Her One and Only Valentine Page 6

  One dark brow quirked the tiniest amount at how easily she had given up some ground, then Kane winked at Lizzie conspiratorially. ‘C’mon then, kiddo. I’ll give you a hand with your homework so you can come back quicker, okay?’

  Rhiannon had to damp down the sudden need to drag Lizzie from the room while telling Kane in no uncertain terms that she had just as much right to that time with Lizzie as he did. Because, yet again, he had made her feel as if he had formed some kind of ‘team’ with Lizzie that she wasn’t a part of.

  She was turning into a shrew, damn him.

  If she knew what it was he expected to happen once Lizzie knew who he was, that might help, because there wasn’t going to be much more time spent putting off telling her, was there? Not when they were getting on so damn well.

  Rhiannon just really needed to know what would happen next. Maybe then she could settle her mind.

  Lizzie bounced out of her chair, oblivious to any of the undercurrents surrounding her. ‘Okay, we have maths tonight anyway and you’re way better at that than Mum is.’ Oblivious to any angst the words may have brought her mother, she grabbed hold of his large hand and tugged. ‘But I’m not sure about playing more ’cos Mum said yesterday I could get a pony and a dog, so I’ll have to make a list of things to get for them.’

  ‘Mum didn’t say anything was definite,’ Rhiannon softly chided while she stared at the small hand still held in Kane’s larger one, the need to step over and separate them so strong that she had to grit her teeth together to stop herself from saying something out loud. ‘She said we would talk about it some more.’

  It had been the first thing that had put that same light into Lizzie’s eyes she had when Kane was around.

  Lizzie frowned. ‘But Mum—’

  ‘Animals are a big responsibility. Go get changed.’ She unconsciously stared again at their joined hands.

  As if somehow sensing it was a bigger problem than it actually was, and maybe even as a slight reflection of the concessions she’d been making for the last couple of days, Kane let go of Lizzie’s hand and used the same hand to ruffle her thick hair.

  ‘Go on—do as your mum says.’

  It was the first time he’d backed up Rhiannon, even briefly. And it was an unexpected move. Her gaze automatically rose to lock with his, her shoulders relaxing when he didn’t scowl at her in response. But she couldn’t think of anything to say, all she could do was study him while he studied her.

  Lizzie wrinkled her nose, then, quick as a flash, threw a huge smile up at him. ‘Okay.’

  Okay? Just like that? No more argument—from the child who, over the last few months, Rhiannon had had to debate and reason with over every little thing, sometimes for days? What in hell had he done to her?

  Rhiannon moved to one side as she ran past with a call of, ‘I’ll be really quick. And then we can talk more about my dog and my pony at dinner.’

  With a blink and a shake of her head, Rhiannon turned to go back downstairs. Sometimes being a mother just completely exhausted her, the subject of children’s levels of energy still a mystery to parents worldwide, no doubt. But this immediate affinity with the father she had never met before was proving draining on a whole new level.

  As was the constant physical awareness of where Kane was and the never-ending attempts her mind was trying to make at deciphering him. To, in some small way, sort out the memories from her decade-old perceptions and the present evidence in front of her eyes.

  Rhiannon had always liked everything laid out in black and white—no grey areas. Grey areas held the unexpected. And the unexpected inevitably led to heartache in her experience.

  She was at the top of the stairs when the skin at the back of her neck tingled again, the way it did every time he got closer to her.

  ‘I’ll make sure she doesn’t play the game for too long. She’ll be in bed at the normal time.’

  ‘Thank you.’ It was another small vote of support from him, which didn’t go unnoticed. When he appeared in her peripheral vision, she glanced briefly at him, then down at her feet as they descended the first flight, telling herself she was just making sure she didn’t fall flat on her face. But knowing it was because she was uncomfortable constantly looking at him.

  ‘She’s very bright.’

  ‘Yes, she is.’

