Keeping her emotions masked, she clicked her phone shut and clasped the cellular device tightly in her palm.
“My son.”
CHAPTER FIVE
“YOU have a son?” Daniel’s head spun. He’d been on his way to the men’s room when he’d overheard Kimberly’s side of the conversation. A gentleman might have kept going or pretended he hadn’t heard. Perhaps that’s what he should have done.
Kimberly had a son.
She’d been married. Of course she’d have children. He should have realized. Still, the thought of her as a mother boggled his mind. Try as he may, he couldn’t imagine her curvy little body swollen with child.
She glared at him with a stubborn set to her chin. “My personal life is really none of your business, Daniel.”
“But you do have a son?”
“Do you not understand what ‘none of your business’ means? Just because we called a truce for work, it doesn’t mean you
have a right to anything about my personal life. Go.” She glanced around the hallway with a touch of desperation he didn’t understand. “Go make your boys proud and pick up some hot babe or something. Just leave me alone.”
“No.” He should leave her alone, but being confronted with the one woman from his past whom he never quite got over made “should” a moot point.
Her gaze lifted to him. “What do you mean—no?”
“Just that.” He liked how, in anger, gold flecks dotted the green of her eyes, giving them a catlike appearance. “I’m not going to leave you alone. For the next week, you belong to me.”
All day his emotions had flip-flopped between anger, lust, surprise at seeing her, and feelings he couldn’t begin to label, but he knew his words to be true. He didn’t want to leave her alone.
“That’s ridiculous, Daniel,” she huffed. “I work for Cardico, but they don’t own me. No one does, and certainly not you.” She straightened her shoulders and placed her hands on her hips.
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”
Her eyes darkened to a forest-green and she outright glared. “If you’ve been sleeping with your former trainees, I understand how you’re getting such glowing reviews, but I’m off-limits.” She pursed her lips. “Been there, done that, remember?”
Ignoring the last bits, he grinned. “Are you saying I was a good lover, Kimberly?”
He hadn’t slept with any Cardico employee and, despite the way his pals told it, very few others. He liked women, liked sex, but hadn’t taken the time to pursue either in months. Not since a ski trip to Colorado with his last girlfriend and they’d ended the moment she’d started hinting she’d wanted more. Relationships didn’t seem worth the energy these days, and sex for the sake of sex had stopped appealing years ago.
Which begged the question of exactly what he wanted from Kimberly. Because he’d never trust her with his heart again, yet he definitely wanted sex. If it wasn’t sex for the sake of sex, then what was it?
“No.” Color rose up her neck.
“No, you’re not admitting I was a good lover, or no, I wasn’t? Because I distinctly recall you enjoying it when I touched you.” To prove his point he grazed his knuckles across her cheeks. The caress was for her benefit, but his heart quivered at the contact, proving instead how much he’d enjoyed touching her and apparently still did. Just as he enjoyed teasing her, seeing the real emotions flutter across her face before she could hide beneath her professional veneer.
“Just no.” She inhaled sharply, squeezed her eyes shut, and pushed at his chest. “Let me go, Daniel. Please, let me go.”
Immediately, he backed away. She looked scared again, like she had in his office.
He didn’t understand her fear. He’d never hurt her in any way. She’d dumped him, not the other way around. Even on the night they’d made love for the first time, he’d done everything he’d been able to to ease her passage into womanhood.
Memories spilled forth, making him long for the past when she’d claimed to love him. Not that her love had been more than a teenager’s passing fancy, but he longed for her looks of hot desire all the same.
That’s when reality hit him full force.
“I’ve tried, Kimberly,” he admitted, all teasing gone from his voice. “For fifteen years, I’ve tried.”
Perhaps the look of desperation that had come over her face prompted him to admit the truth, to tell her things no sane man would admit to his ex-girlfriend.
“I want you.” Saying the words out loud felt right. “As much as I did fifteen years ago. Possibly more. Oddly enough, it doesn’t bother me that I want you.”