"May I help you?" she asked, thinking that with a face and physique like his, he probably didn't need much help at all. He stood tall, six-three at least, with a muscular build, a clean-shaven head, chocolate-brown eyes and skin tone of the richest cocoa, altogether a striking combination. The drool she usually reserved only for Denzel was beginning to make her mouth feel wet. As she continued to look at him, waiting for his response, she suddenly noticed that he wasn't smiling. In fact, he appeared downright annoyed.

"I'm here to see Kylie Hagan."

Kylie lifted her eyebrows and the smile on her face began fading at his rough and irritated tone of voice. What business did this man have with her? All her bills were current, which meant he couldn't be there to collect anything. And if he was a salesman, with his less than desirable att.i.tude, she wouldn't be buying whatever it was he was selling.

"I'm Kylie Hagan."

Surprise flickered in his drop-dead gorgeous eyes. "You're Kylie Hagan?"

"That's right and who are you?"

"Chance Steele."

The name didn't ring a bell, but then she had only recently moved to the area. "And what can I do for you, Mr. Steele?"

He stared at her for a moment, and then he said, "The only thing you can do for me, Ms. Hagan, is keep your daughter away from my son."

Kylie froze. The man's words were not what she had expected. For a long moment she stared back at him, wondering if she had misunderstood. But all it took was the deep scowl on his face to let her know she had not.

"Keep my daughter away from your son?" she repeated when she finally found her voice.

"Yes. I found this note yesterday that evidently dropped out of Marcus's backpack. They were planning on cutting school together on Friday," he said as he pulled a piece of paper out of the pocket of his jacket.

"What!" Kylie shrieked, grabbing the paper out of his hand.

"You heard me and you can read it for yourself," he said, crossing his arms over his chest.

Kylie read, then after the first few lines she wished she hadn't. Three emotions enveloped her: hurt, betrayal and anger. Tiffany had always promised that if she ever got serious about a boy that she would tell her. Granted, she and Tiffany hadn't been that close lately, but a promise was a promise.

"Now can you see why I want your daughter kept away from my son?"

Chance Steele's question sliced through Kylie's tormented mind and grated on her last nerve, deepening her anger. She came from behind the counter to stand directly in front of him. "Don't you dare place all the blame on Tiffany, Mr. Steele. If I read this note correctly, she was merely responding to a note your son had sent asking her her to cut school. The nerve of him doing such a thing!" to cut school. The nerve of him doing such a thing!"

"Look, Ms. Hagan, we can stand here all day and we won't agree who's to blame. But I think we will agree on the fact that your daughter and my son shouldn't even be thinking about cutting school. I have big plans for my son's future that include him attending college."

Kylie glared at him. "And you don't think I have those same plans for my daughter?" she snapped. "Tiffany is a good kid."

"So is Marcus," he snapped back.

Kylie breathed in deeply and closed her eyes in a concerted effort to calm down before a blood vessel burst in her head. They weren't getting anywhere biting each other's heads off.

"Ms. Hagan, are you all right?"

She slowly opened her eyes to focus on the man looming over her. Concern was evident in his gaze. "Yes, I'm fine."

"Look, I'm sorry I came barging in here like this," he said, the tone of his voice calmer, apologetic. "But after reading that note I got upset."

She nodded. "I can understand why. I'm pretty upset myself."

"Did you know our kids were hung up on each other?" he asked. She could tell that he was trying to maintain a composed demeanor.

"Mr. Steele, until you walked into my shop and dropped your son's name, I had no idea he even existed. Tiffany and I moved here a few months ago from New York State, right before the start of the new school year. I knew she had made some new friends but she's never mentioned anyone's name in particular."

"Okay, so as parents, what do you think we should do?" he asked.

His voice was drenched in wariness and Kylie could tell he was deeply bothered by all of this, but then he wasn't the only one. "The one thing we shouldn't do is demand that they not see each other. Telling them to stay away from each other will only make them want to see each other more. Teenagers will always deliberately do the opposite of what their parents want them to do. And once they start rebelling, it will be almost impossible to do anything."

