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I chewed apprehensively
on my lower lip before finally leaning a little nearer. “Mr. Knight, Adrian
told me your family didn’t want anything to do with him when he was younger.
Why now?”

The Knight patriarch
blinked hard several times.
“Nothing to do with him?
No, that’s not right. Is that what they told him?” A rumble grew under his deep
voice, and his brow line hardened over his eyes. He pounded his cane against
the floor. “Is that what that damned Alistair Alexander told him?”

“Actually, I believe it
was Adam Alexander, but…yes, essentially.” When Edward continued swearing
lightly under his breath, rubbing his forehead just the way Adrian did when
getting tense, I touched his shoulder and offered, “Would you let a girl buy
you a coffee, Mr. Knight? I think we have a few things to talk about.”

Once he’d taken a
second to straighten, to tap down that cresting temper, he nodded and put on a
brave British smile. “That’s what I’ve always liked about American women,” he
said. “You’re really rather forward.”

This brought me up
short, even as he was offering me his free arm. “I think I see where Adrian
gets what passes for charm,” I chided the man.

“Well it sure as hell
doesn’t come from his father’s side of the family.”

And I decided then and
there that I’d have loved holiday dinners with the Knight family if…if things
had worked out differently for Adrian and me.
If we’d met
under different circumstances.
If his mother hadn’t
died and left him so young.
If neither of us had met Penn Ellison.

When I settled down at
a sidewalk café with Edward Knight, he spooned the traditionally Brazilian
amount of sugar—lots—into both my coffee and his. “I grew up church mouse poor,
Miss Bloom. Had a milk run before school and a job in a restaurant kitchen
afterward,
and still had time to court Adrian’s grandmother,
I might mention. My money came from
mens
clothing. We
have a string of shops, my partner and I. He’s the tailor, the man with the
creative eye, and I have always handled the business side.”

“That explains the
taste for fine clothing,” I remarked with a flirtatious wink I’d picked up in
conversation with Edward himself. If he was any indication, the Knights were
nothing like the
Alexanders
, and that wasn’t hurting
my feelings any.

The patriarch
straightened his shirt and lifted his chin, subtly beaming. “It’s a burden,
miss,” he quipped, then frowned. “And the way my daughter, Isabel, met that
Alexander man. She was running the floor of our most popular London shop. We
had a reputation by then, and we had enough money that some of the old blood
started showing an interest in her. I never liked him myself—Alistair
Alexander. But he was so much more sophisticated than she was used to, and
older and widowed. And, Lord, how she went on about those eyes.”

I tried not to roll my
own eyes, seeing myself in that comment. “I sympathize.”

“Has his father’s eyes,
does he?” Edward asked, peering at me, probably beginning to figure out from my
sheepish expression that I was more than just a part of Adrian’s legal team.
“It’s been decades since I saw him last. It’s… Well, it’s a shame I don’t remember.”

“Why has it been so
long?”

“Once Isabel was gone,
Alexander seemed to want people to forget he’d married what was essentially a
shop girl, even with the prestige of the business name and no small amount of
money coming in, I tell you. He started canceling visits we had planning with
Adrian. Then one day, no warning, his solicitor and that oldest lad of his show
up and tell us Adrian is not coming to stay with us anymore. There were some
legal threats tossed back and fore, of course, but we couldn’t seem to find
anyone to hire that Alexander money could buy out from under us. And about then
my wife—she’d taken Isabel’s death quite badly—she had a minor stroke, and we…
We decided not to put her or Adrian through the fighting anymore. I have three other
children and four grandchildren and
even
great-grandchildren now. The family…we had all just hoped that Adrian would
come find us when he was old enough. But now you say they told him we didn’t
want him.” Edward shook his head in disgust, pursing his pale lips and
fidgeting with the handle of his cane in agitation.

“That’s what Adrian
told me,” I confirmed and turned slightly away to dab what threatened to be a
tear from the corner of one eye. “I can’t express to you how different his
youth would have been if he’d known you’d all been waiting for him. He couldn’t
get away from his father’s family fast enough, but then he spent so much time
alone…
When you all wanted him home with you.”

Edward leaned forward
to offer me a handkerchief and peer into my eyes. “What kind of a man is
Adrian, Miss Bloom?” Unlike Adam Alexander, Edward Knight said my name like it
meant something.

“Most of the charges
are false, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Most?”

I fought back a smile
and failed. “He’s stubborn, Mr. Knight, and impatient to a fault. He rushes
into things, and it gets him into trouble.”
Which also
described a certain three-month agreement that had changed my life.
For
the better in the end, I wanted to believe, but I did feel my shoulders sag as
I huddled over my coffee cup.

“So he’s…?” Edward
searched for words.

“Not the standard
Alexander.”

He chuckled. “Thank you
for not making me
say
it.”

“I will see what I can
do to set up a meeting between you and Adrian.”

Patting my hand, he
said, “It would mean a great deal to me.”

“It would mean a great
deal to Adrian.”

The gentleman fished a
business card out of his pocket and handed it to me, then pointed to the small
print under the impressive script spelling out his name. “I don’t pass many of
those around. That’s my international mobile number at the bottom. Ring me, day
or night, when he’s ready to meet me. Until then, if you’ll excuse me, my
eldest son came with me to Natal and will be expecting me back at the hotel. If
I’m late, he’ll start going on again about me having to have a bodyguard. He
really means a minder.”

I walked with Edward as
far as the white taxi that answered his hail. “You’ll be hearing from me, Mr.
Knight, I promise.”

“Yes, Miss Bloom,” he
agreed with another small wink, “I do believe I will.”

