Читать книгу Secret Heirs Collection - Кейт Хьюит, Коллектив авторов - Страница 52

WHEN ZAC WOKE up his body felt uncharacteristically heavy, and yet lighter than it had ever felt. He frowned, his eyes still closed. It was such an unusual sensation. He was aware that his penis also felt heavy, yet sated. His whole body ached in a way he’d never experienced before.

A vague thought occurred to him: was he sick?

And then a very distinctive feminine scent caught at his nostrils and he was suddenly wide awake. He opened his eyes. He wasn’t sick. Rose. Sweet Rose…opening up to him with such abandon. And just like that his body was no longer heavy—it was waking up. Stirring.

A kaleidoscope of images crashed through his brain—firm breasts topped by small sharp nipples, pale slim thighs parting for him. His tongue tasting her sweet essence, feeling her muscles tighten around him, rose-gold hair, green eyes… Sliding into tight, slick heat…so tight he’d thought he might die.

Virgin. His.

He lifted his head and looked around his room, aware of the morning sun streaming in the windows. He never normally slept much beyond dawn, so this was disconcerting.

The bed beside him was empty, but the sheets were crumpled and her scent lingered. He hadn’t dreamed it. But then, disconcertingly, slivers of a dream came back to him: her bottom tucked into the cradle of his body, her turning, lifting her face, angling herself so that he slipped between her legs…

He’d notched himself inside her, hearing her gasp… There were snippets and fragments of hushed whispers… ‘Are you too sore?’

She’d shaken her head, eyes glittering green. ‘No, keep going…’

And so Zac had, thrusting harder and deeper, one hand clamped around her breast, his other hand finding the juncture between her legs, close to where he surged in and out, touching her there and coming apart as she’d milked him so powerfully he’d stopped breathing…

Zac frowned. He hadn’t used protection in the dream, and he would never not use protection, so it couldn’t have been real. Even so, the back of his neck prickled… It felt as if it had been real.

And where was she now? He got up and pulled on some old sweats and went through his apartment after checking the bathroom. There was no sign of the woman who had spent the night in his bed. Or any indication that she’d used the bathroom.

The thought of her somewhere…with his scent on her body and the markings of their lovemaking on her pale skin…was enough to make his body go hard in an instant. Zac scowled. Where the hell was she?

But the apartment was empty. Silent. She was gone. Again. He felt deflated. A novel sensation for a man who usually left women in his wake. That prickling sensation was back. His apartment looked untouched… Hell, was he so desperate for a connection that felt real that he’d dreamt it all up? Had some crazy erotic fantasy?

But his gut told him that it had been real. His body was too heavy with sensual satisfaction for it to have been a mere erotic dream. Still…he doubted himself. He padded back through to the bedroom, not even sure what he was looking for until he saw it: the unmistakable mark of her blood on his sheets.

So it had been real. She was real.

He turned to face his windows. He didn’t like it that she kept running away. It made him feel off-balance, exposed somehow…as if she knew something he didn’t. As if he’d been caught out.

Zac looked out over the city, glinting in the early-morning sunlight. She was out there somewhere. He would find her… He would be successful this time. And then he would see that she was not some ethereal, mysterious creature who’d scrambled his brain to pieces—twice. And he would get her out of his system, like every other woman he slept with.

Because women like Rose Murphy didn’t really exist. They just didn’t.

In spite of Zac’s best efforts he didn’t find her. Not a week after she’d left, or a month, nor two months. It had now been four months since he’d had her in his bed and his body still burned for her. Only her. All other women left him cold.

It was exposing, infuriating and it reminded him uncomfortably of the repercussions of the passion that had burnt between his parents, which had ultimately led to their destruction and a life of secrets and lies for him, growing up in a gilded prison with two severe and unloving caretakers.

A knock sounded on his office door, and he turned from where he was looking out over the downtown Manhattan view with a brooding glower. ‘Yes?’

His executive assistant came in, looking grim. ‘We’ve got her, Zac. But I don’t think you’re going to like it.’

The feelings jostling for space in Zac’s chest were nearly overpowered by the surge of heat in his blood. And then he frowned. ‘What do you mean, I’m not going to like it?’

The younger man put one of New York’s most popular newspapers down on Zac’s desk, face up. A screaming headline proclaimed: Real-life Maid in Manhattan scores the Lyndon-Holt jackpot with pregnancy!

