“You’re my boss,” Lucy whispered, although that was the least important reason. But she couldn’t think well enough right now to explain why falling for another Tarkington would mean the end of her battered self-respect, why she couldn’t let herself lose control again.
“Lucy,” he began, and then suddenly the pleading in his eyes gave way to a harder, darker expression. “I know,” he said abruptly, squaring his shoulders and taking a step back from her. “We can’t do this.”
The swiftness of his acknowledgment hurt, even though it was what she’d wanted, and she found herself staring at him with the hope she might witness another, equally sudden change of heart.
But that wasn’t happening, she realized. Instead, she saw on his face the same uneasiness she’d seen the first night they met. When he’d found her in his family’s home and made it clear—without so much as a word of discourtesy—that he knew Lucy Velardi was a gold digger.
“Because of what happened with Kenny,” she guessed with a sinking sensation in her heart, and his gaze turned even darker.
“Right.”
“But I—” Lucy faltered, then forced herself to remember what mattered most. Emma deserved to know there had been something between her parents, regardless of how quickly it had faded. And that meant she could never deny that, for a few giddy weeks, she had loved her child’s father. “I’d never loved anyone,” she pleaded, “the way I—”
“I know. You said that.” Conner shoved his hands in his pockets, casting a quick glance behind him as one of the Frisbee players shouted in exultation, and then seemed to recognize a source of inspiration. “This was just,” he said slowly, as if seeking some reason for an otherwise inexplicable kiss, “just…the game, that’s all. People get carried away when they’re winning.”
It wasn’t like anyone could win a game of Frisbee, but Lucy seized the flimsy explanation with relief. “That’s it, exactly,” she agreed, noticing that her daughter was still engrossed in the teenage sitter’s balloon. At least, during that passionate lapse of responsibility, she hadn’t fallen down as a mother. She had remembered that Emma mattered most. “That’s all it was.”
“Right.” Conner sounded equally relieved, which bothered her. But after all, she reminded herself, it wasn’t like she wanted him to blame anything beyond the excitement of the game. It wasn’t like she wanted to throw away her carefully salvaged independence. “So we ought to head back to work.”
Work. Right.
“Sure,” Lucy agreed, although she hadn’t planned on working today. “I mean, if you need me for any—” Anything wasn’t the right word, she realized, because that could imply more than office duties. “I mean, do you—” Then she broke off, recognizing how difficult it would be to phrase the question correctly. And for the first time since he’d let her go, she felt a tremor of dread.
That kiss was going to be hard to forget.
Maybe Con knew that, too, because he was already shaking his head at the idea of spending time in the office together. “It can wait until Monday,” he said gruffly. “Nothing urgent.”
“Okay, then.” She had faced other awkward situations before, but never had she come up against one like this. How on earth could she survive five more weeks in the same office, the same house with this man? “Let me just get Emma.”
Emma’s sitter offered to let them keep the balloon, which Conner tied onto her ankle, and the baby’s rapturous interest in her new treasure provided sufficient material for conversation on the way home. But by the time they arrived at the front door, Lucy could tell they were both feeling the strain of keeping up a casual dialogue. Conner immediately headed for his computer, then hesitated a moment, and she saw his shoulder muscles tighten before he turned to face her with a troubled expression.
“Lucy,” he said, “I just want to make sure you know…I mean, back at the park…” He looked more uneasy than she’d ever seen him before, but drew a deep breath and finished in a rush. “I was out of line. That’s not going to happen again.”
She already knew that, had known it ever since he backed away from her with such disconcerting swiftness. But she had to give him credit for such flawless courtesy, pretending that a blue-blood lawyer would even consider repeating such a mistake.
“Right,” she murmured. Normally they might shake hands to seal the agreement, but touching Conner now was out of the question. “It was just the game.”
“Yeah, that’s it.” He looked over his shoulder at the computer still waiting on his desk, then gave her what was probably supposed to be a comforting smile. “So, everything’s all right.”
But it wasn’t all right, Lucy knew. She spent the rest of the day avoiding any glance at the office, and took a sandwich to her room before their usual dinnertime, but she knew this self-imposed distance wasn’t working. She was getting too close to Conner Tarkington. She was remembering too often how the crackling barrier had shattered for that dazzling moment in the park. And if she couldn’t control herself any better than she had at the instant when he’d kissed her, well, she needed to get out of here.
Plain and simple. She had to get out.
Getting out the next morning was easy, because Shawna had invited her to string popcorn for the community Christmas tree at her grandmother’s senior center. It was a tradition Lucy appreciated all the more this year, since she desperately needed a few hours away from Con’s resolutely impersonal gaze.
She arrived early, relieved that the church shuttle driver hadn’t minded picking up passengers for the trip back to Mesa, and grateful that she and Emma had made it through breakfast with Conner while maintaining a conversation that would have sounded normal to anyone else. She could get through five more weeks under his roof if she had to, Lucy told herself, and she would have to unless Shawna could come up with an idea.
“I guess you could move out,” her friend suggested when Lucy finished the story, then wrinkled her forehead as she dropped another popcorn chain into the collection bag. “But I can’t really see why you want to. Couldn’t you just…enjoy him?”
“Oh, right, go from one brother to the next,” Lucy protested, relieved that Shawna’s grandmother had taken the baby for a walk outside. Emma didn’t need to hear any of this. “Shawna, what kind of person would that make me?!”
“Not your mother,” came the swift reassurance. “Because you loved Kenny—at the beginning, anyway. I was there when you met him, remember? It was instant, for both of you.”
That was true. They’d met in one of the Phoenix Open party tents, where she’d been working the afternoon-drinks shift, and had hit it off within the first thirty seconds of laying eyes on one another. “He was…” Lucy let the memory resonate, wishing it would rouse more than a faint sense of nostalgia. “Well, he was fun.”
Shawna twisted her thread into a knot and bit the end off, shaking her red-beaded braids back behind her shoulder. “So you loved Kenny, and you like this guy. Why can’t you just enjoy each other while he’s here?”
Because she knew better than to make the same mistake twice. “I like him too much,” Lucy explained, remembering how carefully they’d maneuvered around the coffeemaker this morning and how quickly he’d cut off her attempt to explain about Kenny. “Anyway, he already said it was a mistake. He doesn’t want to get involved with a gold digger.”
“He couldn’t call you that!” Shawna sounded fiercely certain. “Lucy, you’re not asking him for anything.”
No, of course not. But that hadn’t stopped him from offering to make her life easier. “He already wants to take care of me,” she muttered, remembering his repeated mentions of child support. “I mean, like a family honor thing. But I don’t need any help…especially from someone like him.”