The Bravos: Family Ties: The Bravo Family Way / Married in Haste / From Here to Paternity

“But that would be a complete waste of your time and mine.” He arched a brow, but before he could speak, she informed him—again, “I’m not opening a new KinderWay facility here at Impresario.” She stuck out her hand. “Fletcher. It’s been a pleasure meeting you.”

His lean fingers engulfed hers. “The pleasure was all mine.” He gave her hand one firm shake and then released it.

His letting go didn’t help. She could still feel the tempting press of his skin to hers. “Goodbye, then.” She circled back around the massive desk. At her chair, she scooped up her bag and made for the door.

Fletcher watched her go, admiring the rear view of her tall, curvy dancer’s body, appreciating the shine and bounce to that silky-looking cinnamon hair. Once the door had closed—quietly but firmly—behind her, he picked up the phone and buzzed his assistant.

“Marla, get me Brian Klimas.” Brian Klimas was a P.I., a damn good one, both thorough and discreet. “And call Tiffany’s. Something pretty. A necklace. A bracelet. Either. Have it sent to Ms. Cleopatra Bliss. Her home address. It should be in the database.”

“I have it,” Marla said. “Is there a message?”

He considered. “Yeah. ‘Lunch, then?’ With a comma and a question mark.”

“A signature?”

“No. She’ll know I sent it. Put Klimas through as soon as you get him.”

He disconnected and waited. It didn’t take Marla long to reach the P.I. Her line blinked.

Fletcher punched the speaker button. “Put him on.”

There was a click. Marla said, “You’re connected.”

Fletcher instructed, “Brian, I want more on Cleo Bliss.” He waited, giving Klimas a chance to access his records.

“Got her,” said the P.I. “Cleopatra Bliss. Twenty-nine. Owner and Director, KinderWay Preschool. Graduate in child development, UNLV. Put herself through college working nights as a showgirl.”

“That’s the one. I want everything you can find for me. There’s a boyfriend. Check him out—who he is, what he does, how long he and Cleo have been together and how serious the relationship is.”

“Anything else?”

“How soon can I get a report?”

“I’ll put a rush on it and give you a call tomorrow to let you know where we are with it.”

“Good.” Fletcher ended the call. As he sat back again, his gaze settled on his computer and the KinderWay design it still displayed.

She’d liked the design. A lot. It had, in fact, provided the moment or two in their meeting where he’d been certain she would say yes to his offer.

All right, then. The design.

Once again Fletcher reached for the phone.

Chapter Two

“So what’s in the fancy little box?” Danny Pope asked when Cleo ushered him in the door that evening.

The unopened gift waited, nestled in packing popcorn, in a brown box on the narrow table in Cleo’s tiny square of a foyer. She’d found it waiting on the front step when she got home from KinderWay. Once she’d peeled back the cardboard flaps and seen the blue Tiffany box, she’d known who sent it.

There’d been no need to read the card. But she had: Lunch, then?

Uh-uh. Not dinner. And not lunch. Not anything. No way.

“It’s nothing important,” Cleo told Danny. “As a matter of fact, I’m sending it right back where it came from.” Danny frowned. “You know what it is?”

“No, I don’t. If I had to guess, I’d say jewelry. The shape of the box seems to indicate a bracelet. Maybe.

Or it could be a necklace. Who knows?”

“Well, why don’t you open it and find out?” Cleo took his hand, twined her fingers with his and pulled his arm around her. Settling their joined hands at the small of her back, she kissed him, a quick, firm press of her lips to his. “Nope.”

“Why not?” He smelled of a recent shower and also very faintly of motor oil. Danny owned a garage and restored classic cars for a living.

“There’s no point,” she said. “Whatever it is, I don’t want it.” She brought their hands back around between them, pressed a kiss to his big, rough knuckles and then turned and headed for the kitchen, towing him along behind.

He pulled her back. “Wait a minute. Who’s it from?” She gave in and said the name of the man she didn’t even want to think about. “Fletcher Bravo.” Danny whistled. “The Fletcher Bravo?” She made a show of rolling her eyes. “Please don’t tell me there’s more than one.”

He frowned again—and then he got that adorable, goofy grin that had tugged on her heart from the first day she met him, when her SUV had blown a tire on I-15 and he’d come to her rescue, her knight in greasy overalls. “Aw, Cleo. Come on …”

She relented. “Okay. Yeah. The Fletcher Bravo. I met with him this afternoon.”

“Wow. Why?”

“Come in the kitchen. Have a beer. I’ll tell you all about it.” She pulled on his hand again and that time he went with her.

In the breakfast nook, in front of the bow window that looked out on her postage stamp of a patio and the cinder-block wall enclosing it, she pushed him down into a chair. “Bud?”

“Sounds good.”

So she got him his beer, serving it up straight from the bottle, the way he liked it. She explained about Fletcher as she went to work on the salad. “Fletcher Bravo wants me to open a KinderWay at Impresario for the children of selected employees—and more specifically for his soon-to-be five-year-old daughter.”

Danny took a long pull off his beer. “You never mentioned anything about Fletcher Bravo before….”

She sent him a look as she grabbed a big knife suitable for chopping lettuce. “Okay. I confess. I’ve been in denial.”

“Denial about …?”

She steadied the head of lettuce on the cutting board and hacked at it with her knife. “Three times I’ve met with Fletcher’s underlings. Each time I’ve told them, politely but firmly, that I’m not interested.” She set the knife aside and scooped up the lettuce she’d chopped, sparing another glance at Danny as she dropped the greens in the salad bowl. “Fletcher wouldn’t believe me. I guess that’s not especially surprising. He didn’t get where he is by giving up without a fight. Finally he asked to meet with me personally. So I met with him. Today.” She grabbed a smaller knife and went to work on the radishes, cutting the ends off, slicing them into the bowl on top of the lettuce.

“Wait a minute. You turned him down today—and so he sent you jewelry?”

She paused in midslice, glancing his way, shaking her head. “Doesn’t make a lot of sense, does it? To tell you the truth, I still don’t think he believes that when I said no, I meant it.”

“Cleo?”

“What?” She looked toward him again.

He was picking at the label on his bottle of beer. “I gotta say. If one of the Bravos came to me with an offer to expand, I’d jump at it. The Bravos are big-time. The real deal. Maybe you ought to think twice. This could be a good move for you.”