The Playboy's Baby (2 page)

“It got stepped on. A few times.” A fierce heat climbed into her cheeks.

She’d always been a klutz. On top of it, she always preferred her own company. The sheer number of people packed into this place quickly overwhelmed her, and she’d gotten lost in the crowd, bumped from gyrating body to gyrating body.

She looked down at her foot and waved a hand at him, praying he wouldn’t make a big deal out of it. She felt like enough of a fool. “It’s fine.”

“Let me guess, you were heading for my office.”

The knowing tone of his voice made her look up. “Then I came back when I discovered you weren’t there, yes.”

The corners of his mouth twitched, amusement twinkling in his eyes. “The crowd on the dance floor can be rather unforgiving. If you stick to the wall, it isn’t so bad.”

“Now someone tells me.” She narrowed her eyes, unable to stop from echoing his smile. “Don’t you dare laugh.”

He clutched a hand to his chest, dark brows drawn together in an expression of mock dismay. “Em, you wound me. What kind of heartless beast do you think I am?”

A laugh escaped and she shook her head. “I don’t think you want me to answer that.”

He chuckled, a deep infectious sound that made her smile again and the moment caught her. She stared at him. Warm and familiar, the play between them reminded her of all those years of growing up with him, of the little imp who used to goad her. Her earlier nervousness flitted away. Whatever else had gone between them, she knew this man.

“Come on.” Before she had a chance to protest, Dillon wrapped an arm around her waist, supporting her weight against his side, and helped her the four limping steps it took to reach the bar.

Okay, so her foot didn’t hurt that bad. She was too stunned by the powerful press of his body against her, by the memories invading her thoughts, to protest. When they made it to the bar, she collapsed onto a stool with a relieved sigh. She closed her eyes for a moment and conjured images of the sweet face she left an hour ago. Soft chubby cheeks, big eyes closed in slumber, the wide little mouth puckered and working an invisible bottle.

Sweet little Annie was under the watchful eye of old Mrs. Emerson, who owned the bed and breakfast she was staying at. The old woman had been a dear friend of the family, back when her mother was still alive. She’d agreed to watch Annie, so that Emma wouldn’t have to drag her out in this weather. It also gave her time alone with Dillon, to break the news to him.

She needed to remember that she was here for Annie’s sake. Her niece’s future depended on Emma keeping her head. She came here to inform Dillon he had a daughter and to ask him to share custody, not to recount memories. She had a job to do. Annie deserved her best.

Lucky for her, Dillon seemed to take her sigh to mean it relieved her to be off her foot.

“Hey, Ronnie.” He raised his voice over the din and leaned his elbows on the bar, turning his attention to the bartender at the other end. “Give me an ice pack, would you?”

When the man nodded, Dillon sank onto the barstool beside her. He turned to face her, their knees brushing. A shiver rocketed through her in response, from the point of contact clean down to her toes.

“Give me your foot.” He patted the edge of the stool between his legs.

The heat of embarrassment crept into her cheeks again. She shook her head. “It’s just a little sore.”

“If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to have a look.” Without waiting for a reply, he bent sideways, pulled her foot off the rung, and set it on the stool between his thighs.

Could her face get any hotter? “I tell you, it’s fine.” She rolled her eyes to cover her unease.

Unlacing her boot, Dillon cut her a quick glance, eyes glittering in triumph. “So, where is Janey, anyway?”

How could she possibly be unprepared for that question? The raw, gaping wound in her chest, the one she’d only
just
managed to keep at bay, split wide open again. Emma struggled to breathe through the tide of emotions that washed over her. Never again would she see Janey’s smiling face or hear her infectious laughter. Annie would never know what a wonderful vibrant person her mother was. Janey would never see her beautiful daughter’s first steps or hear her first words.

“I know she’s in here somewhere. Only your sister could have managed to get you to come into this place.”

He was right. Only Janey. Her chest squeezed with the pain she’d barely held off for the last month. Emma stared at her stockinged foot, encased in his large warm hands, and bit her bottom lip in an effort to keep the tears burning behind her eyelids from seeping down her cheeks. The words she needed to say clogged in her suddenly full throat.

Dillon lifted his head, his questioning stare obvious. She couldn’t bring herself to look at him, to speak.

