Ultimatum:

Marriage

Ann Major

For The Sake of

the Secret Child

Yvonne Lindsay

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Ultimatum: Marriage

Ann Major

How ironic that the spot his bride had chosen for their wedding had once been the most popular dueling ground in New Orleans.

Too bad the twenty-first century was more civilized. If Jake could have called his bride’s father out and shot him, he would have.

Jake wanted to hate Alicia for complicating his life, but reason told him he was equally to blame. He didn’t want to marry her, but with every word that the priest uttered binding him to Alicia Butler, his desire for her grew until it felt like a crushing weight. Indeed, ever since he’d agreed to the marriage, thoughts of Alicia in his bed had consumed him.

They say a little piece of paper doesn’t matter; that it changes nothing.

They don’t know anything. He felt trapped. Doomed. At the same time his body raged to have her again.

Dear Reader,

I believe that love is the most powerful positive force in the world and that if we open our hearts, it will find us and change our lives for the better. Not that I think we always get to choose who we love or when we fall in love, but isn’t that what makes it so interesting?

After Alicia’s wealthy father is accused of embezzlement on a grand scale and arrested, she is devastated. Just when she thinks she’s lost everything and has nowhere to turn, she discovers she’s pregnant by Jake Claiborne, the man who slept with her and then reported her dad to the feds.

Although she’d rather never see Jake again, she knocks on his door and tells him they’re going to have a baby.

Having lost her own mother young, Alicia has always longed to be part of a loving family. Naturally, she wants this for her baby as well. At first she sees no possibility of realizing her dream in her temporary marriage of convenience to Jake, but slowly, miraculously, she finds ways to build on what they feel for one another until she does.

Enjoy,

Ann Major

About the Author

ANN MAJOR lives in Texas with her husband of many years and is the mother of three grown children. She has a master’s degree from Texas A&M at Kingsville, Texas, and is a former English teacher. She is a founding board member of the Romance Writers of America and a frequent speaker at writers’ groups.

Ann loves to write; she considers her ability to do so a gift. Her hobbies include hiking in the mountains, sailing, ocean kayaking, traveling and playing the piano. But most of all she enjoys her family. Visit her website at www.annmajor.com.

This book is dedicated to my talented editor,

Krista Stroever.

One

“Sorry, Claiborne. The decision’s been made. You’re off the project. A lot of people don’t like all the notoriety and publicity you’ve been getting lately because of your association with Mitchell Butler and his daughter, Alicia.”

Jake knew better than to defend himself by saying he was a victim of Butler, too.

“I’m just the messenger,” the caller said.

Jake clenched the phone but said nothing more. He wouldn’t beg.

Not that he hadn’t tried to defend himself to the press earlier in the week after they’d set up base camps outside his home and office. All he’d accomplished was to give the reporters words to twist in such a way as to make him look like he was guilty of having been a partner to Butler’s embezzlement scheme.

A final click was followed by a dial tone.

For a second Jake thought about Mitchell Butler and his beautiful daughter. Had she aided and abetted her father?

Jake Claiborne felt his headache build as he replaced the telephone. Not that he hadn’t been expecting such a call.

He wouldn’t think about her. Or the night he’d spent in her arms. Or how cool and aloof she’d been ever since. Not that he could blame her. Hell, he and Hayes Daniels, his twin brother’s CEO, had turned Mitchell into the feds the day after Jake had made love to her.

No doubt she was as guilty as her father. To think or feel anything about such a witch was a recipe for more disaster. No, the thing to do was to move on.

For a long moment he stared down at the miniature New Orleans he’d built. The structures, which were composed of cardboard, plastic and painted foam, looked vivid and exciting on his table against the window. When his icy-blue gaze swept to the model of the brazenly dramatic stadium that until five minutes ago he and his team had still dreamed of building, the hammer in his right temple pounded even more viciously.

Don’t think about her.

Mitchell Butler had been rich and powerful and admired—until six weeks ago. Now his shipyard was bankrupt and his plans for a merger with Claiborne Energy defunct. His pampered daughter had been fired from her job as editor of the Louisiana Observer. Millions were missing from Butler’s offshore bank in the Caymans and from Houses for Hurricane Victims. Or was it billions? The figures quoted by the media seemed to grow exponentially.

Mitchell was broke and so were his investors. Butler, who was the most despised man in Louisiana, was responsible for ruining a lot of people besides Jake.

Tempted to smash the little buildings to the floor, Jake made a fist. He needed a few moments to himself to get his mind off the Butlers and regain his control.

Leaning against his desk and relaxing his hand, he stood there for a long moment, wondering how he’d tell his employees the bad news.

Better to face them now. Better to get it over with.

He jammed his hands into the pockets of his faded jeans and strode out of his private office into that of his secretary.

“Vanessa. Have everybody assemble in the boardroom. Say, in five minutes. And hold my calls.”

Vanessa, who had twenty years on him and a will of iron hardened by a bitter marital experience, continued to tap steadily on her keyboard. She was a formidable worker, A single mother, she’d raised her three boys on her own.

Jake stepped closer to her desk and whispered, “It’s not my fault your ex cheated on you and got that other woman pregnant.”

Frowning, she pulled her gaze from her computer screen and looked up at him.

“Just checking to see if you even knew I was here or heard a word I said,” he said.

“Five minutes. Boardroom. Everybody assemble. Hold calls.” She poked her pencil into her bun, whirled, got on the intercom and barked out the order.

Ten minutes later, his headache much worse, Jake stood before sixty of his employees.

“I have some bad news,” he said, stiffening when they whitened. He disliked disappointing those who counted on him almost as much as he hated failing.

“We can’t get the funding we need to build the stadium. Jones won’t even pay for our latest revisions to the designs … so I’m afraid I have no choice but to …”

He was about to mention he would be calling quite a few people into his office to discuss their termination when Vanessa whirled toward him looking as dark as those first ominous storm bands on the horizon that signaled a hurricane. She slapped a phone into his palm.

She was frowning so coldly he knew better than to ask what could possibly be more important than his informing his employees that because of Mitchell Butler he was going to have to let quite a few of them go.

“Your house alarm system went off. Your service says it’s broken glass and that a perimeter has been breached.”

“So? Tell them to send the police.”

Vanessa’s thin, painted eyebrows arched. “I did. Officer Thomas, who’s on the phone, is there now. He says a Miss Alicia Butler’s at your house demanding to see you and that she has her cat and a suitcase with her. What is this about?”

“I don’t know.”

But what was she doing there? She wouldn’t return his calls and now she was at his house with her cat? Had she been trying to break in? Why? His pulse accelerated. With rage, he tried to tell himself.

“Claiborne speaking,” he growled impatiently into the receiver.

“Mr. Claiborne. Officer Thomas. Sorry to bother you. You’ve got a yard full of reporters along with some angry hecklers.”

“I know.” They’d been there ever since a lead story in the newspaper had all but accused him of helping Mitchell Butler embezzle funds from Houses for Hurricane Victims, a charity Jake had created and foolishly put Mitchell in charge of.

“A Miss Alicia Butler and her cat were on your veranda when I arrived, sir,” the officer explained. “Apparently, some of her father’s investors followed her from her apartment, and the crowd got pretty stirred up. Someone threw a brick through your front window and ran off. I’ve got Miss Butler and her cat in my patrol car. She’s pretty shaken up, and her cat won’t stop howling.”

Although Jake rented his home, it was a large, modern house in a top-end neighborhood. Unfortunately, he lived next to his landlady, Jan Grant, who was both nosy and highly opinionated. Jan had already complained about rude reporters disrupting her mornings. The last thing he needed was for her to get upset about the arrival of the police and evict him.

“Officer, I’m sorry about all the excitement. Give me a minute. I was in the middle of something when you called.”

Rubbing his brow, he tried to think what he should do. He wanted to deal with the layoffs now. But … Alicia, who’d been hounded in the papers and on television because of her father’s problems, was in big trouble. She’d come to him for a reason. Why?

Ever since Mitchell had been federally indicted and put under house arrest, she’d been pestered by the federal government, the press and her father’s investors. She’d looked thin and vulnerable in the pictures he’d seen of her on television.

Against his will he remembered a night that should never have happened and a delectable, silken, female body writhing beneath his … a body that had been in tune with his like no other. Prim and proper Alicia Butler had driven him past the brink of sanity. He wished he could erase all memories of her, but despite what he’d learned about her father since that evening, he hadn’t been able to.

Indeed, he’d thought about Alicia and how sweet she’d seemed and what they had done that night too often. Hell, they’d barely managed to get inside his house and lock his door before they’d stripped and made love.

Aware that his employees were watching him and hanging on his every word, he realized he had to get his mind off sex with Alicia and act quickly.

“You said she has her cat with her? And a suitcase?”

Alarm bells that had more to do with memories of Alicia’s sensuality than her cat and suitcase had his temple throbbing harder than ever.

She hadn’t come to see him on a whim.

“The girl seems unwell.”

“Whatever … do you mean?” Jake asked, suddenly more concerned than he should have been.

“Her voice is so soft I can barely hear her.”

Jake’s eyes burned as he remembered the honeyed tones of Alicia’s cultured voice whispering his name as he’d made love to her. Why did every detail about their night together stand out?

The faces of his employees blurred.

“I’ll come home immediately and take care of this,” he said.

Sounding relieved, the officer said a quick goodbye.

Jake handed the phone to Vanessa.

“I didn’t realize you were personally involved with Alicia Butler,” Vanessa hissed as soon as she had him all to herself in his office.

Her accusing tone set him on edge. The last thing he desired was the third degree from his secretary. Without looking at her, he grabbed his keys out of a drawer and slung his jacket over one shoulder.

“I’m not,” he lied.

“Then what is she doing on your doorstep?”

“I can’t let you know until I find out, now, can I?”

“I don’t like the sound of this. If there are reporters and cops along with Alicia at your house, there’ll be more bad publicity. The Butlers are thieves. You’ll be tarred with the same brush. We’re barely surviving this downturn as it is.”

“You think I don’t know that? I’m already taking the rap for what Mitchell did. Look, why don’t you concentrate on taking care of things here while I go to see what she wants, okay?”

“You’re right, of course. This whole thing just has me upset.”

When he reached the parking garage, his gut twisted as he thought about all the people he’d have to fire later because of Alicia Butler and her father.

Damn her.

When Jake braked sharply in his drive, six reporters stampeded across the wet grass toward him. There had been only one this morning. No sooner did he open his door than they shoved raised microphones at his face.

The curtain next door on Jan Grant’s front window was pulled aside and he made out the stout bulk of his landlady, who wasn’t about to miss anything.

A snicker from the closest reporter. “What was Alicia Butler doing on your doorstep?”

Instead of dignifying the man with an answer, Jake focused on the slim figure hunched in the back of the single patrol car parked in front of his home beyond the reporters’ dripping black umbrellas. Then he looked at the broken window beside his front door.

He knew he should hate Alicia, but he couldn’t forget the beating she’d taken from the press for the past few weeks. Ever since that article about how he’d appointed Mitchell Butler treasurer of Houses for Hurricane Victims, and about how all the funds had vanished, he’d really been able to relate to what she must have been going through.

She looked too crushed and defenseless cowering in the back of that car, so utterly unlike the tall, elegant woman he’d bedded or the defiant woman who’d told him to go to hell the next morning. He couldn’t hate her. Fool that he was, his chest constricted with sympathy.

A cop, who was probably Officer Thomas, pointed needlessly toward his car. “She’s over there.”

“Thanks.”

Jake loped past the reporters, his Italian loafers sinking into the ooze of his soaked lawn as he made his way toward the patrol car.

“Alicia?” he muttered in a harsh tone as he rapped his knuckles on the glass window.

She rolled the window down a few inches and his gaze roved the length of her willowy body, taking in her white, translucent skin. Mascara ran beneath her long-lashed, almond-shaped, brown eyes. Wet, dark ropes of her hair stuck to her neck. Despite her thinness and her pallor, she affected him every bit as intensely as she had their one night together.

Opening the door, he took her hand, which felt icy, and helped her out.

She wore a white, gauzy dress that clung. When his gaze lingered on the raindrops moistening her full lips, he remembered with an almost visceral ache exactly how soft that mouth had been against his and exactly how sweet she’d tasted.