  ‘And she picked up the game very fast for someone of her age. The target market is a few years older than she is now.’

  ‘Her last school couldn’t keep up with her computer skills. They reckoned she was at least two years ahead of where she should be. Her teacher even said there were times when she was able to explain how things worked before she was told how.’ She frowned as a thought crossed her mind, then swallowed hard before saying it aloud. ‘I guess she gets that from you.’

  There were several heartbeats of a pause before he responded. ‘Knowing there are things she gets from me must kill you, when you’ve spent so long hating me.’

  The lack of anger in his voice surprised her, so she risked another sideways glance at him to confirm it and, for the first time in days, she found him looking back at her with more open curiosity, less resentment, and the distinct lack of a scowl, which knocked her back.

  What was he playing at now?

  When she faltered on the next downward step, a hint of a smile briefly quirked the corners of his mouth. ‘Yes, I’m aware of how much you dislike me. You have to, to have kept her from me for so long.’

  Rhiannon sighed. Here we go again.

  ‘I’d convinced myself you didn’t want anything to do with her.’

  ‘Because I didn’t answer the letter.’

  ‘Yes.’ She shook her head and focused on the stairs again, long wisps of her hair working free from her braid to brush against her cheek. ‘Because you didn’t answer the letter. I had no other way of contacting you. No one was able to get you on the phone, your room-mate didn’t know where you’d gone or how long you’d be gone. We didn’t exactly have a long enough relationship for me to have known your home address to send a Christmas card to your family, so the letter in your locker was the only thing I could think of.’

  There. She couldn’t make it any plainer than that, could she? And, in reality, she’d been pregnant before she turned nineteen. She’d wanted a solution from someone—where to go, how to support a baby, somebody to talk to when she had moments of panic about her ability to cope. If she’d thought he wanted to be there she’d have wanted that too because she’d needed him. And she’d hated him for not being there when she’d needed him.

  Kane went silent again. And after a few steps Rhiannon couldn’t resist glancing across at his face to see if she could see what he was thinking.

  Unlike her, he was apparently confident enough in his own ability to make it down a flight of stairs without looking at his feet. Instead his gaze was fixed forwards, thick lashes flickering while he looked at the various paintings and wall-hangings as they appeared in front of him. But Rhiannon knew he wasn’t thinking about anything he was looking at. He was considering what she’d said. And more than likely coming up with answering reasons for why she shouldn’t have let it go at a letter when it had been something so important.

  Well, he wasn’t going to find anything that she hadn’t spent the last few days torturing herself over. The thing was, she’d ultimately admitted to herself, whether she should have kept trying to get a response from him, either then or in the years afterwards, it didn’t really make any difference. It was already done. And now she had to deal with the repercussions.

  She fixed her gaze on her feet again.

  ‘Did you know when I spoke to you that last time?’

  ‘When you did the thanks for the good times speech?’ She resisted the urge to look at him again.

  But she could hear the frown in his voice. ‘I didn’t say that.’

  A wry half smile worked its way on to her lips. ‘I read between the lines.’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t what I meant.’ Th
is time the words were firmer, his deep voice low and unnervingly intimate as they continued down each step side by side. ‘If it counts for anything, I spent a lot of time rehearsing what I would say to you.’

  For no reason, Rhiannon felt a lump form in her throat. When really there was no need for her to be upset by his words. The only thing he had hurt at the time had been her pride, and maybe a little of the romantic notion any eighteen-year-old female possessed for her first ‘serious’ relationship. And it had to have been serious for her to have slept with him, but emotionally? Well, emotionally she had been fond of him, had cared about him. But she hadn’t been in love. He hadn’t broken her heart.

  That had come later, when she’d had her lack of judgement regarding his sense of honour and responsibility thrown back at her. When she’d had to realize that he wasn’t as great a guy as she had thought he was, which made her a gullible fool for even getting involved with him in the first place. Now that had broken her heart.

