One Kiss in... Miami: Nothing Short of Perfect / Reunited...With Child / Her Innocence, His Conquest. Katherine Garbera

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СКАЧАТЬ she wanted to be with him for as long as he’d allow it.

      “What are you doing here?” he asked, the prosaic question making her smile.

      “I’m on a rescue mission. Our cat came down here and I didn’t know what sort of trouble Kit might get into.”

      “Kit?” He stilled, an odd expression shifting across his face. “As I recall, you named the kitten I gave you Kit. It was the night we made—”

      He broke off, but she knew what he’d been about to say. The night they made love. Not “had sex” as he’d been so careful to label it since. Daisy let the silence stretch a moment before responding. “You said you chose Kit because we both had green eyes and were pure trouble.”

      “This can’t be the same cat.”

      His adamant statement confused her, pricked her for some reason. She planted her hands on her hips and fixed him with a look of exasperation. “Of course it’s the same cat, Justice. Didn’t you recognize her?”

      “I didn’t even realize you brought a cat,” he confessed. “I guess my focus was elsewhere.”

      She softened, feeling a tug on her heartstrings. “Yes, of course it was. You couldn’t take your eyes off your daughter.”

      “Or you.”

      He approached with the silent grace she’d always associated with him. Thanks to her position on the step, they stood eye-to-eye, the odd dark gold of his gaze gathering up the light and hinting at wonders and mysteries and delicious depths to be plumbed. They also glimmered with an odd emotion, one she couldn’t quite pinpoint.

      “You kept the cat I gave you for all these years?” He phrased the question almost like an accusation, as though determined to force her to deny it.

      Indignation swept through Daisy. “Did you think I’d throw her out?” she asked. “I adore her.”

      Adored her in part because he’d given her the cat, though she didn’t dare admit as much. But also because she’d formed an immediate attachment to the mischievous little beast, one that continued to this day. Kit was part of her family. Part of her life. And a lifeline that remained to this day, connecting the two of them through all the years stretching between them.

      “I thought your parents might get rid of her.” He shrugged. “All things considered.”

      “You mean because they threw you out, they’d throw your cat out, too?”

      His expression closed down. “Something like that.”

      “Well, they didn’t,” Daisy retorted. “She’s been with me for ten years now. If I’m lucky, she’ll be with me for another ten. Didn’t you notice I used her in my storybooks?”

      Clearly, he hadn’t made the connection. “So, she really is Kit, both in reality and in fiction,” he murmured.

      “Yes, she is. And in case you didn’t catch it … You’re Cat.”

      “The panther?” His eyes darkened. “That’s me?”

      “It seemed fitting at the time.” She smiled, daring to tease. “So are you going to let me use Kit as an excuse for a tour of the forbidden?”

      “If I satisfy your curiosity, will you stay out?”

      “I’ll try.”

      He released a sigh and held out his hand. “Come on.”

      She stepped into the hallway, the tile even icier than the wood flooring. She suppressed a shiver, not wanting to give Justice any excuse to send her away. “What’s down that way?” She pointed to the right.

      “That’s my uncle’s section. You don’t get a tour of that area without his express invitation.” He paused, capturing her chin within the warmth of his palm and tipping it up. “I’m serious, Daisy. You have to allow him his privacy. No stray cats. No sneaking down in the middle of the night. No excuses. Got it?”

      “I wouldn’t do that,” she assured him. “Honestly, I wouldn’t. I might give you a hard time because I know you can take it. But not Pretorius.”

      Her sincerity must have come through loud and clear. He gave a single sharp nod, then gestured to the left. “I have a number of labs down this way, as well as my private quarters.”

      Good Lord. “A number of labs?”

      He shrugged. “For measurement and instrumentation. Another for research and development. A computer lab. A test lab. It isn’t as specialized as the Sinjin complex, but it works well enough for tinkering.”

      “I want to see the robot lab.”

      He actually grinned. “Okay. I’ll let you see the nonsterile one.”

      “You have sterile labs?”

      “Yes, but you have to be naked and sterilized before you can go in.”

      One look assured he was kidding. Excellent. She’d only been here a few hours and she’d already infected him with a sense of humor. “It must not do a very good job sterilizing,” she retorted. “Otherwise you wouldn’t have a daughter.”

      He placed his palm against a plate outside one of the doors and then requested admittance. “Maybe we don’t have to be sterilized,” he admitted while they waited for his security system to run his palm and voiceprint.

      “And maybe we don’t have to be naked, either?”

      The door to the lab slid silently open. “No, I’m pretty much going to insist on nudity.”

      She stepped into a huge room that looked very much like a workshop. Long tables spanned one half of the room and lined the walls. Predictably, they were a crisp, painful white. Instrumentation—none of which she recognized—clustered in a half-dozen stations perched on top of various tables. Each station also possessed its own computer system. At the opposite end of the room were endless cabinets and shelves and banks of drawers, most on rollers. Supplies, at a guess. Everything was ruthlessly organized which didn’t come as much of a surprise considering Justice’s propensity for neatness.

      Dead center in the middle of the room stood a huge, sturdy workbench, possibly the messiest section of the room, not that Daisy found it all that messy. To her amusement, one of his Rumi spheres had been left there, and like the one in the office, this one had been transformed into a daisy, as well. She started to comment on that fact, then thought better of it, something in his expression warning her to tiptoe around that particular subject. Instead, she turned her attention to his work project.

      Resting on the table squatted two odd devices on treads, presumably to give them mobility. She studied the first which combined dark metal and light gray plastic in a round shape the approximate size of a canister vacuum cleaner. Specialized arms spoked the device and what looked like a ring of aquamarine eyes dotted the circumference. A small helmet capped it, the helmet studded with lights and buttons and a display screen. Beside it squatted its more sophisticated twin.

      “What are they?” she asked, fascinated.

      “That’s СКАЧАТЬ