Buy Now

Chapter One

Rolan Anthony Paxton’s dawn fantasy had him in a state of rapture.
One hand cradling his neck, the other thrown across a king-size pillow, he slid his thighs apart over the cool satin sheets to give the expert mouth cocooning his randy prick better access. A light twirl over the crown, and that delectable tongue worked its way down the length of him.
“Rolan, sweetie?”
Stifling an automatic wince, he lifted one eyelid and looked at the blonde servicing him. Cindy-something, a Pamela Anderson look-alike on the verge of stardom, great tits and a god-awful high-pitched, nails-on-the-blackboard voice. He should have picked the other one.
“Hmmh?”
The yacht’s engines hummed to life and the boat vibrated and rocked. An open porthole let Mediterranean brine into the room, along with an unexpected morning chill. Monte Carlo’s perpetual traffic buzzed in the background.
At least she hadn’t stopped using those wonderful hands, but that happy thought evaporated with the dig of a nail.
“Ouch,” he snapped. “Watch those talons.”
“Oops, sorry,” she said, and cupped a hand over her mouth to suppress a nervous giggle.
A barrage of firm knocks hit the cabin door and he cut to the sound, mood souring and lips curling. Figured; it took him longer and longer these days, and the slightest mishap turned him off. Age, it had to be, since he was twenty-nine and tired of the same old, same old.
Money, fame, success, and nothing counted anymore.
He knew he should be grateful. How many athletes made it to the Super Bowl, not once, not twice, but three times? Startled out of his brooding by a repeat of rapping on the burnished mahogany door, he shot a glance at the blonde and ordered, “Cover up.” In a louder tone, he called, “Come in.”
Without looking up, he snagged the cover sheet and began drawing it over his calves. He stopped when an audibly gasped, “Oh, no” penetrated the silence.
His head snapped up and a stunned paralysis claimed his limbs.
He’d never forgotten those eyes, the color of liquid caramel, that wild hair, every shade of a fiery sunset, and a bottom lip so plump, so inviting that one night he hadn’t been able to resist nibbling on it for hours.
Sarita Khan, the nose-in-a-book classmate he’d been forced to serve four Saturdays of detention with during his last year in high school. The girl whose virginity he’d taken on prom night after breaking up with the captain of the cheerleading team. Those sweet elfin features had haunted his dreams intermittently over the last ten years. Adrenalin surged in his veins and his heartbeat accelerated. Sarita, his Sarita.
That bronze-dusted complexion paled beneath his scrutiny and she swayed, the breakfast tray balanced on her forearms listing back and forth. She swallowed, slapped a palm onto the table cemented to the left, and squeezed her eyes shut.
“Are you okay?” he asked, and hopped out of the bed, oblivious to his nudity, stalking forward. “Here, let me take that.”
For a few seconds she gripped the tray tighter, but didn’t lift her lids. Then her hold slackened.
He tugged the tray away and set it on the table. Eyes Krazy Glued to her delicate, heart-shaped face, raking a quick assessment of the changes over the last ten years, he forgot Cindy, the boat, the injuries plaguing his career, everything save Sarita and sweet memories. The urge to trace the soft curve of her cheek, cup her face, and suck that lower lip, defeated only by a nervous giggle in the background. Rolan stifled an internal groan and his hands fisted.
Sarita’s jaw clenched and the pulse at her throat beat like a cartoon character’s heart, thump, thump, in time to the rise and fall of her chest.
“Thank you,” she said.
And the memory of that low throaty voice during their lovemaking cascaded like a waterfall, showering gooseflesh on the back of his neck. Enthralled, stun gunned, he didn’t react when she twirled, stalked to the door, exited, and slammed it so hard it reverberated.
Cindy-something, the woman in his bed, began a torrent of idle, Valley girl chitchat. It never penetrated his mind, and became an irritating background buzz. Rolan slumped into the chair and stared unseeing at the laden breakfast tray.
Those four Saturdays they’d spent together in the detention room had started off as the worst punishment for a teenager in the throes of athletic vigor. King of the senior year, dating the cheerleader captain and giving it to her almost every day, his arrogance knew no bounds. At that time in his life, he believed himself invincible. And he was, on the football field.
Little Sarita Khan, from the wrong side of the tracks, the product of a mixed marriage, her father from Bombay, her mother an Irish woman with a riot of flaming tresses and the temperament to go with it. Mrs. Khan cleaned houses for the country club members and he often caught a glimpse of her at his friends’ residences. The father, the famous town drunk, had disappeared sometime between middle and high school, or so he’d heard.