  But not for long; she’d turned heartbreak into hatred pretty damn quick. ‘You handled it as well as it could have been handled. No break-up is ever easy.’

  ‘We weren’t together all that long.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘It was intense.’

  A lump demanded she clear her throat before she spoke again. ‘Yes, I remember.’

  They crossed the first landing between the flights of stairs before he stepped in front of her. And, even though he didn’t reach out to stop her the way he had so cavalierly those first couple of days, it was enough to get her attention, to make her chin rise so that she lifted her gaze to his eyes in question.

  And for a long moment he just looked at her, his intensely blue eyes studying her openly before his brows rose in question. ‘How much do you remember?’

  Rhiannon’s breath caught. He couldn’t just ask her that! Let alone expect her to reply. What was she supposed to do—set aside all those years of resentment and anger so that she could hold a conversation about what a great sex life they’d had?

  Over her dead, cold body.

  The thoughts must have crossed her eyes before she could hide them because, before her incredulous gaze, he smiled. A slow, toe-curling smile that said he remembered as much about the subject as she did.

  His voice dropped. ‘I didn’t mean that part.’

  Rhiannon pursed her lips together, hating the fact that she’d just given him yet another small victory. ‘All right, where exactly are you going with this, then?’

  Glancing briefly over her shoulder to check that Lizzie’s bedroom door was still closed, he stepped closer, his large body looming over her so she had to tilt her head back further to keep holding his gaze.

  ‘I’ve had a few days to think—’

  Oh, great. Now what?

  His eyes searched hers and then rose to examine her hair for a moment before he locked gazes with her again. And Rhiannon had to swallow hard to loosen her throat, had to run the tip of her tongue across her lips to ensure she would be able to answer when he threw whatever he was going to throw her way, which drew his gaze down to study the simple movement.

  He frowned in response. ‘I wondered how much you remembered about the way I was back then. You had to have liked me well enough at some point for us to have—’

  Rhiannon blinked in confusion. It wasn’t what she had expected him to say. ‘Of course I liked you. What a stupid thing to say. I wouldn’t have—’

  ‘Yes.’ He nodded slowly. ‘That’s what I thought.’

  With his body close again, Rhiannon was aware of a faint scent of coffee on his breath. And it occurred to her that he always had a scent of something that hinted at taste—cinnamon, peppermint, coffee. As if he were subliminally inviting her to sample those flavours.

  She took a steadying breath. This was not going to happen to her all over again.

  Kane took a breath, his gaze fixed on hers, his voice still deep, low and intimate. ‘And if you liked me enough to get intimate with me that often, then you mustn’t have thought I was all that bad a guy.’

  She laughed sarcastically in response. ‘O-oh, I see where you’re going with this.’

  When she stepped sideways to get past him, he blocked her again. ‘Well, if you didn’t think I was all that bad, then why did you think I’d have ignored your letter? That I’d have let you have my baby on your own? I don’t understand that part.’

  Rhiannon glanced nervously over her shoulder, making quite sure that Lizzie wasn’t within earshot, but dropping her voice to a stage whisper when she looked back at him anyway. ‘I was eighteen! I was eighteen and I was pregnant and you were the bloody Invisible Man! When you didn’t answer I was too busy trying to hold myself together to try and understand why such a great guy had turned into such an ass overnight!’

  ‘So you only hated me later, then?’ He had the gall to quirk an eyebrow at her.

  ‘Damn you!’

  Having spat the words at him, she made the first move and grabbed hold of his wrist, dragging him behind her as she headed down the second flight of stairs.

  A hint of amusement sounded in his voice. ‘Nice to see that motherhood has mellowed you over the years…’

  Feeling vaguely safer on the landing above the last flight, she released his wrist, glancing upwards again before she looked into his sparkling eyes.

  ‘What do you want me to say, Kane?’ She swung an arm out to her side while continuing in a slightly louder stage whisper than before. ‘Do you want me to say that, despite everything I thought at the time, I was wrong? Then fine!’

