Her Bad Boy Billionaire Lover (Billionaire Lovers)

by Barbara Bretton

  "I don't give a damn about your itinerary." She glared up at him, praying her fear didn't show. Praying that Jenny would remain occupied with the pony. Praying that this was all a bad dream and she would wake up in her own bed, with Jenny safe and sound in the next room. "I'll give you ten seconds to get out of here."

  He handed her the phone. "You might as well call the police then, Meggie, because I'm not going anywhere until we talk this out."

  To her horror, tears welled in her eyes. "Go away," she said, her voice breaking. "I don't need you or anyone else."

  He grabbed her by the arms and shook her. "You might be able to get someone else to believe that, but not me. What are you hiding, Meggie? What the hell's going on?"

  And then it happened. The worst of her fears was realized. From across the yard Jenny let out a shriek and barreled full speed across the grass toward them.

  "You let my mommy alone!" she yelled, heading straight for Jake. "Don't touch my mommy!"

  #

  She was a tiny bundle of fury and Jake jumped back as she tackled him around the knees.

  "What the hell--?" He looked at Megan, whose face had gone pale. "Who is she?"

  "Go away!" the child shrieked. "You can't touch my mommy."

  He bent down and detached the little demon from his legs. "I'm not touching anyone's mommy." The kid must have been out in the sun too long.

  She looked up at him with fierce golden eyes and a stab of something damn close to fear shot through his chest. "I saw you! You pushed her and I hate you!" With that the pint-sized pugilist hauled off and punched him in the thigh.

  "Jenny." Megan placed a hand atop the child's head. "Everything is fine. Apologize to Mr. Lockwood for hitting him."

  The kid looked as if she'd like to bite him in the leg. The feeling was mutual.

  "No," she said, her lower lip protruding. "You can't make me. It's my birthday."

  That tone of voice...the way her little jaw was set in granite. Recognition was hovering just beyond reach. He hoped it stayed there.

  "Forget it, Megan," he said. "She didn't draw blood."

  Megan nodded. A small muscle in her cheek worked furiously.

  No, he thought. I don't want to know this.

  The little girl looked up at him. "You talk funny."

  He looked down at her. "So do you."

  "I do not. I talk normal."

  "So do I."

  "Uh-unh." She shook her head and her silky hair brushed against her cheeks. "You talk like Croco--" She stopped.

  "Crocodile Dundee," said Megan, her voice a whisper. "It's her favorite movie."

  "What's your name?" he asked.

  "I can't talk to strangers."

  "He's not a stranger, Jenny," said Megan, voice trembling. "He's an...an old friend of mine."

  "I'm Jenny," the kid said. "Who are you?"

  "Jake." He squatted down in front of her as an odd sense of recognition swept over him. "You have good ears, Jenny. Crocodile Dundee is from Australia. So am I."

  "I have a stuffed kangaroo in my room," Jenny said, looking at him with a mixture of dislike and curiosity. "I keep pennies in her pouch."

  "How does the kangaroo feel about that?"

  Jenny sighed broadly. "The kangaroo isn't real."

  Megan placed her hand on the child's shoulder. "The pony won't be here much longer, Jenny. Why don't you go and have one last ride before Sparkles leaves."

  The little girl was gone in a flash leaving Jake alone with a woman he thought he knew.

  "Her birthday?"

  Megan nodded.

  Six years...six long years. He'd been a fool to believe life could stand still. "She's yours, isn't she?"

  The expression on her face was one of sadness and wonder. "Yes."

  The question burned his gut, tore its way up through his chest, ripped at his throat. He already knew the answer. Some other man had lain between her legs, joined his body with hers, and made that little girl with the red hair and fierce temper. Some other man had heard the sounds she made when she came, seen the look of passion in her eyes, the look that he'd remembered through six long years of emptiness without her. The existence of a child paled beside the reality of another man.

  For one terrible moment he wanted to wrap his hands around her throat and squeeze until she collapsed limp in his arms, the memory of other men erased forever from her mind. But it wouldn't be enough. He wouldn't be able to erase the truth from his heart.

