Hard to Hold

by Incy Black

  “For how long, Nick? A fortnight? A month? Indefinitely…?”

  Clearly frustrated, she’d thrown her arms wide, the thin cotton of her shirt stretching tight across her breasts. He swallowed. Definitely didn’t trust himself. Not around her. Much as he hated to admit it, when not stoking his temper, she fired up an unwelcome lust, every curve of her body calling to his. The memory of her hot and trembling beneath him, keening with need, fried his brain.

  “…the police are nowhere near identifying who’s doing this, let alone stopping him. I’ve worked too long and too hard to abandon my business and home for some sick freak.”

  Nick snapped back to the present. “At least you’re finally prepared to accept he is sick, that this is something more than a sad obsession. And you’re going somewhere safe. I want you out of the way.”

  Back teeth clenched hard enough to score steel, he marked the slow rise of pink as it climbed her face, chin to brow. The one thing he’d hoped to avoid was a head-to-head fight. Why the hell couldn’t she just accept he only wanted what was best for her?

  Gentling his tone, he tried again. “Anna, this woman was most likely killed because she knew too much. Something connected to you—”

  “No. Just no,” she said, spearing the air in front of her with her forefinger. “You do not get to guilt-trip me into running away, not when Sarah—yes, she does have a name—must have died because of me. I’m staying put, Nick, to help find out who did this and why. My paper medical history may be gone, but when it comes to hacking electronic records, few can match me.”

  He knew that she was struggling to hold the floodgates in place. That tears were never far behind when Anna yelled like that. He’d watched it happen on more occasions than he could count—hell, he’d been the cause of the tsunami most of the time. Crying would calm her down, douse her fury as quickly as it had flared. She’d be more rational and easier to convince after a meltdown. If he pushed.

  “What if it’s not you he’s after? What if it’s the baby pissing him off?”

  For a moment she looked stricken, then rallied. No tears, which didn’t bode well. “No way is anything happening to my baby. I won’t go through that again.”

  He was having a hard job keeping up with the speed of her shifting emotions, especially those he couldn’t fathom. Like fear, she didn’t do bleak. She was too damned devil-may-care and optimistic. “Again? What do you mean again?”

  “I’m done with your hateful what-ifs. Just how sick does a person have to be to immediately leap to the assumption that someone would want to harm an infant? An unborn baby for Christ’s sakes?” She spun on her heel and stalked toward the front door, her spine so upright and tight it was a wonder it didn’t snap.

  “Anna—wait, damn it.”

  She stopped dead in her tracks. “You, I stopped waiting for, years ago.”

  She swung round to face him. Instead of the fire he’d expected, her eyes spat his weapon of choice—ice chips—and the shock nearly retracted his balls.

  “Now—Get. Out. And I swear to God, if I find out you’ve interfered again, that you’re still having me followed, I’ll call my lawyers. No damn it, I’ll call the press. This is not a matter of national security. It’s not about some agent on the double cross.”

  “Maybe not, Anna,” Will interrupted, emerging from the corridor from which, judging by the phone he held in his fist, he’d been making some discreet calls. “But you had better be ready to tell Ballentyne to back off and hope to God he listens, because otherwise the streets of London are going to run rivers of blood.”

  “What the fuck’s happened now, Will?” Jesus, he hoped no one else had caught the almost-defeated note behind his rasp.

  “One of the Fortress men assigned to guard Anna is dead. Garroted. Ballentyne’s pissed, and you know what that means.”

  …

  After more or less manhandling her to the sofa—Nick countered it was merely shepherding when she protested—and insisting she take a seat, his questions were demandingly exact, and he tore apart her muddled answers with surgeon-like precision. She was on her third run-through of everything that had happened to her since she’d become pregnant: the gifts, the attempts on her life, when he imperiously held up a finger to halt her flow.

  A gesture that damn near sent her blood pressure into orbit. She clamped her palms together and sought out Will’s sympathetic gaze.

