Читать книгу The Rags-To-Riches Wife - Metsy Hingle - Страница 9

Stunned, Jack didn’t notice that the rain was coming down harder. He didn’t notice that the pink-and-white blossoms from the mountain laurels lay scattered beneath the shrubs or that the branches of the white oak bowed beneath the weight of the downpour. He didn’t even notice that on the other side of the door was a house filled with people. His entire focus was on the note he held in his hands. He reread it, and, as he did so, shock gave way to anger.

He was being blackmailed!

Or at least that’s what the person who’d written the note had intended. Turning the sheet of paper over, he studied it, looked for something that might indicate who the author was. But he found nothing.

It didn’t matter who had written it, he told himself as he crushed the note in his fist. Whoever had done so had made two very big mistakes. The first mistake was thinking that he would ever succumb to extortion and the second mistake was the allegation itself. The charge was flat-out ridiculous. He hadn’t fathered any child and no one was expecting his baby. Aside from the fact that he wasn’t involved with anyone, he hadn’t even been with a woman since last year. Not since…Jack went still.

Not since the night of the black-and-white ball.

Suddenly, images flashed through his mind. Images of a moonlit room, of a woman with silken skin and ghost-blue eyes.

Was it possible? Could she be pregnant?

No. She couldn’t be. They might not have known one another and, granted, the sex had been explosive, but at least they’d had the good sense to use protection. Then he remembered that last time they’d made love….

“You have the softest skin,” Jack whispered as he lay in the bed beside her. He drew his finger down her back. She felt like satin—only warmer and with the faint scent of roses and something else. It was a scent he could easily get used to, wanted to get used to, he realized. But they had agreed at the outset that what happened between them tonight ended tonight. The masks they’d worn at the ball had made the evening both intriguing and exciting. They were strangers. Yet the physical attraction had been palpable. He still couldn’t believe he’d given her his room key—or that she’d come. Her insistence that they not reveal their identities had seemed like a good idea at the time. There had been something dangerous and appealing about not knowing who the woman was behind the mask. Only now, he wasn’t sure he should have agreed because the more time he spent with her, the more sure he was that he didn’t want things between them to end. He pressed a kiss to her spine and when she shivered, he asked, “Ticklish?”

“No,” she said, her voice a breathy whisper.

He slid his arm around her waist and drew her body closer, fitting her against him. No, he definitely didn’t want tonight to be the end. Easing the sheet down, he kissed her bare shoulder and, when she trembled, desire stirred inside him again. It had only been an hour since he’d last made love to her. And already, he wanted her again. But this time, he wanted more than just her body. He wanted her. “I know we agreed not to exchange information, but maybe we should rethink that.”

“No,” she said, her body tensing.

“Why not?”

“Because it would mean going back to the real world. And I don’t want to go back to that world. At least not tonight. Tonight I don’t want to think of anything outside this room.”

Moved by the desperation in her voice, he turned her over so that he could see her face. He trailed a finger along her cheek, saw something haunted in those blue eyes. “All right. Tonight there is no world outside this room,” he told her. “But at least tell me your name. I can’t keep calling you Red.”

“I like you calling me Red,” she told him. “No one’s ever called me that before.”

“But I—”

She sat up and pushed him back onto the bed. “Shh. No more talking,” she told him and then she took the lead. She kissed him on the mouth, deeply, thoroughly. Then that hot, moist mouth of hers moved south. She kissed his neck, his chest, and moved lower. When she pressed her lips to his belly, his gut tightened. He reached for her.

Wondering what spell this siren had cast on him, Jack took her mouth, explored her body as she had explored his. Never in his life had he wanted a woman this way, a want that felt dangerously close to need. When he could stand it no longer, he reached over to the nightstand for the condom.

