The Agent's Secret Baby

“I’m just passing on some common sense,” Adam concluded.

She did her best to make him leave. “Always a first time,” she answered sarcastically.

Adam waited for her to continue venting. When she didn’t, he raised an eyebrow.

“That’s it?” he asked. “Nothing more? No more slings and arrows and hot words?” He knew it was baiting her, but the way he saw it, she deserved to be able to yell at him, to put her anger into words. God knew she had the right.

But she just looked at him, the light leaving her eyes. That hurt him more than anything she could have said, because he knew that he’d done that to her.

“What’s the point?” she countered sadly, half lifting her shoulders in a careless shrug.

“The point is that it might make you feel better,” Adam told her. “It might help restore some equilibrium in your world.”

She was a long way from having that happen, she thought. A long way. “The only thing that would do either would be if I’d never met you.”

He had that coming and he knew it. He regretted their time together only because it had placed her in jeopardy and it ultimately had hurt her. That had never been his intention.

In an absolute, personal sense, he’d never, not even for a moment, regretted having her in his life, no matter how short the time they had together had been. But, even though she didn’t know it, she’d had her revenge. Eve had upended his world, showing him everything he’d given up to do what he did, to be what he was. She’d showed him everything he could have had if his life had gone differently.

At least he had a life, he reminded himself.

Which was more than Mona had.

Mona, his kid sister, had been bright, beautiful and blessed with the ability to light up a room the moment she entered it. Her family and friends were all certain that she could have had the world at her feet just by wishing it.

Instead, she opted to keep it at bay, losing herself in the dark, forbidding haze of heroin and meth until no one who loved her could even recognize her. Despite his alternating between pleading with her and railing at her, his sister had continued using even as she made him promise after promise to stop.

When she finally did stop, it hadn’t been voluntarily. He’d found her lying facedown on the floor of the apartment he’d been paying for, a victim of a drug overdose. No frantic attempts at CPR on his part could revive her. His sister was gone, another statistic in the increasingly unsuccessful war on drugs. His crusade against drugs began that morning.

And the way he viewed it, it hadn’t cost him anything. Until he’d met Eve.

“Where do you keep the vacuum cleaner?” he repeated, his voice a little gruffer.

“I said I’d take care of it,” Eve insisted, holding her ground.

He let her win. Maybe she needed that. With a shrug, Adam bent down to pick up the spilled candy. Cradling the small bags, bars and boxes against his chest, he rose to his feet again.

“Where do you want me to put these?”

The answer flashed through her head, but it wasn’t her way to say things like that, no matter how tempted she was or how warranted her flippant remark might have actually been. Adam might not have any honor left, but she still did.

Was that why she was carrying the drug dealer’s baby? a taunting voice in her head mocked.

“Over there will be fine,” she told him, nodding toward the coffee table.

Adam crossed over to it and let the candy rain down from his arms onto the table.

His back was to her. An image flashed through her brain. The way his back had looked as he moved to leave his bed after they’d made love. She felt her stomach tightening.

She had to stop that, stop torturing herself. He wasn’t the answer to a prayer, he was the personification of a nightmare.

A nightmare in pleasing form.

Eve passed her tongue along her lips, trying to moisten them. They were so dry, they were almost sticking together.

“Why did you come?” she forced herself to ask, making it sound like an accusation.

He turned from the table and looked at her. Had she always looked so delicate? he wondered. “I heard you were pregnant—”

Eve widened her eyes. They had no friends in common and their worlds certainly didn’t overlap.

“How did you hear?” she demanded. He just looked at her. “Who told you?” she pressed.

He waved her question away. “Doesn’t matter. But I came to see for myself.”

She drew herself up to her full five-foot-four height, then spread her arms, giving him an unobstructed view. After a minute, she dropped her arms again. “All right, you saw. Now please leave.”

Adam remained where he stood, making no move to do anything of the kind. Tessa was nuzzling his leg and he stroked her head as he took a breath, fortifying himself.

“Is it mine?” he asked.