His lips thinned as other memories of the intimacies they’d shared assaulted him. With all her problems, why was she here?

“Thank you for coming so fast,” she said.

“How did you get here?” he asked.

“Taxi.”

“Well, you were reckless to come in a public taxi and let your horde follow you.”

“I—I didn’t think. Sorry I embarrassed you.”

“You could have called me. We could have met somewhere discreet.”

“Sorry. I hate all this as much as you do.”

The officer had been right about her looking ill. The brown eyes that had sparkled with fire each and every time he’d kissed her or licked her that night were dull and glazed with pain.

“Meow!”

Frowning, Jake looked across his yard and saw Officer Thomas talking to the reporters. Jake’s selfish agenda would be best served if he told the officer to see about her. But an unhealthy mixture of curiosity, sympathy and some self-destructive emotion that was better left unanalyzed overpowered him.

Fool that he was, instead of signaling for the policeman, he grabbed her hand and pointed her in the direction of the sidewalk that led to his front door. Then he leaned inside the car and picked up Alicia’s suitcase and her cat carrier. Hissing, the animal lunged at the walls of his cage. Ignoring the beast, Jake strode up the walk after Alicia. Pulling out his keys, he unlocked his door, then thrust it open so violently it banged the wood paneling of his interior wall.

He stood to one side so that she could enter. Reluctant to follow him, she remained frozen, her skirt dripping, her eyes staring at him, so he said, “In case you didn’t notice, I’m inviting you inside.”

“I noticed,” she whispered in a sexy croak that unnerved him.

“So, ladies first.”

A bolt of lightning was followed by a crash of thunder. Then several flashbulbs went off in their faces.

Yowling, Gus hurled himself against the side of the cage, rocking it even harder.

“Your cat says he thinks going inside would be a very good idea,” Jake said.

“He has issues about water, not to mention thunder.”

“Well, if you came over here to grant interviews on my porch, enjoy. But Gus and I have had enough of our five minutes of fame. We’d prefer to go inside and open a can of tuna.”

Once he had set her cat and her bag down inside his ultramodern foyer, which was now covered in glass shards, he ran his hand along the slick, polished surface of his paneled wall until he found the light switch. Flipping it on, he looked back outside. She was still glaring at him.

“Your foyer is not exactly neutral territory,” she whispered.

“Don’t remind me.”

Suddenly he was remembering how they’d torn off their clothes the last time they’d stepped across his threshold. He hadn’t bothered to turn on any lights. Once naked, they’d launched themselves at each other. Heat engulfed him as he remembered how they’d sunk to the floor, and he’d straddled her on top of the Kilim carpet on which he now stood. He’d thought her adorable and sexy as hell.

More flashbulbs captured her ashen face.

The worried little crease between her dark brows deepened and she went even whiter. When he reached for her anxiously, she sprang away from him and jumped across the threshold.

Damn it, he’d only wanted to soothe her. Hell, maybe it was a good thing she’d stopped him.

She plastered herself against his mahogany wall as far away from him as possible, her delectable breasts heaving beneath that thin white dress that clung closely.

The memory of what he’d done to those pink-tipped breasts made him feel much too warm. With a start he realized he’d awakened every night since aching for her sweetness and sexiness.

Annoyed that she was so afraid of him and he so jittery around her, Jake slammed his door. Once it was bolted against the goggle-eyed reporters and their flashbulbs, she began to shiver.

“You’re freezing,” he said, stating the obvious in a harsh tone to conceal his concern.

“S-sorry. A-air-c-conditioning.” Struggling for control, she sucked in a breath. “I’m dripping all over your fancy floor, too.”

“It’s stone. It won’t melt. But wait here. I’ll turn the AC off and get you some towels.”

Thankful for an excuse to leave her and get a grip on himself, he strode down the hall before she could object and quickly adjusted the thermostat. Ducking into his guest bath, he grabbed some fluffy white towels. When he returned, he ripped off his jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders and placed the thick towels in her hands.

Although their fingers touched briefly, it was long enough for him to register that her soft skin felt like ice.

With a breathless sound she cringed away from him.

“Thank you,” she whispered as she wrapped a towel around her head and began to pat her hair dry. “I’m s-sorry to be so much trouble.”

“No trouble.” He tore his gaze from her stricken face.

How could he actually want to help her? Whatever was wrong was no business of his. There were at least a dozen reasons why he should hate her, most of them names of people his charity couldn’t build houses for and employees he would soon be forced to fire. But she looked too much like a drowned waif for him to even consider chastising her in any way at this point. The feds and reporters hounding her seemed to have that job well in hand.

Steeling himself against the impulse to hold her close until his body warmth made her stop shaking, his voice was rougher when he spoke. “You’ll feel better when we get you out of those wet clothes and dry you off.”

“We?” She blushed at his suggestion. His own heart began to thud as he realized how that comment had sounded. With an effort he forced himself to look anywhere but at her softly alluring breasts.

Had she deliberately dressed in that filmy, see-through number so he’d want to stare at them? Impotent rage that she could arouse him so easily swept over him.

“What I meant to say is there’s a bathroom down the hall. You probably remember showering in it.”

When she reddened, he wished he hadn’t reminded them both they’d showered together.

“I’ll bring you a robe and more fresh towels,” he said, his tone more clipped.

Glad for the excuse to leave her again, he went back down the hall. But he was soon much too aware of her heels clicking rapidly on the flagstones behind him.

When she stepped inside the bath, the beige marble walls seemed to close in, trapping him. Staring down at her, he recalled again how they’d laughingly showered after making love all over his house. He’d washed her hair, dried her off, taken her back to bed where he’d held her close for hours.

He backed out of the bathroom on the pretense of finding her more towels and his robe. For his own sanity he knew he should figure out what she wanted and then get rid of her as soon as possible. But as he grabbed the robe off a hook in his master bath, he knew he wasn’t going to do anything so sensible.

She’d fascinated him from the first moment he’d seen her in that tight gold sheath on his brother’s arm at his grandfather’s eightieth birthday party. When Cici had asked him to look after Alicia so she could dance with Logan, he’d jumped at the chance. Then Logan had disappeared with Cici, and he’d offered to drive the stranded Alicia home.

Over a late-night coffee he’d found her even sweeter than she was gorgeous—not at all like her calculating father. A writer and an editor, she hadn’t been the shallow rich girl he’d expected. She’d been intelligent and insightful. When he’d kissed her after she’d laughed at one of his jokes, they’d both gone up in flames.

The morning after they’d made love, Logan’s CEO, Hayes Daniels, had presented him with irrefutable proof that her father was a criminal. When Jake and his CPA had checked the books and bank statements for Houses for Hurricane Victims, they’d discovered alarming discrepancies. Jake had gone with Hayes to turn Mitchell in to the feds.

Since her father was a crook, a crook he’d blown the whistle on, Jake should rid himself of her immediately. But she looked so lost.

Even after he’d discovered her father had robbed Houses for Hurricane Victims, she’d consumed his thoughts. He’d called her repeatedly. Not that she’d answered. No doubt she blamed him for her father’s downfall.

How could he still find her attractive? But he did.

From their first tentative kiss, when her velvet-tipped fingers had singed his flesh through his cotton shirt and her lips had been so soft and hot as they’d parted for his tongue, his groin had tightened with unbearable need.

That a single kiss could have given such a contagion of pleasure should have been a warning. Instead, he’d staked his claim by arching her body against his.

He still wanted her. Which meant he should make her leave before he did something really stupid.

Two

After sweeping up the glass in the foyer and opening a can of tuna in the kitchen, Jake was unlocking the cat crate to let the beast out when he heard a crash from the bathroom.

Ears flat, the cat raced out of the kitchen so fast he collided with a china flowerpot and knocked it over.

Ignoring the cat and the dirt spilling from the shattered pot, Jake ran down the hall to check on Alicia.

“Alicia?”

When she didn’t answer, panic slammed him.

“Alicia? Alicia! Are you all right?”

No answer.

When he pounded on the door with his fists and there was no response, he tried the doorknob, which turned. He shoved it and the door flew open, thick vapors enveloping him. “Alicia?”

Blindly he made his way through the steamy mists to the glassed-in shower-tub and slid the door open.

Through the steam he saw her lying in a crumpled heap, warm water streaming over her naked thighs. Shutting off the faucet, he leaned down and picked her up. Grabbing the towels and robe she’d placed on a stool, he clutched the unconscious woman and carried her down the hall into his den. She wasn’t heavy, so he bore her easily.

He was careful not to a glance at her nude body more than necessary. Still, his gaze did linger on the heart-shaped birthmark on her left breast that he’d once tongued so ardently the night he’d made love to her. Settling her onto his couch, he couldn’t have cared less how the water might stain the expensive leather. He was too worried about her.

He lifted her wrist and felt a pulse. He smiled when it was steady and strong. Maybe she’d knelt down for something she’d dropped and had stood up too fast.

“Alicia! Wake up!”

She mumbled something he didn’t understand and then turned her face away from him.

Had she hit her head? Did she have a concussion?

“Daddy!” she whispered. “Daddy! Where are you? Why can’t you ever, just this once, stay home?”

Was she delirious? Thinking to inspect her scalp for injuries, Jake slid his fingers through her hair. Parting the thick waves with his blunt fingers, he discovered a lump.

“Open your eyes!” he commanded.

Much to his surprise, the long, feminine lashes fluttered. Her plump, sexy lips quivered.

Brown irises slowly filled with light as she struggled to focus. “Jake … it’s you? What’s wrong? Why are you shouting at me?”

She reached out and took his big hand, sending a sexual shock of awareness through him. “Where am I?”

“My living room.”

“What am I doing here?”

That was the question upper most on his mind, but he couldn’t ask her until he was sure she was all right.

Slowly, as she continued to stare at him, her expression changed.

“Where are my clothes?” Her voice rose. “What did you to me?”

“Not a damn thing that I shouldn’t have, so calm down. You fell in the shower. I heard a crash, rushed inside, turned the water off, carried you here, dried you, put you into my robe and checked your pulse. And now that you’re conscious and yourself again, I think we should call your doctor.”

“No need for that! I’m fine,” she said huffily. “Or at least I would be if …” She stopped, clearly troubled by some new thought.

“Did you faint? Or trip?”

She stared at him. Her eyes were huge, wary. “Everything just went black. I guess I fainted.”

“Like I said, you should see a doctor.”

“I will. But not right now. I’m very hungry. I … I haven’t eaten much for a couple of days.”

He’d read in some newspaper that reporters stalked her every time she left her apartment, even to go to the grocery store. Had she been starving herself as a result? Again, he fought the impulse to feel sorry for her.

“Could I possibly trouble you for a cracker … or two … and maybe some tea?” she asked, her tone formal and polite now.

She and her father had made a mess of his life. He should forget she looked defenseless and sexy and make himself call the cops and ask them to send Officer Thomas back. Jake could ask him to drive her to a soup kitchen or a hospital—anywhere.

This whole thing was beginning to feel much too complicated. But instead of doing anything remotely sensible, he nodded.

“Why did you come here?” he demanded.

She rubbed the back of her head and winced. “Jake, before we get into that, I—I’m, I really am seeing bright spots. I … I … I really do need that cracker first.”

“You threatening to faint on me again?”

“I don’t feel so good. Really, I don’t. That’s a fact … not a threat.”

“One stale cracker coming right up,” he whispered gently. “You stay put on the couch while I make a tray. The last thing either of us need is for you to faint again.”

As Jake’s footsteps receded, Alicia sat up on his couch and squeezed her eyes shut.

Oh, God, how could she tell him, him of all people, the man who’d turned her father in to the feds and blown his life and her to bits, that she might be pregnant with his baby?

She’d tested positive on four home pregnancy tests.

Four.

Pressing her fingers to her temple, she counted her thudding heartbeats until the bright spots faded.

It wasn’t as if she hadn’t rehearsed a little speech—several speeches.

Jake, every morning I wake up clammy with nausea. Just for the record, my period’s three weeks late …. I know that because I always note the event by writing a little p—in red—on my kitchen calendar on the exact date of the month. And I’m never late!

She knew what he’d say—that it wasn’t possible, that he’d used a condom. Several condoms.

