Capital Risk

by Lana Grayson

  I shook my head, my words lost in a tight wheeze. “Because we have no choice.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Nicholas leaned forward. “You don’t need to understand. Change the result of the sonogram.”

  “I can’t,” she said. “Anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of human anatomy will recognize that this…” She circled Bumper’s little bottom. “Is female.”

  “Then find another sonogram and label it as Ms. Atwood’s results.”

  “I—”

  I held her gaze, unable to hide the fear prickling the tears in my eyes. “Please.”

  “One hundred thousand,” Nicholas said. “You know our families. The money is good, and it’s yours for this favor.”

  Doctor Liam hesitated, her eyes fluttered closed. “If this ever gets out—”

  “It won’t,” he said. “Please. Find us a replacement picture and the money is yours.”

  “I can’t believe I’m doing this.” She rose to her feet. The screen flicked off, and Bumper disappeared. “This is…insanity. I’ll be back. Don’t…go anywhere.”

  The door shut behind her, and my tears rattled me from head to toe. Nicholas leaned over me, kissing my forehead, gripping my hand.

  “Darius can’t know,” I said. “The baby will be born in four months. We can’t wait any longer, Nick. He’ll kill her. He’ll kill me.”

  “Not going to happen.” Nicholas caressed my cheek. “Nothing has changed. We can hide Bumper’s gender until she’s born, and he’ll never find out. Nothing has changed.”

  He kissed me. The golden halo in his eyes returned, strengthened with a sudden, fierce pride.

  “We’re having a little girl.” His smile seared through the fear.

  A little girl. I sucked in a breath. Then another.

  We had a healthy baby.

  Boy or girl, it didn’t matter anymore. She was healthy. She was perfect. She was mine.

  And nothing was going to harm her.

  “Your father should be terrified,” I whispered.

  Nicholas frowned. “Why?”

  “Because if one Atwood woman nearly killed him?” My voice steeled with a newfound confidence. “Imagine how much destruction two Atwood women will cause.”

  The champagne popped. Reed chugged the bottle. I stared at my ginger ale.

  “This isn’t fair.” I pouted, burying my feet in the warm sand. “I turn twenty-one, and you guys get to drink.”

  The noisemaker buzzed from Reed’s mouth. I batted it away.

  “Just be glad you survived.” Max showed no interest in the cake, but a pretty silver package wrapped for me with his name on the tag. “Didn’t think you’d last this long, baby.”

  The waves rolled in close. I kicked at Reed’s surfboard. “I’m tougher than I look.”

  “So is Abigail,” Nicholas said. Reed and I voted with four thumbs down. “Claire?”

  I shook my head.

  He poured another drink and opened the second baby name book with a sigh. “Madison?”

  “Bumper,” I said. It was so much easier and safer. I didn’t want to risk anything on our little vacation far from the truth and secrets and danger. “For now.”

  Nicholas brushed my hand, his kiss soft and warm and promising to make my birthday night just as fun as the afternoon. “What would make this day perfect? Name it. It’s yours.”

  That was easy and impossible. I met his lips with a gentle nibble.

  “I don’t want this day to end. I wish I could stay here forever.”

  If only because I dreaded what would happen when we returned home.

  “I have another surprise for you,” Nicholas said. “I think you’ll like it.”

  The limo pulled from the airport and returned us to San Jose.

  I feared we’d regret it.

  “What kind of surprise?” I asked.

  “You’ll see. I want to show you before the party.”

  I checked my phone. Only two hours before Nicholas’s induction as the new CEO of the Bennett Corporation. The party forced us back to reality, swept away from my birthday adventure on the beach to assume our rightful responsibilities—the ones we fought to earn, and the ones we now dreaded possessing.

  “Do we have time?”

  “It won’t take long.” He squeezed my hand. “I can’t wait to show you.”

  I doubted he’d show me anything that would ease the prickling, suffocating, consuming instinct to run once more.

  I’d never look back.

  An altered sonogram would only fool Darius until my daughter was born. Then it wouldn’t end until one of us was dead.