And underneath the headline was a picture of Rose… O’Malley, not Murphy…looking wild-eyed and hunted. Hair scraped back.

He assessed the situation in an instant as an icy weight slammed into his gut. One word exploded in his head: Fool. Fool. Fool.

He was right to have believed women like her didn’t exist—because clearly they didn’t. He skim-read the article, taking in the fact that she’d worked for his grandmother as a maid in his family home. Something dark lodged in his gut. He should have recognised his grandmother’s handiwork. She had not been without the help of a willing accomplice, though…

The darkness spread like a seeping poison into the blood in his veins. He didn’t look up from the paper. He was afraid to move in case he exploded into pieces. He just said, with a quiet, controlled tone that belied his growing rage, ‘Find her and bring her to me. Now.’

Rose sat in the back of the chauffeur-driven car as they crossed the bridge onto the island of Manhattan. It wasn’t as if she’d had a choice when that scarily taciturn man had turned up at her place of work and said, ‘I’m here to take you to Mr Valenti.’

She’d known that this meeting was inevitable. She guessed she’d known it as soon as she’d had the confirmation of her pregnancy about two months ago.

And, if she was completely honest with herself, she’d known far sooner than that—because they’d made love again that night, in the half-light of the moon, in the hazy, dreamlike moments between sleeping and waking.

Rose might have believed it to have been a dream if it hadn’t been for the indelible memory of the pulsing strength of Zac’s climax inside her. When she’d woken again as dawn had been breaking, she’d weakly tried to convince herself that it had just been a dream.

But it hadn’t.

And, as terrified as she’d been to contemplate the fact that the night would have repercussions, she’d also felt an immediately fierce sense of acceptance and protectiveness for her unborn child—even before she’d missed her first period and her fears had become real.

Still, it had taken all of her guts and courage to go and have the pregnancy confirmed, because she’d had a very strong sense of foreboding that as soon as someone else knew about it she would be putting her child in some kind of perilous danger.

At no point—even when the pregnancy had been confirmed—had it occurred to her to go and tell Mrs Lyndon-Holt. Her only thought had been how she would eventually tell Zac. The fact that she now possibly had a way to save her father was something she hadn’t allowed herself to contemplate, because she had known she wouldn’t be able to live with herself if she used her unborn child as some kind of bargaining chip…and her father would never want his own flesh and blood used in that way either.

It had brought home to her just how distraught she’d been even to consider that this might be a solution to her problems in the first place.

But she hadn’t had to worry about going to see Mrs Lyndon-Holt because the woman had ambushed Rose. Just as she had before, and just when Rose had finally felt she was off the woman’s radar after not seeing her in months.

Far from not being on the woman’s radar, Rose discovered she had been very much on it. She hadn’t figured on the ruthlessness of the woman, or her vast influence. And now everything had been taken out of her hands in the worst way possible.

In the back of that same sleek black limousine, parked on a quiet Queens street, Mrs Lyndon-Holt had swiped through photo after photo on a sleek tablet. The pictures had documented Rose and Zac leaving that luncheon function and walking through Central Park. They had shown the moments by the subway, when Rose had obviously made her fateful decision to stay. And then they’d shown her leaving his apartment the following morning as dawn had broken, looking dishevelled and with a mortifyingly dreamy and wistful look on her face. Wistful because she’d believed she’d never see him again.

There was no need for any photos of what had happened in the intervening hours. It was glaringly obvious.

And since then her every move had been followed. Mrs Lyndon-Holt had merely waited until Rose had passed the danger zone of early pregnancy before pouncing.

When Rose had tried to get out of the car the woman had restrained her with a brittle but surprisingly strong hand. Rose had looked back at her, feeling numb all over.

‘Are you forgetting so easily about your payment?’

Rose had answered with a coolness that had belied the fear she’d felt, ‘I don’t want anything from you.’

The other woman had just smiled malevolently. ‘Perhaps not you or the baby right now—but your father could do with some help, couldn’t he? Or are you just going to let him die, knowing that you could have saved him if it wasn’t for your stubborn pride? Do I need to remind you that you signed a non-disclosure agreement? Which means you can never tell anyone about what we agreed? And don’t for a second think that my son will welcome this news. It’s common knowledge that he has no desire for a child. So you see, Rose, I’m really all the hope and support you have right now. All I have to do is make one call and your father will have a chance to live to be a very old man.’

