The girl’s frozen expression didn’t animate, but she obligingly moved her fingers on the keyboard. Color splashed onto the screen, brilliant-colored flowers and the words Build a Bouquet.
“It’s a multidisciplinary project,” Shay explained. “She’s developing a website for a pretend florist business. Visitors to the site are able to select flowers and greenery to custom-design a floral arrangement. She’s setting it up for three disparate locations throughout the country, so she’s had to research local flora and seasonal availability along with the computer programming aspect.”
Shay reached around the teen to hit a key. The screen switched from bright photography to rows of incomprehensible—to Jace anyway—letters, numbers and symbols. “This is the language for creating web pages,” she explained, glancing over her shoulder at him.
“Impressive,” he murmured. “But a lot to accomplish between tango lessons, isn’t it?”
Shay’s face flushed again. “Um...”
“Tango?” London asked, looking between the two of them while still managing to convey that their conversation didn’t interest her in the slightest.
“Never mind,” her tutor said. “Why don’t we show your father around upstairs?”
Again the girl obliged in a long-suffering manner. Ennui oozed out of her as she slowly moved from the computer and then led their small party down the hallway. Jace glanced into her bedroom and several empty ones, then another that appeared occupied. The bed linens were pure white and it smelled of Shay’s scent, causing him to stride past quickly in an attempt not to remember how that particular fragrance had risen from his own skin in the steam of the shower just a few hours before.
They had a business relationship now, remember?
London guided him along the catwalk that was open to the foyer and living room below. At the other side of the house, she gestured to double doors standing open.
Shay spoke up. “The master suite.”
He stepped inside, winced again. More gunmetal-gray walls accented with industrial lighting. Though the bed was huge, the mattress was perched on a wooden platform that hung from the ceiling using thick iron chains. A sitting room wasn’t any more hospitable. The attached bath, while spacious, was as welcoming as an operating room.
Maybe the inhospitable environs would serve a good purpose, he decided. Under the circumstances, he’d be better off thinking like a monk, not a man.
Ignoring the headache beginning to throb at the base of his skull, Jace exited the room and addressed the hovering females. “I’m going to bring in my things,” he said.
Shay appeared uneasy at the news. His daughter appeared unaffected. He might have said his hair was on fire or there was a snake in the shower and he’d bet she’d wear the same nonexpression expression.
It didn’t help that he had no one to blame for that but himself. Fifteen years was a long time to go without having a relationship with your father.
When he’d learned of London’s mother’s death, he’d been in Qatar’s capital city of Doha. Though he’d instantly called, she’d been mostly nonresponsive to his assurances that they’d both be back in the States soon. That then they’d sort out the future.
Not once had he considered bringing her to him. His work in the Arab country sent him to remote, primitive locations that made her presence impractical. To underscore that point, not a short while later he’d been in an earthmover accident, miles from the nearest village. One of the workers with medical training had tended to his injuries, but when his wits had finally unscrambled, he’d lost weeks of time and further opportunities to connect with his daughter.
It took him a few trips to haul all his gear from the car. He refused Shay’s help and London drifted back to her computer. As he passed her, he noted she was modifying those lines of gibberish on the screen.
The truth couldn’t have hit him harder. They were two people, he thought, who didn’t know the same language.
Dumping his bags on the floor of his room, he battled the urge to punch something—the wall, himself for his own ineffectiveness as a parent, the memory of his effing unfeeling martinet of a father who hadn’t given Jace a clue as how to proceed.
Each moment that passed only made it clearer that he’d never have a chance with London.
Or that maybe he didn’t deserve one, because a lone wolf couldn’t change its ways.
A soft footstep sounded behind him. The air suddenly charged and his next breath brought with it a faint note of sweetness. The nape of his neck itched. Shay.
His daughter’s tutor. His employee.
“Dinner’s at six thirty,” she said to his back. “Can I get you anything before then?”
He turned, and at the sight of her warm beauty, memories of the night before slammed into his chest. Blood rushed to his groin as he recalled her fingers wrapped around him, the taste of her pale nipples as they hardened beneath his tongue, the quiet, low sound she’d made when he’d entered her. Jace’s breath felt trapped in his lungs.
Hell. Damn. Shit.
Anger rose from the depths of his belly. How could this have happened?
How could one woman and one night so tangle his simple plan? But she had. It did.
Everything was turning into knots and snarls.
Not only was he certain he was fighting an uphill battle in forging some kind of understanding—if not a relationship—with his kid, but his notion of retaining a businesslike attitude also already felt as if it were failing.
His daughter was an enigma.
Having the hots for her teacher was no help at all.
* * *
LONDON JENNINGS KNEW she was a freak.
After a day like today, the knowledge weighed heavy as she slipped out of the house and into the lake-scented darkness. Though Shay usually insisted on having help with the dinner dishes, tonight she’d shooed London from the kitchen. Due to pity, probably.
Not every teenager had a dead mother.
Not every teenager had a father who’d arrived years too late.
Hunching her shoulders, she tried shrugging off thoughts of Elsa as she headed toward the water. In their first week at Blue Arrow Lake, Shay had assigned her to read The Great Gatsby. In Daisy Buchanan, London had seen her mother. Beautiful, careless, childish. Elsa had been effusive some days and distant others. She’d followed boyfriends to foreign cities for weeks at a time, leaving London behind with their housekeeper, Opal, who was near a million years old and hailed from Boise, Idaho.
When Opal had needed to return to the States to take care of her sick sister, Elsa had been forced to cut short her latest trip. Between Budapest and their flat in Kensington, a train accident had taken her life.
And brought Jason Jennings into London’s.
She hunched her shoulders once more as she followed the shoreline, leaving behind their dock and the bobbing powerboat that Shay sometimes piloted. The only sound was the water lapping gently against the silty sand. It was midweek, and most of the houses along the lake were dark except for security lights. There wasn’t another person in sight.
Still, London had a more private destination in mind.
Three estates away, a dilapidated boathouse sat beside an equally run-down dock. Brand-new structures were located fifty feet from them, and on a morning walk, Shay had speculated that the old ones would be cleared away soon.
Before that happened, London wanted to spend more time inside the damp-smelling walls of the small, square building.