Baby for the Billionaire(23)
Author: Maxine Sullivan

A strobe of brilliance flashed across the screen, allowing him to see that Annalise was visibly shaken. “Could he have done that?”

“Considering I didn’t see either my mother or my sister again until I turned thirteen, I’d say not only could he, but he did precisely that.”

“How …?” Her voice thickened, betraying her emotional reaction to his response. “Why …?” She shook her head, unable to formulate the questions she clearly wanted to ask.

Jack leaned his head back against the couch cushion and stared blindly at the old Star Trek movie that was Isabella’s current favorite. “How? With some of the most powerful lawyers money could buy. Why? Because he was—and is—a total bastard who used me to hit out at my mother.”

“But you did finally get to see her,” Annalise said on a note of urgency.

A smile of satisfaction tugged at his mouth. “That I did.”

“I assume he finally relented?” she asked tentatively.

“Not a chance in hell. The summer I turned thirteen, Dad took off overseas on an extended honeymoon with his latest trophy wife. I was supposed to go to camp. Instead, I hitchhiked to Colorado, where my mother was living with her second husband.”

“Dear God, Jack!” She reached for him, her hand clutching his arm. “Do you have any idea how dangerous that was? Anything could have happened to you.”

He regarded her with a hint of amusement. “That’s what my mother said. It was worth it, though. I stayed with them for most of that summer.” A summer filled with magic and hope. A summer unlike anything he’d experienced before or since. A summer that had ended in the death of dreams. “Until my father found out, that is. But those couple of months were quite eye-opening.”

“In what way?”

His brows tugged together reflecting a hint of the bewilderment he’d experienced during that time period. “They were all so happy. They laughed almost all the time. And when they fought …” He struggled for the right words to explain. “I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it never did.”

“You mean when they fought, you weren’t worried that they were on the verge of divorce.” Her hand shifted, rubbing his arm in a soothing motion. He doubted she was even conscious of her actions. “They were never nasty toward each other.”

“Exactly. They were—” he reflected on it for a moment “—casual. As though the way they interacted—the laughter, the tears, the squabbling, the open affection—was a normal, everyday occurrence.”

“It probably was.” She tilted her head to one side, sending a swath of curls tumbling across her shoulder. “How often did you get to visit after that?”

“I didn’t. My disobedience that summer earned me a trip to military school. I didn’t see Joanne again until I turned eighteen and my father no longer had any say in where I went or who I saw. Unfortunately, my mother and her husband managed to drive themselves off an icy mountainside a few months beforehand.”

“Oh, Jack! How awful.” He caught the betraying glitter of tears and felt something shift inside him, something deep and powerful. Something he wanted to protect himself from because it came from a wellspring of emotions he preferred to deny. “What happened to Joanne? Did she move back to Charleston to live with you and your father?”

“No. She was in college by then and flat out refused to have anything to do with our father.”

“Or you?” she dared to ask.

He refused to acknowledge the hit. For years he’d believed just that, until Joanne had finally set him straight. But by then he’d found a way to insulate himself from the sort of emotional pain that came from sentiment and familial attachment.

“We managed to revive our relationship, despite my father.” His mouth twisted. “Hell, Jo even found it in her heart to forgive him, not that he ever believed he required forgiveness. Ironically, Dad helped her find the lawyer who handled Isabella’s adoption.” Jack stood then, careful not to wake his niece, while putting an unmistakable period to the conversation. Annalise’s hand fell away, leaving behind coldness where once there was warmth. “Time I put our little one to bed. I’ll be back in a minute.”

He took his time settling his niece, needing those handful of minutes to rebuild his barriers. He’d told Annalise far more than he’d shared with any other woman, opening parts of himself that he’d sealed away for almost two full decades. He didn’t ordinarily let people in, didn’t dare. That sort of closeness often became messy, risked creating emotions like the ones that had sent his parents’ relationship spiraling into vicious arguments and acts of revenge.

