Surprised by Family: a Contemporary Romance Duet (12 page)

BOOK: Surprised by Family: a Contemporary Romance Duet
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He released gust of laughter and leaned back against the seat. He seemed to have fully recovered. He didn’t look exactly relaxed, but he was smiling and that warm look lingered in his eyes as he gazed at her.

To distract herself from saying something sappy and infinitely stupid, Leila pulled out her compact and tried to repair her makeup. Everyone who was anyone in Boston would be at this opera performance. She didn’t want to look like she’d just been tumbled in the back of a car.

When the car finally pulled up in front of the opera house, Leila was ready to get out. Her dress might be a little wrinkled, and her hair might not be perfectly coifed, but she thought she still looked pretty good.

Baron took her arm as they entered the lobby. How he’d managed to time it so perfectly, she had no idea. But people were mingling in the lobby in what was obviously the intermission break.

She wasn’t sure how this was possible. She was just Leila, with two less-than-perfect girls and a basically normal job. Yet she was on a date with Baron James.

And things were going remarkably well.

She should have known it was too good to be true.

After just a few moments, she felt Baron tighten palpably beside her. She looked up in surprise to see that his expression had frozen and his gaze—fixed on a certain spot across the lobby—had darkened ominously.

She turned to see what had so upset him, and Leila found herself frozen too, her hand clamping down on Baron’s rigid forearm.

The focus of Baron's attention stood across the crowded lobby in all of his loose, long-limbed elegance. He’d never been as handsome as his brother, but the arrogant stance and challenging tilt of his head hadn’t changed in all these years.

Steven James had left Boston years ago in the fall of the year, shedding all ties to his family and friends in some sort of act of rebellion.

It was fall again—a crisp, elegant evening with an internationally acclaimed opera and the glitter of the city elite—when Steven James finally came home.

 

Eight

 

Baron hadn’t expected it. Not now. Not like this.

He’d known his brother would make an appearance eventually to contest the will. He’d been preparing himself for it.

He’d managed to compartmentalize his life very neatly for the last few weeks. Part of his world was spent doing his father’s job and in the thrusts and parries of this duel his brother had waged. And the other part of his world was spent exploring this thing with Leila. Being someone different. Testing out if it was even possible for him to have normal human connections, despite the pressures and burdens of being a James.

Tonight was supposed to be about the Leila-side of his life. He’d been wrapped up fully in Leila and her family—including a ridiculous, humiliating case of nerves over a first date, a very uncomfortable tantrum from Charlotte, and a rising thrill over how close he was feeling to Leila. He hadn’t spared a thought for his brother all evening.

He’d been hopeful. Almost happy.

But then he’d seen his brother. In the lobby of the opera house. And the other side of his life was blown apart.

He had no idea what to say. No idea what to do.

Leila looked up at him with anxious eyes. “We can leave, Baron. We can just leave.”

The space around him had blurred into a vague haze of color and shape and a dull murmur of indistinct voices, but he was able to process that Leila was worried... for him. “There’s no need,” he said. When his voice sounded too raspy, he cleared his throat.  “I don’t want to leave.”

He
did
want to leave, but he couldn’t.

“All right.” Leila loosened the tight grip she’d had on his arm. Instead, she rubbed it gently. “Well, then let’s just take our seats. The second half will be starting soon anyway.”

That was a delay he desperately wanted—some time to process what had happened and figure out a way of handling it.

“Not yet,” he said.

“Baron, you don’t have to confront him now.” Something pleaded in Leila’s voice.

He was tempted—so incredibly tempted—to take the shelter she offered, both in the seats of his private box and the tenderness of her obvious concern. But taking it would be a defeat. “I have to.”

When Leila didn’t argue, he let out a thick breath. He tried to make his brain function. He’d always been good at thinking on his feet and strategizing on the cusp of a given moment. But no ploy, no thrust, no move, no tactic pierced the dark haze of his mind.

He wasn’t sure how it happened. He wasn’t conscious of moving. Or of Steven moving. But the crowd milled around them, parting and reshaping until he and his brother were standing face to face.

“Baron,” his brother said. “It’s good to see you.”

The bitter irony in the words hurt more than he’d expected. More than it should have. “You too. How are you?”

The conversation was a mockery of a familial greeting. Neither man extended a hand.

