The Playboy's Baby(4)

“It never fails.” He turned an apologetic frown on her. “I have to go take care of this. I’m short a couple of bouncers tonight.”

She shook her head. “I meant I didn’t want to do this here.” She swept her hand in the air, a gesture meant to encompass the entire place.

Like the phone, dropping her awful news on him in his place of business felt wrong, like taking the coward’s way out. She was not a coward.

She sighed, letting her shoulders slump. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for it to be like this. When you weren’t at home, I didn’t know where else to find you. I came to ask when would be a good time for us to…talk.”

“Now would be a good time.” The creases between his brows deepened. He handed her the towel of ice and shook his head. “You’re already here, and I’m not waiting until tomorrow to hear whatever it is you need to tell me. Meet me in my office. This won’t take long.”

Without waiting for a reply, Dillon pivoted and strode off into the crowd. The very same crowd she pushed and shoved in order to get through only minutes before, now all but parted for him.

Emma eased her foot back into her boot all the while sending up a silent prayer for strength.





* * *





Dillon heaved a sigh. He envisioned the room beyond the landing of the small flight of stairs in front of him—and the woman seated within. The ball of dread in his stomach tightened. It formed there the exact instant he spotted Emma at the edge of the crowd.

He shook his head. She could’ve blown on him and knocked him over showing up here like that. Janey used to come back to town on a regular basis, every few months or so she showed up on his doorstep with a wicked gleam in her eye. Growing up, that girl got him into more trouble then he cared to remember.

Emma, on the other hand, hadn’t been back to town since she left. He hadn’t seen her since the night her mother died.

He loped up the stairs two at a time. At the landing he stopped and turned to the closed door, pausing to draw in a deep breath. Preparing himself for the bad news instinct told him lay beyond that door.

Four years older, Emma was one of those annoyingly sensible types. An overachiever. She all but raised Janey, got a job at fourteen to help pay the bills and still managed to end up at the top of her class. She was completely not his type, not to mention she loathed him. Where it concerned Janey, she was like a tigress protecting her cub and hadn’t bothered to hide the fact she thought him no good for her little sister.

No, whatever news she came to tell him couldn’t be good. She wouldn’t have come to see him otherwise.

He turned the brass knob and pushed the door open. Emma slowly turned wary amber eyes to him. Seated in a straight-backed chair opposite his desk, she sat stiffly with her hands folded in her lap and her ankles neatly crossed and tucked beneath her. She looked the way he’d felt when he stood at the bottom of the stairs—nervous.

Yet that night eight years ago refused to leave his thoughts. He’d had the biggest crush on Emma for years. Getting to hold her in his arms that night had been…sublime. Seeing her now brought up that old craving—wanting to know the flavor of her mouth and the softness of her lips.

Yeah, she was still gorgeous. She barely came up to the center of his chest, but she had long, graceful limbs and soft, voluptuous curves that were accentuated by the straight lines of her black suit.

A suit. He wanted to shake his head. She wore a casual ensemble, slacks and a V-neck jacket with a white button-down shirt, but it still amounted to a suit. She topped it all off with fur-lined suede boots. No one but Emma Stanton would dare walk into his club in that kind of outfit and manage to look so damn sexy.

“So, how long have you had this place?” Emma pulled her shoulders back and offered him a nervous, awkward smile, one that lifted one corner of her mouth higher than the other.

He raked a hand through his hair and returned the smile. “About four years. This used to be Arnold McNabb’s place.”

Her eyes brightened. “I remember him. Wasn’t it a country-western place?”

He nodded and moved into the room, deliberately walking a wide path around her chair, lest his hands gain a mind of their own. He itched to pull those long auburn locks from the clip holding them to the back of her head, yearned to burrow inside, to see how long she’d let it grow, to feel its softness sifting through his fingers.

“It wasn’t doing so well.” He took a seat behind his desk. “It cost him more to keep it open than he brought in.”

He rested his hands on the top of the desk, taking refuge in its cool solidness beneath his palms. Any distance between them was a good thing. Emma was forbidden fruit. He could look, but not touch. Never mind she was his best friend’s big sister. He played the love game once and lost and didn’t intend to do it again. All he could offer Emma was a fling, and she deserved more.