“No, let me,” she said, her voice breathless. She ripped the foil package open with her teeth, sending desire slicing through him again. He lay back against the pillow and watched her as she slowly eased the condom over the length of him. The sensation was exquisite. So was the look of wonder on her face. He’d known she’d had little experience the first time they’d made love. There had been an innocence and an abandon in her response that had told him this night was something as out of the ordinary for her as it was for him. For a moment, he wondered why she had come to his room. What was it in that real world that she’d wanted to escape?

And then he couldn’t think anymore because she was lowering herself onto him. Jack caught her hips, let her set the tempo. She moved back and forth, back and forth, increasing the pace with each movement.

“I…I can’t,” she gasped.

“Yes, you can,” he urged, holding back his own pleasure, wanting to give her more. She gasped again and when the orgasm hit her, her muscles contracted around him. With each sound she made, each movement, he felt his own climax growing closer. When he could wait no longer, Jack flipped her over onto her back and buried himself in her once more.

And then the condom broke.

“Cartwright? Cartwright, are you all right?”

Jack reeled himself back to the present and found Luke Talbot standing in front of him, eyeing him skeptically. Shaking off the memory, he shoved the crumpled blackmail note into the pocket of his raincoat. “I thought I’d wait for this rain to slack up some before I made a run for it,” he explained.

“I just came out to get some air,” Talbot told him.

But given the look of annoyance on the other man’s face, Jack wondered if that was the truth. He sized Talbot up, estimating him to measure an inch or so below his own six feet two inches. The man had what his football coach in college would have called a wiry build, but there was no mistaking that he kept himself fit. There was nothing remarkable about the brown hair and eyes, but the man always seemed to be watching. Just as he was watching him now. “I spoke with Abby earlier, but I didn’t get to tell you how sorry I am about your mother-in-law.”

“Thanks. It’s been pretty rough on Abby.”

“That’s understandable, given the circumstances,” Jack offered.

Talbot reached into his coat pocket and retrieved a cell phone which had obviously been placed on vibrate. He frowned as he looked at the number. “Excuse me, I need to take this call.”

“No problem. I think I’ll make a run for it,” Jack told him and stepped off the veranda and into the rain to head to his car.

And as the rain slapped him in the face, Jack thought once again to that night last December. She’d been gone when he’d awakened the next morning. Despite making several inquiries, no one seemed to know who his mystery woman was. Obviously, the woman had known Bunny Baldwin. He closed his fist around the note in his pocket. Using the remote, he unlocked the door to his car and slid behind the wheel. After starting the engine, he wiped his hand down his face in an attempt to dry it. Then he slicked back his wet hair and stared out at the rain. She’d made it clear that she’d wanted no relationship beyond that night, he reminded himself. It was the reason he hadn’t made a serious effort to find her.

Until now.

Sorry, Red. The rules of the game have just changed.

Lily dug through the files in her desk drawer. Finally she located the one for which she’d been searching and snatched it from the pile. As she shoved it into her briefcase, she glanced up at the clock and groaned. Twenty minutes past five. The board meeting for Eastwick Cares started in ten minutes and she didn’t want to be anywhere near this office when it did. She should have been out of here long before now, she admitted. But when Kristen, one of the teens she’d been counseling, had shown up needing to talk, Lily hadn’t been able to refuse. As a result, she’d cut it too close this time. The board members would be arriving any second.

Since seeing Jack Cartwright at Bunny’s funeral three days ago, she’d been edgy. He had recognized her. Of that much she was sure. As a result, she hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that the other shoe was about to fall. She locked the file drawer, then switched off her desk lamp. Grabbing her keys and purse with one hand and her briefcase with the other, Lily hurried toward the door. She had just pulled the door closed behind her when she heard the distinctive chime of the elevator. Six flights or not, the stairs would be safer, she reasoned and headed for the stairwell in the opposite direction.

“Miss Miller! Miss Miller, wait!”

Lily heard Kristen calling out to her, as well as the chatter of several people who had evidently exited the elevator with the girl. She wanted to ignore Kristen and leave. Otherwise, she’d run the risk of Jack seeing her. But how could she ignore a child who had come to her for help? She couldn’t, she admitted. Stopping, she turned around.