Her father was Hindu, and in the stodgy close-knit town of Orangeville, it didn’t pay to be anything but Bible Belt Christian. Until that four-week detention, he’d been vaguely aware of the town’s disapproval when Sarita’s father attempted to celebrate some exotic Hindu festival. All of them were shunned after that and she’d faded into the background at school.
“Rolan, sweetie. You’re not eating. The food’s gonna get cold,” whined Cindy-something, breaking into his reminisces.
He stifled another groan as he took in the clothes strewn across the burgundy Persian rug, the rumpled bed sheets, Cindy’s naked double-D breasts, the platinum nipple rings, and the diamonds dangling from her navel.
What had Sarita seen?
Closing his eyes, he tried to picture the scene she’d interrupted: Cindy on her haunches, one palm on his groin, his erect prick. He choked back a moan. What a disastrous way to reunite with the girl who’d haunted his dreams for ten years.
Ten years ago, he’d taken her virginity.
And on each twenty-seventh of May for every year since then, he’d awoken aroused with her face burned on his pupils. He’d learned after the first couple of years not to bother with substitutes, not when their faces were replaced by hers at the height of his climax.
He downed a glass of orange juice, all the while wondering how Sarita had ended up on Sir Geoffrey Stanford’s yacht in Monte Carlo. Previous lassitude dissipated and a burst of energy commandeered his appetite.
Over the years, he’d often wondered if he’d been able to see her again as he had planned, no, had been determined to, what would have happened? Sarita was the kind of girl you took home to Mom, the marrying kind. They’d been too young to make things work back then and marriage certainly hadn’t been on his mind. The bright lights of the NFL and Super Bowl stardom had been his sole goal. But he had been addicted to her laugh, the way she felt in his arms, the molasses taste of her mouth.
A church bell rang eight times and his gaze fell upon the calendar, May twenty-fifth. This had to be the hand of fate. Suddenly starved, he wolfed down scrambled eggs, bacon, sausages, and toast, and then finished the whole pitcher of OJ.
“Rolan sweetie, what’re we doing today?” Cindy-something asked.
“I have team meetings all day. I’ll get someone to drive you back to the hotel in the Lamborghini,” he said, the last part a deliberate bribe. “Spend the day at the spa and have them charge it to my account.”
Her initial pouty expression morphed with the mention of the luxury car, and the offer of the exclusive spa sealed the deal.
Rolan eyed her and tried to hide his distaste at the calculating gleam in her somewhat vacant eyes. He must have been pissed to the gills last night. A vague recollection of the Casino at the Hotel de Paris flashed through his mind, a private room, champagne, a bowl of cocaine, not that he indulged. No white death for him.
He finished dressing before she even began. She kept up a stream of mild vacuous chatter, but donned the requisite spandex glove of an evening gown, scarlet no less. Once she’d jiggled on three-inch stilettos, he cupped her elbow and hurried her up the stairs, out the doors, and down the gangplank.
“Will I see you tonight?” she asked, and those talons dug vicious “U”s into his forearms.
Disengaging her hands, he answered, “It’s all business for the next few days. Stay on at the hotel for the weekend, put in on my tab. You’ll probably run into some of the other players. Tell the concierge I requested your room be on their floor.”
“Why Rolan, you’re such a sweetheart,” she said, one hand stroking his forearm.
The possessive gesture raised his hackles and he had to repress a shudder.
Again, Cindy-something’s practiced pout turned into a calculated smile at the mention of a free weekend and access to the rest of the team.
“You’re the sweetheart for being so understanding.”
As soon as her heels hit Monte Carlo’s immaculate sidewalk, he spun about and headed down the hallway trying to remember the kitchen’s location. It took him half an hour to find the frigging room. Gleaming stainless steel encased every surface, every appliance. Compact, but designed for efficiency, the three major centers, sink, stove, and refrigerator formed a neat triangle.
Besides the appliances, the kitchen was empty.
A tray loaded with miniature smoked salmon rosettes dotted with sour cream and the requisite black caviar graced one counter, while the other held a cutting board and a bunch of fresh parsley. Two barstools cozied up to a narrow table to the left and Rolan took a seat on one, prepared to wait.
As he settled in, the galley door slammed open.