“Em?” When she didn’t answer, he cupped her chin in his palm and forced her to meet his gaze. “What’s going on?”

Instant panic replaced the pain gripping her chest, and Emma squeezed her eyes shut and dragged in a deep breath. God, why was this so hard? She’d prepared herself for this moment, rehearsed what she wanted to say to him, yet the words refused to leave her tongue.

“What’s wrong with Janey?” Dillon’s voice was deadly calm, yet with an authoritative clip that demanded she answer.

Emma opened her eyes and met his searching gaze. The anxiousness lighting the dark depths twisted at her insides and answered the question for her. Dillon was the only other person alive who loved Janey the way she did. Right now, she didn’t know if she could stand to see pain shadow his eyes when she dropped the news of her sister’s death.

She swallowed hard and managed to shake her head. “Not here.”

Brows drawn together, he hesitated then nodded. “My office.”

He didn’t bother to wait for a reply. Instead, he stood and handed her the boot he removed.

She opened her mouth to voice a protest when the bartender appeared in front of them catching his attention. “We have a problem.” The man nodded in the direction of the crowd of dancers and handed Dillon a hand towel filled with ice.

Dillon turned sideways and followed the man’s gaze. On the other side of the room, two women had climbed onto a table and shook their assets for an uproariously grateful crowd of drunken men. Dillon swore under his breath.

“It never fails.” He turned an apologetic frown on her. “I have to go take care of this. I’m short a couple of bouncers tonight.”

She shook her head. “I meant I didn’t want to do this
here
.” She swept her hand in the air, a gesture meant to encompass the entire place.

Like the phone, dropping her awful news on him in his place of business felt wrong, like taking the coward’s way out. She was
not
a coward.

She sighed, letting her shoulders slump. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for it to be like this. When you weren’t at home, I didn’t know where else to find you. I came to ask when would be a good time for us to…talk.”

“Now would be a good time.” The creases between his brows deepened. He handed her the towel of ice and shook his head. “You’re already here, and I’m not waiting until tomorrow to hear whatever it is you need to tell me. Meet me in my office. This won’t take long.”

Without waiting for a reply, Dillon pivoted and strode off into the crowd. The very same crowd she pushed and shoved in order to get through only minutes before, now all but parted for him.

Emma eased her foot back into her boot all the while sending up a silent prayer for strength.

* * *

Dillon heaved a sigh. He envisioned the room beyond the landing of the small flight of stairs in front of him—and the woman seated within. The ball of dread in his stomach tightened. It formed there the exact instant he spotted Emma at the edge of the crowd.

He shook his head. She could’ve blown on him and knocked him over showing up here like that. Janey used to come back to town on a regular basis, every few months or so she showed up on his doorstep with a wicked gleam in her eye. Growing up, that girl got him into more trouble then he cared to remember.

Emma, on the other hand, hadn’t been back to town since she left. He hadn’t seen her since the night her mother died.

He loped up the stairs two at a time. At the landing he stopped and turned to the closed door, pausing to draw in a deep breath. Preparing himself for the bad news instinct told him lay beyond that door.

Four years older, Emma was one of those annoyingly sensible types. An overachiever. She all but raised Janey, got a job at fourteen to help pay the bills and still managed to end up at the top of her class. She was completely not his type, not to mention she loathed him. Where it concerned Janey, she was like a tigress protecting her cub and hadn’t bothered to hide the fact she thought him no good for her little sister.

No, whatever news she came to tell him couldn’t be good. She wouldn’t have come to see him otherwise.

He turned the brass knob and pushed the door open. Emma slowly turned wary amber eyes to him. Seated in a straight-backed chair opposite his desk, she sat stiffly with her hands folded in her lap and her ankles neatly crossed and tucked beneath her. She looked the way he’d felt when he stood at the bottom of the stairs—nervous.

Yet that night eight years ago refused to leave his thoughts. He’d had the biggest crush on Emma for years. Getting to hold her in his arms that night had been…sublime. Seeing her now brought up that old craving—wanting to know the flavor of her mouth and the softness of her lips.

Yeah, she was still gorgeous. She barely came up to the center of his chest, but she had long, graceful limbs and soft, voluptuous curves that were accentuated by the straight lines of her black suit.

