Wedding His Takeover Target (Dynasties: The Jarrods #5)(25)
Author: Emilie Rose

Shock winded him. The blood drained from his head and tension instantly knotted his previously relaxed muscles. “How?”

She searched his face as if trying to gauge his reaction. “I’m guessing I conceived that first time in the tack room. That’s the only time we haven’t used protection.”

He didn’t want to be a father.

He especially didn’t want to be an overbearing, fault-finding parent like his had been. Gavin could almost smell the smoke of his plan for a short marriage going up in flames. He’d expected Sabrina to tire of his long, work-related absences and demand a divorce. And then they’d never see each other again. That blueprint had been part of the Auckland job’s appeal. Distance of that magnitude meant fewer visits, less face time.

But now he and Sabrina would be permanently tied by a child. A child he would fail unless he found a better role model than Donald Jarrod.

Twelve

Gavin’s bleak expression dropped a lead weight in Sabrina’s stomach, erasing any lingering afterglow.

“Children were never part of the plan.”She blinked at his bluntness. “We didn’t discuss them one way or the other. Are you telling me you don’t ever want children? Or you don’t want them with me?”

“My job involves too much travel for me to be a good father. I’d be an absentee one at best.”

Her heart sank upon hearing him confirm her fears. “So you are going back on the road when your year in Aspen ends?”

“Yes.”

“What about me? What about us? You know I can’t leave Pops, and the inn has been in my family forever. I can’t just abandon it or turn it over to strangers to manage.”

“I never intended for you to leave the inn. I’m going back to the lodge.”

“Wait. Don’t you want to talk about this?”

“There’s nothing to discuss. You’re pregnant with my child. I’ll make sure you have the assistance you need when I’m away on the job, and I’ll provide for the kid.”

Pain pierced her chest. She winced. “So you did marry me to get the deed. Then what? What was your plan after you had what you wanted, Gavin?”

He stared at her through eyes devoid of emotion—eyes that had only moments ago burned with passion. For her. She knew then that Gavin would never care for her the way she did him, and the reason he’d never said he’d loved her wasn’t because he didn’t know how to verbalize the words, but because he didn’t feel them.

Getting buried by an avalanche would have been less painful, less chilling than the realization that sex and land were all that mattered to him. For her the relationship was about so much more than just physical satisfaction.

She wrapped her arms around her middle. “If you married me to get the land then you have it. Mission accomplished. You don’t need me anymore. And I don’t need you. I’ll give you an uncontested divorce if you’ll sign over your rights to my child.”

“Our child.”

Numbly, Sabrina shook her head. “I grew up feeling unwanted and in the way and like a burden to my parents. As long as I’m breathing, my child will never experience that. If you don’t want him or her, if you don’t want us in your life, then you and I have nothing more to say. I’ll send someone for my things. Now please get out.”

Gavin let himself into the Black Spruce Lodge a few minutes before noon. The heavy snow falling had shut down construction. Just as well. With everyone on the site yapping about tomorrow’s Thanksgiving plans they weren’t getting much work done anyway, and he’d been eager to escape the chatter for the solitude of his home-away-from-home.He hadn’t told anyone that he and Sabrina had split, but when he showed up at the family dinner without her they’d figure it out.

The silence of the house echoed around him and the sterile smell of hotel disinfectant lingered in the air. In the short time Sabrina had lived here she’d made her mark—particularly in the small kitchen. Each night when he’d come home from the site the delicious scents of the recipes she’d been testing had greeted him at the door, and the refrigerator had been filled with tasty and sometimes decadent morsels for him to munch on.

But not this week. This week the place smelled like sanitizer. His refrigerator was empty and Sabrina’s flowery shower gel wasn’t on the shelf by the tub. And even though he’d asked the maid not to, she still left chocolates on his pillows—chocolates that reminded him of making love to Sabrina, of painting her n**ples and then lick—

He wiped a hand down his face, trying to sever that thought, but it was too late. Heat built like steam in his groin—heat that would have no outlet. He hung up his coat and headed for the minibar and a shot of Dewar’s. It burned all the way down his throat.

An odd restlessness rode his back. Why? He was used to hotels. Hell, he spent most of his life in generic, temporary accommodations. Free. Unencumbered. Uncluttered. And he liked it that way. So why did it feel as if something were missing now?

Deciding to forego lunch due to a lack of appetite, he opened his briefcase and extracted the Auckland file. He’d work until he got through the data. He considered lighting a fire, but that too brought back memories of making love to Sabrina in front of the crackling flames. He’d even given her rug burn on that—

He drowned the thought with another gulp of Scotch and headed upstairs to the loft office—where the fireplace was out of sight. He settled on the leather sofa and tried to focus on the geological reports, but it was slow going. His lids grew heavier with each passing second when normally the technical pre-construction specs fascinated him. He loved the challenge of anticipating problems before they arose. But not today.

