One Night to Forever
Автор
Joss Wood
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13
One
Lachlyn Latimore walked into the hallway of what was perhaps the most famous brownstone in Manhattan, possibly the world. Known to New Yorkers as The Den, it was five stories of weathered brick, owned and lived in by multiple generations of the Ballantyne family.
The family she was apparently linked to by DNA.
Lachlyn politely thanked Linc Ballantyne when he took her vintage coat and draped it over the back of a chaise longue chair to the right of the wood and stained glass front door. Lachlyn hoped that he didn’t notice the coat’s frayed pocket or missing button.
Lachlyn folded her arms across her plain white long-sleeved top and resisted the urge to wipe her damp hands on her black skinny jeans. As the newly discovered, illegitimate daughter of Connor Ballantyne, who’d been jeweler to the world’s richest and most powerful people and a Manhattan legend, she had a right to feel intimidated. Connor might have passed years ago but his children were as influential and celebrated as their late father.
Lachlyn darted a glance at the portrait of Connor situated on the wall directly opposite the grand staircase. She’d inherited Connor’s blue eyes, bright blond hair, that straight, fine nose. She had her mom’s tiny build and wide, full mouth but the rest of her was, dammit, pure Ballantyne.
“Thanks for coming over, Lachlyn. Let’s go down to the family room,” Linc suggested and gestured her to follow him, but before they could move, the doorbell rang.
Linc sent her an apologetic look. “Sorry, that’s my son’s babysitter.” Retracing his steps, he placed his hand on the carved newel post and called up the stairs. “Shaw? Reame is here.”
Linc flipped open the lock to the front door and Lachlyn watched a very tall man step into the hallway to immediately dominate the space. Now, that was a hell of a babysitter, Lachlyn thought. While Linc and the sexy stranger did that half handshake, half hug men did, Lachlyn made a bullet list of the sexy stranger’s attributes: caramel-colored hair, tanned olive skin, golden scruff on his jaw. Wide shoulders, narrow hips and a fairly spectacular ass...
She wasn’t one to normally notice men’s butts, so this was new. His eyes—a clear, light green—touched her face and she felt like she was all woman, utterly desirable. Lachlyn searched for air, found none and decided breathing didn’t matter if she had him to look at. She felt alive, sexy, in tune and in touch with every spark of femininity she possessed. He oozed confidence and capability and God, he made her feel alive.
So this was that thing they called sexual attraction. Hot, pulsing, making her ache with a need to touch and be touched. He looked like a modern-day Sir Galahad, the original white knight: strong, capable, decisive and sexy enough to turn medieval and modern-day female heads.
He wasn’t her type, though. In order to have a type, you had to be interested in dating, men and relationships.
Hearing a yell from above their heads, Lachlyn dragged her eyes from his muscled thighs—what were her eyes doing down there?—and looked up to watch a young boy dash down the stairs. From five steps up, the child threw himself into the air and Lachlyn released a terrified gasp, convinced that his small body would make contact with the floor. She stumbled forward but before she could make any progress, the tall man caught the child and tucked him under his arm like a football.
Lachlyn placed her hand on her heart and closed her eyes. Holy crap, she’d thought the kid was going to end up splattered all over the wooden floor.
“You’ve got to stop doing that, Shaw,” Linc stated, not looking or sounding worried. In fact, of the three of them, she seemed to be the only one who was remotely concerned about blood, broken bones or stitches.
Linc gestured to Lachlyn. “Reame, meet Lachlyn Latimore. Lachlyn, Reame Jepsen is my oldest friend. And he’s holding my son, Shaw.”
The man dropped Shaw to his feet and their eyes collided. Whoosh—there went the air in the room. Again.
“Ms. Latimore.”
His voice was deep and held just a hint of gravel, a touch of rasp. Lachlyn wanted to know what his words felt like as they hit her bare skin... He held out a hand and she could easily imagine it gliding over her hip, cupping her breast. Lachlyn felt lava flow into her cheeks and ignored his broad, masculine hand. She didn’t trust herself to touch him. She wasn’t going to risk spontaneously combusting and setting Linc’s hallway alight.