“No.” The denial automatically rose to her lips and shot like a bullet through the air, primed by a she-bear’s instincts to protect her unborn cub.

He didn’t believe her even though part of him would have really wanted to. It would have made everything so much simpler. It would have taken away not just his sense of guilt, but of responsibility, too. Not to mention that he wouldn’t need to feel obligated to protect the baby or her if she wasn’t bearing his child.

The hell you wouldn’t.

The other part of him fiercely rejected even the suggestion that the seed growing in her belly had come from anyone but him. Even if he never saw Eve again—and until that anonymous e-mail had turned up on his computer he never planned to—Eve was his soul mate in every sense of the word. He knew that no matter how many women he came across, how many he took to his bed, this one would stand out. This one would always mean more to him than all the others combined.

And he knew her well enough to know that the child was his no matter what she said to the contrary.

“I don’t believe you,” he told her quietly.

Panic began to form within her. Why had he shown up? Why couldn’t he just let her go? And more importantly, why did the sight of him make her yearn like this? She weighed a ton, for God’s sake. Women who weighed a ton weren’t supposed to suddenly want to have their bones jumped, especially not by someone they knew dwelled with the dregs of society.

Eve did her best to sound distant. “I don’t care what you believe,” she told him coldly. Tossing her hair over her shoulder, she ordered, “Now go, get out of here. I never want to see you again.”

This was where he should retreat. She’d given him the perfect out. He’d come, he’d seen for himself that Eve was pregnant, now it was time to go. He was still undercover and the stakes were now larger than ever. The person he was after was the main player, the head of the drug cartel. The center of the drug trafficking that was filling the local colleges with heroin.

He couldn’t jeopardize that. Eve had made it perfectly clear that she didn’t want him around. And she’d heatedly denied that he was the father. That meant that he could walk away with a clear conscience.

But he couldn’t leave.

It didn’t matter what he wished, the fact remained that Eve had been with him a little less than nine months ago. With him in every sense of the word. He knew in his gut the baby was his. If he could do the math, someone else in the organization would do the same. The time to back away, to pretend she’d never been part of his life, was over. Eve and her unborn child were at risk. They needed his protection. He was not about to have them on his conscience.

He frowned, then calmly told her, “The calendar doesn’t back up what you just said.”

“Then get a new calendar,” she retorted. “This is not your baby.” Her voice rose in anger. “Don’t you understand? I don’t want anything from you. You’re free to walk away. So walk,” she ordered.

Instead of leaving, he pushed the door closed. The click echoed in her head. Nerves rose to the surface even as she struggled to at least look calm.

“Is this why you left?” he asked, his eyes indicating her swollen abdomen. “Because you found out you were pregnant?”

She took offense, although she didn’t even know why. Her hormones raged, playing tug-of-war with her emotions.

“No,” she retorted hotly, “I left because I found out that you were a drug dealer.”

He needed for her to be safe. Needed to watch over her. He knew that he couldn’t just post himself on her block indefinitely. This was the kind of neighborhood where an unknown car would attract attention if it was seen lingering for more than a few minutes—and that would inevitably result in a call to the police.

The last thing he wanted was to get involved with the local law enforcement agency, at least not until he could bring down the leader of this little high-class operation. Otherwise, he and a lot of other people would find themselves throwing away two years on a failed mission. And another drug lord would find himself with a free pass.

He owed it to Mona not to let that happen.

In order to do what he needed to do, he knew he needed to lie.

To Eve.

Again.

“Then you’ll be happy to know,” he told her, “that I’m not part of that world any longer.” His eyes held hers and he hated himself for what he was doing, but at the same time, he knew he had to. “I’m just a simple used book dealer.”

For just a moment, Eve’s heart leaped up in celebration. She was ready to seize the information and clutch it to her chest like an eternal promise. But he had lied to her before—who knows how many times—and once that sort of thing happened, trust was badly splintered if not shattered. Rebuilding the fragile emotion was not the easiest thing in the world.

“How do I know you’re not just lying?” she challenged, praying he had an answer that would somehow satisfy her.