Rose had gone hot and then cold all over. As if she needed to be reminded of that conversation she’d overheard in the bathroom that fateful night. Zac Valenti was the last person she could turn to.

And her father…

Jocelyn Lyndon-Holt was right in some sick way—how could Rose live with herself, knowing she’d denied her father a chance to be well again?

A sense of futility had sunk deep into the pit of her being. And the realisation that through her own choices and actions she was now trapped—for better or worse.

And just like that, without having to say another word, Mrs Lyndon-Holt had had Rose exactly where she wanted her.

With ruthless precision, Rose’s father had been transported to an upstate specialised medical facility, where he was due to undergo the preparation required before he had a potentially life-saving and prohibitively expensive operation in a couple of weeks. He’d believed the explanation that Rose had given him: that it was down to the fact that Mrs Lyndon-Holt felt charitable towards an ex-employee. Rose’s insides had curdled at the deceit.

She stared out of the car window now, dry-eyed but aching inside. A kind of resolve had solidified inside her once she’d realised she had to see this thing through.

She had been unutterably selfish, believing she could take something that should never have belonged to her— a night with Zac Valenti—and now she had to face the consequences of her actions. And if her father was the one who might profit from it all by regaining his health, then that would have to be the thing that would make this worthwhile.

That and the new life growing in her belly. A life that she would never regret making, no matter what happened from this moment on. Whether or not her child did inherit a vast fortune was neither here nor there, because Rose had never set out to profit personally from the agreement with Zac’s mother, no matter what she’d signed.

But she couldn’t blame someone else for her own actions.

She just knew she would lay down her own life to protect her baby from any harm, and she vowed now that he or she would not suffer because of her actions, whatever she had to do to ensure that.

Zac’s building appeared ahead, and the car drew to a smooth halt by the sidewalk. ‘Valenti Enterprises’ was written in stark black letters across the steel structure. Bold, uncompromising. Powerful.

Rose shivered.

She’d walked away from Zac in his bed that morning and had taken one last illicit look as he’d lain there like a fallen god, the sheet tangled around his lower body, seductively low enough to give a glimpse of the hair arrowing down between his legs to all that potent masculinity that had sent her into orbit.

It had been a wrench to tear her gaze from him, and an even bigger wrench to walk away, expecting never to see him again. Expecting to hold that night in her memory like a perfect precious secret.

But now there was no hope of it staying perfect or precious or secret. It had been shattered to pieces and she had no one to blame but herself.

The journey up to Zac’s office seemed to take a nanosecond. Rose had barely had time to recognise the irony of the fact that time sped up when you least wanted it to, when a smartly dressed young man was opening a huge door and ushering her into a vast office.

She saw him immediately, which caused her to stumble to a stop barely inside the door. Zac was sitting behind a big solid wooden desk. She hardly heard the door close behind her with a soft click. His chair was high-backed. All the furniture was big…imposing. He looked bigger than she remembered, even though he was sitting down.

He wore a white shirt, open at the throat. Stubble shadowed that firm jaw and his hair was tousled, as if he’d been running his hands through it.

And then he stood up and her brain froze. He placed his hands on the desk in front of him, leaning forward slightly. Rose had the uncomfortable sensation that he was deliberately keeping his desk between them.

Those bluer-than-blue eyes raked her up and down. His lip curled. ‘Do you think you can fool me with another demure outfit, Ms O’Malley?’

Ms O’Malley. Rose’s heart had slowed to a thump-thump of shock and guilt and misery. Of course he knew her real name now. She felt very self-conscious in plain black trousers and the white shirt that she wore for her work at a small local restaurant in Queens—one of the three jobs she’d been juggling. Her hair was up in a functional ponytail. No make-up.

Heat prickled up her neck and she gripped her handbag tighter in her hands, in front of her belly. ‘I’m not trying to fool anyone.’

Her voice came out strong and she sent up silent thanks. She was determined not to let him see how hard this was for her. All she wanted to do was apologise, try to explain. Except she couldn’t explain. And the opportunity for any apology had long since passed.

Zac made a rude sound. Then he straightened up and came around the table, and all of Rose’s dormant hormones started fizzing and jumping, oblivious to the waves of animosity coming from him across the room. He rested back against the desk and crossed one long leg over the other. And folded his arms.

