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

She felt a silly smile tremble across her mouth. “You’re interrupting me again.”

“Sorry. Did I tell you I’m impatient?”

“You did. Yes.”

“You won’t regret this, Cleo. That’s a promise.”

It all seemed so simple by then. From all wrong to exactly right in the space of a few hours. Was that crazy? Maybe.

Then again, no. Not crazy at all. It was a fabulous opportunity and she’d be crazy to pass it up.

“Come on,” said Fletcher. “Say yes.” He held out his hand.

She took it. “Yes,” she said, those forbidden, hot little flares of awareness racing through her at his touch.

“Excellent.” He gave her hand a firm shake and then released it. “I’ll call you tomorrow. We’ll set up a meeting ASAP with the lawyers, get all the paperwork handled. Then you can get started looking for the people you’ll need.” He reached around behind her, grabbed the door latch and pulled it open for her.

Feeling suddenly dazed, she swung up into the seat. She stared at him wide-eyed. “Did I just say yes?”

He grinned. “You did. No going back now.” He pushed the door shut and stepped back.

For a moment, still bemused at the choice she had just made, she only sat there and stared at him through the side window. He lifted an eyebrow, clearly wondering if for some reason she’d changed her mind about leaving.

Feeling foolish, she shook herself and stabbed her key into the ignition. The engine turned over and caught. She backed out of the space, so rattled by what she had just agreed to that she came within an inch of hitting a car in the row behind her.

She slammed on the brakes and looked over at Fletcher, who still stood where she’d left him.

He mouthed the word, “Careful.”

She put it in drive and got the heck out of there. Every nerve in her body was humming. Very strange. Definitely scary.

And no, she didn’t let herself look in her rearview mirror to see if he was still standing there watching as she drove away.

Chapter Four

That night in bed, before she turned out the light, Cleo called Danny and told him that she would open a KinderWay at Impresario after all.

“Good for you,” Danny said.

She relaxed into her pillows, realizing she’d been vaguely worried he wouldn’t like the idea, that he might be a little jealous, might remember that blue box on the entry hall table last Tuesday night and suspect that Fletcher Bravo would be putting the moves on her. But no. Not Danny. He didn’t have a jealous bone in his body.

“Oh, Danny. You think so? You really think it’s the right way to go?”

“You bet. I think it’s a smart move. And I’m glad you decided not to let what happened when you were a kid keep you from accepting a great offer right now.”

She caught a curl of her hair and wrapped it around her index finger as she teased into the phone, “Who says I was doing anything as neurotic as that?”

“Hey. I didn’t say it was neurotic.”

“Close enough.”

“Aw, come on. It’s natural for a person to stay away from the things that scare them, the things that have messed them over in the past. It only gets to be a problem if you let what scares you keep you from doing what’s going to be good for you now.”

Sometimes Danny’s insights did amaze her. “You know, I think you missed your calling. You should have been a shrink.”

“Uh-uh. You need a college education for that. I’ll pass. I had enough trouble makin’it through high school.”

“If you say so. It’s the mental-health profession’s loss.”

“Yeah, right.”

“And Danny?”

“Huh?”

“I wasn’t scared. Did I say I was scared?”

“You didn’t have to say it. There was no reason for you to turn down such a great offer—except that you’d have to be around the business that you always say wrecked your mom’s life.”

There’s another reason, a knowing voice in the back of her mind whispered.

That other reason was Fletcher Bravo himself. A man way too much like the men Lolita Bliss could never resist. A man with power. With juice, as they say. A man who liked a challenge, liked the chase, liked going after a woman he thought he couldn’t have …

And just a second here. How the heck did she know if Fletcher Bravo was that kind of man? Yes, he had power and influence. But that didn’t necessarily make him a dog. He wasn’t married. He was an eligible bachelor. Of course he would date. He could go out with a different woman every night if he wanted to and no one had a right to judge him for it.

And why was she obsessing over Fletcher anyway?

Really, she had to stop thinking about him.

If Fletcher Bravo gave her a thrill, so what? She was going nowhere with it. She was sticking with Danny, who was exactly the man she’d been looking for all her life.

“Cleo? You still with me.”

“Yes. I am.”

He laughed his goofy laugh. “I like the way you say that.”

They talked some more. He told her about a beautiful old Mustang he was restoring. She described the fabulous facility Fletcher had had built in the blink of an eye.

Danny was so sweet and supportive. “Sounds good, Cleo. Really good …”

Before they said good-night, they set a date for dinner Wednesday.

The next morning at ten, Fletcher called her at KinderWay. “Can you make it at two to go over the contract?”

“I’ll need to have my lawyer look it over first.”

“You think you need a lawyer, do you?”