Kian (Undercover Billionaire, #1)(47)

“I don’t know how these parents seem so relaxed. I remember playing on this same type of equipment, but it didn’t seem so dangerous back then. There’s potential for bone breakage in every direction I look,” Kian complained.

“Did you ever break a bone?” Roxie asked.

“Well, yeah, but not at the playground,” he said.

“How, then?” she asked.

“I was sliding into home plate my freshman year of high school and twisted wrong, snapping my ankle,” he said. “Hurt like hell, but I was safe, so it was worth it,” he said smugly.

“Well, as long as you were safe,” Roxie told him with a chuckle.

“Of course. If I’d gotten out, I’d have been pissed,” he said. It was pretty logical to him.

Roxie laughed, and he decided right then and there, he wanted to make her laugh as often as possible. It was not only a beautiful sound, but it went straight to his gut and made his heart pound.

He’d thought he was over this woman, but he now knew he’d been living in denial. As much as he wanted to have his daughter living with him right this moment, he was having to go back to that patient word again, because now his goals were bigger. Now he found that he wanted them both.

Roxie loved Lily, and she would be an excellent mom for her. He could have his daughter and a wife. The past would always be there, but now they had more than themselves to think about. Now they had Lily, and she needed a mother and a father. They could do that together. Kian wasn’t sure how he was going to go about reaching his goals; he just knew this was too important to screw up.

Roxie would have to watch out, though, because once he set his mind on something, he wouldn’t quit until he got what he desired. And right now, he wanted Lily and Roxie.

Game on.





Chapter Nineteen

Roxie had no idea what to think or feel anymore. She wasn’t sure she even trusted herself, let alone anyone else in her life. Confusion seemed to be the one emotion she could be sure of. Why, oh, why had she allowed herself to get pulled back into the orbit of Kian Forbes? Was she a glutton for punishment?

She’d told herself that chapter of her life was over, and then bam! On-call room. The sad thing was, she couldn’t even regret it. The sex had been that good. The self-recriminations weren’t the best after, but during, oh, during, had been well worth the fifty lashes she should give herself.

Of course, she couldn’t allow her train of thought to go down that route. Nope. That got her kinky mind to thinking in bad, bad ways, and since Lily was in her car seat, napping, Roxie certainly didn’t want to have sex and ropes and mouths and . . . Nope! Had to turn off those thoughts again. What in the world was wrong with her?

Maybe it was because, until that first night at Kian’s after Lily was released from the hospital, she hadn’t had sex since so brilliantly deciding to leave Kian four years ago. She’d almost forgotten how amazingly wonderful it actually was. But he’d awakened her in a big way.

She wondered if it would be wrong to do it just once more. No. She couldn’t think like that. One more time would never be enough when it came to a man like Kian. He certainly knew his way around a woman’s body, and though she hadn’t been with anyone since she’d left him, she knew for sure he had.

Looking in her rearview mirror confirmed that for her. He’d not only been with other women, but one of them had been her sister. That made her cringe. Sure, he might not have known it was her sister, but still, it was disgusting. She felt a deep betrayal she couldn’t figure out how to push away.

Besides the fact that he’d slept with her sister, what was happening between them was going at warp speed. From the moment she’d come back to town, the man had been everywhere, in person and in her thoughts and dreams. She didn’t know how to handle that.

For now, Roxie was trapped in her car. Lily had fallen asleep, and as soon as her vehicle pulled up to home, her niece would wake up, and then she’d be grumpy because she hadn’t slept long enough. Roxie didn’t mind peaceful Sunday drives, though. There never tended to be much traffic out, and it gave her a chance to clear her head. She liked to explore new areas. But now that she had Lily with her, she was a lot more careful. She didn’t need to get lost in some back-roads area where a creeper killer found her and she was never seen again. The things a person thought about with a child in the car were much different from what they imagined when they were responsible for only themselves.

As she continued down the road, her thoughts turned to Kian again. At one time, she’d been so in love with him, she hadn’t known where he ended and she began. That had frightened her. She hadn’t wanted to lose herself in another’s identity. That hadn’t been his fault, though. It was all on her shoulders. But even knowing that, she was scared to open that door again. Kian had changed in the past four years.

He’d always been a confident man—it was why she’d been so drawn to him. But now he was harder around the edges, not quite so trusting. She was tense around him, just waiting for the shoe to drop regarding when he’d serve her with papers to take Lily away. He seemed to be playing by her rules for the moment, but she knew that wasn’t likely to last. He would give up on her eventually. Didn’t everybody?

Unlike Kian, who had a beautiful family, Roxie had no one. The one thing she’d always been able to count on was disappointment. People came and went in life, but the truth was that they always did go. It wasn’t a matter of if; it was a matter of when. Maybe that’s why she’d left Kian. Maybe she knew she wouldn’t have been able to handle it if he left her.