by Lindsey Hart
“Er? Uh… you’re the one who marched into my store and made it sound like a life or death matter. I only humored you because I saw it as a way to get a promise out of you to stop being a pain in my ass. Now you suddenly have nothing to say?” He winked at her. Winked of all things. “Or maybe you did just drag me here because you wanted to take things to the next level.”
“Nope,” Teela said quickly. Too quickly. She mentally cursed herself. “Definitely not that. I- okay…” she leaned forward as well. She dropped her eyes back down to Ross’ shiny shoes. She could practically see her own panicked face in them. “Here it goes. I know that you were once a sperm donor.”
Her head snapped up when silence filled the room. Ross was studying her, eyes wide. He was completely red. She knew that Amy hadn’t made the whole thing up. She wasn’t wrong.
“I- how would you know that?” Ross ground out. “Who did you have to pay to get that information? I swear, there are laws about breaching privacy. I’m not a poor man. I can afford a good lawyer and I have no problem making people pay-”
“Shove it,” Teela snapped. “Just stop. This isn’t about you and your donated swimmers. Well- not exactly. I’m not going to tell anyone. I- god. This is so fucked up. I shouldn’t even be doing this. I should definitely not be doing this. I- I just happen to know that I got your sperm. Yours. It’s- I- I’m pregnant. It was your sperm. I- you- we… we made this baby.” Her hand fluttered protectively to her stomach at the same time Ross’ eyes shot down. He went from red to white in a manner of seconds.
“How the hell do you know that?” He breathed. “That’s also a breach… someone told you… why? So that you could try and get child support from me? So that you could drag me through the mud? So that you could be the next in a long line of leaches that have tried to suck wealth out of me over the years?” He stood so abruptly that Teela leaned back.
He was a little bit scary when he was angry.
Or maybe that was just the flashback she had to Steven, who used to be a real prick when he was mad. In the form of his fists.
She braced herself, but a second later, angry Ross composed himself and became calm and controlled Ross once again. Unflappable Ross. He stared at her carefully, guardedly, obviously planning his next move.
“This…” he pointed at her. “This is not happening. You can’t get a cent from me. You won’t. Not now. Not ever. If you tell a soul about the sperm donation thing, I promise I will make you pay. You’ll lose everything. You’ll wish that you never met me.”
Teela let out a low whistle. “Don’t worry.” She flashed him an obnoxiously fake smile even though her insides were in the worst state of turmoil she’d felt in a very long time. She was pretty sure she was going to hurl at any second. She swallowed hard a couple times, trying to force it back down. She was not going to puke in front of Troll-ass Ross. Not now. Not ever. “This wasn’t about me getting something from you. Believe me, I would never want a thing. It’s not about me telling people you jacked it into a cup for money when you were going through rough times. I don’t care about what you did in your private time. This was about me going against my better judgement and giving you a chance. It was about me thinking you might want to know you had a child out there. Right here. I mean, you probably have like thirty by now if you wanked off all those times, so hell. Why should this matter? It was stupid. And don’t think you’re the only one with friends in high places. If you try and make a big deal out of this, I’ll make sure your name gets dragged through the mud. I don’t have anything to lose, so don’t worry, you can’t take it. I’ll make sure everyone knows you got paid for your sperm. Then all the women out there who have ever used the clinic here will come after you. People won’t buy food from your stores. So, I guess if you go after the clinic for this, you’ll be shooting yourself in the foot.”
Ross stared her down. She stared back. Both of them were breathing hard, their shoulders heaving like they’d just finished a rage marathon. Yup. That’s exactly what they’d just run.
“You- you’re unbelievable,” Ross hissed. “I’m glad you did me a favor and weeded yourself out. Aside from the people I fired, you were the only one who quit. So, don’t be so confident in your friends.”
“They’ll quit sooner or later, when they get sick of your ass. And I’m sure most of our vendors won’t be supplying your stores or patronizing it either.”