  #

  Megan saw it in his face. His jaw was set in granite. His mouth was tight with barely controlled anger. The look in his eyes was one of betrayal and regret.

  He doesn't know, she thought in amazement. He'd looked at Jenny and he hadn't realized the truth. A towering anger rose inside her chest, an anger that matched his.

  "You don't see it, do you?" she asked. "My God, Jake, are you blind?" She pointed toward Jenny who was jumping up and down as she waited her turn on the pony. "Look at her. Take a good long look at her and tell me what you see."

  He looked toward the child with the red hair and golden eyes. That sense of recognition he'd experienced a few minutes ago returned, stronger this time. The child was laughing about something, her eyes crinkling at the outer corners.

  The same way his eyes crinkled when he--

  A dark, fierce emotion rose up from the deepest part of his soul, blocking out the sun. He turned toward Megan. "She's mine."

  She nodded.

  He went to grab her by the arm but the memory of that fierce little girl stopped him in his tracks. "When the hell were you going to tell me, Megan? When she turned twenty-one?"

  "Never," she snapped. "If I had my way, you'd never have known about her."

  "You don't think I had the right to know I was a father?"

  "You weren't around, Jake. I couldn't tell you."

  He didn't want logic. "What does she know about me?"

  "Nothing."

  "She thinks I'm dead?"

  "Jenny knows we're divorced. There are a lot of single parent families out there these days, Jake, in case you haven't noticed. We've done just fine on our own and we'll continue to do just fine."

  He grabbed her arm and dragged her behind a huge rhododendron bush. "Not this time, Megan. You're not calling the shots again." She'd walked out on him twice. He wasn't going to let it happen a third time.

  "Take your hands off me," she said. "You have no say in this, Jake. None."

  "The hell I don't." He wanted to shake her until her teeth rattled but he wasn't sure he could stop.

  "You're hurting me."

  "You're lucky I don't kill you."

  Her face contorted as she fought tears. He used to be a sucker for women in tears but now he didn't know how he felt about anything. A scrap of conversation came back to him and he reached out and grabbed it. "You said you tried to call me after your father died." He gestured toward Jenny who was giggling as a young woman led the pony around the yard. "Is that why?"

  Megan nodded.

  "Why didn't you keep trying?"

  Her eyes flashed fire. "Detectives cost money, Jake. I was too busy worrying about keeping a roof over my daughter's head to spend it chasing a dream."

  That look of vulnerability he'd noticed on the Sea Goddess...the soft uncertainty in her eyes. He hadn't imagined any of it. She'd walked through the fire and been made stronger by it and he found his rage battling with profound respect for all she had accomplished.

  "You could have had an abortion," he said, pushing for answers. "You didn't have to give birth to her."

  "Yes, I did," she said, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. "I loved her from the first second I knew about her."

  He was at a loss to understand the primal emotions she talked about. That fierce maternal bond that began long before the child was born. All he felt was a bewildering sense of shock.

  "You were dead broke. How the hell did you think you were going to take care of her?"

  "I didn't think
," Megan said. "I just felt." She'd hocked her jewelry first thing and lived off the proceeds while the bones of her father's life were picked clean by creditors. "I don't think I would have survived if it hadn't been for the baby. Knowing there was a reason to get up each morning got me through the worst of it."

  "What about your medical bills?"

  Her eyes flashed with fire but she answered his question. "I worked as a receptionist in a health club. Fortunately they catered to mothers-to-be and I was a walking advertisement." The health benefits had picked up the obstetrician's bill and the hospital stay.

  "And after she was born?"

  "I found a way. The first moment I saw her I knew I'd do anything for her." She looked at him. "But you just don't get any of this, do you?"

  He thought of his own life. The arid expanse of his childhood. His wandering teens. The years ruled by ambition at the expense of love. "No," he said. "Not one bloody bit of it."

