Max had already thought about it and didn’t like the conclusion he had reached, but there wasn’t any other explanation for Amber Rose’s existence. “Lauren somehow managed to drug me after all.”
His parents’ reaction was immediate.
“How?”
“What happened?”
“Were you okay?”
“Why didn’t you tell us!”
“What kind of drug was it?”
They asked at the same time, their voices growing more frantic with each question.
“I can’t be sure about the drug she used on me, because I wasn’t aware she used any until I discovered that she was Amber Rose’s mother and connected the dots with that night on the yacht. But it can’t be otherwise because I always use precaution—” He gave Vivienne an apologetic shrug. His parents wouldn’t get upset about the topic, but maybe Vivienne would. He didn’t know her, although he wanted her to be privy to his life. It was a foreign concept, and yet a pleasant one.
Vivienne blushed a little. “We are all adults,” she said, waving her hand for him to continue.
“The pill I caught her sneaking into my drink was the classic date rape mix, but in a dosage that would have affected me. I don’t remember feeling confused before or after I sent Lauren away, but she must have used something that altered my perceptions.” As much as he racked his brain for an answer, Max couldn’t find any.
“She could have punctured your condoms,” Vivienne said in the lowest of whispers, her eyes glued to the point of her boots.
“Of course.” Max wondered how he hadn’t thought of that himself. The simplest answer was always the most plausible one.
Lauren could’ve done the deed when she went to refresh herself in the master bathroom that was attached to the bedroom.
“Of course,” he repeated, shaking his head.
19
Vivienne was changing Amber Rose when Max appeared at the door of the guest bathroom.
“Has everyone left?” she asked, securing the baby’s diaper so that it wouldn’t be too tight.
“Wilson is driving my parents home.” Max leaned against the doorframe. The dark circles under his eyes and the weariness in his expression spoke volumes about how tired he was.
“How are you holding up?” Vivienne buttoned Amber Rose’s onesie and raised her to her chest for a last cuddle.
“I was such an idiot,” he said, messing with his hair. “But I don’t regret that night. Amber Rose is the result of my carelessness, after all.”
“Don’t beat yourself up. You couldn’t have known that this girl would go to such extremes to get pregnant.” Vivienne leaned in to smell the baby’s head.
Maybe not today or tomorrow, but one day soon, Max wouldn’t need her services any longer. Vivienne knew it was the way of life. Every baby she had cared for had eventually grown up, and she had moved on to the next family. Bur Amber Rose was different. Vivienne had named her.
“I’m sorry you had to listen to the details about her mother.” Max pointed his chin at the baby. “I’ve had lots of women—”
Before his words could hurt her, Vivienne raised her free hand to stop him. “It’s not my business, and you don’t owe me an explanation.” Her jealousy was irrational, and she better nip the sentiment in the bud. One thing was falling for Max, another deluding herself that he could reciprocate.
“Let me finish,” he gently rebuked her, a tired smile tugging at his fleshy lips.
“Please.” She nodded, mimicking the action of zipping her mouth close.
Amused, he shook his head slightly before continuing, “There’s obviously something between us. We both feel it.” He let the thought sink in for a few seconds. “But this is a very fucked up moment in my life, and I understand if you’d rather run as far away from me as you can.”
“I wouldn’t—” she said over his words.
“It’s going to get worse, way worse, before this situation gets any better,” he continued as if he hadn’t heard her. “And I don’t want you to be dragged down with me.”
This time, she waited for him to take a pause before talking again. “I don’t care.”
Max’s eyes shone brighter for a moment. Soon, his expression darkened. “You say this now because you are a good person and don’t know how low people can sink for money or revenge.”
“I don’t care,” she repeated louder, reaching for him. “I won’t leave you two alone.”
