Her Bad Boy Billionaire Lover (Billionai - By Bretton, Barbara Page 0,51

triumphant joy of hearing their child's first cry. How would it feel to share the good times and the bad with someone who would love Jenny as much as Megan did and be there to protect her if Megan could not?

"A dream," she said out loud, trying to shake off the persistent mood. She had a healthy, happy child and that should be enough for any woman. Dreaming about what could have been was an exercise in futility. If she'd learned anything on the Sea Goddess, she'd learned that.

The warmth of his hands against her body...the smell of his skin...the realization that she would never feel so female, so loved if she lived to be one thousand....

Her thoughts skidded to a halt. Love had nothing to do with what they'd shared. Sensuality, yes. Raw sex, absolutely. But love? Love was for the girl she'd left behind years ago, the one who believed in happy endings and real life heroes. Love, in its purest form, was what she felt for Jenny. She and Jake wouldn't know love if they fell over it...or into it.

Love was what Miguel and Ingrid felt for each other. That willingness to be there during the bad times and not run away in search of sunnier climes the way she herself had done at the first sign of difficulty. Sometimes it was hard to be around Miguel and Ingrid and not feel a sharp stab of envy that what they had in abundance had been denied to her. And Jenny felt it too. She'd seen her little girl's face when Jenny came home from Stace's house after Megan's weekend on the Sea Goddess. Jenny's talk had been filled with baby brothers and daddies who told bedtime stories and knew how to saddle a horse. Megan's heart had ached at the longing in her little girl's voice. How could she explain to Jenny that sometimes even a daddy could break your heart in two?

He doesn't want to be your father, sweetheart, she thought, resting her head on the smooth surface of the table top. If she'd been expecting an argument on that count, Jake had surprised her. Tomorrow he would spend the day with Jenny and tomorrow night he would walk out of their lives for good.

"You should be happy," Megan said aloud in the silent kitchen. "This is exactly what you wanted."

So why was she crying?

#

It occurred to Jake around midnight that the thing to do was abandon ship. He'd been trying to nap on a couch in the Tropicale office but each time he closed his eyes all he could see was that little red-haired girl barreling toward him like an avenging angel.

Leave my mommy alone!

He sat up in the darkened office and dragged a weary hand through his hair. Maybe the little sheila was right. Maybe the best thing he could do was leave them both alone. His rental car was parked downstairs. All he had to do was grab his briefcase and head out to Miami International and board the first plane to Hawaii. This time tomorrow he could be on his boat, alone the way he'd planned it, and today would be just another memory.

#

"Jake." Megan's voice was low, unbearably sexy. "Someone might see us."

"We're alone, Meggie. There's no one around for miles." Just the sea and the stars and the endless night.

The sailboat rose and fell with the movement of the ocean, urging them closer.

"This isn't our boat," she persisted. "What if someone finds out?"

"Nobody will find out. We'll be back at the marina before anyone knows it's missing." He'd been desperate to get her out of their tiny, sweltering apartment. Desperate to provide a touch of the luxury she'd known with her father.

He moved between her thighs. She moaned as he found her with his hand. "Open for me, Meggie," he said. He needed to lose himself in her softness and heat, feel the way her body tightened around him, hear the sounds she made in the back of her throat when she came.

He needed to believe this wasn't the beginning of the end....

#

Three days later Megan was gone.

He stared out the office window at the lights of Miami twinkling below. Nothing about that night had been careful or considered. He'd taken her with a fierce hunger that scared them both. She'd responded in kind, drawing him more deeply inside her body until neither one knew where the other began.

Was that the night Jennifer had been conceived? Created out of desire