Rose had had tiny glimpses of this remote man, and they had been downright intimidating. Right now he might as well be a complete stranger, so far removed was he from the seductive man who had bewitched her so easily.

Zac’s face seemed to get harder, and his mouth compressed, as if he was recalling something distasteful. ‘So, I’m curious…what’s the going rate for a virginal prostitute these days?’ And then he said, ‘That’s assuming you were actually a virgin? The blood was an ingeniously authentic touch if you weren’t.’

His crude words shredded Rose inside. ‘It wasn’t like that.’ She begged silently, Please don’t ruin it.

Zac stood up and said icily. ‘That’s exactly what it was like.’

Rose drew herself up, even though she felt mortally wounded. Already. And she was sure that he hadn’t even really started his attack. ‘I’m not a prostitute.’

Are you sure about that? mocked a small voice.

Zac sneered. ‘You’re sure as hell no meek and invisible maid either. You’re seriously expecting me to believe that both times we met were a happy coincidence, only for you to disappear into the ether and suddenly emerge from under whatever stinking place you inhabit months later, claiming to be pregnant with my child?’

Rose opened her mouth to assert that this baby was his, but he wasn’t finished.

‘You seem to be forgetting that it’s common knowledge now that the house where you work as a maid was my family home.’

She wanted to correct him—she wasn’t working there any more—but he laughed then, and it was harsh and cold.

‘I have to hand it to you both for such simple ingenuity, using the oldest trick in the book—the honey trap.’

Rose recoiled inwardly, realising that he assumed she’d been in league with his mother… And of course she had. However reluctantly.

He came closer and stopped dead in front of her, self-disgust written all over his face. ‘But your particular brand of honey came with a bitter aftertaste.’

Rose immediately felt protective of her baby, hating the wounding words. She interjected before he could say more. ‘I haven’t worked there for four months. And it wasn’t like that. I swear…’

Zac’s dead-eyed look told her what he thought of that little attempt to defend herself, so she closed her mouth. He started to walk around her, like a shark. She stared straight ahead, rigid with tension.

He said from behind her, ‘Whether or not you currently work there is beside the point. Tell me—did you get a bonus for getting pregnant, or was it an all or nothing deal?’

Rose’s hands were digging so deeply into her bag that she wouldn’t be surprised if she was gouging holes in the leather. She refused to turn around, and again said tightly, ‘It wasn’t like that.’

Zac made a rude snorting sound. ‘Assuming that you are pregnant and that it is mine, I’d say you’re still on the payroll. So essentially that’s a transaction many would call—’

‘Stop it!’ Rose’s voice rang out harshly.

Zac came back to stand in front of her, lifting an eyebrow. ‘Such a spirited defence.’

His eyes dropped to where the bag covered her belly. She was at that slightly uncomfortable stage of pregnancy where her belly was finally looking more defined and less like bloated swelling, and she hated feeling that self-consciousness now. As if he cared how she looked. As if she should care!

Rose gathered up her strength in the face of his utter condemnation, justified as it was. ‘I am pregnant with your baby and I was just a maid. I’m not saying those meetings weren’t engineered to bring us together…’ She faltered then, knowing that however she tried to defend herself she couldn’t deny that on some very crude level Zac was right.

But he wasn’t even listening. He stood back, arms folded. Formidable and distant. ‘As much as I’d love to believe otherwise, I suspect you probably are carrying my child. Jocelyn Lyndon-Holt is so obsessed with the precious family bloodline that she would never leave something that important to chance.’

No, she wouldn’t. Rose knew that all too well, feeling sick when she thought of his mother.

Zac’s voice was harsh. ‘The moment you agreed to accept money from her to deliberately seduce me, you crossed a line that millions of women cross every day in this city. And each one of them probably has more integrity than you.’

Rose fought hard to keep her chin up. This was the least she deserved. She knew that. But, even so, she couldn’t help saying, ‘I didn’t want to do it. I walked away that first night.’

Zac took a step back, incredulity stamped all over his handsome face. ‘That was just a ploy to incite me to chase you. To want you.’

Bitter gall burnt Rose’s insides. Of course he would think that. Why wouldn’t he?

‘I won’t ask again,’ he rapped out. ‘Tell me what the going rate is for playing God with my life and giving me a child I had no intention of ever fathering.’

