Free At the Midnight Hour by Alicia Scott Page B

private education. There are a few excellent schools in Germany—”
    “Boarding schools, you mean!”
    “Yes. They are boarding schools, but their curricula will give him incredible opportunities.”
    “What?” she cried, her voice genuinely outraged. Her temper flared, seizing all her previous guilt and confusion and converting it straight to anger. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. It was bad enough he fairly ignored his son, but to get the child back after five years only to ship him away again...! Not if she could help it. “Intelligence and opportunity are the least of Andrew’s concerns,” she informed him vehemently. “What he needs is a stable, secure, loving environment to help teach him a little about the other side of life, such as living!”
    She crossed toward him, and this close, he could see her blue eyes flashing midnight fire. He smiled at her coolly, even as desire once again knotted his stomach.
    “I believe, Miss Guiness, that you are a bit of a romantic.”
    “Now what is that supposed to mean?” she demanded hotly, her gaze narrowing dangerously.
    “You seem to think,” Richard said dispassionately, “that the important things in life involve experiencing things like emotions and sentiments and playing. I disagree.”
    The ridiculousness of the statement was enough to stall her temper. “What do you mean you disagree? What do you think life is?”
    “I think it is reasoning, I think it is logic. I think it’s man’s search for progress, man’s mastering of the resources left to him. In short, it is something precise, something definable and something reasonable.”
    “You can’t be serious.”
    “But I am,” he said grimly, the intensity of his features almost enough to make her believe him.
    “Well, I don’t agree,” Liz declared firmly, her own face intent. “And I don’t think you should send Andrew to a boarding school. For goodness’ sake, that child is giving himself enough of a textbook education, as it is. He doesn’t need more lessons. He needs a father!”
    “It is not your concern,” Richard repeated coldly.
    “Oh, yes it is,” Liz told him, her jaw tightening stubbornly. “It is very much my concern. My job is to look after him. And do you know what I see? I see a scared little boy who idolizes his father. And I see a father who, for whatever reason, is perfectly intent on ignoring his own son. And I think that’s a great tragedy.”
    Richard’s lips thinned dangerously at her description. “Don’t meddle in things you know nothing about,” he warned.
    “Well, how can I know anything,” she retorted, “when you tell me nothing.”
    “It is not your place—”
    “Oh, spare me,” Liz cut in, her fragile emotions roaring out of control once and for all. “You cannot draw invisible boundary lines and hope to chain me in with them. I already know you don’t have the highest opinion of me, Mr. Keaton, but when I took this job, I took it with the intention of doing my best. And if I have to tear down every last particle of your self-control, if I have to pry through your deepest darkest concerns to learn why you avoid your son, I will do it. If you don’t like it, fire me.”
    She let the remark hang in the air, filling the vaulted ceiling with a tight, heated tension. Her cheeks were flushed, her chest heaving. Abruptly, their gazes locked, and the air between them heated another hundred degrees.
    Damn it, she wanted to kiss him. She wanted to grab his head and savage his lips with all the rage and frustration boiling in her veins. And one look at his darkening eyes told her that he would give as good as he got.
    “If you want to run,” he spoke suddenly, his voice low and curt, “you’d better go now. Or I won’t be held responsible for the consequences.”
    With a small cry of distress, she whirled and fled from the fired atmosphere of the room. Because she just wasn’t ready for the consequences yet.
    He watched her go, saying