He stepped into the bathroom, coming close to Vivienne, towering over her. With any other guy, she would’ve felt crowded in. Usually, a few chosen words would follow, and she would stomp away, carrying herself straight. Max was different. For one, he didn’t use his body to intimidate her but made her feel safe. And the way he looked at her right now, devouring her with hungry eyes, melted her heart.
That was the problem with bad boys. They didn’t believe in half measures but rode through life at two hundred miles per hours, always a blink away from disaster. Like a moth circling the flames closer and closer, Vivienne knew that getting ideas about Maximus Prize was stupid at best and most assuredly dangerous, but she couldn’t stop herself from wondering what it felt like to be the center of his attention.
“I’m damaged goods,” Max said, his voice low and gravelly, reaching something deep inside Vivienne.
“Do you want me to leave? Is that why you’re trying so hard to scare me away?” she asked, swaying toward him.
“I want you to stay but it isn’t fair to you. We’ve just met.” He leaned in.
“You can drop the hard-to-get act. I’ve already said I won’t leave you and Amber Rose to fend for yourselves when you need me the most.” Vivienne’s head spun. His clean, male scent enveloped her as his gaze went predatory. Still, she wasn’t scared.
“Thank you.” The words rumbled between them, heating the air several degrees. Max dipped his head, his mouth red and inviting as he kept staring into her eyes.
Amber Rose stirred in her arms, bringing Vivienne down to earth. “I’ll sleep in the guestroom with the baby,” she said, needing a safe topic.
“It isn’t necessary,” he said, his mouth a hairbreadth from hers.
“It’s easier for me when I need to feed Amber Rose during the night.”
“I have no intention of leaving her alone. She’ll sleep in my room, so I can check on her.”
His statement pleased Vivienne because it confirmed the idea she was building of him as a responsible father, but it also displeased her greatly. She was being replaced sooner than she had thought. Still, she couldn’t be disappointed that he was being nothing less than an outstanding guy.
“I can keep using the guest bedroom in that case.” She made to move toward the door, but his humongous body was in the way.
Max hesitated for the longest moment before moving sideways, letting her pass.
“I’ll need toiletries and changes of clothes for the rest of the week,” she said, looking over her shoulder on her way to the guestroom. In all the commotion, she had forgotten to ask Jack to grab something from her apartment.
“I’ve had a few things brought for you already.” Max followed only a step behind, close enough she could sense his warmth radiating from him. “I’ll go grab them,” he said when they reached Amber Rose’s temporary nursery.
He split, continuing along the hallway, and Vivienne remained at the door a moment longer to watch his large retreating form. He was a protector, through and through, and a bad boy turned protector was impossible to resist.
Max came back a few minutes later with two Nordstrom bags and a Target one. “Just a few things I thought you’d need. I know it was highhanded of me to take for granted you would stay—”
She stopped him with a smile. “It’s okay.” Taking a brief look at the bags he placed on the small desk under the window, she said, “That’s enough clothes and toiletries for a full month.” She picked up an angora sweater and couldn’t help but rub the soft fabric between her fingers before
checking its label. “This is my size,” she commented, surprised. It was difficult to find clothes in the petite sizes that would fit her properly. “How did you know?”
“It’s my special power,” he answered, his right dimple making an appearance when he smiled. “I can tell a girl’s size by looking at her.” A long once-over accompanied his bold statement.
Vivienne felt the heat of his gaze as it traveled from her mouth to her chest. Amber Rose stirred in her arms, breaking the sensual moment and transforming Max’s hooded look into adoration for the baby.
He reached for his daughter, and the baby’s face lit when her green eyes focused on him. A happy giggle escaped her mouth when he took her in his strong arms. Vivienne inwardly sighed at the picture-perfect sight they made.
“You are the most beautiful baby-dragon in the whole world,” Max cooed, his head tilted to the side as he tenderly looked at Amber Rose.
The baby girl, who had been wide awake a moment earlier, dropped her head forward as if she had fallen asleep at once.
Vivienne’s heart momentarily stopped beating.
