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“No. I’m just saying you haven’t understood what your daughter needed from you.”
“Do you?”
“In general. My own father has a career that keeps him away from home most of the time, but everybody’s different. Cynthia may not need what I needed.”
“What did you need?”
She hadn’t expected the spotlight to be turned on her. “What I needed isn’t important. It’s what Cynthia needs.”
“You’ve just said we’re not communicating well. If I can understand what you needed, maybe I’ll have a better chance of understanding Cynthia.”
She wondered if he looked at his clients the way he was looking at her. He was so earnest, so sincere, she found it nearly impossible to resist him. “Mr. Egan, I make it a point to keep my relationship with the families of the girls impersonal.”
“You have to try to understand the parents, or you can’t help restore a relationship that’s broken down.”
“I don’t attempt to restore relationships. I leave that to the girls.”
“How can you possibly say you’re doing your best for these girls when you leave out the most important part of all, helping them restore a family relationship that has broken down so badly they’ve turned to you for help?”
“My purpose is to provide a place for them to stay, a way to continue their education, a way to have their baby safely. I’ve taken classes in psychology and counseling, but I don’t consider myself a professional psychologist or counselor.”
“Then you’re not qualified for your job.”
She pushed back the anger. She had attacked him, and he was attacking back. It wasn’t much fun, but she guessed she could understand it. “I don’t think you understand my role here. I’m the administrator. I hire qualified people to do the teaching, counseling, career planning, the training in how to take care of their babies.”
“Then your understanding of what they want and need from their families is all you have to offer. So tell me what you wanted from your father. You wanted it very badly, or you’d never have done what you’re doing now.”
No other parent had asked this of her, but she’d never been this interested in a parent of one of her girls. There was something about this man that forced her to respond to him. She warned herself to be careful. He’d made a fortune persuading people to do things against their wills. Naturally he would use the same skills on her. He already had in persuading her to come with him today, in making her like him even though she disapproved of almost everything about him.
But maybe his question wasn’t as unreasonable as it sounded at first. He had taken a great chance when he left his meeting to come home. This was a second day and he hadn’t said anything about returning to Geneva. He clearly wanted to help his daughter. She had asked him to jeopardize something he loved, and he had done it without hesitation. Would she have jeopardized the shelter under similar circumstances?
She returned his gaze, searching his face for even the tiniest evidence of insincerity, of game playing, of one-upmanship, of anything that would indicate he wasn’t being entirely truthful.
What she found was a tremendously attractive man focusing his attention on her. He was asking about his daughter, but she felt he really did want to know about her, that his interest was sincere, not a vehicle to another objective. And she found she cared more than she wanted about his success. Or was it simply that this man was so attractive, so charismatic, she couldn’t help herself?
She hoped the answer wasn’t the affirmative. She didn’t want to feel even the slightest twinge of interest in a man who had put his career before his family. She didn’t want to be attracted to a man who would be more interested in pleasing others than in pleasing her. She had very strict guidelines for any man she considered dating. Not that Ron had asked her for a date, but she refused to be interested, even on a casual basis, in a man who didn’t satisfy her list of requirements. Ron Egan would bottom out before she got halfway through.
“Every girl wants something different,” she stated.
“I’m asking you to speak for yourself.”
“Why?”
“Because you interest me. I want to know what makes you tick.”
“A well-balanced diet, sufficient rest and regular exercise.”
He laughed. She hadn’t expected that. It was a deep, thoroughly masculine sound that reached a receptive place inside the core of her. The tug of attraction grew even stronger, her will to resist weaker. Warning bells went off in her head. This man is dangerous.
“Do you always keep men at such a safe distance?” he asked.
“You’re not a man. I mean, you’re the father of one of my girls. I don’t look at you the same as I would other men.”
“Why can’t you think of me as a man as well as Cynthia’s father?”
“Because it’s my job to see you as Cynthia’s father.”
“Does that preclude any other relationship?”
“I don’t have relationships with the fathers of my girls. It would be highly unprofessional.”
“Why? Would it cloud your judgment?”
“No, but—”
“Why not?”
She didn’t understand how the ground had shifted so unexpectedly, how she was now on the defensive.
“Are you always professional at any price?” he asked. “Don’t your emotions ever overpower your intellect?”
“No.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“I don’t require that you believe me.”
“But I want to.”
“Why?”
“I might be a father, but I like attractive women.”
“Mr. Egan, this is not an appropriate conversation.”
“Call me Ron. And what’s inappropriate about a man telling a woman he finds her attractive?”
“It’s the circumstances.”
“Tell me what circumstances you find proper, and I’ll set them up.”
Just like her father. He thought money and power could solve any problem. But her irritation at his assumption didn’t smother a desire to answer his question. Nor did it stop her from wondering what it would have been like to have met him under different circumstances.
“I’m sure you’ve met hundreds of attractive women in the course of your career,” Kathryn said, trying hard to sound businesslike, “yet you were able to set that aside and concentrate on your business.”
