Rand drawled down the fine line of his nose.
“Thanks, Dad.”
“You know exceptional people often are.” Andrew’s look dared Rand to dispute him.
“Handsome, rich and clever. However did you manage, darling? Well, never mind. Let’s just hope you can keep this one.” Phoebe smiled, a barracuda swathed in silk as she raised a glass of champagne in a mocking salute.
Rand Hamilton’s wife
Color washed Kat’s face. She might have bargained a name for her baby, but when they divorced she’d face a host of unkind comments if Phoebe proved any barometer.
Moving behind her, Andrew bracketed Kat’s shoulders with his hands and eased her against his chest, trying to absorb some of the tension radiating from her. Her untamed hair tickled against his chin, and he breathed in the citrus shampoo she favored.
“Frankly, Mrs. Hamilton, I’m honored a woman of Kat’s caliber was ever interested in me.” Sincerity marked each word, scorching him with the truth. He’d been married to his career for a long time, and he’d lived with his emotional detachment even longer. Kat stirred feelings in him he thought had withered and died long ago.
Beneath his fingertips, some of the tension eased from Kat’s shoulders.
“We trust you don’t have any plans to embezzle,” Rand observed with a clever smile.
“Or run off with your secretary,” Phoebe added.
Andrew felt Kat’s flinch.
Phoebe portrayed contrived dismay. “Oh dear. I guess you didn’t tell your Andy about Nick taking his secretary with him when he skipped the country with his millions. I never would have mentioned it had I known.”
“Nick Devereaux is a son of a bitch and deserves to have his ass kicked one day.” Andrew’s tone left no doubt he knew just the man for the job. And he meant every word.
Rand and Phoebe Hamilton gaped.
Kat gasped and muttered, “Take a number.”
Andrew continued. “I’d appreciate it if you’d bear in mind that I don’t like being compared to Nick. In fact I don’t particularly like to hear his name mentioned.” He smiled his most charming smile to the speechless couple. “If it’s all the same to you, of course.”
His gaze locked with Kat’s and he felt ten feet tall at the surprise and admiration reflected in her eyes. Nick wasn’t just a jerk, he was a stupid jerk.
“Look, honey, here comes Juliana. I guess she’s over that highly contagious strep throat if Eddie and Bitsy brought her, huh?” Kat asked with feigned concern.
Juliana was as healthy as a horse, make that a small pony, but he noted the look that passed between Rand and Phoebe.
“Actually, I think she’s still a little under the weather, but the baby-sitter backed out at the last minute.” He leaned in toward the Hamiltons confidingly. “Good help is so hard to find.”
Now there was a topic Phoebe could relate to-woes with the domestic help. Fortunately she was too repulsed by a sick child to embrace that soapbox. “Absolutely. Rand, darling, I believe I see Senator Bertram over there. If you’ll excuse us…”
Rand and Phoebe beat a hasty retreat at the threat of impending germs.
“Well done, my dear. Masterful, in fact.”
Kat glowed at the compliment.
Juliana concluded her march across the room-a six-year-old with a mission. She stopped before them, curiosity dancing in her brown eyes.
“Hi, there. Everything okay?” he asked. Juliana stared at him as if he were a bug under a microscope.
“I’m not sure yet. Could you pick me up, Uncle Andrew?” Juliana’s thin, reedy voice held a note of worry.
For a split second, Andrew looked to Kat for insight. She shook her head, shrugging her puzzlement.
“Sure. I can pick you up.” He reassured Juliana as he hoisted her in his arms. “What’s the matter?”
Juliana’s gaze darted between him and Kat.
“Do I need to leave, sweetie, so you can talk to Uncle Andrew alone?” Kat offered softly.
Juliana weighed the question. “No, it’s okay.” With a determined thrust of her little chin, she began tugging at Andrew’s shirt.
Andrew started in surprise, nearly dropping her.
“I knew Mommy was wrong. Daddy too, ’cause he said she might be right.” A snaggletoothed grin split her face. “All your buttons are still on real tight. Mommy told Daddy you weren’t buttoned up so tight since you’d married Aunt Kat, but you are too.” She gave his shirt another yank to prove her point.
Andrew threw back his head and laughed, uncaring of the curious glances sent his way. At his shoulder, Kat leaned against his arm and chuckled. Juliana giggled for good measure.
Although Bitsy’s runaway mouth had caught up with her, he realized it was true. If Kat walked out tomorrow- make that
He wasn’t so sure that’s what he wanted anymore. From the moment he’d spotted her behind the sculpture in the lobby of his office building, his life hadn’t been the same. He’d never been one to crave excitement, but since Kat, the world somehow seemed brighter, more vivid. Until Kat, he’d lived life though a filter.
Closing his eyes for a second, the noise of the party faded to nothingness. Andrew felt with crystal clarity the extent of what he had signed away. At that moment in time, it could have been seven years in the future. The child in his arms could be his and Kat’s. They could be a family sharing a joke.
He opened his eyes and focused on Juliana’s freckled nose, the loss of what he’d never have facing him.
“Uncle Andrew?”
Kat’s eyes met his, every vestige of humor replaced by a soft understanding. Andrew felt as if she’d stripped away his covering and gazed at his bared soul. And instead of allowing him to rewrap himself in his blanket of ice, Kat sparked a tiny flame.
Impatient with his lack of response, Juliana pressed her nose against his, cutting Kat out of his vision and making him go cross-eyed. “Why do have that funny look on your face?”
He leaned back until he regained his focus and then smoothed Juliana’s hair with an unsteady hand. “It’s nothing, girlo.”
“Can I get down now? I want to tell Mommy and Daddy you’re still all buttoned.”
Everything he’d ever wanted-and those things he’d thought he didn’t-seemed within his grasp. The prestige and power of a partnership in his family’s firm. This maddening, delectable woman as his wife. A child. A family.
In the far recesses of his mind, for a fleeting second, he questioned the pecking order of the things within his grasp.
Juliana wiggled again, breaking his reverie. He released her with a quick wink. “You do that. But tell them it’s a new shirt.”
As Juliana raced off to set her parents straight, Kat’s smile blew across him like a warm breeze off the Atlantic. “I like your new shirt. It fits you very well.”
And the spark she’d ignited in his soul grew a little brighter.
8
“THEY SEEMED LIKE a nice couple, but that’s it. No more lawyers tonight. I’ve met my quota.”
The last of Andrew’s fellow attorneys from the firm wandered off and Kat sagged against Andrew. His low chuckle whispered against the sensitive skin of her neck.
“Speaking of lawyers, where’s Jackson?”
“His goddaughter’s christening is this weekend in Detroit.” For the first time, Kat mourned the fact that her daughter or son would be without a father. Not just any father, but Andrew. Seeing him with Juliana this evening had her longing for a future that was out of the question. Tears threatened at the back of her throat.
