“Dr. Reed said kids do that. One minute they’re sick, and the next they’re bouncing off the walls. Or trying to eat socks.” She patted Ivy’s diaper-covered bottom affectionately before settling back against the sofa.

Unable to help himself, he shifted his hips so that they were fully touching hers. She didn’t move away.

A log in the fireplace popped loudly, and the fire grew brighter, hotter. As did his skin. His desire for her.

He clutched the stuffed rabbit in his hand like his life depended on it. She wasn’t looking for a lover; she wanted a friend. Someone to talk to. There were many things he didn’t know about Rose, but he knew for certain she was a lonely woman raising a child that wasn’t hers. He also knew she was sweet, strong, and smart. And lovely. So lovely it made his gut clench every time he looked at her.

He hadn’t been lying when he told her that she was all he could see. Half the time he wasn’t aware she wore clothes. He was too busy trying not to do something spectacularly stupid like kiss her. Or pay off her back taxes and flee the country.

She leaned her head against his shoulder as if it were the most natural thing in the world. The scent of jasmine filled his senses and for a moment he belonged to her. To Ivy. To this house.

They turned toward each other at the same time, her breast brushing his arm. He became impossibly hard. Cherry lips parted and her lids half closed. The sweetest invitation to a kiss. And, God help them both, he wanted to pull her beneath him and kiss her until time ceased to exist.

“Sasha,” she breathed and leaned forward, tilting her chin up.

The barest touch of her lips to his froze him in place. Feathery kisses became more substantial, more urgent. Yes, his body seemed to sigh, this is the woman for you.

He murmured her name against her mouth and she took advantage, sliding her tongue inside and rubbing it against his. She tasted of tea and mint, and of all things Rose. All things good and pure. Everything he’d never be, no matter how hard he tried.

Her hands slowly moved up his thighs, the pressure light and tantalizing. She slid them under his wool sweater, brushing his abdomen and making it contract. Her very clever—he groaned—fingers found his nipple rings and tugged. His cock surged, growing harder, thicker, and longer against the zipper of his trousers.

She kissed along the side of his jaw and down to his neck, his pulse beating rapidly as her tongue lightly flicked him there. Every muscle in his body was on high alert, ready to spring into action. Cool air hit his pecs as his sweater went over his head and was tossed on the sofa behind him. Silky curls glided over his bare skin and he moaned.

She licked his nipple, circled it with her tongue and licked him again before drawing it and his piercing into her mouth. She nibbled at him with her teeth and soothed the pleasurable pain with her tongue.

“Touch me.” Her breath was a hot whisper against his wet flesh.

This was so wrong. So incredibly, fantastically wrong. He would be the biggest bastard in the world if he took advantage of her. He scooted away before she could do more, before he could do more, still holding the bunny. He was…shaken—as if that had been his first time with a woman.

“I have to go,” he said, jumping to his feet and tossing the stuffed animal in Rose’s lap. Striding over to the back door, he yanked his coat off of a hook on the wall.

“You don’t have on your sweater.”

“Don’t need it.”

She joined him at the door. “But it’s cold and nasty outside.” She put her hand on his shoulder, but he shrugged it away.

Where the hell were his shoes? “Doesn’t matter.”

“I don’t understand,” she said softly, her elegant brows drawing together.

He rubbed the back of his neck. He owed her an explanation, but there was no way he’d jeopardize his mother. He was treading a fine line as it were. “I shouldn’t have let that happen.”

“Is there someone else?”

God, he wished that were the problem. No matter how hard he tried to talk himself into a relationship with another woman, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Not one damn time. “No.”

“Then, I…” Her eyes became shadowed.

Dammit.

A decent man would have told her the truth, or at least said something along the lines of ‘I’m not taking advantage of you when you’re vulnerable.’ But he wasn’t a decent man. “You just think you’re supposed to act like this,” he said in frustration, and she jerked back as if he’d physically wounded her.