“Sure.”
“That’s what you have to do now.”
“Why?”
He was a very stubborn man, but she guessed he hadn’t made it to the top by taking no for an answer. “Why wouldn’t you?”
“Because I don’t see a conflict. I can find you attractive and still work with you to understand my daughter.”
“Yes, but finding me attractive isn’t the same as trying to establish a personal relationship between us.”
“I didn’t say anything about a personal relationship. Did you say that because you find me attractive?”
She was trapped. The only way out was to be completely candid. “You know you’re an attractive man. I’m sure you’ve studied your personal appearance in minute detail, put it together like a well-orchestrated game plan, and use it to every possible advantage.”
He grinned. She wished he wouldn’t.
“Of course I do. Everybody prefers to be around attractive people. If they didn’t, half the people in movies and TV would disappear tomorrow. But we’re not talking business. We’re talking personal.”
“I’m not.”
“I am.”
“Mr. Egan—”
“Ron.”
“Mr. Egan—”
“I won’t let you finish that sentence unless you call me Ron.”
He had moved closer to her. She wasn’t easily intimidated, but she had to consciously stop herself from pulling back. She refused to give ground to this man even if her pulse had started pounding in a very unnerving sort of way, even if her normally logical mind was having difficulty maintaining the thread of her argument. Ron Egan was an absentee father who needed to be made aware of the damage his preoccupation with his career had done to his daughter.
“It’s time we went back. I’ve found your background very helpful, but—”
“We can’t leave.”
“Why?”
“You haven’t called me Ron.”
“I don’t need to.”
“I want to hear it.”
He was leaning on the railing, his weight on his left arm, looking up at her with the ingenuousness of a teenager trying to wheedle his way out of trouble. Only he was trying to wheedle her into it.
“Ron. There, I said it.”
“Don’t make it sound like a dose of bad medicine. Make it sound like you might even like me a little.”
“Look, I don’t—”
“Are you always this resistant with men?”
She didn’t understand why she’d let their conversation become so personal. “I don’t mix business with pleasure.”
“I do my most effective work that way. When we do get down to business, it’s usually just working out the details of something we’ve already decided.”
“I’m not a businessperson. I’m a people person, and I find it easier to keep the two separate.”
“That’s a very interesting concept. Why don’t we have lunch and discuss it?”
Chapter Four
“Okay,” Ron said, lobster juice dripping from his elbows onto the tablecloth-size napkin tucked into his collar, “we’ve decided I’m a true pirate of high finance. I give no quarter and expect none. I think everyone should take responsibility for their own actions and not expect outside help. You blame my career, my pursuit of money and power, even my failure to marry again, for my abysmal failure as a father. I think we’ve covered me. Now I want to hear about you. What did you want from your father that you didn’t get?”
She’d known from the moment she agreed to have lunch with him she had to answer his question. She’d ordered lobster salad. He ordered a lobster in the shell. He’d surprised her by taking off his coat and rolling up his sleeves. She understood why when he let the juice run down his arms to his elbows.
“Do you always eat lobster like that?” she asked.
“No. I can ease the little sucker out of his shell without getting a single drop on a linen tablecloth that costs more than some cars. But you’re not going to distract me any longer. You have me at your mercy. I want to become a better father. Tell me about yourself.”
She had tried, without success, to convince him that her experiences had nothing to do with his success or failure as a father, but it appeared the only way to convince him was to tell him what he wanted to know.
“My father was away from home much of the time. When he was home, he was always meeting someone or bringing them to the house. There never seemed to be any time when he belonged to just us, when nobody else could interrupt or call him away. The few times he did find himself alone with us—on a family vacation or for an evening at home—I think he was bored and restless. I don’t think he was interested in us.”
“I take it he never played with you as a kid, read you stories, or kissed you good-night.”
“Never.” She hoped she didn’t sound as if she were whining. It was a fact she’d accepted. She didn’t think too much about it until he kicked her sister Elizabeth out of the house. She had never forgiven him for that.
“How did you rebuild your relationship? Maybe I can do the same thing with Cynthia.”
“It’s not the same. I’m an adult. I don’t live at home.”
His gaze seemed to become more intense. “Are you trying not to tell me that you and your father don’t have a good relationship?”
She might as well get it over with. Ron Egan seemed to have a genius for finding the weak spots. “My father I and had a serious disagreement about ten years ago. We don’t see each other much.”
“How much is that?”
She stopped playing with the remains of her salad and looked him square in the face. “Usually once a month.”
“Since when?”
“Since he threw my sister out of the house.”
He took his napkin out of his collar, and carefully wiped his mouth and his hands. Then he sat back. “Tell me about it.”
She couldn’t believe she was getting ready to tell a man she’d known less than twenty-four hours about one of the most difficult episodes of her life, but for some reason she felt she could share it with him.
“My sister got pregnant when she was in high school. She was seventeen and wildly in love with the boy. My father wouldn’t let her marry him. And after she did anyway, he said they couldn’t live in his house.”
