“You didn’t say you bought me my own horse.”
He scowled at her. “A vacation? You want to go on a vacation? You have to tell me these things in advance, Emma, so I can take the time off. We’ll have to find a place where it will be easy to look after the children. I can have one of the secretaries start researching for us. And I did tell you that I bought a horse.”
She had the beginnings of a headache. It might have been from all the tears, but more likely it was Jake driving her crazy. He wasn’t making any sense. “You told me you bought the horse,” she admitted, using her most patient voice, “but you forgot to say you bought it for me. It was during one of the short, informative calls in the middle of the night.”
“I always call you late. I don’t sleep like other people.”
She knew that was true. He was in her room every night, pacing or stretching out beside her on her bed, in the dark, plying her with questions. “When was the last time you slept?”
He rolled back over onto his back and laced his fingers behind his head. “I don’t remember. A few days ago. I sleep better when I’m home.”
She didn’t know when. Most nights he stayed in her room until two or three in the morning. Sometimes he paced back and forth in the children’s rooms like a caged animal. Jake was so complicated, and he just plain wore her out sometimes. She kept trying to figure him out when he never talked about his childhood. She’d only met his mother the one time and it hadn’t been pleasant. She knew there was a standing order to keep his parents from the property, and Kyle and Andraya were guarded at all times.
As if reading her mind, Jake turned the tables on her. “Tell me about your parents.”
She glanced at him. “Like what?”
“Did you ever travel outside the States? Where were they from originally? What did your father do for a living?”
She frowned up at the ceiling. “We always had money, but you know, I don’t know what my father did in terms of a job. We didn’t have tons of money, not like you—but then you own just about half of the United States. Still, we never wanted for anything.”
“You never asked your father what he did for a living?”
“No. I don’t know why. I wasn’t around a lot of other children so I guess it never came up. The last couple of years before he died, he spent a great deal of time on his laptop, and I know he often went to Internet cafés when he traveled. I assumed he needed to do so for work.”
“And your mother?”
“She looked after us. She painted. She was a wonderful artist.” Emma kept her answers brief, and worked to keep wariness from her voice. She’d been taught never to discuss her parents, and although they were dead, the rule still held.
“So that’s where you get your talent.”
Emma was pleased that he thought her talented and pointed out something in her that was like her mother. “She drew all the time on sketchpads and I did the same in the car. We used to pass the charcoals back and forth, and when we stayed at a place for any length of time, almost the first thing she did was set up a room we could paint in.”
“When I went to your apartment the first time, I found an old sketchpad. I thought it looked important so I brought it to you. Your mother’s?”
She swallowed the sudden lump clogging her throat and nodded.
He shifted enough to tug at strands of her long hair, wrapping them around his finger as he talked. “The movers packed some paintings. Why don’t you have them up in your room?”
She was silent for a few moments, turning the question over and over in her mind. He wasn’t going to like the answer, and when he didn’t like something he could be very unpredictable. “At first I was grieving and not paying too much attention to anything. When I thought about the paintings and wanted to see them, maybe for comfort, I was on bed rest and couldn’t go rummaging through boxes.”
He tugged hard enough on her hair for her to give a little yelp. “You should have told me. I would have gotten them put up for you. After the bed rest?”
She shot him a small scowl but he wasn’t looking at her and it was completely wasted. “Stop pulling my hair.” He didn’t let go, but began rubbing the strands back and forth between his fingers almost absently. She sighed and let it go, knowing she was stalling. “After Andraya was born I was tired all the time, adjusting to two babies and a house to run. By the time I got to bed at night I was exhausted.”
“You had a lot of nightmares,” he pointed out.
She couldn’t deny it. He’d often sprinted to her room to make certain she was all right and stayed to talk until she fell asleep again. “That’s true,” she admitted. “After that, I just wasn’t certain if I was going to stay or not. I thought I’d give it some time while I figured out what I was going to do after the money came in from the settlement.”
Beside her, Jake went very still. “You think about leaving me quite a bit, don’t you?”
Was there hurt in his voice? She was usually quite adept at reading the emotional nuances in people’s voices, but Jake was different. He always sounded casual, his voice soft and mesmerizing no matter the subject. Even when he was angry, he lowered his voice rather than raise it. “I don’t think about leaving you.” It was absurd—the way they were talking, they might have been in a relationship. “I didn’t know if the job was going to work out. Things would change if you married someone. You can’t pretend they wouldn’t.”
“You can put your mind at ease about my getting married. The women I know are treacherous bitches and I wouldn’t allow them anywhere near my money, my home or you. Certainly not my children. So I think I can safely say that marriage to any of them is out.”
“You just let them near your body.”
She pressed her lips together, hating the mixture of emotion in her voice that made him turn his head to look at her, his gaze suddenly speculative. She hadn’t realized until that moment that she was angry with him. She hadn’t even known that she was jealous. She didn’t want Jake as her lover or anything else. Any kind of relationship other than the platonic one they had would be a disaster. Jake wasn’t easy to live with as a boss. As a lover or a husband, he’d rule with an iron fist.