The futile anger that had risen up in a flash drained away again. He was right. That was exactly what she’d done. She’d played God. And still she couldn’t answer him. Because how could she say the price had been her father’s life when that life was held in such delicate balance at the moment? She couldn’t break the non-disclosure agreement… If she did, her father would suffer. She didn’t care what might happen to her. But it wasn’t just about her any more.

In the face of Zac’s clear hostility all she could cling to now was the fact that she was doing this for her father. To save him. This had to be worth it. It had to be. And she had to protect the innocent baby she carried, who did not deserve this opprobrium.

Zac was glaring at her now, silently demanding an answer, and Rose said the only thing she could.

‘I’m not telling you anything.’

Zac looked at Rose and the rage inside him reached boiling point. I’m not telling you anything. Of course she wouldn’t. She didn’t want to jeopardise the undoubtedly sizeable settlement she was due when her child—his child!—took that hated name and came in line to inherit the Lyndon-Holt fortune.

Zac was dangerously close to the edge of his control, and he didn’t like to admit that even before, when his life had been ripped asunder, he hadn’t felt so volatile. He’d vowed never to let himself be put in that position again—at the mercy of secrets and lies. And yet here he was, teetering on the very lip of it.

He turned abruptly away from that pale face and those huge eyes and stalked to the window. He couldn’t look at her and not fall over the edge.

He wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but he’d expected her to show something different from the innocent persona she’d projected both times they’d met before. He’d expected her to be confident. Triumphant. Crowing. Greedy.

And she was none of those things. Or not yet, at least. She just had those huge eyes that looked so damn full of something that mocked him for his initial weakness. Because he’d believed in it. In her.

The revelation that she’d used her physical innocence as a bargaining chip that night made him bilious. Her virginity might have been real, but every other moment had been a poisonous fabrication.

He recalled persuading her to stay and those eyes looking at him with such unbelievable torment. As if she’d truly had to wrestle with her conscience. And then she’d run, perfecting her act, before popping up again the following week. What an unmitigated fool he’d been to trust that it had been mere coincidence.

As much as Zac would have loved to have her escorted from his building and excised from his life for good, he couldn’t. She was pregnant. He’d noticed the barely perceptible thickening of her waist that she was trying to hide under that bag. And he hated that he’d noticed. And that it wasn’t having a cooling effect on his hormones. Hell, as soon as he’d seen her photo in the paper his libido had roared back to life.

Pregnant. He was still reeling from that shock and coming to terms with the fact that he most likely was the father. He’d never contemplated this reality, too intent on making sure the Lyndon-Holt name died out with his grandmother. As he’d told her years before, she could take her bitter legacy to the grave or leave it to a cats’ home for all he cared.

Yet he knew that as much as he might blame the woman in his office right now, and his grandmother, he only had himself to blame, really.

He was the one who’d been weak. His hyper-vigilance had been blown apart as soon as he’d laid eyes on that pale, slender back. Her unadorned beauty. A beauty that would be tainted in his eyes forever now. He’d had moments of suspicion but he’d ignored them, too in heat for her. Like a rabid dog.

He’d arrogantly assumed he had an edge over his peers after everything that had happened to him, but he’d learnt nothing. This was a brutal lesson in recognising his own lack of humility. His complacency.

He’d been the susceptible fool who had succumbed to that sweet, hazy lovemaking in the darkest hours of the night, when she’d obviously—in spite of her inexperience—sensed her opportunity and made the most of it. Milking him so exquisitely with her tight body that he’d not even realised it wasn’t a dream because he’d never felt anything like it before.

But it hadn’t been a dream. It was a living nightmare. And now his weakness meant that everything he’d wanted to do to avenge the people who had given him life was for naught.

He went still then, as something struck him—a glimmering shard of possibility. A way he could still prevail. As it took root in his mind, for the first time since he’d heard this news the rage inside him cooled a fraction. Because there was a way he could turn this around. A way to thwart his grandmother’s nefarious plans. A way to avenge his parents far more profoundly than he’d ever anticipated.

By giving life to another name. His father’s name. Valenti.

When Zac felt slightly more in control he turned around, but seeing Rose standing there in his office still hit him like a punch in the gut. Her eyes looked too big. He noted too that she looked as if she’d lost weight, making her seem even more ethereal and delicate. It tugged on something inside him. Unwelcome.

