Seductive Revenge

Holding onto the outrage, he demanded, “When you quit your job and left Texas, you didn’t bother to tell me you were pregnant. Why?”

“You know why, Wes,” she said, shaking her head slowly. “We had that what if conversation a few weeks before I found out. Remember?”

“Vaguely.” He seemed to recall that one night she’d talked about the future—what they each wanted. She’d talked about kids. Family.

“You do remember,” she said softly, gaze on his face. “We were in bed, talking, and you told me that I shouldn’t start getting any idea about there being anything permanent between us.”

He scowled as that night and the conversation drifted back into his mind.

“You said you weren’t interested in getting married,” she said, “had no intention of ever being a father, and if that’s what I was looking for, I should just leave.”

It wasn’t easy hearing his own words thrown back at him, especially when they sounded so damn cold. Now that she’d brought it all up again, he remembered lying in the dark, Belle curled against his side, her breath brushing his skin as she wove fantasies he hadn’t wanted to hear about.

He scraped one hand across his face but couldn’t argue with the past. Couldn’t pretend now that he hadn’t meant every word of it. But still, she should have said something.

“So you’re saying it’s my fault you said nothing.”

“No, but you can see why I didn’t rush to confess my pregnancy to a man who’d already told me he had no interest in being a father.” She rubbed the spot between her eyes and sighed a little. “You didn’t want a child. I did.”

“I didn’t want a hypothetical child. You didn’t give me a choice about Caroline.”

“And here we go,” she murmured with a shake of her head, “back on the carousel of never-ending accusations. I say something, you say something and we never really talk, so nothing gets settled. Perfect.”

She had a point. Rehashing old hurts wasn’t going to get him the answers he was most interested in. He wanted to know all about his little girl. “Fine. You want settled? Start talking, I’ll listen. Tell me about Caroline. Was she born deaf?”

“No.” Taking a sip of coffee, she cradled the mug between her palms. “She had normal hearing until the summer she was two.”

Outside, the wind blew snow against the window and it hit the glass with a whispering tap. Wes watched her and saw the play of emotions on her face in the soft glow of the overhead lights. He felt a tightness in his own chest in response as he waited for her to speak.

“We spent a lot of time at the lake that summer, and she eventually got an ear infection.” Her fingers continued to turn the mug in front of her. “Apparently, it was a bad one, but she was so good, hardly cried ever, and I didn’t know anything was wrong with her until she started running a fever.

“I should have known,” she muttered, and he could see just how angry she still was at herself for not realizing her child was sick. “Maybe if I’d taken her to the doctor sooner…” She shook her head again and he felt the sense of helplessness that was wrapped around her like a thick blanket.

Wes felt the same way. The story she told had taken place nearly three years ago. He couldn’t change it. Couldn’t go back in time to be there to help. All he could do now was listen and not say anything to interrupt the flow of words.

She took a breath and blew it out. “Anyway. Her fever suddenly spiked so high one night, I was terrified. We took her to the emergency room—”

“We?” Was she dating some guy? Some strange man had been there for his child when Wes wasn’t?

She lifted her gaze to his. “My brother Chance drove us there, stayed with us. The doctors brought her temperature down, gave her antibiotics, and she seemed fine after.”

“What happened?”

She sighed and sat back in her chair, folding her arms across her chest as if comforting herself. “When she healed, she had hearing loss. We didn’t even notice at first. If there were hints or signs, we didn’t see them. It wasn’t until the following summer that I realized she couldn’t hear the ice cream truck.” She smiled sadly. “Silly way to discover something so elemental about your own child, but oh, she used to light up at the sound of those bells.”

She took a breath and sighed a little. “The doctors weren’t sure exactly what caused it. Could have been the infection itself, the buildup of water in her ears or the effects of the antibiotics. There was just no way to know for sure.”

“Wasn’t your fault.” He met her gaze squarely.

“What?”

“It sounds to me like you couldn’t have done anything differently, so it wasn’t your fault.”

Horrified, he watched her eyes fill with tears. “Hey, hey.”

“Sorry.” She laughed a little, wiped her eyes and said, “That was just…unexpected. Thank you.”

Wes nodded, relieved to see she wasn’t going to burst into tears on him. “Will her hearing get worse?”

“Yes.” A single word that hit like a blow to the chest. “It’s progressive hearing loss. She can still hear now, and will probably for a few more years thanks to the hearing aids, but eventually…”

“What can we do?”

Her eyebrows lifted. “As much as I appreciate you being kind before, there is no we, Wes. I am doing everything I can. She wears hearing aids. She’s using sign language to expand her conversational skills, and get familiar with it before she actually has to count on it. And I’m considering a cochlear implant.”

“I read about those.” He leaned his forearms on the table. He’d been doing a lot of reading over the last several hours. There were dozens of different theories and outlooks, but it seemed to him that the cochlear implants were the way to go. Best for everyone. “They’re supposed to be amazing. And she’s old enough to get one now.”

“Yes, I know she is.” Belle looked at him and said, “You know, her doctor and I do discuss all of this. He’s given me all of the information I need, but it’s not critical to arrange surgery for Caro right this minute. It’s something I have to think about. To talk about with Caro herself.”