  "Then go. You're not looking to be a father, Jake, and I don't want you to be one."

  "You've made enough decisions for me. It's my turn now."

  His words hit her like a slap in the face.

  "Look at her," she said, unable to mask the emotion in her voice. "She doesn't need any confusion. She doesn't need anything but me."

  He started to speak when Megan turned suddenly and made for the knot of children at a dead run.

  "What the hell--?" He hadn't heard or seen anything out of the ordinary but she'd reacted as if she'd heard a warning siren go off.

  By the time he joined them the crisis was past. Megan held a little blond girl in her arms while Jenny glowered at the two of them. It wasn't hard to fill in the blanks.

  "Apologize this minute, Jennifer." Megan's tone brooked no nonsense.

  Jenny's stubborn little chin grew more stubborn before his eyes. "No."

  "Into the house, young lady." Megan pointed toward the back door. "Go up to the guest room and think about what you've done. When you're ready to apologize you can come back down."

  He watched as his daughter stormed across the lawn, muttering dark threats under her breath. She had his temper and Megan's stubbornness and the combination was as explosive as a hand grenade.

  Against his better judgment he fell into step with her. "So what did you do back there?"

  "Stace is a big crybaby," Jenny said. "I wanted to ride the pony and she wouldn't let me."

  "Maybe it was her turn."

  "It wasn't her turn. It was my turn." She looked up at him, her small face a portrait of righteous fury. "It's my birthday and I get to do what I want."

  "Birthdays don't give you the right to hurt people."

  "I don't like you," she said. "You're not nice to children."

  "Neither are you," Jake said.

  Her brows drew together in a frown that was so purely Megan that his heart seemed to slam against his ribcage in recognition. "But that's okay. I am a children."

  "Being a grown up doesn't mean you can be cruel to other grownups." At least not in a more perfect world than the one in which they lived.

  She considered him thoughtfully, her big golden eyes, so like his, serious. "Do you have a kangaroo?"

  Where did that question come from? It took him a moment to shift gears. "If you apologize to your friend I'll tell you about the kangaroo who lived in my backyard."

  "No," she said. "Stace is dumb." A sly look crossed her face. "You're dumb, too."

  With that she ran into the house and slammed the door behind her. That's my daughter, he thought, and I don't even like her.

  And what was worse, the feeling was mutual.

  #

  Sparkles the pony left not long after Jenny was banished to the house to think about her transgressions. Her absence put a bit of a damper on the party but Megan called on every trick in the book to keep the kids occupied and happy.

  Miguel called once to say that, to everyone's surprise, Ingrid's labor looked to be a long one. "Don't worry," Megan said. "Everything's fine here. Just give Ingrid my love."

  "Why is it taking so long?" Stace asked, her blue eyes wide. "Mommy said the baby comes down the slide from her tummy. It only takes me a second to slide down a slide."

  "Well, it's not quite a slide, honey." Megan was acutely aware of Jake's presence. "The mommy and the baby have to work very hard to make it happen. That's why they call it labor."

  A little girl named Patrice piped up. "My daddy said mommy called him a stinking son of a--"

  "Why don't we have play a game of statues?" Megan broke in, and not a minute too soon.

  They stared at her as if she were speaking in tongues.

  "What's that?" asked Stace.

  "We never heard of that game," said another child.

  Jake, who'd been watching the whole thing with unnerving intensity, stepped forward. "I know a story."

  The children turned en masse to look at Jake and Megan was once again reminded how flirtatious little girls could be. If she didn't know better she'd swear she heard the sound of Cupid's arrow piercing a dozen tiny hearts.

  "That's very nice of you," she said formally, "but I'm sure you have to leave."

  "No, I don't."

  "Yes, you do."

  "I'm not going anywhere, Meggie."

  The little girls listened with rapt attention.

  Megan lowered her voice. "Don't do this to me, Jake."

  He turned toward the girls. "I'm not good at telling fairy tales," he said, offering a dazzling smile, "but I can tell you all about Australia."

