Busted

She also wore a tie. One incongruously patterned with bright pink smile faces that matched the bright pink font of the author’s name.

Exposing the Geek Billionaire.

Muffling a squeal, she tapped on it.

Nothing.

“What?”

Farrah chortled as she nabbed the phone back.

“It’s just the cover . . . there was a big reveal on one of the romance blogs, Ress. It’s due out in early fall. But I thought you’d wa

Ressa barely acknowledged the change in names, just giving Farrah a cursory scowl. Mr. Hot, Sexy, and Tattooed might work.

“You gotta call him something.”

Ressa already did call him something. But she wasn’t sharing her mental nickname for him with her boss.

Chapter Three

Week Twenty-six

“You look tired.”

Trey jerked up his head, realizing he’d been this close to falling sleep. With his laptop open in his lap. In the middle of the children’s area.

Ressa Bliss stood in front of him, Clayton holding her hand and swinging it back and forth.

“Did you bring it in, Dad? Did you bring it in?” He let go of her hand to launch himself toward Trey.

Habit had him catching the boy easily even as he looked up at Ressa through dark lenses. “Yeah,” he said, wishing he had about a gallon of coffee to guzzle. “Have had a few late nights . . . trying to catch up on work before we fly out to California later this week.”

“We’re go

It was a gift.

Mother’s Day was on Sunday. It had been one rough week.

She said we were making presents for our moms . . . Daddy, I don’t have a mommy anymore and I was making it for Grandma and she said I wasn’t listening, but I didn’t want to tell her what happened and she kept trying to make me start all over . . .

Well, she sure as hell had listened to Trey. Sometimes he wondered what was wrong with people. It was very clearly marked in Clayton’s records that his mother had passed away—if they weren’t going to look at those records, why did they ask?

They’d finished up their crafts with Clayton working on his project that he’d give to Denise, his grandmother. He’d been so pleased with it, they’d hit one of the local craft stores and bought kits to make little clay paperweights for all of his grandparents, but he’d wanted to make something special for Ressa, too.

When Trey had pushed him on why, Clayton had just shrugged.

Everybody has a mommy who smells good and is pretty and tells them stories . . .

I tell you stories, man. Are you saying I stink?

Clayton had laughed. But then that sad look came back into his eyes. Miss Ressa read a book about a little girl who’d lost her mama. There was a lady who lived next door who the girl was friends with. Miss Ressa told us that sometimes people don’t have mamas . . . or daddies . . . but they still have people who love them. Maybe . . . You think maybe she loves me?

The kid could cut his heart out sometimes.

So there was another clay paperweight.

Trey rubbed the back of his neck as Clayton turned, clutching it in small hands as he looked up at Ressa. He opened his mouth, nervous, then shut it. Then he shoved it out at her. “Here!” he blurted. “I made it for you. I . . . I wanted you to have it.”

Ressa looked down, puzzled.

And then, as her face softened, Trey felt something wrench inside his heart.

“Oh . . .”

She sank to her knees. A smile curved up her lips and he was struck, straight to the heart, by how beautiful she was. Something came over him and it wasn’t that gut-twisting lust. It wasn’t that blood-boiling need that would never end in anything but frustration and humiliation.

It was something . . . more.

Something maybe even better.

A weight he hadn’t realized he still carried lifted inside him and he found he was smiling himself as she reached out, but instead of taking it from Clayton, she cupped her hands under his, steadying the oddly shaped heart the child had molded himself. “Wow,” she said, her voice husky. “You made this, didn’t you, handsome?”

Clayton nodded, chin tucked.

“My goodness.” She bit her lip and then leaned in, angling her head until she caught Clayton’s gaze. “Can I maybe hold it?”

“It’s yours.” Clayton dumped it into her hands and she caught it, handling it with the same care she might have shown had he just presented her with a Waterford crystal vase.

Judging by the light in her eyes, he might as well have done just that. “Clayton, that was really sweet of you,” she said, stroking her thumb over the overly bright, glass “jewels” they’d found to push into the clay. “I don’t think I’ve ever had a paperweight quite so beautiful in my life. But . . .” She looked up at him. “It’s not my birthday or anything. Why’d you give me something so nice?”

“Cuz . . .” Clayton shrugged his ski

He didn’t say anything else, just turned and flung himself toward Trey, his face jammed against his thigh. “I wa

“Clayton—”

Trey looked at her and shook his head. “It’s okay. He’s okay.” Or he would be. Scooping Clayton up, he went to scoop his laptop into his bag.

“Here.” Ressa moved in. “Let me help.”

He got a headful of her scent, felt her curls brush his cheek. All the while Clayton clung to his neck like a monkey. “Thanks,” he said, his voice brusque. Things were coming to attention now—of course, and here he was juggling his son, her concerned gaze, his bag.

“I’m sorry if I—”

“You didn’t.” Trey shot her a look, almost explained then, but the last thing Clayton needed was to hear the blunt hard facts laid out just then. He lived with them every day of his life. “He’s just had a rough week, haven’t you, buddy?”

He gave her a smile—the practiced one he’d used when reporters had hunted him down over the years, whether it was because of his writing, his wife’s death, or his co

Voice muffled against his neck, Clayton said, “I’m go

“You bet.” He rubbed his cheek against Clayton’s curls. “Uncle Sebastian wouldn’t dare miss Mother’s Day.”

“Is Aunt Abby making cake?”

Chuckling, he said, “I certainly hope so.” Giving Clayton a light squeeze, Trey murmured, “Why don’t you tell Miss Ressa bye? I think she’s upset and thinks she hurt your feelings?”

Clayton rolled his head on his shoulders. “Bye, Miss Ressa.”

*   *   *

The memory of Clayton’s smile lingered, hours after he’d left.

It lingered even after they closed up and she was sitting at the computer, debating.

Debating hard, because she was about to do something she had no right to do.

Or she was tempted. She wasn’t really about to do it, but she was closer to it than she was comfortable. Shit. How often did she get pissed when people tried to—or did—meddle in her background? She had plenty of things that she’d rather not have dragged out right in the open.