“We can’t all be perfect little saints, never enjoying the pleasures of the flesh.”
She curled her nails into her palm, hard enough to hurt. The tips of her fingers ached. “Get out of my room. I mean it. You’re being insulting and I’ve had a bad enough day without putting up with a lot of crap from you. Get out.”
He didn’t budge. “Why is that an insult? Basically you pointed out that I was a sinner. What’s wrong with me pointing out that you’re a saint?”
“You’re being deliberately insulting and you know it.” She flung her arm across her eyes. “I’m so tired, Jake. I wanted today to be a good day for you. I looked forward to you coming home and tried to make things special for your birthday. I don’t know what went wrong, but I just want to crawl under the blankets and try again tomorrow.” Her throat clogged with tears again and that made her want to weep just for being such an idiot. What was wrong with her lately?
Jake turned on his side, one hand sliding through her hair. “You did make my birthday special, Emma. I’ve never had a present or a cake before. I’m never going to forget what you did for me. And tomorrow morning I’ll open the presents with Kyle and Andraya. We can have cake for breakfast.”
She tried not to laugh. “No, you won’t. They can’t have cake for breakfast.”
“Why not?”
He sounded innocent enough, but she knew him better than that. The moment he’d had a son, he’d probably researched every fact he could find about nutrition and health care. More than likely he’d consulted every leading authority he could find. He had a mind for facts and details, and she doubted if he ever forgot anything he read.
“You know very well why not. We can’t take a chance on spoiling them too much, Jake. Andraya is already showing signs of being a little princess.”
“She is a princess.”
“In her own mind.”
Jake wrapped a length of her hair around his hand and brought the silken strands to his face. “In my mind as well. But if you say no cake for breakfast, no cake it is. You’re the boss.”
She nearly snorted. “Since when? No one ever bosses you, Jake.” He ran his home and the ranch in the same way he ran his business. He didn’t trust anyone enough to give them much room. Drake, Joshua and perhaps her, were the few he gave a little leeway to, but not much. He would be hell to live with. He would want complete control. Why that made her want to cry all over again, she didn’t know. But tears burned on the ends of her lashes, further humiliating her.
“I’m sorry, Jake. I honestly don’t know what’s wrong with me. I don’t. It isn’t you. I’m just falling apart. I wasn’t even like this when I was pregnant.”
His hand slipped over her shoulder and down her arm to nudge under the hem of her shirt and splay across her belly as if he could feel a child growing there. “I think you just need to have someone hold you while you fall asleep. Remember when you had your nightmares.” He bent his head to hers and brushed a kiss along her temple. “I held you and you went to sleep.”
That was true, but her body hadn’t been on fire. He’d been hard then too, just like he was now, and completely unashamed of it. But now was different because she was too aware of him, lying hard and thick, burning against her thigh like a brand.
“Do you want more children?”
Her gaze jumped to his face. “Why do you ask?”
“I’ve been thinking about it lately. Wondering how you felt about it. With Kyle and Andraya so close in age I thought you might feel they were more than enough.” He pulled his hand from her stomach, the pads of his fingers sliding across her ribs while his knuckles brushed the undersides of her breasts.
She was looking right into his eyes and couldn’t tell if it was an accident or if he’d meant to touch her so intimately. Before she could ask, he added in that same low tone, “I’ve asked John to prepare the adoption papers for you to adopt Kyle.”
She felt a quick burst of pleasure that he not only remembered, but that he’d already instructed his lawyer. She had no idea when he could have found the time, but that was so like Jake, making the adoption a priority when they’d barely mentioned it.
“Thank you. I feel as if I’m Kyle’s mother already. Making it legal takes a huge load off my mind.”
“You didn’t answer. Will you want more children?”
“I don’t know. With the right person.” She didn’t want to leave. She didn’t want to break up Andraya and Kyle.
He rubbed the pad of his finger back and forth over her eyebrow, in the now familiar stroke he often used to help her fall asleep. The gesture soothed her for some unknown reason, almost as if he was petting her. The palm of his hand covered her eyes as he stroked, and she lowered her lashes and let the tension drain from her body.
“What about you, Jake?”
Jake drew in a deep breath. He was going to have more children and he was going to have them with Emma. “In another year or two, before Kyle and Andraya get too much older.” Because it would keep Emma close to him.
He didn’t know much about love, but he knew how to seduce a woman. Whether or not Drake was right about Emma, she was the one he was keeping. He would tie her to him in as many ways as possible, including with more children. He could afford them, and he could hire help. If his other children were at all like Kyle and Andraya, then he could learn to care for them in his way.
“Were you an only child?” His finger traced across her closed eyelid, along her high cheekbone and down to her full lips.
“That’s another thing we have in common. I don’t have any other siblings. I lost my parents in a car accident just before I turned nineteen. I had no one else, no other relatives.”
“What happened? Were you in the car?”
He felt the small shudder that went through her. “No, but I found the car.”