  The admission of guilt widened his eyes a little.

  Rhiannon continued, her eyes filling up with the frustrated tears she had held at bay since she’d been forced to watch him with Lizzie. ‘I’ve watched her with you and she’s crazy about you. And you’re equally as enamoured with her! And if you honestly think that I can love her as completely as I do and not feel guilty about her not having had that sooner—’

  She paused to control her voice, which had begun to crack on the words, looking past him while she fought back the tears, only briefly glancing into his astonished face before she gulped out, ‘Then you have no better idea of the kind of person I am than I do of the kind of person you are.’

  ‘Rhiannon—’

  The softer tone to his voice tore the last shred of control that she had left, so that when she looked up at him again she could barely see his face for the wash of tears in her eyes.

  And she hated that he was seeing that! So her voice broke on the admission while she pointed an accusatory finger at his feet.

  ‘I would never have denied her her father because I know what it’s like to have a father reject his child! So you’re right, okay? And I was wrong. You win.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  RHIANNON disappeared upstairs before Kane had time to react properly, which left him standing on the landing between flights. If nothing else she was right about one thing; he didn’t know her any better than she knew him.

  His gaze rose while he frowned, pondering whether or not to go after her, to ask all the questions she had left him silently asking. But somehow he didn’t think she would appreciate it if he did, because, even without any actual confirmation of his gut feeling, he just knew that to push her again at this point would be too much.

  No matter how much he hated what she’d done, he still had to respect the fact that she was Lizzie’s mother. His child’s mother.

  And, no matter how much he resented having his child kept from him for so long, he still had to show some respect to the woman who’d raised her so beautifully, especially now she’d admitted some guilt for the choice she’d made.

  The problem was, her admission, delivered with so much emotion, made him think some more about his part in the wrongs of the past. Yes, he’d had his own reasons for not being there, for not telling her why he couldn’t—

  Like she’d her reasons for not telling him? He allowed, reluctantly, that that
could well be the case. There was more to both sides of the story. But the only way he would know for sure if he was right about that was to get her to trust him enough to tell him and that involved an open line of communication, didn’t it? Parents were supposed to be able to have that. Well, good parents were. If it just didn’t involve getting to know Rhiannon all over again…

  Truthfully, what he needed was a little time to mull it all over. Again. In between rapidly falling in love with his daughter, he’d already been mulling over a lot of things about her mother, and not coming up with too many answers—a fact that bugged the hell out of someone who had built his business on varying degrees of problem solving.

  It was why he had pushed Rhiannon again. He needed answers. Because, as easy as it was to just stay angry at her, a part of him still needed to equate the Rhiannon he’d known before with the one in front of him in the here and now. To have purposefully kept his daughter from him for so long had been cruel—crueller than she could possibly realize—she had to have hated him. And yet she had done such an amazing job with Lizzie—how could that be? How could she hate him so much and yet shower so much love onto his child?

  Was that just a mother’s instinct? She’d already hinted at how much of him there was in Lizzie and, having spent time with her, he could see a lot of those things himself. Surely that must have been hard to see over the years?

  So he’d pushed her to try and make sense of it and instead had been presented with even more to confuse him. He hadn’t expected the response he’d got, and that was before she even admitted she’d been wrong!

  It was talking about their previous relationship that had confused him this time. Or rather, how she had immediately assumed they were talking about the sexual side of it and how he’d had an immediate, powerful physical response to that. Damn her.

  In her large, soft brown eyes he could see that she remembered every bit as much as he did about their time together. Standing alone in the hallway now, he wondered if she knew that he could still see so much in her eyes. Oh, she was better at disguising her thoughts than she’d been at eighteen, there was no doubt about that, which meant he had to search a little harder now for answers than he maybe had back then. But when he caught her off guard he could still see more than she probably realized he could.