“The nurses say I have to learn to feed him, but he doesn’t like the way I’m doing it and he isn’t eating very much,” Jake admitted in a low voice, as if it pained him to admit he couldn’t do something perfectly. “I can find oil in ground that no one suspects is there, but I can’t feed or diaper a baby.” He wiped his hand across his forehead.
Emma held out her arms. “Let me show you.”
Jake held his breath as Emma took Kyle into her arms, cradling him against her breasts. She enfolded him, surrounding him with her warmth and the softness of her body.
“You want to hold a baby very close so they feel safe.” She smiled down at the small, upturned face. “Give me the bottle and I’ll show you how to feed him.” She held one hand out.
Jake put a supporting hand under the baby’s bottom. “Don’t drop him.” He remembered the countless falls to the floor, the feel of a shoe hitting his body, the toe of a boot in his stomach. He hadn’t thought about it for years. He was no father—he sure as hell didn’t know what he was doing—but no kid of his was going to be bounced on a hard floor.
“I’m not going to drop him,” she assured.
Jake hesitated, studying her face. She seemed so damned genuine, but no one was really like her. No one. Watching her closely, he handed her the small bottle, bending his head close to see how she teased the baby’s mouth until he opened. At once he began suckling. Kyle didn’t turn his head from side to side as he’d done earlier when the nurse had tried to show Jake what to do. Jake had been impatient and annoyed, feeling as if he was wasting his time. Watching Emma with Kyle made him feel different.
“Emma, do you remember what happened?”
Her gaze flicked to his face and her arms tightened around the baby. She nodded. “Not how it happened, only you holding me down and fire all around us.” She swallowed hard, her eyes shimmering with tears. “Andy . . .”
He put his arm around her as if she belonged there—with him. “I know, Emma. I’m sorry. I couldn’t get him out. It was too late.”
“Don’t blame yourself.” She looked up at him again and her eyes looked like two deep pools. For a moment he thought he was falling forward. “Did he suffer?”
His fingers went to the nape of her neck, massaging the tension in an effort to comfort her. “No. He died immediately. He never felt the fire.”
She bit down hard on her lip and stared into Kyle’s face. “The people in the other car? They both died, didn’t they?” She swallowed visibly, trying to remember everything she’d overhead. “You knew them both?”
Jake reached out and took Kyle’s little hand. “His mother died, as well as the driver. The medics delivered my son and saved his life. I was lucky they could get the baby out in time.”
“I’m sorry about your wife.”
“We weren’t married,” Jake admitted in a low voice.
Again her gaze flicked to his face. “I’m sorry,” she said again. She turned her attention to Kyle, cradling him close to her, ducking her head so that her face was hidden.
Jake realized she felt bad for him, that the tears shimmering in her eyes were for him, for Kyle—not for herself. It was to his advantage to allow her to think he’d been crazy about Shaina—that he felt the same sorrow at losing a loved one as she did. It gave them another bond. He considered letting her believe it, but something inside, something strong, welled up in him, refusing to let him lie to her about that. Not even by omission.
“Emma,” Jake said softly and waited until she looked up at him. “I didn’t love Shaina. I don’t have the same emotions as you do.” Maybe he really wanted to warn her. All the advantages were on his side. Maybe there was a shred of decency left in him and he believed she deserved it. Or, God help him, Drake Donovon, his semi-friend and now part-time counselor, with his constant set of rules and talk of honor, was getting to him. Whatever, Jake knew he had to tell her the truth.
“I despised her. She deliberately got pregnant to blackmail me into marriage. And then when it didn’t work, she drank and did drugs while she was pregnant. I had to have someone watching her all the time. I came here to bring her back to my ranch, to keep the baby safe until he was born. You lost someone you loved. Shaina was . . .” Like me. He couldn’t bring himself to say it and he just trailed off.
Emma stared up at his face, her eyes wide and unblinking, completely focused on him so that he went still, feeling threatened—feeling as though she could see all the way to his soul, to the cold monster living there, waiting to strike. She shook her head slowly. “Not like you.” As if he’d spoken the words aloud and she’d heard them. “You aren’t who you think you are.”
He knew exactly who and what he was. He never spared himself by trying to whitewash his character. He’d embraced the cold monster, refusing to fall victim ever again. He would be stronger, more cunning, faster, more ruthless, than every enemy he had. And he would never be vulnerable again—not to anyone. They would find him an implacable enemy who pulled no punches and had no mercy when he struck at them—at any of them. And this one, this young, fragile woman who looked at the world through rose-colored glasses, she was going to belong to him and he was taking her, whether she wanted it or not. No, he was exactly like his enemies, only worse.
He paced away from the bed, away from her intent gaze. He was the one in control, not her. He wasn’t falling prey to her sweetness, or to the way she made him feel guilty. He controlled everyone in his world. He didn’t need others. They needed him. She wasn’t going to turn the tables on him by looking into his soul and seeing something he kept hidden from the world.
Vulnerable. For a moment she made him feel that way, as if she could hurt him, as if she had some power over him he didn’t understand. Jake rejected the feeling immediately. He would never be vulnerable again. And neither would his son. He glanced at the baby in her arms. He didn’t want or love the kid, but he was going to do right by him. He would see to it that Kyle had every advantage, and just looking at the baby in Emma’s arms, he knew this woman was the one he wanted for his son.
The hell with it all. He had a plan and he was going to carry it out. Emma would benefit and so would her child. Jake would be fair about it. Eventually she would grow to love him, even if he couldn’t love her back. Hell, he could even be faithful if he had to. He would give her a home, Kyle would have someone who would be good to him, and she would be well cared for. He had no doubt that he could satisfy her in bed and teach her to satisfy his every need. It would work out for both of them—for all of them. He shoved down whatever humanity still lay within him and hardened his heart.
He was taking her over. One small piece at a time, starting here, starting now, just the way he went after the companies he wanted. He studied his prey, assessed the weaknesses and vulnerabilities. Emma needed a home and money while she was pregnant. His lawyers would be the ones working for a settlement, and just like contracts for businesses could be misplaced, “lost,” or bought off, his lawyers could delay every procedure to ensure she needed him. Yeah, he was a bastard, cold and cruel and calculating, but he let himself off the hook by reminding himself he would take good care of her as he did all his possessions.
And make no mistake, Emma Reynolds. You will be my possession.
Emma would be no different from Kyle. He would see to everything for them and just keep emotionally distant. No one ever took what he owned.
As she fed the baby, Emma watched Jake pace the length of her room. His eyes shone with a power that both terrified and intrigued her. His body moved with a fluid grace that suggested danger. She knew she was mesmerized by his strength and confidence, by his very arrogance, yet there was something eluding her, something about him that was so familiar to her that drew her more than her need for someone to take charge. And right now she didn’t care all that much about living, other than to save her baby. If Jake Bannaconni wanted to take charge, she was going to let him—at least for a while.
He didn’t know her, only that she was young and lost and helpless right now. Once she could think without hurting, without being so afraid of taking a breath, she would be all right. At the moment, she couldn’t make decisions and be certain of what she was doing. Jake seemed to know exactly what he was doing. And whether he thought of himself as a good man or not, a part of her reached for him, wanted—no, even needed—to do as he asked her. Wanted to reach beyond the emptiness in his eyes and the blankness of his expression and see who he really was. And that had never happened before, not even with her beloved Andrew.