“Hi,” she muttered, looking down at her shoes.
“Hi back.” Yeah, she heard the amusement in his words. Lachlyn forced her eyes up and...yep, she caught his quick smirk. Reame Jepsen liked the effect he had on women and wasn’t even a tiny bit surprised by her ridiculous reaction. Usually that smirk would be a total turn-off but instead of being repulsed, she found his self-confidence attractive. Even alluring.
Oh, man. Not good. In fact, very, very bad.
“Unca Reame!”
Reame’s eyes left her face—thank God, she felt pinned to the floor—to look down at Shaw, who was hanging on to his bulging-with-muscles arm. Oh, stop it, Lachlyn! Shaw monkey-climbed up the side of Reame’s body, eventually settling on Reame’s hip. Lachlyn watched as Shaw lifted his top lip to show Reame a bloody gap in his mouth.
“I losth my tooth,” Shaw lisped.
“I see that,” Reame replied. “You look gross.”
Shaw grinned before scowling. “The tooth fairy forgot to come.”
Standing behind Shaw, Linc grimaced and rolled his eyes. Lachlyn might not know a lot about kids but it was obvious that someone forgot to leave cash under Shaw’s pillow. “Bummer. The tooth fairy who services this area must be a bit of a slacker,” Reame said, managing to keep his face straight.
“Mom said it’s because I didn’t pick up my toys and that the tooth fairy is probably a girl and girl fairies don’t like messy rooms,” Shaw said, looking disgusted.
“Maybe that’s it.”
There was nothing sexier than watching a handsome man interacting with a cute kid, Lachlyn decided. They could easily be part of a TV commercial and would sell the advertised product by the caseload.
“Try again tonight, bud,” Reame suggested and Lachlyn’s lips quirked at the don’t you dare forget look he sent Linc.
“Can we go already?” Shaw whined, tugging on Reame’s arm.
Reame nodded and Lachlyn saw the smile he directed at the young boy. It was open and affectionate and ten times more powerful than his earlier smirk. It was obvious that he enjoyed Linc’s son and Linc seemed fully comfortable in handing Shaw into his care. Since everyone in the city knew that Linc was a devoted and protective father, he had to have complete faith that Reame would keep Shaw safe. That was, Lachlyn realized, a hell of an endorsement. Jepsen might look like a sports model but Linc trusted him with his son so that meant he had to have some skills.
Lachlyn listened as Linc and his friend confirmed arrangements for dropping Shaw off and within thirty seconds, the gorgeous man and the gregarious boy were gone and she was alone with Linc.
She wanted to know who Reame was and how he fit into Linc’s life. So, strangely for her, she asked.
“I’ve known him all my life. We lived in the same neighborhood as young kids,” Linc replied. “My mom got the job as Connor’s housekeeper and we moved into this house but, despite living totally different lives on opposite sides of the city, Reame and I remained friends.”
She shouldn’t ask anything more, but no man had ever affected her the way Reame had and, well, she was curious. “Does he work for you, at Ballantyne International?”
“God, no, we’d kill each other.” Linc shook his head, seemingly at ease with her questions. “Reame owns a security consulting company. He was in the military, in one of those hush-hush units that did hush-hush things. He has a hell of a military record, including some hefty commendations for bravery. For a couple of years, I didn’t see or hear from him for months at a time. That’s the life these Special Forces guys lived. Then...” Linc hesitated and Lachlyn gave him a sharp look. He wasn’t going to stop talking now, was he?
“Then?” Lachlyn prompted, accompanying the question with a mental slap.
“He had a crisis in his family and he needed to come home. His mom and sisters needed him. He left the military and started work as Connor’s bodyguard. He’s a natural entrepreneur, so after picking up more clients, he started employing his military friends as bodyguards and his security business was born. Add in cheating spouse investigations and cyber security for corporations, and Jepsen & Associates is one of the biggest security companies in the city,” Linc said, sounding proud.