She sucked in a tight breath as too many embarrassingly intimate memories flickered. Sex had never been her favorite sport. She was too shy and repressed. Sex was something a woman like her never even considered with a virtual stranger. But she’d forgotten all her aversions and hang-ups with Jake. She’d given herself to him, a man she’d barely known, with such uncharacteristic abandon she blushed every time she thought about how many times and where they’d done it.

And then the next morning he and Hayes Daniels had turned her father in to the feds. Shivering, she must have sat there on his couch twisting that strand of hair for a full five minutes. Even in his thick robe, she felt chilled to the bone. Well, at least the awful morning sickness had passed.

He’d think she was crazy for not waiting to tell him until she was sure. But—because of him—she hadn’t had a choice. The feds, or rather that officious little agent with the wire-rimmed glasses atop his bulbous nose, had shown up without warning and had kicked her out of her apartment, explaining again why the feds had the right to seize all her father’s properties, which included her apartment and furniture.

She wouldn’t have come here if she’d had anywhere else to go. Before she’d left the apartment, she’d tried her father’s cell phone. He had caller ID, so if his phone was near, he’d know she was calling. But he hadn’t answered. Had he seen her name and punched the word ignore?

Sometimes she thought that that little button on his phone was a metaphor for the way he’d always treated her. Everything else in his life had always come before her. Jake, on the other hand, had come home as soon as he’d known she was here. Not that she liked him … or anything; not after what he’d done. Still, he’d shown up the minute he’d heard she was in trouble. And he’d invited her inside.

Clutching his robe and knotting the sash tightly, Alicia rose and tiptoed down the hall to his kitchen. One foot into the kitchen, she stiffened at the sight of the kitchen table where Jake had made love to her so heatedly he’d sent silverware and plates crashing to the floor.

Desperate to shift her attention away from the embarrassing memory that had her pulse thudding she stared at Gus’s empty carrier, which lay on its side. Broken bits of a pot she vaguely remembered having admired in the hall earlier littered the counter.

“Where’s poor Gus?”

“Poor Gus, my eye. When I let him out of his carrier, he practically tore the place apart. Broke a pot that doesn’t belong to me.”

“You better not have hurt him.”

“He made a clean break. I was too worried about you to chase him.”

“Oh.”

“I cut some cheese and peeled a banana to go along with the apple that I also peeled for you. Sorry to disappoint, but I don’t have any stale crackers.”

She bit her lip to keep from grinning.

Watching her guardedly, he set a plate on the table. She grabbed a piece of apple and began to munch noisily as she admired his handiwork. He’d done rather a good job with the food actually.

Some of her anxiety drained away. It was suddenly too easy to remember why she’d fallen for Jake that night and gotten herself into this mess. Her father had confided to her that he was in terrible trouble, so she’d been worried even before Logan had disappeared with Cici at the party.

Then Jake had appeared, insisting he’d take care of her. He’d been so warm and attentive, and soon they’d been able to talk about anything. In no time she’d found herself having fun just drinking coffee with him and laughing at his stories about his adventures in the wild. Unfortunately, she’d confided her concerns about her father.

Jake place a fork, knife and napkin on the table and sat down across from her. His chocolate-dark hair fell across his brow and temple. He was so close, and he looked so sexy as he watched too intently.

She set her apple sliver down and avoided his gaze. But his having taken trouble with the plate pleased her—too much. Why did she always read more into small kindnesses than she should?

It was a plate of food, that was all. He’d fed Gus, hadn’t he? He didn’t like Gus, did he?

“Eat,” Jake said gently. “A single bite won’t do you much good.”

She thought about the baby that they might be having together and blushed. How to tell him?

“How can I, with you watching me?”

No sooner did he stand up than his phone rang.

“Sorry,” he said. “It’s my secretary. I left things in a mess. I’d better take this.”

He stepped into the hall and pulled the door shut.

After that Alicia could only catch bits and pieces of his conversation.

“Yes, I’m coming back—

“How can you think I could have forgotten them—

“No, she hasn’t told me why, not that this is any of your business—

“Damn it. That’s what I’m trying to determine—

“Pregnant? I suggest you get your mind out of the gutter and focus on your work instead of my personal affairs—which, by the way, are none of your business ….”

Pregnant.

The woman was an oracle.

Her appetite gone in the space of a heartbeat, Alicia knew she had to tell him the truth, and fast.

Thankfully, he was much too annoyed at his secretary to even glance at her as he strode back in.

“You’ve barely touched your food. Why?” he demanded, his voice colder as he set his phone down.

“Bad news, huh?”

“I have a life. Not that you probably give a damn what I was doing before the cops called me about you.”

“Try me.”

“I was just about to fire a lot of hardworking people, people who really need their jobs.”

“And your secretary thinks it’s all my fault.”

So many people blamed her for what her father had supposedly done. Some believed he’d stashed a fortune in a secret, offshore account in her name.

Her father said he was innocent and she wanted to believe him. Not that it was easy when everybody else thought he was guilty. And what did it matter whether he was innocent or not when her own bank accounts here in New Orleans and her credit cards were frozen? When two days ago Sam, her editor in chief, had caved in to mounting pressure to fire her from the editorial/writer job that she’d dearly loved. She had no money, no job, no reputation and no future. And four home pregnancy tests had been positive.

His anger crackled between them. “People distrust me now. Whatever I think about who’s to blame, I need to get back to the office. So, what do you say we cut to the chase? Why are you here?”

“You have an incredibly smart secretary.”

“What the hell does she have to do with anything?”

“I think I’m pregnant.”

He looked so dumbstruck, she truly felt sorry for him.

“What? No way!”

Three

His legs spread apart, Jake towered over Alicia as she silently hunched lower at his kitchen table. “Would you kindly repeat that.”

“You heard me.”

“Did you say you think … you’re pregnant. You don’t know? Why would you come here before you were sure?”

His glowering made her squirm uneasily. “I took four pregnancy tests, and they were all positive. I can’t eat. And I fainted, didn’t I? I’ve been nauseated the last two mornings. My period’s late. I could go on with the symptoms. Did I tell you I really like pickles right now? What do you think all that adds up to?”

A sledgehammer was pounding in his brain.

“Plus, because of you the feds kicked me out of my apartment, and I have nowhere to stay.”

“Have you had your condition confirmed by a doctor?” he asked.

She grabbed another sliver of apple. Shaking her head, she bit into it. “Not yet, but the way things have been going, I’d bet my miserable life that we’re probably pregnant.”

“We …”

“We!”

“Okay, but you could still be wrong about … us.” He looked sick to be using the plural pronoun.

“Right …. Four pregnancy tests can definitely be wrong on planet Earth. Anything in our magical realm is possible,” she said dully.

“Could be a bad batch.”

Shaking her head at him, she decided to try the white cheese he’d put out. In between bouts of nausea, she had a voracious appetite. What she really wanted was a dill pickle. Not that she was about to ask for one.

His face was hard and set as he watched her. “And you’re sure that if you are …”

Beneath his critical gaze, she lost her craving as a strange panic welled up inside her. She’d told him she couldn’t eat with him staring at her like that, but his mood was so bitter she thought maybe now wasn’t a good time to nag, so she laid the piece of cheese back on the platter.

“What? What is it? Why are you scowling at me like that?” she said. “What have I done now?”

He took a deep, worried breath.

“What?” she demanded.

“Sorry I have to ask this. Are you absolutely sure that … if you’re right … about you being pregnant … that I’m … that I’m the father?”

Vertigo made his granite countertops whirl round and round. His darkly handsome face blurred sickeningly.

“You moralistic jerk!” Fury consuming her, she sprang out of the chair and lunged at him. “Am I sure? Damn right I’m sure!”

He caught her wrist in midair and used it to swing her against the long length of his muscular body. Her full breasts slid against his ripped torso. In an effort to catch herself, she grabbed his lean waist. Then she fought to launch herself free of him. He used the leverage to pull her closer.

“Calm down. I just had to be sure.”

“I’m totally positive,” she yelled, kicking at him even as she pushed at his chest. “I told you that you’re the only man I’ve …. I’ve slept with … in months.”

His eyes had taken on the polar chill of blue ice chips. “What about my brother?”

Fury suffused her.

“Your father said you were going to marry him,” Jake persisted.

“My father made that up. Logan and I dated, but our relationship didn’t work on any level other than friendship. Not that my lack of a sex life is any of your business!”

“Maybe I disagree. After all, you claim I’m the father of your child.”

“If I’m pregnant, so are you! Not that I would choose you!”

“Nor I you!”

“Believe me, I … I wish it was somebody else’s! Somebody I met in a bar would be nicer! So let me go!”

“Are you going to try to hit me again if I do?”

“After what you just said, you deserve a bullet … you know where. But no, since I’m a lady.”

“You could have fooled me.” Releasing her, he watched her warily.

She backed a few steps away from him and rubbed her wrist.

“Okay,” he said. “I’m sorry to upset you, but I had to know. I used condoms, if you’ll remember. Lots of them. I took precautions.”

“Oh, yeah, well, you didn’t take enough!”

He stared at her for a long moment. “I’m sorry,” he repeated. “If what you say is true, and you’re pregnant, and it’s mine, I’ll accept full responsibility for the child … and for you … despite who you are … which means our next step should be to see a doctor.”

“If what I say is true? If? You still don’t believe me?” Her eyes narrowed and her pulse sped up. “Well, it’s true! Despite who you are! I hate this ….”

“So the hell do I, but it looks like we’re stuck with each other, at least until we get some sound medical advice.”

“I’m afraid a doctor will only confirm the worst!”

“Obviously, you believe that,” he said. “But I won’t believe it until I hear him say it.”

“Dr. Preston’s a she. When she does, then what?”

“We’ll handle it,” he muttered.

“Well, if you think you can make me stop this pregnancy …”

His black brows slashed together. It was his turn to hiss in a breath and gape at her. “You don’t know me at all if you think I’d destroy my child.”

His outrage was so intense, she knotted her hands and stood up taller.

“How could I know what you feel on the subject or on any subject, when for all practical purposes we’re strangers?” she whispered.

“Strangers, cher? You wish. I wish. Unfortunately, that’s the last thing we are. I’d say we’re intimately connected.”

“I shouldn’t have come. Look, I’ll figure out how to do this on my own. I have a friend in London who’s offered … Never mind! Forget I ever came here.”

“As if I could.”

She turned away from him and stared at his backyard, which looked overgrown and badly in need of pruning. She did so love working with plants. Oh, how could she think of gardening at a time like this?

Jake was silent and still for a long moment, but she imagined his eyes boring into her back. Then his breath sped up, and he spanned the distance that separated them.

“I don’t want you to go,” he said, planting his hands on her shoulders. “You were right to come here. We’ll figure this out … together.”

Before she knew what he was about, he’d pulled her tightly against him. Some part of her wanted to twist out of his grasp, but another wanted to relax into his hard warmth and strength, so she let him pull her closer. The times when someone had held her and comforted her in life had been so rare since her mother’s death, and that night with him had been wonderful.

Then the next day her father’s empire had crashed very publicly, and her father had told her that Jake had been one of the main whistle-blowers who’d brought him down.

“I am to blame for what happened that night,” Jake muttered against her throat, his voice deepening with needs that at first she did not understand. “I wanted you and you wanted me, too. I didn’t realize what your father had done until the next day.”

“No.”

She shut her eyes, but it was impossible to ignore how wonderful she felt in his arms. Only gradually did she grow aware that he had become aroused.

“Stop this!” she whispered, trying to pull away.

“God help me, I still want you,” he whispered, snugging her even closer. “You feel the same. Kiss me.”

His husky tone and his hot, male body molded so tightly against her with such ardent need triggered … something.

She knew she should fight him, but instead she twisted around, ever so slightly, just enough so that she could tilt her mouth up to his.

He claimed her lips, hesitantly at first, but soon took all she was willing to give as greedily as he had the night he’d made love to her. He kissed her long and hard, his tongue plunging between her lips. She gasped as an answering desire began to course through her blood.

The sash of his robe came loose, and he yanked the edges of the robe aside, cupping her breasts, tracing his thumbs across her nipples, which were tight and hard. Ripping his shirt out of his slacks, he pulled it up, so that when he dragged her even closer, her breasts were mashed against his bare chest.

Contact with the coarse hair of his torso made her nipples peak and her blood burn.

