced a smile and merely told him, “Have a nice afternoon, dear.”

      Returning her smile, he said, “Thanks, I will.” And then, her six-foot-two, dark-haired, handsome son went off, utterly unsuspecting, to start his afternoon.

      And just possibly, Theresa fervently hoped, to begin the rest of his life.

      Lilli McCall wasn’t sure that this was such a good idea.

      Before leaving the house, she’d picked up the phone three times to call Kullen’s office to cancel her appointment. But each time she began to press the numbers she stopped. If she broke this appointment, she would have to find another lawyer. And find one in a hurry.

      Time was running out on her. She couldn’t just close her eyes and pretend that everything was all right—because it so wasn’t. It hadn’t been all right since she’d opened Elizabeth Dalton’s registered letter several weeks ago, completely out of the blue. The letter that had made her move back to Bedford in hopes of eluding the woman. She should have known better. The woman had tentacles that reached everywhere.

      A second letter had found her here.

      The letter, written on fine linen, dripped with condescension and sarcasm. Worse, it had contained a threat that even a seven-year-old couldn’t miss.

      A threat that she wouldn’t allow to happen. She intended to fight Elizabeth Dalton with her dying breath, if it came to that.

      But that meant going to court—or at least getting a damn good lawyer who would not just fight the good fight for her, but win.

      Win by any means possible.

      If she could fight a clean fight, she would, but she wasn’t so naive she believed for one moment that Elizabeth Dalton intended to fight fairly. The widow of a man who had been heir to a pharmaceutical empire, she detested people who opposed her and loved getting her way.

      Loved winning.

      Lilli had no doubt that the rich socialite would instruct her lawyer to use every dirty trick in the book to get what she wanted.

      And what the woman wanted was her son.

      Elizabeth’s grandson.

      The problem was that she didn’t know any lawyers, good or bad. Why should she? Despite three quarters of a year of law school behind her, she’d never needed one before, never knew anyone who’d needed one before, which now left her at a terrible disadvantage.

      But she knew Kullen. Knew that he was good and kind and caring, so that was a start. Because he had turned out to be a lawyer and was still right here in Bedford, maybe fate was finally being kind to her.

      Still, arriving ten minutes early for her appointment, Lilli sat in her small, tidy blue car in Rothchild, McDowell and Simmons’s parking lot, debating one last time the wisdom of what she was about to do. Debating, again, canceling her appointment.

      She’d even pushed his office number on her keypad, her finger hovering over the send button, before she flipped her phone closed, shoved it into her purse and then got out of the car. She all but marched into the six-story building. But when she stepped into the elevator, Lilli felt not unlike a doomed soul walking the last mile. Or riding up to it, as it were.

       Jonathan, think of Jonathan, she told herself. Jonathan is all that matters. You have to keep him out of that woman’s clutches. Or she’ll turn him into a carbon copy of his father.

      And that, Lilli knew, would be a fate worse than death.

      The elevator door opened all too quickly and she got out.

      As she walked the short distance to the impressive offices of Rothchild, McDowell and Simmons, Lilli fervently prayed she was doing the right thing.

      Because she was putting her son’s future—and his fate—into the hands of a man she’d walked out on all those years ago.

      Chapter Two

      There were days, Kullen thought, when life seemed like a reenactment of the Indianapolis 500. But instead of cars, the minutes and hours madly whizzed by him. It was all he could do to keep things remotely straight.

      If he were honest, he doubted he could keep his sanity if it wasn’t for the woman his father had hired as his chief secretary so many years ago.

      Selma Walker was no longer a secretary. These days, she was an administrative assistant, a title that seemed to annoy her at times, or “vex” her, as she was wont to say. She liked СКАЧАТЬ