He had to focus. Remember who she was. What she’d done. And try to salvage something out of this mess.

‘Sit down,’ he snapped, more forcefully than he’d intended. Her slight flinch impacted on him in the same unwelcome place. She didn’t move immediately, and Zac paced forward and pulled out a chair, not liking it that she looked paler now. ‘Sit. Before you fall down.’

He found himself pouring her a glass of water before he’d even registered the impulse. He handed it to her and she looked up at him as she took it, some colour returning to her cheeks.

‘There’s no need to talk to me like a dog, and I’m not some wilting lily.’

With any other woman Zac would have been horrified at his behaviour, but this was her. She was as low as they came. He went back around his desk and sat down, loosening his tie and opening the top button of his shirt, feeling constricted. It was time to assess exactly what he was dealing with.

‘I presume you signed a contract?’

The colour in her cheeks made something ease inside Zac. He told himself it was satisfaction that she’d decided not to try and play him with some meek little act. Good—he wanted her feisty and showing her true colours. So that it wouldn’t be hard to remember the sheer gall it had taken for her to sell her virginity and her womb to the highest bidder.

She took a sip of water. When she looked at him again she seemed to square her shoulders, as if preparing for battle. He told himself grimly that she didn’t even know what a battle was yet.

‘Well?’ he rapped out, impatient.

She swallowed, the movement of her throat drawing his eye down to where he could see the hollow just above her collarbone. He remembered tracing that hollow, tasting it with his tongue… And suddenly the irritation was joined by a rush of lust so intense that Zac was glad he was sitting down.

He hated himself for the desire to let his eyes linger on her. She was beautiful enough to hurt, with rose-gold tendrils of hair escaping to frame that treacherous face. Damn, but he ached to be close to her again, remembering all too easily how it had felt to thrust into that tight embrace.

He couldn’t believe it. Even after the worst betrayal his libido had no issues with this treacherous woman. All he felt was pure base need. Regardless of who she was and what she’d done. It killed him to know that his own body could perpetuate the betrayal.

‘I can’t tell you anything,’ she answered.

It took a moment for her words to sink in, and then anger propelled Zac up out of his chair. He paced away from the desk—away from her. Not many people had the nerve to stonewall him, and he almost felt a grudging respect.

But when he turned to her again he just said coldly, ‘Can’t? You mean won’t.’

Distaste for everything she represented and her obvious collusion with his grandmother made him realise very quickly that he had to seize control of this situation.

As if she could sense what was coming, she asked him, ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’

There was the faintest tremor in her voice but Zac told himself it was just fear, because on some level she had to suspect now that she would not win against him.

‘I’m taking full responsibility for my actions. Starting now.’

‘What do you mean?’

He looked at her, tightening every muscle in his body against the effect she had on him even now. ‘What I mean, my sweet, poisonous Rose, is that I’m going into damage limitation mode and you’re coming with me.’

Rose stood up from the chair, her bag dropping to the ground, the glass still in her hand. ‘What are you talking about?’

Zac savoured the look of growing panic on her face.

‘I’m talking about the fact that I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure this baby is not subjected to the Lyndon-Holt legacy.’

He noticed that she blanched, clearly seeing her payday in jeopardy.

‘But…but you can’t do that. I’m the baby’s mother. I have the right to decide what happens to my baby.’

Her words impacted on him forcibly.

My baby.

His baby.

He was going to be a father. It was finally sinking in on a very real level.

A surge of something completely alien rose up and surprised him with its force. He realised it was a sense of possessiveness. Protectiveness. And this feeling merely solidified his resolve.

‘It’s also my baby—or have you forgotten that pertinent detail?’ He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘This baby will be a Valenti, mark my words. And I will do whatever it takes to make that happen.’

He read the very definite flare of panic in those expressive green eyes, and saw her hand tighten so much around the glass that her knuckles turned white. In an instant he was beside her, without even realising he’d taken the decision to move. He took the glass out of her hand and put it down, angry at his impulsive reaction.

When he saw how pale she was he had to fight back the strangest instinct to reassure her. Coming on the heels of that sense of protectiveness for his unborn child, it was almost a mockery. He had to remember who she was, and that she was mercenary enough to get pregnant in order to feather her nest.