“Oh, no.” She felt crazy with unwanted needs. Against her will, she arched her body so that her legs and thighs fitted his. His skin grew so hot she felt as if she was being consumed in a roaring furnace.

He was right about her wanting him. Limp with desire, she felt meltingly alive caught in his hard, strong arms. His mouth was on hers again and it was as if their bodies spoke a language all their own. Everything about him was sensually delicious and made her feel starved for more.

Despite his part in bringing her father down, she’d remembered his kisses and lovemaking longingly, and every night she’d dreamed of him and had awakened in the dead of the night, her body aching for his mouth and hands to caress her like this again, even though she denied it.

“I want you,” he said softly. “Despite everything, I want you on my kitchen table. On my foyer floor. In my bed. On my couch. In my shower. I want to repeat everything we did before. I want to do it again and again and more … until I’m too weak to stand and you have to feed me by hand in bed to revive me. And when I do revive, I’ll want you all over again.”

“God help me, I want all that, too,” she admitted shakily.

In that moment she actually believed she would never want to die anywhere else but in his arms.

Then he kissed her again, nibbling her lower lip at first. Gradually his kiss lengthened and grew hard. He fused his mouth to hers endlessly, his tongue mating with hers until she felt she was burning up like a star. She could hardly breathe when he pulled away at last.

“You are beautiful,” he said gently. “Unforgettable.” His hand slid over her body until his fingers closed over her plump breast. “Easy to talk to. And fun. I’ve thought about these breasts, their softness and the tightness of your nipples many many times these past few weeks. In fact I couldn’t stop thinking about you or them, no matter how diligently I tried.”

“Which means you don’t really like me … if you don’t even want to think about me,” she said, struggling to regain her senses. “All you feel is lust.”

Part of her wished he’d deny it.

“Call it whatever you like, it’s very powerful,” he said.

“Let me go,” she whispered. “Please …. This will only make an impossible situation worse.”

“But I want you,” he insisted.

“We have more serious things to think about. Plans to make. We’re already in over our heads as it is.”

“Have you ever had a habit you couldn’t break?”

“Is that what I am to you—a bad habit?”

Pulling her closer even as she fought to resist him again, he gripped her arms hard. But just as he brought his mouth down to hers and she thought she would soon be lost on a wild, dark tide, he froze.

For a long moment he stood as immobile as a statue. He stared down at her as if he were struggling as hard as she was for control. Then he cursed low under his breath and pushed free of her.

Feeling hurt and rejected, which made zero sense, she jerked the edges of the robe together and spun away.

Hot color flared in his cheeks, too; a savage muscle was jumping along his jawline. His devouring gaze flamed with a fierce blue light.

“Sorry,” he finally muttered in an edgy, unapologetic tone. Then he rubbed his jaw where the muscle twitched. “I don’t know what … happened. I … I just lost control there for a second. Sorry.”

He looked down at the floor and raked a hand through his mussed dark hair. Then he clumsily jammed the edges of his shirt into his waistband. “If I can’t trust myself around you, even knowing what you are, I’ve got to get the hell out of here.”

One minute he’d been out to prove she desired him; in the next he was running as scared as she was. And all because he’d lost his precious control.

She clenched her teeth and then unclenched them. “But we have to decide what to do.”

He took a deep breath. “First we have to find out if we have a problem or not. You need to call your doctor, make an appointment as fast as possible.”

“I need a place to stay tonight. Because of you, the feds took my apartment, all my furniture … and my car. I have no friends left in Louisiana.” She paused. When he didn’t say no immediately, she said, “I’d need a litter box and litter for Gus.”

“Okay. Of course, you can stay here if you like. But if you do, I’m moving out.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know.”

“You mean I’ll be here alone?”

“Just for tonight. Trust me. You’re better off with me gone. I don’t know what just happened between us or why. But I’ll be fine once I get off to myself, do some thinking and get a grip. I don’t like feeling trapped in this situation with you.”

“And you think I like it?”

“I’m not a mind reader, so I can only take your word for how you feel.”

She envied the way he could compartmentalize, the way his deep voice sounded almost cool and contained now when her heart was still racing.

Trying to copy him, she took a deep breath and tried to push down her emotions. It was probably better that they spend the night apart.

“Okay then,” she said. “Sounds like a plan.”

“I’ll give you my cell number. Call me after you make that appointment with your doctor.” He pulled a set of car keys out of his pocket. “I want to know when and where it is.”

“You’re leaving now?”

“I’ve got to get back to my office. Like I told you before—because of you, cher, I’ve got a lot of nice people to fire.”

“I’m sorry about that.” She truly was.

He hesitated. “Just so you know where I’ll be … Tonight I think I’ll drive out to Belle Rose and spend the night in a friend’s houseboat in the swamp. I need to be by myself—to think.”

She arched her brows. Poor guy. If it hadn’t been for his part in her father’s downfall, she might have felt sorry for him.

He’d been having a bad day even before she’d showed up on his doorstep and announced they might be pregnant. And what had he done—he’d given up his house for the night, so she’d have a safe place to stay.

Four

When the sagging roofline of Bos’s houseboat loomed out of the steamy gloom of shadowy dwarf palmettos, bald cypress trees and water tupelo, Jake cut the motor and sprang toward the bow. He’d hoped he’d experience at least a slight lifting of his mood once he was out of the city and had returned to his boyhood refuge. Despite the familiar roar of bull alligators, locusts and frogs, he felt like a stranger in a foreign land. His leaden heart kept him alienated from all that should have been familiar and dear.

Images of a big-eyed, pale Alicia in the patrol car, the dull stares of his employees after he’d let them go, Cici’s and Logan’s radiant smiles at their wedding bombarded him in a never-ending loop. The thick heat of the swamp pressed too close, making him feel trapped by business and personal problems—and most of it was the Butlers’ fault.

The air was dank with the stench of rot and mold. He would have preferred to be rock climbing in Utah or Alaska rather than hanging out in the swamp. Still, this was the wild and life was always simpler in the wild. He kept a cabin south of Denali National Park in Alaska that he visited every summer. Too bad he didn’t have time to go there now. It was the one place that was far enough away from his real life so that he could count on solitude there clearing his mind.

Grabbing the bowline, he spread his legs so that he stood in the middle of the eight-foot aluminum flatboat as it drifted silently through the mirror-black swamp water toward the houseboat.

A night to himself even in this wild place wasn’t long enough to sort it all out, but it was a start. If Alicia was pregnant, he couldn’t abandon his kid—even if she was Mitchell Butler’s daughter.

He thought about the families still living in three-room trailers to whom he’d promised homes before the funds to build them had vanished—because of her father.

Wrapping the line around a rusting cleat, Jake made sure the flatboat was snug against the used tires Bos had nailed as crude fenders along the side of the houseboat. Then he ran his gaze over the shabby structure.

The houseboat had two tiny bedrooms, a kitchen, no bath. Surprisingly, the place didn’t look any worse for wear. It must’ve been a good ten years since he was last here. Bos had been ill of late, but when Jake had visited him a month ago, he’d told him he’d managed to do what was necessary to maintain it.

“Not that I get out to the houseboat much these days,” Bos had said. “You’re welcome to it—just like always, anytime. The fishin’s still pretty good even if the water in the swamp gets saltier every year.”

Bos was another man who felt the need to get away from civilization upon occasion.

With a frown Jake set his gear down beside Bos’s stacked crab traps. After opening the door to the cabin, he pitched his backpack inside.

This fish camp was located between the Claibornes’ ancestral mansion, Belle Rose, and Bos’s less developed properties to the south of Belle Rose. Pierre, Jake’s grandfather, had never approved of Jake hanging out at Bos’s camp in the swamp when Jake had been a kid. The truth was, his grandfather had detested Bos with an irrational passion. The old man had considered Bos, who’d run a bar and fought cocks, a bad influence, so most of the time Jake had chosen to sneak off, willingly risking the consequences of Grand-père’s rage later.

A rebel from birth, Jake had been as fascinated by Bos’s bad reputation as his grandfather had been repelled by it. Not that Bos was really such a bad sort once you got to know him. Bos had adopted his orphaned niece Cici, hadn’t he? He’d understood what it was like not to feel you fit into your family, and he’d taken Jake hunting and fishing and crabbing without even so much as asking a single prying question about his need to escape his domineering grandfather and cocky older twin.

Bos had encouraged him to learn to fend for himself in the wild, so as soon as he’d been old enough, Jake had explored the endless marshes and bayous on his own, hunting doves and ducks and swimming off forested islands.

Back then Noonoon, his nanny, used to fuss at him, saying she couldn’t keep a glass jar in the house because Jake was always borrowing them to house his crabs and frogs and minnows and turtles.

Jake smiled briefly at the memory of Noonoon’s dark face until concern about Alicia alone in his house intruded.

She was fine, he told himself. She was a big girl. He’d showed her how to set the alarm. Hell, he’d even sent Vanessa over to his house to make sure Alicia had everything she needed.

Alicia was fine.

Why couldn’t he forget how pale and shaken she’d looked in that patrol car?

His stomach growled, reminding him that he hadn’t brought any groceries.

Forget her.

He was hungry. If he was going to eat, he had to shoot something or catch something.

Whatever she’d expected when she’d come to Jake’s house, it wasn’t kindness and concern.

“If you don’t need anything else, I really do have to get home to my boys.” Vanessa’s voice was crisp and hurried and yet there was a maternal compassion in her dark brown eyes that reminded Alicia of her own mother.

Alicia caught herself. This woman was a stranger. She had a life and didn’t have much time to deal even briefly with her boss’s personal crisis. Mothering her sons was her top priority.

“I’ll be fine,” Alicia whispered. “Thanks for sending that man over to board up the window.”

“You could spend the night with me and my boys if you’re afraid to stay in such a big house all by yourself.”

“What a sweet offer, but really, I’ll be fine,” Alicia said. “It’s just the night.”

“I’d enjoy some adult companionship,” Vanessa coaxed.

Alicia shook her head.

“Okay, then. He told me to tell you to set the alarm. And if you get lonely—call.”

Nodding at the older woman, who Jake had paid to take care of her, Alicia held on to the two sacks of groceries as Vanessa shut the front door and then locked it firmly behind her.

Clutching the grocery sacks to her breasts, Alicia walked back to the kitchen. Mechanically she removed the lunch meat and cereal boxes, a loaf of bread and a bottle of milk and set them on the counter. It was nice of Jake to send food.

The last rays of the setting sun gilded the edges between the shades and the windowsill. Soon it would be dark outside. She had the rest of the evening to think about her problem. At least Jake had listened and said he would assume his share of the responsibility. He hadn’t thrown her out.

She wished he was here, and that confused her. She’d felt so wonderful when he’d held her and kissed her. That perplexed her, too. How could she feel this powerful connection to a man who’d made love to her and then had turned her father in to the feds?

Maybe it was being in this house, where they’d talked and laughed and made love. They had so much fun together that first night.

Don’t think about it!

Okay, enough! I have things to do. I’ll make supper, clean the dishes, get ready for bed, hunt for Gus, watch some TV, set my alarm.

Is it really so important to set an alarm when my doctor’s appointment tomorrow isn’t until noon?

Just do it.

She called to Gus, who for once came running. Slathering mayonnaise on two pieces of bread, she made herself a turkey sandwich. When she sat down at the table, Gus hunkered over his bowl and ate his tuna.

Her thoughts turned to Jake and what she’d said to him before he’d left.

“But why do you have to go away?” she’d whispered. “I feel guilty running you out of your own house.”

“Don’t. It’s what I do sometimes—when I need to think.”

“Think about what?”

“About what the hell we’re going to do if you’re pregnant.”

“What are you saying?” she’d asked.

He’d stopped slinging fishing gear into his backpack and had walked over to her. Cupping her chin with blunt, tanned fingertips so that she was forced to stare up into his blue eyes, he hadn’t spoken until he was sure he had her full attention.

“If there’s a baby, I want it,” he said softly. “Do you understand me?”

But he didn’t want her. She’d nodded and after a long moment he’d freed her chin.

“Okay then,” he said.

“I could lock myself into the downstairs bedroom and not come out until morning. You wouldn’t even know I was here.”

He’d turned and smiled at her. “Trust me. It wouldn’t be the same. I need to be completely alone.”

“But I wouldn’t bother you.”

“The hell you say. Every fiber in my being would know you’re nearby. You bother me by existing.”