“Funny, I had quite a few well-wishers stop by the store yesterday to welcome me. Almost all vendors are confirmed to keep selling.”
Teela made sure that her face gave nothing away. None of the betrayal that she felt. None of the hurt. None of the irrational disappointment. It wasn’t about her co-workers not following suit and quitting on principle. It wasn’t about the vendors or the people of Nestor Falls.
It was about Ross. Not wanting a thing to do with his child.
What did I expect? It wasn’t like he actually wanted to create it. He did it for the money. He seriously probably has fifty kids out there already. Why should he care about one more brat?
Her hand flew to her stomach and rested there. She imagined her child, healthy, tiny, growing. She promised her baby that she’d be worth more than a million of Ross. She’d move far away from Nestor Falls and her child would never know that its father was a bastard. The world’s worst. Heartless. Cold. Spiteful. Evil. The damn hairy, slimy, horrible troll-devil beast bastard.
“You can leave now,” Teela breathed. “Show yourself the way out. And don’t worry. You’ll only get a brick through your store’s windows once a week. I’ll make sure I limit myself.”
Ross shrugged. “If that’s the way you want to go, then so be it. Doesn’t change anything. Please do us both a favor and stay away from the store. Better yet, leave town. Don’t come back. It seems like it would be less painful for you. Less memories and all that.” He winked at her and flashed her a fake as fuck smile before he stalked out. A minute later, the front door slammed shut, betraying the fact that he was anything but calm and composed and put together. He was as pissed off as she was. He was seeing red too.
“Don’t worry,” she breathed into the empty space where he’d been sitting. “I plan on doing just that. And you don’t know the first thing about memories, fuck you very much, Ross Day.”
CHAPTER 6
Ross
A child.
Ross stretched out on his living room couch. The TV blared on uselessly with some home show, but the sound didn’t register with him. He might be exhausted. He might have put in long hours at the new store, trying to stifle the raging chain of thoughts that ran on an endless loop through his brain.
And up to now, he’d been so far from successful it was laughable. Except that it wasn’t funny. Not by a long shot.
For all Ross knew, there was probably a few kids around by now, given that he’d donated sperm as many times as he could. He needed the money. Fast. He was working full time and it still wasn’t enough. He’d been willing to do whatever it took to get his stores off the ground. He wasn’t going to fail.
He was pretty sure that women weren’t supposed to know who the donor was though. Someone had leaked it. Probably a friend Teela knew or someone who hated him. God, it could have been anyone. They might not even work at the clinic. They could have paid someone to give them the information then given it to Teela.
Who was he kidding? This wasn’t some conspiracy theory. No one wanted to take him down. He hadn’t made many enemies if his ex’s didn’t count. He ran grocery stores for god sakes, not some hitman operation or a string of underground gambling operations. He was about as vanilla as it came and so was his business operation. He flew straight. Never fudged books to save taxes. He tried to be a fair boss, as fair as he could be.
So of course, it was one of Teela’s friends who leaked the information. Someone she knew probably worked at the clinic and found out which sample she’d been given or however it worked. Or maybe they’d lied about it all. Maybe they’d just g
ot wind that he’d donated sperm a while back and decided it would be a good way to scam money out of him. For Teela to tell him she was pregnant with his kid so he’d support her, and she could ask him for anything and he’d have to pay for a kid that wasn’t even his. Could that even happen? He was sure it probably could, some way, somehow.
It wasn’t going to happen.
It probably wasn’t even real.
Teela probably wasn’t even pregnant.
So where did that leave him?
What if she was? What if it really was his?
The difference between her and all those other women that might have received his sperm was that she knew. If she was telling the truth, she knew. She knew that she was having his baby Maybe, despite everything, she was just trying to put their differences aside and give him a chance to be a father. She clearly wasn’t pleased to tell him the news. She didn’t really look like she was going to ask him for a big fat paycheck on her next breath.
He’d jumped to the worst conclusions, but then again, he was primed to do it.