  “The gifts suggest gratitude,” Nick continued. “He’s thanking you for something, rewarding you even. Which is squirrely enough when we can’t work out what for? But what flips him into wanting to hurt you? Stop you? Punish you? It doesn’t make any sense…” Clearly perplexed and irritated as a result, he paced the long space next to the bank of arched windows, hands deep in his pockets, his broad shoulders hunched to discourage any interruption of his thought process.

  Abruptly, he halted midprowl, turned, and jabbed a finger at her. “You’re doing something to fuel his twisted psychosis. But what? It can’t be the pregnancy. The gifts imply he’s rather pleased about that.”

  He had started pacing again, the clipped sound of his tread fraying her last nerve. Her bones might feel brittle, but if he didn’t settle down, she’d break a limb to throw something heavy at his head.

  “It’s almost like there’s two different people after Anna,” Will murmured.

  Again he pulled to a halt, only this time he spun to face Will. “Sonofabitch! The conflicting behavior makes sense if that’s true. Two perps, both with a hard-on for her, one all loved up, the other consumed with hate and fury.”

  She flexed her tongue and whistled shrilly—a skill Nick had taught her—to get his full attention back on her. “There you go again with your hateful assumptions. I’m willing to accept I might inadvertently have attracted the attention of one psycho but not two.”

  “I’m rarely wrong and never about you.” She’d gotten her wish; he’d turned and now gave her his full attention. “So let’s have it, Anna. Who’s the father, because I’m damn sure he’s the link in all this?”

  His eyes no longer held derision. Instead they chilled and fixed her in place, reminding her of the time he’d taken her to the Arctic for Christmas. A wonderful surprise she’d ruined when curiosity got the better of her, and she’d fastened her naked hand round a metal pole to see if the warning she’d stick fast was true. She had and, much to Nick’s frustration, the medics accompanying them got to spend more time touching her than he had.

  Her palms instantly grew clammy. She rubbed them up and down her thighs. Testing the truth and feeding her curiosity always seemed to lead to disaster, which is why, for once in her life, she’d resisted digging for the identify of her baby’s father.

  “I don’t know, Nick. That’s the point of an anonymous sperm donation.”

  “Uh-uh. You’d never settle for that, Anna. With your computer skills, you’d have hacked into the records for his identity.”

  “Except I didn’t, because I don’t want to know who the father is.”

  He was right. She had been tempted, but seeing the name in black and white would have been akin to acknowledging her baby had a flesh-and-blood father who might make a claim. Ignorance was bliss. It meant the child was hers and hers alone.

  “I. Don’t. Believe. You.”

  “Nick,” Will intervened quietly. “I’m not sure calling her a liar is the most effective way of getting the information you want.”

  Anna kept quiet while the two men exchanged glares. Nick’s furious, Will’s unrepentant. She didn’t doubt she looked guilty but not for the reason Nick thought. Her baby was in danger, and she wasn’t convinced she could protect it. Not on her own.

  A familiar, black sense of failure and inadequacy surged before she could contain it. When all was said and done, she was, and always would be, alone. No one had ever wanted her for keeps. Not even Nick.

  She shut her eyes and massaged her temples with the heels of her hands. She wouldn’t enter that emotional hor
ror, not again.

  “Anna, you okay?”

  The concern in Nick’s voice tore her heart in two. It would be so easy to hand this whole damn mess over to him. He’d sort it. He always had. But the price of the emotional debt he’d call in afterward would bankrupt her. “Just…tired,” she muttered wearily, opening her eyes. “Please, can I go now?”

  “All right, on one condition. You stay home until we work out what the hell is going on, and you alert me the next time a gift arrives.”

  “Or?”

  “Or, by God, I’ll be back, and tonight’s little interrogation will seem like a stroll in the park.”

  She leapt from the sofa and advanced on him until they were toe-to-toe. “Thanks for the warning, Nick. Now here’s one for you. I’ve got a company to run and a diary chock-full of appointments to keep. I meant it when I said I’d go to the press if necessary. So back off and make sure you take Fortress with you. And don’t even think about getting the Service involved, because right now, I’d have to be mad to trust an organization that prefers to employ only those born to kill.”