“He told you, didn’t he?” When he didn’t answer she smacked her hand against her pajama bottoms. Ones that had small cats with Santa hats on them. They were too short for her, riding up at the ankles. He didn’t want to know how long she’d had them. He didn’t want to know that she didn’t have a soul in this world willing to stand up for her.

“Jason alluded to it, but—”

Her eyes rounded and her mouth fell open. “You believed him.”

“He indicated that Summer is the, er, popular one.”

“Why didn’t you defend her?”

For the love of God. He waved his coat at her, then threw it on the countertop. “Jesus, Rose, you’re taking care of her baby. One that was abandoned by your sister. According to you, she doesn’t know who the bloody father is.”

She fisted her hands on her sweet hips. “I meant I didn’t know where he was, not who he was.”

“Well, do you?”

“Summer didn’t say, and I didn’t ask.”

As if that made it any better. As if he had any right to judge. He let his head fall back for a moment, then groaned. “This is so fucked up.”

“Why, because you got the wrong Holland?”

“It didn’t matter which one of you I got,” he shouted and Ivy let out a cry. Feeling like a complete ass, he practically ran to the baby, lifting her gently and holding her close. “There’s a girl. It’s okay,” he whispered, trying to soothe her.

“Give her to me.”

He turned and handed her Ivy. “How about we keep our contact limited, yes? You be my landlord and I’ll be your tenant. That way there’s no confusion or kisses or any other misunderstandings that haven’t happened yet.” He snagged his sweater and jerked it over his head.

“Fine.” Stormy eyes pinned him with her glare. The wind kicked up, gusting hard against the house. Cold air seeped through the floorboards. “As your landlord, I’m telling you to park your Mercedes on the left side of the porch. The right side is mine.”

He gave her a mocking bow. “Consider it done.”

After she left the room, he had the absurd notion to chase her down and lie prostrate at her feet while begging for forgiveness. In under five minutes, he’d managed to wipe out a budding friendship. A tentative trust. The look in her beautiful eyes would haunt him until he was old and gray.

He sat down heavily in a chair at the kitchen table and propped his head up in his hands. “Less of a guilty conscience, mate,” he told himself.

Too bad it didn’t make him feel any better.

Chapter Nine

For the past week, it had been raining in a freezing, steady flow from gray skies. Cars and trucks carefully inched along Broad Street, water high on each side as it splashed the sidewalks. No one ventured out much to do any shopping or eating. Carolina Dreams had had its slowest week yet which should have bothered Rose, but she was too hurt and angry to care.

The dismal weather matched her mood to a T. Looking back on that night, she knew she shouldn’t have kissed him. Shouldn’t have put her hands on his muscular, lean body and taken his nipple rings in her mouth.

She dropped her head into her hands, her cheeks heating. But she had ached for him. He had tasted so good. So male. So Sasha.

Only he had rejected her. Heck, he hadn’t even touched her. He’d sat there unmoving, unaffected. Well, not completely unaffected. Her fingers had glided past the shape of his penis. His very hard and enormous erection.

She let her head fall to her desk with a thud. What was worse, he’d confirmed her biggest fear. Her biggest insecurity. He hadn’t cared which Holland he’d found, and a small part of her wondered if he’d actually wanted Summer all along, but like Jason, had settled for Rose. The average sister. The one who didn’t live up to her reputation.

Maybe that had been the real reason why she and Sasha had never finished what they started. Only he’d been too polite to say it.

So far she’d managed to avoid Sasha, making sure she left before he did in the morning. No small feat since they lived together and she had to pack up the entire house to travel anywhere with Ivy.

She’d eaten dinner in Ivy’s nursery, then headed downstairs to clean up after she’d heard him turn in for the night. Only he‘d beaten her to it. Then he’d come with her to Palm Island again, helping her clean and playing with the baby.

