Invincible (18 page)

She lay beneath the sweaty male weight of him, liking it. She breathed in and found his pungent male odor surprisingly pleasing. His legs were entwined with hers and she could feel his rough male hairs against her smooth skin.

A drop of sweat from his cheek fell onto her closed lips. She met his gaze as she reached out with her tongue and licked it away. Salty.

She saw the sudden flare of his nostrils and watched the black irises in his blue eyes grow with desire as he stared down at her. She felt the unmistakable tension in his body, saw the flex of muscles in his arms. And felt the hard length of him between the fragile pieces of cloth that separated their flesh and bone.

She forgot about everything but Max as his mouth lowered toward hers. His lips were full, his mouth slightly open, his breathing erratic.

She wanted his mouth on hers. Wanted to taste him, hold him, love him.

“Hey, you two! Everything all right?”

The question from Steffan, who'd apparently jumped the net, broke the spell. Kristin was horrified at what she'd been ready and willing to do.

He has a girlfriend. He kept her a secret from you.
How can you possibly forgive him so quickly? Or want him so soon? And so much?

A second later, Max was on his feet.

She felt bereft.

He leaned down, caught her by both wrists and pulled her to her feet. “You okay?”

She pulled her hands free and used the one not holding a tennis racquet to rub her suddenly aching hip. “I think so.”

He looked deep into her eyes, searching for something. Maybe wondering, as she was, whether there was any hope that she would forgive him. There wasn't. She couldn't afford to fall in love with a rich playboy. She had responsibilities. And a daughter he knew nothing about.

“Are you sure you're okay?” he said. “We can stop if you're hurt.”

Oh, she was hurt all right. But the pain Max had caused was more emotional than physical. She couldn't slap a bandage on it and expect it to heal anytime soon.

“Your match is in less than two weeks,” Irina reminded them.

“I'm all right,” Kristin said at last. Although that was far from the truth. She was still dazed, suffering from the shock of realizing how powerful her physical attraction was to a man she shouldn't trust. She'd better be careful. Even though she'd rejected him, she still wanted him.

“Let's keep going,” she said. “We need the practice.”

Practice wasn't the same after her fall. She couldn't concentrate. Apparently, neither could Max.

“That's enough for today,” Irina said, calling the practice to a halt. “We'll try again tomorrow morning.”

Kristin saw Max hold back as the other three left the court. He crossed to her and said, “Are you sure you're all right? That was quite a tumble.”

“You don't need to worry about me, Max.”
I can take care of myself. I've been doing it for years. I don't need you, or any man, to take care of me.

But oh, how she yearned for someone to brush her off when she fell down—on the court and in her day-to-day life—and tell her everything would be all right.

Max pulled his ball cap off, shoved his sweaty hair back off his forehead with a towel, then tugged the cap back on. “K…I wish—”

“Forget it, Max,” she interrupted. “It doesn't matter.”

“Doesn't it? I'm sorry, K. For what it's worth.”

“Apology accepted.”

“We still have to work together, on and off the court. We can't afford to let this…glitch…keep us from doing what we have to do.”

“Glitch?” she said sarcastically. “You having a girlfriend is a glitch?”

“She's not— I don't feel— She isn't—” He kept cutting himself off, looking more frustrated with each attempt to fit his absent girlfriend into the appropriate place in his life.

“Whatever she is to you, Max, she exists. If it's any
consolation, you've got your revenge for what I did to you ten years ago.”

“I never intended to punish you, K. Veronica is—”

She held up a hand to cut him off. “I don't want to know her name, Max. Or anything else about her. I'll see you tomorrow morning.”

She left the court without looking back.

When she'd accepted Bella's offer, she hadn't considered what Max might feel if he ever proposed and she told him she wanted nothing to do with him. She hadn't worried about wounding him, because it had seemed like just repayment for the way he'd made love to her and then kissed another woman the next morning.

But if she were honest with herself, she was every bit as much of a villain as Max. She was the one who'd refused to return his calls all those years ago. She was the one who hadn't allowed him to explain. She was the one who'd kept him from knowing his daughter. She could hardly blame him now for keeping secrets of his own.

