Playing for Keeps. Catherine Mann

offer. He couldn’t possibly be serious. Not after eighteen years apart, with only a few short letters and a couple of phone calls exchanged in the beginning. They’d broken up, drifted away from each other, eventually cut off contact completely after the baby’s adoption was complete.

      Back at the start of Malcolm’s music career, she’d been in her early twenties, under the care of a good therapist and going to college. She’d dreamed of what it would be like if Malcolm showed up on her doorstep. What if he swept her off her feet and they picked up where they’d left off?

      But those fantasies never came to fruition. They only held her back, and she’d learned to make her own realities—concrete and reasonable plans for the future.

      Even if he had shown up before, she wasn’t sure then or now if she would have gone with him. Her mental health had been a hard-won battle. It could have been risky, in her fragile state, to trade stability for the upheaval of a life on the road with a high-profile music star.

      But it sure would have been nice to have the choice, for him to have cared enough to come back and offer. His ridiculous request now was too little, too late.

      Celia hitched her floral computer bag over her shoulder and eyed her office door a few short steps away. “Joke’s over, Malcolm. Of course I’m not going to Europe with you. Thanks for the laugh, though. I’m heading home now rather than stick around through my planning period since, for the first day in forever, I’m not slated for bus duty. You may have time to waste playing games, but I have grades to tabulate.”

      His hand fell to rest on her bare arm, stopping her. “I’m completely serious.”

      Hair prickled. Goose bumps rose. And damn it, desire stirred in her belly.

      After all this time, her body still reacted to his touch, and she resented the hell out of that fact. “You’re never serious. Just ask the tabloid reporters. They fill articles with tales of your charm on and off camera.”

      He angled closer, his grip firm, stoking long-buried embers. “When it comes to you, I’ve always been one hundred percent serious.”

      And wasn’t that an about-face for them? She used to be the wild, adventurous one while Malcolm worked hard to secure his future. Or at least, she’d thought he’d been serious about the future—until he’d ended up in handcuffs, arrested.

      Her breath hitched in her throat for three heavy heartbeats before she regained her equilibrium. “Then I’ll be the rational one here. There’s truly no way I’m leaving for Europe with you. Thank you again for the offer to protect me, but you’re off the hook.”

      He tipped his head to the side, his face so close a puff of her breath would rustle the stubborn lock of hair that fell over his forehead. “You used to fantasize about making love in Paris in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower.” His voice went husky and seductive, those million-dollar vocal cords stroking her as effectively as any glide of his fingers.

      She moved his hand slowly—and deliberately—off her arm. “Now I’m really not going anywhere with you.”

      “Fine. I’ll cancel my concert tour and become your shadow until we’re sure you’re safe.” He grinned unrepentantly, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “But my fans will be so pissed. They can get rabid sometimes, dangerous even, and above all, my goal is to keep you safe.”

      Was he for real?

      “This is too bizarre.” She clenched her fists to resist the urge to pull her hair—or his. “How did you say you found out about the Martin case?”

      He hesitated for the barest instant before answering, “I have contacts.”

      “Money can buy anything.” She couldn’t help but think of how he’d once disdained her father’s portfolio and now he could buy her dad out more than twice over.

      “Extra cash would have bought us both some help eighteen years ago.”

      And just that fast, their final fight came rolling back over her, how he’d insisted on playing the gig at that seedy music joint because it paid well. He’d been determined for them to get married and be a family. She’d been equally as certain they were both too young to make that happen. He’d gotten arrested in a drug raid on the bar, and she’d been sent to a Swiss “boarding school” to have her baby.

      Even now, she saw the regret in his eyes, mixed with censure. She couldn’t go down this path with him, not again. Tears of rage and pain and loss welled inside her, and while she understood how unhealthy it was to bottle her emotions, she refused to crumble in front of him.

      She needed to get out of there before she lost it altogether and succumbed to the temptation to throw herself into the comfort of his arms, to bury her face in his shirt.

      To inhale the scent of him until it filled her senses.

      “Things would have turned out better for you with more financial options,” Celia said, reminded of how he’d lost out on the promise of a scholarship to Juilliard. “But no amount of money would have changed the choices I made. What we shared is in the past.” Securing her computer tote bag on her shoulder, she pushed past him. “Thank you for worrying about me, but we’re done here. Goodbye, Malcolm.”

      She rushed by, her foot knocking and jangling a box of tambourines on her way out into the gymnasium. Malcolm could stay or go, but he wasn’t her concern anymore. The custodian would lock her office after he swept up. She had to get away from Malcolm before she made a fool of herself over him.

      Again.

      Her sandals slapped an even but fast pace through the exit and directly into the teachers’ parking lot. Thank heavens she didn’t have to march through the halls with the whole school watching and whispering. Tears burning her eyes, she registered the sound of his footsteps behind her, but she kept moving out into the muggy afternoon.

      The parking lot was all but empty, another hour still left in the school day. In the distance, the playground hummed with the cheers of happy children. What a double-edged sword it was working here, a job she loved but with constant reminders of what she’d given up.

      Her head fell back, and she blinked hard. The sunshine blinded her, making her eyes water all the more. Damn Malcolm Douglas for coming into her life again and damn her own foolish attraction to him that hadn’t dimmed one bit. She swiped away the tears and charged ahead to her little green sedan. Heat steamed up from the asphalt. Magnolia-scented wind rustled the trees and rolled across the parking lot. A flyer flapped under the windshield wiper.

      She stopped in her tracks, her hand flying to her throat. Was that another veiled warning from her father’s latest enemy?

      Every day for a week, she’d found a flyer under her wiper, all relating to death. A funeral parlor. Cemetery plots. Life insurance. The police had called it a coincidence.

      She pinched the paper out from under the blade, shuffling her computer bag higher up onto her shoulder. The flyer advertised …

      A coupon for flowers? A sigh of relief shuddered through her.

      An absolutely benign piece of paper. She laughed, crumpling the ad in her hand. She was actually getting paranoid, which meant whoever was trying to scare her had won. She fished out her keys and thumbed the unlock button on the key fob. Then she reached to slide her computer bag onto the passenger seat …

      And stopped short.

      A black rose rested precisely in the cup holder. There was no mistaking the ominous message. Somehow that macabre rosebud had gotten into her car. Someone had been in her locked vehicle.

      Bile rose in her throat. Her mind raced back to the florist ad under her windshield wiper. She pulled the paper out of her computer bag and flattened the coupon on the seat.

      Panic snapped through her veins, her emotions already on edge from the unexpected encounter with Malcolm. She bolted out of her sedan, stumbling as she backed away. Her body slammed into someone. A hard male chest. She