Forbidden Passion. Emilie Rose
Because he’d instructed her not to call him at work unless there was an emergency, she hadn’t even known his latest assistant’s name. Did Sawyer know about the affair? Would he lie to protect his brother?
With her heart and head reeling she tried to come up with a logical response. “I have no training.”
“You’ll learn.” The set of Sawyer’s jaw promised an argument if she refused his offer—an argument she couldn’t contemplate right now.
“I’ll think about it. Now, please have a seat at the table. I have something to show you. I have to get it from the bedroom upstairs.”
His gaze locked with hers and then shifted to the archway beyond her shoulder—the one leading to the foyer and the stairs. Heat flashed in his eyes.
Her breath caught and her heart pounded. Warmth flushed her skin. She turned away, but not before regret tightened Sawyer’s features. “I’ll get the box.”
After bracing himself, Sawyer lifted the lid of the cheap wooden box on the table in front of him. Gold, silver and other precious metals lay jumbled together without regard for the scratches the heirlooms might receive.
“Did you pack these?”
Lynn hovered near the coffeepot. Her gaze danced to his and then away again, never holding for more than a split second. Pink climbed from her neck to spread across her cheeks. Her nipples peaked, proving she remembered what happened on the other side of that archway, the same way he did. His pulse leaped. Her quick glances told him she wanted to ignore the passion between them, and if he were half as smart as the business magazines said he was, he’d let her.
“I didn’t even know Brett had this treasure chest until I searched for the will. I found the box buried in the back of the closet, but I saw your name on a couple of items and thought you might be interested. I’d hate to sell something that holds sentimental value for you.”
She flitted from one side of the blinding-white kitchen to the other and back again—probably afraid he’d jump her if she remained stationary. She fiddled with her plants and straightened the already straight row of canisters. He cursed himself. His loss of control had made her a nervous wreck.
“You never found a will?”
“No. The attorney checked the courthouse, the bank and every other logical place where a will could be stored, just in case Brett had done one of those home kits. He found nothing, and I’ve already searched the house twice.”
Another detail his brother had neglected. It infuriated Sawyer that Brett had been so careless with Lynn. If a man loved a woman, he looked out for her, provided for her…and any children they might have.
Shutting down the disturbing thought, he carefully withdrew a gold watch and chain from the tangled mess in the box and traced his finger over the name engraved in the metal. Warm memories swamped him—memories of looking at this watch with his own father and anticipating the day when he would be entrusted with the heirloom. “This pocket watch belonged to my great-grandfather, the first Sawyer Riggan.”
She set a mug of steaming coffee in front of him and darted back to the other side of the room. “Why did Brett have it?”
“He asked for it.” And God help him, he’d tried to give Brett everything he wanted after their parents’ deaths.
“But why give it to him if it was intended for you?”
“I owed him.” Owed him a debt he could never repay.
“Owed him what?”
Hadn’t Brett told her? “I killed our parents.”
Her brow pleated. “Your parents died in a car accident.”
“With me at the wheel.”
Sympathy softened her eyes. “I thought a drunk driver ran a stop light.”
“He did, but if I hadn’t shot off as soon as the light turned green, if I’d looked twice before accelerating into the intersection instead of being the lead-foot my dad always accused me of being—”
She returned to the table, slid into the chair at a right angle to his and laid her soft hand over his clenched fist. His words dried up. “Sawyer, the accident wasn’t your fault. Brett showed me the newspaper article. The other driver didn’t have on his headlights. You couldn’t possibly have seen him.”
Her touch burned his skin. He sucked in a deep breath. She snatched her hand back and tucked it into her lap as if she regretted the gesture, but the imprint of her fingers lingered.
Since Brett’s death Lynn had quit wearing her heavy perfume, and God help him, he could smell her. Her light honeysuckle scent was ten times more potent than perfume anyday. She’d also quit teasing her hair into that just-out-of-bed, sex-kitten style. Today she’d brushed it in a satiny wave over her shoulders. His hands itched to tumble her hair into the same disarray it had been when he’d made love to her on the stairs. Not made love, he corrected, had sex. Making love implied he had lingering feelings for Lynn from their earlier relationship, and he didn’t.
Clearing his throat, he refocused on the jewelry box, digging around until he uncovered his mother and father’s wedding bands. He closed his fingers around them, feeling the loss of his parents as if it had been yesterday instead of ten years ago, and then his mother’s last words rang in his ears. Take care of Brett. Whatever you do, don’t let them separate our family.
He opened his hand to study the intricately carved bands and traced the pattern on his mother’s ring.
Lynn leaned closer. “They’re lovely. The engraving is quite unusual.”
“Brett said you refused to wear Mom’s wedding band.”
Lynn’s brows arched in surprise. “I never saw the rings before this week.”
He lifted the smaller band. “He didn’t offer this to you?”
Pain clouded her sky-blue eyes and she looked away. “No. Maybe he wanted to keep the set together. You know Brett chose not to wear a wedding band.”
It didn’t make sense. Brett had begged for the pocket watch and the rings, and yet it would seem his brother had never used any of the pieces.
A delicate silver locket caught Sawyer’s attention. He set the rings back in the box and picked up the locket, flicking it open to reveal two tiny pictures, one of him as an infant and the other of Brett as a three-year-old. “This belonged to my mother. She always planned to give it to her granddaughter, if there was one someday.”
His gaze met hers and then traveled slowly over her breasts to her flat belly. His child—his daughter—could be growing inside Lynn. His chest tightened, and he lifted his gaze to hers once more. She worried her bottom lip with her teeth. Her lipstick was long gone. The need to lean across the distance and touch his mouth to the softness of hers blindsided him. He sucked in a slow breath and sat back in his chair.
Neither of them spoke of the baby she might be carrying, but the knowledge and the tension stretched between them. He couldn’t explain the mixture of emotions clogging his throat. Fear? Excitement? Dread? Anticipation?
Lynn’s fingers curled on the edge of the tabletop until her knuckles turned white, and then she stood and carried her cup to the sink. “If you ever have a daughter, I’m sure she’d be proud to wear the locket. It’s lovely.”
The other items in the box held less value, but Sawyer found a favorite pocket knife he thought he’d lost in high school and the ID bracelet his ex-fiancée had given him. Why did Brett have these? And why had he tossed each piece in a cheap box like yard-sale junk?
Lynn paused behind his shoulder. “These are your memories, Sawyer. They should stay in your family.”
“The Riggan family will end with me—unless you’re carrying the next generation. When will you know if you’re pregnant?”
Eyes