Unwrapping the Playboy / The Playboy's Gift: Unwrapping the Playboy

She tried not to think what a loaded phrase that actually was. “What if I don’t like anything on it?” Lilli posed.

Kullen never missed a beat. “More for me.” He set the box down on the dining room table. “But I seem to remember that pizza was your weakness.”

No, you were my weakness, she thought. But that Lilli had to disappear a long time ago.

Kullen opened the box and the aroma, already leaching out of the box by any means possible, now robustly filled the air, arousing her dormant taste buds.

“It does smell good,” she conceded.

“Help yourself,” he said, gesturing toward the oil-soaked box. “I’ll get the plates and napkins.”

“I’ll get them,” she offered. It was the least she could do. “Just tell me where the kitchen is.”

“You can’t miss it. It’s the only room with a refrigerator in it,” he deadpanned. And then, when she kept on looking at him, he pointed over to the area just beyond the living room.

“Wise guy.”

A sense of déjà vu washed over him as he watched Lilli disappear around the corner. It brought with it a host of warm, soft memories that in turn aroused feelings that had long since slipped into exile.

Don’t go there, don’t go there, he warned himself.

But he knew that was easier said than done. He’d already crossed the line once. And each time it would get easier.

And all the more difficult to come back.

Chapter Six

They were doing justice to the pizza. Kullen had a hunch that they would. It was almost like old times.

Almost.

It would be easy, so seductively easy, to let his guard drop. To allow that feeling to overtake him, the one that had whispered that this was like old times—the times when he had struggled so hard to create and win. And finally had.

He had fallen for her the very first moment he’d ever laid eyes on her. The first time he’d glimpsed her face with its regal, aristocratic lines and felt his stomach muscles tighten into a knot so hard, he could scarcely breathe. There was no question in his mind that Lilli McCall was easily the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen.

But back then, his “pre-shallow period” as Kate referred to it, it had taken more than just looks, no matter how incredible, to captivate him. What had drawn him in was the sadness in her eyes. It made him ache for her and want to erase her pain. He had launched a full-scale, albeit subtle campaign to get to know her, to get close to her, a feat his best friend at the time, Gil Davis, had warned him was doomed to failure. Gil had had his finger on the pulse of the campus social circles and he’d said that Lilli McCall was a loner, a serious, self-contained fortress. Word was that no one really got close to her.

It was a challenge Kullen couldn’t refuse.

And the more he’d worked at getting closer, the more he’d found his own defenses going down. In the space of a few days Lilli had stopped being a challenge and had begun being someone he just wanted to help. Someone he was determined to get to trust him. They’d had several classes together and had been in the same study group. The latter had turned out to be his first triumph with her.

“C’mon,” he’d urged her cheerfully and relentlessly. “Law school’s tough. This is a communal effort to help us all survive. What one of us doesn’t know, maybe someone else does. It’s a give-and-take situation.” It had been his eyes that had held her, he’d later discovered, not any physical touch of the hand, something that she’d avoided religiously then. “You can’t deny us the benefit of your brain, can you?” he remembered coaxing.

When she’d finally, somewhat reluctantly agreed to study with him, he had wanted to shout his victory from the rooftops, but prudently refrained, pretending to take it all in stride.

That had been the real beginning. The beginning of what in time had turned out to be an all-too-short relationship that had, on the outside, held such promise.

He could still remember the first time he’d made her smile, the first time he’d heard the sound of her laughter.

And the first time she hadn’t stiffened when he’d kissed her.

There was no way to measure the intensity of the feelings he’d had for her. Feelings he would have bet his life were returned. In the short time they were together, he’d bared his soul to her and caught just the tiniest glimpses of hers. It had by no means been a balanced exchange, but that was okay. With Lilli things were different, all the rules were thrown out and new ones had taken their place. He was fine with taking the tiny, baby steps. As long as they eventually led to his goal.

He’d been so sure, so very sure that they would.

Which was why his entire world had fallen apart when she had disappeared from his life.

At first, he’d thought that Lilli had been kidnapped. He was incredibly, stupidly certain that the woman he loved above everything else on earth wouldn’t have just taken off on him. Especially not after he’d proposed to her.

But she had.

Lilli had just disappeared, leaving a note on his desk. The note had fallen on the floor between the wastepaper basket and his desk. He hadn’t found it until, lost in a frenzy of frustration and helpless anger, he’d kicked the wastepaper basket aside. Falling over, it had spilled its contents, but it was then that he’d seen the small white note card with two words in her handwriting. Two words that twisted a knife right into his chest.

“I’m sorry.” That was all she’d written. Just, “I’m sorry.” And that was supposed to explain her departure and compel him to go on living his life. A life that no longer contained her.

Sitting opposite Lilli now in his dining room, a room he rarely used except when he needed to spread out a massive collection of legal papers, it all came back to him with the force of a detonating bomb. Everything he’d felt, everything he’d gone through with her and then, without her. The good, the bad and, finally, the anger. He’d been a fool because he’d loved her and would have done anything for her. She hadn’t cared enough to explain things face-to-face.

But now, after all these years, he had his answer. He knew why she’d left.

Even so, he wanted to ask her why she’d tossed him aside like some kind of used tissue, without the courtesy of an explanation.

Without a chance to fight for her and prove he was the better man.

The words vibrated on his lips. But after all this time, he had his answer. It was cruelly obvious. Lilli had abandoned him for Erik Dalton, the only heir to an incredible fortune that he had done nothing to deserve. The rumor was that he had never been turned down, especially not by a woman. A morally bankrupt playboy who was the very poster child for the stereotypical rich kid with a heart of lead, Erik Dalton had gotten every woman he had ever set his sights on.

All he had to do was crook his finger and women fell from the sky, eager for his attention, eager to have some of his generosity touch their lives. He went through money as if it was of no consequence to him. There was always more.

Was that it? Kullen wondered now. Had Lilli been blinded and won over by the allure of materialistic goods? He’d always seen her as pure and unfazed by material wealth. It was obvious now that he’d been blinded, too. Blinded by his feelings.

Had there been a price tag on her affections after all?

The Lilli McCall he’d loved so fiercely had been an honorable woman. But then, the Lilli he’d loved would have never abruptly left him with a marriage proposal still warm on his lips.

“Why are you fighting this?” he asked her quietly, without preamble.

Polishing off her third slice of pizza and finally feeling full, Lilli looked up at him sharply. The question had come out of the blue and she didn’t know what he was referring to. The first thing that occurred to her by “this” was that the feelings were still there, carefully encased in Bubble Wrap and stored away. Feelings that belonged exclusively to him.

So Lilli waited for him to elaborate and prayed that she could answer him without raking over old scars.

“I could try to broker an arrangement between you and Elizabeth Dalton for joint custody. Lay down a few ground rules—”

Lilli continued staring at him, growing more stunned. Why was he saying this? Had that dreadful woman’s lawyers gotten to him, bought him off? She hadn’t thought that would be possible, but now she wasn’t so sure.

Wasn’t there anyplace left for her to turn to?

“No,” Lilli said firmly before he could continue, then repeated the word in a louder voice. “No!”

“Heard you the first time,” Kullen assured her matter-of-factly. And he grew serious, leaning over the table. Leaning closer to her. His eyes pinned her down. “Now, tell me why.”