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

Her eyes darted along his face, as if trying to fathom the secret behind Kullen’s words. Finally, she asked, “Why what?”

“Why you’re so against this when obviously, at one point, you must have been all for it. To hitch your star to the Dalton fortune.” She opened her mouth to speak but he talked louder and faster. The cynicism was impossible to miss. “I mean, the lure of all that money, the comfort it could bring—hard to imagine turning your back on all that. It had to be a whole different world for you. For anyone. The kind of money the Daltons have is the stuff that fairy tales are made of.”

Oh, God.

She pressed her hand against her abdomen, certain she was going to be sick. “They got to you, didn’t they?”

Kullen’s dark blue eyes were cold. Flat. And accusing. “Not to me.”

There was an allegation in his voice, and it didn’t take much for her to get his drift. She began to protest. “But I don’t—”

He cut her short, not wanting her to lie. “Oh, come on, Lilli. I’m your lawyer. If I’m going to be of any use to you, you have to level with me,” he insisted sharply. Angrily. “Tell me everything.” His mouth curved cynically. “Why aren’t you still part of the Dalton’s happy little family?”

How could he say that to her? Did he think she was some kind of gold digger? The one person, aside from her mother, who she thought knew her, accused her of being this awful person. It hurt more than she thought possible.

Lilli pushed her chair away from the table and stood up. She had to get out of here. “I’m sorry, coming to you was a mistake.” She picked up her manila envelope. He wouldn’t be needing them anymore. “This has been a waste of time for both of us—”

Kullen told himself that he should just let her walk out. It was in his best interest. Another man would have sat back and watched this little drama unfold, feeling a sense of vindication. Payback, as the old saying went, was a bitch. And she had earned her payback.

But he wasn’t another man. For better or for worse, he was who and what he was: The man who had once loved Lilli McCall with his entire heart and soul. Even now, he couldn’t avenge himself by leaving her to twist in the wind. She had come to him looking for help.

Kullen was on his feet, rounding the table and blocking her exit from the room. “I need the truth from you, Lilli. I need to know why someone like you would have gotten mixed up with someone like Erik Dalton in the first place. He had a reputation as the biggest womanizer around. I thought you were different—”

“I was,” she insisted. Which was why she was so haunted by what had happened. Why it had been so hard for her to get past it in the first place.

His eyes narrowed as he looked right into her. Aware that he was still holding her in place, Kullen dropped his hands from her shoulders. “Convince me.”

For a long moment, she said nothing and he thought she would walk out after all. But then she sighed as she pressed her lips together. He wanted to shake her, to shout at her and demand to know why she’d slept with a man like Erik Dalton when he’d had to work so hard to get her to trust him. To get her not to freeze up when he touched her.

That look in her eyes was back. That look that echoed an unfathomable sadness.

Kullen wanted to hold her more than anything in the world.

But he didn’t.

His hands remained at his sides. He waited for the explanation he felt he had coming to him.

There was a slight tremor in her voice as she said, “I suppose I have this coming.”

“We’ll talk about that later. Answer my question, Lilli.”

Every word ached. “I didn’t leave because I wanted to, Kullen.”

“Leave who?” he demanded. Was she talking about the father of her baby? Had he pushed her away when she told him she was pregnant? And why did that thought hold not the slightest bit of satisfaction for him? She’d left him and Erik had left her. That was supposed to be poetic justice. So why wasn’t it? “Leave Erik?”

She stared at him. “No, leave you.”

“Then why did you?”

“Because I had to.” Her voice throbbed with anguish. “I didn’t want to see your anger or your pity.” She pressed her lips together again, trying not to cry. “I couldn’t deal with that.”

“You’re going to have to be a little clearer than that, Lilli.” She looked as if she wanted to flee, he thought. He knew he couldn’t hold her against her will, but nonetheless, the idea was tempting. More than anything, he wanted her to make him understand why things had turned out the way they had.

Every word cost her. She didn’t want to look back into the past, into the abyss of mistakes that had been made. “I didn’t leave you because I was going to Erik. I left you because of Erik.”

“Clearer,” he instructed again, stone-faced.

The breath Lilli let out was shaky. “I was pregnant.”

Kullen’s expression hardened. Every time he thought of Lilli with that worthless bastard … when their own relationship hadn’t gone beyond heated kisses, at her request, a request he’d respected ….

“We’ve already established that,” he said.

She didn’t know how to tell him. She’d blocked all thoughts, all memory of events for so long. “The day you asked me to marry you was the best and the worst day of my life.”

The word worst jumped up at him, lit in glaring neon lights. “Nice to know I’ve still got it,” he said sarcastically.

She pushed on, knowing that she had to make him understand. She was afraid that he would stand by his word and not help her if she didn’t tell him everything. But, oh, it was so hard.

“It was the best day because I found someone good, someone who could make me forget. Someone I loved.” He looked at her sharply. She pushed on. “And the worst day because I found out I was pregnant.”

As her words pierced his heart, he came to the only conclusion he could. “You mean you were seeing Erik Dalton while we—”

“No,” she retorted. “Erik happened before I met you and there was no ‘seeing’ involved, no dating, if that’s what you mean.”

Lilli stopped, momentarily too emotional to continue because she was reliving the horrible incident that had all but destroyed her life and turned her entire world upside down.

She looked as if she was going to bolt.

Not until you finish telling me. Kullen gently put his hands on her shoulders. He could literally feel her anguish, could sense her being torn between telling him and keeping silent.

“Tell me,” he urged quietly.

The war within her was reflected in her eyes. And then, she squared her shoulders, as if she were about to go into battle.

When she finally spoke, her voice was firm, quiet. Almost oddly removed.

“My first year in law school, I forced myself to accept an invitation to a frat party. I was so terribly shy and I knew I had to make an effort to get out of my shell.” A sad smile played along her lips. “I mean, who wants a painfully shy lawyer, right? There were a lot of people at the party….” Her voice trailed off.

“Including Erik?” he prodded.

She nodded. “Erik was there. He seemed nice, attentive.” Every word took effort to say. “Almost sweet.” A rueful sound accompanied the description. “Somewhere in the middle of the evening, he suggested that we go somewhere more private, get a ‘real’ drink.” She stopped.

“And you went with him?” He’d always pictured her being innocent, but never naive.

Lilli raised her chin defiantly. “No, I didn’t. I told him I had to get back home because I had a paper I needed to finish for Monday. He told me he could get a paper on any topic under the sun, and that shouldn’t interrupt the good time we were having.”

She shrugged helplessly, wishing she could change the rest of the narrative. Wishing that it had never happened. But that would mean she’d have to wish away Jonathan and she could never do that.