He’d made up his mind at a very young age to avoid marriage at all costs. Even when he’d witnessed firsthand his mother’s loving relationship with her second husband, he still hadn’t trusted that their marriage was anything other than pure dumb luck. The union   he contemplated with Annalise wouldn’t involve an emotional commitment. When they married it would be carefully scripted with neat, tidy, legal boundaries that specified every aspect of their wedded “bliss” right down to the date of their future divorce. As for any potential romantic entanglements …

That would be determined by contract, as well. He had no objection if she chose to share his bed. But she would enter the affair with her eyes wide open and all the cards on the table. He wouldn’t trick her with claims of affection. Theirs would be a mating of body and intellect. A sensible blending rather than an emotional one.

Satisfied that he’d fully regained his self-control, he turned and found Annalise watching him from the doorway. And that was when he realized he had no self-control when it came to this woman.

None whatsoever.

Chapter Five

Jack had no memory of closing the door to Isabella’s room. No memory of striding toward Annalise. No memory of backing her against the wall. But from the instant his mouth found hers, it was like a recorder flicked on, burning every tantalizing moment into the pathways of his brain.

He was overwhelmed by the distinctive fragrance of her skin and driven insane by the low, soft moan that reverberated in her throat. The heat of her hands and lips and flesh burned like wildfire, sweeping straight through to the frozen core of him and melting away walls of ice that he’d believed too tall and thick to ever be breached.

“I’ve tried, Annalise,” he said between quick, biting kisses. “I’ve tried to keep my hands off you. How many times have I promised I would? And yet …”

A husky laugh exploded from her, and she leaned her head back against the wall, exposing her throat. “Somehow it doesn’t quite work out that way.”

“You don’t understand. I always keep my word. Always. It’s a point of honor with me. But with you—” Frustration tore through him. “It’s like my body and brain are out of sync, or speaking different languages.”

“No communication?”

“None.” His hand drifted along the golden length of her neck. Then the urge to taste her consumed him and his mouth followed the same pathway his hand had taken. “Well, except for one single urge. On that point, all of the various parts of me are in total agreement.”

A line from the movie they’d just watched played through his head: Resistance is futile. It described his predicament precisely. Temptation beckoned again and he fought it for all of ten seconds before he tumbled. Unable to help himself, he cupped her breast and traced the rigid peak through the thin cotton of her tank top. The breath exploded from her lungs and her sooty lashes fluttered toward her cheeks in clear surrender.

He used his knee to part her legs and settled into the cradle of her hips, sliding against a body that combined a lean, tensile strength with a sensual softness. He wanted her in his bed, wanted those endless legs wrapped around him. Wanted to sink into her warmth until the last vestige of ice had been driven from his body.

Everything about her propelled him toward a place he’d never been before, never even knew existed. A gentle place. A place of solace. A place of beautiful urgency and endless possibilities. A place where he could safely lose himself in arms that would never let him go, while he basked in the warmth and light of her embrace.

He reached beneath her tank top and found a hint of what that sweet place would hold, and he lingered there while the heat built. Her br**sts slipped into his hands, filling them with their silken weight. Her n**ples were two hot buds of desire against his palms. He rocked his h*ps into place between her legs, setting a slow, torturous rhythm that ripped a moan from her throat.

“Sleep with me tonight,” he urged.

He watched the struggle play out across her face, a fierce battle waged between common sense and desire. He was intimately familiar with that particular battle. For a brief instant he thought she’d capitulate. But something held her back, something that caused a glimmer of panic to break across the planes of her face and an intense vulnerability to tarnish her eyes. It would seem he wasn’t the only one with painful memories.

“I can’t. We,” she corrected, “we can’t. Isabella has to come first. And if we do this, we’ll be torn between responsibility and desire.”

“I’ll always put Isabella first.”

“Then you won’t fight me about this. Because hav**g s*x with you isn’t putting Isabella first.”