  And it sure as hell wasn’t going to be me.

  I made my plan. Plane tickets and duplicates, hotel reservations and rented properties, false trails and security details. It could all come together in less than an afternoon. If I needed it. If I had no other choice. If the risks in staying out-numbered the reasons to remain.

  And they did.

  But I hadn’t gone. And I knew why.

  I wanted Nicholas to come with me—with us.

  The surprise waited for me at Nicholas’s penthouse. He guided me through the hall.

  “Close your eyes.”

  Nicholas had often issued such orders, but this time it wasn’t accompanied with a collar and blindfold. He opened a door and crossed his arm over my waist. I rested against his chest as he whispered to me.

  “This is for Bumper.” His hand rubbed my tummy. “I didn’t want to wait.”

  I peeked open my eyes.

  Oh, this man.

  The nursery was styled like a farm. A mural of painted blue skies overlooked fields ripe for a harvest. Little barns and animals printed on the walls—horses and cows and the sheep Dad never actually bought but threatened to ranch in Montana. The white and wicker furniture looked exactly like the ones from the pictures of our farm when my great-grandparents first settled the land. He decorated with a rocking chair and crib, changing table and shutters over the windows. The mobile was made from little barnyard animal figurines.

  “I hired Atlas to do the work.”

  “Nick, this is…” My words broke.

  Run.

  Stay.

  Hide.

  Fight.

  My options became more limited the longer I waited and the bigger I grew. This was just the sort of perfection that would blind me to the true danger.

  “I know you’re scared,” he said. “Even if you won’t admit it. But I want you here, with me.”

  “You can’t promise me we’ll be safe.”

  “I can. I will.” He kissed my temple. “Sarah, I’m a man who has always received everything I’ve ever wanted the instant I demanded it. You are the one exception to my rule. I can’t buy you. I can’t own you. I have nothing to offer you except my heart, and even if you refuse it, you are the reason it beats.”

  “Nick…”

  “I want you and the baby. You are my world. You are my family. A real family.”

  He gave me a devilish smile, pulling a package from the top shelf of the dresser. I tugged the ribbon and opened the box, grinning at the tiny pink onesie.

  “I couldn’t help myself.” Excitement warmed his voice. “After decorating with all the farm themes, I needed a little something else in here.”

  “Daddy’s Princess?” I wrinkled my nose. “You’re going to spoil her before she’s born.”

  “Absolutely.”

  I covered the box before the pink seeped out and every secret spread. Nicholas took my hand.

  “Tonight, I want to celebrate. We have the companies. We have Bumper.” His smile was so rare, so perfect it almost startled me. “Let’s celebrate tonight. You know how much I love you.”

  “It’s not about how much you love me,” I whispered. “It’s about how much he hates me and my family.”

  His fingers brushed my belly. “It’s one family now, Sarah. And nothing he does will change that.”

  �
�Everything can change it.”

  “Only if we let him.” Nicholas kissed me once more. “I dare him to try in what little time he has remaining.”

  The trace of his lips on mine warmed with every whispered promise and murmured devotion. He meant to leave for the party. I pulled him into our bedroom instead.

  Nicholas grinned.

  We embraced in a fierce and passionate kiss, every quick nibble answered in the same fervor, the same intensity, the same realized desires.

  So much for his celebration. My dress slipped from my shoulders. Nicholas’s gentle mouth caressed my skin, dragging from my puffy lips to the pulsing heat in the hollow of my neck. He kissed where the material fell away over my flushed breasts.

  My body was changed now. Noticeably. I was soft curves and delicate swells. My breasts plumped, full and beautiful. Nicholas hummed, taking a nipple into his mouth. The warmth swirled around me, entirely too sensitive for little more than his tender attention.

  He lowered me to the bed, but for the first time, hesitated before lying over me.

  He kissed my visible tummy.

  “I have to be more careful now,” he said. Bumper kicked at the sound of his voice.

  “We’re tougher than we look.”