A suit. He wanted to shake his head. She wore a casual ensemble, slacks and a V-neck jacket with a white button-down shirt, but it still amounted to a suit. She topped it all off with fur-lined suede boots. No one but Emma Stanton would dare walk into his club in that kind of outfit and manage to look so damn sexy.

“So, how long have you had this place?” Emma pulled her shoulders back and offered him a nervous, awkward smile, one that lifted one corner of her mouth higher than the other.

He raked a hand through his hair and returned the smile. “About four years. This used to be Arnold McNabb’s place.”

Her eyes brightened. “I remember him. Wasn’t it a country-western place?”

He nodded and moved into the room, deliberately walking a wide path around her chair, lest his hands gain a mind of their own. He itched to pull those long auburn locks from the clip holding them to the back of her head, yearned to burrow inside, to see how long she’d let it grow, to feel its softness sifting through his fingers.

“It wasn’t doing so well.” He took a seat behind his desk. “It cost him more to keep it open than he brought in.”

He rested his hands on the top of the desk, taking refuge in its cool solidness beneath his palms. Any distance between them was a good thing. Emma was forbidden fruit. He could look, but not touch. Never mind she was his best friend’s big sister. He played the love game once and lost and didn’t intend to do it again. All he could offer Emma was a fling, and she deserved more.

“So you bought it. Why?” Emma readjusted her position, uncrossing and recrossing her legs, and arched a fiery brow.

“This place has been a part of the town since I was little. I didn’t want to see it gone.” Dillon shrugged. “Plus I liked Mr. McNabb. He was one of the few people who didn’t treat me differently simply because of who my parents are. He didn’t care.”

Emma’s eyes narrowed, playful in a nervous kind of way. “I probably already know the answer, but I have to hear you say it…why a nightclub?”

She said the word “nightclub” like it was distasteful. Her little button nose wrinkled. He grinned. This woman knew him entirely too well and yet there was so much she didn’t know.

“Actually, it was Janey’s idea. She said, and I quote, ‘This town could use a little livening up and you’re just the man to do it.’ I agreed with her.”

Amusement flitted across Emma’s eyes then faded a breath later. Instead, her amber eyes filled with sadness, glistening with unshed tears.

It made his chest tighten when they were downstairs and did so again now. He couldn’t stand to see tears in her eyes. Seeing them had sunk him eight years ago. Emma had always been strong, the one in charge. She didn’t hesitate to confront him when she assumed the trouble he and Janey got into was his fault. She was one of the few people in this town who wasn’t intimidated by his size or his name. He admired her for that.

The emotion in her eyes also wrenched at his gut simply because it provided a firm reminder she hadn’t come to recount childhood memories. She had a reason, and instinct said it wasn’t pleasant.

“I’m sorry.” Emma shook her head and dropped her gaze to her lap, her fingers toying with the edges of her jacket. “I’m stalling.”

“I noticed.” He sat back in his chair, settled his elbows on the armrest, and folded his hands over his stomach, offering her a smile. “Why don’t you tell me what you came here to say and get it over with? It’s like pulling off a bandage. The slower you do it, the more painful it is. Rip it off quick, and it doesn’t hurt so much.”

A ghost of a smile flitted across her mouth. “It’s not good news.”

“Yeah, I gathered that much.”

She closed her eyes, drawing in a deep breath and releasing it in a slow, serrated stream of air. Dillon gripped the arms of the chair to keep from reaching out to her. Something had happened to Janey, and that very thought left him tied in knots. He hadn’t seen her in over a year. He called on a regular basis to chat, to check in with his best friend, but lately Janey’s voice was tight and distant. The phone calls usually lasted less than two minutes and ended with a lame excuse about having “things to do.”

The distance between them hadn’t been there before, and it drove him crazy not knowing what went on in her life. It made him sick to his stomach to think something bad might have happened to her.

Emma lifted her gaze to his, those amber eyes looking simultaneously lost and intense, and a stone of dread dropped in his stomach. He remembered that look. Too well. She looked at him the exact same way when he found her in the pouring rain in the middle of Rugby Park in the center of town. Right after her mother died.