As I watched the taxi
slip away in traffic, the daydream came up on me hard and fast. Adrian and me,
fingers entwined. Christmas dinner with traditional roast goose at the Knight
country
estate or a posh London brownstone.
Edward greeting me with a kiss on the cheek at the door.
Children running around shrieking for their Uncle Adrian to play
with them.
I broke out in a sudden flush, overwhelmed with the strongest
longing for family I thought I’d ever felt, but not just for me.
Family for Adrian.

The need to get back to
the courthouse and tell Adrian I’d met his grandfather had me scurrying through
traffic, dodging bumpers and the indignant blare of horns. My ears were still
ringing as I ran up the steps of the building, past the thick, two-story
columns I’d hid behind that morning.
 
I
did think for a moment that I’d heard someone call my name, but I hadn’t been
able to pick out any familiar faces with a quick glance over my shoulder. Just
before I reached the door, a hand locked around my wrist and dragged me toward
the deep shade to one side of the courthouse entrance.

“Penn?”

“What did you do,
Chloe?”

I jerked back on my
arm, but my ex just dug his fingers in deeper. “Could you be more spec—?” I
started to huff, but he shook me.

“You show up at my
suite, promise to call and blow me off, and this morning I find out more than
one person is calling around making inquiries about my business contacts on the
East Coast and in Brazil.
Very specific inquiries, Chloe.”

Perhaps I should have
been quicker with the offended glare, the indignant denial, but I hesitated
wondering if Karl or maybe Ullman’s clerk had managed to find a loose link in
Penn’s network, something to tug on, to start it all unraveling.

Penn twisted my arm,
much harder than anything I’d felt from him before, and I yelped. Several feet
away from us, two large men in plain suits shifted nervously and tried not to
watch us so openly. Probably security, unsure as to whether they should step in
as their employer manhandled a woman in public. I had to wonder just how low
Penn had sunken that he needed hired muscle now to mind him.

“Who have you been
talking to, Chloe, and what have you told them? And who is your source? Did
you—?” He glared fiercely at me. “Did you go snooping through my computer in my
suite?”

Before I could stop
myself, I snipped, “Didn’t
you
?”

The confusion in Penn’s
eyes this time was anything but endearing, because it wasn’t innocence so much
as surprise I’d figured him out. I knew what he’d done to Karl Richter and that
he’d used his access to me to do it. His eyes turned hard and cold again.

“You can’t imagine how
much money you’re going to cost me if you fuck up any of the deals at stake
here,” he growled beneath his breath.

“No, I can’t, and I
don’t want to.”

“How can you—?” He was
literally panting with anger, snarling through his teeth and hardly able to
speak without outright roaring at me. “You’d betray me after two years with me?
A few weeks with Alexander, and you’re his whore?”

Despite the fact that
it felt like Penn was about to break my arm, my temper hit a flashpoint. I
jabbed my finger in his reddened face. “Don’t you dare rant about me betraying
you.
Even you can’t possibly be that hypocritical.”

Ellison shook his head
and chuckled, but there was no amusement there.
“You ridiculous,
stupid little girl.
I’d tell you to grow up and stop acting like a
little princess, but you’d have to stop pretending to be anything but the
secondhand prima donna you are.”

“Fuck you, Penn,” I
hissed as I planted my hand on his chest and shoved him away hard enough to
free myself from his grip. That arm was going to be damn sore. “Just…fuck you.
I don’t care if I never see you again.” And for that moment, I wasn’t the least
bit embarrassed that we had degenerated into two children shoving and name-calling.

Still breathing hard,
practically snorting like a bull, Penn straightened his shirt after our little
scuffle had left him mussed and missing a button. “You remind your
boyfriend
that I gave him a way out of
this, and he refused to take it. This is his fault. I want him to remember that
when I’ve taken everything away from him, including his island and his freedom.
And when he’s penniless, sitting in a prison cell, you can write to him and
tell him you miss him and you’re waiting for him.” He stepped up close to me,
so I could feel his breath against my cheeks as he added, “You really are just
like your mother.”

I’d never slapped
anyone so hard in all my life. Instead of rushing to his aid, the bodyguards
turned their backs and pretended not to see Penn gaping at me. Wise choice;
he’d have only taken his rage out on them.

In a much quieter but
considerably more menacing voice, Penn told me, “You’ll regret that the rest of
your life.”

Slowly, I shook my
head. “Not even a second of it.”

Waiting until Penn and
his men had cleared the courthouse steps, I leaned against the column farthest
from the door and gave in to three or four hard, silent sobs before swallowing
down the rest. I was wiping my face and hiccupping when gentler hands than
Penn’s grasped my shoulders and turned me carefully about to face Adrian.
Behind him, his legal entourage moved to claim the attention of the few
reporters still dogging the story at midday, giving us a few moments of
obscurity.

He kissed my forehead
again.
God
, I thought,
I could get used to that
.

“I only caught the end
of what went on with you and Penn. Did he hurt you?”

I shook my head. “I’m
just really tired and hungry.
And really
really
pissed.”
I hiccupped my way through a stream of curses. “And I can’t
tell you how much I want to make Penn sorry he ever stepped foot on Ilha de
Flor.”

His warm, satiny lips
still grazing my skin, Adrian laughed quietly. “I think you’re well on your
way. That slap. Wow. I heard it from ten meters away.”

I sputtered a rush of
teary, exhausted laughter. “You’re exaggerating.”

“I never exaggerate,
Miss Bloom.”

Squeezing my eyes
closed, I rasped, “I have to—
We
have to win this.”

“We will,” he said, but
it was a pat answer, lacking conviction.

“What’s going on with
the case?” I pressed, composing myself, realizing the cloth I was using to mob
tears from my upper lip was Edward Knight’s handkerchief.