  She spun on her heel, then made her way to her front door, opened it, and held it wide, her message clear, though she kept her head down.

  It had to be Nick rather than Will who paused beside her. With a finger beneath her chin, he encouraged her head upward. Her eyes clashing with steely-blue ones, which oddly, weren’t as condemning as usual. Instead, they were almost sympathetic, like he remembered how fiercely she defended her independence and how hard she found it to compromise.

  “You’ve never won a fight against me yet, Anna. I want you safe. And I don’t want the Service involved any more than you do, but I’m still putting two Fortress men up here on the landing, so don’t give them merry hell in the morning, okay? They’ll just be following orders.”

  He dipped his head. His lips brushed her brow.

  If his intent had been to completely disarm her so she wouldn’t fight him about the protection, he’d succeeded. The tight smile she attempted caved into a painful gulp. No way was she crying in front of him. Not this time. Hands flat on his chest, she pushed Nick across her threshold and slammed the door in his face, throwing the dead bolts for good measure. With her defenses completely routed, rudeness worked for her.

  Her back against the door, she yanked up the hem of her T-shirt and dabbed her eyes before any tears could spill. She didn’t have time for an emotional tsunami. Nick was right. She needed the identity of her baby’s father.

  Releasing the breath trapped in her chest, she kicked free her high heels and, ignoring her laptop, padded over to her powerful computer console instead. She didn’t pull up a chair. This hacking session would be one she’d do upright. To remind herself she was more than capable of standing on her own two feet.

  Accessing the clinic’s mainframe was ridiculously easy. Opening the confidential files, her own included, wasn’t. Her fingertips burned from the speed with which she had to feed the clinic’s system strings of code to circumvent the incessant demand for passwords and user IDs.

  Four hours into a marathon of dancing past traps and triggers that would have seen most programmers tossed out on their ass, and finally, finally, the screen blacked out, leaving only her name flashing green in the top left-hand corner. She was in.

  Lifting her cramping fingers from the keyboard, her hands so stiff they’d locked into claw position, she hesitated. One single click on the return key, and she’d learn the identity of the man who’d fathered her baby.

  A tingle—not a pleasant one—ran the length of her spine. Her taste buds shriveled at the sudden sourness drying her mouth. Slowly flexing her forefinger, she leaned forward and jabbed a key, then leaped back.

  The screen flickered, twice, three times, maybe five, before settling into silent snowstorm mode, angry swarms of black dots like tormented ants fracturing a total whiteout. Jesus, someone had wiped her from the system. Not just wiped—she could have traced a simple erasure and reinstalled the files. They’d obliterated her, sending in a Trojan to gobble all trace of her existence.

  What the hell had she gotten herself and her baby into?

  …

  In the two weeks since she’d thrown Nick out of her apartment, the anonymous gifts had stopped as abruptly as they had started, and there’d been no further acts of violence against her. Probably because Nick had refused to order her security detail to stand down. She’d repaid his stubbornness by carrying on life as normal, just as she’d promised, working late into the night and keeping every damned meeting in her diary. Even when morning sickness gripped and all she really wanted to do was curl up in a darkened room and hug misery.

  And today’s lunch appointment was no different.

  She had thought she was meeting with a potential investor, since he’d introduced himself on the phone as a venture capitalist. But though lunch was pleasant enough, Niva Antila, the Finn plying her with the finest food London had to offer, could not have cared less about Hinterland Heroes. On the other hand, he seemed remarkably interested in her as a woman, which was nothing out of the ordinary. She’d always attracted male attention—even more so since her staggering commercial success—and she’d become adept at the polite brush-off.

  At the end of the meal, Antila put down his fork. “It’s a beautiful afternoon. Would you like to take a drive and continue our conversation?”

