His Baby Agenda. Katherine Garbera

to know him. Wasn’t that the first thing every Cosmo quiz told a woman to do? It was also what she had decided she needed to help herself get over him.

      “I wanted Conner to grow up with the sea and the sun. Plus, my parents haven’t forgiven me for...”

      “Stacia?” she asked. She wasn’t going to pretend he didn’t have that in his past. It was the incident that defined them as a couple. Three weeks of dating culminating in a one-night stand. And she suspected she needed some closure on that, as well. “What did happen that night?”

      “I don’t... Are you sure you want to talk about it?” he asked.

      “Yes. I thought... Well, that doesn’t matter. I remember that you took me home and stayed until my roommate came back and then you left. What happened next?”

      He rubbed the back of his neck and took a long sip of his sparkling water before he put his elbows on the table and leaned forward. “I took a long walk around the campus. I didn’t want to go back to the frat house or the party. I needed to think.”

      “What about?”

      “You, Gabi. You were a freshman and I was a senior. My life was on track at that point. You know the draft was my next goal, but then you came along and things sort of changed.”

      “How?”

      “You were different and it made me think about something other than football for a while,” he said.

      She wanted to believe him. There was no reason for him to lie to her at this moment, but if that was the truth, why had he been so cruel to her at the jailhouse?

      “Yeah, right. Listen, we both know I was just some dewy-eyed coed that you saw as an easy score,” she said. “You don’t have to put a different spin on it. I was more than willing to go with you that night.”

      “Believe what you will, but that night was special for me. You were different,” he said.

      “Then why were you so mean when I came to visit you?” she asked. There had been no reason for that.

      “I was protecting you. I had no clear memories of the night before. I only knew that I’d been found with Stacia and Hunter and that she had been killed. The cops were trying to implicate me in some sort of twisted sex game, and I wanted you as far from that as I could get you,” he said.

      She swallowed hard. “Really?”

      “Would I lie about that? I certainly didn’t leave you and go back to the party to kill Stacia.”

      “What did happen? Do you know?”

      “I don’t,” he said. “We’ve never found out anything other than they had no evidence to prosecute Hunter and me. Both of us can’t recall the night that clearly. What about you? Do you remember anything from that night?” he asked.

      “Just being into you and around you,” she said. She tipped her head to the side to study him. Stacia’s death was still like a fresh wound to Kingsley. Gabi could tell by the way he was talking about it. Hear it in the anger in his voice.

      “If you can remember anything from that night that seemed odd,” he said, “I’d like to know about it.”

      “Why?”

      “Hunter and I have been piecing together stories and memories of that night. Hunter and Stacia were serious about each other. He blames himself for her death.”

      “Did he kill her?”

      “No. He didn’t,” Kingsley said. “Enough about that. Tell me about your business. How did you go from college to being a nanny?”

      She put her hand on his and squeezed it. That knot of anger that had been deep inside her since the moment she’d woken to hear that her lover had been arrested for killing another woman eased. It had been a long time in coming, but she finally felt as if she was seeing Kingsley as the man he could be.

      She didn’t trust herself. Didn’t know if she ever would be able to again, but there was a little bit of hope inside her now.