She didn't have to tell him that she knew firsthand how that worked. Her parents had tried to keep her and Sam apart, which only made her want him more. The more she and Sam had sneaked around, the more risks they had taken until she had eventually gotten pregnant at sixteen...the same age Tiffany would be in about ten months.

"We have to do something. In confronting Marcus about that letter, I've thrown a monkey wrench into their plans for Friday. But how can we be sure this won't happen again?"

At the sound of Chance's voice, Kylie dragged her thoughts back to the present. "I'll talk to Tiffany and, like I said, she's a good kid."

"Yes, but it appears that my son and your daughter are at the age where overactive hormones cancel out good sense. We need to do what we can to make sure those hormones stay under control."

"I fully agree."

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a business card. "This is how to reach me if you need me to do anything further on my end. I talked to Marcus but things didn't go well. I did the one thing you indicated I should not have done, which was demand that he stay away from Tiffany. I don't think I've ever seen him that angry or rebellious."

Kylie nodded as she took the card from him. She didn't want to think about her upcoming talk with Tiffany. "I appreciate you dropping by and bringing this to my attention."

"Like I said earlier, I apologize that my approach wasn't more subtle. But Marcus's last words to me this morning were that n.o.body would stop him from seeing Tiffany. I was furious and still riled up when I decided to come over here."

He sighed deeply and then added, "It's not easy raising a teenager these days."

"Don't I know it," Kylie said softly, feeling terribly drained but knowing she would need all her strength when she confronted Tiffany after school.

"Well, I'd better be going."

"Again, thanks for coming by and letting me know what's going on."

He nodded. "There was no way I could not not let you know, considering what they'd planned to do. Have a good day, Ms. Hagan." let you know, considering what they'd planned to do. Have a good day, Ms. Hagan."

As Kylie watched him walk out of her shop, she knew that as much as she wished it to be so, there was no way that this would be a good day.

The moment Chance got into his truck and closed the door, he leaned back against the seat and released a long sigh. If the daughter looked anything like the mother, he was in deep trouble. No wonder his usually smart son had begun acting downright stupid.

Kylie Hagan was definitely a beauty. He had noticed that fact the moment he had walked into the flower shop and headed straight toward the counter. When she had come from behind that same counter and he'd seen that she was wearing a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, he'd thought the outfit fit just right on her curvy, pet.i.te body and showed off her shapely legs too perfectly. Braided dark brown hair had been stylishly cut to accent her face. Her creamy chocolate skin complemented a pair of beautiful brown eyes, a perky nose and an incredibly feminine pair of lips.

How in the world could she be the mother of a fifteen-year-old when she looked barely older than twenty herself? She looked more like Tiffany's sister than her mother. Perhaps Tiffany had been adopted. There were a lot of questions circulating around in his mind, but the foremost was what the two of them could do about their kids who seemed h.e.l.l-bent on starting a relationship that neither was ready for.

He understood Marcus's interest in girls-after all he was a Steele-and Chance could distinctly remember when he was younger. He had fallen in love with Cyndi when he'd been just a few years older than Marcus, and had married her before his nineteenth birthday after she had gotten pregnant.

Pregnant.

He would never forget that day when Cyndi had come to him, a mere week before he was to leave for Yale University, to let him know she was having his baby. He had loved her so much he decided not to accept a full college scholarship and leave her alone. Instead, he had married her, gone to work at his father's manufacturing company and attended college at night. It hadn't been easy and it had taken him almost six years to get a degree, but he and Cyndi had made the best of it and he could look back and honestly say that although there were hard years, they had been happy ones.

And then the unthinkable happened. Cyndi had noticed changes in a mole on the side of her neck, a mole that was later determined to be cancerous. Even after surgery and chemo treatments, four years later, on the day Marcus should have been celebrating his ninth birthday, they were in the cemetery putting to rest the one woman who had meant the world to Chance.

He straightened and started up his truck. Although he would never think of marrying Cyndi as a mistake, he couldn't help but remember her plans of attending college; plans that had gotten thrown by the wayside with her pregnancy. If he had it all to do over, he would have been more responsible that night when they had gotten carried away by the moment.

