HER ONE AND ONLY VALENTINE - (6 page)

Even with only a few days of new-found knowledge, he couldn't ever remember resenting someone as much as he did Rhiannon. Hence he had chosen to stick closer to Lizzie since he'd moved in rather than allowing the tension that lay thick in the air when Rhiannon was around to
affect
Lizzie. At least on that one subject he could agree with her mother.

Clenching his jaw as a thought occurred to him, he forced nonchalance into his voice as he asked, 'Didn't your dad get you a pony or a dog before?'

'You mean Stephen?' She shook her head, a shadow briefly crossing her bright eyes. 'He wanted me to go to boarding school and said if I had a dog or a pony it couldn't go. But Mum didn't want me to go to boarding school. It's better when it's just me and Mum. And if we had a dog and a pony it would be
perfect.'

Well, there was never going to be any problem getting information out of Lizzie, was there? That realization, along with the stunning sense of relief that washed over him that she had never called anyone else Daddy, brought a small smile back on to Kane's face. 'You always call him Stephen?'

'Yep,' She grinned as she lifted a pile of pony magazines out of a box. 'My mum called him Stephen.' She giggled and leaned closer to whisper, 'And some bad names too when she thought I couldn't hear her.'

Kane chuckled. Despite the fact that it was another subject he agreed with Rhiannon on—he had called Stephen plenty of names over the years. There was just something about him that had always grated on Kane's nerves.

With a large bag of ripped up cardboard in one hand, he followed Lizzie on to the landing. His smile was still in place when she turned to check that he was following her, slowing down to allow him to catch up with her when in reality he could have managed it in two strides.

It was thoughtful of her. She was an amazing kid.

'Do you have any kids, Kane?'

His breath caught at the innocent question. How in hell was he supposed to answer that one? It wasn't as if he could say,
Not that I knew of.
And Rhiannon had made it very clear that she had never even hinted at it to Lizzie before. Damn her.

'Are you married?'

'You're just full of questions, aren't you?' He swapped the bag to his other hand. 'Should I call my solicitor before we go any further?'

Lizzie stopped at the top of the stairs, turning and frowning up at him as one small hand brushed back a long strand of hair from her face—hair the same colour as his, the eyes that were looking up at him the same colour as his. It was surreal.

'Why would you need to call one of them? Are you getting a divorce too?'

'No, I've never been married. It's in case you ask me anything I might get into trouble with the police for.'

Her eyes rounded. 'Have you been in trouble with the police, like one of those guys on TV?'

A loud peal of male laughter escaped to echo up and around the cavernous entrance hall. 'That would make me much more interesting than I actually am.'

'Well, I think you're interesting.' She smiled up at him, then turned and headed down the wide staircase.

'Thank you.' The sense of pride that gave him as he followed her grew exponentially.

'Stephen thinks you're interesting, he used to ask Mum tons of things about you.'

I'll just bet he did.
Kane frowned briefly at the back of her head, forcing his voice to stay light. 'Stephen and I know each other from a long time ago; he was probably just wondering how I've been getting along all these years since I last saw him.'

Lizzie turned her head slightly as she got near the bottom of the stairs. 'What
is
a control freak, anyway?'

Kane blinked innocently. 'A what?'

'It's what Stephen said you are.'

'Did he now?'

She bobbed her head before turning on her heel and grabbing hold of the banister as she jumped off the second last step. 'And something about being over a bear.'

He quirked a brow as she pushed the door to the kitchen. '
Overbearing?'

She grinned. 'Yeah, that and another thing about—'

'LizzieT

Both sets of eyes turned in the general direction of Rhiannon's softly demanding voice.

But while Kane surrendered to a swift wave of pure unadulterated resentment again—for the simple reason that every time he saw her he had an immediate, uninvited visceral response— Lizzie was quick to bounce on regardless.

'Oh, hi, Mum. We unpacked all the stuff for my room and Kane helped me tear up the boxes.'

'That was good of him.' Rhiannon glanced at the anger in his eyes before refocusing on her daughter, as if she saw her as some kind of shield between them. 'So what were you just saying to Kane?'

Lizzie shrugged. 'We were talking about Stephen.'

Kane watched Rhiannon's throat convulse as she swallowed, her eyes flickering up to his face and then away before she answered with a tightlipped, 'I see.'

Yeah. He'd just bet she did. Because she'd known from the start how little he thought of Stephen and yet she'd still gone ahead and married him
and
allowed him to become some kind of a stand-in father figure to Lizzie too. It was hellish hard to swallow.

His eyes narrowed when she looked back at him.

'Kane says they were friends from way back.'

Rhiannon's finely arched eyebrows rose, her brown eyes full of disbelief. 'Friends?'

Kane rectified the misconception in a flat tone. 'I said we knew each other.'

Lizzie looked surprised. 'You weren't friends?'

Forcing a smile in the face of such innocent curiosity, he added, 'Not exactly, no.'

'How come?'

He took a breath. 'Because we don't always get on with everyone we know.'

'Just like
you
don't get on with everyone in school.'

Kane glanced at Rhiannon again as she spoke, understanding immediately what she was doing but ignoring any hint of a rapport between them that that might have indicated. He was way past the stage of appreciating anything nice she might try to do, even if she was currently trying to smooth over a difficult topic on his behalf.

Lizzie sighed. 'Mum's still mad at me 'cos I pushed Sarah McCracken and she fell down.'

