Winter's Kiss
He gave a slight head shake. “You told him?” he asked, his careful tone not hiding his surprise. His disappointment. “Why would you do that?”
His reaction killed her. Made her feel worse than ever. His question surprised her. Her mom and Zach would be more focused on what she’d done. Not why she’d done it.
If they found out the truth, Susan would lay the mother—no pun intended—of all guilt trips on her, one laced with plenty of maternal disapproval and heavy sighs. Zach, on the other hand, would get quiet. Never a good sign. The quieter her brother got, the angrier he was, and God help you if you were the one on the other end of that anger. After he gathered his thoughts, the silence would end and the lecture would begin. He’d tell her she had to be careful. That she couldn’t trust everything that came out of someone’s mouth—especially if that someone was male. He’d go into warrior mode, all overprotective and rigid.
Zach didn’t think she could take care of herself. And that was why Oakes was in her life in the first place. When Zach had joined the marines, he’d asked Oakes to check in on her, to make sure she was okay, and Oakes, being the good guy he was, had gone above and beyond. Stepping into the role of big brother whenever Zach was deployed.
As if she actually needed—or wanted—two older brothers. She wasn’t a freaking masochist.
“I didn’t invite my... Michael here,” she told Oakes. “I just...mentioned that I was graduating and that I was valedictorian and I guess he thought he’d...show up to see my speech or something.”
No way could she admit the only reason her father had come, the only thing he’d wanted from her, was money.
He didn’t want her at all.
“You mentioned it to him,” Oakes said and she wondered if that was a lawyer thing, repeating everything a person said. Not that he was an attorney yet—he’d just graduated from the University of Texas at Austin’s law school a week ago—but he must have picked up a few things during his studies. “So you’ve spoken with him before? Met with him?”
“No. I mean, we haven’t met up or anything. Today was the first time I’ve seen him in years. I swear. But we have been communicating with each other by email for...a few months.” Just because she was being honest didn’t mean she had to be totally honest. “He said he wanted to talk to me. See how I was doing, find out what was going on in my life. He told me he’d quit drinking and I believed him.” Her humiliation was so complete, she couldn’t even look at Oakes’s reaction to her confession. “Pretty stupid, huh?”
“Hey, hey,” he said, his voice so much deeper than the guys her own age, the smooth timbre of it causing her stomach to tighten pleasantly. He took her chin between his finger and thumb, then gently raised her head until she met his eyes. “You are not stupid.”
Tears threatened but she blinked them back. She could let them fall later, during the ceremony, when everyone would assume she was getting weepy and sentimental about the end of her childhood. “I was dumb to believe him. To trust him. I thought... I thought he’d gotten sober for me. So he could be in my life.”
Oakes stepped closer. He smelled good. Some highly expensive cologne probably, but at least he didn’t bathe in it like high-school boys did. “Your father is missing out by not having you in his life, but you? You are not missing a damn thing by him not being in yours. You don’t need him.” His voice lowered, but his eyes never left hers. “You are strong and independent. Smart and funny. Creative and beautiful. You are too special to ever forget that or doubt it—or yourself—for a moment.”
Warmth suffused her. Oakes thought she was special. Beautiful. She’d had guys tell her she was pretty before, others had claimed she was hot or had commented on how her body looked in certain clothes, but no one had ever before called her beautiful.
Other than her mom and that definitely did not count.
She wanted to believe he meant it. But her mom’s lessons had been ingrained after all.
Trusting was harder than it looked.
“You don’t have to say that,” she mumbled, leaning back so he wasn’t touching her anymore. “I’m not a charity case.”
“No one thinks you are.”
She rolled her eyes. “Please. We both know the only reason I’m even at this school is because of your family’s money.” Zach wouldn’t touch his trust fund for his own needs, but he had no problem spending his father’s money on her and their mother. He’d bought them a house, paid their expenses and would be footing the bill when Daphne attended Rice University this fall. “Just like we both know the only reason you’re here today is because Zach told you to come.”
Oakes smiled, looking much more like his usual good-humored self. “As much as Zach likes to believe otherwise, he’s not the boss of me. I don’t jump to do his bidding.”