  Jenny must have been watching from an upstairs window because a few minutes later Megan noticed her daughter standing near one of Ingrid's favorite orange trees. Jake was telling a funny story about shearing an unwilling sheep. All of the little girls were laughing.

  All of them except Jenny.

  #

  Apparently the secret to talking with children was to concentrate on kangaroos and Crocodile Dundee. Jake told his joey-in-the-yard story five times and still the little girls clamored for more.

  He glanced toward Jennifer who sat by herself under an orange tree, playing with one of those platinum blond dolls with centerfold bodies. She was going out of her way to make it obvious that she had no interest in kangaroos or sheep-shearing, although she did glance up when he described a real life Crocodile Dundee he'd met in Tasmania. There was a brittleness in the way she held herself, the obvious posture of a child desperate to join her friends but unwilling to compromise her pride.

  There was no doubt that Jennifer was his daughter and Megan's. It was there in the set of her jaw, the line of her shoulders, the eyes that were as familiar to him as his own in the mirror each morning. He already knew the girl had Megan's stubborn streak and his own quicksilver temper. She loved her mother and didn't trust him one bit and he was glad of it. The last thing he wanted was a little girl looking up at him with trusting eyes, as if he were the hero in one of her picture books.

  He'd never wanted to be anyone's hero. Or anyone's father, for that matter. A child was better off with no father other than one who was all wrong for the job. He knew that better than most people. His old man's take on fatherhood had been a combination of physical intimidation, booze, and disinterest. A boy could pick up and hit the road as soon as he was tough enough to hold his own. His sister had been stuck in that godforsaken shack, growing older and lonelier with every passing year spent caring for their father.

  He shook his head, trying to banish the memories. His daughter was looking at him, her small features set in lines of pure stubbornness. But it was her eyes that drew him in. His eyes. His temper. His insecurities.

  If push came to shove, he wasn't convinced he'd ever be able to make the right decision where she was concerned and he had the feeling she knew that as well as he did.

  Don't look at me like that, he thought, meeting her eyes. I don't want to change your life. There was nothing he could offer her that could surpass the love Megan gave so freely. And he knew why th
ere could be no room in Megan's life for him.

  #

  "Okay, everyone," Megan said as she placed the birthday cake down on the picnic table in the center of the yard. "Gather around while Jenny blows out the candles."

  Jenny, cheeks pink with excitement, climbed up on one of the benches and leaned over. "Do I get to make a wish?"

  Megan gave her a hug. "As many as you want."

  Jenny took a deep breath then blew out all of the candles on the very first try.

  "Now my wishes come true, don't they?" she asked Megan as she leaped down from the bench.

  The words caught in Megan's throat. Jake stood a few feet behind Jenny, watching the proceedings. The expression in his eyes was unreadable but his intentions were clear. No matter how unwelcome she made him feel, he wasn't about to leave until he was good and ready.

  Go away, Megan thought fiercely as she dished out ice cream and cake to the little girls. You don't belong here. He didn't have the right to stand there as if he were part of their lives, making her feel things she didn't want to feel. Couldn't he see what he was doing, the chance he was taking? The last thing she wanted was for Jenny to see him as her knight in shining armor.

  By the time the little girls had been served and were seated around the folding tables set out on the lawn, Megan was ready to strangle him.

  "Help yourself to some cake," she said dryly.

  "Don't mind if I do." He cut himself a huge slice and placed it on a paper plate. "How about you?"

  "I lost my appetite."

  "This moral outrage of yours is getting old, Megan. I'm the one who just found out he has a kid."

  "There's no point going over this again," Megan said, aware of Jenny's curious glance. "You know now." She paused for effect. "Same as I know about Tropicale."

  "There's a big difference between hiding a kid and hiding a company."

  "I didn't hide Jenny."

  "The hell you didn't."

  The last of her self-control snapped. "What exactly do you want from all of this, Jake? If you're even thinking of playing daddy at this late date, so help me I'll--"