Steven’s eyes shifted to Leila in a casual assessment, but Baron caught a flicker of surprise in his brother’s face when he registered her identity. “Is it little Leila?”

“Actually,” she said, sounding sharp and bold, with just the slightest edge of uncertainty, “it’s doctor now. Dr. Luther.”

Steven’s blink was the only indication he gave of being caught unaware. “I’d heard my brother had recently started dating a university professor, a single mother of twins. I guess that would be you.”

Somehow, he’d made the innocuous words sound like an insult. Baron bristled inwardly but was careful not to let it show.

Leila made no attempt to hide her annoyance. “Yes, that would be me. Why are you here? I thought we were rid of you.”

“Tonight is the opera’s only performance in the U.S. How could I miss it? But I notice you missed the entire first act.”

Baron managed a dismissive shrug. “Evidently, you take the performance more seriously than we do. Am I to assume, when the opera is over, you’ll crawl back into your hole?”

Steven gave a huff of laughter. “Is that any way to treat family?  I’m hurt.”

“We can only hope,” Leila muttered, not quite under her breath.

Her blunt words surprised Baron. And, for some unexpected reason, they hit a note of humor in his otherwise tense, preoccupied mind. He laughed. Although it was low and slightly bitter, the laughter clearly startled his brother.

Steven’s sharp gaze focused on Baron, and then Leila, and then back to Baron. His eyes narrowed thoughtfully.

The lights in the lobby blinked, signaling the end of intermission.

“Well, it’s been lovely,” Leila said, with a false, bright smile on her face, “but we better get to our seats.”

Steven nodded. “Of course. But I’ll be in touch.” He met Baron’s gaze, and neither was willing to look away. “We’re family, after all.”

“I never doubted it,” Baron replied.

Then Leila was pulling him away, and Baron went with her willingly.

The confrontation could have been worse. It still hurt that his man—his brother—was all he had left of a family, but oddly the conversation hadn’t felt like it was the most important thing in the world.

As they made their way to Baron’s box, he tried to figure out what was different, why it hadn’t been as painful as he’d expected.

He finally concluded that the difference was Leila.

“You all right?” she asked very softly, leaning over the armrest toward his seat. She put a hand on his knee.

“Yeah.” He looked at her—her wide eyes, soft lips, that nameless feeling in her expression. He covered her hand with his.

“He’s an ass.”

Baron felt a flash of ironic amusement, mingled with sharp bitterness. “Yes.” He paused. “He’s also my brother.”

Leila swallowed visibly. “I know he is. I know.”

He thought maybe she did know, and for some reason it helped. He leaned over and brushed her lips with his, something softening in his chest when she reached up in response to stroke the back of his neck with her fingers.

The opera began and any more conversation became impossible. Baron listened to the music with half his mind while the other half whirled over a million plans, possibilities, and outcomes.

Both he and Leila were quiet on the way home. He got out of the car to walk her up to her house, and they both paused outside the door.

“Thank you, Baron,” she said, smiling, although she appeared faintly uncertain. “I really enjoyed it.”

“Me too.” He
had
enjoyed it. Most of it. And the confrontation with Steven didn’t count. He glanced at the closed door. He knew he couldn’t come in, although obviously he’d love to spend the night with her. He also kind of wanted to see the girls—make sure they weren’t disappointed with him, that they still liked him after the earlier episode. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

Leila’s face visibly brightened at his words, and Baron wondered if she thought this was the only date they were going to have.

“If you’re free next weekend, maybe we can go out again. And I need to come by sometime to help the girls with the castle.”

“Right,” she said, an irresistible glow on her face. “I’m free next weekend, and the girls will be thrilled if you can come by sometime to help them with the castle.” She reached up and closed her fingers around the lapels of his jacket. “Thank you.”

He shook his head. “Thank
you
.”

He leaned down to kiss her then, telling himself not to get carried away. Her lips and body were responsive, and for a minute Baron felt like he would drown in her softness, the sweet, fresh scent of her, the obvious eagerness in her touch.

But he pulled away when his body started to react. With a last stroke of her flushed cheek, he said, “Have a good night.”

“You too.” She opened the door and, with one last, lingering look at him, she went inside, shutting it quietly behind her.

Baron stood and stared at the closed door for a minute, wishing his life were different, that he wasn’t burdened by so much work and conflict, that it was easy for him to enter and share in Leila’s life.