Something was terribly wrong with Amber Rose. Vivienne knew it with an inner certainty she couldn’t explain.
“Baby’s tired,” Max said, raising his eyes to Vivienne.
She wasn’t fast enough and hid her emotions a moment too late.
Max’s eyes darkened. With a worried expression, he turned Amber Rose in his arms. “She’s just sleeping.” His statement sounded a lot like a question. He gently cradled her as his large hand cupped the small face that was now expressionless and too still.
His pained roar jumpstarted Vivienne to action. She reached for her cell phone and called the Shifter Neonatal ER.
20
“This is an emergency—”
From a distant corner in his mind, Max heard Vivienne make the call. He kept rocking Amber Rose against his chest. Her little body was getting colder, her breathing was so soft he could barely hear it, and she wasn’t moving any longer.
“Please, Goddess, don’t take her away from me,” he whispered, repeating the words several times.
“They sent an ambulance,” Vivienne said.
Max’s dragon let out a tremendous roar, the beast’s fear amplifying Max’s own as he dipped lower to check his daughter’s breathing and couldn’t hear any.
Amber Rose’s already pale skin became blue around her little mouth.
“There’s no time—” He ran with the baby to the back terrace he had used not so long ago for his emergency landing. “Hold her,” he said to Vivienne, handing Amber Rose to her as he jumped onto the balustrade and started shifting without bothering to discard his clothes first.
His dragon took immediate control and opened his wings, his long neck craning toward Vivienne. He raised one talon and turned it palm up.
Vivienne hesitated, but his low growl spurred her into action, and she placed the baby in the safety of his talon. He closed his long fingers around his daughter, creating a harness. Without hesitation, he flapped his wings and soared high in the sky, leaving the high-rise and Vivienne behind. He flew as fast as he could, not caring if anyone saw him.
A moment later, he descended toward Seattle Shifter Hospital at full speed. Two ambulances and several cars moved out of his way as he landed in front of the entrance. He deposited Amber Rose on the ground, shifting back in record time and picking her up again.
Naked and on the brink of insanity, Max burst into the hospital. “Neonatal ER!” he said at the top of his lungs.
“This way,” a nurse answered, gesturing for him to follow her. After taking a brief glance at Amber Rose, she sprinted into a run, leading him deeper into the bowels of the hospital. All along, she talked into her cell phone she kept in front of her like a walkie talkie, asking Max questions about the baby and passing his answers to someone on the other end.
At the end of a long hallway, two nurses and a doctor exited the Neonatal Ward, running straight toward them as they wheeled a stretcher. The doctor reached for Amber Rose. Max snarled.
“I need to take a look at her,” the doctor said. She was a were-panther in her mid-forties with stern features and short hair. “If she isn’t breathing, we need to act immediately.” Without waiting for Max to comply with her request, she took hold of Amber Rose and placed her on the stretcher.
Max’s enraged growl echoed in the hallway, but the doctor didn’t flinch.
Instead, she gave the nurses a few sharp orders and pushed the stretcher behind the Neonatal Ward’s door. Max followed her, but the nurse who had accompanied him placed a hand against his chest.
“I know you are terrified for your daughter, but Doctor Kalisten is the best shifter pediatrician in Seattle, and she will do everything in her power to make your little one feel better,” the nurse said, talking in a soft tone.
Max stepped to the side with the intention of moving past her.
The nurse was surprisingly fast and blocked his passage. “You can’t enter the Neonatal Ward. There are sick babies there, and you might bring with you all sorts of germs and viruses. Let the good doctor do her job.”
This time, the nurse’s words penetrated his thick skull. Max slumped to the floor then, his energy drained and his heart galloping fast against his chest.
“Come,” the nurse said, patting his shoulder. “Let’s find something to cover you.”
It was half an hour later when Vivienne and Wilson entered one of the waiting rooms and found Max sitting in a corner, hugging the edges of the thin blanket the nurse had given him.