Crossing her arms, she raised her eyebrows. “No?”
“Okay, maybe he did ask me to come,” Oakes said. “But only because he was upset he couldn’t be here himself.”
She was proud of her brother for serving their country, but there were times she wished he’d just stayed in Houston and gotten a regular job that didn’t require permission to attend his sister’s graduation.
But as disappointed as she’d been that Zach hadn’t been granted leave, hearing Oakes admit he was there because Zach had asked him to be was somehow worse.
She’d worry about why that was later.
“Yeah, well, you did your brotherly good deed,” she told him, bending down to pick up the note cards, which she just realized she’d dropped, and her mortarboard, which she placed back on her head. Then she said, “You don’t have to stay for the ceremony. I’ll be sure to tell Zach you attended.”
She turned to walk away but Oakes caught her wrist. Tugged her back. “He asked me to come,” Oakes repeated, “but I’m here because I want to be here. Though I would have preferred if you’d invited me yourself.”
She frowned. “You wanted me to invite you? Why?”
“Because we’re friends.”
Friends. She let the sound of it roll around in her brain a few times. She’d never thought of him as a friend. Yeah, they hung out a few times a year, usually with her mom as some sort of chaperone because an older guy and a teenage girl held too many creepy Dateline implications. Could it be that all this time, when he’d taken her bowling or out to dinner, when he’d asked about her school, her interests and friends, it wasn’t so he could report back to Zach, but because he was truly interested?
“Oh” was all she could manage, and even that was tough to get past the lump in her throat.
“Yeah. Oh.” He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket. “And with everything that happened, I forgot the reason I came looking for you in the first place.” He pulled out a long, narrow box tied with red and black ribbons—her school colors. “Here.” She took the box, stared at it for so long he laughed and nudged her hand. “Open it.”
She pulled off the ribbon and lifted the lid to reveal a gold elephant charm on a delicate chain.
“I know you like elephants,” he said, taking the necklace from the box, “and I read once that they’re a symbol of good luck so I thought you could wear it during your speech.” He reached around her, fastening the necklace behind her neck before gently lifting her hair from the chain.
She looked up at him, unsure of how they’d gotten so close, but not able to move back so much as an inch. He’d come to her rescue, wanted to be at her graduation and had told her she was beautiful. Plus, he’d remembered she liked elephants and he’d bought her a present. And he looked so unsure, as if he was worried she didn’t like it.
Daphne threw her arms around him and hugged him hard.
“Ouch,” he said with a chuckle when the pointy corner of her mortarboard jabbed his cheek.
“Sorry,” she said against his shoulder because it felt way too good being held against his solid body to even lift her head. Especially since he was hugging her back.
But after a few moments she knew she had to let go or things would be all sorts of awkward between them. She leaned back, meaning to smile at him, to thank him for, well...everything, but when she opened her mouth, nothing came out. He was close...like, really, really close. His hands were on her waist, her arms still wrapped around his neck, and their bodies pressed together.
Her smile slipped away. Their gazes locked. Held. For one heartbeat. Then two. His fingers tightened and she had to stop herself from not delving her own fingertips into the hair at the nape of his neck. She was afraid to move, afraid to do anything that would break this fragile moment. And that’s exactly what it was. A moment. A very real, very intense one between her and Oakes Bartasavich—a man eight years older than her, who was already out of high school, college and law school. A true grown-up with a job and his own apartment and his life all mapped out.
It was the best moment of her entire life.
Until he blinked and stepped back, his hands falling from her waist. He grinned but it looked strained, especially with his jaw being so tight. Sweat dotted his upper lip. She wanted to say something flirtatious, something adult-sounding, but what came out was “You won’t tell Zach, will you?”
He flinched, as if the sound of her brother’s name—of their brother’s name—was like a slap to the face. And she realized she’d just put Zach between them, between even the possibility of them.
Yes, her list of mistakes just kept on growing.
“About my dad, I mean,” she clarified, in case he thought she meant about their embrace—and that was how she’d think of it from this day forward. Not a simple hug between friendly acquaintances, but an embrace between a man and a woman. An almost woman, anyway. “You know, about him coming here and me, uh, emailing him. Which I won’t do anymore,” she added quickly.
