One Night with a Tempting Playboy: From Playboy to Papa! / The Legendary Playboy Surgeon / Unwrapping the Playboy

She forced her attention to her work to distract herself. A half hour passed, and a knock sounded at her front door. She noticed the time, 8:30 p.m. and cautiously rose. Glancing through the peephole, Nicole felt her stomach clench. Her worst nightmare was standing on her front porch.

Two (#ulink_654fb12a-0731-5400-89d7-10e85a0fccdc)

Nicole considered not opening the door, but she didn’t want Rafe Medici to continue ringing her doorbell, perhaps awakening Joel. Taking a quick shallow breath, she whisked the door open and met his gaze in silence, mentally girding herself for the battle she knew she faced.

“Joel is my son,” he said in a rock-hard voice.

“Joel is mine, legally and in every other way that counts,” she immediately responded. Keeping her voice cool wasn’t difficult since her blood felt like ice.

“Tabitha was his mother,” he said, his lips moving in a bitter smile. “I’m not surprised she didn’t want me to know since she felt I was good enough for playing, but not for staying.”

“Tabitha made her wishes clear in her will,” Nicole said. “She knew Joel needed a loving, nurturing and stable home environment.”

“Joel deserves to know his father,” Rafe said, anger glinting in his gaze. “He’s been deprived of that for almost four years.”

“I can assure you that Joel hasn’t suffered under my care. He is my top priority.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that he needs a father, too.” Rafe looked past her. “Are we going to continue to discuss this on the front porch, or are you going to let me in?”

Reluctantly, she stepped aside. She couldn’t help noticing how his tall, muscular body filled the small foyer. “If you wake up my son,” she said, “I won’t hesitate to call the authorities to have you removed from my home.”

He gave her an odd look. “I rarely find it necessary to raise my voice,” he said in a tone that oozed solid, quiet power.

Her thoughts immediately went in two different directions. With that kind of confidence, he wouldn’t need to rant and rave like her father had. Perhaps he accomplished whatever he wanted through a single quelling glance. She looked at his powerful hands and her stomach dipped in fear. Unless he used his fists.

Tabitha had never said he’d actually hit her, but she’d called him the brawny, bully type. An unsophisticated, but initially charming man she’d apparently underestimated.

“It’s time for me to meet my son,” he said.

Her heart jumped in apprehension. “I don’t want Joel’s life disrupted. He’s happy and secure. Meeting you would confuse him. Besides, it’s clear you don’t know anything about kids. He’s been in bed for an hour.”

“At some point, he’ll realize he has a father. The later I wait, the more he and I will regret the loss of time. I have legal rights. If I need to pursue things that way, I will.”

Nicole jerked her head around to meet his gaze. “Don’t you dare threaten me. What do you have to offer him? Where do you live? On some kind of playboy yacht? What kind of life is that for a child?”

Rafe’s mouth tightened. “I’m willing to make adjustments for my son. He should be living with me. I can hire help.”

Her blood boiled at the very thought. “Hire help? Why, how fatherly! I can’t believe you want a real relationship with Joel. You just want control, just like Tabitha said.”

Rafe stared at her and she realized she’d revealed too much. He rested his hands over his slim hips, his gaze taking her in, assessing her from head to toe. “What did Tabitha tell you about me?”

Her nerves jumping, she shrugged and stepped backward. “She said you frightened her. The two of you met at a club in Miami and had an affair that lasted a few months. She initially found you handsome and charming, although you seemed rougher around the edges than her usual boyfriends. Toward the end of the relationship, you became someone who wanted control of her.” She stopped short of telling him that Rafe had reminded her too much of their father.

Rafe inhaled, his nostrils flaring slightly. His demeanor appeared calm, but his eyes glinted with emotion. “So you took her impression of me as gospel,” he said. “Without ever meeting me.”

Nicole blinked. “Why shouldn’t I believe her? She was my sister.”

“Then you also know she wasn’t perfect,” he pointed out.

“No one is perfect.”

“Some people are more capable of fabricating lies than others,” he said.

“If you’re insinuating that Tabitha would lie about something this important—”

“Are you saying she never lied about other important things?” he asked.

She opened her mouth to protest, but faltered a half beat. “Nothing this important.”

“You don’t know me,” he said. “You’ve made judgments about me based on one flighty woman’s opinion. Are you as flighty as she was?”

“No,” she impulsively responded, and wished she could take back the words. Sentence by sentence, he seemed to be defeating her stance. She had to protect Joel. “I won’t let you make a mockery of my sister—the mother of Joel. Tabitha had her flaws, but everyone does. She loved life and she ended up practically giving her life when she gave birth to Joel. You need to leave.”

She saw him tamp down a flicker of impatience that seemed to ooze from every pore. “I have rights, Nicole. I’m Joel’s father. What if I’m not the man Tabitha said I am? How are you going to explain that to him when he starts asking where his father is?”

She felt the deepest, smallest sliver of doubt and tried to brush it aside, but it was like a small rock in her shoe. “I have to protect him.”

“I’ll give you one night to explain who I am. Day after tomorrow, I’m coming back to meet my son.”

Panic rushed through her. “It’s too soon.”

“It’s reasonable,” he said, his tone final.

The next day, Nicole visited her cousin, Julia. She told her cousin about Rafe after Julia put her two-month-old daughter down for a post-feeding nap.

“Your best bet is to cooperate,” Julia said, as she sank on to the leather couch and patted Nicole on the arm.

Nicole bit her lip. “There must be something I can do.”

Julia, dressed in a sweatshirt and yoga pants, was practical in nearly every area of her life. It was why law was such a good fit. “There are lots of things you can do, sweetie, but they’ll cost a ton of money and set up a huge amount of resentment between Joel’s father and you. Are you sure you want to go down that road?”

Nicole sighed. “But what if he’s a horrible father? What if he’s—” She almost couldn’t bring herself to say the word aloud. “Abusive,” she whispered.

Julia sighed. “Then that’s a different story.” She lifted her mug of herbal tea and took a sip. “Do you have reason to believe he’s abusive? What did Tabitha tell you?”

“She said he was a bully and that he reminded her of our father.”

Julia gave a slow nod. She knew the dark, inner workings of Nicole’s family. “I can see why that would alarm you.”

“Alarm is a mild term.”

Her cousin paused for a thoughtful moment. “I know you and Tabitha were close, but even you knew that she was prone to exaggeration.”

“Yes, but about something this important?”

“I’m not taking this man’s side, but I could see Tabitha calling someone a bully if they didn’t let her have her way.”

“I suppose so,” Nicole said reluctantly.