One young male, maybe ten-ish, skidded inside. His long legs braked as he spotted Rolan. Grubby smoke-streaked cheeks flushed a deep rose, and emerald eyes the exact color of Rolan’s darted around the empty space.
“Where’s Mom? Who’re you?”
Something snaked up Rolan’s spine inch by inch, becoming more menacing as it climbed. An unfamiliar déjà vu sensation settled at his temples, throbbing, pulsing. The boy was him at ten. Feature for feature, except for his reconstructed nose, the consequence of one too many barroom fights. The tightness is his chest grew and his lungs stopped functioning.
“Hey, mister, you okay? You’re not one of those squeamish kind of guys are you? ’Cause you look like you’re going to faint. Don’ cha know only sissies faint?”
Nonchalant, too composed and devil-may-care for such a tender age, the boy sauntered to the fridge, sliced it open, and stuck his head into the appliance’s depths. His muffled voice carried on a one-sided conversation. “You want an OJ?”
He stuck his dirty face around the fridge door. “Well?”
Mustering some elements of composure, Rolan replied, “Sure. What’s your name?”
“Anthony Rolan Khan. Call me Tony. Mom hates it, but I kinda like it. It’s better than Anthony.”
His son.
Had to be.
Entranced, benumbed, unable to move a limb or foster an intelligent thought, Rolan stared, inspecting every inch of the boy’s face, his torso.
“So, who are you?”
“Rolan Anthony Paxton.”
“Cool, like the opposite of mine. You pals with Geoff?”
“You know Geoff?”
“Sure. He hired Mom. Had to go back to England. He has his own castle. We’re going to spend a week there. Geoff’s gonna teach me how to ride a horse and fish. Mom said no at first. She’s such a nerd. She’s like the most spastic person on the planet.” The boy cocked his head and his mouth curved. “Hey, you’re Rolan Paxton, the Patriots wide receiver. What happened to your beard? Can I get your autograph? I play football too, quarterback. Mom didn’t want to let me, but coach talked her into it. She’s afraid I’ll get hurt.”
“What’s your mother’s name?” He had to hear the boy say it.
“Sarita Khan. Are you looking for her?”
“Yes. Tony, is your mother married?”
For a brief moment, uncertainty and embarrassment flicked across the boy’s face, and he rocked on his heels, shoving grubby hands into too-tight denim pockets. “I don’t have a dad, right. It’s not the end of the world. My mom’s good enough.”
For a few brief seconds, they stared at each other. It was like looking into the mirror of youth, his face, his gangly limbs, his insecurities as a prepubescent youth. Rage warred with a curious protectiveness, and shock had him scrambling to his feet.
Sarita sashayed into the now claustrophobic kitchen, her jean clad butt swaying in unconscious provocation.
“Anthony Khan, what have you been up to? How you can get so dirty in such a short time, I’ll never know.” She crossed the room and lifted the ends of a white apron to the boy’s cheeks. “You went to the engine room, didn’t you? How many times must I tell you it’s dangerous down there?”
“Aw, Mom, stop it will ya? I can wash my own face. I’m not a little boy anymore.” He dashed her hands away and marched over to the sink. “Besides, that man’s waiting for you.” Tony jerked his head in Rolan’s direction.
Sarita pivoted, a slow motion spin, and when she faced him, a mask descended over her features.
Fury won out over Rolan’s shock.
“Tony, go above deck. Your mom and I need to talk.”
“Mom?” The boy seemed to sense the undercurrents between the two adults and he sidled closer to his mother.
“Anthony, go to your room.” Not the shy reclusive adolescent any longer, his Sarita. “Now.” She issued the clipped order with military precision.
“Anthony Rolan Khan?” Accusation and bitterness laced his voice, accelerating with each word, and Rolan’s leashed anger began to unravel. He clenched his fists so hard the skin over his knuckles stretched painfully.
Their gazes met, locked, battled.
“Mom?” The boy’s voice wavered.
“Go son. I’ll be there in a while.” She glanced at Tony and waved elegant fingers in the direction of the doorway.
Chastened, the boy followed his mother’s command with a glum over-the-shoulder dart, green eyes dancing back and forth between his elders.
The silence drew out like a bowstring plucked to fire. Sarita scrunched the white apron with both hands, drawing the ends into a taut line. She had long fingers, short unpainted oval nails, and a Band-Aid wrapped around the base of one thumb.