Kristin wondered why she'd been so determined to cut Max off today, why she hadn't allowed him even to finish a sentence. She was fairly sure he'd been itching to explain away his girlfriend. Aching to ask for forgiveness. On the verge of declaring himself in love with her. She could have had the proposal his mother had been hoping would be the result of her machinations.

But Kristin no longer wanted to compete in the contest the duchess had devised. Love was just too dangerous a game to play. Because both she and Max were bound to be hurt by it.

Kristin gritted her teeth as she headed into the locker room. The moment she got to Blackthorne Abbey this afternoon, she was going to tell the duchess she wanted out.

M
ax was feeling rattled. He wasn't a jealous man. At least, he never had been in the past. Before last night, he would have said he didn't have a jealous bone in his body. But he'd gone nearly insane wondering what Kristin was doing with Steffan last night. He'd acted like a possessive fool when she'd shown up this morning.

Because he'd been afraid of losing her, he'd nearly proposed marriage. After what she'd done to him ten years ago. After all his vows to himself to watch his step. And despite having a brand-new girlfriend, about whom he'd completely forgotten.

His relationship with Veronica really was more about him wanting sex and conversation—and her wanting a powerful connection to a Benedict—than anything else. He hadn't broken up with her before he started sleeping with Kristin because, well, he hadn't expected what had happened between him and K to happen.

He'd gone to K's hotel room that first night on impulse, not knowing whether she would let him in or not.
Although, to be honest, he hadn't given her much choice in the matter.

No, that wasn't true. She was a trained agent. She could have stopped him at any time. She could have thrown him out if she hadn't wanted him there. But she had wanted him. She'd wanted him every bit as much as he'd wanted her.

He hadn't broken with up with Veronica in the week since he'd started having sex with K because the reporter was out of the country and he didn't want to do it by phone or text or email. He'd been taught better than that. Frankly, he hadn't expected to fall so deeply into…bed…with K.

Once again, he'd screwed up big-time. And once again, K hadn't given him a chance to explain. Which shouldn't have been a surprise, given her behavior ten years ago. Which didn't make it any less frustrating. Or make her less desirable.

Admit it. The woman gets to you.

Thank God Veronica was returning home today. He was picking her up at Heathrow this evening. He could break up with her then. Or not. Kristin wanted nothing to do with him. So why should he break up with Veronica? No reason. Except he no longer wanted to be with Veronica. He wanted Kristin. Whom he couldn't have.

Max realized he was thinking in circles. At least he had the whole afternoon free to figure it out.

During his shower in the locker room, he decided that this was a perfect day to go visit his mother. He'd been derelict in his promise to his siblings to investigate
what her invitation to The Seasons was all about. He was more likely to get an honest answer from the duchess in person. And he could use the long drive from London to Blackthorne Abbey to think.

Max played “Boom Boom Pow” by the Black-Eyed Peas loud enough to rattle the dashboard as he raced his Porsche the whole way south to Blackthorne Abbey, but it didn't do much to drown out the memory of Kristin's body under his that morning. He could almost taste her lips. He could feel the heat of her. See the desire in her eyes.

“You're a fool, Max,” he muttered to himself. “Get over her. You've got Veronica, who's crazy about you.”
Or maybe crazy about the fact you're the Duchess of Blackthorne's son.
He wasn't really sure which, but at this point, he no longer cared. Veronica was the distraction he needed, the wedge he needed, to keep Kristin at bay. It was less than two weeks until their exhibition match. They'd be hanging around an additional two weeks while the matches were played leading up to the Wimbledon Championships.

Then K would leave and he could go back to living his life and forget about her.

Who are you kidding?

Max felt a pain behind his breastbone at the thought of a life without K. Funny, because he'd been living the past ten years just fine without her.

Have you been living just fine, Max? Think about it. No long-term relationships. No commitments. So, how great has life really been, Max?

They were uncomfortable questions to ask. And impossible to answer. Especially when the one woman he thought he might be able to love wanted nothing to do with him. Again.

Max was surprised at the rush of emotion he felt when he sighted the Abbey. He knew how privileged—how lucky—he was to have a home that had been lived in for centuries by his ancestors.

