He stroked his hand down her face. “You’ve gone through a lot in two years. Losing a husband, bed rest, taking care of a baby, having another one, taking over the reins of this house—which, if I haven’t told you, you’ve done an amazing job with. I think you’re entitled to a meltdown. You’ve only left the ranch to do a little shopping, and even then, most things are delivered. You never take time off for yourself.”
Mothers didn’t take time off. She didn’t think of herself as the housekeeper; she was Kyle’s and Andraya’s mother. But this wasn’t really her home. Kyle wasn’t her son. She had a job. It was a job. “We’ve never talked about time off.” Is that how he saw what she did? A job?
She felt numb inside, and thank God, the burning inferno was cooling, the sensitivity of her skin lessening. The craving for him didn’t lessen, but at least it wasn’t so raw and biting that she was afraid of attacking him.
He blinked. The golden eyes nearly glowed. A faint rumble, much like a growl, emanated from deep in his chest. “You want time off?”
She frowned. “Isn’t that what you just said? That I don’t take time off?”
“I made a statement. I didn’t ask a question.”
Emma thumped her head against the pillow. “What did you mean? I thought you meant I should go on vacation or have a night or two off.”
“If you went on vacation or took a few nights off, I’d have to hire a stranger to take your place. I don’t want strangers running around in my home or around the children. And we’d need more bodyguards. I meant read a book. I told you I bought a horse for you. I’ll take you riding. Those are the sorts of things I meant.”
“You didn’t say you bought me my own horse.”
He scowled at her. “A vacation? You want to go on a vacation? You have to tell me these things in advance, Emma, so I can take the time off. We’ll have to find a place where it will be easy to look after the children. I can have one of the secretaries start researching for us. And I did tell you that I bought a horse.”
She had the beginnings of a headache. It might have been from all the tears, but more likely it was Jake driving her crazy. He wasn’t making any sense. “You told me you bought the horse,” she admitted, using her most patient voice, “but you forgot to say you bought it for me. It was during one of the short, informative calls in the middle of the night.”
“I always call you late. I don’t sleep like other people.”
She knew that was true. He was in her room every night, pacing or stretching out beside her on her bed, in the dark, plying her with questions. “When was the last time you slept?”
He rolled back over onto his back and laced his fingers behind his head. “I don’t remember. A few days ago. I sleep better when I’m home.”
She didn’t know when. Most nights he stayed in her room until two or three in the morning. Sometimes he paced back and forth in the children’s rooms like a caged animal. Jake was so complicated, and he just plain wore her out sometimes. She kept trying to figure him out when he never talked about his childhood. She’d only met his mother the one time and it hadn’t been pleasant. She knew there was a standing order to keep his parents from the property, and Kyle and Andraya were guarded at all times.
As if reading her mind, Jake turned the tables on her. “Tell me about your parents.”
She glanced at him. “Like what?”
“Did you ever travel outside the States? Where were they from originally? What did your father do for a living?”
She frowned up at the ceiling. “We always had money, but you know, I don’t know what my father did in terms of a job. We didn’t have tons of money, not like you—but then you own just about half of the United States. Still, we never wanted for anything.”
“You never asked your father what he did for a living?”
“No. I don’t know why. I wasn’t around a lot of other children so I guess it never came up. The last couple of years before he died, he spent a great deal of time on his laptop, and I know he often went to Internet cafés when he traveled. I assumed he needed to do so for work.”
“And your mother?”
“She looked after us. She painted. She was a wonderful artist.” Emma kept her answers brief, and worked to keep wariness from her voice. She’d been taught never to discuss her parents, and although they were dead, the rule still held.
“So that’s where you get your talent.”
Emma was pleased that he thought her talented and pointed out something in her that was like her mother. “She drew all the time on sketchpads and I did the same in the car. We used to pass the charcoals back and forth, and when we stayed at a place for any length of time, almost the first thing she did was set up a room we could paint in.”
“When I went to your apartment the first time, I found an old sketchpad. I thought it looked important so I brought it to you. Your mother’s?”
She swallowed the sudden lump clogging her throat and nodded.
He shifted enough to tug at strands of her long hair, wrapping them around his finger as he talked. “The movers packed some paintings. Why don’t you have them up in your room?”
She was silent for a few moments, turning the question over and over in her mind. He wasn’t going to like the answer, and when he didn’t like something he could be very unpredictable. “At first I was grieving and not paying too much attention to anything. When I thought about the paintings and wanted to see them, maybe for comfort, I was on bed rest and couldn’t go rummaging through boxes.”
He tugged hard enough on her hair for her to give a little yelp. “You should have told me. I would have gotten them put up for you. After the bed rest?”