An image of Teela’s flushed cheeks materialized behind his closed lids. The hairs at the nape of his neck prickled and other select spots felt a little tingly as well. Maybe more than a little. His dick hadn’t stood down all day. It was a wonder the bastard hadn’t fallen off from the lack of blood properly circulating through it since he’d finally had to make a fast exit into the staff washroom and tuck the bastard into the waistband of his boxers to keep it from making an embarrassing tent in his pants all day. And he absolutely could not understand why it was reacting that way, especially after hearing what Teela had to say.
Teela’s face was uncertain in his mind. Her eyes were wide, as green as a lush meadow in spring. Her lips quivered, like she was actually going to cry, but her eyes remained dry. And then she smiled. It was a dazzling smile, completely gorgeous. The kind of mega-watt smile that could power a small country for a generation.
He recalled how gorgeous Teela looked in just a regular old pair of jeans and a t-shirt. How soft the fabric looked straining over the swell of her breasts and the way that old denim cupped her gently rounded hips. She was the kind of woman who looked good in a paper bag or a sack or however that saying went.
Ross forced his eyes open and gave his head a shake before he actually started drooling all over himself. His pulse was racing, and his heart beat out a ridiculously painful pattern behind his ribs.
“God, how ridiculous is this?” he muttered over the sound of the TV. Too late, Ross realized that it was even more ridiculous that he was talking to himself. His voice was all wrong too. Raspy and weird and too deep. It was more than pathetic that merely the thought of Teela turned him into a teenage fool. He hadn’t felt that way in ages.
That road was a whole lot of nope. It was the kind of road that was littered with booby traps and potholes, complete with signs and billboards that screamed DEAD END.
Ross was forced to wipe his damp palms on his jeans. He’d changed after work and the stiffer denim helped a little to keep his erection where it belonged. Facing south. His chest tightened up and it was suddenly hard to breathe.
He imagined Teela’s hands, small and delicate, those long, tapered fingers wrapping around his cock. He imagined her bow shaped lips, so incredibly soft, sucking him into her mouth. He imagined how she’d look up at him with those sea green eyes and how her perky nipples would peak through the thin fabric of her bra and t-shirt. He imagined stripping off her jeans and finding out she wasn’t wearing panties and finding her wet and slick and ready.
Holy fucking hell. What is wrong with me? He wasn’t just thinking dirty thoughts about the most inappropriate woman, a woman who would just as soon tuck his balls into a vice and squeeze as she would take them into her hands and fondle them gently for his pleasure, a woman who would rather bite his cock off if he put it anywhere near her mouth. Yeah. That little fantasy he’d just had going on was never going to happen.
Not only was Teela wrong for all the wrong and right reasons in the world. She was pregnant. Apparently with his child.
He shouldn’t be thinking dirty thoughts about a pregnant lady. Or about doing anything to her mouth. He shouldn’t be thinking those thoughts about anybody. Normally, he had all the self-control in the world.
So, what the hell was going on when it came to Teela McDaniels?
Ross let out a low frustrated groan and swiveled his legs off the couch. He felt hot and achy, like he was coming down with something. The Teela virus. The Teela flu. She was like a disease that permeated every single part of him. She was in his bones.
Since he obviously didn’t have a shred of common sense left, he made a fatal decision.
There was a good chance she was lying, and he was about to make the biggest mistake of his life and that he’d regret it for years to come. That the remaining splinters of his heart would be shattered completely.
Apparently, he’d never been an overly smart man. Apparently, that leather skin was getting thinner and thinner with every passing moment.
There was a check sitting on the desk that was now his. A check with Teela McDaniels written on the front. He’d done something silly and given her a small severance package even though she’d threatened to set the hounds of hell on him and quit of her own accord. He’d asked that Sarah, the new admin, mail the stack in the morning.
He wished he could wait, but he couldn’t. Come morning, it would be too late.
CHAPTER 7
Teela
Apparently, people didn’t have manners anymore.
