For a second, the sight of her standing there stopped him dead in his tracks. A jolt of pure desire shot through him. Laney had been one of those girls who had skipped over the awkwardness of adolescence and gone straight from girl to sex goddess—a role she’d reveled in because it irritated her strict grandmother and her benefactors, his parents. It had irritated him as well, though he’d tried not to let it show. Now, womanhood had softened the raw edges of her sexuality. Her sensuality was more subtle but more attractive as well.
Before now, he questioned whether he’d done her any favors when he’d helped her get this job three years ago. He wondered if she could temper her rebellious nature enough to teach first grade—in a wealthy, conservative private school, no less. The Laney he’d known as a teenager had scorned the wealthy and despised their hypocrisies. Now she was teaching their kids.
Watching her today, he’d have never guessed that flowing dress camouflaged her defiant nature—until she bent to speak to the little girl by her side. Then, the strap of her sundress slipped to reveal the swirling line of a tattoo on her shoulder. That was more like it.
She looked at him, the full lines of her mouth flattened into disapproval. Well, one thing hadn’t changed. She still hated him. He couldn’t really blame her after the way he’d treated her.
Laney said something to the girl, giving her hand a pat. There was something intrinsically feminine and graceful about her appearance but certainly nothing refined or elegant. For some reason, he thought of his ex-wife then. Portia wouldn’t be caught dead in a fluttery floral sundress and… were those sneakers Laney had on? He’d been married to Portia for eight years, and he wasn’t even sure she had sneakers. For that matter, Portia wouldn’t be caught dead standing outside a school, holding a child’s hand.
Only after Laney had helped the little girl into the Buick and turned to face him with a sort of stalwart determination did he wonder why he was even thinking about Portia and Laney in the same thought. The two women were nothing alike. He’d been intimately and emotionally involved with Portia, but with Laney… He hardly knew how to describe his relationship with her. Not for the first time, he wondered exactly what he was doing here.
As Dalton stepped up onto the sidewalk, he pulled his glasses off and slid them into his shirt pocket. “Hello, Laney.”
“Um. Hi. Dalton.” Her words came out choked and awkward, as though she’d forgotten how to talk altogether. Jeez, between the sneakers and being suddenly struck nearly mute, this was so not her day.
She knew it was nerves—and fear—that had tied her tongue into knots. It had nothing to do with the fact that Dalton had grown into a man of such arresting attractiveness that she could hardly pull air into her lungs when he looked at her.
“Is there somewhere we can go to talk?” he asked, nodding toward the building.
“Yes. My classroom.” But instead of walking inside, Laney found herself just standing there, trying not to stare at Dalton. His face was still lean, his lips still full. His dark hair still curled slightly, as if in rebellion against the relentless structure he imposed on his life.
Then, unexpectedly, she found herself looking into his eyes, as if he’d been studying her in return. Heat flooded her cheeks, and she jerked her eyes away from his.
He kept his gaze on her. She could practically feel it. “You look good, Laney.”
Liar, liar, pants on fire.
She did not look good—not standing here in her thrift-store dress and her bobby socks, at the end of a long day of working with children. She’d once come home to find a Cheeto stuck in her hair. So she knew for a fact that she did not look good—at least not the way he looked good.
However, his relaxed greeting calmed her. Maybe he didn’t know about the money. If he did, wouldn’t he have started with that? But if he wasn’t here about the money, then why was he here?
Flustered, she turned and headed for the building. “I should warn you that I can’t talk long. I teach an afterschool theater class.”
At the door, Laney paused before swiping her card past the electronic lock, only to find Dalton right behind her. She jerked back a step, and he reached out a hand to steady her.
She looked up from his hand to his face. He was standing closer than before, and she sucked in a sharp breath. How had she forgotten how blue his eyes were? They were such an unusual shade of blue too. The color of the sky—not the rich, deep sky-blue you saw when you looked straight up but the muted, almost sea-blue of the sky at the distant horizon. Cain blue, Gran had always called it.
Dalton Cain—with his Cain blue eyes. She couldn’t let herself forget, even for a moment, who this man was—or that he had the power to crush her and Gran, if he ever had reason to do so.
Jerking her arm away from him, she asked, “What is it you want from me?”
“Why do you assume I want something from you?” he asked, his tone all innocence.
“Because when a Cain comes to visit, they always want something.”
“You don’t have a very high opinion of us.”
“No. I don’t suppose I do.”
And she knew it was ironic that she didn’t trust him. Of the two of them, she was the one who was aiding and abetting a thief. But what was she supposed to do? Let him cart Gran off to prison?
And suddenly, with that simple reminder, she didn’t want to let him into the school with her. She wanted to do this quick and dirty, to find out what he wanted from her and get out fast. She crossed her arms over her chest, tucking the key card under one arm in an act of silly defiance. “Don’t forget, I grew up in the Cain household. I would describe my opinion as accurate rather than low.”
She instantly regretted her words. This was so not the dialogue of the demure damsel in distress.
But then he winced with such exaggerated pain. “Ouch.”
She very nearly smiled, but she stopped herself just in time. She would not let herself be charmed by him. She knew all too well that Dalton could act like her best friend in the world one minute and not even know her the next. There was no way she would let herself get sucked into his mind games again.
“Oh, don’t pretend to be wounded,” she grumbled. “I haven’t spoken to you in nearly a decade. If you’ve shown up in my life after all this time it’s because you want something,” she said honestly. “So why don’t you stop trying to charm it out of me and just tell me what it is?”
The corner of his mouth bumped up. “You find me charming?”
She rolled her eyes. “I think we both know you can be very charming when there’s enough at stake. After all, you are your father’s son.”
His smiled faded, along with the spark in his eyes. “Okay. You want to know why I’m here? I need to talk to your grandmother.”
Damn. All the electric awareness vanished as quickly as though a circuit breaker had been blown. If he wanted to talk to Gran, then he must know.
Maybe he didn’t have proof. Maybe that was why he wanted to talk to Gran. Maybe he intended to badger the truth out of her. Laney couldn’t let that happen.
On a good day, Matilda Fortino barely knew who she was. As for the bad days… well, those were the days she spent trapped in her own mind, trapped in the memories of the distant past, filled with recriminations and regrets.
If Dalton went to see her, who knew what might come pouring out? She might confess to everything, assuming he didn’t already have proof.
Suddenly Laney—who’d never backed down from