  No. She’d rather force matches under her nails and light them. “Thank you, Mr. Antila, but I’m afraid I have to get back to the office,” she declined with what she hoped was a polite, regretful smile as she lay aside the heavy damask napkin.

  “It’s Niva, not Mr. Antila, as I have repeatedly corrected you…”

  She tuned him out, his need to reprimand reminding her too much of Nick. She caught the maître d’s eye and silently pleaded with the man to hurry up and bring the bill. And then had to bite her lip to catch a giggle when the man shot her a knowing wink.

  “…and you have no appointments this afternoon. I checked. There is a matter about which we must speak. If not a drive, how about a stroll through the gardens? They are very private, so we won’t be disturbed by those rather irritating men you have following you.”

  For a moment she couldn’t swallow. Damn Nick for his interference, and damn this man for the sheer nerve of ferreting around in her private business. “What men?” she asked cautiously, curious as to learn how he could possibly have made her security detail. Fortress wasn’t just good—they were the best.

  Her skin prickled. There was definitely something off about the man. Beneath the debonair facade of silk shirt and immaculately tailored blue linen suit—which she suspected would not dare crease—beat the heart of an utterly ruthless street fighter, she was sure of it. And although Niva Antila was elegantly Nordic and unarguably handsome, the fine hairs at the nape of her neck stood to attention, and not in a good way.

  “The ones your ex-husband assigned to watch over you, of course. Come, let’s walk.”

  The phrase “too stupid to live” flashed through her mind. Had she just become one of those women who’d walked willingly to their doom?

  She quickly scanned the restaurant. A few straggling diners occupied tables, and there were plenty of front-of-house staff still milling about. She’d be safe, she decided, getting to her feet. The gardens couldn’t be that extensive. Besides, she had a foghorn of a scream. And although she intended to put this man fully in his place, she’d never had the stomach for humiliating someone in front of an audience.

  She picked up her pace while threading a route to the French doors opening into the gardens. Antila, with his hand at the small of her back, might think it a common courtesy to guide her, but frankly, her skin screamed at his touch, and she’d never allowed any man to steer her. Not even Nick.

  “Two things bother me, Antila,” she said pulling to a halt in the middle of the manicured lawn, well away from all shrubbery. “How do you know men are following me? And how can you poss
ibly know enough about my ex-husband to guess he is responsible?”

  “Because I make it my business to know everything, especially where you are concerned.”

  His compliments, accent, and inflection were beginning to grate on her nerves. Niva Antila was too smooth for words, suave, keenly intelligent but a little too…well, slippery.

  “I’d be flattered, if that didn’t completely creep me out. What exactly is your business? And please don’t give me any more crap about being a venture capitalist.”

  Though his eyes were hidden behind dark glasses, Antila suddenly looked decidedly pleased with himself. “I chose well. Your reputation for being both smart and indomitable is more than accurate. Even beyond your looks, you please me greatly.”

  She frowned. “Glad I could oblige, but forget creeped out; now I feel sick. May I suggest you ‘choose’ again, this time someone else? I’ve sworn off relationships.”

  Antila’s lips thinned into a tight, smug smile, reminding her of a lizard that had just caught and swallowed an insect. “Good, I don’t need the added complication, though never doubt that I would deal with it.”

  Unease snaked her spine; goose bumps pebbled her skin. Neither stopped her raising her chin. “Now you sound positively unpleasant. Shall we return to the restaurant, Antila? I don’t respond well to threats.”

  “No, you take them in your stride, which is not only foolish but most frustrating. How many warnings do you need, Anna, before you will accept you are in grave danger?”

  Her stomach gave a warning heave. She almost gagged. But she refused to retreat. “What’s your interest?”

  The Finn pushed his sunglasses down his nose and stared at her across the top of them, the flat absence of any life in his eyes numbing her soul. “My son and heir, whom you currently carry in your womb.”

  Chapter Five

  “No…No…No.” Anna covered her ears. She wanted no part of this man inside her, not even his words. “The sperm donation is supposed to be anonymous…”