“Oh.”

She must have looked hurt because his expression had gentled.

“But not always in the worst possible way.”

Not always in the worst possible way. Was that a compliment?

Before he’d left, he’d locked his office and his bedroom upstairs. She’d stiffened at those final clicks as the bolts shot home and he’d withdrawn his key.

When she’d been a little girl, she used to follow her father everywhere when he’d packed for a trip. She’d lingered, watching him lock all the doors that kept her out of entire wings of their houses and apartments too.

The servants, of course, had had keys so they could clean. But his only daughter had had no access.

All her father’s homes had been furnished with valuable antiques and art collections worthy of museums. He’d said he didn’t trust the servants to keep her from sitting on the chairs and spilling drinks or food on the furniture or tainting one of his precious sculptures or paintings with oily fingerprints.

How different her mother had been. Their homes had previously been filled with sunlight and flowers and friends. She’d always had time to sit on the floor and play with her daughter or read to her or chat.

After Alicia finished her sandwich, she sat in silence sipping her milk. Finally, she rose and washed the dishes.

Feeling too restless and lonely to shower and get ready for bed, she began to pace, calling to Gus, who had disappeared again.

Climbing the floating stairs, she lingered outside Jake’s locked bedroom and remembered the night he’d carried her inside and kicked the door shut. The walls of his bedroom were either floor-to-ceiling bookshelves or tall windows with views of his large backyard and pool.

They’d made love on his bed and then on the thick woven rug by his bed. Then they’d lain in bed talking. When she’d noticed that only books filled his shelves, she’d asked him why he didn’t have a single photograph of his friends or family.

“I left home when I was very young. I traveled light. This house is rented, like all the houses I’ve lived in. So—no pictures.”

“You’ve never built yourself a house?”

“Maybe someday.”

“My father didn’t like photographs either. He wouldn’t even let me have a picture of my mother in my room. He said photographs depressed him because they reminded him of things that were dead and over. He said he wanted to live entirely in the present.”

Jake’s face had hardened at the mention of her father, but he’d stroked her mouth with a fingertip and had said nothing. Had he known then he would team up with Hayes Daniels the next day and accuse her father? Or had Hayes approached him?

After Jake had blown the whistle on her father, Jake had called her; maybe to explain his side. Or maybe to hear her side.

Not that she’d taken his calls.

Still, how many times had she nearly picked up the phone because she’d ached to hear his voice and had wondered why he was calling?

Part of her wanted to hate him for what he’d done to her father, but he wasn’t her father’s only accuser. Serious amounts of money had gone missing. Someone was responsible. Naturally she didn’t want to believe it was her father.

Turning, wishing she could empty her mind of all her confusion concerning Jake and her father, Alicia walked back downstairs.

Her footsteps were hollow taps echoing through the house, which felt too empty without Jake.

At the bottom of the stairs she shut her eyes. More than anything she wished he was here.

What was going on?

Never had she felt more mixed up by the impossible, mysterious longings in her heart.

Five

“I told you I was pregnant, didn’t I?” Alicia said gloomily. “You should have been prepared.”

“Should have been is definitely the operative figure of speech here.” Jake gripped her elbow and hurriedly propelled her out of the doctor’s office building into the parking lot.

It was nearly one o’clock and the heat was searing. Cars whizzed past them on the busy street.

“I didn’t realize how much I hoped you were wrong about this,” he said, moving to the street side of the walkway to shield her from the traffic.

With an effort, she tried to ignore the sting of his words. She’d hated the way he’d barely looked at her or the doctor, the way he’d barely said a word during the office visit. The instant the doctor had confirmed Alicia’s fears, Jake’s tanned face had hardened into a stony mask. No matter how the doctor had attempted to get him to open up, he’d rebuffed her every question. The only sign of life in Jake’s set face now was the fiery turbulence in his grim blue eyes that hinted at the inner battle raging inside him.

“You certainly put on a happy face in the doctor’s office,” Jake muttered. “I couldn’t believe all the questions you asked the doctor, like this is a normal pregnancy and we are a normal, happy couple.”

“I’m not exactly happy,” she whispered, warier of him because of his dark mood. “But I wish I was. Just as I wish you could be, too. Any child deserves parents who want him—even ours.”

“Hell.”

“I can’t help it if I want our child to be wanted and have a normal, loving childhood. Any mother would.”

“Even a mother who despises the father of her baby?”

But she didn’t despise him. She’d liked having him with her at the doctor’s office.

“Do you want me to lie to you and your doctor about how I feel?” he continued. “Where will we be if we lie to each other about everything?”

“Where will we be if we concentrate on nothing but how much we hate each other all the time? How can we build on that?”

“What the hell could we possibly build?”

“A positive world for our child.”

“I’d say we’re off to a damn poor start then.”

“Which means we have nowhere to go but up,” she said in a whimsical voice that thankfully was too low for him to hear.

“What?”

Unable to deal with his hostile attitude, she said in a louder tone, “Thank you for at least meeting me here. I really do appreciate it. I was sick again this morning. I wasn’t so sure there for a while I’d ever be able to get out of the house.”

Her gentle, polite approach calmed him, if only a little.

“I’m sorry you were sick again. It was my idea for you to see a doctor first thing, remember? The least I could do is show up.”

“Believe me, some men wouldn’t have bothered.” Like her father.

Jake opened her door of his large, black SUV for her, and she got in. “Fasten your seat belt,” he ordered. He waited to make sure she did so before walking around to get in too. Why was his concern about even that small detail such a comfort?

She hated that his doing so registered on such a profound level with her. She was so eager for happiness she grabbed anything positive.

Once he was behind the huge wheel, the woodsy scent of pine, cypress and smoke enveloped her. Strangely, despite the heat, it didn’t make her feel the slightest bit sick as some scents did. In fact, he smelled so good, she couldn’t resist glancing at him out of the corners of her eyes.

He was so tall and broad shouldered. A lock of dark hair fell across his brow. Why did he have to be so attractive even when he wasn’t trying, like now? When he wanted no involvement with her? Dark stubble shadowed his hard jaw and chin and made him look incredibly masculine. He hadn’t had time to shower or shave or even to change out of his jeans before their appointment. Shadows ringed his eyes.

He’d obviously been in such a hurry to pick her up and rush her to the doctor’s office, he hadn’t bothered about himself at all.

“You look tired,” she said, feeling too much unwanted sympathy for him. Yet, even exhausted, he was so virile and utterly male that some feminine, idiotic part of her wanted to swoon over him, despite knowing he probably considered her his enemy.

“Couldn’t sleep,” he muttered as he leaned forward and started the SUV. He turned on the AC. “Lumpy, stinky mattress. Hot night, too. Couldn’t stop thinking about stuff.” He shot her an accusing glance and she wondered if concern for her had kept him from sleeping.

He adjusted the air-conditioning. “Is the air okay?”

She nodded.

“What about you? I mean besides the morning sickness.” He turned away and pretended to watch the traffic. “You okay? You don’t look so perky yourself.”

“Couldn’t sleep either.” Not that she was about to admit to him that she’d tossed and turned because she’d been longing for him all night—because his nearness made her feel safe and secure in ways she’d never known in her whole life. Which was ridiculous, considering the situation.

When his dark head swiveled in her direction, she shyly turned. Under his scowling gaze, her lungs froze.

Suddenly she couldn’t breathe. Why did being so close to him in his big vehicle make her so nervous? Why didn’t he just drive them home so they weren’t trapped in such a small space together with emotions they couldn’t deal with? At least on the way she’d have scenery to distract her from him. Now she felt as overwhelmed by him as she had that first night.

“I … I still can’t believe this has happened,” she said in a low quiet tone.

“I felt like that at first, I mean when Dr. Preston confirmed your fears, but the reality is sinking in pretty fast. You and I are going to have a baby—whether we want it or not. The question is what are going to do to resolve this situation?”

“I haven’t thought that far ahead.”

“Oh, I bet you have.” His deep voice darkened. “You came running to me first thing in need of money, didn’t you?”

“No! That’s not it. I—I don’t want my baby to be illegitimate, that’s all.”

His dark head jerked toward hers, his blue eyes piercing her. “That’s all? Surely you’re not talking about—marriage?”

She bit her lips and swallowed.

“About you and me … being together … in some sort of permanent arrangement. It’s not like this is a hundred years ago and your father’s going to follow me down the aisle with a shotgun between my shoulder blades,” he said. “Hard to do that under house arrest.”

Could she help it if she saw things so simplistically? Every time a teacher at school had asked her to draw a picture of her family, she’d always drawn a mommy and a daddy and herself in the middle.

“You don’t actually see us as a couple, do you?” he said.

She shook her head because he so obviously wanted her to. “Look,” she said, “I guess I just panicked and thought when I felt so sick that I couldn’t do this alone. Maybe I would have been stronger before … but now … I have no money. No allies. No family really … other than Daddy, who’s been indicted.”

“And you’re so used to money, you don’t know how to get by without it.”

“My life hasn’t been what you think. I don’t believe I have any friends left in Louisiana. Everybody here blames me for what they think Daddy did.”

“Because of what he did! And what you helped him do in all probability. Whose fault is that?”

“Right. You think I schemed to steal millions of dollars from Houses for Hurricane Victims and his bank? And that I deliberately set out to destroy your good name?”

“Well, your father damn sure did, that’s for sure.”

“I think my father’s innocent.”

“Then where’s the money he managed? Why can’t we find any records to prove he ever invested a single dollar? Maybe you don’t know how the charity world operates, so I’ll fill you in on a little secret. At the first hint of scandal, all future funding dries up. So now poor families, who were counting on me to build them homes, won’t get them. Because of my close association to the charity, funding for my architectural projects is drying up as well. It would be financial suicide for me to associate myself with you right now. And now you want me to marry you?”

“The government has been investigating him for the past six weeks, and so far they’ve found nothing to link me to any of it. Doesn’t that tell you anything about me? I never volunteered for that organization. I never worked at Daddy’s bank or the shipyard either.”

“Maybe you’re good at covering your tracks.”

“Or maybe I’m innocent. I was an editor and a writer.”

“I wasn’t born yesterday. You got that job because of your father’s connections.”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe you’re a taker like your father. Maybe you came to me yesterday hoping I’d help you financially.”

“Is everything really just money to you?”

He leaned toward her. “How dare you ask me that?”

“Then what about our child? I want our baby to have his or her father’s name … and his love, if that’s possible. Your love. That’s very important to me. Do you want to play a role in his or her life, or not?”

He was silent.

“Because if you don’t, one of my oldest and dearest friends lives in London. Her name’s Carol Lawton, and when she heard about my problems, she offered me a job in a publishing firm over there. It would mean leaving Louisiana …”

“No!”

“You wouldn’t have to stay married to me for very long to give him his name. You could even tell people why you had to marry me.”

“No. I couldn’t do that.” He hesitated, his gaze sweeping her. “So, what kind of theoretical marriage do you imagine we could possibly have? Hell, the only plus we have going for us is that we’re great together in bed.”

“No sex,” she asserted in a low, breathy rush.

“What? You expect me to tie myself to you without even that as a fringe benefit?” He stared through her. “What about you? After the way you kissed me yesterday, are you sure that’s what you want?”

“Who are you kidding? You ran off to the swamp yesterday because you couldn’t take the heat from that kiss. Our marriage should be about the baby—not us. I, for one—definitely—don’t think we should complicate our confusing situation with more sex.”

“Definitely?” The edges of his tense mouth relaxed. “You sound so … er … determined.”

She wished. Who was she kidding? Jake had such a devastating effect on her, she wondered if she’d be able to resist him if he chose to exploit that weakness some night when she was feeling particularly lonely and unloved.

“So, we’re talking about a marriage of convenience. Doubtless, you’ll demand a sizable settlement when we split up?” he said.

“No settlement.”

“Right. A Butler who isn’t after my money. What a refreshing development.”

“I’ll sign a prenup if you want me to. If you help me find a job somewhere … or help me get started in London, that would be wonderful. We … we wouldn’t even have to live together while we’re married either. I just want the baby to feel his father wanted him.”

“So, no sex and no settlement, huh?”

“I told you, this isn’t about sex or money. It’s about what’s best for the baby. I grew up with all the money in the world, but …”

“But with a real bastard for a father, who never gave a damn about you. Poor little rich girl.”