She didn’t give him room to argue. Besides, she was right. They couldn’t afford to be distracted right now. He couldn’t afford it. He still needed her help. Somehow, someway, he had to find a way to convince Annalise to marry him. And that pathway led through her attachment to Isabella, not through his bedroom door.

As much as he wanted this woman, he couldn’t have her. He reluctantly slid his hands from beneath her top and forced himself to abandon the warmth and softness he’d found for far too brief a time. He took a deliberate step backward. And then another. The want remained in her eyes, along with a hopeless resignation. If she’d uttered a single sound of regret, he’d have swept her into his arms and taken her then and there. But she remained silent. And he gave himself up to duty and responsibility. The familiar cold returned, sweeping into his veins and taking root. How many years had it been his companion? He couldn’t remember anymore. Not that it mattered. He’d learned long ago to accept the inevitability of it.

Without a word, he turned and walked away.

Jack jerked awake at the sound of his bedroom door banging open.

“Is Isabella in here?” Annalise demanded. “Is she with you?”

He came off the bed like a shot. “She’s missing?”

Annalise nodded rapidly, her breath escaping her lungs in frantic gasps. “When I went in to get her this morning she wasn’t there. I thought she was hiding in the tree house. I practically took the thing apart looking for her. I’ve searched the entire house. She’s not here.” Undisguised fear glittered in her eyes, shredding her usual control. “I can’t find her anywhere.”

“Have you checked outside?”

“Oh, God, Jack.” She turned a panicked gaze in the direction of the front door. “The ocean.”

They both raced for the door. It wasn’t locked and he could distinctly remember double-checking it last night to make certain it was. He ripped the door open and erupted onto the front porch. He drew in a deep breath, preparing to shout his niece’s name, when suddenly he saw her. She sat halfway between the house and the water, half-buried beneath the largest dog Jack had ever seen.

Behind him, Annalise stumbled against his back. She inhaled sharply and he whipped around and caught hold of her. Sensing the scream building in her lungs, he covered her mouth with his hand.

“Quiet,” he ordered in a voice barely above a whisper. “Don’t startle them.”

At her nod of understanding, he released her. “Jack,” she whimpered. “That thing could kill her.”

“Don’t say it. Don’t even think it. Right now, I want you to go back in the house and find my cell. Punch in 911, but don’t hit Send until I tell you.” She continued to stare at him with glazed, terror-stricken eyes and he gave her a quick shake. “Do you understand?”

She recovered a small semblance of control and nodded. “Yes. Yes, I understand. Dial 911. Don’t hit Send until you give the word.”

“Then I want you to grab the steaks that are in the fridge and bring them out here to me. Slow and easy, got it? No fast or sudden moves. No loud noises.”

“I understand.”

Without another word, she slipped back into the house. Jack forced himself to move forward and sit on the porch steps. Then he whistled, low and gentle. Both dog and child jerked to attention, their heads swiveling in unison toward him. To his horror, the dog bristled, emitting a low growl. Even worse, Isabella reached up to pat the animal on the muzzle, her tiny hand inches from a set of lethally bared teeth. He knew Annalise had returned by her soft gasp of reaction at how much more dangerous the situation had become.

“Here.” She slipped the raw slabs of meat into his hand. Her fingers trembled against his and her breath warmed the back of his neck in rapid-fire bursts. She was inches from losing it, and yet she spoke with a calmness that washed over him like a gentle balm. “It’s going to be all right, Jack. I have my hand on the Send button. Say the word, and I’ll place the call.”

“Go back inside,” he instructed in an undertone. He wouldn’t risk her welfare, too. “Be ready to open the door on my signal.”

He sensed her silent retreat into the house and fixed his full attention on his niece and the huge animal hovering above her. He didn’t dare whistle again. He could only hope that one or the other of them would come to him. Sure enough, Isabella released a gleeful laugh and clambered out from beneath the dog. To Jack’s relief, the animal allowed it, though she—at least, he thought it was a female—continued to regard Jack with open suspicion bordering on hostility.