What do you expect when you’re not sleeping at night?

That was only because he was worried about failing a kid as badly as Donald Jarrod had failed his children. Gavin and each of his siblings had baggage from their father’s brand of tough love.

Twenty minutes later—yeah, he was watching the clock—a knock at the door gave him an excuse to abandon his fruitless attempt. He made his way downstairs and opened the front door. A clean-cut twenty-something guy in a suit stood on the stoop. “Gavin Jarrod?”

“Yes.”

“This is for you, sir.” The young man handed over a thick envelope, then turned and departed before Gavin could dig a tip out of his pocket.

Curious, Gavin scanned the return address. An attorney’s office. “What in the hell?”

He hadn’t spoken to Henry since the separation, but the old man might have followed through with his promise to muck things up with inspectors since Gavin had hurt his granddaughter. The construction crew had barely begun. Plenty of stuff could go sour at this point.

He opened the tri-folded sheets expecting to find some kind of injunction to halt work on the lodge.

Divorce Petition.

The words hit him like a one-ton I beam slamming into his chest. Sabrina had filed for divorce. He flipped through the pages, skimming the legalese, most of it predetermined by their prenup, and then he came upon a second document—a form asking him to relinquish his paternal rights to the child she carried.

Gavin staggered backward until the living room sofa hit the backs of his legs. His knees buckled. He collapsed onto the cushion.

If he signed this then he’d have no reason, no right to contact Sabrina ever again or to see their child, and no reason to ever return to Aspen.

Sign it. It’s the best thing you can do for both of them. You’ll make a lousy husband and a worse father.

He pulled a pen from his pocket. His hand shook, quaking over the page until his eyes blurred. He couldn’t do it. He dropped the pen, shot to his feet and walked away from the papers lying on the table.

The idea of going another day—let alone a lifetime—without seeing Sabrina made it hard to breathe. His chest and throat burned as if a hot steel band constricted him. He glanced over his shoulder at the papers on the table. Signing them was the easy way out of all his problems. So why did the idea of walking away from her feel as if he were ripping out a part of himself? He’d never wanted a wife, and he’d sure as hell never wanted children.

Because you’ve fallen in love with the woman you married under false pretenses.

The realization stunned him. He didn’t do love.

Until now.

In their short time together, Sabrina had gotten to him and breached barriers he didn’t let people cross. She’d shown him how warm and welcoming a real home should be and reminded him how much he loved Aspen when his father wasn’t acting as a domineering killjoy. She’d taught him that real love meant sometimes putting another’s happiness ahead of your own.

For a moment when she’d been telling him about the baby there’d been a glow of hope and excitement in her eyes making them sparkle more than the diamond on her finger. And he’d killed it with his knee-jerk reaction and cruel words.

He wanted to see those emotions light up her face again. He couldn’t live a lifetime wondering if she and the child they’d created together were happy and flourishing. And leaving Aspen to avoid her the way he had his father seemed repugnant.

The most important lesson he’d learned from Sabrina was that bad parents didn’t necessarily make an emotionally crippled child. Look at her. Despite her parents’ lack of interest he’d never met a warmer or more generous woman. She relished making even strangers feel welcome in her home.

And she hadn’t let losing her husband or her first baby stop her from trying love again. She believed her late husband was the courageous one, but that man had nothing on Sabrina. Any child would be lucky to have her for a mother. Gavin fisted and released his hands by his side. He wanted a chance to raise that child with her even though he didn’t have the skills to handle the job.

Maybe with Sabrina’s help he could learn how to be a father.

You could end up failing Sabrina, your child and yourself.

But that was a risk he had to take. If it wasn’t too late.

But first he had to talk to his siblings. What he was considering wouldn’t affect just him. He had to find a way to prove to Sabrina that she was worth more to him than a hole in the ground.

“Kinda overdid the cooking, didn’t you?” Pops said.Sabrina glanced up to see him looking over the top of his glasses at the kitchen work island laden with pies, cakes, cookies and an assortment of other dishes she’d prepared for tomorrow’s Thanksgiving meal.

She shrugged and continued kneading the dough for Friday’s sourdough coffee cake. “I had a lot of new recipes I wanted to try, plus all of Grandma’s favorites.”

“Did cookin’ fix what ailed ya?”

Her fingers twitched in the malleable mix. “I’m sorry?”

“Colleen always baked when she was upset. I ate best when she had issues to think through.”

Sabrina ducked her head. Was she so transparent? “I’m fine, Pops.”

He snorted. “You gonna let him get away with it?”

She considered playing dumb and asking “Who?” but Pops wouldn’t buy it. He’d been hovering since she’d moved back in, and his worrying about her wasn’t good for him. His agitation would only worsen once she told him about the baby. She hadn’t found the nerve to do that yet. “Let Gavin get away with what?”