He laughed, nipping her shoulder. “When it comes to you. How about I add thirty dollars a week to your twenty?”

“You want to give a thirteen-year-old boy fifty dollars a week?”

Christ, she was not going to give him an inch.

“He wants a new bass. Now, I could give him one. God knows I have plenty of connections to give him something really amazing. Or, he could save for it with that extra thirty bucks and buy one himself.”

“And Erin will give him one for Christmas anyway.”

He sighed. “Well, probably. They share that. It makes her happy. Anyway, a kid his age has expenses. Dances, school trips, guitar strings, pizza for his friends.”

“Adrian, precious, I want you to think back to the beginning of this discussion about the strings. Now, he makes eighty dollars a month already for his allowance. Does this not indicate to you the boy has some instant-gratification issues rather than a lack of money to spend?”

He was quiet because she brought up a good point.

“I think it’s lovely that you want to believe Miles is so perfect.” She laughed and then stopped herself. “I do. And he’s a good kid, no doubt about that. He does spend his allowance on things like feed for the birds, the big softie he is. But he also fritters his money away on crap and wonders where it’s all gone. Making him wait for new strings because he’d burned through all twenty dollars in less than a day and a half is supposed to teach him a lesson. Don’t know if it will, but it makes me feel better.”

“How about I match you? Forty dollars a week.”

She tsked and then sighed. He was as hard to say no to as their son was, damn it.

“You have to give him chores for it. He has to do chores here, give him some at your house.”

“Oh.” He nodded. “That would be awesome. So you think it’d be all right?”

“At some point, you’re going to have to be upset with him, you know. You’ll have to hold him to a standard and he won’t make it either from sheer laziness or he’ll have a reason you’ll find flimsy. If you give him an allowance, you have to make him earn it and you’re going to have to steel yourself to be the bad guy sometimes.”

He frowned and he looked so adorable she kissed the furrow between his brows. “It comes with the territory. But for now, you know, have him take the garbage out. Let him do laundry. Make him learn something for it. It’ll create a new bond between you both.”

“You’re a lot of help, you know. Just being able to pick up the phone and ask you a question or get your advice is so big.”

“Hm.”

He grinned. “All right, I’ll come up with chores. Which means he, and you too, need to be at my house more often. Like this coming weekend? We do a Halloween party at Brody’s place for the kids. Miles should be there.”

“He’s got a party on Friday night. But after that he’s free.”

Adrian nodded. “All right. And for Thanksgiving, will you and Miles be with me? And my family of course. This year it’s at my house because we’re such a big group now. It’s also Alexander’s first birthday so there’ll be cake. We moved the annual grudge match football game from October to Thanksgiving Day this year. Maybe Miles would like to play.”

She got up to make some tea and he followed her into the kitchen. “Normally we do Thanksgiving with Mary at her house.”

“Holidays are going to be tough sometimes, I suppose.”

“I want him to build traditions with your family but not at the expense of what he has now.” Though the last bit about Alexander had been a very powerful lure. That little boy was very dear to her and he followed Miles around calling him Boo, for Blue, which Erin had started much to Miles’s shy delight.

At the same time, structure had been what kept both she and Miles on track. He was the kind of kid who needed it and she was the kind of parent who gave it.

This storm between them began to build again. Their energy changing, intensifying. It dizzied her, tempted her to let herself fall into that supercharged thing between them.

His gaze roved over her features with such longing, such aching need, that she felt it to her core. To be looked at that way by a man like Adrian Brown had been a far-off fantasy only a short time before, and now her reality had turned inside out and he’d filled everything she didn’t know needed filling until he was there.

“Look, I know it’s hard to allow me in. I know you had a life before I came along. I upset the order of things and you love order so f**king much you’re torn between me and it.”

“Is that what you think?” She turned to look at him, trying not to allow that gorgeous face to steal her wits. She was weak, damn it all. Weak for him.

“How can I know what to think, Gillian? You keep your past locked up in a vault so all I can do is guess. Tell me something. Let me in. I won’t judge you. I just want to know you.”

Wretched, sweet man.

“You’re an amazing mother. I mean that. I watch you with Miles and I know that despite the fact that I wasn’t around for his early years, he had you and that helps. A lot.”

She exhaled, charmed no matter how hard she tried not to be.

“What was your mother like? Was she a good example?”

Well now, he just went from zero to fifty in a second, didn’t he? But he was right, she did need to share more, even if little by little.

“My mother was beautiful when she was a young woman. Talented. She wanted to be a dancer but she just didn’t have the training.” And she’d let that limit her until she died.