He looked up as Vivienne handed him a Nordstrom bag. “They took Amber Rose and haven’t told me what’s happening to her,” he said. He had stormed into the hallway, demanding someone inform him about his daughter, but the nurses simply told him to calm down and wait where he wouldn’t be underfoot. “I asked them—”
“I’ll ask again.” Wilson pivoted on his heels and darted toward the reception desk facing the waiting room.
Vivienne sat on the chair next to Max’s and took his hand.
“She was fine, and then she wasn’t.” Max shook his head. “I don’t understand.”
Without saying a word, Vivienne hugged him.
“I don’t understand,” he repeated, leaning into her embrace, needing the human contact as his eyes blurred.
Max didn’t cry. He had never cried. Not even when he was small and weak, and the bullies at school had relentlessly picked on him. The counselors his parents hired for him always stressed the importance of having a good cry to let his anger out, but he never followed their suggestions.
Lacking the strength to stop them, he let the tears fall. Vivienne’s embrace became tighter around him, and even though he dwarfed her, she managed to surround him with her warmth.
“Everything will be all right,” she said, her voice a solid anchor he held on to. “She’s strong like her daddy.” Her hands caressed his back with soothing strokes. “You need to put something on.”
Max remembered the bag she had pushed into his hands. Reluctantly, he left the safety of her arms and walked to the restroom where he put on the change of clothes she had selected for him. Wilson came back at the same time Max strolled into the waiting room.
Max looked at his friend. “Any news?”
Wilson shook his head. “They wouldn’t tell me anything but promised me that the doctor attending Amber Rose will be out shortly to talk to you.” He sat and patted the chair next to him, motioning for Max to sit as well.
“I’ve had enough of sitting.” Max paced the small room back and forth for a long time. His mind ran in circles as he thought of his little baby with her pale face and blue lips, lying still in his arms.
21
Vivienne’s heart broke for Max over and over again. His anguish was too painful to bear.
She knew what it meant to have one’s life destroyed in the blink of an eye, and nothing she could do or say would make it better. Still, she kept at Max’s side a
ll the same.
By the time a doctor entered the waiting room, they were all on edge. The she-panther beelined for Max as he shot up. The tag on her scrub said Dr. Kalisten, and she had a no-nonsense air about her.
“Mr. Prize,” the doctor said.
“How’s my daughter?” Max asked.
Vivienne reached for his hand, wrapping his fingers with hers and squeezing lightly.
“Please.” Dr. Kalisten motioned for Max to sit, and she led by example, lowering herself to a vacant chair first. Vivienne pulled at his hand, and he took the seat by the doctor as Vivienne sat beside him.
“We have stabilized your daughter’s condition. She’s still critical, but we moved her from the ER to the ICU, and we are monitoring her,” the doctor said. Her severe features made her look hostile, but her soft voice and the sympathetic light in her eyes told a different tale.
“What does she have?” Max choked out the question in one breath, making it difficult to understand the single words.
The doctor answered without missing a beat, though. “She suffered a cardiac arrest—”
“Cardiac arrest?” Max said. “She’s so little. How could that happen to her?”
“She was born with a weak heart,” Doctor Kalisten answered.
“She’s a dragon shifter. We don’t have congenital defects.” Max jumped up, and Vivienne gently pulled him down.
The doctor’s eyes went briefly to the television in the corner where Wilson stood. The audio was muted but the video showed the Asian reporter on the main screen. Max’s name appeared in stocky letters at the bottom.
“I don’t want to assume anything, but your daughter’s mother was mortal, right?” Doctor Kalisten asked, her chin slightly tilted toward the television. Given the local news coverage, it wasn’t a surprise the doctor had heard about Amber Rose’s mother. And even if she hadn’t left the ER all day, one of the nurses had surely brought her up to speed.
Max nodded as his body tensed.
Vivienne felt his anger like it was her own.
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