One
Rowena Tate clung to what shred of patience she still possessed as her father’s personal assistant, Margaret Wellington, warned her, “He said to tell you that he’s on his way over now.”
“And…?” Rowena said, knowing there was more.
“That’s it,” Margaret said, but Rowena could tell by her voice, the slight rise in pitch, that she was leaving something out.
“You’re a worse liar than I am.”
Margaret sighed, and in that sympathetic tone said, “He wanted me to remind you to be on your best behavior.”
Rowena took a deep, calming breath. Her father had informed her by email this morning that he would be bringing a guest to see the day-care center. He’d demanded—not asked, because the great Senator Tate never asked for anything—that she have things in order. He’d suggested, not for the first time since she’d taken over the management of his pet project, that she was still impulsive, irresponsible and inept—labels that he apparently would never let her live down.
She looked out her office window at the children on the playground. Five straight days of rain had finally turned to sunny skies, and the temperature was a pleasant sixty-five degrees—about the norm for Southern California in February. Dressed in spring jackets, the day-care kids darted around, shaking off a severe case of cabin fever.
She could be in the world’s worst mood, and watching the kids play always made her smile. Until she had her son, Dylan, she’d had little interest in children. Now she couldn’t imagine a more satisfying career choice.
And she knew, if she wasn’t careful, he would take that away from her, too.
“He’s never going to trust me, is he?”
“He put you in charge.”
“Yeah, but after three months he still watches me like a hawk. Sometimes I think he wants me to screw up, so he can say I told you so.”
“He does not. He loves you, Row. He just doesn’t know how to show it.”
Having been her father’s assistant for fifteen years, Margaret was like part of the family, and one of the few people who understood the complicated relationship between Rowena and her father. Margaret had been with them since before Rowena’s mother, Amelia, caused an incredible scandal by taking off with the senator’s protégé.
And people wondered why Rowena was so screwed up.
Was, she reminded herself. “Who is it this time?” she asked Margaret.
“A British diplomat. I don’t know much about him, other than that he’s lobbying your father to support a tech treaty with the U.K. And I think he has some sort of royal title.”
The senator probably loved that. “Well, thanks for the heads-up.”
“Good luck, honey.”
The buzzer sounded, announcing her father’s arrival. With a heavy sigh she pushed herself out of her chair, took off the paint-smudged vinyl smock she’d worn for the morning art project and hung it on a hook in the closet, then headed through the activity room and out to the playground to open the gate, which was kept locked at all times. To keep not only the children in, but strangers out. With a man as powerful and influential as the senator, and the day-care center on the grounds of his estate, one could never be too careful.
Her father stood on the other side, dressed for golf and wearing his plastic politician’s smile. Then her eyes settled on the man standing beside him.
Whoa.
When Margaret said British diplomat, Rowena had pictured a stuffy, balding, forty-something elitist with an ego to match his bulging Swiss bank accounts. This man was her age or close to it, and there was nothing stuffy about him. His hair was the color of dried wheat, closely cropped and stylishly spiky. His eyes were a piercing, almost eerie shade of blue that had to be tinted contacts, and were curtained with thick dark lashes that any woman would sell her soul for. And though he might have been a royal in title, the shadow of neatly trimmed blond stubble and a small scar bisecting his left brow gave him an edgy look. He was several inches taller than the senator, which put him somewhere around six-three. As lean as he was, he should have looked lanky; instead, he was perfectly proportioned.
The rebel in her said, Come to mama. But the logical Rowena, the mature adult, knew from experience that powerful, sinfully attractive men were the worst kind of trouble. And unfortunately, the best kind of fun. Until they took what they wanted and moved on to greener pastures. Or, as had happened with her son, Dylan’s, father, knocked her up and abandoned her. She punched in her code, opened the gate and let them in.
“Sweetheart, I’d like you to meet Colin Middlebury,” the senator said—sweetheart being a term he only used when he was milking his family-man image. “Colin, this is my daughter, Rowena.”