Luke patted her back. “Don’t worry, moppet. We’ll sort it out.” He glanced back at Tyler. “Do you want me to handle this?”
Tyler hesitated, reluctant to turn over the situation to him, but with Chloe clinging to him like a limpet, she had little choice. “Sure.”
Wondering what would happen, she watched as Luke coaxed Chloe to reapproach the boys. Some intense negotiation ensued. The bedraggled pink pony passed between the boys, Chloe’s lower lip trembled ominously, but eventually the animal was back in her grasp, at which point Chloe relaunched herself into Luke’s arms and wouldn’t let go of him.
“It’s fine,” he assured Tyler when they returned. “I’ll carry her for a while.”
She ought to have been relieved he’d handled the pink-pony crisis so easily, but instead she was ever so slightly freaked out by his competence and the way Chloe stuck to Luke like a koala to a eucalyptus tree while they mingled with other guests.
“You’ve got a nice young man there,” Ally’s grandmother said to her when they were briefly alone.
Ally’s grandmother had never approved of Tyler, which made her comment all the more surprising. And unsettling. She shouldn’t have held Luke’s hand so publicly. That had given everyone the wrong idea. “Thank you,” she replied.
Luke was more than nice, she mused, her gaze drawn to him once again as he stood a short distance away talking to someone while Chloe, still in his arms, trotted her pink pony up and down his shoulder. He didn’t appear to mind Chloe mangling his jacket.
Tyler couldn’t drag her eyes away from Luke. He was a truly special person, a person who seemed to understand all her insecurities and weaknesses, a person she could respect and trust, a person she could envisage spending all her time with. A man she might fall in love with, heart and soul, if she didn’t watch out.
If she hadn’t already.
Dampness stung her skin. Beneath her feet the ground suddenly felt unstable. Panic kicked at her, sharp and unfamiliar. She spun away, desperate to get away from her thoughts.
“Boys are horrible,” Chloe declared to Luke as they walked to his car. The party was ending, the couple had already departed on their honeymoon, and he had offered to settle Chloe in her booster seat while Tyler collected her things from the changing tent.
“I’m a boy,” Luke said. “Am I horrible?”
Chloe frowned at this conundrum. “You’re not a boy,” she finally declared. “You’re all growed up.”
He unlocked the rear door of his Range Rover. “Not all boys are horrible all the time. I’m sure those boys will be better behaved next time.”
“We-ellmaybe, but they’re not allowed to play with my pony.”
“Okay.” He lifted her into the booster seat.
Chloe still eyed him doubtfully. “Luke”
“Yes, moppet?” he said absentmindedly as he concentrated on the safety harness.
“Can you be my pretend daddy?”
The innocent words slammed into his chest. For a few seconds he couldn’t breathe before the bruising air rushed painfully into his lungs. As he struggled for an answer, Chloe continued to look at him, her eyes wide and trusting.
“Why would you want that?” he croaked out.
The girl played with his tie. “’Cause my daddy can’t be with me, but you can, and I like you.”
“Thank you, moppet. I like you, too.” He hauled in another breath. “But I can’t be your pretend daddy.” Or any other kind of daddy.
“Why not?”
The back of his neck prickled. “Uh, because daddies have to stick around, and I can’t do that, I’m afraid.”
“Oh.” For a terrifying moment he feared she would crumple into tears, but after a short contemplation, she shrugged her shoulders. “Okay,” she said cheerfully before turning her attention back to her pink pony.
Feeling like he’d been sucker punched, he fastened the safety harness and straightened up from the car. He hoped like hell Chloe wouldn’t repeat her request to Tyler. Though maybe she already had. Hell and damnation. Chloe was bright and adorable, but he couldn’t have her making assumptions and asking difficult questions. Or putting ideas in Tyler’s head.
Damn, that was pathetic of him, but his disquiet continued to squall. He rubbed the back of his neck. He hadn’t felt this panicked since he’d cottoned on to the plans Jennifer had for the two of them. Her dreams of marriage and parenthood had closed in on him like padded walls, suffocating him. He’d fought his way out of that cell only to stumble into another ambush. What was wrong with him?
