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“You’re right,” he said, gazing directly at her. “It’s…sinful.”
She could see amusement lurking in his eyes. Damn him. He knew exactly the effect this conversation was having on her.
The sudden ring of a phone made her jump and broke the spell.
Stephen arched a brow.
“We keep a phone in the supply room,” she explained, hurrying over to a nearby cabinet, “in case anyone needs to be reached while they’re working.”
While they’re being seduced by the look in a client’s eyes.
Picking up the phone, she said, “Hello?”
“Megan, it’s Tiffany.”
What a time for her babysitter to call! Maybe it hadn’t been such a great idea to tell her secretary to forward any important calls. She cast an involuntary look at Stephen from the corner of her eyes.
“Is anything wrong?” she asked.
“Just checking in.”
She groaned inwardly. “Thanks. That’s thoughtful.”
“Jade wants to go to the park,” Tiffany continued, “so we might not be here when you arrive home. I didn’t want you to worry, so I thought I’d call now. If we don’t beat you back, we’ll be on the way.”
“That’s fine.”
“We might stop for some ice cream.”
“Just remember what she’s allergic to,” she responded in a lowered voice.
“Will do.”
When she hung up, Stephen asked, “Is everything okay? I heard you mention the word allergic.”
She thought frantically, even as she struggled to appear composed.
“Ah, it’s a client I’m taking to lunch,” she fibbed. “I was just reminding my secretary to bear in mind what the client is allergic to when making reservations.” She waved her hand around. “You know, ah, ethnic cuisine and all.”
“Right.”
She cleared her throat. Time to get out of the pressure cooker that the storage room had turned into. “If you follow me back to my office, we can consider the layout of the Garrison Grand redesign in greater detail.”
What was Megan hiding? She’d appeared furtive when speaking on the phone in the storage room earlier in the day.
Stephen stared out the window of his office, his fingers steepled, his feet crossed on his desk.
He knew she wasn’t married. She didn’t wear a ring, and he figured Megan would be one to change her surname when she got married.
Maybe there was a boyfriend in the picture.
His lips thinned at the thought of Megan with another man. Still, her reaction to his asking for a date hadn’t been to say she was seeing someone. She’d been about to say something, but he was fairly sure it wasn’t that. She would have finished her thought otherwise, because a steady boyfriend would have afforded her an easy excuse to turn him down.
Still, he wondered how many lovers she’d had since their breakup. He’d hardly been celibate himself. They’re were plenty of beautiful women in South Beach who were only too happy to hook up with the wealthy and good-looking owner of one of the trendiest places in town.
But none of those relationships had gone as deep as the one with Megan. When his mind had slipped its leash and he’d compared those women to her, they’d come up short.
He thought back to Megan’s accusation. No one leaves a Garrison.
Yeah, it had irked him to be dumped. Particularly since, as far as he was concerned, their relationship had been just fine. The sex had been great, and she’d challenged and fascinated him out of bed, too.
She was the one woman he’d actually given thought to settling down with.
“You look severe.”
He looked at his open office door and noticed his new sister-in-law, Anna, holding on to the doorjamb.
He pushed away from his desk and lowered his feet.
Anna walked into the room. “What were you thinking? I could practically see the storm clouds.”
“Nothing,” he said, standing. “What brings you to the Garrison Grand?”
He kept his personal life private, including the particulars of his short-lived affair with Megan.
Still, now he knew Anna and Megan were friends, he figured his new sister-in-law could be useful to him. He wasn’t averse to doing some subtle digging.
“Parker and I are having dinner at the Opalesce Room,” Anna responded.
He flashed a smile that more than one woman had characterized as devilish. “Come to invite me along?”
Anna laughed. “Hardly. Parker and I are still honeymooners.”
“Yeah, how can any of us forget?”
The change in his brother had been extraordinary. The guy actually seemed to be in love, which—given the train wreck their own parents’ marriage had been until their father had died—was some feat. It also spoke volumes about the woman before him.
His parents’ marriage had been marred by Bonita Garrison’s drinking. Still, after John Garrison’s sudden death from a heart attack, everyone had been shocked to learn he’d fathered a love child.
“Actually,” Anna went on, “since your brother is going to be late, I thought I’d stop by on the off chance that Megan might be around. I know she’s working on the business center renovation.”
“She came by yesterday.” He didn’t add she’d hightailed it out of there after his thwarted pass.
Anna looked momentarily disappointed, then shrugged. “Oh, well. I suppose I’ll catch up with her soon.” After a moment, she added impetuously, “I’m glad you hired her.”
“Yeah,” he said, coming around his desk, “I didn’t know until you mentioned it that you were close friends with one of Miami’s best up-and-coming designers.”
