Harlequin Blaze 51: Take Me

by Cherry Adair

  "It was a gun in your pocket," Jessie said with a faint laugh.

  He gently lifted the drift of hair off her face and used the backs of his fingers to explore the texture of her sex-warmed cheek.

  With his other hand he tilted her face up before dipping his head toward her. She gave him a drowsy, sexy look at the touch of his lips on her forehead.

  He stroked down her side, enjoying the way her skin shimmered under his hand. He continued to pet her and she groaned, rising up to bury her face against his shoulder. Their bodies were slick with sweat.

  "I'll give you twenty years to stop that." Jessie looked like a wanton, pagan princess with her hair spread in a dark cloud, her arms curved seductively above her head. Joshua stood between her thighs, his arms braced against the desk.

  "You're insatiable."

  Eyes that were almost all pupil stared back at him. Sleepy, sensuous and sated. "That's a problem?" she asked lazily as her foot slid up the back of his thigh, and she ran her hands up the muscles flexing in his arms.

  "Not to me, it isn't." Her feet met and crossed in the small of his back; he could feel her sharp high heels drawing him closer. He braced his arms firmly for a moment, looking at her with fresh new eyes, his heart playing an unfamiliar beat.

  "You drive me wild, Jessie Adams. When I'm with you I want you. When we're apart I think about you constantly. You worry me. You make me laugh. You make me believe in dreams."

  Her crossed ankles proved stronger than his will as she drew him against the open heat of her. Joshua lowered his chest, feeling the pillowy softness of her breasts flatten under him. He whispered against her swollen mouth, "I want to wrap you in a cloud and put you on top of the highest mountain to keep you safe." His gaze never wavered as he lifted her hand to his lips. "I'm excited by you, Jessie, and yet strangely calmed by your presence. You're unpredictable and your crazy hobbies give me heart palpitations. You have the strangest, strongest set of principles of anyone I know, and I'm learning to trust you more than I have ever trusted another human being in my life."

  Her face drained of color, deathly pale. He felt the flutter of her fingers as she tried to withdraw her hand from his. "What is it, love?" Jessie bit her lip and worry immediately slammed into his chest.

  She closed her eyes for the longest moment then licked her lips before she looked up at him. "I went to the doctor today." Her voice shook. She bit her bottom lip and took a deep, shuddering breath, her eyes dark and huge.

  A cold chill of dread raced up his spine. He lifted himself away from her, sex the last thing on his mind now. For a moment he felt as though every particle of his body had frozen. A fear he'd never known drew a black ominous cloud over his vision. It made his heart jerk and his hands sweat.

  He blinked, too terrified to look at her and yet too terrified not to. He thrust his fingers through his hair in frustration and swore under his breath. "You went to the doctor today… Oh, Christ, Jessie." Joshua squeezed his eyes shut, a fist squeezing his heart. He forced open his eyes. Her lips were bloodless, her eyes dark with pain. Oh, God, it was bad, really bad, for Jessie to be this upset.

  "What the hell did he say? Whatever it is we can deal with it together. Christ I have more money than God. We'll get the best specialists on the planet. We'll—"

  The phone rang just as Jessie said his name in a terrified, tremulous voice and struggled to sit up.

  "Tell me, for Christ's sake," he demanded, ignoring the insistent ringing of the phone inches from Jessie's head. It wasn't like Jessie to be reticent in telling him anything he wanted to know. Her wonderfully expressive brown eyes wouldn't meet his. The phone's insistent ringing was annoying the shit out of him.

  "Tell me," he ground out, his back teeth grinding painfully.

  "I—I—" Jessie's teeth bit into her lower lip. "Answer the phone first."

  "The hell with it. What did the doctor's—"

  Jessie grabbed the phone off the hook and handed it to him.

  "Yes!" Joshua snatched the instrument to his ear, his eyes fixed on Jessie's averted face. What the hell would he do if Jessie died? What the hell would—

  "What did you say?" he demanded as he registered what Felix had just said on the other end of the phone. "Vera wants five million dollars?"

  If possible Jessie went even whiter. Hell, this evening wasn't going exactly as he'd planned. He'd thought to propose first, explain his sham marriage later. The shit would hit the fan now. Jessie had the strangest expression on her face as she slid off his desk.