The neat row of houses opposite the park taunted him. Three-bedroom homes, lawnmowers, barbecues, tricycles and hula hoops, dogs and cats, football on Sundays—that was what being a dad meant. Fatherhood was as perplexing to him as calculus, and he’d rather avoid it than risk screwing up and hurting people, like his dad had. Fatherhood was a closed club that would never grant him membership.
He got into the driver’s seat and turned on the air-conditioning, but the cold blast did little to cool him. Impatient to be off, he drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as the minutes ticked by. Eventually Tyler hurried to the car, her lavender dress whirling above her knees as she climbed into the passenger seat.
“Sorry I kept you waiting,” she said breathlessly.
The flash of her bare thigh seared into his brain, followed quickly by her swirling red hair, parted lips, and heaving breasts. Was she wearing purple underwear again? Goddamn it, why did she have to be so titillating? He pulled off sharply, the wheels of the car squealing.
“What’s got into you?” Tyler exclaimed as she clung onto her seat.
“Nothing.” But he couldn’t keep the bite out of his voice. When she frowned, he was reminded of Chloe sitting in the back and instantly slowed the car down.
“Luke, I’m sorry for letting Chloe monopolize you so long,” Tyler said, her voice halting. “It must have been tedious for you to carry her around all that time.”
Christ, why did she have to make him feel even more of a heel? “No need to apologize,” he gruffly replied. “It wasn’t tedious.”
She didn’t say anything, instead toying with the filmy skirt of her dress and licking her lips. His blood pounded even as he wrenched his gaze from her. He wanted to get away, yet at the same time he couldn’t stop staring at Tyler. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed her nervously playing with her clothes. Her skittishness was out of character. She seemed fidgety, uncomfortable in his presence.
During the second half of the party, they’d barely been alone. Tyler had always kept them part of one group or another, and there were plenty of men eager to talk to her. In fact, she’d appeared to encourage them, so much so that Luke had felt the first stirrings of jealousy. Why had she acted like that? His already perturbed thoughts spun into further turmoil.
At last they made it to her house, and he pulled into the driveway with a sense of relief. All he had to do was help Chloe out of the car and then he could go. But did he really want to do that? Just because Chloe was getting the wrong idea about him didn’t mean Tyler was. Maybe he was overreacting about a three-year-old’s passing remark.
“I’ll get Chloe.” Tyler snapped off her seat belt as soon as he’d braked. “You probably want to head next door and have a quiet night for a change.”
Hell, did she want him gone? Now he was even more confused. Between his warring emotions and her jitters he didn’t know what to think. He climbed out the car and opened the rear door. “She’s fast asleep,” he said, nodding at Chloe’s slumped form. “I’ll carry her inside and put her to bed.”
“No, I can do that myself.” Tyler jostled him out of the way as she reached for the buckle of the safety harness.
He grunted in frustration before a voice from behind brought him up short.
“So, Maguire, I’ve finally run you to ground.”
The drawling voice with its petulant undertone made Luke’s spine stiffen. He turned. His heart sank as he saw a tall, spindly man with black spectacles sauntering down the driveway toward them.
Elliot Elliston. His agent, and just about the last person he wanted to see right now.
Chapter Thirteen
“You’re shitting me, right?” Elliot gaped at Luke, his eyebrows shooting up above the thick-rimmed spectacles.
They were standing in Elliot’s living room, and Luke had just informed his agent that there was no chance of him completing the Kingsley Jeffers sequel.
“’Fraid not.” Luke sighed. “I’m sorry, Elliot, but I just can’t write another word about that pretentious jerk.”
The other man’s long, thin face flushed. “That ‘pretentious jerk’ has put you on the bestseller lists. That ‘pretentious jerk’ is worth a fortune to you.”
And you, too. But Luke held back the retort. “I know that, but I can’t force it. I can’t write something I don’t believe in.”
“Frigging hell! What’s that got to do with anything?” Puce to his hairline, the agent jabbed an accusing finger at Luke’s chest. “You owe me, you bastard. Jesus Christ! I’ve been babysitting you for the past six months. I got you an extension on your deadline. I offered you my house so you could write in peace. I’ve been copping all the flak from your publisher, and now you come up with this shit? Maguire, you don’t know who you’re messing with.”