“Geez, Miss Miller, didn’t you hear me?” Kristen asked.

Lily walked back to the girl who had come halfway down the corridor to catch her. “I’m sorry. My mind was on something else. Did you need something?”

“I think I forgot my book bag in your office.”

“Well, let’s go see if we can find it,” she said and headed back to her office where she unlocked the door and turned on the light.

“There it is,” Kristen claimed, indicating the couch where she had sat during their session. The lime-green pack rested on the floor on the opposite side of the sofa. Kristen retrieved the backpack and slung the strap over one shoulder, then turned back to face her. “I’ve got an exam tomorrow that I need to study for and all my notes are in here,” she said patting the bag. “I don’t know what I would have done if you’d already left.”

“Then I’m glad you caught me in time,” Lily replied as she left the office with the teenager.

The elevator dinged its arrival again. “There’s the elevator. You going down?”

“Not yet,” Lily said, still hoping she could escape without seeing Jack.

“See you next week then,” the petite brunette told her and rushed toward the elevator’s opening doors. The elevator began to empty and Kristen stepped inside. “Thanks,” she murmured to someone still inside the elevator, holding the door open for her. “Bye, Miss Miller. And thanks again.”

“Good bye,” Lily called out, and when he exited the elevator she could have sworn she heard it—the other shoe dropping. Because, just as she had feared for months, the man standing outside the elevator staring at her was Jack Cartwright. Unable to move, she simply stood and watched the shock in his blue eyes turn to fury as they moved from her face to her belly and back again.

He walked toward her. His voice was low and dangerous as he said, “Hello, Red.” He paused then glanced at the nameplate on her office door. “Or should I say, ‘Hello, Lily Miller’?”

She nodded, not sure she could even speak when her heart felt as though it were in her throat.

“When is the baby due?” he asked, his expression grim.

“In four months. But—”

“Which means that I’m the father,” he said. “And if you’re having any thoughts about saying the baby’s not mine, you can save yourself the trouble because I’ll demand a paternity test and we both know what the results will show.”

“I wasn’t going to lie,” she told him and placed a protective hand on her stomach. “I just wanted you to know that getting pregnant…it…it wasn’t something I’d planned.”

“Neither was the condom breaking,” he responded. “Why did you tell me you were on the pill?”

“I didn’t. I told you that I was safe because I thought it was a safe time. You just assumed I meant I was on the pill,” she explained and felt the color rush to her cheeks. “It’s no one’s fault. It was an accident, Jack—”

His head snapped up and he pinned her with his eyes. “So you do know who I am.”

“Yes. But not at first. Not until later that night in the hotel room when you took off your mask,” she admitted.

“You knew even then? And yet you didn’t want me to know who you were. Why is that, Lily? Why keep up the pretense? Was it all some kind of joke for you?”

“No! No, it wasn’t a joke,” she told him, not wanting him to believe she had used him. “That night…that night I wasn’t myself. I didn’t want to be me. So when you asked me to dance and we decided to follow the rules of the masquerade ball and not reveal our identities, I didn’t have to be me. It seemed…it seemed so harmless,” she offered because she didn’t know how to tell him that she’d been lost and hurting that night and he had made her feel whole again. “Going to your room that night…it’s…it’s not something I would normally do.”

“Asking a strange woman to my hotel room isn’t exactly the norm for me, either,” he told her, his voice sharp. “So why not be honest? Why not tell me who you were? Why keep pretending?”

“Because I was afraid if I told you who I was, you would stop. And I didn’t want you to stop,” she told him honestly.

Something flared in his eyes. But whatever he’d planned to say never made it past his lips because a door down the hall opened.

“Cartwright, the meeting’s about to start,” Doug Walters, one of the other board members, called out.

“Go ahead and start without me,” he said, never taking his eyes off her.

