Playing For Keeps (The Alpha Brotherhood #3)(27)
Author: Catherine Mann

“So that is why you’ve refused to talk to me.” He pressed a thumb against his temple, just below the ball cap.

“Actually, I got over that. But the way you mocked me by playing a song you wrote about us in high school—” her anger gained steam “—a song you recently called a puppy-love joke? Now, that made me mad.”

“Damn it, Celia.” He hooked a finger in a belt loop on her jeans and tugged her toward him. “That wasn’t my intention.”

“Then what did you intend?” she asked, unable to read his eyes behind those sunglasses. She flattened her palms on his chest to keep from landing flush against him, body to body. Still, with their faces a breath apart, her heart skipped a beat.

“Hell, I just wanted to pay tribute to what we shared as teenagers. Not to glorify it, but certainly not to mock it,” he said with unmistakable sincerity. “We did share something special back then. I think we can share that again.”

Air wooshed from her lungs, making it almost impossible to talk. The sound of the flowing water alongside the boat echoed the roar of blood rushing through her veins. Her fingers curled in the warmth of his jacket. “You missed the mark big-time in getting your meaning across on the stage, Malcolm.”

“Let me make it up to you.” Pulling off the shades, he rested his forehead against hers, the power of his deep blue gaze bathing her senses.

“You don’t have to do anything. You’re protecting me from a stalker. If anything, I owe you.” She squeezed his jacket tighter. “But that’s all I owe you.”

His hand slid around her. “I don’t want you feeling indebted to me.”

Her face tipped to his, so close to kissing, so close to bliss. Her mouth tingled in anticipation. It was getting tougher and tougher to remember why this was a bad idea. The roaring of the water and her pulse grew louder and louder until she realized it wasn’t the river or her heartbeat.

“Damn it, the press,” Malcolm barked softly, stepping back and sliding his sunglasses on again.

Paparazzi ran along the shore with cameras in hand. Shouts carried on the wind, disjointed phrases.

“—Douglas.”

“Kiss her—”

Celia raced alongside him toward the captain’s cabin. “I thought you intended for us to kiss for the camera.”

“Changed my mind,” he called, pulling open the door. “Keeping you happy suddenly became a higher priority.”

He tucked her inside, the boat captain glancing over in surprise. Malcolm waved for him to carry on. Apparently Elliot Starc hadn’t him given boat-driving lessons, too, she thought, hysterical laughter starting to bubble inside her. Her nerves were seriously fraying.

“What now?” she asked.

Malcolm nodded to the floral bag dangling from her arm. “You could answer your phone.”

She looked down fast, the chiming surprising her until she almost jumped out of her skin. “I didn’t even hear it.”

Fishing inside, she dug through until her hand closed around the phone. She pulled it out and saw her father’s number blinking on the screen.

“Hello, Dad. What do you need?”

“Just checking on my baby girl,” he said, concern coating every word, “making sure you’re all right. I, uh, saw the newspapers this morning.”

She grimaced, avoiding Malcolm’s eyes. “I’m fine. The pictures were…staged. It’s all a part of making sure everyone knows I’m very well protected here in Malcolm’s entourage.”

“Staged, huh?” her father answered skeptically. “I never knew you were a theater person, because that was some mighty fine acting in the photo.”

Her chest tightened with every word from her father. “I don’t know what more I can tell you.”

“Well, I’ve been fielding calls all day.”

“From the press?” The thought of them hounding her dad made her swallow hard—not easy to do when she was finding it tougher and tougher to breathe.

“My number’s unlisted. You know that. The calls are from your friends at school, even that high-school principal you went out with a couple of times.”

“I didn’t go out with him.” She glanced at Malcolm quickly as the enormity of this washed over her. Being with Malcolm now had changed her life in ways she could never undo. Her ordered existence was falling apart. She was losing control—but for once, that didn’t seem to be such a bad thing. “We just happened to sit together at events we both attended for work.”

“Who drove?”

“Stop it, Dad,” she snapped, then backtracked, guilt pinching her. She started pacing restlessly in the small cabin. “I love you, and I appreciate your concern, but I’m an adult.”

“Malcolm’s standing there with you, isn’t he?”

“Why does that matter?” And why couldn’t she bring herself to just end the call? God, she hated being caught between them again.

Her father sighed through the phone lines. “Just protect yourself, Celia. You’ll always be my baby girl.”

His voice stirred more guilt as she thought of his pain over losing his oldest daughter. She pressed a hand to her head, dizzy from lack of breakfast and, yes, pangs of guilt. She thought of her own ache for the baby she’d given up, but at least she knew her child was alive somewhere, growing up loved. Worrying for her father heaped on top of her nerves, which were already stretched to the max by trying to sort through her feelings for Malcolm.

“Dad, I promise I’m being very careful.” She measured her words carefully, trying not to let her perceptive father hear the quaver in her voice. “And you? Are you okay? Have you gotten any threatening messages?”

“I’m fine. Blood pressure is in the good zone, and there hasn’t been so much as a peep of a threat.”

“Thank God,” she said, praying that wouldn’t change. “I really do appreciate the call. Love you, Dad.”

Her heartbeat sped up, new worries crowding her head and making her chest feel tight. Oh, no. She knew the old symptoms. Knew what might happen next if she didn’t pull it together.

She thumbed the off button and dropped her phone back into her Vera Bradley bag with shaky hands. “Well, your plan is working. The whole world—even my father—thinks we’re having an affair.” She gasped for air, trying to fight down the encroaching panic and not succeeding all that well. “Do you think we could just go back to the hotel?”