Mystery Lover

by Lisa Childs

  “Turn it up!” she bossily directed him.

  His daughter was coming back to her old self. He smiled and obeyed, pressing the volume button until Jillian’s sexy voice filled the room and his senses.

  “This is my last night at WXXM,” she reported. “After tonight’s broadcast, I will be leaving for my new position in New York City.”

  “No!” Tabitha voiced his protest in a loud wail.

  No! he silently exclaimed. She couldn’t leave….

  But why had he expected her to stay? Even before he had gotten to know her, he’d known she was too talented and too ambitious to be happy for long at a local station.

  “Jilly saved me from that bad nanny and the fake daddy,” she said. “I need to thank her for helping me. I—I asked other people to help me. The nanny. Some of the guards. But Jilly was the only one who really helped me.”

  He hadn’t. As her father, it was his job to protect her from harm. But he’d failed her. Jillian Drake was the one who’d saved her.

  “You should thank Jillian,” he agreed as he studied the reporter’s beautiful face on the flat screen across from his bed. He didn’t have to watch her on television, though. He saw her every time he closed his eyes. He saw her as she’d been in his bed, naked and passionate. And he saw her as she’d been when he found her in the warehouse, bruised and bleeding. He finally realized that after what she’d gone through because of him, she deserved to tell the story that had made her career.

  She deserved so much more than that, though. So much more than him. Part of his punishment had been monetary; he had to make restitution for the collateral damage he’d done. He probably wouldn’t have much of the ransom left. And he didn’t want to work the long hours it would take to amass the fortune he’d destroyed. It didn’t matter to him anymore, though.

  He should just let her go to the life she’d wanted ever since she’d gotten knocked around in her childhood. Growing up poor and hungry was why Tobias had worked so hard for money and security. But because he understood her so well, he knew that Jillian needed more than career success for true happiness. She needed love.

  “Can I make her a pretty thank-you card?” Tabitha asked him.

  “You may do that, too. But first you can thank her in person,” he said.

  Jillian had been so worried about his child that she probably needed to see Tabitha as much as the little girl needed to see Jillian. He shouldn’t have kept them apart these past couple of weeks. He realized now that he hadn’t avoided her because he didn’t trust her, but because he didn’t trust himself. He’d never had the best judgment when it came to women. Until now…

  Tabitha’s eyes brightened with a smile that lit up her whole face. “I can?”

  He nodded, his heart filling with love for two females. His daughter. And Jillian. “Let’s go.”

  “Now?” she asked hopefully.

  He lifted her from the bed. “Yes.”

  She gave a delighted squeal as he swung her up in his arms. “But I’m in my pajamas.”

  “You’re perfect.”

  Jillian would love her. He had no doubt about that.

  But did she love him enough to stay in River City?

  JILLIAN WAITED for the prompt that indicated the end of the commercial break, her attention on the director and the teleprompter, so that she could read the closing remarks of the broadcast. Then she intended to add a few words of her own—a personal goodbye.

  A murmur rose up from the crew, distracting her into glancing around the crowded studio. She glimpsed dark hair and broad shoulders, high above everyone else.

  Tobias?

  People, awestruck as they usually were in his presence, moved aside, out of his way, and she noticed the little girl walking next to him. Tabitha held on to one of his big hands.

  “Is that Tobias St. John?” another voice asked, this one coming through her earpiece.

  She nodded. Even if she hadn’t known that Edward was locked up, she would have never mistaken Tobias for his twin again. “Yes.”

  “Tobias St. John in our studio?” Mike asked through her earpiece. “Did you know he was coming?”

  “No.” She had been waiting for two weeks, waiting for him to change his mind and come to her. But all her waiting had been in vain. Until now.

  Over the heads of her crew, she met his gaze. Why was he here now…when she was about to leave?

  “Jillian, you’re on!” the director shouted.

  “Make an announcement that a special guest has joined us in the studio,” Mike, the producer, urged through her earpiece.

  Jillian smiled, but gave a just-perceptible shake of her head. However, her fellow anchor, an ambitious young man, had no such qualms. “Jillian, look who has come down to the station. The notoriously publicity-shy Tobias St. John.” Andrew, the anchor, turned toward the visitor. “Mr. St. John, have you come down to answer some follow-up questions?”

  She met Tobias’s gaze and offered him an apologetic smile. But he had to know what he had risked coming down to the station during a live broadcast. His privacy.

  Or had her special report already destroyed that and he had just come down to confront her over running the story despite her promise to keep it off the record?

  “I do need to speak to Ms. Drake,” he said, his deep voice an ominous rumble.

  “Mr. St. John didn’t come down here for an inter view,” Jillian said with a glare at Andrew. She pulled out her earpiece, cutting off Mike’s shouted protests.

  “No,” Tobias agreed. “I’m not here to answer questions. I intend to ask some.”

  Jillian shivered; he had definitely come down to yell at her. And apparently he didn’t mind doing it on-air since he allowed Vicky to attach a microphone to his shirt.

  Andrew glanced at her and lifted his brow. Then he turned back to their visitor. “And what are your questions, Mr. St. John?” he asked. “Do you have a problem with the report our own Jillian Drake did about you and your evil twin?”

  Jillian glanced at the teleprompter, but it had only the closing remarks for the broadcast. So who was feeding the idiot his lines? Definitely not Vicky.

  But no matter how inane the question, Jillian wanted to know the answer. Did he have a problem with her report? Did he feel as betrayed as she’d worried that he would?

