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Posted: 16 May 2011 09:24 AM PDT

Jonathan watched her run up the stairs as he tried to gain control. Of his body, but more importantly, his mind. His heart.

When he heard her bedroom door slam, he headed for the kitchen. He grabbed a cold beer out of the fridge and held it to the back of his neck while he pulled a chair away from the table and plopped down into it.

What the hell was wrong with him? Had he lost his mind?

He groaned and leaned forward, thunking his forehead on the cold, hard granite. She was making him nuts, and he didn't know what to do about it. He had his life all nicely planned out, thank you very much, and Em-broglio didn't fit into it anywhere.

She couldn't. She shouldn't. But somehow, against his better judgement, she did.

He wanted to enter into a relationship the same way his parents had. Well, they'd known each other since they were kids, so he was a bit beyond that stage. No, what was important—at least in his mind—was that they came from the same background. They'd shared common interests and goals. They'd understood so much more about each other because of growing up in similar circumstances. He'd been a part of the peaceful harmony of that union. He'd enjoyed comfort, security, and happiness because of it. He wanted that for his own kids. He wanted to give it to his little sister.

Jonathan and his father had done the best they could to give Alicia a normal, happy environment, but she'd never really experienced what a real family was all about. And his dad had made matters even worse by marrying Summer. His hands clenched as he thought about what Em had told him. Summer had abused his sister. Yeah, his dad had made things so much worse.

In an effort to recapture what he'd lost, William Davenport had remarried multiple times. But each woman he'd chosen to be his bride had been the antithesis of Jonathan's mother. Women who shared no common denominators with William. And every one of those marriages had been a dismal failure, with each getting progressively worse than the last, to the point it cost him his life. All of it had solidified Jonathan's choice to look for a partner that shared the same kind of background he did. His decision was the outcome of pure logic.

Maybe his dad really had started out loving wives two to four—well, okay, he had. There was no maybe about it. But his dad had been the kind of guy that led with his heart. He'd believed that love would conquer all, that the differences between him and each wife after the first wouldn't matter because of it. That it would bind them together and cover over any rough spots in the relationship. And, Jonathan supposed, there was a very small chance of that. If wives two to four had been in it for love and not money.

But Jonathan wasn't about to make a life decision based on the deceptiveness of the heart, or very small chances. It wasn't that he believed love to be unnecessary or unimportant. Not at all. He just believed there had to be more in order to attain a truly cohesive and lasting marriage.

As far as Jonathan could tell, his father put very little rational thought into most of his decisions. And Jonathan knew that if he wasn't careful, the touchy feely stuff his father had had in abundance, but he kept locked down and out of sight, would overtake and strangle him.

He got up and started prowling around the kitchen, beer in hand. So if he was keeping his emotions—God, even the word made his gut clench—under control, what the hell was going on with Em? He'd been instantly attracted to her on a visceral level, but that was obviously morphing into something more—something potentially dangerous.

The instant, blinding anger that overtook him at the sight of her friend was undeniable, and the cause uncomfortable. He couldn't remember ever having that strong of a reaction to anything any woman in his past had done. So why Em? She wasn't his type and he had no intention of letting this—whatever it was—he had for her, gain momentum and overtake his common sense.

Yeah, like that wasn't already happening.

He leaned back against the counter and took a long swig of beer. Tried to focus on the taste instead of letting his brain run amok with thoughts of Em.

It didn't work.

Watching her today with Alicia had made him feel so—right. The way he'd felt when he was a kid. All those feelings he taken for granted, until they were wrenched away. That feeling of—home. He couldn't explain it any better than that, even to himself. But as he'd watched her give Alicia little jobs in the kitchen, patiently teaching her, protecting her, that feeling of home had settled over him.

And sitting at the table, sharing a meal with the two of them had only intensified his emotions. Brought everything closer.

Then bang, he has Charlie Chan in his face and he loses his mind. He gets jealous.

As the kitchen, and the homey scene it called to mind, closed in around him, he wished there was some way of merging Deirdre and Em. What Deirdre lacked—and when had he started thinking of her as lacking?—Em made up for. And visa versa.

Installment 30 Coming Soon!

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