The Millionaire Affair(20)

But Kimber wouldn't have to justify why she was doing what she did. And  he'd bet she'd go a long way to bridging the gap between his employees  and him. She wasn't just good with people. She was real. Real, and so  darn likable. If they arrived arm in arm, he had no doubt everyone in  the restaurant would wonder how he'd gotten the natural, fidgety, sexy  redhead to accompany him. He wondered if she would go out with him. Odd  that he wasn't sure what she'd say if he asked her.

Art board for Windy City under his arm, he stepped into his house  planning on making a beeline for his office. Until the tantalizing smell  of peppers and cheese stopped him cold. A pizza box stood on the  countertop and he drifted to it like it was outfitted with a tractor  beam. Or like those cartoon characters that lifted off the floor and  floated toward the scent. He'd been so out of the habit of eating  pizza-thanks to living with a raw-food-diet supermodel-he couldn't  remember the last slice of Giordano's he'd had. Four years ago? No.  Five.         

     



 

A lifetime.

He abandoned the art board and his briefcase, chucking his jacket over a  chair. Then he dove in to the box, eating one slice, and a second,  pausing only long enough to scrub his mouth with a paper towel between  big, greedy bites. He never would have found pizza in the house when  he'd dated Lissa. "Cursed carbs" were strictly off her diet. He hadn't  thought giving up pizza had been that big of a deal. After inhaling two  slices, though …  Lord have mercy.

He laid waste to a third piece, dug a bottle of water out of the fridge,  and guzzled it down. Then he tracked through the house to find his  nephew. What was with the lack of welcome home tonight? He was early and  neither Lyon nor Kimber were anywhere to be seen. They wouldn't have  gone somewhere without telling him, would they?

But then he heard them. His nephew's laughter punctuated by Kimber's  mid-range ha-ha-ha. Landon followed the sound through the hallway, to  the right …  and straight to his own bedroom.

Lyon giggled, a sound of pure joy, and Landon felt the pressure from the  week melt off him. Not wanting them to hear him coming, he toed his  shoes off and stepped lightly on the hardwood floor.

"You look silly!" Lyon said, erupting again.

"Do I?" Kimber.

"Fix mine." Lyon.

What were they doing?

"Okay, here. Wait. Wow. I used to know how to do this. I used to be really good at it. If you don't use it you lose it, right?"

Landon crept to the door frame, not wanting to interrupt but too curious not to poke his head in on them.

"What's that mean?" Lyon asked. The kid was a master of questioning everything. Would make an excellent lawyer someday.

"It means if I don't practice tying ties, then I forget how to tie them.  Even though you never forget how to ride a bike," she murmured to  herself. "Or how to play Euchre."

Landon smiled at her logic. Illogical logic.

"What's Euchre?" Lyon asked. On second thought, the kid might make a better game show host.

"A card game."

"Can we play?"

"Let's finish this up first," she answered.

Landon gave himself up and peered around the door frame. Kimber and his  nephew were seated on the floor, each of them wearing one of Landon's  shirts. Lyon had on a blue oxford and she wore a dry-clean-only white. A  slow, stupid smile spread across his face at the scene he'd just walked  in on.

"Uncle Landon! Check it out." Lyon stood, then held his arms to his sides to show off his duds.

Kimber rose slower, looking a little chagrined …  and gut-clenching sexy. A  pair of black plastic glasses rested on her nose, and a tie around her  neck was twisted into the most hopeless knot imaginable.

Lyon straightened his matching pair of glasses, too big for his face.

"Who are you dressed as?" Landon leaned on the door frame and crossed  his arms, studying Lyon's glasses, shirt, and not-quite-right necktie.  Had his nephew dressed like him? Something welcome unfurled in the  center of his chest.

"We're Clark Kent!" Lyon pulled his shirt open to reveal his Superman pajamas.

Landon nodded his understanding. Kimber gave him a sheepish grin and  pulled her shirt open, revealing a red "S" made of construction paper  she'd pinned between her small, but amazing, breasts.

"Kimber says we're doing it right even though this didn't happen in Man of Steel," Lyon said.