Beauty, brawn and brains. It was a good thing that she’d never see him again; the man was trouble.
Big, beautiful trouble.
* * *
Walking away from The Den, Reame slowed his steps so that Shaw didn’t have to jog to keep up with him. “So, want to tell me why you sent me an SOS message? I thought we agreed that you can only use that message for emergencies.”
Reame hadn’t been worried when he received the “help me” picture-message sent from Tate’s phone two hours earlier since he’d been on a call with Linc at the time and knew that everything was fine at The Den.
“It was an emergency. Spike wanted you to take me to the batting cages.”
Yeah, right. “An emergency is when someone is hurt, or there’s a fire or there’s blood. Not a message about baseball from a bearded dragon, Shaw,” Reame told his godson. “Does Tate know that you used her phone?”
Tate was Linc’s fiancée and the reason his best mate now walked around with a dopey, having-great-sex look on his face. Actually, all the Ballantyne men had lucked out with their women. It was strange to see his childhood friends settled down. It wasn’t that long ago that they were all running around Manhattan, enjoying their status as the island’s most eligible bachelors. But recently, each of them had fallen and fallen hard. Reame, a die-hard bachelor and commitment-phobe, had laughed his ass off.
He liked Piper, Cady and Tate and respected his friends’ choices. But settling down wasn’t something he was interested in. The thought of placing himself in that situation caused his throat to close and his stomach to cramp.
Marriage, the emotional equivalent of antifreeze...
Pulling his attention back to Shaw, Reame realized that he had yet to answer his question. “Well?”
“Kind of.”
That meant no. Before Reame could chastise him, Shaw turned those big blue eyes on him. “It was a ’mergency, Uncle Ree. I would’ve had to go to Auntie Piper’s house ’cause dad wanted to talk to that lady. And I’d have to play with the babies,” Shaw complained. “Since you were only working, I thought we could hang out.”
Only working... If that’s what he could call running a multimillion-dollar international security business. “I needed you to save me from playing with the babies,” Shaw stated dramatically.
Master manipulator, Reame thought, but, damn, he was cute. Reame sighed and shook his head. He’d survived brutal training, fought in intense battles both in war and in the boardroom, but he was putty in Shaw’s hands. The reality was that if Shaw—or any of the Ballantynes—called he’d drop everything. They were family. It was what they did.
“That lady was pretty,” Shaw said, cleverly changing the subject.
Pretty? No. She was heart-stoppingly, spine-tinglingly beautiful and he hadn’t had such a primitive reaction to a woman in, well, years. Possibly not ever.
Reame looked down into the mischievous face of his godson and lifted his eyebrows. “Aren’t you a little young to be noticing pretty girls?” he asked.
Shaw wrinkled his nose, bunching his freckles together. God, he loved this kid. “She’s my Grandpa Connor’s real daughter. But she wasn’t ’dopted by him, like Dad was.”
“So I heard, bud.”
When the Ballantynes first heard of Lachlyn’s possible connection to their family—thanks to her brother, Tyce Latimore—Reame had immediately ordered his best investigator to dig into her life. On paper, she seemed like nothing special. She lived alone, worked at the New York Public Library, seemed to keep to herself. Nothing about her raised any flags but looking at the photo in the file, his stomach had flipped. Back then, for some reason, and although he’d yet to meet her, she’d bothered him. Despite not knowing anything about her except that she was Connor’s daughter, she’d made him feel queasy, unsettled.
The same instinct that had saved his ass on many hot situations as a Special Forces operative had screamed that Lachlyn Latimore would have some impact on his life.