And then on top of everything else, he couldn't forget the promise he had made to Cyndi on her deathbed; a promise that he would make sure that their son got to do everything they hadn't done, and take advantage of every opportunity offered to him, which included one day attending a university that would give him the best education.

That was the reason he was driven to make sure Marcus did well in school. Of course it was Chance's hope for him to one day join the family business, the Steele Corporation, but if Marcus wanted to do something else after finishing college, then he could do so with Chance's blessings.

As he began backing out of the parking lot, he contemplated the emergence of Tiffany Hagan in Marcus's life. He didn't think his son's interest in the girl was going to fade away anytime soon, regardless of what kind of talk Kylie Hagan had with her daughter. That meant Chance needed to have a "Plan B" ready. Under no circ.u.mstances would he let Marcus succ.u.mb to teen l.u.s.t and ruin the life he and Cyndi always wanted for him.

His thoughts shifted to Tiffany's mother again, and he felt l.u.s.t invading his own body. The difference was he was a man and he could handle it.

At least he hoped he could.

After reading the note, Helena Spears glanced up at the woman who'd been her best friend since high school. "Are you sure Tiffy wrote this, Kylie?"

The two of them had met for lunch and were sitting at a table in the back of the restaurant. Kylie shook her head. Leave it to Lena to try to wiggle her G.o.ddaughter out of any kind of trouble. "Of course I'm sure. I can recognize Tiffany's handwriting when I see it and so can you. Those curls at the end of certain letters give her away and you know it."

Lena shrugged as she handed the note back to Kylie. "Well, the only thing I have to say in defense of my G.o.dchild is that if Marcus looks anything like his daddy, then I can see why Tiffy fell for him."

Kylie didn't want to admit that she'd thought the same thing. "You know Chance Steele?"

"Oh, yeah. There are few people living in Charlotte who don't know the Steele brothers. They own a huge manufacturing company, the Steele Corporation. There are four of them who were born and raised here. They're not transplants like rest of us, and they are very successful, as well as handsome. Chance is the CEO and his brothers have key positions in the corporation. There are also three female cousins, one of which works in the PR Department. The other two chose careers outside of the company, but all three are members of the board of directors."

Lena took a sip of her drink before continuing. "Chance is the oldest and the one I see most often with my charity work. He's a big supporter of the American Cancer Society. His wife died of cancer around seven years ago."

Kylie, who had been putting the note back in her purse, suddenly lifted her head. "He's a widower?"

"Yes, and from what I understand, he's doing a good job raising his son."

Kylie frowned. "Not if his son is enticing girls to cut school with him."

Lena laughed. "Oh, come on, Kylie. You were young once."

"I remember. And that's what I'm afraid of," she said, meeting Lena's gaze with a concerned expression. "You recall how I was all into Sam. I thought I was madly in love. It was like my day wasn't complete until I saw his face. I was obsessed."

Lena shook her head. "Yeah, you did have it bad. You thought you were in love, and n.o.body could tell you differently."

"And you saw what happened to me. One day of acting irresponsibly changed my entire life. I was pregnant on my sixteenth birthday."

And rejected at sixteen as well.

She would never forget the day Sam told her that he wanted no part of her or the baby, and that he would get his parents to give her money for an abortion, but that was about all she would ever get from him. He intended to go to college on a football scholarship and under no circ.u.mstances would he let her mess up his future with a baby he didn't want. He agreed with his parents that there was no sense in him throwing away a promising career in pro football because of one foolish mistake. So instead of hanging around and doing the right thing, he had split the first chance he got. Even now she could count on one hand the number of times Tiffany had seen her father. Sam did get the football career in the NFL that he'd wanted, at least for a short while before an injury ended things. Now he was living in California, married with a family, and rarely had time for his daughter.

Emotions tightened her throat as she remembered that time she had gotten pregnant. She had hurt her parents something awful. And disappointed them as well. They had had so many high hopes for her, their only child, including her attending college at their alma mater, Southern University.

She had eventually gotten a college degree but that was only after years of struggling as a single parent and trying to make a life for her and Tiffany. And now to think that her daughter could possibly be traveling down the same path was unacceptable.