“In fact,” Anna admitted, “I have Megan to thank for my start at Garrison, Inc. four years ago. She’d gotten to know people in the HR department while she worked on renovations at Garrison headquarters.”
“So she said. What are friends for?” he remarked flippantly as he made his way to a side cabinet that held a small refrigerator and beverages.
Recently he’d suspected Anna of corporate espionage, but he’d been proved wrong. Someone, though, was leaking secrets to the damn Jefferies brothers. Last month, editorial coverage and a photo spread in Luxury Traveler that he’d been working hard to negotiate for the Garrison Grand had somehow fallen through, and the magazine had instead—by strange coincidence—decided to profile Jordan Jefferies’s soon-to-be-opened Hotel Victoria.
Fortunately, Parker had asked the family’s private investigator, Ace Martin, to ferret out the traitor. It didn’t help matters, though, that one of his younger twin sisters had just decided to get herself engaged to Emilio Jefferies.
“Drink?” he offered.
“No, thanks. Parker should be here any minute.”
Stephen poured himself some bottled water. After watching his mother drink herself silly, he was careful with the heavy stuff.
“Anyway, I’m glad you hired Megan after I mentioned her for the project here at the hotel,” Anna continued. “I’m glad I was able to return the favor she did for me.”
“I’m sure she can’t thank you enough,” he responded tongue-in-cheek, thinking of Megan’s reaction when he’d shown up in her office.
“I also convinced her to take over the cute little house I was leasing in Coral Gables.”
He turned back toward Anna, and took a sip of his drink. “You don’t say?”
Parker appeared in the doorway behind his wife, and Anna turned.
“Great, you’re not as late as I thought you’d be,” Anna said.
Parker gave his wife a quick kiss.
“Leave it for dessert,” Stephen said to no one in particular.
Parker flashed him a grin, and Anna looked embarrassed.
Stephen raised his glass in salute. “Enjoy your meal.”
Thanks to Anna, he had more important matters to attend to, starting with calling over to HR at Garrison headquarters and finding out his sister-in-law’s old address.
Four
He scanned the house numbers, and when he found the modest little home in Coral Gables, he pulled up at the curb and parked his Aston Martin convertible.
As Stephen strode up the well-kept front lawn, he scanned the home’s facade. It was hard to tell if anyone was home.
The house was painted white, with light blue shutters and trim providing vivid contrast. Flower boxes spilled over from the front windows, and some small bushes dotted the lawn before them.
He pocketed his sunglasses before finding and ringing the doorbell.
It was a late Saturday afternoon, and the temperature hovered modestly in the mideighties. Megan could be anywhere, he thought. She could be out running errands or seeing friends. If she wasn’t home, his plan was to try another time.
He rang the doorbell again.
He knew just calling Megan up and asking for a date wouldn’t work. She’d already turned down his invitation to dinner.
So, he’d decided to show up on her doorstep unannounced. He figured he could offer his help for what remained to be done moving in, and in the process, he might even persuade her about dinner.
She was bound to be more relaxed outside of work.
On top of it all, he was more than a little curious about what Megan was hiding. At the Garrison Grand the other day, when she’d abruptly cut herself off, the alarmed look that had crossed her face had been telling.
Showing up at her house would give him a good opportunity to discover any secrets.
With that thought, he rang a third time.
After waiting for a few moments, and again receiving no response, he resigned himself to trying again another time.
He turned to leave when a distant laugh suddenly stopped him.
The laugh came again, and this time he thought it was coming from the rear of the house.
Changing direction, he cut across the lawn, then turned the corner and walked along the concrete path that ran along the side of the house.
As he neared the backyard, he could tell from the sound of movement that there were definitely people outside.
“Mommy, the green.”
“Okay, Jade. Just a minute, honey.”
He recognized the second voice as Megan’s.
Even as his mind roared to life trying to make sense of the conversation—Megan, a mother—he turned the corner into the backyard.
His eyes rapidly took in Megan, her back to him, sitting at a plastic picnic table opposite a little girl. They were finger-painting and wearing matching smocks.
The little girl looked up suddenly and stared at him.
He stared back—and felt the breath leave him.
The girl had dark brown hair, pulled back in a ponytail, and her large brown eyes stared at him innocently.
But the characteristic he zeroed in on was her cleft chin.
He was all too familiar with the trait. He viewed it every morning when he shaved, and he saw it in the faces of his siblings.
All the Garrisons had cleft chins.
The girl looked to be around three, which would make her the right age….
His mind froze.
The little girl smiled and pointed. “Mommy, there’s a man here.”
He watched as Megan looked over her shoulder.