“Please … don’t run him down.” She stopped, feeling bleak at the dark feelings his words too easily stirred within her. Her childhood with her father may have been loveless, but that didn’t mean she could bear other people sitting in judgment of him. Especially not now when he was under house arrest and she herself was uncertain as to his guilt of innocence.

Turning away so he wouldn’t read the longing that welled up inside her, she watched a happy young couple leave the medical building. They were laughing and holding hands. When they reached their battered, compact car, the man pulled the woman into his arms and kissed her fervently. Maybe they, too, had learned they were going to have a baby—only they were both thrilled.

Color me green, she thought.

Watching them, too, Jake stiffened. “Sorry … for what I just said about your dad,” he said in a gentler tone.

“It’s okay,” she whispered. “Our marriage would hardly be a fairy tale with the promise of happily-ever-after like we both dreamed we might know with someone we would have freely chosen some day. And believe me, my father won’t be happy about any of this when he finds out.”

“If you’re determined to get married, we live together,” Jake growled.

“Why—when you didn’t even want to spend the night with me last night?”

“Who the hell knows? Maybe because I don’t trust you as far as I can throw you. As long as you’re my wife, I’ll keep you close so I can keep an eye on you. Besides, who’ll look after you if I’m not around?”

Against her better judgment, at this softer sentiment her heart warmed to him a little.

“My house is big,” he said. “You can use the bedroom downstairs that you slept in last night. I’ll live on the second floor just like always. But while we’re married, you’re to have nothing to do with your father.”

“But Jake ….”

“That’s nonnegotiable. I don’t trust him or you—and I especially don’t trust the two of you together.”

“But, he’s been arrested. He’s alone and in trouble. I know how that feels. I can’t just turn my back on him.”

“No involvement. So long as you’re my wife, you’re not to associate with him. Not even a phone call. You’re to stay away from his trial, too. Do you understand me?”

She turned and stared mutely out the window at the cars speeding by beyond the parking lot. What if her father was innocent and she deserted him?

“Do you want to marry me or not?” Jake demanded, hard finality in his voice.

Uncertain, she froze. Finally she nodded. “But only for the baby’s sake.”

He frowned. “Then you’ll agree to stay away from him while we’re married?”

“Yes,” she whispered in a tone that was so faint it was nearly inaudible.

“There can be no other men in your life while we’re married.”

“What?” she murmured, feeling crushed that he thought her so low. But then, all he knew was that she’d made love to him the first night she’d met him. How could he possibly realize how special he’d been, how profoundly connected she’d felt to him?

“Since our marriage will upset a lot of people, including my clients and employees, I want it to appear respectable. I don’t want to give the press or your numerous enemies anything extra to chew on. So you’ll have to agree not to be seen out with other men.”

“Of course,” she said quietly even as anger began to bubble inside her. “What about you, Mr. High And Mighty? Will the same rule apply to you?”

“I will abide by the same rule—for the same reason.”

“Not out of any loyalty to me. But then, why should you feel the slightest loyalty? You don’t want to marry me any more than I want to marry you.”

“Maybe we’re finally beginning to understand each other. Will you be faithful?”

“I said yes already!” she snapped. “Did you really spend the night alone last night?”

He smiled. “So you care a little, too?”

She shook her head much too vigorously, because his quick white smile, the beautiful smile that had seduced her, broadened, causing her blood to heat.

“Were you really alone?” she persisted, furious at him for being so attractive to her just because of a smile and at herself for being so susceptible to his virile brand of sexiness.

“I was. So, when you’re my wife, a wife who, for the record, refuses to sleep with me, will you expect me to answer questions like that if I choose not to come home some night?”

“Look … I shouldn’t have asked about last night. Forget I did it! I don’t care what you do ….”

“Okay.” Grinning, he held up his hands in a gesture of mock innocence. “But just in case you do care … a tiny bit … I spent the night alone like I said. I was in a houseboat in the swamp behind Belle Rose that I told you about. The only time I left it was when I built a fire on a muddy bank and cooked out.”

“What did you cook?”

“A squirrel. There’s not much to a squirrel. So it was a long, hungry night spent alone.”

She frowned. “You killed a little squirrel?”

“I threw my knife. He died in a flash.”

“I can’t believe you’d be so cruel!”

“What? Do you think I like killing animals? I like to eat. Do you think you’re morally superior because your meat comes in plastic-covered packages in the grocery store?”

Unable to refute his logic but not liking the thought of him eating a helpless, little squirrel any better than she originally had, she began to twirl a strand of her hair and fume as she stared into the distance.

“Look, I had to get away,” he said. “Firing everybody … you showing up saying you might be pregnant … was too much for one day. I didn’t want to be with you … or any other woman. I know it sounds unusual, going off alone into the wilderness on the spur of the moment, but it’s something I do fairly frequently when I need to chill. I’ll probably do it again during our marriage—if we’re married any time. Happy now?”

“I wish.”

“Okay. Back to the plan. We marry. At some point after our child is born, we go our separate ways. No settlement. Just custody arrangements.”

“Fine,” she agreed, feeling dismal at that prospect.

“That’s all you really want?”

“I don’t want any of this!”

“You wanted me that night,” he reminded her.

The memory of it, plus the knowledge that she still wanted him, was not her favorite fun fact.

“You knew how desperate I felt that night … because my father had just told me he was caught in a credit crunch and was on the verge of losing everything, including the bank, if the merger between his shipyard and Claiborne Energy didn’t work out.”

He nodded.

Knowing that she’d had a date with Logan that night to his grandfather’s eightieth birthday, her father had ordered her to do everything in her power to charm Logan and lull his suspicions that anything might be amiss with the Butler empire. But Logan had been interested only in Cici.

“I felt shy that night at Belle Rose when Logan abandoned me to dance with Cici. I didn’t know anyone. Then you started smiling at me from across the room. I smiled back and you came up to me and were so nice, I began to enjoy myself and open up. When you said you were involved with my father in that charity, I told you how worried I was about him. I had no idea you were planning to gang up with Hayes Daniels and accuse him of all those crimes or that maybe the only reason you took an interest in me was to get more information out of me.”

“I wasn’t planning anything. I had no idea your father was guilty of anything that night. Cici simply wanted to spend time with Logan, and she asked me to take care of you. Hayes didn’t clue me in about Mitchell until the next morning. But after the credit problems you’d hinted your father was having, I thought you must have known everything your father was doing and that you were involved. So I was furious at you for deceiving me … and seducing me. I thought maybe you did all that in an effort to buy my silence where your father was concerned. I called you because I wanted to give you a chance to defend yourself. When you wouldn’t take my calls, I took that to mean you were guilty.”

She hadn’t answered the phone because she’d thought him the most treacherous human being alive for seducing her to gain information about her father.

“I was very lonely that night, too,” he said. “Being with my family always makes me feel like I don’t know my place in the world. Then Logan abandoned you. And you were very, very beautiful.”

She blushed, feeling shyly pleased.

“You weren’t what I was expecting,” he said. “I thought you’d be more like your father but you were nothing like him. You swept me off my feet, as you probably know.”

Had he felt the same incredible rush of thrilling excitement in her presence she’d found in his? She wanted to believe that so much.

“Later I wondered if you’d been setting me up,” Jake said, killing the softness she’d been feeling toward him. “What about this pregnancy? Did you get pregnant on purpose? Maybe to buy me off?”

“You have to know I didn’t. I would never deliberately bring a baby into a mess like this! You seemed so nice that night, and idiot that I was, I trusted you enough to confide in you … and sleep with you.”

He stared into her eyes for a long time.

“Okay,” he muttered as he finally put the SUV into gear and pulled out into traffic. “Okay.”

“The morning after we slept together my father called me and told me about the missing money from the Houses for Hurricane Victims. He said you took it, and that you set him up.”

“Well, I didn’t. So do you always believe everything your father says?”

“I try to see his side of things … because he’s my father and the only parent I have left.”

“Look,” he growled, “I was nice to you that night because … Hell, I already told you why ….” He swore under his breath. “If I’m already damned in your eyes, why should I bother to defend myself?”

After that final question, the thick silence that fell between them grew increasingly strained.

Her mind drifted, and she remembered all too well how Jake had coaxed her to confide in him their first night together. He’d pretended to listen to her fears concerning her father and to understand; pretended to care about her, and, she, as always, too eager and made happy by any kindness, however small, had ended up in his bed.

But not before she’d told him too much. Pretending sympathy and passion after her confidences, Jake had soothingly kissed her mouth, her face, her throat, her breasts, until he’d made her feel safe and breathless with desire for him.

“It’s going to be all right,” he’d whispered in a kindly tone. “Dark moments are part of life. They teach us lessons we need to learn.”

Soon she’d been clinging, longing for more than his compassion. Forgetting her father and his troubles, she’d begged Jake to make love to her and he’d complied, showering her with all the warmth and passion she’d craved.

Then the next morning Jake had gone out. Later her father had called her and cruelly informed her that the merger was in trouble—and that Jake Claiborne, along with Hayes Daniels, Logan’s CEO, had joined forces and reported him to the feds.

Her father and his bank and shipyard had gone down in flames, and Jake was at least partially responsible. Every time she’d thought of how she’d bared her soul and given her body to a man who’d spent the night with her, maybe to milk her for information about her father she’d felt freshly used and humiliated. She’d told herself she shouldn’t ever see Jake again or even take his calls.

Not so easy when he’d continued to call her and all her friends had cut her dead.

Most of the time she’d ignored his calls, but once when he’d phoned her after some particularly vicious stories about her had filled the Internet and newspapers, she’d actually wanted to hear his voice so much she’d answered. They’d soon quarreled, but she’d had the feeling he’d been concerned about her. Then she’d seen him at Logan’s wedding. Not that they’d spoken.

She forced her mind back to the present and their new reality. Jake was driving so fast, she was clutching the armrest while houses and strip malls flew by in a blur. When they reached his sprawling home, half a dozen reporters’ vans were still lined up in front of his house.

Van doors popped open and reporters rushed toward his SUV as he swerved into his drive. Ignoring them, Jake drove the large vehicle slowly toward a gate that opened electronically and then shut behind them, locking out the invasive horde.

In his garage Jake cut the engine and turned slowly to face her. “Okay, you told me what you want and what you think about me, didn’t you?”

“I guess,” she replied.

“So, here’s what I want out of this disastrous affair. First, we involve as few people as possible in our little scheme. I don’t want my grandfather hurt. I’m not on the easiest terms with Logan or his new wife, Cici, so the less they know about this, the better. My grandfather’s lonely. I don’t want him forming an unsuitable attachment to a woman I don’t plan to keep in my life any longer than necessary.”

“But he was so friendly to me at his party. Do you really want me to be rude to him?”

“Be polite but cool. In case you didn’t realize it, you’re natural at that role.”

“Thanks … for nothing,” she whispered.

“Not for nothing, sweetheart. I agreed to marry you, didn’t I? For me—that’s a big step.”

“For me, too,” she said.

His weary expression told her he didn’t believe her. “You … proposed.”

“Not because I wanted to,” she flared.

“So—I guess the next step is to plan our wedding. Are you up to that or do you want me to get Vanessa to handle it?”

As a child her mother had let her decorate for all her parties. Excitedly they’d cut out cardboard stars and glued glitter on them. They’d hung posters and sent out invitations. Once her mother had rented ponies and Alicia and all her friends had ridden in the back yard. But after her mother’s death, the celebration of Alicia’s birthdays, when remembered, and of the important milestones in her life had always been planned by her father’s employees.

No way was she going to let her wedding, such as it was, be planned by Jake’s office staff.

“I’ll plan it,” she whispered, hurt beyond words that he’d suggested such a thing even though she knew her feelings were utterly illogical.

Pregnancy. Hormones. A marriage of convenience to Jake. She was definitely in for a roller-coaster ride.

Six

How ironic that St. Anthony’s Garden, the spot his bride had chosen for their wedding, had once been the most popular dueling ground in New Orleans. Too bad the twenty-first century was more civilized. If Jake could have called his bride’s father out and shot him, he would have.

Tonight peace reigned. Birds chirped high in the oak trees. A great sculpture of the Sacred Heart reigned in the shady nook that smelled so sweetly of olives. Beyond the garden, tourists chattered as they posed in Pirate’s Alley snapping pictures. In the distance street musicians played jazz.

