Ultimatum: Marriage / For the Sake of the Secret Child

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.