He hadn’t been able to really assess her this morning, sleep fuddled mind reeling from the shock of seeing her again. Those honey eyes still had that oriental slant and were fringed by inky lashes, which cast shadows on her high cheekbones. Sarita’s delicate features were belied by an arrogant, almost aristocratic nose, and a lower lip so plump, so red, it begged to be nibbled on. And she’d loved it when he did, breaking into soft startled moans.
For years he’d wondered if it had all been a fantasy, that night on the centerline under the stars, and time and time again he’d pulled out the stark memento, the captured prize, one pink thong, to force reality home. Now he had another shock to absorb, a definite outcome of the first and only time he’d not used a condom.
“He’s mine,” Rolan gritted, and suddenly yearned for a long pour of brandy.
“I suppose there’s no sense in denying it,” she said, her tone firm, quiet, spoken with a queenly dignity he wanted to shatter.
“He’s ten,” he said, doing a quick mental calculation. “You didn’t figure on telling me about his existence?”
“Please don’t shout,” she replied, and her calm demeanor spiked his rising temper. “I wrote you twice.”
“Blasted hell, you did. The last time I saw you was that night on the football field. I tried to see you the next day, but your mother wouldn’t let me in the house.”
“You,” she said, and both eyebrows lifted. “You tried to see me after we, um, you know…”
Cheeks coloring a dark pink, her voice trailed off, she ducked her head and studied the tiled floor with an intensity most people reserved for lottery tickets while the winning numbers were called.
His stomach listed. Surely, she hadn’t thought…no, she had thought it was a one-night stand. He could tell from the slumping of her shoulders, the way air seemed to deflate that defiant body posture.
Jesus.
“Of course I tried to see you, Sarita. I’d received my draft notice that morning. I knew you’d be excited for me and I wanted to share the news with you. I went to your house even before I told my parents.”
“You did?” Pupils dilated, eyes rimmed with amber, she stared at him.
“I wanted to let you know that I had to leave the next day, but that I’d call and I would be back in six weeks.”
“Why?”
Rolan itched to smooth the lines between her auburn eyebrows, stop the slight quivering of her lower lip with his. She hadn’t believed him that night when he’d kissed and told her, “I’m falling for you, honey.”
It didn’t matter now.
Tony mattered.
“Jesus H. Christ,” he said, and slumped back onto the barstool. “I have a son.”
“He’s mine. I raised him. He’s mine. You were only there for the conception. He’s not your son.”
“He’s mine,” he roared and shot to his feet. “And if I have to blast it on the cover of every newspaper, every gossip rag, I will. You hid him from me for ten years, and get this straight Sarita, it stops right now. I’m his goddamned father and that’s it. You owe me. Big time.”
With that pronouncement, too perplexed, too overflowing with emotion, he stalked out of the tiny room, only managing to resist shaking her by plunging his hands into his pants pockets. He caught up with his son seconds later. Apparently, the boy didn’t take orders to heart.
“My dad’s dead.” The flat statement didn’t go with the boy’s wavering voice. “You leave my mom alone. If you hurt her, I’ll hurt you.”
His fury trickled away, replaced by a peculiar pride at his son’s protective words. “Go above deck, son. Your mom will come and get you when we’ve finished our discussion. She’ll be okay, I promise. Tell the captain we’ll be staying a few days here in Monte Carlo. Ask him to have my Lamborghini brought around.”
Those emerald eyes sparked and eyebrows the color of wheat almost met the boy’s hairline, yet he didn’t move, just chewed his lower lip.
“I look like you,” Tony said and he crossed his arms. “Why do I look like you? And why is your name the opposite of mine?”
Damn. Rolan tunneled both hands through his hair.
“I don’t want you to be my dad. I don’t like you. You yell at Mom and she looks like she wants to cry.” Tony jammed two clean hands into his jeans’ back pockets, lips sneering down. “And I’m not doing anything you say. You can’t make me. I’m going to get Captain Terry to make you go away. You don’t own this boat, Geoff and Captain Terry do. And Geoff wants to marry Mom. So does Harry, and he’s from Texas. He’s a cowboy.”
With that pronouncement, the boy glared at Rolan, spun around, and raced down the hallway.
His Sarita?
Geoff and Harry?
He saw red.
Damn, damn and blast it. He stalked back to the kitchen to stake his claim. Sarita was his, and if either Geoff or Harry had so much as touched her, they’d pay. He knuckled his throbbing temple and took deep breaths determined to regain his famous control. He never lost his cool, not once in ten years on the football field, but he’d never had to fight so hard to regain his composure. His feet plodded forward as if mired in a bog.