  "Fine. Give it to her!" Joshua snapped at Felix, impatient to get off the phone. Jessie had pulled on her dress. She looked sick as she frantically searched for her underwear. Joshua found the scrap of satin stuffed between the papers on the floor and handed it to her. She crammed it into her purse and grabbed her coat by the door. "Just pay her off. It's worth it." Joshua slammed the phone down. Jessie stood poised, ready for flight out the door.

  "Now, what aren't you telling me? What the hell did the doctor say?"

  * * * * *

  She wore a sunflower-yellow wool dress which covered her from her throat to midcalf. Suede high-heeled boots in a deep cinnamon matched the turtleneck under the dress. In her ears she wore huge painted sunflowers. She looked vibrantly alive and breathtakingly lovely.

  And furiously angry.

  "And I couldn't have talked right then if my life had depended on it," Jessica told Felix angrily. She stood before his desk, having driven to his San Francisco office to be there at precisely nine the next morning. "I was so darn mad, I ran. God only knows what Joshua thought." She drew an angry breath. "I know you're his lawyer, Felix, but I thought you and I had a business arrangement. So would you please explain to me why 'Vera' wants five—" she almost choked on the amount "—five million dollars?"

  The intercom buzzed announcing Simon Falcon. Jessie rolled her eyes. "Did you call him in a panic while I cooled my heels in your waiting room? Damn it, Felix. How could you do this to me?"

  Simon closed the door behind him, resting his hand on Jessie's shoulder. "Sit down, honey. This is not what you think."

  Jessie shook off his hand and flopped furiously into the soft leather chair opposite Felix's desk. She glared first at Joshua's lawyer, then at his uncle. "What are you two up to? I told you years ago to stop taking Joshua's money." Jessie clenched her fist on her knee. "Damn it, I've almost saved enough to repay what I have taken for the past seven years. No wonder he's got such a poor opinion of women. And now you two have made it even worse. God. I can't take much more of this," she said thickly, dashing impatiently at the persistent tears.

  "Just hang in there, honey." Simon looked at her worriedly, as he leaned over to pat her hand. "Joshua'll never miss the money. He's a generous man. He has plenty to spare. We just wanted to make sure you'd be financially solvent by year's end." He looked helplessly at his accomplice. "If he didn't fall in love with you. And we—"

  "Well," Jessie snapped, "he won't now, for God sake! I don't need Joshua to bankroll me, Simon. I have a job. I can support myself," Jessie said through her teeth. "And in the new year I'll go back to it." She jumped up and started to pace, the yellow dress swishing around her legs.

  Both men looked alarmed as tears ran unchecked down her face. She continued to dash them away with her fingertips. "Damn it, damn it, damn it. He already thinks every woman he meets is a conniving opportunist. Now he thinks Vera wants five million dollars for a divorce! Are you two nuts? How could you d-do this to him?"

  "Honey." Simon glanced from Felix to Jessie, his face creased with worry. "In a month Joshua… " He searched for the right words. Jessie let the tears fall. She was so tired. So tired of being tired. Crying in front of these two men was the least of her problems.

  "A lovely women like you should be worshipped, my dear," Simon said uncomfortably. "Joshua's a fool to let you out of his sight. But you knew this was going to happen."

  Jessie drew in a deep, shaky breath. She felt raw to the bone.
"I don't want to be worshipped. I wanted to be loloved." Her breath bubbled. She hated this. Hated it. "In four weeks, Joshua and I would have broken up." Jessie swiped at her cheeks with the hankie Felix handed her. She got makeup all over it. She scrunched it in a damp ball in her fist. "I don't want his money. I won't take his money. Let 'Vera' give him his divorce. But if you two try to take one more cent from Joshua, I'll—I'll do something nasty."

  Simon and Felix rose. "Honey, we just did it so when it was over you'd have something."

  "I'll have something, Simon. Trust me. Something far more lasting and important than money."

  Chapter 10

  It had been a hell of a morning and it was barely ten. Joshua had told Angela to hold all his calls as he tried Jessie's number for the umpteenth time.

  He was frantic.

