Takeover: The Complete Series

by Lana Grayson

  “He won’t learn,” I said.

  “You gonna keep it secret? I don’t know much about pregnant women, but Sarah won’t look like a twig for much longer.”

  Reed grunted. “This is a nightmare. What the hell are we going to do?”

  “Nothing to do.” Max shrugged. “Get her some vitamins. Buy a crib. Sarah’s naive, but even she knew this was bound to happen.”

  “You heard her. We bred her like an animal. She’s carrying a Bennett.” He slammed his hand against the railing. “She’ll never forgive us.”

  “She’d never forgive us anyway,” Max said. “Grow up, Reed. She’s never been your friend. She’s an Atwood. We’re Bennetts. Our families have attempted to ruin each other for generations. You really think she was going to hop back in your bed? Dad held a gun to her head while you raped her. No one recovers from that. She’s just waiting for the right moment to take her revenge.”

  “She’s not like that.”

  “Then why haven’t you told her I killed her brothers?” he stared at Reed until he broke the gaze. “Yeah. Because you know what she’ll do.”

  I wasn’t tolerating this discussion with her in the house. If she learned we were the cause of her brothers’ plane crash, she’d hurt herself just for the chance to avenge those she loved.

  If it didn’t destroy her first.

  “No one is telling her what happened,” I said. “That secret died with her brothers.”

  “You don’t think she deserves the truth?” Reed asked.

  “She’s heard enough truths. We kidnapped a girl, let her suffer, and now I claimed a part of her she never meant to give. We should have taken better care of her. We should have helped her.”

  Reed wasn’t convinced. “She doesn’t want us anymore.”

  “She doesn’t have a choice.”

  Max laughed in genuine amusement, as though he expected this complication. “Sarah wants nothing to do with you, Nick. It doesn’t matter how you held her or how much you loved her, bottom line is she only tolerated that bullshit because she never thought she’d get pregnant. And now you’re the man who did it to her. You’re the man who stole her fortune, her farm, and her freedom. She’s going to hate you.”

  Like the thought wasn’t hurting every scar I earned for her. “She won’t.”

  “She’s going to hate all of us.”

  “She won’t.”

  “Christ, man!” Max smashed his bottle. The shards showered over the deck. “She’s pregnant! You’ll be goddamned lucky she doesn’t turn a gun on you once Dad is dead.”

  “She won’t.”

  “Bullshit. We took her family. We took her freedom. We ruined her.”

  “She’s stronger than that.”

  “Then she’s stronger than me.”

  Max cut himself on the bottle. He clenched his fist and shoved the sliding glass door open, leaving a streak of blood in his wake. It hadn’t been his first beer. It wouldn’t be his last.

  Now I had two people to care for and neither wanted my help. Reed called to me before I followed.

  “Let them be,” he said. “You want to help Max? Give him half of your liver once this is done.”

  “I’m not after Max.”

  “She should sleep.”

  “I have to talk to her.”

  Reed didn’t look at me. He stared out over the balcony, toward the ocean and waves Dad forbade him from enjoying after he graduated college.

  “If she wanted to talk, she’d be out here. Sarah’s not shy.”

  I exhaled. “It’s my baby. I have to…”

  “You don’t have to do a damned thing.” Reed pitched a pebble into the woods. “It’s already done. Don’t make it worse, or she won’t call us next time.”

  Call us?

  She hadn’t called us.

  She called Reed for help, not me.

  I’d have hated him for it if I wasn’t so damned grateful he brought her back.

  Reed surrendered his bed, but Sarah wasn’t sleeping. The light spilled from beneath her door. I rapped against the frame. She didn’t answer.

  Any other time, in any other circumstance, I’d have entered anyway.

  The situation changed, but I hadn’t. She was mine. She needed me even if she denied just how much she loved me. I wasn’t letting her escape.

  I knocked again. Her voice whispered, raw from coughing.

  “Go away.”

  I twisted the knob. The lock wasn’t sound. I jiggled, and it popped loose. Sarah expected it. She shakily rose from the floor, leaning against the door to the bathroom.

  All manner of nightmarish fears passed through my mind. I rushed forward to help her, but Sarah hurried to her feet before I touched her.

  “I’m fine,” she said.

  “Did you fall?”

  She didn’t look at me. Instead, she tugged the t-shirt lower. The booty shorts spelled Sexy on her behind. She used to wear them just so Max would have somewhere to aim his occasional smack. Now she hid from me.

  Hid everything.

  “The floor is cooler than the bed.” She brushed a hand through her sweaty hair but didn’t look at me. “Morning sickness comes at night too…constantly, actually.”

  I would have apologized. It felt like the time to apologize. But she wouldn’t have accepted it, and it wasn’t right to ask for forgiveness. Not now.

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  Sarah curled against the wall, and Hamlet plodded to her side, collapsing with a sigh. His head rested in her lap.

  At least she hadn’t been alone.

  “You should go,” she whispered. “I’m fine.”

  “You don’t look fine.”

  “It’s just nausea.” Her words hardened. “You knew this was a consequence.”

  I hadn’t intended to fight, and I wasn’t ready to leave. “Ginger ale?”

