Falling for King's Fortune / Seduction, Westmoreland Style: Falling for King's Fortune

As it should be. Didn’t he have the damned engagement ring in his pocket? Wasn’t he planning on proposing tonight? He had plans for his life and they didn’t include mystery women, so best for him to get on with this.

“Yes, it’s big enough for several flights a day and I’ve already worked out a new schedule with my pilots,” he said, lifting his coffee cup for a sip. Dinner was over and there was only dessert left on the table. Naturally, Marian would no more eat the chocolate mousse she’d ordered than she would dance naked on the tabletop.

If there was one thing Jackson had learned about the woman over the last couple of months, it was that she was far more interested in how things looked than how things really were. She was painfully thin and ate almost nothing whenever they went out. And yet, she always ordered heartily, then spent her time pushing the food around on her plate with her fork.

His mystery woman, he recalled, had had curves. A body designed to allow a man to sink into her softness, cradle himself in her warmth.

Damn it.

Marian was watching him through calm brown eyes. Her dark brown hair was tucked into a knot on the back of her neck and her long-sleeved, high-necked black dress made her look even thinner and less approachable than usual. Why was he suddenly looking at Marian with different eyes?

And why couldn’t he stop?

The small velvet box in the pocket of his suit coat felt as if it were on fire. Its presence was a constant reminder of what he was there to do and yet, he hadn’t quite been able to bring himself to ask the question Marian was no doubt waiting to hear.

When he felt the vibration of his cell phone, Jackson reached for it gratefully. “Sorry,” he said. “Business.”

She nodded and Jackson glanced at the screen. He didn’t recognize the number, but flipped the phone open anyway and said, “Jackson King.”

“This is Casey.”

His heart jumped in his chest. Even if she hadn’t identified herself, he would have recognized that voice. He’d been hearing it in his sleep for days. But how the hell had she gotten this number? A question for another time. He shot a quick look at Marian, watching him, then keeping his own voice low and level, he said, “I’ve been wanting to talk to you.”

“Now’s your chance,” she said and he heard the hesitation in her tone. “I’m at Drake’s coffee shop on Pacific Coast Highway.”

“I know the place.”

“We need to talk. How soon can you get here?”

Jackson looked at Marian again and felt a small stab of relief at being able to escape this dinner and avoid asking the question he’d come there to ask. “Give me a half hour.”

“Fine.” She hung up instantly.

Jackson closed his phone, tucked it into his pocket and looked at the woman opposite him.

“Trouble?” she asked.

“A bit,” he said, grateful she wasn’t going to demand explanations. No doubt she was used to her father bolting out of dinners to take care of business. Reaching into his wallet, he pulled out the money required for the bill and a hefty tip. Then he stood up and asked, “I’ll take you home first.”

“Not necessary,” she said, lifting her coffee cup for a sip. “I’ll finish my coffee and get myself home.”

That didn’t set well. Bad enough he was leaving her to go meet another woman. The least he could do was see her home. But Marian had a mind of her own.

“Don’t be foolish, Jackson. I’m perfectly capable of calling a cab. Go. Take care of business.”

He shouldn’t have felt relief, but he did. Another small tidal wave of it splashing through him. “All right then. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

She nodded, but he’d already turned to weave his way through the diners seated at linen-draped tables. He hardly noticed his surroundings. His mind was already fixed on the coming meeting. He would finally see his mystery woman again. Finally discover just what she’d been up to when she’d come onto him. He’d find out if she’d been protected during their night together.

And if she played her cards right, maybe the two of them could share another night of amazing sex.

Forty-five minutes later, he was parked outside Drake’s. The place was practically an institution in this part of California. Around for more than fifty years, Drake’s was cheap, the food was good and they never closed.

A far cry from the quiet dignity of the restaurant he’d just left, when Jackson pulled the door to Drake’s open, he was met by a cacophony of sound. Conversations, laughter, a baby’s cry. Silverware being jangled into trays and the crash of dirty plates swept into buckets by harried busboys. The overhead lighting was bright to the point of glaring and the hostess, inspecting her nail polish, looked just as bright when she spotted Jackson.

He hardly noticed though. Instead, his gaze swept over the booths and tables until he found the person he was looking for. Blond hair, pale cheeks, and blue eyes focused on him.

“Thanks,” he said, walking past the hostess, “I found my table.”

Walking down the crowded, narrow aisle between booths, he kept his gaze locked with Casey’s and tried to read the emotions flashing one after the other across her features. But there were too many and they changed too quickly.

His gut fisted. Something was definitely up.

Tonight, she wasn’t dressed to seduce. Tonight, she wore a pale green, long-sleeved T-shirt and her short hair was mussed, as if she’d been running her fingers through it. She wore small silver stars in her ears and was chewing at her bottom lip.

Nerves?

She should be nervous, he told himself. He had a few things to say to her and he doubted she was going to like many of them. But damn, just looking at her made him hot and hard again. She had a way of getting to him like no other woman ever had. Not something he wanted to admit even to himself, let alone her. But it was there. A niggling tug of desire that was damned hard to ignore. He stopped alongside her table, opened his mouth to speak and then slammed it shut again.

Beside her in the red vinyl booth, was a child’s booster seat. And in that seat was a baby girl. Jackson scowled as the infant—surely not even a year old yet—turned her face up to his and grinned, displaying two tiny white teeth.

And his eyes.

Tearing his gaze from the child, Jackson glared at Casey and ground out, “Just what the hell is going on?”

For just a moment, Casey wondered if Dani hadn’t been right. Maybe she should have just told him her news over the phone. At least then, she wouldn’t be faced with a tall, gorgeous furious male looking at her as if she’d dropped down from the moon.

Casey had watched him arrive. Watched him approach, in his thousand-dollar suit, looking as out of place at Drake’s as a picnic basket at a five-star restaurant. He’d obviously been out when she called. And she couldn’t help wondering who he’d been with.

Now, she stared up into his eyes—the same eyes she saw every morning when her daughter woke up to smile at her—and fought down the nerve-induced churning in the pit of her stomach. She’d known he’d be angry and she was prepared for that. Didn’t mean she had to like it.

Yes, she was doing the right thing. The only thing she could do, being the kind of person she was. But that didn’t mean she wanted to. Or that she was feeling at all easy about this confrontation.

She watched as he shifted his gaze from her to the baby and back again and felt his tension mount. She didn’t need to see it in the hard set of his broad shoulders or the tight clenching of his jaw. She could feel it, radiating out around him, like flames looking for fresh tinder.

And things were only going to get worse in the next few minutes.

“Why don’t you sit down, Jackson?” she finally said, waving one hand at the bench seat opposite her. Keepcalm, she told herself. You’re two mature adults. This canbe settled quickly and calmly.

As if he’d just remembered that they were in public, he grudgingly slid into the booth, braced his forearms on the table and glared at her.

Maybe not calmly. But at least he wasn’t willing to shout and argue in public. Precisely why she’d chosen Drake’s to let him in on her little secret. “Thanks for coming.”

“Oh, are we being polite now?” He shook his head and let his gaze slide to the baby, now happily gumming the corner of a teething biscuit.

Casey knew what he was seeing. A beautiful little girl with a thatch of dark brown curls and big brown eyes. Her cheeks were rosy from the nap she’d taken on the drive to the diner and her smile was wide and delighted with the world.

But Jackson didn’t look so delighted. He looked more like he’d been hit over the head with a two-by-four. Casey could hardly blame him for being shocked. Her daughter was the best thing that had ever happened to Casey. But Jackson was being slapped with a reality that she had been living with for nearly two years.