“You don’t,” he admitted simply, surprising her. “You’re just going to have to trust me.”

And that, Eve thought, was the problem in a nutshell. More than anything in the world, she wanted to believe him. But at the same time, she knew that she just couldn’t. Not yet. Not until he proved himself to her and gave her a concrete reason to believe him.

Just then, she thought she felt the baby begin to kick her again. Kick her harder than it had ever kicked before.

Caught off guard, immersed in this new drama, Eve gasped as tears welled up in her eyes.

Sensing both her mistress’s anxiety and her pain, Tessa began to pace nervously about before her as Eve clutched at her belly.

Adam reacted immediately. His arms closed around Eve as if he was afraid that she was about to sink down to the floor.

“What’s wrong?” he demanded, concern weaving itself through his voice. His eyes searched her face. “What can I do to help?”

Just hold me, Adam, the little voice in her soul whispered to him. Just hold me and make everything all better again.

Chapter 4

He didn’t like the way she’d suddenly stiffened against him or the fact that her breathing began to sound labored. Why wasn’t she answering him?

As he held Eve at arm’s length to get a look at her face, he found nothing to reassure him. She was in physical pain.

“Talk to me, Eve. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she managed to get out, fervently hoping that if she said it with enough conviction, it would be true. But it wasn’t. The pain just got more intense. Why wouldn’t it stop? “The baby kicked. He’s been doing a lot of that today.”

“He?” Adam echoed. If he hadn’t known better, he would have said that something akin to pride stirred within him. “It’s a boy?”

Trying to get behind the pain, or beyond it, Eve hardly heard him. “Yes.” Belatedly, she realized what he’d asked her. “Unless it’s a girl.”

The only reason he felt a tinge of disappointment was because he liked knowing about things ahead of time. It always helped to be prepared. As for the possibility that he might have a daughter instead of a son, he found himself rather liking the idea. If she took after her mother, she’d be a force to be reckoned with.

“Then you don’t know?” he concluded.

“No.” He was still holding on to her shoulders and she shrugged his hands away. She’d decided to have her baby the old-fashioned way—that included not knowing its sex. “But then, I don’t know a lot of things.” She eyed him pointedly. “And contrary to the popular belief, ignorance is not bliss. It’s setting yourself up for a fall.”

She hit her intended target with that one. “I never meant to hurt you, Eve,” he told her sincerely. “I swear I didn’t.”

She could almost believe him. But then, Eve thought ruefully, struggling to hold the hot pain burning in her belly at bay, she’d believed him before and look how that had turned out for her.

“You know what they say about the path to hell,” she said in a pseudocheerful voice. “It’s paved with good intentions.”

Adam knew he could just walk away, that it might be better all around if he did, but the look in her eyes—a look he was fairly sure she wasn’t even aware of—just wouldn’t let him do it. She needed him. “Look, I know you probably hate me—” She shook her head, stopping him before he went on. “I don’t hate you, Adam. Hate’s a very powerful emotion. I don’t feel anything at all for you.”

Her eyes were steely as she tried to convince him nothing remained between them but this child waiting to be born. She sincerely doubted if she’d succeeded because she hadn’t even been able to convince herself.

She was lying. He knew she was lying. One look into her eyes told him that.

Or was he seeing things he wanted to see?

He wasn’t the kind of man she deserved, the kind of man she had a right to expect. A nine-to-five kind of guy who left his work behind once he walked out of the office. His “job” was with him 24/7, even when he wasn’t undercover and so much more so when he was. Eve deserved infinitely more than just half a man.

But that didn’t change the fact that right now, when she was at her most vulnerable, he needed to look out for her. Needed to be her hidden guardian angel.

Damn, he should have never gotten involved with her, never given in to that overwhelming yearning that had stirred so urgently inside of him every time she walked into his store, into his carefully crafted make-believe life.

Up until that time, it had been easy. He’d been so focused on his job, on the target that Hugh, his handler, had turned him on to that he’d been able to successfully resist the women who crossed his path. Even the ones who had been very determined to extend their acquaintance beyond customer and seller.