  “Nick, please.”

  “Saltines.”

  “No.”

  “You need to eat.”

  “I need you to let me rest.”

  Why hadn’t she looked at me? She avoided my gaze, flinched from my touch, and hardened with the same shell of anger which shielded her when we first kidnapped her.

  This wasn’t the Sarah Atwood who shared my bed and whispered stories of her childhood, the plans for her company and education, and her every secret fantasy.

  She trembled with fatigue and stress. Her fists hid within the ginger curls of Hamlet’s coat. For a woman two months pregnant, she looked tinier than ever. Thin, delicate—a little fairy too tired to fly even when danger crept close.

  “I’m taking you to a doctor in the morning.”

  Sarah refused my hand. She groaned as she stood, leaning toward the bathroom. She breathed deeply, coughed, and steadied.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Have you seen a doctor?”

  “Yes.”

  “Recently?”

  “Don’t.” Now she did look at me, but her warning glance wouldn’t deter me. “Don’t you dare.”

  “What?”

  “I will not have you tell me how to handle this. I was checked out after I took the pregnancy test. They said I’m fine. It’s under control.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  “Nick—”

  “You said it yourself. You’re not feeling well. You’re exhausted. And your asthma is not controlled. You need to get checked over again. We’ll do it tomorrow.”

  “I don’t need your help.”

  “Then why did you come back to me?”

  I edged closer. If she refused my comfort, I wouldn’t offer it, but she’d know how serious I was about it. About her.

  “You left me. You ran. If you could have handled it yourself, you never would have returned. But here you are, nowhere left to go. So you might as well ask the father for help.”

  “Yeah, I want your help to kill Darius,” she said. “But the baby and my health are my concerns.”

  “They’re mine too.”
>
  “Not anymore.”

  “They will always be my concern, Sarah.”

  “You don’t have that right. Not now. Not after what’s happened. Everything’s changed.”

  “Then we’ll change with it.”

  She turned, sipping from a glass of water on the nightstand. “You don’t understand.”

  “Then let me.”

  Silence. A refusal.

  What went wrong in the two months since I left her bed? Had we hurt her that badly?

  “You called Reed,” I said.

  That insult hurt, but it was the only admission of my pain I’d give the woman who caused it.

  “I did.”

  “Why not me?”

  She hesitated a moment too long. “I didn’t know what to do.”

  “You never needed to run from me. I would have come.”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  “It’s exactly that simple. I love you, Sarah. You should never have gone through this alone.”

  Her eyebrow arched. “I never should have gone through this at all.”

  I had no counter for our past crimes. “Let me help you.”

  “There’s nothing you can do now.”

  “Just give me the chance. Midnight craving food runs. Foot rubs. Doctor’s appointments—”

  “You don’t get it, do you?” her voice wavered. She couldn’t look at me. “It’s over, Nick. The Bennetts have caused me nothing but pain. You don’t deserve the chance to be a part of my life, and I’ll be damned if you’re part of the baby’s.”

  The rage flared, quick and hot. “That’s my child too, Sarah.”

  She said nothing. Maybe I didn’t deserve anything more than her silence, but my child did.

  “You aren’t leaving me.”

  “I won’t let this baby grow up in this madness. He deserves better than what happened to me.”

  “I agree. That’s why I won’t let anything harm you or him.”

  “It’s too late for that,” she said. “I’ve already been harmed. Many times. Too many times. You did nothing. You still can’t protect me, not while Darius is alive and looking for me.”

  “Don’t waste a single thought on him. I’ll take care of it.”

  “I’ve lost myself in fear of your father for too long,” she whispered. “But not anymore. You and I will end him, and then I’m gone.”

  “And you plan to…what?” I asked. “Have a baby alone?”

  “What alone?” she shrugged. “I am Sarah Atwood. I am a goddamned billionaire. I have farms, ranches, land, and control over two companies. My farm is one of the wealthiest top ten private companies in the fucking world.”

  “So?”

  She scoffed. “So? My child will have the best of everything. The best home. The best clothing and toys and opportunities. The best education. The best tutors in languages and business and art and any topic he’d ever want to learn. He will want for nothing.”

  “What about a father?”

  She didn’t hesitate. “I had a father, and the only thing he did was make me feel unwanted and unappreciated.”

  “You don’t think I’d be as cruel as Mark Atwood.”

  “No, you’re a Bennett. You’d be worse.”

  “You don’t believe that.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I’ve made my decision.”

  “And you didn’t consult me.”

  “You don’t have a say in it, Nicholas.”

  “I have every right! You are carrying my child!”

  I didn’t let her move away. The guilt lacerated me with every backwards step she took to flee from me. Her back pressed against the wall, and I’d forever hate myself for pinning her there, my arms on either side of her body.

  “Do you think I’d let you leave me? Do you think I wouldn’t spend every dollar to my name, call in every favor my family is owed, and slit any throat to track you to the ends of the earth?”

  “You sound just like Darius.”

  The accusation was meant to hurt, and it did. I clenched my teeth. “I was taught family was worth more than any stock, land, or company.”

  “We aren’t a family.”