Oakes grabbed the back of his neck and she had the feeling she was about to have a firsthand experience of what a lecture from him would be like: polite, no doubt. Calmly stated and oh, so very reasonable.
And really, her day had been crappy enough, thanks all the same. No need to add on to the pile.
“Look,” she said, stepping toward him, only to have him take a quick step back. And wasn’t that interesting? Not to mention quite encouraging. “I promise not to have anything else to do with my father, and I hope you can promise to keep what happened here today our little secret.”
His gaze flew to hers. “What happened here?”
“With Michael?” Oakes stared at her blankly. “Him coming here. You almost killing him. Any of this ringing a bell?”
He laughed. Not really a ha-ha-I’m-so-amused chuckle. More like a relieved, oh-thank-God-that’s-what-you-meant laugh. “Right. Yeah. I promise.”
He held out his hand—always the lawyer—and she shook it, let her palm linger against his for a moment longer than necessary, just to test this new, amazing reaction to him. She felt a definite spark from the contact.
Yep. Still there and very much real.
The headmaster appeared out of the double glass doors down the walkway and called Daphne’s name. She’d have to think about that spark and her reaction later. For now, she had a speech to deliver and a diploma to get.
“I’d better go,” she said. “Thanks for everything. Especially the necklace. And for coming today. It means a lot.”
He smiled and her heart fluttered. “I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”
She kept her own smile easy and light, gave a little finger wave then turned and practically skipped toward the door. Her mother was wrong. Good guys weren’t too good to be true. And they didn’t come any better than Oakes Bartasavich. There’d been a very real, very heated and adult connection between her and Oakes. A shared moment where everything between them had changed.
A moment where she’d fallen in love with him.
CHAPTER ONE
Six years later
OAKES BARTASAVICH CONSIDERED himself a lucky man. He was healthy, had a large and close-knit family and had recently made partner at one of Houston’s most successful law firms—two years ahead of his original schedule.
And yet, despite all that good fortune, this was the first time he’d awakened at 3:00 a.m. to find a beautiful woman in a tight, short red dress on his porch, with a pair of sparkly silver high heels and matching purse in one hand.
Too bad. A man could get used to this.
Not this particular beautiful woman, he amended quickly. Another beautiful woman. One who was closer to his own age of thirty-one, whose ties to him and his family weren’t so complicated.
Definitely not Daphne Lynch, with her dark hair, blue eyes and curvy, voluptuous body. Daphne Lynch, the twenty-three-year-old half sister of Zach Castro, one of Oakes’s five half brothers.
Yeah. Complicated summed it up. And was the best possible definition of his family.
“Daphne,” he said, his voice rough from sleep. He cleared his throat. Wished he’d thought to change into jeans, maybe pulled on a shirt instead of rushing to the door in his bare feet and a pair of thin pajama pants. There was definitely a chill in the early December air. “What’s the matter? Are you hurt?”
“Nope. I’m just fine and dandy. I haven’t been mugged or in an accident. I’m not being chased by a crazed lunatic or running from the cops.” She patted his bare chest, her fingers cool against his skin, then lowered her voice conspiratorially. “I’m drunk.”
“Yes,” he said, taking in her flushed cheeks, glazed eyes and the way she was swaying, like a tree in the wind. “I can see that now.”
Would have seen it right away, he assured himself, if he hadn’t been so shocked by her presence. It was the dress’s fault. The neckline was too wide and low, showing ample amounts of golden skin and the rounded tops of her full breasts. It was too tight, the gathered material clinging to her waist and hugging her hips. And it was way too short, ending an inch above midthigh.
“Well?” she asked, her hand now pressed to his chest, her pinkie rubbing the spot just above his heart. His body liked her touch way too much.
Stepping back, he grabbed her wrist and tugged her hand away before she noticed how hard his heart was beating. “Well what, Daphne?”
“Aren’t you going to invite me in?”
Invite her in? As in inside his house? No. Better yet, make that hell no.
