Marie Ferrarella - Unwrapping the Playboy / The Playboy's Gift

“And that’s why you ripped out my heart and threw it down the garbage disposal? So you wouldn’t hurt me?” he demanded. “C’mon, Lilli, you can do better than that.”

She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to seal away the tears that had suddenly welled up. “You don’t understand,” Lilli whispered.

It wasn’t easy to hold his ground, not when everything inside him, despite all that had gone down, just wanted to comfort her. To hold her and remember what life had once been like.

Only self-preservation managed to hold him in check. “Then explain it to me.”

But she just shook her head. There was too much ground to cover. And too much time had passed. Had life not scarred her before he had come on the scene, Kullen would have been perfect for her. For the Lilli she’d once been.

Before.

Lilli shook her head again. “It’s complicated. I can’t …” Her voice threatened to break. “I’ve got to go.” Her hand went to the doorknob.

Kullen cut the distance between them in strides he didn’t remember taking. One moment he was across the room, the next, he was beside her. Closing the door with the flat of his hand, he became a physical obstacle that prevented her escape.

“Why did you come?” he asked, just barely taking the edge out of his voice. “What is it you need help with?”

Maybe things would be all right after all. Maybe coming here wasn’t a mistake. Lilli pressed her lips together as she raised her eyes to his. “I need help to save my son.”

His breath left him.

Kullen felt as if he’d actually been sucker punched in the gut. For a second, he allowed the words to sink in.

“You have a son?”

He could remember that when they’d been together those few short, glorious months, in the beginning she’d all but shrank away from his touch. The first time that had happened, he’d been more puzzled than offended. Challenged, charmed by her, he worked hard to gain her trust. And he’d taken her at her word when she’d told him that she wanted to go slow. He’d thought she was one of those rare girls who was serious about “saving herself” for the right man. Saving herself for her husband.

He’d been so crazy about her, he would have gone along with anything she’d said as long as it meant that she’d remain in his life. That eventually, she would marry him and be his.

He supposed that made him incredibly naive and stupid, in light of the situation—as well as what she’d told him just now. She hadn’t been saving herself; she’d just been keeping herself from him.

“Yes,” Lilli replied quietly. “I have a son.” And I’ll do anything to save him. Anything.

Kullen glanced down at her left hand. There was no ring on it. No ring and no faint, pale lines to indicate that there once had been. Had everything she’d once told him been a lie?

“What about a husband?” he asked her evenly. “He around anywhere?”

She raised her chin and her eyes met his. “I don’t have one.”

“Divorced?” he guessed. His temper started to flare. “Widowed? How about just separated from a significant other? Got one of those around?”

“No. No. No.” Lilli answered each question in turn.

Then, apparently, there was only one conclusion to be reached. The words were on his lips before he could think to stop himself. “Did I miss the announcement of another Immaculate Conception?”

The moment he said it, he saw the walls literally go up. He read her body language and blocked her as she reached for the door again. His anger had gotten the best of him. What he’d just said was beneath him, and he knew it.

“All right, I’m sorry,” he apologized. “But I did feel I had a right to say that.” The walls around her remained up. “When we were together,” he reminded her, “you said you were saving yourself.”

“I never actually said that in so many words,” Lilli pointed out. She hadn’t said those words because, through no fault of her own, they wouldn’t have been true. She’d let him believe what he wanted because the truth had been too painful for her to face.

Even now it was difficult.

His eyes narrowed. “Then I was just some idiot you were laughing at?”

“No!” she protested with feeling. “You were sweet and kind and sensitive—”

His scowl deepened. “In other words, an idiot,” he said.

She shook her head with feeling. “No, not an idiot, a hero.” Her eyes held his. He saw the passion within them as she told him, “You saved me.”

He had no recollection of any heroic act on his part, other than exercising an almost superhuman effort to restrain his raging hormones and abide by her wishes even though, more than anything on earth, he longed to be intimate with her.

“Saved you?” he echoed.

Lilli nodded. “If you hadn’t been so patient with me, so kind, if you hadn’t gone out of your way to be there for me,” she underscored, “I would have killed myself.” And she meant it. She’d been completely hopeless, and he’d given her hope.

I would have killed myself.

It was a phrase tossed around easily, especially by younger people. He was all ready to discount it, but he saw the look in her eyes. Young, talented, smart, she had everything to live for, but she was obviously dead serious.

“Why?”

She shook her head again. “I don’t want to go into that, Kullen,” she told him solemnly, then drew herself up to her short stature. “I’m sorry I wasted your time like this. Send me the bill for this appointment and I’ll reimburse you. It’s the least I can do.”

No, the least she could do was explain herself, but he knew better than to press her. Instead, as Lilli reached for the doorknob a third time, he asked, “Where are you going?”

“I have to find a lawyer.”

“I’m a lawyer,” he reminded her. “What’s wrong with me?”

“Nothing. But I thought that you don’t want to take my case—”

Kullen had no idea what he would do next or how any of this would turn out. Despite everything, he didn’t want to see her walk out that door.

“I didn’t say that. I don’t even know what your case is,” he reminded her. “What, exactly, is your case?”

She put it into terms as succinctly as she could. “It’s a custody battle.”

“Then there is a father,” he concluded. And whoever the man was, he wanted custody of the child they’d had together.

“No, there’s a grandmother.”

Saying the words, she caught herself almost smiling. The flamboyant Elizabeth Dalton would have balked at the label, telling whoever called her a grandmother what he could do with the label and where he could put it. In the eyes of the press, Elizabeth Dalton strove to be seen as an ageless, benevolent goddess of timeless beauty. Her image, her reputation, were all-important to her.

Lilli had no doubts that if Elizabeth won custody of Jonathan, her well-adjusted little boy would be a emotional wreck in a matter of months. Perhaps sooner. All she had to do was remember the way Elizabeth’s son had turned out. And what he did. It put cold fear into Lilli’s heart.

“Your mother?” Kullen guessed.

“No, Elizabeth Dalton,” she told him.

The mention of the high-profile socialite threw him for a moment. “The widow of the pharmaceutical heir?” he questioned. Lilli nodded. “What does she have to do with it?” he asked.

“She’s the one who wants custody of my son.” Lilli took a deep breath, as if trying to protect herself from the words she was saying. “And she’s already told me in no uncertain terms that she will stop at nothing to get it.”

Like a traffic cop, Kullen held up his hand, stopping her before she went off in another direction.