It wasn’t going to be easy or simple, but maybe it wasn’t impossible.

His brother had shown up tonight—the clean boundaries of his compartmentalized life had been blown wide open—but this new, tenuous thing with Leila hadn’t totally fallen apart.

Nothing had fallen apart.

Since he was teenager, it had felt like he and his brother were trapped in an endless battle. Even Steven’s retreat had been a parry and not a surrender. Nothing had changed, really, but for the first time Baron felt like the warfare could eventually end.

There might be some way for him to walk unwounded away from the battle.

Maybe it was a childish delusion, but he wasn’t yet ready to let it go.

***

“But how will the drawbridge go up?” Jane asked, soberly studying the cardboard structure they’d spent the last hour building in a corner of the girls’ bedroom. “It has to go up and down over the moat.”

The moat was a long strip of white craft paper Baron had brought over earlier that week that the girls had dutifully colored blue, the water filled with assorted fish, turtles, one enormous purple whale, and a fire-breathing sea monster with triangular fins all down his back and tail.

He returned to his supply box and pulled out a light rope and pulley. He’d spent a ridiculous amount of time figuring out the best plan for the drawbridge, and he was pleased that he’d predicted that the twins wouldn’t be impressed by manually lifting up the cardboard bridge. “You need a pulley system for a good drawbridge,” he said, getting back down on his knees in front of the castle gate.

“Yeah,” Charlotte echoed, her green eyes wide and round. “A pulley system.”

“How does a pulley system work?” Jane asked, looking dubiously from the rope and pulley to the drawbridge.

Baron started to explain the mechanics in terms as simple as he could manage, but then he noticed that Leila was smiling from the other side of the room. Something about her smile made him self-conscious. It wasn’t a mocking or a derisive smile, but she appeared to be having too much fun watching him navigate the difficult waters of castle construction with two six-year-old girls.

When Leila noticed his gaze, she raised her eyebrows and widened her smile, as if daring him to do something.

Baron couldn’t help but smile back. If he lost track of his explanation of the pulley system for a moment, the girls didn’t seem to notice.

“So the rope goes over the round thing?” Jane asked at last. “And it pulls up the bridge?”

“Exactly.” Baron scooted closer to the castle wall, wishing he didn’t look quite so undignified. There was absolutely no way to appear dignified if you were trying to walk on your knees. “See—we’ll attach it here, and then this end of the rope will connect to the bridge.”

Charlotte clapped her hands in delight and declared, “And we’ll pull up the bridge!”

“Yes. We’ll pull up the bridge.”

The three of them worked in silence for a few minute, and Baron had the uneasy feeling that Leila might be quietly laughing behind his back. While her clear enjoyment wasn’t mean-spirited, he would have preferred to impress her or seduce her rather than amuse her.

“I want to pull it up first,” Charlotte said, when Baron had attached the pulley in place.

Jane’s excited face fell. “
I
want to pull it!”

“Why don’t you both pull it together?” Leila suggested mildly.

To Baron’s relief, this plan was immediately accepted, and Jane and Charlotte both got a hand on the rope and triumphantly pulled up the bridge.

The successful implementation of this maneuver resulted in great cheering from Leila and the girls and considerable dancing around the room from the girls.

Baron had never experienced anything like it. While one would think he was too experienced and jaded to feel any sort of thrill over such a trivial achievement, he couldn’t help but find their exuberance contagious.

Not that he would be cheering and dancing any time soon, but he realized he was smiling more than expected.

“Thank you for our castle, Mr. Baron!” Charlotte exclaimed, as dramatic in her gratitude as she was in everything else. Out of an abundance of
joie de vivre
, she hurled herself at Baron's back and hugged him hard around his neck.

He froze for a moment. There wasn’t any way he could respond, fortunately, since she was hugging him from behind. So he simply didn’t pull away.

He wasn’t used to being hugged. Certainly not by children. In fact, he realized, as the girl’s little arms squeezed him so hard she might have cut off his air, he wasn’t used to being touched in any way that wasn’t professional—like a handshake—or sexual.

Baron managed not to pull away in discomfort. Then Jane, seeing it was acceptable, gave him a hug too—hers from the side.

He felt better once he was able to get up off the floor, and they all stood up to admire their handiwork.

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