  Where the hell was she? He'd tried calling a dozen times last night. He'd sat in his car in her driveway waiting for her to come home until the sky had lightened over the trees. He'd been too agitated to wait inside. Still no sign of Jessie. He'd talked to Archie, to Conrad, to Simon and, finally, to the hospitals. No one knew where the hell she was.

  Unease and worry had turned into dread. She'd sped out of the house so fast last night, she hadn't answered his questions. And as much as Joshua loathed admitting it, the unfamiliar ball of lead in the pit of his stomach was fear. He was tormented with it.

  He pressed a finger to his temple, warning himself to rationalize this. He had known she wanted to tell him something last night. Something important. Something she'd found hard to share. What the hell could it be? The suppositions were becoming more and more alarming. In the last hours he had come up with every worst-case scenario possible. And every way he could think of to correct it rectify it and make it better. Unless it was terminal.

  If it was terminal he couldn't do a damn thing. Even he couldn't fix that.

  He closed his eyes. He ignored the ringing phone. He ignored the faint hum of voices in the outer office. His concentration was complete and total. His focus unwavering. He wanted to pray but for a moment, had no idea how. He figured God knew his track record and wouldn't care. Words tumbled frantically through his mind. He begged, bargained and made promises, his eyes squeezed so tightly shut, they watered.

  He reached for the phone again. He'd have Felix send out one of his P.I.'s. He drummed a tattoo on the highly polished surface of his desk as he waited, feeling demented, the ice in his soul making him burn. Christ, for all he knew Jessie could be lying dead somewhere—

  Hell, he wouldn't think like that. Joshua looked up impatiently as his office door opened. "I told you I didn't want to be disturbed, Angela, unless it's—" The lead ball in the pit of his stomach dissolved like mist. He slammed down the receiver.

  Fear dissipated into something he understood even less. Anger then relief, then something else too fragile to name.

  "Where the hell have you been?" he demanded, as Jessie crossed to sit in the visitor's seat opposite his desk. The brave red of her wool suit leached every vestige of color from her face. Her hair was pulled back with a cream-colored clip that matched her high-heeled shoes and blouse. She crossed her lovely legs with a whisper of nylon and pulled her skirt down.

  Her face seemed finer boned and drawn this morning. Dark shadows haunted her eyes. She looked fragile, as though she'd been crying.

  Joshua's throat tightened. "God, I'm sorry." He cleared his throat. "I'm not angry at you. When I couldn't find you I… Jesus, Jessie… "

  "I'm sorry you were worried." She sounded as subdued as he felt frantic. His blood pressure rose two more notches. "I… " She licked glossy red lips and swallowed before she looked up at him. "I needed a little more time."

  Worry made his voice harsh. "Where were you last night?"

  "I stayed at a hotel in San Jose."

  "Why, for God's sake?" Joshua resisted scrubbing his face, instead clenching his hands together on the surface of the desk. His palms were damp. "Don't hold it in, Jessie, whatever it is. Just say it." He resisted the need to hold her. He had never been more afraid in his life. If he touched her now, he was terrified he'd inadvertently break her in half when she told him the bad news. The bones in his hands protested the excruciating pressure being exerted.

  Wide brown eyes looked at him steadily. She drew a breath. "I'm pregnant, Joshua."

  For a split second the relief that Jessie wasn't going to die was so profound he couldn't speak. His fingers felt arthritic as he slowly released their death grip.

  Then he stared at her. Actually heard what she said.

  Pregnant.

  He had been thinking the best doctors and specialists in a sanitarium in Switzerland. She had been thinking child support.

  Rage consumed him.

  For a moment he went deaf and blind with it. "You're pregnant." Frigid anger relit the fuse low in his belly. "You're pregnant?"

  He stood, his fists braced on the desk. "Whose is it?"

  Jessie flinched imperceptibly. "Yours, of course."

  "Not in this lifetime, lady." Jessie's eyes went dark. A thundering pulse pounded his temple. Contempt tightened his voice. "I had a vasectomy years ago."

  She sucked in her breath. "Impossible."

  Joshua delivered the next thrust as the fire in his gut blazed, his voice dangerously even. "Right after the third of my mistresses claimed I was the father of her child. It didn't work for them, and it sure as hell won't work for you. I shoot blanks."