“We’re taking nominations for Bunny’s seat,” Walters answered.

“Go to your meeting,” she told him before he could respond.

“We need to talk.”

“I know.” While one part of her was relieved that he finally knew the truth, another part of her was nervous about what he might do. His family status wasn’t lost on her. While being an unwed mother might cause a ripple or two for her, the news that Jack was the baby’s father was sure to be a scandal for the venerable, respected Cartwright family.

“Cartwright?” Walters called out again.

“Go ahead. I’ll be here when you’re done and we’ll talk.”

He hesitated a moment, then said, “All right. But if you’re thinking about running away like you did at the cemetery the other day, just remember I know who you are now. And there’s not a place on this earth where you can hide that I won’t find you.”

And as she watched Jack walk away, Lily knew he meant every word. Even if she had someplace or someone to run to, she had no doubt that he would find her. But she had no one—only her baby—so she turned and reentered her office to wait for him.

“What do you think about Abby Talbot taking her mother’s place on the board?” Jacqueline Kent suggested.

“She’s not even thirty. That’s kind of young to be sitting on this board,” Doug Walters pointed out.

“True. But she’s bright and personable and she’s been very supportive of Eastwick Cares. Besides, it might be nice to have some young blood on this board,” Mrs. Kent responded. “Look what a great addition Jack has been.”

The discussion continued around him, but Jack’s thoughts remained on Lily. He’d heard her praises sung from the moment he’d joined the board. The incomparable, efficient Ms. Lily Miller was adored by the teens she counseled and her reports were always neatly typed, complete and available for the board meetings, even though the lady herself never was. Now he knew why. She’d been avoiding him. Not only avoiding him, but keeping from him the fact that he was going to be a father.

A father.

He was still having difficulty wrapping his head around that idea, he admitted. But he didn’t question for a moment that the child was his. He knew that it was. As she’d told him, spending the night with a stranger hadn’t been a normal thing for her—just as it hadn’t been normal for him.

“What do you think, Jack?” Doug Walters asked.

“Sorry, Doug. What was that?”

“What do you think about Abby Talbot taking Bunny’s place on the board?”

“I think it sounds like a good idea. From what I understand, she’s a smart businesswoman. She’s been supportive of Eastwick Cares and I think it would be a nice way to honor her mother for her years of service to the agency.”

“All right, then. Why don’t we take a vote?” Walters said.

By the time the votes were cast and the remainder of the agenda covered, nearly two hours had passed. When Jack exited the board room and headed down the hall to Lily’s office, he half expected to find her gone.

But there she was, seated on the couch with her eyes closed and her head resting against the back cushion. She was asleep, he realized. And since she obviously hadn’t heard him enter, he took the time to study her. Until now, he had only his memory of her—the way she’d looked when he’d first seen her at the ball, a vision wrapped in black satin. The way she’d looked in his room with the firelight reflecting off her hair. The way she’d looked in his bed with her back arched, her skin flushed and her body tangled with his. So many times during the past few months, he told himself that he’d been wrong. She couldn’t possibly be as beautiful as he remembered.

He’d been wrong. She was even more beautiful now. Dark red hair fell in soft waves to frame her face. The face was a perfect oval, her features delicate, the mouth that had made love to him and cried out in pleasure was even more tempting than it had been all those months ago. Dark lashes covered the ghost-blue eyes that had haunted his dreams. The dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose that saved her from being too perfect made her all the more beautiful to him. But it was the bulge in her stomach and the knowledge that she carried his child that made his chest tighten.

She opened her eyes and stared up at him. Within moments, the lazy slumber dissipated and the wariness was back. She straightened. “I’m sorry. I must have dozed off. I seem to be doing a lot of that lately,” she said.

She did look tired, he realized, and there were faint shadows under her eyes. Suddenly concerned about her and the baby, he began spitting out questions. “Have you told the doctor? What does he say? Is it normal?”