He was a smart man. A cautious one. Cautious enough to know that letting Daphne Lynch into his home at this late hour, in her current state, wearing that damn dress, would be the beginning of the end of his life as he knew it.
A life he liked just the way it was.
“Please, Oakes.” Her voice was low. Sexy. Inviting. The hairs at the nape of his neck stood on end. His fingers tightened on her slender wrist. She shifted closer, her knee brushing his leg, her scent clouding his brain.
For a second, a brief, terrifying moment in time, he forgot all the very valid, extremely reasonable reasons why he shouldn’t want her. All the problems that would arise should he give in to his baser instincts, the ones that had dogged him with increasing intensity over the past few years.
In that all-too-fleeting space of time, he allowed himself the luxury of imagining they were just two unattached adults with no crazy family connections. No shared siblings. No tangled ties to trip over. If he wasn’t a Bartasavich, if she had a different mother, if Zach hadn’t been born, Oakes could take what he wanted. Could finally bend his head, press his mouth against hers and see if the spark he’d been doing his best to deny for six years would sputter and fade. Or burst into flame.
Daphne shifted. And shifted again, her left hip, then her right. “I really, really have to pee.”
The breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding rushed out of his mouth on a short, surprised laugh. He needed to check his ego. She wasn’t here to seduce him. She had to use the bathroom.
He’d go to his grave claiming he wasn’t disappointed.
“Sorry,” he said, opening the door wider and moving back. “Come on in.”
She brushed against him as she stepped inside, the contact slight enough, he was sure it must have been an accident.
Too bad his body didn’t understand that the brief feel of a woman’s soft, fragrant skin and lush curves against him didn’t require the beginnings of an erection.
“Uh...the bathroom’s down the hall, first door on the right,” he told her.
Already heading that way, she waved a hand at him, the ends of her dark hair brushing her shoulders. “I know where it is.”
“Right.” Of course she did. This wasn’t the first time she’d been in his home. They were friends. In a roundabout way. A very twisting, turning, convoluted way.
In the way that meant he shouldn’t let his gaze drop, shouldn’t tip his head to the side and take in how good her ass looked in that dress, shouldn’t enjoy the sway of her hips. He jerked his eyes up but that wasn’t any better. Again, he blamed the dress. Because instead of a back, one with plenty of coverage, it had only two straps twisted together to form an X.
And he was going to hell for wanting to trace one of those straps, for wanting, if only for a brief, crazed moment in time, to brush aside her hair and trail a finger up the back of her neck. For not being able to turn away until she’d closed the bathroom door behind her.
Damn Bartasavich genes. Always trying to get him into trouble. But he wasn’t his father. Clinton Bartasavich, Sr. had spent his entire life taking what he wanted without thought or care to the consequences. Mostly because when you were one of the wealthiest men in the country, there were no consequences.
It would have been easy for Oakes to follow in Senior’s footsteps. Entitlement came with the last name. Nothing was out of the reach of a Bartasavich, a belief that Senior fully embraced, especially when it came to women. Five of his six marriages ended due to his numerous infidelities, and he’d fathered four sons by three different women.
Oakes had no doubt his father’s last marriage would have suffered the same fate as his previous ones had he not had a stroke over a year and a half ago. Senior’s young wife hadn’t been able to handle being tied to a man who could no longer take care of himself and had opted for a quick divorce—and the payout guaranteed in her prenuptial agreement.
Oakes was fully aware that he’d grown up extremely privileged, but his mother and stepfather had instilled in him a sense of gratitude for that life. Had taught him how important it was to give back, to help those less fortunate.
No, he wasn’t his father. Never would be. And that was why he’d never take advantage of any woman, especially not this particular woman, not when she’d come to him for help.
Or at least to use his bathroom.
Feeling much better, he hurried down the hall, tripping over her sparkly shoes before righting himself and continuing on to his bedroom. He changed into jeans then grabbed a T-shirt from his dresser and yanked it on. Stepped toward the door...and remembered the feel of Daphne’s hand on his skin. How soft her fingers were. How warm.
How much he’d enjoyed it.