Jake wanted to hate Alicia for complicating his life but reason told him he was equally to blame. He didn’t want to marry her, but with every word that the priest uttered binding him to Alicia Butler, his desire for her grew until it felt like a crushing weight. Indeed, ever since he’d agreed to the marriage, thoughts of a naked and eagerly writhing Alicia in his bed had consumed him. All night long he’d lain awake in his bed and thought of her lying in hers downstairs, and he’d wondered if she was thinking of him.

Why did she have to stand so close to him in the dense, humid air so that with every breath he inhaled her perfume?

They say a little piece of paper doesn’t matter; that it changes nothing.

They don’t know crap. He felt trapped—doomed. At the same time his body raged to have her again. And again. He burned as if he had a fever. His feelings for this woman were illogical and out of proportion to any he’d ever felt for another.

Get a grip.

To distract himself Jake stared up at the triple spires of St. Louis Cathedral towering above their small wedding party hunched together beneath the hurricane-damaged trees. The only guests were his secretary and her bored-looking son, whose dark head was bent over some electronic device.

Thankfully, no member of his own family or Alicia’s was present to witness this farce.

It didn’t console him that Alicia seemed equally miserable. Her slim fingers that gripped his arm for support shook. Her carriage was rigid; her lovely face ashen.

His heart caught. Why should he sympathize? With a little imagination, surely she could have dreamed up a better solution than a sexless marriage that was already driving him crazy.

A man forced into a shotgun marriage should get something for his trouble, Jake thought gloomily. Why had he stupidly agreed not to sleep with her?

He’d been sober, that was why. He never thought straight sober.

Too bad he wasn’t sober now. Thanks to the shots of whiskey he’d drunk to give him the courage to show up, he felt dangerously near some breaking point.

The late-evening sunlight sifting through the oaks caressed her high, classic brow and made her creamy skin glow. Every time their glances met, her large, dark eyes shot sparks. Why did she keep licking her plump, sensual mouth? Didn’t she know that the sight of her tongue had him remembering all the erotic places her moist lips and tongue had touched him with deft little strokes?

His gaze drifted over her straight chiseled nose, her delicate chin and her long graceful neck. Her white lace sheath was skintight, showing off her flawless figure even as the purity of its color made her look virginal. How could a pregnant woman whose breasts were swollen look so untouched and sexy?

Hell.

“Jake, will you have this woman to be your wedded wife, to love her, comfort her, honor and keep her, forsaking all others, so long as you both shall live?” Father Alex asked.

Alicia’s hot, dark eyes flashed when they met Jake’s again, causing his blood to quicken.

“I will,” he whispered hoarsely through clenched teeth.

No matter how he fought to blank out her soft response as she pledged herself to him forever, when her husky voice said, “I will,” something shifted inside him and the dark need to claim her obsessed him all over again.

Suddenly he couldn’t wait to slip his ring on her finger. He didn’t want other men looking at her or touching her without knowing who she belonged to.

She was his wife. His. Period.

As the priest continued to drone, Jake’s blood buzzed with fierce passion. Damn it, he wanted to at least kiss her. Wasn’t that part of this hellish ceremony?

After an interminable amount of sanctimonious verbiage, the priest finally pronounced them man and wife. “You may kiss your bride,” he said.

In a flutter, Alicia tried to turn away, but Jake grabbed her slim wrist and spun her into his hard arms. Cutting off her startled cry of protest, he claimed her mouth with his.

Her hands came up to push against his wide chest, but at the first touch of his lips, she sighed and then whispered his name.

“Jake, oh, Jake …” Her dark eyes were aflame with needs as deep and dark as his own. Rising onto her tiptoes, her arms circling his neck, she clung, leaning into his body.

She was soft and warm. Waves of hot pleasure washed through him. Her lips parted, inviting more.

Maybe everything about their marriage was wrong, but this felt right. Too right.

She was shaking, and so was he as his tongue swept inside her warm, honeyed mouth.

His kiss was needlessly aggressive, possessive and primitive. Once he’d started kissing her, some force outside him took over, and he couldn’t stop himself.

He’d married her, hadn’t he? She was his. If his pulse had been racing before the kiss, her satiny mouth and honeyed taste made it accelerate to rocket speed.

Ever since he’d kissed her that afternoon she’d shown up on his doorstep, he’d thought about doing it again, thought about it too damn much. The night he’d spent in the swamp to get his head straight had changed nothing.

His arms crushed her body to his. He wanted her to moan, to press her slim body and heavy breasts closer, and to go limp and beg. The longer he kissed her, the more he wanted from her.

“Jake, we’re in public,” she whispered shyly. Her slender hands fells away from his neck and wedged themselves between their bodies. Pushing against him, she stared up at him with eyes filled with a mixture of longing and embarrassment.

Slowly her puny efforts penetrated his lust-charged brain, and he realized he was way out of line.

What the hell was he doing? Cursing his damnable weakness for her, he let her go and pivoted free.

Blushing, Alicia fell back a few feet. Turning her back to him, she wiped her mouth and smoothed her hair with hands that trembled.

When Vanessa’s sharp, questioning gaze sought his, he felt like an idiot, so he scowled back at her, willing to keep her damn mouth shut and mind her own business for once. She did, but her expression softened as she regarded first him and then his wife.

Then he realized Vanessa wasn’t the only member of their little party who was gazing at them with rapt fascination. Her son had stopped playing with his electronic device, and Father Alex had dropped his Bible and looked agitated as he stooped to pick it up.

Feeling a growing pressure to say something or do something, he turned on Alicia. “Well, now that we’ve gotten the ceremony out of the way, Vanessa can drive you home. I’m going back to my office.”

Alicia’s cheeks flamed with wounded pride. “But it’s Saturday.”

“So?”

“But … I mean … when will you be home?”

He didn’t want her to know how profoundly she affected him. He didn’t want any of them to know.

“This is hardly a real marriage,” he said beneath his breath. “So don’t wait up. Watch a movie. Read a book. Pet the beast. Frankly, I don’t care what you do.”

She turned so white, he was afraid she’d faint. He was reaching for her when Vanessa rushed to her side.

More than anything he wanted to take Alicia in his arms again. He wanted to drive her home and spend the night with her, but his feelings were too raw and charged.

His bride’s stricken expression made him feel like a heel. He’d hurt her, and he felt bad about that, too.

How the hell had she turned the tables on him? Her father had stolen money from his charity and from thousands of other innocent people. She was probably in on the entire scam.

But was she?

Damn it. Fool that he was, he very much wanted to believe she was innocent.

“Some honeymoon, huh?” Vanessa smiled as she stood on Jake’s front porch. “I’d come in and stay for a while if I didn’t have Rick in the car.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Look, I don’t know what’s going on with my boss, and I don’t really know you, other than what I’ve read, but if you feel like talking to somebody, remember my home phone is number two on your speed dial. I’ll be home with the kids all evening.” Vanessa smiled at her.

“Thanks.” Just knowing that someone was out there was reassuring. “And thanks for coming today,” Alicia said. “I … I always dreamed of a different kind of wedding.”

“Don’t we all? I had a great wedding and a lousy marriage. Maybe you’ll have the reverse. It could happen. Jake’s a good man, better than most—but he is a man. Sure, he has his limitations. Trust me, he already had a lot on his plate before you showed up on his doorstep.”

“I know. And he thinks it’s all my fault.”

“I’m beginning to doubt that. You hang in there … and he’ll see you for who you really are. Be patient …. Oh, who am I to talk? I’m really the last thing from a romantic.”

Vanessa reached for her and pulled her into her arms. After hugging her, she whispered, “Good luck. You deserve it. For what it’s worth, you were a very beautiful bride. I think you knocked Jake off his feet. He’ll be back, probably sooner than you expect.”

“You’d better be calling to tell me you didn’t go through with it!” Mitchell roared.

Alicia sagged against a wall as she gripped the telephone. A small voice did ask why he couldn’t once take her side. Vanessa, who didn’t even know her, was at least trying not judge her.

“But Daddy ….”

In spite of the fact that Jake had forbidden her to call her father, she had. While Jake had been at work, she’d left her father a message yesterday informing him of her intention to marry Jake today. Besides, what was the harm? She hadn’t told him where or when, so it wasn’t as if she’d invited him and he might show up and upset Jake or anything.

As was his custom, Mitchell hadn’t even bothered to return her call in a timely fashion.

“So you married him?”

“I called because I didn’t want you learn about it by reading it in the newspapers or on the Web.”

“As if it matters how I learn it! Where is he now? Is he listening? Gloating?”

“No. He left … right after the marriage ceremony. I don’t know where he is or if he’s ever coming home. It’s not like he wanted to marry me.”

“What? Then why the hell … Never mind! It’s your funeral. You were a fool to marry him, so you deserve whatever misery he dishes out—which will be plenty, I assure you. You made your bed—now lie in it!” With that her father, who wasn’t known for his patience or gentleness, hung up on her, leaving her alone in Jake’s big house to enjoy what was left of her wedding day.

As if she could enjoy anything now, trapped in this house, knowing she’d married a man who didn’t care for her, knowing that by doing so, she’d turned her father completely against her. She should have realized how totally empty and bereft she’d feel once she truly alienated him.

Laying down her cordless phone, she went in search of Gus. Naturally, he wouldn’t come or even mew when she called. When she couldn’t find him anywhere on the first floor, she climbed the stairs and found him reclining in the hall outside Jake’s locked, bedroom door, thumping his tail while waiting for the master of the house to come home.

“You little traitor. You’re worthless sometimes, you know that?”

Gus’s eyes remained shut. He looked much too serene as his head remained on his crossed paws even as his tail began to twitch faster.

When she leaned down and picked him up, he meowed loudly and swished his tail to show that he was very much annoyed.

“Traitor! You’re my cat, you know, not his,” she said, kissing the tip of his ear.

The ear whipped against his skull as she headed down the stairs with him. His yellow eyes stared into hers with a feral look that said he didn’t know any such thing. He was his own cat, thank you very much, and, of course, he refused to purr and began to strain to get away.

When she reached the bottom floor, he twisted sharply. A claw from a back paw caught in her forearm as he jumped to the floor. Then he leaped back up the stairs, no doubt to resume his stubborn vigil outside Jake’s door.

“He doesn’t want you any more than he wants me, you know,” she yelled. “Maybe less!” Then she stalked to the hall bathroom, and washed off the beads of blood and toweled her arm dry.

What had she done? Why had she ever thought marrying Jake even for a short time would be a solution to anything? She’d completely alienated her father now, and that loss filled her with a mixture of guilt and regret. Maybe he hadn’t been the most attentive of fathers but he’d always been there, at least in the background. Until now.

He was probably going to prison and she’d married the man who was responsible. Tears flooded her eyes but she brushed them aside, refusing to surrender to emotional turmoil or self-doubt. She’d done what she had to do for her baby.

Marching into the kitchen, she poured herself a glass of ice water and then gobbled three dill pickles and a slice of cheese. Then she hurried to her bedroom where she undressed and got ready for a long evening of watching television and reading the books and magazines on her nightstand. All of Jake’s magazines had to do with outdoor adventures, especially in Alaska, which sounded like a freezing hell with way too many mosquitoes, not to mention bears. Funny, but hadn’t he told her that first night that he sometimes went there to be all alone when he was feeling most stressed?

Later, as she climbed into the big bed all by herself and pulled the sheets up to her neck, loneliness washed over her. She wanted Jake, which was stupid and illogical, considering their circumstances. He had kissed her, yes. Passionately. And then he’d hated them both for it.

Why should she think she could matter to Jake, her father’s enemy, who’d been forced to marry her, when she hadn’t ever mattered to anyone else before? Not even her own father.

Except Mother.

Don’t think about any of that. Or even the present. You will get through this. Concentrate on the future.

Thinking of her own baby, her spirits gradually brightened. She wanted her child fiercely and she was willing to fight for the best possible life for her baby—and that included giving her baby a father. Like her mother, she would create a beautiful nursery. Like her mother, she would spend as much time as possible with her child. And maybe … maybe in time what her father had done or hadn’t done would become clear. And Jake’s attitude toward her and their child would change.

