“And the nurse—Miss Hacker thinks the baby is yours?”
“I haven’t said any different,” he admitted.
“Why?”
He looked away from her briefly, then reached over and took her hand, his thumb sliding up and down the back of her hand. “I can’t. We can’t. We have to think about protecting the baby. We need to let everyone think it’s mine.”
“No!” Emma pulled her hand away. “It’s Andrew’s baby, the last part of him.”
“Emma, honey, you aren’t thinking. We both know the baby is Andrew’s, but what happens if something goes wrong? I think like that, plan ahead. It’s what I do. I take apart companies and sell them piece by piece, but in order to take over in the first place, I have to look ahead and determine the things that might happen and plan for them. I’m not leaving your baby homeless or to the authorities. Be angry with me for it, but I know what’s it’s like to be raised—”
Abruptly he snapped his mouth closed, leapt to his feet and stalked out.
Emma sat in the dark for a long time, her heart pounding, as she faced the very real possibility that her baby might live and she might not. The doctors had discussed the possibility with her, but she’d dismissed it. Evidently Jake hadn’t, and he was already preparing to save her child, when she hadn’t even thought about what might happen. She got up, pulled on her robe and padded barefoot down the hall to the nursery. He was there, just as she knew he would be, standing guard over his son.
“Jake.” He didn’t turn and she knew he had been aware of her coming in. “I’m sorry. You’re right about this, but I don’t want you to think I expect . . .”
He flicked her a warning glance over his shoulder. “Go to bed, Emma. I’m not myself tonight and you’re the last person I want to fight with.”
“I just wanted to say I was sorry.”
He swung around in that fluid, predatory way of his and swept her up into his arms, as if she were a child, cradling her close the way she’d taught him to hold Kyle. “What part of ‘bed’ don’t you understand?”
He sounded rough and exasperated, but his hands were gentle as he carried her to her bed and pulled the sheet up to her chin. He even dropped a kiss on top of her head, just as she’d seen him do with Kyle. “Go to sleep. We have all the time in the world to figure it out.”
God help him, he hoped it was true.
ONE MONTH LATER
JAKE tossed his pen onto his desk and heaved an exaggerated sigh. If there’d been someone to yell at, he would have done so, but instead there was only him, locked in the silence of his office. He’d created this wing of the house to be attached but separate. Soundproof. He found his acute hearing could be a distraction when he was trying to study the various companies he was interested in acquiring—especially lately. There were small alarms scattered through the various rooms to alert him to intruders because his office was doubly soundproofed. He always had liked silence. He’d needed silence, the peace of it. Silence was one of the few things that calmed his mind, like running free late at night in his other form.
He sighed again and laced his fingers behind his head. Silence wasn’t working so well with him at the moment and he didn’t understand why. His home was so different now. Emma and Kyle had been here five months and already the place was transformed. There was a warmth now, and he felt peace when he sat in the nursery or when he entered Emma’s room. Now his office seemed cold and distant. The silence distracted him. He found himself listening for the low murmur of Emma’s voice and the soft little sounds his son made.
Jake sat up straight, alarm shooting through him. His son. He never thought in those terms. Emma often referred to Kyle that way, but Jake thought of him as the infant, the baby, even the kid—not his son. What the hell was happening to him? What was she doing? Turning his life upside down. This wasn’t how it was supposed to work. His life was supposed to be unaffected, maybe easier, but certainly not more difficult.
Emma never listened to him. Well, she listened, she just didn’t do what he told her to do. She always gave him that little mysterious smile of hers and—and nothing. She simply did what she wanted. No one ever did that around him. The world was afraid of him, and rightly so. It didn’t matter how stern he got with her, or how ugly his temper got. She maintained that small smile and just did whatever she wanted. It was frustrating and arousing, and made him want to use other methods to control her little rebellions.
He raked his hands through his hair. He liked the sound of her voice, the scent of her skin, the candles she burned, the way she always had something for him to eat. He loved the look on her face when she held Kyle and when she rubbed her hands protectively over the small mound of her stomach. He had the feeling he was a little obsessed with Emma. He kept waiting for her true nature to emerge, but she remained generous and kind and so gentle. The shadows in her eyes were slowly receding. She still had nightmares and he spent most nights in her room with her, but she didn’t burst into tears as often.
A tingle of awareness crept down his spine and he was on his feet before he even realized what he was reacting to.
There was no other warning, only that weird sense the other gave him, but he knew something was wrong. He sprinted through the spacious hall to the connecting door that led from the business wing to the main part of the house, his heart pounding.
He could hear Kyle screaming, Emma’s usually calm voice raised and another woman shrieking. With a sinking heart, he recognized the other woman’s vicious voice. For one moment he was disoriented, thrown back in time to the small, helpless child he’d been. The scars on his thigh throbbed in tune to his pounding pulse.
“Emma?” He called her name as he took the stairs two at a time, leaping, using his leopard’s agility to clear the banister when he was close to the top.
He hit the hallway floor running, streaking fast, fear clogging his throat. Cathy Bannaconni was more than capable of harming Emma. She would immediately sense Emma’s vulnerability and go for the jugular, battering her emotionally and physically. Worse, Emma might admit that the child she was carrying was Andrew’s, and everything he planned could be lost.
“You money-hungry, conniving little whore, you will never be mistress here. You’re nothing. An opportunist. Some little tart who lost her husband and hops in bed with my son the next day to trap him with your mongrel of a child. Give me my grandson immediately or I’ll have you thrown out on your whoring ass.”
As Jake entered the nursery, he could see Emma, pale and defiant, her chin up, aquamarine eyes shimmering with fire, as she held Kyle to her with a protective fury. Blood surged to his cock, heated, unexpected, inappropriate. She looked glorious, a spitting wildcat protecting her cub, quite capable of biting off a hand if it came too close.
“Don’t you touch him,” Emma said. “Jake’s down in his office and he can decide whether or not you’re going to take Kyle out of the house. No one takes him without Jake’s permission, not even you. And you don’t get to come into our home and bully our nurse or our cook, and you certainly don’t drag the baby out of his crib when he’s asleep and scare him like that. I don’t care who you are.”
“Your nurse?” Cathy screamed. “Nothing in this house is yours and it never will be.” She stepped closer, thrusting her twisted, angry face close to Emma’s. “You can count on that. I’ll see you in hell before I ever see such a tramp attached to my family.”
“Cathy.” Jake said her name, his voice low, rumbling with menace.