He could understand why his mother might have married his father for his money. Her family had been on the verge of losing their hereditary property for failure to pay taxes. They'd already been reduced to opening the Abbey to tourists. Even that additional income hadn't been enough for upkeep on the castle.

Now it was a showplace. The once-stagnant moat was filled with sparkling water. The extensive grounds were manicured and emerald green near the castle and growing gloriously wild in the acres beyond it. Blackthorne Abbey, which had been named by the first Duke of Blackthorne for the monks who'd once inhabited it, had been updated inside. The original stone walls of the castle, complete with turrets—towers raised above the castle wall to give a view of the valley below, and crenels—the gaps between the stonework at the top of the castle through which defenders would have fought, had been carefully preserved.

Max drove over the drawbridge and under the port-cullis, a strong oak grille that had once protected the gate against attack, and then through another gateway to the middle bailey. Beyond this courtyard stood the
stone keep itself, several stories high and large enough to house twenty knights and their retainers. The eight-foot-thick walls kept the Abbey cool inside but also moist. Even with modern air-conditioning, his mother fought a constant battle against mold.

The castle had provided endless possibilities for growing boys, home on holiday, to explore and play. Ancient shields adorned the walls, along with armor, swords and pikes. Oliver had always been lord of the manor. Max's two older brothers, Riley and Payne, had been Oliver's knights. As the youngest boy, Max had been relegated to playing a
villein
, a lowly peasant working on the lord's land, not to be confused with a
villain
, which was a bad guy. He usually had to be rescued by the lord and his knights.

When Lydia was little, she'd insisted on being a princess in the tower. Her role consisted of dressing in a child's faded blue silk dress—still encrusted with tiny pearls across the bodice—that she'd found in a trunk in the topmost tower and waiting for a knight to come and carry her away on a white horse.

Max had been the best rider among them, and willing to do the deed, but he never got to play a knight, so her fantasy was always left unfulfilled.

As Max parked in front of the keep, he realized he had only one happy memory of being at the Abbey with his mother and father. He had a picture in his childhood room at the Abbey of that perfect Christmas. He was standing beside his mother, as his family gathered around the tree showing off their presents and laughing,
the fifth Christmas after Lydia was born. He would have been seven or eight. Everything before that—and after that—he'd wiped clean.

Because he knew Smythe would answer the door, and he wanted to see how the old man was doing, Max used the metal knocker in the shape of a lion's head, rather than walking right in.

Smythe's bushy white eyebrows rose to his missing hairline at the sight of Max, but he didn't verbally acknowledge his surprise at finding Max at the door. Instead, in good butler fashion, he simply said, “Welcome home, your lordship.”

“I've come to see Mother,” Max said as he stepped inside.

“The duchess is upstairs in the sitting room,” the butler said as he closed the door behind Max.

“How are you, Smythe?”

“Tolerably well, milord.”

As a boy, Max and his brothers had tried to ruffle Smythe, to get him to lose his stoic composure. They'd never succeeded. Max didn't even try now. “I can find my own way, Smythe,” he said.

“Very well, my lord.”

Max wondered at the worried look he saw in the butler's eyes an instant before he turned away. It was more sentiment than he could ever remember finding there. He wondered if the butler's concern had anything to do with his mother's strange invitation to The Seasons. If it did, he would find out in a few moments.

Max found the duchess sitting in a flower-patterned
brocade wing chair, one of two that faced a crackling fire in an oversize stone fireplace. The room was toasty warm. He noticed Emily sitting on the opposite side of the room at a table containing a chess board. A young girl sat across from Emily, apparently playing chess with her. Max thought the girl must be one of Emily's numerous poor relations.

He crossed directly to his mother and settled into the chair next to her with his back to Emily and her opponent. “Hello, Mother.”

His mother put a hand to her mouth as though he'd scared the life out of her and made a gasping sound.

He chuckled. “You look like you just saw a ghost. It's only me.”

“Oh, my goodness.” Her eyes darted toward Emily and back to him. “What are you doing here?”