  The heat in her cheeks returned full force as she catapulted from the chair to lean over his desk, her eyes blazing. "You son of a—Why didn't you tell me you'd had a vasectomy? How dare you keep something like that from—"

  "How dare I?" he asked lethally and she collapsed back into the chair sputtering with impotent anger. If looks could kill, he'd be in the morgue.

  Her sudden flair of fiery temper was no match for his own icy rage. "Nice of you to look me in the eye as you stabbed me in the back, Jessie." He looked at her with utter contempt. "At least the others controlled their greed until their contract was up. That's why you wouldn't commit by signing the contract, you wanted out the second you found some kind of hold on me. You couldn't wait, could you? You should have done your research before coming up with this far-fetched scenario."

  He picked a hair off the shoulder of his charcoal Armani suit. He stared at the curling filament for a moment before dropping it to the floor. He had worn this suit to the theater with her. He would burn the damn thing the moment he got home.

  "That's not true," Jessie said steadily, a pulse pounding hard at her throat. "I didn't plan this pregnancy." She glanced away, biting her lower lip before glaring at him defiantly. "Well, okay, maybe at first I did. But then I cha—"

  For a moment his emotions blackened his vision. "You planned this from the beginning, did you?"

  "Yes. No," she floundered, cheeks scarlet, eyes glittering.

  "Well, which was it? Yes or no?"

  "I changed my mind." Her voice was unnaturally calm. "I knew I couldn't do it without discussing it with you first—"

  "Right." He was old enough to know better. "A 'happy' accident?" She flinched. "You were right," he said cruelly, flatly, his eyes unwavering on her face. "You are just like your mother." Emotions started ripping through his control. "Wasn't she a money-grabbing whore, too, Jessie?"

  "Oh, God. Don't do this, Joshua." Her voice quavered and he saw her swallow dryly before she managed to say raggedly, "Please." Her eyes went dark, as if a careless hand had snuffed out that vibrant bright inner light of hers. His careless hand.

  But he wasn't done yet. Not by a long shot.

  "Oh, I beg your pardon. You refused to take my money, didn't you?" His voice sharpened, turned to jagged ice as he demanded venomously, "What do you think those earrings you're wearing are worth, Jessie?"

  She put an unsteady hand to a diamond-and-ruby hoop. "I don't kn—"

  "Try in the neighborhood of fifty thousand."

  H
er eyes widened and her hand dropped as though burned. "You told me it was costume jewelry."

  "The 'bigger the better,' isn't that what you told me?"

  "Yes, but I mea—"

  "Can't tell a diamond from a piece of glass, Jessie?" he asked mockingly. "You'll have to take a quick gemology class before you get your claws into your next victim."

  She took off the earrings and laid them carefully on his desk, her eyes blank and dark.

  The chair creaked under his weight as he sat down. "Oh, that trembling lip is almost effective. But you forget. I've screwed the best actresses money can buy. Your performance in bed almost makes this fiasco tolerable." He gave her a cold humorless smile. "Almost."

  "Giving me your virginity was worth the jewelry. I consider it a fair trade. What you lacked in experience in bed you made up for in enthusiasm." A chill vibrated through him. "That act would have earned you a small bonus." He paused. "If you hadn't let some other man benefit from what I taught you," he finished savagely as she sucked in air and seemed to brace herself for another blow.

  An uncomfortably tight band restricted his breathing and perspiration stuck his shirt to his back. "All the protestation about the gifts I gave you was a blind for the big payoff, right, Jessie?"

  "No." Her damn lying eyes stayed steadily on his face. "I told you, I only wanted you."

  "Well, you had me." His anger almost obscured his vision. "Is there anything else?" he demanded when she sat before him motionless.

  "Yes, actually, there is." She touched her purse. "But now is obviously n-not the time to—to—" She waved away her words with a shaking hand. She rose, all elegant grace and proud fluid lines. "I haven't slept with anyone but you, Joshua. When you calm down you'll realize that."

  "I'm perfectly calm." His back teeth ground together. "I'll give you thirty seconds to explain how you think this could possibly have happened."

  She moved to the back of the chair, putting it between herself and his anger. "I don't think this is the right time to discuss this."