'Little girls don't go around pushing other little girls over.' Rhiannon glanced at Lizzie, then briefly up at Kane before concentrating on unwrapping a few more of the plates on the table in front of her, stacking them into a rapidly growing pile. 'Even when the other little girl says something they don't agree with.'

Wasn't finding it easy to look at him for long, was she? Kane smiled a small smile as he glanced down again, trying to keep all of his attention on Lizzie. Maybe her mother was starting to feel a little guilty? Well, she damn well should!

'What did Sarah say?'

Lizzie shrugged again. 'She said I only played football so that the boys would like me.'

He bit back a larger smile. 'And
do
you?'

'You want to watch she doesn't push you too. She may look all sweetness and light, but she has a temper.'

Like her mother used to have. Kane remembered the sometimes heated debates they used to have; he remembered how defensive she'd been about where she'd come from and how single-minded she'd been about making something of her life. And she'd managed it through a marriage into one of the oldest families in Dublin in the end, hadn't she? She'd traded up.

At the time it had made him glad he'd broken up with her when he had, even if he
had
maybe handled it badly enough for her to make the decision that he wasn't worthy parent material. After all, if she was only interested in marriage to step her into a safe financial environment it wouldn't have been much of a marriage, would it?

Knowing that made it easy now to damp down the memory of how much fun he'd once had making up with her after one of their 'debates'—long, languid sessions of making up. Until there had been a time when they had debated less and 'made up' more. At one time he had thought the memories would haunt him. But then she had married Stephen and he'd known he'd had a lucky escape.

All it had cost him was his daughter. And there wasn't a single doubt in his mind that she was his, now that he had spent time with her.

Lizzie giggled, the sound dancing around the room and drawing his attention back to her face. And instantly he smiled in response. For no other reason than it was what he always felt like doing when he looked at her.

'I'd need to grow a bit first before I tried pushing Kane over. He's
humongous!'

'Nah.' He moved towards the back door with his bag. 'We office types are real weaklings. I'll bet you could push me over in a snap.'

Rhiannon watched him from below long lashes as he made the journey across the kitchen.
A real weakling, my backside.

Her gaze moved slowly over his body, making the most of what had once been an everyday sight. The man had always had his own particular way of filling a woman's eyes and the years hadn't diminished that any.

Not that he was handsome in a conventional Prince Charming way, oh, no. He'd never been that simple to peg. He'd always been, well,
sexy,
truth be told. Ruggedly handsome, definitely all male, and there was a sexuality to that that had been hard to resist, for her anyway.

It had been the first time in her young life that she'd met someone who could affect her on such a basic sensual level with just a silent gaze or half a smile. And the kind of passion they had eventually shared had been inevitable from the first day he'd looked at her. Damn him.

'That has to go in the recycle bin.'

Rhiannon watched as he glanced over his shoulder and flashed a brilliant smile at Lizzie, one that was open and honest, almost affectionate. And it tore off another piece of her heart when he answered with a brief salute and a, 'Yes, ma'am.'

Already father and daughter had an ease with each other, a rapport of sorts. And Rhiannon felt unreasonably jealous about that. Not for the way Kane was with Lizzie, but more for the way Lizzie was with Kane. She was still so innocent, so unbiased, so damn open and trusting.

'It's 'cos of the planet.'

'Naturally.'

Rhiannon rolled her eyes at the pun while Lizzie giggled. But the second Kane closed the door behind him he looked straight at her with such a look of venom that she almost called him on it.
Almost.

But in a small corner of her traitorous mind she immediately wondered what it would take to be on the receiving end of the look he wore on his face when looked at Lizzie. Not that she wanted him to look at her with that kind of open warmth. It was just that she was very aware of the vast difference in the way he treated them.

Surely he couldn't entirely blame her for all of this? She wasn't the one who'd disappeared without a trace. And if he'd thought anything of her, which she'd believed he did once upon a time, then surely he couldn't have been so dumb as to not work out her baby was his!

All right, so she hadn't known she was pregnant when he had broken up with her, and he had been gone for a while by the time she did know—but even so!

Whatever it was that had pulled him off the face of the earth so completely must have been damn compelling!

His deep voice broke into her thoughts. 'Is there anything else that needs to be carried out?'

'No. But thank you for asking.'

'Can we eat yet?' Lizzie kneeled on one of the long wooden benches at the side of the huge table. 'I'm starved.'

'You're always starved.' She smiled indulgently. At least with her daughter she was on safe ground.

'Kane's starved too.' Lizzie nodded her head in his direction, her eyebrows hinting that he should back her up. 'Right, Kane?'

'I'm not sure I would use the word "starved".'

Again Rhiannon's gaze strayed across his body, moving over his flat stomach and then upwards to where his ribcage tapered outwards to his wide chest and broad shoulders, upwards still, until her eyes met his.

Kane smiled a slow smile in response, one that didn't make it all the way up into his eyes, allowing her to silently know he'd witnessed her study of him—and almost hinting at it being a victory of some kind.

Rhiannon immediately frowned with annoyance and looked away. 'I'm sure Kane doesn't want to be stuck with us twenty-four hours a day.'

'Oh, I don't know.' He allowed the words to come out in a low drawl. 'I think we still have a
lot
of catching up to do, don't you?'

She gritted her teeth. Damn him, 'You must have things of your own to do, phone calls to make to corporate headquarters, that kind of thing.'

Anything that would give her time alone with her daughter— away from his constantly stifling presence.

'No, I'm all yours.'

God, she hated him. 'Well, dinner won't be ready for a while and there's still plenty of unpacking to do.'