Max felt stung by her reaction. He started to rise as he said, “I can take myself out of here—”

She reached out and caught his arm. “Please, stay. I'm just—I'm so surprised to see you.” And then, because he must have looked ready to bolt again, she said, “And I'm so glad to see you.”

“Are you, Mother?” She wasn't acting like it. He thought she rather wished him to Hades.

“Yes, Max, I am glad,” she said, her face a picture of distress. “It's just—”

He stood. “Look, I know when I'm not welcome.”

When he stood, he heard the girl at the chessboard make a strangled sound. When he turned toward her, she stood so abruptly her chair fell over backward. She was
gawking at him as though he had two heads and neither was human.

“Oh, my goodness!” Emily cried, as she rose to her feet, also staring at him.

When he turned back to his mother, he found her standing, her hand against her heart, taking laborious, shallow breaths.

The startled—fearful?—reactions of the three females raised gooseflesh on his arms. “What the hell is going on?” he said in a harsh voice.

“Dad?” the girl said.

Max whirled and looked behind him toward the door way, expecting to find someone standing there. From the three females' anxious behavior, the girl's father posed some kind of threat.

The doorway was empty. The door, in fact, was closed.

He quickly turned back to his mother. She edged around the wing chair, holding onto the back of it for support.

“Max,” she said, her voice slightly breathless. “There's someone I'd like you to meet.”

Since there was only one person in the room Max didn't know, he turned back to the girl. While his back was turned, she'd crossed the room and was standing right in front of him. She peered up at him, her blue eyes wide. Her heart-shaped face was so pale a sprinkling of freckles stood out across her nose.

“Hello,” he said. It wasn't a particularly pleasant
greeting because adrenaline was still flowing from his fight-or-flight response to the girl's missing father.

When the girl didn't speak, he turned back to his mother for direction.

She cleared her throat and said, “Max, this is your daughter, Felicity.”

“Flick,” the girl corrected.

Max's heart stopped for a second as he turned to stare at the girl, then began to gallop. His daughter? The girl was nine or ten, if she was a day. He turned back to his mother and said in a hard voice, “If this is a joke, Mother, it isn't funny. Where did you find this kid? What makes you think she's mine?”

“She's your daughter, Max,” his mother said firmly.

He turned back to the girl and demanded, “Who's your mother, kid?”

The girl lifted her chin and said, “My name is Flick, not kid. My mother's name is Kristin Lassiter. And I don't care if you are my father. I don't like you!”

She punctuated that statement by sticking out her tongue, then raced from the room, slamming the door behind her.

“Don't worry, Your Grace,” Emily said to his clearly agitated mother as she ran after the girl. “I'll take care of her. She's just had a shock. She'll be fine.”

“
She's
had a shock?” Max said sarcastically. He still hadn't quite processed the fact that the girl's mother was Kristin Lassiter. Ten years ago he'd spent a single night with Kristin. They'd had sex one time. He rubbed a hand over his face. Apparently, once was enough.

Good God! Was it possible the girl was his daughter? He turned to his mother, jaw agape, shaking his head in disbelief.

“Close your mouth, Max. You're going to catch a lot of flies that way.”

He snapped his mouth shut, then opened it to say, “What's going on, Mother? If that child is Kristin's daughter, what's she doing here with you? How do you know she's mine?”

“Let's sit down where we can talk comfortably,” his mother said, crossing back around to take her seat in the wing chair.

Max paced the carpeted stone floor in front of her, too upset to sit. “I'm waiting, Mother.”

“I knew how upset you were when Kristin left the tour and wouldn't return your calls.”

He tried to remember whether he'd ever said anything to his mother about his friendship with Kristin. Anything at all. He remembered his mother asking once if he had any close friends on the tour. He might have mentioned Kristin. “How did you know about that? I mean, about Kristin not returning my calls?”

His mother sighed. “I hired someone, a private investigator, actually, to keep me informed about—”

He stopped pacing and turned on her. “You spied on me?”

“It wasn't spying, exactly, Max. You boys never returned my calls. I was worried. I needed some way to make sure you were all right. So I—”

“Hired someone to spy on me,” he said angrily.