  “I’m not taking any chances.” His fingers hooked within my panties. “Not when there’s so many other ways to enjoy you.”

  The silky tease of my panties slipped over my hips. His hand never left my tummy. It hardly ever did. I knew he was tempted by the thought of getting me pregnant, but I feared once it happened, Nicholas would realize how truly barbaric such a practice had been. Or that his excitement would pass and I’d be taken and ruined all from the same moment.

  Not so.

  Not ever.

  Not with the nursery and the gifts, the kisses and the touches, the honesty in his voice when he declared his love.

  How gently he whispered to the baby when he thought I’d fallen asleep.

  I believed him when he vowed a life of family, trust, and warmth. But it was so hard to give him that part of me. Loving him, trusting him was a strange form of surrender that wasn’t found in bindings or chains or whips.

  Trust was completely consensual, independent of him and what he could offer and what he had done. It came from me. I had to trust myself first.

  He touched me, and I softened. He kissed me, and I groaned. He delighted me with the slip of his tongue, and I was lost.

  I loved Nicholas Bennett—I loved him more than the Atwood land, more than the legacy left by my father and brothers, more than the money and the fame of our families. And not because I’d sacrifice everything that was me to be with him, but because he’d do the same. Because it didn’t matter if we were Atwood or Bennett.

  We were together. All of us.

  The heat of his tongue swept through me, building deeper, hotter. I drew him to my lips as my body shuddered. One flick of his tongue wasn’t enough.

  His clothes slipped away. As I softened, every bit of him hardened, including the part meant most for me. His muscles, his abs, his voice, everything tensed with raw confidence and a quick possession. The swelling of my body was made by him, but the masculine victory was tempered by how he looked at me in such awe and adoration.

  “Promise you’ll stay with me, Sarah.”

  I’d promise him anything while my pulse raced and my core demanded more of his touch.

  And I’d probably keep those promises too.

  Despite the warnings and the fears and the darkness, I’d stay with him until the end.

  However quickly it would come.

  He lay beside me, his hand over my tummy. His cock sunk into me. I closed my eyes, and the thickness only tightened the need inside me. For once, his breathing shuddered more than mine. I loved hearing his quiet grunt, the not-so-hidden profanities that destroyed the composure of a man as powerful as Nicholas Bennett when he thrust within the woman he loved.

  He was as gentle as he could be, but his touch was never rough, only demanding. The simple, desperate movement that offered so much but took even more. I mewed, matching his intensity, resting against the heat of his chest. His hands caressed every part of me, tickling over my breasts, my tummy, and finally in the crest he claimed.

  I flinched as he rubbed my swollen clit. The sensation overwhelmed me into shocked shivers of pleasure. Neither of us would last, but we weren’t savoring. I needed that burst, the quick blending of passion. A promise of everything warm and wild.

  He pinched my clit as I tensed, clenching against his thickness. The first jet of his heat within me caused my own peak, and I clutched his arms, the bed, my own body.

  We shuddered together in a shared, perfect pleasure.

  A perfect trust.

  And I knew what it meant. Trust was my most reckless sacrifice of all, and letting him love me the most dangerous promise I’d ever make. My heart was his to cherish or shatter.

  It wasn’t a weakness to love, but it took so much strength to survive.

  We rested, panting, loving. For the first time, I let myself imagine that this would be our reality. Our few delicate moments could stretch beyond stolen hours or days and last for a lifetime.

  Nicholas sighed, pulling from me despite my soft protest.

  “We’re supposed to be at my party,” he said.

  “You’re just lucky I didn’t name myself CEO of the Bennett Corporation.”

  “Exceedingly fortunate.”

  We dressed quickly. No powder or makeup hid the flush over my cheeks. We arrived only an hour late, well within the earned grace period of a Bennett. The Atwoods were usually given two hours until high society questioned us, but who was counting the seconds?

  The Bennett Corporation spared no expense when celebrating the most monumental change in the company’s history. A completely altered board and new CEO meant one of the fanciest and most exclusive country clubs opened its doors for a night of dining, dancing, and reckless drinking.