"A purist," Landon said, keeping his eyes on her.

"Through and through," she mumbled, not quite meeting his gaze.

Lyon wrestled with his tie …  which more resembled Jacob's ladder than a double Windsor. "Want me to fix it?"

"No. I'm done doing this." He pried the tie and shirt off and dropped  them onto the floor before running down the hall, faster than a speeding  bullet, to the living room. "I have to go watch Man of Steel!"

"Hey, you left-" Landon called after him. He stopped short at the feel of Kimber's fingers brushing his arm.

"It's okay, I'll get it." She bent to gather the discarded play  clothes-his actual work clothes-from the floor. "Sorry about this." She  gestured with the clothes in her hands. "Kind of invaded your space."

She was nervous. Adorable. She plucked the glasses off her nose and slid  them into her hair. It was down today, in soft waves tickling her  shoulders. When she screwed her eyes up at him, she looked small and  guilty.

"You don't know how to tie a tie." He unfolded his arms and pushed off  the door frame where he'd been leaning. As he went to work unraveling  it, his fingers brushed her neck every so often. Her skin was so soft.  Memories of last night, of the taste of her lips, the way she'd ridden  him fully clothed, tightened his next breath.         

     



 

"I used to," she said quietly, pulling his shirt closed over her tank top and buttoning the buttons one by one.

"Don't they teach you that in fashion school?" He threw the wide end of the tie over the narrow end, then repeated the motion.

"Yes. I learned how when I was seven; used to love to tie my dad's ties."

The mention of her father reminded him of the summer her parents had  divorced. She'd been upset. He'd seen the evidence in her defeated  stature at his family's dinner table. His parents had been a unit, so in  love that it'd nearly killed his father when Mom died. But Landon had a  solid family, siblings. Kimber had no siblings, he remembered, and her  parents' marriage had fractured when she was at a fragile age.

He didn't know what it would be like not to be able to count on his  family. He'd probably taken for granted that his parents would be there  for him when he came home from college that summer. And they had. They'd  welcomed him back, no questions asked. Well, almost no questions. He'd  been as vague as possible when his mother asked why he was home and not  on campus. He'd told her that Rachel dumped him, that he was okay, but  wanted to be home. She'd accepted his words at face value, never prying  into his personal life. She'd died not knowing she almost had another  grandchild. At least she'd gotten to know Lyon, he thought, suddenly  sad.

He stuffed the bottom of the tie through the loop, shaking off his  morose thoughts. "I never thanked you for helping me with my paper that  summer you stayed with us." Creative writing. Hell on earth. One would  think that as a marketing major, who was an excellent designer, he'd  have a good grasp of writing a paper. He didn't. Slogans were a breeze  compared to two-thousand-word fictional stories. Kimber had offered to  look at his story-hell if he could remember now what it'd been about-and  handed it back to him obliterated with red marks. She'd apologized  profusely at the time.

"Oh, that," she said now, a smile tugging her mouth. "I was …  overzealous back then."

"You were also right." The praise he'd gotten for that assignment was  for the elements she had suggested adding. Advanced English Lit had  treated her well. She was smart.

She finished buttoning the shirt. "Did you get an A?"

"I got a C." He tightened the knot of the tie, sparing her a glance.  "Not your fault." The television blared from the other room, shocking  the silence from the air and surprising him. He jerked, in the process  knocking his hand against her chin. Her teeth clacked together audibly  and she lifted a hand to cover her lips, scrunching her eyes shut.

"Oh my God, Kimber. Are you all right?" Way to go, just punch her in the  face, why don't you? He cradled her jaw in his hands. Her damp eyes  fluttered open. "I'll get you some ice."

Lightly touching his hand, she shook her head. "No. I'm okay." She  blinked again, sniffing. "Natural reaction to being clocked in the jaw."

"I'm so sorry."

She smiled, though, holding no grudge. Rather than move his hand away,  he trailed his fingers from her face to her neck. Her hair tickled the  backs of his hands and her eyes darkened to forest green. His attention  snapped to her lips and, in a rush, he remembered last night. The way  she'd climbed on him, claimed him, stroked her eager tongue against his …