"Yes, I did see what happened to you, but look how much you've accomplished since then, Kylie," Lena said. "The only thing you didn't do was allow another man into your life because of Sam's rejection, and I think you were wrong for turning away what I knew were some good men. You never gave yourself the chance for happiness with someone else after Sam. I tried to tell you how arrogant and selfish he was but you wouldn't listen."

Kylie sighed. No, she hadn't wanted to hear anything negative about Sam. She had been too much in love to see his faults and refused to let anyone else talk about them, either. A sickening sensation swelled in her stomach at the thought that history was about to repeat itself with her child. "That's why I can't let Tiffany make the same mistake I did, Lena."

"Don't you think you and Chance might be overreacting just a little? It's not like Tiffy and Marcus planned to cut the entire day of school. They were skipping the last two cla.s.ses to go somewhere, probably to the mall," Lena pointed out.

"And that's supposed to be okay?" Kylie's nerves were screaming in frustration and anger each and every time she thought about what her daughter had planned on doing. She remembered when she had cut school with Sam. Instead of going to the movies like the two of them planned, he had taken her to his house, where they had spent the entire day in his bedroom doing things they shouldn't have been doing and things neither of them had been prepared for. But all she could think about was that Sam Miller, the star player on the Richardson High School football team, was in love with her. Or so she'd thought. Silly her.

"You need to calm down before you talk to Tiff, Kylie. I understand you're upset, but your anger won't help. You know how headstrong she is. She's just like you when you were her age."

Kylie sighed deeply. Again that was the last thing she wanted to hear. "She broke her promise to me, Lena. We've had a lot of talks. She had promised me that she would let me know when she was interested in boys."

"And had she come and told you about Marcus, then what? Would you have given her your blessings or locked her up for the rest of her life? Girls like boys, Kylie. That's natural. And you've had so many talks with Tiffy that she probably knows your speech by heart. Has it ever occurred to you that maybe you're laying things on a little too thick? Tiffy is a good kid, yet you're judging her by the way you lived your life, by your own past mistakes. It's important to you that she 'be good' because you don't think that you were."

Kylie's eyes began filling with tears. "I only want what's best for her, Lena. I made a foolish and stupid mistake once and I'll do anything within my power to keep her from making the same one."

Lena got up, came around the table and hugged her friend. "I know. Tiffy is going to be fine. I'll be here to help you anyway that I can. You know that. I just don't want you to build this brick wall between you and her. That same kind of wall your mother built with you."

Kylie wiped away a tear from her cheek. Although she and her mother had a fairly decent relationship now, Kylie would never forget when Olivia Hagan had let down her only daughter by upholding her belief that by getting pregnant out of wedlock, Kylie had committed the worst possible sin.

"I'll never let that happen," Kylie vowed quietly.

Chapter 2.

"That's the crisis you called this meeting for?" Sebastian Steele asked, turning away from the window and looking across the office at his brother with both amazement and amus.e.m.e.nt on his face.

Chance glared first at Sebastian, and then at his other two brothers, Morgan and Donovan. They were sitting in front of his desk and looking at him with the same expressions. "Your nephew is putting a pretty face before his studies and that doesn't add up to a crisis to any of you?"

When all three chimed the word "no" simultaneously, Chance knew talking to them had been a waste of his time.

At the age of thirty-six, Chance was the oldest of the group. Next was Sebastian, fondly called Bas, who was thirty-four. Morgan was thirty-two, and Donovan was thirty. Of the four, Chance was the only one who had ever been married. Bas was presently engaged, but the other two claimed they enjoyed their bachelor status too much to settle down anytime soon.

"Look, Chance," Morgan said as he stood up. "It's normal for boys Marcus's age to like girls. So what's the problem?"

Chance rolled his eyes heavenward. "The problem is that the girl is only fifteen and they were planning to cut school together and-"

"No," Sebastian interrupted. "They planned to cut a couple of cla.s.ses, not school. There is a difference."

"And he of all people should know," Donovan said, grinning. "Considering the number of times he used to play hooky. I understand they still have a desk in Mr. Potter's math cla.s.s that says, 'Sebastian Steele never sat here.'"