“Yes, I’ve told the doctor. And she says it’s perfectly normal.”

Realizing that he sounded like some panicked idiot instead of a grown man, Jack sat down in the wingback chair across from her. He released a breath and looked over into her worried eyes. “Sorry about that. This has all been a surprise for me.”

“I understand. I was the same way at first, panicking over everything. But I’ve had a while to get used to it.”

“Too bad I can’t say the same thing,” he replied, angered anew that she’d kept the pregnancy a secret from him. “Why didn’t you tell me about the baby? Didn’t you think I had a right to know that I was going to be a father?”

“Of course you do. And I was going to tell you.”

“When? When the baby was graduating from college?”

“I wanted to tell you,” she insisted and he didn’t miss the way she was plucking at the sleeve of the jacket she wore.

“Then why didn’t you?”

“Because I didn’t know how,” she fired back.

“The simple truth would have worked just fine. All you had to do was say that the night we slept together resulted in a child.”

“You’re right, and I apologize,” she said, her voice softer, her expression calmer. She tilted her chin up, straightened her shoulders. “I should have told you. And now that you do know, you should also know that I intend to keep the baby.”

It had never crossed his mind that she wouldn’t, Jack realized. He also realized that she could just as easily have placed the child up for adoption, and if she’d listed the father as unknown, he would never even have known he had a child.

“But just because I’m keeping the baby doesn’t mean I expect anything from you. I don’t. I made the decision on my own and I plan to accept full responsibility. So you don’t have to worry that I’ll make any demands.”

“That was a nice little speech, Lily. Tell me, how long have you been practicing it?” he asked and surprised himself that he managed to sound so calm when inside he was furious.

“I…A while,” she finally said.

Leaning forward, he made sure his eyes were level with hers, and he said, “Whether or not you expect anything from me is irrelevant. I’m that baby’s father and as its father, I not only intend to take financial responsibility for him or her, I also intend to be a part of the child’s life.”

“I see,” was all she said.

It was apparent that he’d thrown her for a loop. But had she really expected him simply to walk away from his responsibility to the baby? To her?

“I’m sure we’ll be able to work something out with visitation,” she offered. “Lots of families do it. Of course, we’ll have to wait until the baby’s older. Then we can set up a schedule where we swap holidays and extra time in the summers.”

“I don’t think you understand what I’m saying, Lily. I intend to be a part of this child’s life from day one—not four or five years down the line.”

“But surely you realize a baby needs to be with its mother,” she insisted and he could hear the thread of alarm in her voice.

“It needs its father, too. I have no intention of being a part-time father, one of those men who has visitation every other weekend and alternates holidays. I want to be a part of it all—the late-night feedings, the first steps. Everything.”

Lily pushed to her feet. “I won’t let you take my baby from me,” she told him, her voice firm, defiance in her eyes. “I don’t care who your family is or how much money you have, I’ll fight you. I’ll fight you with every breath in me before I let you take my baby.”

“It’s our baby, Lily. Our baby.”

She folded her arms protectively over her abdomen. But her eyes never wavered as she spat out, “I mean it, Jack. I’ll fight you every step of the way. I won’t let you take the baby from me.”

Standing, he walked over to her. He had a good six inches on her and knew he could be intimidating. Hadn’t he been told time and again that his strong physical presence was as big an asset in the courtroom as was his skill as a lawyer? But if she was intimidated, Lily didn’t show it. She held her ground, stood with him toe-to-toe. With her claws drawn and her eyes sparking fire, she reminded him of a cornered mama cat, fighting to protect her kitten. And he couldn’t help but admire her for it. “Do you really think I’m such a heartless monster? That I would take our baby from its mother?” he asked.

She eyed him warily. “But you said you wanted to be there for everything.”

“And I do,” he said and touched her cheek. “A baby needs a mother and a father.”

“I don’t understand. The baby can’t be with both of us all the time.”

“Sure it can. All we have to do is get married.”