Leaning one shoulder into the kitchen’s doorframe, he studied Sarita once more. Perched on a bar stool, slender back facing him, she slashed a wicked carving knife through a bunch of parsley, mincing the verdant leaves while muttering under her breath. All at once, she stabbed the axelike tool into the wooden cutting board letting the handle vibrate, and bounded to her feet.
“I hate you, hate you, Rolan Anthony Paxton. You are not taking my son away from me.”
“Isn’t this just dandy? We’re already dysfunctional and the family nucleus is in its infancy,” he drawled, pleased when she turned to him, bronze skin paling, features caught in a grimace, one lone tear slipping to hover at a stubborn jaw line.
He snapped a paper towel off the under the counter dispenser and edged forward. “Here. Crying isn’t going to solve anything. We need to talk.”
She stumbled backward, the bar stool wobbled, and Rolan had to grab it with both hands to prevent a nasty spill. Wide almond eyes with spiky lashes blinked up at him, and he caught a flash of vulnerability before that Zen-like mask descended again.
It irked him.
She irked him.
She looked so fragile, so vulnerable.
Red hot fury faded.
Strands of sunset hair escaped her high ponytail, slipping forward onto her shoulders as she straightened and dashed away the moisture on her cheeks with the back of her hand. The childlike gesture melted the rest of his anger and banded his chest.
“What do you want?”
His senses remembered that low throaty purr and his cock came to life in an involuntary reaction. And it was like they’d never been apart, all the old protectiveness, possessiveness, and lightening lust flaring through his soul.
Sarita.
His.
Rolan rescued the vibrating knife and set it on the cutting board. He slid onto the other barstool.
“You said you wrote?” Praying for calm, he decided to start at the beginning.
“Twice, one to your home and another to the college.” One forefinger flicked the minced parsley, shuffling the leaves into a rough circle. “I never heard from you, so I figured I was on my own.”
“Obviously I never received either letter. You didn’t think about picking up the telephone?”
Their gazes locked and he read the fury in hers as those pupils dilated and darkened, making the honey tint into a mere halo.
“You went out of your way to avoid me, Rolan Paxton, and you can’t deny that. I was the mistake you wished you’d never made.”
“Jesus Christ, Sarita, I was embarrassed. I took your virginity with all the finesse of a stampeding bull. You cried, damn it, and my raging hormones didn’t give a crap.”
For a second, naked pain lanced those amazing eyes, but she dropped her lids and concentrated on the minced parsley, one pearl eyetooth gnawing on her lower lip.
“And before I could say anything, you ran away. Look at me, damn it.”
“I wasn’t crying because you hurt me, Rolan.”
She said the words so softly he had to strain to hear them.
“Why then?”
She shook her head and he thought blood would spurt she bit down so hard.
A stream of anger returned heating his skin, and frustrated by her unwillingness to communicate, he snapped, “Burying your head in the sand isn’t going to help resolve this situation. I want joint custody of our son.”
“What?” Her head whipped up then, one hand fluttering to her throat. “No. You don’t have the right to ask that.”
“You want to take this to court?” Ah, rage again, good healthy anger. “One paternity test is all it takes. I’m his biological father. The courts will grant me joint custody. What have you got to offer the boy? I can afford full-time help, put him in the best private schools. I guarantee you    you don’t want to take me on in a public battle for custody.”
“You always were a bully, especially on the football field.”
“And you’re hired help, plain and simple. One word to the captain and you’re out of a job. I bet your savings amounts to nil. I can ruin you, Sarita, and I will if that’s what it takes.”
Pounding footsteps preceded Tony’s skidding entrance, and he braked a tad short of them. Wary emerald eyes darted back and forth between the two adults.
“I asked you to stay above deck.”
“My son doesn’t take orders from you,” she spat out the words.
“Captain Terry says you’re to head to the deck. Your guests are here.”
Crap, he’d forgotten the primary purpose of this trip. “Ask Captain Terry to hang for a bit. I’ll be up in a second.”
“No, you tell him yourself. I’m staying with Mom.” Tony marched into the room.
“Anthony, it’s okay. Please go above deck and relay Mr. Paxton’s message.”
He waited until the boy’s long limbs vanished around a corner. “Joint custody, Sarita; I’ll settle for nothing else.”