Meeting her hadn’t done anything to quiet the raging bats-on-speed in his stomach, Reame thought, keeping a light hand on Shaw’s shoulder as they walked to a baseball center a few blocks away from The Den. The photos in Lachlyn’s file hadn’t done her justice. Her eyes and face were Connor’s but her eyes were a deeper blue, almost violet, her face finer, her cheekbones more pronounced, and her mouth looked like it was made to be kissed. She was tiny, she barely reached his shoulder, but curvy and strung tighter than a steel guitar.
It had taken every ounce of his willpower to wrench his eyes off her exquisite face in order to catch Shaw’s midair flight. Reame shuddered, thinking that if he’d taken a second longer to react, Shaw would have hit the deck at lightning speed. The kid really had to stop thinking he was a superhero. Or Reame had to keep his concentration around pretty women.
Not something he generally had a problem with.
Women liked him and he liked women, when he had time for them. He usually didn’t; running and growing a business took all his energy and what little free time he did have that wasn’t spent at work or with his friends—particularly the Ballantynes—was taken up by his demanding sisters and slightly neurotic mother.
But his me-time was finally here. His business was established enough and his staff competent enough for him to step back a fraction, freeing up some precious spare time. His family was also, for all intents and purposes, off his hands. For ten years, since his father had decided to go AWOL after twenty-five years of marriage, he wasn’t his mother’s and sisters’ sounding board, their bank manager, the payer of bills. His youngest sister was starting a new job next week and that meant, thank God, he was free of being responsible for her.
In two weeks his mom would take a three-month cruise with his aunt and he would be free of what his mom called her “little problems.” Since Reame was the only one of her children close by, she tended to call him. A lot. She also wasn’t averse to guilting him into visiting, and when that didn’t work, she made up little stories about her health or problems with her house to bring him running.
Those two weeks and freedom couldn’t come soon enough. He was going to party hard and date wild women, women who knew the score, who wanted nothing more than a good time. He was going to sow all the wild oats he’d been storing up over the past ten years and he was going to sow them hard and sow them well.
The thought that he might be wanting wild because he was avoiding love and commitment jumped into his head. He was self-aware enough to realize that his quest for me-time went deeper than a simple desire to walk on the wild side. He prided himself on being responsible and part of that responsibility was not subjecting any woman to the chance that he might, like his dad, fail at a relationship, at being what a woman wanted, or needed. He’d never failed in his life and he didn’t intend to start now.
Deeper reasons or not, he damn well deserved to live life hard and fast, responsible only for himself. His motivations could wait until he worked this restlessness out of his system.
Approaching the baseball center, Reame decided that he could start tonight, if he was so inclined. After he dropped Shaw off with Tate, he could go out, do something. Reame shook his head, thinking that he didn’t feel like hitting a bar and spinning a line. He’d joined a dating app a few months back and maybe it was time he actually put it to its full use. New York was a big city and, in the little free time he had, he trawled through the photos, swiping right when he found someone he found attractive. He’d had a couple of quick conversations with a few women but hadn’t made any firm plans with anyone to meet in real life.
That brown-eyed blonde was hot and there was that psychologist who intrigued him more than most. He tried to remember what she looked like but Lachlyn Latimore’s face jumped onto the big screen of his mind.
Dating Linc’s new sister wasn’t an option for a hundred and ten reasons. Not constructive thinking, dude, not constructive at all. Frustrated with himself, Reame decided to work and, as per usual, he promised himself that in the morning he’d make it a priority to find himself a date.
Reame pulled open the door to the baseball center and looked down when Shaw tugged his coat. “You really aren’t listening to me, Unca Reame.”
Reame winced. He hadn’t heard a word Shaw had said. “Sorry, bud, what’s up?”
Shaw reached inside his jacket and Reame saw a scaly tail, tiny feet and the pissed-off face of Spike, Shaw’s bearded dragon. “Spike’s going to want pizza when we’re done. Batting makes him hungry.”
Yeah, food wasn’t what he was hungry for. But if Lachlyn Ballantyne offered to eat pizza with him, preferably naked, he was sure he could force down a slice or two.