Despite this, their conversations were whittled down to innocuous statements like, “I’ll clean the kitchen while you vacuum the living room,” or, “Pass the salt.”

Of course he talked to Ivy. He made silly faces and had the most ridiculous conversations with her. And of course, Ivy babbled and kicked her feet at his attentions. He even sat in the back of the car beside her on the way there and back.

A small ding coming from her computer’s speakers made her head snap up. She clicked on her inbox, read the new message, and blinked. Then she read it again and jumped up, sending her chair sliding across the room.

She danced around the office with the biggest smile on her face while Ivy watched in fascination. “I can pay my back taxes,” she said in a sing-song voice. “We get to keep everything!”

She had to tell Skye. After two years of submitting her information and jumping through hoop after hoop, the biggest natural supplier of beauty products on the East Coast was offering her a contract. A huge one. All she had to do was meet their deadline.

The bells hanging on the front door of Carolina Dreams rang and Rose quickly stepped to the counter. She smiled at the sight of her sister and then frowned at Skye’s anxious face. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m not here,” Skye said, then ducked into the office.

Tristan Reed barged in, his gray eyes glittering. “Skye Holland, get your red head in here and tell me why you drove off another one of my patients.”

Open-mouthed, Rose stared at him. His jet black eyebrows drew together in frustration when he found the store empty.

“Where is she?” he growled, his usually starched shirt rumpled and his hair sticking out all over his head like little ebony spikes. “I saw her run in.”

“Um, well—”

“Tell him I’m not here,” Skye said in a loud stage whisper, and Rose winced.

“She’s not here,” Rose said lamely.

Tristan’s jaw worked. “Has she always been like this?”

“Like what?”

“A pig-headed, stubborn-ass woman.”

Skye gasped and popped out of the office. “Just because you have too much water in your spirit doesn’t mean you can take out your imbalance on me.”

Tristan scrubbed his face. “And just because I’m half Chinese doesn’t mean I believe that superstitious stuff. Or eat sushi and do karaoke.”

“But you took me on a date to Mr. Lee’s All You Can Eat Sushi and Karaoke Bar last week,” Skye pointed out, oblivious to the visible tic forming on Tristan’s forehead. “You ate salmon rolls and sang an old Backstreet Boys song.” She turned to Rose and added, “I think it might have been the sake.”

Tristan’s face grew dark and he spun on his heel, striding to the front of the store. He slammed the door behind him.

“What was that all about?” Rose asked. How in the world had she not known that Skye and Tristan were dating?

“A little misunderstanding, that’s all. He’ll be over it by supper time,” Skye said with a dismissive wave of her hand.

Suddenly giddy as she remembered the email, Rose motioned Skye back to the office and pointed to her computer screen. “Read this.”

“Oh my God,” she squealed, and hugged Rose tight. “This is awesome.”

They danced around the room, taking turns re-reading the email out loud, and laughing until tears were falling from their eyes.

“This is the best day ever,” Rose said, picking up Ivy and kissing her head. “Well, almost.”

“You’ll need to ship out our back supplies and make some more of your cellulite cream and body butter. Shampoo. Conditioner. Bubble bath. Everything,” Skye said with a laugh.

The bells rang again.

Luke Ambrose strode inside. The handsome doctor was back in town, finally finished with his reality series called ‘Dr. LA’, even though it was filmed in Miami. According to his sister, Zoe, it was a running joke in their family.

“Hi, Luke. How are—”

“Stop making Lily’s shower stuff for Carson Russell.”

“Carson Russell doesn’t shop here.”

“You sure about that?”

Rose canted her head side to side, mentally searching her customer list. “Unless she orders it online, but I don’t have any local customers who do that.”

Luke pulled out his wallet and placed a black American Express card on the counter. “Give me whatever you have that doesn’t smell good.”

“I’m not sure if I have what you’re looking for.” Rose didn’t think Luke meant to be insulting, but she could never be too cautious.