For no reason at all she remembered how he’d held her hand and listened so intently that first night she’d confided in him. Then he’d taken her in his arms the day she’d shown up on his doorstep and told him she was pregnant. Today he’d kissed her passionately. Maybe it wasn’t so foolish to believe he had it in him to make a wonderful father and even a good husband.

She had to hold on to that possibility … and fight for it.

Seven

Alicia woke the next morning feeling stronger—until she caught the thick scent of boudin sausage, frying eggs and steaming chicory-flavored coffee wafting out of the air-conditioning vent.

Obviously Jake had come home. Smiling because she was glad he was home, she sat up. At that slight movement her stomach became hollow and her mouth was suddenly too dry for her to swallow. Throwing her sheets aside, she rushed for the bathroom, intending to splash cold water on her face.

In her haste, she slammed into a low table. The china teacup and saucer she’d forgotten to return to the kitchen last night shattered on the oak floor. With a little cry, she kept running.

After bathing her face, the nausea gradually passed.

Last night to cheer herself up she’d watched a couple of comedies on television, which had eased her depression and caused her to laugh until she’d nearly cried. She’d fallen asleep feeling more hopeful about the future.

At the sound of the bedroom door opening and closing and heavy, male footsteps approaching, she turned slowly.

“Jake?”

“Who else? Are you all right?” he rumbled in his deep, insistent voice.

“Just a touch of morning sickness, but I’m fine. Or at least I will be … soon,” she whispered. “Give me a minute. I don’t want you to see me like this.”

“Are you naked again?” He sounded hopeful.

“You would think of that.”

“I’m a man. You’re a beautiful woman, who’s now my wife. A woman I have a sexual history with. Of course I imagine you naked. All the time.”

“Beautiful? I haven’t brushed my hair and I’ve got mascara smudged under my eyes.” She groaned.

“I was just trying to make you forget how rotten you feel.”

“Just go away.”

Then he was there beside her with the disloyal Gus Dear close at his heels. The feline devil had the gall to purr as his black tail curled around Jake’s legs and then hers.

“Please leave me—both of you,” she begged even as Jake’s hand against her back and Gus’s silky tail raised goose bumps. “I’ll be okay. Really! Go eat your sausage … and give Gus some tuna or something. Oh, God, tuna!” At the thought of tuna, she fought to swallow.

“So it was the smell of our breakfast that made you feel sick.”

“Partly, but I just wake up that way a lot of mornings.”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left you alone last night.”

Jake turned on the faucet, wet a rag and then shut it off. His arms circled her waist gently and he bathed her warm face and lips with a cool rag while Gus’s intent yellow eyes watched them both.

“How did you even know I felt queasy?”

“I heard a sound and wanted to make sure you were all right.”

“Probably the cup I broke when I ran in here. I’m sorry—”

“Forget it. I’ll sweep it up in a minute.”

“You must have been very late last night,” she said, finally looking up at him. Where was her pride? Why had she admitted she’d even noticed the hour?

His icy blue eyes were shadowed, with exhaustion she thought, and his dark face looked ravaged.

“Yes, I was late. Your light was out. I didn’t think you heard me come in.”

She wasn’t about to admit that she hadn’t, even though after her comedies she’d lain alone in the dark for hours listening to every sound the mansion had made. How had she missed his return?

“I didn’t want to bother you,” he said.

Not for the first time she wondered why he had insisted that they live together if her mere presence was such a torture to him he couldn’t stand to be in the same house with her.

“I didn’t get much sleep because your cat insisted on sleeping with me.”

“You should have locked him out then.”

“I did, but he yowled and scratched at my door until I let him back in. Then he lay on top of me purring for the rest of the night.”

“I tried to coax him downstairs to sleep with me earlier but I’m afraid he insisted on lying in wait for you outside your door.”

“Stubborn creatures, cats,” Jake said.

“Disloyal!” she snapped.

“They know what they want, and they never give up.”

Jake’s hard glance sought her face and then raked her body, causing confused emotions to course through her. Then he smiled. “I have a feeling he’s going to make a real nuisance of himself while we’re married. Funny thing—I sort of enjoyed his company last night. I didn’t feel like sleeping alone.”

If Gus was winning him so easily maybe there was a chance for her ….

A chance for what, you fool? This isn’t a real marriage. Jake’s lost lots of money and his reputation is in shreds. He blames you. Daddy’s been indicted because of him. You can’t forget any of that—ever!

And yet people dealt with crises and moved on, didn’t they?

“I’m all right now, so you can go,” she whispered, struggling to stand.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

The warmth of his hands lingered so caressingly on her arms that she was almost seduced into allowing herself the pleasure of his touch. Then she remembered how he’d cut her at their wedding and left her alone all last night. Shakily, she drew herself up taller and pushed his hands away.

“I know you don’t like me,” she said.

“Is this your perverse way of seeking a compliment?”

“No! Of course not!”

“I think it is, so I’ll have to dream one up.” He scratched his dark head.

If she didn’t know better, she would have thought his quick smile endearingly tender.

“You make it sound like that’s very difficult to do.”

His hand touched the back of her waist gently and then brushed her fingertips. “Not so difficult as you might think. It’s impossible to hate you, cher … knowing that you are carrying my child,” he murmured.

He squeezed her hand. “You were very beautiful yesterday. Okay. Enough compliments.” Then he threw his dark head back and laughed. “Be a good girl. It’s early. Quit looking for trouble. Take a shower and comb your hair. You’ll feel better, and maybe you won’t be so set on bringing out the worst in me—which is fairly easy for you to do—as I’m sure you know.”

Thirty minutes later a freshly showered Alicia walked into the kitchen and was surprised to find her husband sprawled at the table in crisp, pressed jeans and a white shirt, looking much too relaxed and handsome with his cup of coffee as he read the paper.

He’d eaten, washed his dishes and cooking utensils and put them away. So why was her husband, who preferred to avoid her, still hanging out in his tidy kitchen? Surely he wasn’t eagerly waiting for his temporary bride to appear.

Sunshine streamed through the windows, filling the mostly white room with golden light. He looked so content with his dark head bent over his paper, for a second she could almost forget how angrily he’d loomed beside her at their wedding yesterday before vanishing on their wedding night. She could almost imagine herself a happy bride.

Then their reality slammed her anew. He was her sworn enemy. Kindness from him was not to be counted on or treasured. It was to be distrusted. Thus, when he looked up at her with an amiable smile on his dark face, she frowned.

“What?” He sat up straighter and finger-combed his dark hair. “Am I guilty of some awful new crime or do I just have a crumb on my lip? Or nose?”

As he brushed his mouth and nose with his napkin, she laughed in spite of herself.

“No.”

“You want me gone so you can have the kitchen to yourself? Well, I won’t be bullied out of my own house.”

“I assumed you’d be at the office, avoiding me again … like last night,” she said.

“Right,” he said, “we’re the weirdo newlyweds who did some very interesting variations on sex—positions that are probably still illegal in some states—on this very table, but now we are supposed to have an aversion to sex.”

Maybe because he was so preoccupied with sex or the lack of it, she remembered lying naked on the kitchen table in this very room, crying out his name in the heat of her passion. She’d loved him that night, incoherently. With his every touch, with every flick of his tongue, he’d awakened a fire inside her she hadn’t known existed, and the embers of that fire still hadn’t gone out.

As he stared at the table, she began to sizzle.

Sensing an advantage when she blushed, he moved his hand back and forth across the smooth finish of the tabletop in the way he might stroke a woman. “You know you could change your mind about that. I won’t object.”

“But you don’t even like me.”

“I’m a man.” He ran his hand along the tabletop again, caressing it. “I can compartmentalize. Let’s just say my body likes yours, and it wonders … upon occasion … rather frequently—hell, all the time—how yours feels about mine. If you want the truth, I don’t think I slept a wink last night. I kept thinking of you in your bed and me upstairs sleeping with a cat.”

She moved to set a kettle boiling on the stove. “You make us sound like we’re no better than animals.”

“You’re in my house, cute as hell … available. I wouldn’t be normal if you didn’t tempt me.”

“Even though you hate my father?”

“He isn’t here. With any luck he’ll be sent to a place where he can’t hurt any more people.”

Fortunately, the tea kettle whistled. With hands that shook she pulled an egg out of the fridge and placed it in the middle of a pot. As she poured boiling water over it, the egg cracked. She set the pot on the stove top anyway. She was almost glad he’d reminded her of her father’s plight and the satisfaction he took in it. The knowledge helped her build up her defenses.

“I’m just being honest,” he said. “There’s a bit of the wild in us all. Why else do we have to spend years and years civilizing our young? Why else did we behave like we did that night? On this very table?”

“Stop ….”

“You brought out the beast. I think you liked it, too. In fact, I know you did.”

She wet her lips with her tongue and was too aware of his avid eyes glued to her moist lips. For six weeks she’d been a virtual prisoner in her apartment, hated by all. Loneliness and the desire for companionship had built into an almost palpable need. If he stuck around in the same room where she’d been so crazy to have him, saying he wanted her, she wasn’t sure how well she’d control her attraction for him.

“Can we please please change the subject?” she pleaded.

Newspapers rustled as he set his paper aside. “You mean … from sex?” he murmured thickly.

Afraid he’d see her flushed cheeks again and understand just how much he affected her, she kept her back to him. “Yes.”

“Okay,” he muttered. “Sure. Hey, here’s some good news for you that has nothing to do with sex. Nowhere in this newspaper did I see any mention of our marriage. Looks like we’re still flying under the radar. When people find out, I’ll be bombarded at the office. No telling who else will fire me.”

“I’m sorry for ruining your life. If you’ve finished your own breakfast, you don’t have to stay here just to entertain me, you know,” she whispered.

“I wanted to discuss a few more things—other than sex.”

The word sent more tingles through her. “Grrrr.”

He laughed. “I think you’re running as hot as I am. Maybe hotter.”

“What things did you want to discuss?” she said through gritted teeth, too hatefully aware of her heart racing.

“For starters, tomorrow I want to make some financial arrangements for you. Open a new account you can sign on, so you won’t feel so dependent on me.”

“Why would you do that when I imagine you want revenge for all those crimes you believe my father and I committed against you?”

“I didn’t dream up what you or your father did, so I’m under no illusions about your character. Or his. Especially his. But like you pointed out, you have no money or allies. You’re my wife and you’re carrying my baby. You need to buy things for yourself and our baby.”

“I couldn’t possibly accept—”

“Anything from me—the enemy.” His lips had tightened. “I’m afraid you’ll have to. What choice do either of us have? Much as I might want to treat you like a pauper, it would make me look bad. Much as you want to treat me as the enemy, you have no one else who cares as much as I do.

“Our baby needs a nursery. Supplies. A baby bed. God only knows what else. Am I right?”

She sighed. “I do want to create a charming nursery. I guess since I always had money, I never thought much about it. My job as an editor didn’t pay much, but it didn’t matter. I loved writing and editing, and I could rely on the trust fund money. So, now that the money’s all gone, I’ve got to get used to a new way of living. And thinking. I’ll need to think about a career.”

“True. But not now. Until the baby’s born, I’m going to take care of you. And the baby. That’s final.”

“Do your people always do what you say, when you say?”

“You’re my wife. My broke, pregnant wife. You’re my responsibility. You don’t have a choice. Why is that so difficult for you to grasp?”

“Maybe because ours is the last thing from a real marriage.”

“Right. So, let’s be sure and make ourselves just as miserable as we can at every possible opportunity. Is that your goal?”

No, this morning she just wanted to stay out of his arms … and his bed. His talking about sex had stirred her up.

Jake grabbed his paper and stood up.

Good. She wanted him gone, needed him gone. The sooner, the better. His kindness and concern for her this morning mixed with his sexiness unnerved her. She, who always read too much into kindnesses and into making love, didn’t want to soften toward him.

It wouldn’t be just sex for her as it would be for him. She would weave all sorts of interlocking emotions around an act that meant next to nothing to him, and each time she went to bed with him, her feelings for him would deepen. Pretty soon she’d be thinking they had a real relationship. He would be thinking she was easy and very replaceable the minute their baby was born. She would be thinking he would become a real husband and father.

Theirs was a marriage of convenience. She was living with him for the baby’s sake, so he might grow attached to it even before it was born.

For her own emotional safety, she had to keep her distance.

But could she?

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