But then she had walked into his store and everything changed.

It’d been raining that morning, an unexpected, quick shower that had ushered her into the store along with a sheet of rain. Even soaking wet, her hair plastered to her head, Eve had been possibly the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

He’d found himself talking to her for the better part of an hour, showing her rare edition after rare edition. Giving her a little capsulated history behind each book. He made it a point never to enter a situation without studying it seven ways from sundown and, in this case, he was supposed to be the scholarly owner of a small shop that dealt only with rare books. Consequently, he had a lot of miscellaneous information crammed into his head.

She’d appeared to hang on every word.

It had been the best time of his life and he wished he could recapture it. But he couldn’t.

“All right,” Adam said evenly, “you don’t feel anything at all for me. I’m not asking you to, but I want you to know that I’m going to be here for you if you need me.”

“Won’t that be a killer commute for you?” she asked cynically. “Driving from here to Santa Barbara and back every day?”

“I won’t be commuting that far.”

She didn’t understand, but was in too much pain to get the whole story. She blinked hard, clenching her fists at her sides as if that could somehow chase it away. “What about your bookstore?”

“I relocated it,” he told her simply, then added an expedient lie. “I lost my lease and Laguna Beach seemed like a nice setting for the shop.”

Before she’d discovered his dual life, she would have been thrilled with the idea that Adam had relocated to be close to her, that he had gone searching for her when she’d disappeared and once he’d found where she had gone, he’d rearranged his life just to be nearby.

But those kind of thoughts belonged to a naive, innocent young woman. She was no longer that, no longer naive. Or innocent. And the fault for that partially lay with him.

She needed to discourage him, to make him leave her alone—before she became too weak to follow through. “I don’t need you to be ‘here’ for me, Adam. I’ve moved on. I’m seeing someone,” she informed him tersely.

A sharp pain flared in his gut. He’d lost her. Before he’d ever really had her.

Schooled in not showing emotion, his expression remained unchanged. “Is it serious?”

The lies didn’t get easier, but she had no choice. She needed to protect her baby at all costs, and that meant protecting the child from its father.

“Yes. Very. Josiah wants to adopt the baby.” Silently, she apologized to Josiah Turner, but the seventy-year-old man’s name was the first one to pop into her head. The man was like an uncle to her. She’d known him all her life, from the time she would frequent her father’s animal clinic. Whenever he wasn’t away on business, Josiah would bring his dogs to her father for routine care. And when he was away, he would board them at the clinic.

When her father died shortly after her return, the retired widower had arbitrarily appointed himself her guardian angel, determined to protect her, especially when it became apparent that she was pregnant.

“Good for you,” Adam said, doing his best to infuse an upbeat note into his voice. He still intended to watch over her, but at least she wasn’t going to be alone. This meant that he could maintain vigil from a distance. And if knowing that someone else would be holding her, making love with her, stuck a hot knife into his gut, well, that was his problem, not hers. “Then I’ll be going.”

But even as he told her, his feet didn’t seem to want to move. Stalling for time until he could get himself to go, Adam took out one of the business cards he’d had printed just last week and held it out to her.

“In case you ever want to find another first edition,” he explained.

When she made no effort to take it from him, he took her hand in his and placed the card with the new bookstore’s address and phone number into her palm, closing her fingers over it.

The next moment, as he began to withdraw his hand, she suddenly grabbed his wrist and squeezed it. Hard.

She looked as startled as he was. Adam searched her face. “Eve?”

This time, she made no answer. Instead, Adam watched the color completely drain out of her face and heard her catch her breath the way someone did when they didn’t want to scream.

It didn’t take much for him to put two and two together. “It’s time, isn’t it?”

Her eyes were wide as she slanted them toward his. “No, no, it’s not. It’s not time,” she insisted heatedly. “I’m not supposed to be due for another three weeks. Maybe four.” Even as she said it, another wave of pain engulfed her. “Oh, God.”

Still clutching his wrist, she almost buckled right in front of him. Adam quickly put his arm around her shoulders. Drawing her to him, he held her up.

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