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

Kullen wanted to know what gave her the right to surface now, after all this time. What gave her the utter gall to ask him for his help?

Eight years ago he would have done anything for her. All she had to do then was to ask. He would have been willing to literally give up his life for her. She had to have known that. But even so, she had all but spit in his face. And left.

The seconds stretched out into a minute as he sat, looking at her. Studying her. Finally, in a deceptively calm voice, he asked, “So all the other men in the world are dead?”

She stared at him, confused. The question made no sense. “Excuse me?”

“That was the way you made me feel when you took off, that you wouldn’t have anything to do with me even if I was the last man on earth. Since you’re here, I’m assuming that for some reason, all the other men in the world have been mysteriously terminated, although I have to say I don’t see how that’s possible, since I passed a few of them in the hall not fifteen minutes ago.” He lifted his shoulders in a casual, dismissive shrug. “I guess I must have missed the Armageddon that took place in the last ten minutes.” He leaned forward over his desk, his voice lowering to a rumble. “Or did it happen in less?”

Lilli recoiled emotionally despite sitting ramrod straight.

She knew she had that coming. That and probably more. Lost in her own predicament, she’d treated him shamefully.

Lilli took a breath. She should have known better than to come. Though Kullen had every right to be angry at her, even to hate her, hearing his cold, emotionless voice as he addressed her hurt far too much for her to withstand.

Hurt, because even with everything that had happened, everything that she’d done, she knew in her heart that Kullen Manetti was the only man who had ever mattered to her. The only man who would ever matter to her.

The only man she’d ever loved—even if she had put him through hell. And he was better looking than ever. Then he’d been almost pretty. Maturity had found him and now he was breathtakingly handsome. She felt the attraction immediately. Just as she had all those years ago.

“This was a mistake,” she told him stiffly. Pushing against the floor, she moved back her chair. “I shouldn’t have come.” As she rose to her feet, she told him, “I didn’t mean to bother you.”

Logically, Kullen knew he should just let her walk out. It had taken him a long time, but he had managed to successfully reinvent himself, to become a different man. He didn’t want to go back to that place where feelings had such overwhelming power over him. That place where he’d ached so badly he didn’t think he could survive the night without the woman he loved.

He needed to remember that, remember the price he’d paid for letting down his guard.

For loving her.

The pep talk wasn’t working. He could feel himself weakening. Slipping.

Despite his resolve, something in those light blue eyes of hers spoke to him, pulled at him, just the way it had that first time so many years ago.

“What was a mistake,” he told Lilli crisply, struggling with the insane urge to take her into his arms and just hold her, “was your disappearing on me eight years ago.”

On the verge of leaving his office, Lilli stopped just shy of the door. She didn’t turn around. Her voice was flat as she addressed her words to the beveled glass. “I had my reasons.”

“Which you didn’t think enough of me to share,” he pointed out. He never meant to say this out loud, but the question tumbled out anyway. “Did you really hate me that much?”

Stunned, Lilli swung around to face him. “Hate you?” she echoed incredulously. “I didn’t hate you. I didn’t want to hurt you.”

“And that’s why you ripped out my heart and threw it down the garbage disposal? So you wouldn’t hurt me?” he demanded. “C’mon, Lilli, you can do better than that.”

She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to seal away the tears that had suddenly welled up. “You don’t understand,” Lilli whispered.

It wasn’t easy to hold his ground, not when everything inside him, despite all that had gone down, just wanted to comfort her. To hold her and remember what life had once been like.

Only self-preservation managed to hold him in check. “Then explain it to me.”

But she just shook her head. There was too much ground to cover. And too much time had passed. Had life not scarred her before he had come on the scene, Kullen would have been perfect for her. For the Lilli she’d once been.

Before.

Lilli shook her head again. “It’s complicated. I can’t …” Her voice threatened to break. “I’ve got to go.” Her hand went to the doorknob.

Kullen cut the distance between them in strides he didn’t remember taking. One moment he was across the room, the next, he was beside her. Closing the door with the flat of his hand, he became a physical obstacle that prevented her escape.

“Why did you come?” he asked, just barely taking the edge out of his voice. “What is it you need help with?”

Maybe things would be all right after all. Maybe coming here wasn’t a mistake. Lilli pressed her lips together as she raised her eyes to his. “I need help to save my son.”

His breath left him.

Kullen felt as if he’d actually been sucker punched in the gut. For a second, he allowed the words to sink in.

“You have a son?”

He could remember that when they’d been together those few short, glorious months, in the beginning she’d all but shrank away from his touch. The first time that had happened, he’d been more puzzled than offended. Challenged, charmed by her, he worked hard to gain her trust. And he’d taken her at her word when she’d told him that she wanted to go slow. He’d thought she was one of those rare girls who was serious about “saving herself” for the right man. Saving herself for her husband.

He’d been so crazy about her, he would have gone along with anything she’d said as long as it meant that she’d remain in his life. That eventually, she would marry him and be his.

He supposed that made him incredibly naive and stupid, in light of the situation—as well as what she’d told him just now. She hadn’t been saving herself; she’d just been keeping herself from him.

“Yes,” Lilli replied quietly. “I have a son.” And I’ll do anything to save him. Anything.

Kullen glanced down at her left hand. There was no ring on it. No ring and no faint, pale lines to indicate that there once had been. Had everything she’d once told him been a lie?

“What about a husband?” he asked her evenly. “He around anywhere?”

She raised her chin and her eyes met his. “I don’t have one.”

“Divorced?” he guessed. His temper started to flare. “Widowed? How about just separated from a significant other? Got one of those around?”

“No. No. No.” Lilli answered each question in turn.

Then, apparently, there was only one conclusion to be reached. The words were on his lips before he could think to stop himself. “Did I miss the announcement of another Immaculate Conception?”

The moment he said it, he saw the walls literally go up. He read her body language and blocked her as she reached for the door again. His anger had gotten the best of him. What he’d just said was beneath him, and he knew it.

“All right, I’m sorry,” he apologized. “But I did feel I had a right to say that.” The walls around her remained up. “When we were together,” he reminded her, “you said you were saving yourself.”

“I never actually said that in so many words,” Lilli pointed out. She hadn’t said those words because, through no fault of her own, they wouldn’t have been true. She’d let him believe what he wanted because the truth had been too painful for her to face.

Even now it was difficult.

His eyes narrowed. “Then I was just some idiot you were laughing at?”

“No!” she protested with feeling. “You were sweet and kind and sensitive—”

His scowl deepened. “In other words, an idiot,” he said.