  “We could be. You and me and the baby.”

  “It will never work.”

  I leaned down to feel the warmth of her body. God, I missed this woman. “How do you know?”

  She squirmed against the wall. “Please, let me go.”

  “No.”

  “Damn it, Nick. You didn’t kidnap me because you wanted to start a family. You raped me to get an heir to my family’s farm.”

  “I never raped—” The memory struck both of us. I buried the truth. “I never intended to hurt you. It’s not the same now as when we first took you. We’re meant for each other.”

  “We’re not.”

  “We’re both broken. The only time I feel remotely human is when I’m with you. My heart stops when I’m near you, but it’s because of you I even have this empathy. You saved me from becoming a monster like…”

  I couldn’t say it. Neither could she.

  I continued, dragging a breath just to smell her sweet scent. “I could spend every day for the rest of my life trying to earn your forgiveness, and you’d have the right to hate me. I only ask that you let me try. Let me be part of this. Let me…”

  I reached for her, gently brushing the back of my hand along her stomach, pressing just enough to feel her warmth through the shirt. Somewhere, deep inside her, the greatest miracle and the most dangerous complication to our lives snuggled safe and warm.

  I couldn’t live without her.

  I wouldn’t live without the child.

  She let me touch her only because she had no other escape, but I wasn’t losing the chance to feel her once more.

  I leaned in. Her breathing hitched. She stilled as I pressed my lips to hers. That was honest. That was genuine. The swelling hardness and her wavering sigh wasn’t a reaction we could deny.

  Her kiss answered with the same ragged desperation—two months of loss and struggle and exhaustion shattered in the shared heat that drew us together. The nibbled pleasure strengthened me. Her touch, her shiver, every supple quiver of her body belonged to me and me alone.

  I lost her to fear, but she wouldn’t push from my arms. Not when she promised more in the reluctant brush of her lips than any words she had spoken since she returned to us.

  I might have pressed hard against her. Held her against the wall and cupped her thighs, her ass, her breasts. In another time, without the hesitance and uncertainty, I wouldn’t have waited. Sarah would’ve landed on the bed, spread beneath me in a murmur of protests and the relentless heat of a vixen waiting to be taken.

  But my hand rested on the vulnerable, quiet part of her. I wouldn’t jeopardize her or him, not when they were both so fragile. I savored the kiss but pulled away, holding her pale, widened eyed gaze.

  She hid secrets and fears and pain from me. It tore me apart.

  “Let me love you,” I whispered. “Let me show you that I can protect you and pleasure you and be a father to my—”

  The touch was too much. Or maybe it was the promise.

  Sarah cried out, batting my arms and rushing to the center of the room.

  Away from the bed.

  She fought the harsh coughing that stole her breath and shoved me away when I wanted nothing more than to help her.

  “Don’t. No.” She closed her eyes and murmured the words once more to herself. “I can’t.”

  “Tell me what you want.”

  “I want you to go.”

  “Ask me anything else.”

  “There is nothing else, Nick. You know what we have to do to free ourselves from this nightmare.”

  “It’s not a nightmare with you. Not for me.”

  “That’s the difference then, isn’t it?” she hadn’t cried yet, but the tears slipped now. “I’m living in the hell you caused. The only thing you can do for me is to help punish the one responsible and then
let me go…” Her words broke. “If you cared for me at all, you won’t have me say it again.”

  “It’s because I care for you so much that I’d make you say it, again and again, every minute of the day, until you realize the mistake you’re making.”

  “It will only hurt you.”

  “I’m in love with you, Sarah Atwood. And nothing you say or do will hurt me more than my own guilt. I want you to be mine. I’m asking you to be mine.”

  “You can’t give me a choice now. Not after everything that’s happened. Not now that you’ve gained everything you and your father wanted from me.”

  “I have an heir,” I said. “And my name will live on, but Sarah, my life is meaningless without you.”

  Her words echoed with heartache. “Why do I wish we’d never met?”

  I encroached again, tipping her chin, taking a kiss salty with tears from lips numb with sorrow.

  “I wish I hadn’t either,” I said. “If only so I could start again, right here, right now, and love you the way I should have loved you from the beginning.”

  I released her, giving her the space she needed. She should have been held, warmed, caressed. Instead, she cradled herself. Alone.

  “I’ll take care of my father. Trust me. You’ll never have to think of him again.”

  Her hand covered her stomach. “I won’t let you take this revenge from me.”

  Taking a life while nurturing a life. She thought it was her right. I would never let it happen, never let the blood stain her hands or that final innocence be lost.

  Once my father was gone, nothing would prevent me from earning her trust, rebuilding our love, and beginning our family.

  Sarah carried my son.

  And soon, my father would never again haunt her.

  6

  Nicholas

  Sarah Atwood didn’t just go to war. She scorched the earth, salted the ground, and stained what remained with blood.

  Even her most devious plan encompassed solid business sense and a practical eye for details. But she hadn’t the experience to know when to slice the throat instead of gutting her target for pleasure. If I had it my way, she’d never learn.

  But her revenge was plotted long before she called Reed to bring her home. I hadn’t expected it. I didn’t approve of it.