“She took him over to get his DNA test. He knows what it’s for, but she hasn’t given him any details on who his father might be yet.”

“I need to see it for myself. Need to see him for myself. But I don’t want to upset him or his schedule.”

“He’s in school all day. She works from home. Chances are you could catch her there. Call and make an appointment to see her. I like her, Adrian. She loves that boy enough to risk the most important part of her life. This is all for him.”

“I can’t believe you went over there. Do Todd and Ben know?”

“Yes. We fought about it for a few hours, but I had to see her for myself. I needed to know if I had to cut a bitch or if I had a nephew. I’m glad to say it’s the latter. I gotta get home to my boys. You want to come over for dinner? Alexander and Ben spent the afternoon with Annalee. They went to lunch and then the park. Todd said he had plans to grill tonight. You know there’ll be enough for a thousand people.” She stood and held her hand out.

He didn’t take it, hugging her tight instead. “Thank you.”

She hugged him back. “How many times have you done stuff like that for me? Huh? That’s what you do for your people. You’ve hid out here long enough. Come back to us.”

He had a son. Christ.

6

He knocked at her door three times, stepping back and working on his facial expression. Erin had lectured him on his delivery and the way he’d been with Gillian thus far. He truly didn’t want to have an acrimonious relationship with this woman so he needed to try to get things back on track with her. He’d charmed plenty of women in his time—he could do this.

She opened up and her loveliness hit him square in the gut. Soft and feminine with all that hair and those big brown eyes peeking out from the fringe of French roast–toned bangs.

She smelled good too. Sweet and spicy.

He sent her a charming smile. “Hi. I—”

She slammed the door in his face before he could finish his sentence.

He stood there, struck stupid in love with Gillian Forrester. Though he wouldn’t know it for a while yet.

Before he could knock again, she yanked the door open, those gorgeous sexy eyes of hers honed in his direction with an angry violence. “You! How dare you come to my doorstep knocking after you sicced your lawyers on me forbidding me from any contact?”

Fascinated by her, by the way her accent had sharpened from that smooth flow to sharp-tongued barbs, he stood, struck mute. Goddamn, he wanted to take a bite.

But not until they got past this thing between them.

“I want to add that I never contacted you after I gave my information to your brother. It was always you, you contacting and then you send me a letter telling me I can’t do something I never done! You are an arse. A big-headed, too-good-looking-for-his-own-good dickhead.”

Well now. This hot governess of a woman was all kinds of dirty underneath. She just threw the gloves off and sent a shiver through him. He took a step closer and found himself half inside her house. Murphy Oil Soap? He breathed in deep.

He let her go on as he tried not to have a fantasy about her polishing the table in nothing but an apron and some heels. Clearly he had some fetish about cleaning and housework. This needed investigating.

“Are you even listening to me?”

“I had to protect myself. Okay? I’m sorry. It was shitty and I was a . . . What did you call me? A good-looking ass**le?” She was like one of those little dogs just then, the energy in her radiated outward. She would jump on his back and scratch his eyes out to protect her son. His son.

That mama-bear, elegant-and-modest-on-the-outside, hot-as-allfuck-on-the-inside thing was ringing his doorbell. And God help him, he knew it was beyond inappropriate to be making up f**k fantasies about this woman right then, but he couldn’t help it.

“Leave it to you to choose to interpret what I said that way. The ego on you! Astounding is what—”

And his mouth was on hers, and her words morphed into a groan so sexually tortured his entire body got hard.

Her back hit the wall and she practically climbed up his body to keep the kiss. Her fingers tangled in his hair as his taste first hit her.

She gasped it in, coffee and an Altoid. Stupid to get wet over it, but Forrester women never had very smart pussies, and that’s what was doing the thinking just then.

His tongue slid into her mouth like it was made to be there. Not a single bit of hesitation in him. Adrian Brown owned this kiss and that only made her madder for him.

The sexual tension that’d been stewing, deepening, thickening between them burst over her skin, into her system, taking hold like a frenzy. He was warm against her front. One of his hands cradled her ass where she rested against his thigh.

Dragging her nails over his chest and then down his belly, she shivered and swallowed his tortured moan. The way he had her propped and balanced between the wall and his body brought her thigh against his cock.

One of his hands had been at her waist but he’d slid it up to cup her breast. She arched with a groan and the door slammed closed, bringing a surprised start from them both.

Adrian looked back to her, leaning closer to get back to the kiss, and then he froze.

She managed to extricate herself to turn and look at the picture she knew he’d just seen. Miles on the first day of kindergarten. He’d lost one of his front teeth, on the top, and he cheesed it up, making sure the grin was extra wide.

“Shit.”

She saw it on his face. The wonder. The joy and then the sadness that he’d come to it so late. It was at that moment she let go of her anger at him and let herself sympathize.