  His blue-eyed gaze met hers and held. “I did have a problem,” Tobias admitted, a muscle twitching along his hard jaw. “But then I realized why she had to share my story with the public.”

  “Because the public has a right to know,” Andrew said, “especially after everything the city went through during those two weeks—with the explosions and the curfew.”

  Jillian stared at the little girl who clutched her daddy’s hand. “It wasn’t just the city that went through he…heck,” she reminded everyone. “Everything Mr. St. John did, he did to protect his daughter from a psychopathic maniac.”

  “But Ms. Drake is the one who saved my daughter’s life,” Tobias said. “And mine.” He lifted Tabitha in his arms. “And she wants to say something to Ms. Drake before Jillian leaves the city for her new job.”

  Static emanated from the audio system as Tobias fumbled with the mike, lifting it toward the little girl’s lips. “I—I want to thank Jilly for helping me,” Tabitha said.

  You’re welcome, Jillian mouthed the words, just as the child had mouthed that plea to her a couple of weeks ago.

  Tabitha’s soft voice cracked with emotion as she added, “She saved me…”

  Tobias whispered something in the little girl’s ear.

  “And my daddy, too,” she added with a smile that pulled at the heartstrings of every person in the room.

  “Ah, isn’t she sweet,” Andrew murmured with a trace of bitterness. Apparently, he wasn’t as charmed by Tabitha as everyone else was. “But Mr. St. John, you said you had a question for Ms. Drake,” the anchor reminded Tobias.

  Jillian trembled. He wouldn’t yell at her in front of his daughter; he woul
dn’t want to frighten the child after everything she’d been through. So what was his question…?

  Her heart pounded in anticipation. But she didn’t want to have this conversation in front of the cameras and the crew. She didn’t want to be the story. “We’re running over,” she pointed out, wondering what the heck had happened to the director. “We need to sign off for the night.”

  “I think everyone wants to know what Mr. St. John wants to ask you,” Andrew said.

  “Does Ms. Drake?” Tobias asked. “Or am I too late?”

  Forgetting the cameras and the crew, Jillian focused only on the man she loved. “Why are you really here? Now…” When she was about to leave…

  “My daughter wanted to thank you,” he said as he pressed a kiss to Tabitha’s temple. “And she’s pretty hard to say no to.” Tobias walked closer to the broadcast desk until he stood across from Jillian.

  “I was going to make you a card,” the little girl murmured. He laughed at having his excuse blown.

  And Jillian’s breath caught at his masculine beauty. She’d never seen him like this—happy and relaxed. Her heart shifted in her chest as it beat harder with excitement. He wasn’t Dante anymore. He’d made it out of hell.

  Then he met her gaze again, and his grin faded.

  “Why did you really come down here?” she asked.

  “I wanted to—I had to—see you again.”

  “You can see me,” she reminded him as she tugged off her mike and walked around the desk so that she stood beside him and Tabitha. “All you have to do is turn on your television.”

  “I had to touch you,” he said as he trailed the fingertips of his free hand across her cheek. “I had to kiss you….” His mouth brushed across her lips.

  Jillian sighed with pleasure. But he pulled back before either of them could deepen the kiss.

  “Daddy!” Tabitha squealed. “You kissed Jilly!”

  “Is that okay?”

  With wide blue eyes, she looked from him to Jillian and back. Then she gave a solemn nod of approval. “It’s great. I think you should marry her.”

  Jillian gasped. And Tobias laughed again, the sound echoing throughout the studio as everyone watching them laughed, too.

  Beneath her dark curls, Tabitha’s brow furrowed with confusion. “Daddy, don’t you think it’s a good idea?”

  “I think it’s a great idea,” he assured her. “But I wanted to do the asking.” And there, with the entire viewing audience of River City watching him, he knelt in front of Jillian. “Will you marry me? Will you become my wife and the mother of my child?”

  Even though he was on his knees, Jillian wasn’t much taller than him. So she was able to stare directly into his eyes, able to see the love in the pale blue depths. No one had ever looked at her like that before; the power of it had tears stinging her eyes and sobs burning in her throat.

  “I’m not asking you to give up your new job,” he said. “We’ll move with you…if you want us in your life.”

  “I—I want…” she said. “I want to know…why you’re proposing.” She couldn’t just assume what she saw in his eyes was love; she’d been mistaken too many times before to trust her instincts.

  “Tell her, Daddy,” Tabitha urged him in a loud whisper.

  Laughter emanated from the crowd again, but Jillian barely heard them. She was too focused on him.

  “I love you,” he said, giving her the words she’d needed. “I love you so much that I can’t imagine my life without you in it.”

  “I can’t imagine my life without you two,” she said. “I accepted that job. I packed my suitcases, but I don’t think I really could have left you and Tabitha.”

  “You really weren’t going to leave without saying goodbye?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “I couldn’t leave you. I love you, too.”

  A cheer went up from the crowd, but she waved her hand to silence them. Then she turned her attention back to the man she loved. Looping one arm around his neck and the other around the back of the little girl he held, she accepted his proposal. “I will marry you. I will become your wife and Tabitha’s mother and the mother of all the other children we’ll have.”

  She wanted a big family now because she knew, with Tobias, she and her children would be safe. And loved.

  With eternal gratitude to Denise Zaza for pulling my first Intrigue manuscript from the slush pile eight years ago. I will never be able to thank you enough for making my longtime dream of becoming a published author a reality.

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-5676-1

  MYSTERY LOVER

  Copyright © 2010 by Lisa Childs-Theeuwes

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