A Touch of Persuasion. Janice Maynard

Dear Olivia, I have to go home. Sorry.”

      He winced. “I was in a hurry.”

      “Do you have any clue at all how humiliated I was when I went to the Dean’s office to beg for information about you and was told that Kevin Wade was no longer enrolled? And they were not allowed to give out any information as to your whereabouts because of privacy rules? God, I was embarrassed. And then I was mad at myself for being such a credulous fool.”

      “You weren’t a fool,” he said automatically, mentally replaying her words and for the first time realizing what he had put her through. “I’m sorry.”

      She kicked the leg of the coffee table, revealing a hint of her mother’s flamboyant temper. “Sorry doesn’t explain why suddenly neither your cell phone nor your email address worked when I tried to reach you.”

      “They were school accounts. My exams were over. I knew I wasn’t coming back, so I let them go inactive, because I thought it was the easiest way to make a clean break.”

      “If you’re trying to make a case for yourself, you’re failing miserably.”

      “I never wanted to hurt you,” he insisted.

      “They call them clichés for a reason.” The careful veil she’d kept over her emotions had shredded, and now he was privy to the pure, clean burn of her anger.

      “Things were crazy at home,” he said wearily. “I stayed at the hospital round-the-clock for a week. Then when Dad was released, he was extremely depressed. My brother Jacob and I had to entertain him, read to him, listen to music with him. I barely had a thought to myself.”

      She nodded slowly. “I get it, Kieran.” He watched her frown as she rolled the last word on her tongue. “I was a temporary girlfriend. Too bad I was so naive. I didn’t realize for a few weeks that I had been dumped. I kept making excuses for you, believing—despite the evidence to the contrary—that we shared something special.”

      “We did, damn it.”

      “But not special enough for you to pick up the phone and make a call. And you had to know I was back home in California. Yet you didn’t even bother. I should thank you, really. That experience taught me a lot. I grew up fast. You were a horny young man. I was easy pickings. So if that’s all, I’m out of here. I absolve you of any guilt.”

      Fortunately for Kieran, the arrival of dinner halted Olivia’s headlong progress to the door. She was forced to cool her heels while the waiter rolled a small table in front of the picture window and smiled as Kieran tipped him generously. When the man departed, the amazing smells wafting from the collection of covered dishes won Olivia over, despite Kieran’s botched attempts to deal with their past.

      Neither of them spoke a word for fifteen minutes as they devoured grilled swordfish with mango salsa and spinach salad.

      Kieran realized he’d gotten off track. They were supposed to be talking about why Olivia had hidden the existence of his daughter. Instead, Kieran had ended up in a defensive position. Time for a new game plan.

      He ate a couple of bites of melon sorbet, wiped his mouth with a snowy linen napkin and leaned back in his chair. “I may have been a jerk,” he said bluntly, “but that doesn’t explain why you never told me I had a daughter. Your turn in the hot seat, Olivia.”

      Three

      Olivia choked on a sliced almond and had to wash it down with a long gulp of water. The Wolff family was far more powerful than even Olivia’s world-famous parents. If the truth came out, she knew the Wolff patriarchs might help Kieran take Cammie. And she couldn’t allow that. “You don’t have a daughter,” she said calmly, her voice hoarse from coughing. Hearing Kieran’s explanation of why he had left England so suddenly had done nothing to alleviate her fears. “I do.”

      Kieran scowled. Any attempts he might have made to appease her were derailed by his obvious dislike of having his wishes thwarted. “I’ll lock you in here with me if I have to,” he said, daring her to challenge his ability to do so.

      “And how would that solve anything?”

      Suddenly her cell phone rang. With a wince for the unfortunate timing, she stood up. “Excuse me. I need to take this.”

      Kieran made no move to give her privacy, so she turned her back on him and moved to the far side of the room. Tapping the screen of her phone to answer, she smiled. “Hey, sweetheart. Are you in New York?”

      The brief conversation ended with Olivia’s mother on the other end promising to make Cammie sleep on the flight over to Paris. Olivia’s daughter had flown internationally several times, but she wasn’t so blasé about jet travel that she would simply nod off. Olivia had packed several of the child’s bedtime books in her carry-on, hoping that a semi-familiar routine would do the trick.

      When Olivia hung up and turned around, Kieran was scowling. “I thought you said she was in Europe.”

      She shrugged. “That’s their ultimate destination.”

      “So this morning when I came to your house, where was she?”

      “At the neighbor’s.”

      “Damn you, Olivia.”

      It was her turn to frown in exasperation. “What would you have done if I had told you, Kieran? Made a dramatic run through the yard calling her name? My daughter is now traveling with her grandparents. That’s all you need to know.”

      “When will they be back?”

      “A week… ten days… My mother isn’t crazy about abiding by schedules.”

      His scowl blackened. “Tell me she’s my daughter.”

      Her stomach flipped once, hard, but she held on to her composure by a thread. “Go to hell.”

      Abruptly he shoved back his chair and went to the mini bar to pour himself a Scotch, downing the contents with one quick toss of his head. His throat was tanned like the rest of him, and the tantalizing glimpse of his chest at the opening of his shirt struck Olivia as unbearably erotic.

      Sensing her own foray into the quicksand of nostalgia, she attacked. “If you want to have children someday, you should probably work on those alcoholic tendencies.”

      “I’m not an alcoholic, though God knows you could drive a man to drink.” He ran a hand through his hair, rumpling it into disarray. She saw for the first time that he was exhausted, probably running on nothing but adrenaline.

      “You don’t even own a house,” she blurted out.

      Confusion etched his face. “Excuse me?”

      “A house,” she reiterated. “Most people who want a family start with a house and a white picket fence. All you do is travel the globe. What are you afraid of? Getting stuck in one place for too long?”

      Her random shot hit its mark.

      “Maybe,” he muttered, his expression bleak. “My brothers have been begging me to come home for a long time now. But I’m not sure I know how.”

      “Then I think you should leave,” she said calmly. “Get back on a plane and go save the world. No one needs you here.”

      “You didn’t used to be so callous.” His expression was sober. Regretful. And his cat eyes watched her every move as if he were stalking prey.

      “I’m simply being realistic. Even if I had given birth to a child that was yours, what makes you think you have what it takes to be a father? Parenting is about being present. That’s not really your forte, now is it?”

      She heard the cruel words tumbling from her lips and couldn’t stop them. If she could drive him away in anger, he would go and leave Olivia to raise her daughter in peace.

      “I’m here now,” he said quietly, his control making her ashamed