  A full-scale orchestra blared classical music, and every important person with a well-known family on the West Coast joined in the cacophony of money, power, and celebrity.

  Reed greeted us with a broad smile and edged us from the well-wishers for a moment of privacy.

  “And just where have you two been?”

  Nicholas accepted a drink and toasted his brother. “I showed Sarah Bumper’s nursery.”

  “I hope I get the encore tour.”

  I blushed, wishing I had something stronger than ginger ale to endure the hungry stares of my two step-brothers. Someone was missing. I searched through the tuxedos and evening gowns.

  “Where’s Max?” I asked.

  Reed shrugged, attempting to look carefree. He failed. “Haven’t seen him. He’s probably coming later.”

  Or not at all. Reed didn’t need to make excuses for his brother.

  We parted as Senator Mackin arrived to shake Nicholas’s hand. The greying, walking/talking suit beamed an elect-me personality. He wagged a finger.

  “Ms. Sarah Atwood. I remember you from when you were just a little tyke.”

  “Most people do, sir,” I said.

  “Certainly not little now.”

  I glanced down. I wasn’t that big, and Bumper would probably be petite. The dress did accentuate the bump. I thought I looked rather cute.

  “I should congratulate you, Ms. Atwood,” he said.

  Nicholas held my hand. “Thank you, Senator.”

  What the hell was he doing?

  The realization took a moment to brighten the senator’s face, but the shock remained. At first, I prepared for the scandal, the dreaded word step-brother. Instead, he laughed.

  “An Atwood and Bennett baby?” he hooted. “Jeez Lousie, that’s gonna be the most powerful kid in California. Boy or girl?”

  “Boy.” We both answered quickly, reflexively.

  “Well, congratulations! I feel like I ought to start my campaigning now. In thirty years that little boy is going to
own us all.”

  He shook Nicholas’s hand again before parting to chase either a waitress or the drinks she carried. I tugged Nicholas to my side before he dared to slink away.

  “So…” I perked an eyebrow. “We’re just…telling people then?”

  “Why not?” he said. “Sarah, I love you. And I love Bumper. And the truth will come out soon enough. Why not celebrate it?”

  “Celebrate it?”

  “We’re here, aren’t we?” he shrugged. “Surrounded by everyone powerful and influential. It’s a perfect opportunity to reveal it.”

  I meant to frown, but the tingle of excitement buzzed through me.

  He was right, but Nicholas didn’t see the true opportunity. We were here, celebrating his ascension to the top of the Bennett Corporation, succeeding his father and seizing his empire. Nicholas had the power, the company, the heir.

  And I had him.

  It was the perfect opportunity to announce our blessing and twist a knife that already dug into Darius’s heart.

  Now, the bastard had no family. No company. Absolutely no meaning left in his life. Everything Darius once prized in the world was lost to me. Even his heir held my hand as he made his rounds to visits friends and business associates.

  “Ms. Atwood!” A balding man, flushed by too many drinks, shook my hand and grinned at Nicholas. “Paul Baxtor. Vice-President of Research and Development at the Bennett Corporation.” He exhaled, smiling wider as he looked me over. “I read through your work, Ms. Atwood. You are…absolutely brilliant!”

  He knew how to flatter me. “Thank you.”

  “I am so grateful for the opportunity to work with you. We will make history, you and me. With your intelligence and understanding of these genomes, the world is going to change.”

  The damn hormones. Nicholas thanked him for me as I choked on my own pride. I fanned my face to suppress the weepy tears.

  “Let’s get you something to eat,” he said.

  “Hear that?” My sniffle became a giggle. “Change the world. Me. All this time you Bennetts were trying to make an heir when you could have had me instead.”

  “Hindsight is 20/20.”

  I shook my head as a passing server offered a variety of shellfishes and seafoods. Not good for me at the moment, not a particular favorite otherwise. I aimed for a cracker with cheese though I really wanted a snow cone. I managed to find crushed ice at the bar and some soda just as the crowd cried for a speech.