Who the hell played doorbell ditch at just after midnight? The neighborhood kids were running wild, spray painting buildings and sticking knives in people’s tires, breaking windows and being a general nuisance, but no one had bothered to ring her bell in the middle of the night.
Teela groaned and slammed her pillow over her face. She’d just started to drift off. She’d felt tired at nine and gone to bed but tossed and turned for hours. Fucking murphy’s law.
The bell rang again and Teela threw her pillow back. “That’s fucking it,” she ground out. She threw back the quilt and even though she was wearing a faded nightgown with a huge cathead on the front, even though it rode up indecently high, she stomped down the hall, down the stairs, and to the door.
She threw it open, doubting very much that there would be anyone there. She expected to see a few teenage punks hoofing it through the parking lot, laughing and yelling obscenities over their shoulder.
She let out a gasp and had to throw a hand out to brace herself when she realized it wasn’t kids playing doorbell ditch at all. No. It was worse. So much worse. She’d take the spray paint, knife wielding, rude-ass teens any day. Anything would have been better than The Troll. Apparently, he didn’t turn back into some other form at the stroke of twelve.
Unfortunately, he was still just as deceptively handsome in a plaid button down and a pair of faded jeans as he was in a suit. His soft dark hair had lost its stiff hold from during the day and fell in waves over his forehead. His crystal blue eyes sparkled like it wasn’t pitch black outside. He actually gave her a smile that was half-genuine, half-forced, but the genuine part of it tugged at parts of Teela. A strange ache developed in her chest and the hairs on the backs of her arms stood on end.
“What- what are you doing here?” she managed to stammer.
Was it wrong that her tongue was so tied in knots she couldn’t use it to form speech, but she imagined doing a hundred other things with it- to The Troll? It’s definitely wrong that I want to know what he tastes like. Probably like slime. He’d definitely taste like slime. Old, drippy, bridge slime.
The Troll’s very un-hairy, very un-troll-like hand shot out and produced a white envelope. “I wanted to bring your cheque. I added a small severance package, even though you quit on your own accord. Call it my better nature or my poor judgement. I thought you could use it.”
Teela’s lungs deflated. It was hard for her to fo
rm a coherent thought, she was so stunned. “I- uh- er- it’s midnight,” she stammered again. “After midnight. Kind of a weird time to be dropping off cheques. You could have just mailed it. Like everyone else.”
Ross’ lids lowered over his incredible eyes- no, not his incredible eyes, his filthy, beady, troll eyes, like he was trying to find an ounce of patience. “Okay, okay, you got me,” he sighed. “I’m not here about the cheque. I could have just mailed it.”
“Obviously.” Teela crossed her arms, but then aware that her nightgown was pretty much sheer and showing most of her legs including the tops of her thighs and that the motion was just pulling it upwards to make it shorter, she quickly dropped her arms back to her sides. She wanted to hightail it back upstairs and throw on a robe, but she swallowed hard and stood her ground.
She wasn’t scared of The Troll. She certainly wasn’t unnerved by the way his eyes grazed her bare legs, then shot to her breasts, then rose to her face. She didn’t notice the slight redness flushing his cheeks.
Okay, so she noticed. And it did strange, shivery, sinful things to her lady bits and her nipples.
“Obviously,” Ross repeated. He shifted from one canvas shoe to another, which was a strangely human thing to do. Probably the most human thing she’d seen him do ever. And he was wearing canvas shoes. And jeans. And a plaid shirt. Not the expensive shoes and shirt that gave him the appearance of being completely untouchable.
“So- uh- thanks. For the cheque.” Teela reached out and took it with a shaking hand. She quickly snapped it back to her side.
She went to shut the door, but Ross’ foot shot out and he actually stopped it. No one had ever done that to her before and it caught her even further off guard. Her eyes flew to his face when she realized just how he close he was. And that he smelled good. God, he smelled really good. He seemed bigger up close, broader, more sinful and sensual. A shiver skittered up her spine.