Piper tucked a long curl behind her ear. “There’s something about Italy that’s sexy and seductive. It’s a place that subliminally encourages you to seize the day and act out of character, and this—” Piper waved her hand at his bare chest “—is very out of character for me. In the real world, I sleep with guys only if I think we are going somewhere, if the man has the potential to become important to me. Thanks to the tabloids, we all know you don’t do commitment, so that rules you out.”
Okay, sure, that was true but... But? There was no but. She had him pegged!
Piper stood up and pulled the knot on her robe, allowing the sides to fall open. The fabric framed her pretty breasts, and the moisture in his mouth evaporated. With a small shrug the robe slid down her arms and then to the floor, and she stood in front of him gloriously naked. She straddled his thighs and gently touched his mouth with hers. “If this is all the time we have, then we’re wasting it, Ballantyne.”
Jaeger gripped her butt in his hands and stood up, holding her. Her legs locked around his waist as he carried her to the bedroom.
She was the perfect one-night stand; she’d let him off the hook with no drama and little fanfare, and he should feel grateful, he thought, lowering her to the bed.
So, then, why didn’t he?
One
Eighteen months later
Piper Mills pulled her reading glasses from her face and tossed them onto her desk. Rubbing the bridge of her nose, she pushed her chair back from her Georgian mahogany writing desk and scowled at her laptop screen, where the offer of an exciting consultation sat in her inbox, waiting for her response.
Of course she would like to appraise a recently discovered Daniel Glutz. She’d written her master’s thesis on the German painter. But it was impossible. The painting was in Berlin, and since Ty’s birth nine months ago, she was restricted to appraising art on the East Coast, to trips she could undertake in a day or less. Although she loved and trusted her nanny, Ceri, and Ceri’s twin brother, Rainn, who was also good with Ty, she still didn’t feel comfortable leaving her precious child for extended periods. She couldn’t leave Ty overnight. Not yet.
Maybe when he was in college.
Piper stood up and went to the curved bow window of her three-story redbrick Victorian. She folded her arms across her chest and looked down onto the street below. Fall was nearly over, winter was rushing in and the seasons seemed to be flying past. She’d conceived Ty in spring, lost Mick in late summer, given birth to Ty in midwinter. This summer, unlike the previous one, passed by uneventfully.
Mick’s death last year was a smack rather than a blow, but one she was still wrapping her head around. Even though she and her father rarely spoke, she liked knowing there was somebody she was connected to, some family she could call her own—even if it was only in the quiet depths of her soul, since Mick never publicly acknowledged her as his daughter.
Or acknowledged her at all.
Growing up, she’d never thought she’d be glad he publicly ignored her and her mother, his longtime mistress. But when the most flamboyant and driven personality on the New York social scene, one of the most respected stockbrokers and investment advisors in the world, was arrested for fraud, Piper was very glad not to be linked to him.
Over decades, Mick convinced thousands of people to invest in funds he recommended, promising solid returns. He then used money from new investors to pay off existing investors, all while living the high life. It was no surprise he’d demanded she hand over her sapphires in the months leading up to, and after, his arrest. He’d needed to raise some money to buy a shovel so he could dig himself out of a very big hole.
The press attention over his arrest was intense, and Mick’s ex-wife was constantly harassed by reporters. Mick’s child bride/trophy wife conveniently left the States for Colombia two days before his arrest, never to return, not even to attend Mick’s funeral.
Ah, such a demonstration of true love.
Since neither of Mick’s wives knew of Piper’s existence, she’d just stayed in Park Slope, Brooklyn, living in the house Mick bought for her mother, watching the Mick-induced craziness from a distance. She was grateful her mother never witnessed the man she loved fall from the very high and gilded pedestal she’d placed him on. His death, from a heart attack two-and-a-half months after first being arrested, would’ve killed her if cancer had not.