He turned around, crossed to the closet and picked out a sweatshirt. A thick one.
He was tugging down the hem of it when he reentered the living room and found Daphne curled up on the leather sofa, her legs tucked under her, her elbow on the sofa’s arm, head supported in her hand.
“You need anything?” he asked.
She tipped her head back, her grin goofy and so sweet it made his chest ache. “Nope. It’s all good.”
He wasn’t sure about that. He flipped on the lamp, illuminating her face, then scratched the side of his neck. Was it his imagination or were her lips glossier, redder, than when she’d first arrived? And in this light, he could see she’d done something to her eyes, one of those magic tricks women performed to make the usually guileless blue of them seem somehow smoky and mysterious.
“So everything’s okay,” he said slowly. “You’re not hurt or sick and yet you’re here. At my house. At three a.m.”
She touched her upper cheek with her forefinger then slid it onto the tip of her nose, pointed at him with her other hand. A drunk playing her own game of charades. “Bingo.”
“Any reason you’re at my house and not your own?”
“Yep.”
When she didn’t continue, he sat on the coffee table in front of her. “Want to tell me what that reason is?”
“Your house is closer,” she said, as if that made all the sense in the world.
“Closer to where?”
“To the club.”
This was getting him nowhere. As a trial attorney with a high win record, he was used to asking questions and getting answers. He was damn good at it, too, if he did say so himself.
He eyed the woman currently humming a pop tune under her breath. Usually. He was usually good at it.
“I take it you went out tonight?” he asked.
He hadn’t realized she was into the club scene. Then again she was young enough that it made perfect sense that she might enjoy spending her Saturday night being jostled by bumping and grinding strangers while lights flashed and the bass pumped.
He winced infinitesimally. He was thinking like a ninety-year-old man.
She sighed—the long, drawn-out sigh of the weary and put-upon. “I didn’t want to. Nadine made me.”
“Nadine?”
“My cousin. Actually, my other cousins were there, too. Julie and Michelle and Steph,” Daphne said, ticking the names off her fingers. “But Nadine was the ringleader. She decided I needed to go out. They kidnapped me,” she said, attempting to slap the arm of the sofa but missing and almost toppling into his lap. He caught her by her upper arms, helped her back onto the cushion then quickly let go. “They told me we were going out to dinner, that Julie needed a break from the twins but they lied and they... They took me against my will. Can I press charges?”
“It might be better if we hold off on any discussions about legal ramifications until we’re both sober.”
She tapped his knee twice, left her hand to settle there. “You’re a smart one, aren’t you? But then they don’t give out law degrees just for being pretty. And when we have our talk about legal ramen...ramekin...whatever, we can discuss a civil suit against my cousins for being liars. For being no-good, rotten lying liars who lie. Don’t believe them,” she said as she suddenly clutched his hand, her voice taking on a desperate quality. “No matter what they say, don’t believe a word of it. Ever.”
“I won’t.”
“Promise?”
“Promise,” he repeated solemnly because it seemed so important to her. Then again, alcohol made even the most mundane things exciting, the most minor issue important.
“Okay.” She relaxed the death grip she had on him and eased back. “Okay then.”
“Why don’t we get you some coffee?” he suggested.
“Oh, I can’t have coffee this late,” she told him, her eyes wide, her gaze earnest. “It’ll keep me up.”
She was so adorable, he couldn’t help but grin. “How about we try it anyway? See if it sobers you up a bit?” And hopefully, helps her be more clear and concise in her answers as to why she was there.
She returned his smile. “Okay. But I should help you,” she said when he got to his feet.
She started to stand and he pressed gently on her shoulders until she sat back on the edge of the sofa. “I’ve got this.” But he realized he was still touching her. The thin straps of her dress were silky, her skin incredibly warm under his palms. The ends of her hair tickled the backs of his fingers and he sprang back, releasing her. Was fervently glad he’d put on jeans as he shoved his traitorous hands into their pockets. “You, uh, just relax. And tell me the rest of your story.”
“What story?” she asked, still smiling at him.
Holy hell, this was going to be a long night. “About how your cousins forced you to get drunk.”