He stroked her hair to soothe her. “I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories.” He wasn’t certain which was worse—having monsters for parents or losing parents you loved right in front of you. He didn’t know that kind of loss. He couldn’t imagine losing Emma. The idea left him without air, with a blank, numb mind, and he wasn’t even in love. He didn’t know the meaning of the word. He wasn’t capable of love, but he knew she was.
“I’m sorry, honey, that was thoughtless of me to bring up your parents and the accident before you went to sleep. I had no idea.” He bent his head the scant few inches to brush a kiss over each eye and then he resumed stroking her face with the pads of his fingers.
“It was a difficult time when I lost them,” she admitted, her voice drowsy. She turned onto her side, facing him, but she didn’t open her eyes. “We always had a plan in place if we were separated and something went wrong.” She was so sleepy and warm. Jake made her feel safe, otherwise she never would have told him anything, yet she couldn’t stop the words pouring out of her. It was almost a relief. “I waited for an hour at the library for them, but they didn’t come. So I went to the rendezvous point. We weren’t supposed to call on the cell phone. I waited there for another hour and then I knew something was really wrong.”
Jake tightened his arms around her and brushed kisses along her temple. “That must have been so frightening.”
“I was terrified. My parents were my entire life. There was a cache of money and papers and I took it, but instead of going to the next spot, the final meeting place before I was supposed to disappear, I stole a bike and rode outside of town, along the road they would have been driving. The road was very winding and steep. I had to walk in places and I knew if they ever found out, they’d be furious with me, but I couldn’t help myself.”
She was silent so long he prompted her. “You found them.”
Her breath hissed out between her teeth. “Yes, I found them.” Her voice was strained and very low. He could barely catch the thread of sound even with his acute hearing. “Their car had gone off the road. My mother had died right away; at least, I think—I hope she did. But my father . . .” She trailed off and buried her tear-wet face against his chest.
“Emma?”
She shook her head.
“Honey. Just tell me.”
Emma was silent for a long time, but then her lashes lifted and she looked into his eyes, searching for something there, some reassurance. “My father had been alive, but someone had tortured him. There were small cuts all over his body. Whoever had done it had started a fire and left the bodies to burn. I could see tracks leading away from the car.”
“What kind of tracks?” He could barely breathe, knowing she’d been through such a thing, knowing how close she’d been to killers. What had her father been into?
“Big cat tracks.”
His mouth went dry at the revelation. Leopard tracks? Was Drake right about her, then? Everything pointed to it, yet how could that be? He had to gather more information on her. Now was certainly not the time to mention that he could shift into a cat.
“I’d given my word to them that if anything went wrong, I’d leave, go thousands of miles away. And I did. I made my way to California, because I promised them I would.”
If Emma gave her word, there was no question she would carry it out. If Emma married him, there would be no cheating, no leaving, no breaking of her vows.
“You met Andrew and married him.” Changing her last name, making her more difficult to trace. “I’m sorry, Emma, that must have been so difficult.” He transferred his hand to her hair, sliding over the silky strands. The action soothed him almost as much as it did her. He felt tension slipping from his body. “Did your mother always like leopards? Is that where you got your love of sketching leopards as well?” He wanted her to remember her mother that way, something beautiful they shared together.
“Yes, but she never did one like the painting I did for
you, the half man and half leopard. She loved big cats. She painted amazing lifelike pictures of them, but none with a half-human, half-cat face. I just think sometimes you have a stillness about you, and the way you move, like water over sand, fluid and silent—that reminds me of a leopard.”
“Not a tiger?” he asked curiously. Emma’s insights were one of the things he admired in her. She had amazing instincts. He was beginning to think Drake might be right about Emma, and it if was true, he didn’t know if that would help his cause or make it more difficult.
“Leopards are more unpredictable.” Her lashes lifted. Fluttered. He could see amusement in her green eyes. Cat’s eyes. “And have bad tempers.”
He heard the smile in her voice and bent closer to inhale her fragrance. Sometimes he wanted to take her happiness into his lungs, to fill his body, his bloodstream, to keep for his own. He didn’t know how to be happy. He was fiercely protective, maybe too much so to be happy. He had built an empire, and he guarded it ferociously, but he was always aware his enemies were circling. Emma had gone through a terrible ordeal, yet she still had the capacity to love, to tease, to find happiness and fun.
“I don’t have a bad temper. I just like things done a certain way.”
She made a little moue with her lips and his heart lurched. His blood surged hotly and his cock jerked, hot and hard and fully awakened. Jake took a breath and let it out, sliding his palm down her arm to tangle his fingers with hers so he wouldn’t cup the temptation of her breast. He had to go slow, let her get used to the idea of a man in her life again. She hadn’t been ready, but he’d planted the seed and hopefully she’d let go of Andrew, and Jake would be there for her.
Truthfully, he’d been with her much longer than Andrew. She’d known her husband only a couple of months before they’d married, and she’d been with him five months before his death. Emma had shared Jake’s life for more than two years. Andrew had been a boy, not a man, and as sweet as he’d been to Emma, she needed a man.
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