Free Surprised by Family: a Contemporary Romance Duet by Noelle Adams Page A

Charlotte’s, but she wore it with a more demure white top and a sparkly pair of Mary-Janes.
    “That’s right. Of course, he might not be right on time. He said he had a meeting that might run late.”
    Leila was just praying he would show up at all.  Whatever had prompted him to accept the invitation might not be a lasting impulse, and she was pretty sure there was a possibility that he woke up this morning and wondered why the hell he should waste his time with a couple of little girls.
    “I don’t think he’ll be late,” Jane said, pulling one of the flowers out of the vase to make more room for the others.
    “He won’t be late,” Charlotte echoed.
    Leila had opened her mouth to temper this optimism when the doorbell rang.
    “I’ve got it,” she called over to her dad, who was in the living room talking to Miss Martin and a couple of the neighbors whom the girls had also invited to the birthday party.
    Ridiculously, her heart raced and her cheeks warmed as she swung open the front door of the little house she rented.
    Baron stood on her welcome mat, wearing black trousers and a black dress shirt and holding a shopping bag from what she knew to be a very exclusive market.
    He looked so gorgeous that her heart skipped a beat.
    “Hi,” she said, staring at him and wondering why he had to look so irresistibly sexy, intelligent, and ironic—all at the same time.
    “Hi.”
    “You’re right on time,” she said, somewhat redundantly.
    His gaze had scanned her from top to bottom, and she felt a shiver of excitement at the appreciative glint in his eyes. “Am I to be allowed in?”
    “Oh, yeah. Sorry.” She grinned sheepishly and stepped aside to invite him inside.
    She watched as he greeted the girls and told her father “happy birthday.” Anxiety and excitement waged a war inside her as she wondered again what Baron was doing here and what had happened to make him change his mind about withdrawing.
    She wondered what had hurt him so deeply in the park on Saturday and if there was anything she could do to help him.
    Leila reminded herself for the thousandth time to be very, very careful. Baron wasn’t a man she could start to build hopes around.
    At least he’d shown up when the girls were counting on him.
    Which was more than their father had managed to do.
    ***
    As Leila was pouring out punch into the fancy plastic cups the girls had picked out, she heard them demanding that Baron show them what he’d brought in the shopping bag.
    When she heard squeals of delight and her father’s low laughter, she ducked her head around to see what was going on.
    Jane and Charlotte were each holding a little bouquet of roses and mini calla lilies—Charlotte’s with pink roses and white lilies and Jane’s with white roses and purple lilies. Leila knew relatively little about flowers, but she could tell from the elegant way the bouquets were tied off that Baron must have paid a small fortune for them.
    “Mommy!” Charlotte exclaimed, “Look! Look what Mr. James got us!” The girl did a little dance, her flower bouquet threatening to fly across the room with her exuberance.
    “I see that.” Leila smiled at her happy girls and then slanted a look at Baron, her eyebrows lifted. “That was very nice of Mr. James.”
    “Never come to a party empty-handed,” he murmured with an amused glint in his eyes. Then his eyes widened with something like trepidation as Jane came over, cradling her precious bouquet and looking as though she might give him a hug.
    Perhaps to defer this possibility, Baron reached down into the bag again and pulled out a wrapped present. “Can you put this on the table with the others?” he asked her.
    Happily, Jane took the gift and carried it over to the side table with the other presents for her father, and Charlotte ran over to confer with her twin sister over the proper placement of the newly arrived gift on the pile.
    “You didn’t have to get me a gift,” her dad said casually,