Astonished, he blurted, “She’s only four.”

“I didn’t say she’d be making the decision, only that I owe it to her to at least discuss it with her. She’s very smart, and whatever decision I make she’ll have to live with.” She pushed up from the table and carried her unfinished coffee to the sink to pour out. “I’m not foolish enough to let a little girl decide on her own. But she should have a say in it.”

“Seriously?” He stood up, too, and walked over to dump his own coffee. He hadn’t really wanted it in the first place. “You want to wait when this could help her now? You want to give a four-year-old a vote in what happens to her medically?” Shaking his head, he reached for his cell phone. “I know the best doctors in Texas. They can give me the name of the top guy in this field. We can have Caro in to see the guy by next week, latest.”

She snatched the phone right out of his hand and set it down on the counter. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“What you’re too cautious to do,” he said shortly. “Seeing to it that Caro has the best doctor and the best treatment.”

Both hands on her hips, she tipped her head back to glare up into his eyes. “You have known about her existence for two days and you really think you have the right to come in here and start giving orders?”

Those green-blue eyes of hers were flashing with indignation and the kind of protective gleam he’d once seen in the eyes of a mother black bear he’d come across in the woods. He’d known then that it wasn’t smart to appear threatening to that bear’s cubs. And he realized now that maybe trying to jump in and take over was obviously the wrong move. But how the hell could he be blamed for wanting to do something for the kid he hadn’t even known he had?

“All right.” Wes deliberately kept his voice cool, using the reasonable tone he wielded like a finely honed blade in board meetings. “We can talk about it first—”

“Very generous,” she said as barely repressed fury seemed to shimmer around her in waves. “You’re not listening to me, Wes. You don’t have a say here. My daughter’s name is Caroline Graystone. Not Jackson. I make the decisions where she’s concerned.”

His temper spiked, but he choked it back down. What the hell good would it do for the two of them to keep butting heads? “Do I really have to get a DNA test done to prove I’m now a part of this?”

Her mouth worked as if she were biting back a sharp comeback. And she really looked as if she were trying to find a way to cut him out of the whole thing. But after a few seconds, she took a breath and said, “No. Not necessary.”

“Good.” Something occurred to him then. “Am I named as her father on the birth certificate?”

“Yes, of course you are.” She rinsed out her coffee cup, then turned the water off again. “I want Caro to know who you are—I’d just rather have been the one to pick the time she found out.”

“Yeah, well.” He leaned against the counter. At least the instant burst of anger had drained away as quickly as it came. “Neither of us got a vote on that one.”

The problem of Maverick rose up in his mind again, and he made a mental note to call home again. Find out how the search for the mystery man was going. And it seriously bugged him that he had no idea who it might be. Briefly, he even wondered again if Cecelia and her friends were behind it, in spite of Cecelia’s claim of innocence. But for now, he had other things to think about.

“Why does anyone care if you have a child or not? Why is this trending on Twitter?” She sounded as exasperated as he felt, and somehow that eased some of the tension inside him.

“Hell if I know,” he muttered and shoved one hand though his hair. “But we live in a celebrity culture now. People are more interested in what some rock star had for dinner than who their damn congressman is.”

She laughed a little, surprising him. “I missed that. Who knew?”

“Missed what?” Wes watched the slightest curve of her mouth, and it tugged at something inside him.

“Those mini rants of yours. They last like ten seconds, then you’re done and you’ve moved on. Of course, people around you are shell-shocked for a lot longer…”

“I don’t rant.” He prided himself on being calm and controlled in nearly all aspects of his life.

“Yeah, you do,” she said. “I’ve seen a few really spectacular ones. But in your defense, you don’t do it often.”

He frowned as his mind tripped back, looking for other instances of what she called rants. And surprisingly enough, he found a couple. His frown deepened.

“You’ve got your answers, Wes,” she said quietly. “What else do you want here?”

“Some answers,” he corrected. “As for what I want, I’ve already told you. I can’t just walk away from my own kid.”

“And what do you expect from fatherhood? Specifically.”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I just know I have to be here. Have to be a part of her life.”

She looked into his eyes for a long second or two before nodding. “Okay. We’ll try this. But you have to dial it back a little, too. You’re the one trying to fit yourself into our lives—not the other way around.”

He hated that she had a point. Hated more that as confident as he was in every damn thing, he had no clue how to get to know a kid. And he really didn’t like the fact that he was standing this close to Belle and could be moved just by her scent—vanilla, which made him think of cozying up in front of the fire with her on his lap and his hands on her—damn it, this was not the way he wanted this to go.

“If you can’t agree to that,” she said, when he was silent for too long, “then you’ll just have to go, Wes.”

Fighting his way past his hormones, Wes narrowed his eyes, took a step closer and was silently pleased when she backed up so fast she hit the granite counter. Bracing one hand on either side of her on that cold, black surface, he leaned in, enjoying the fact that he’d effectively caged her, giving her no room to evade him.

“No,” he said, his gaze fixed with hers. “You don’t want to take orders from me? Well, I sure as hell don’t take them from you. I’ll stay as long as I want to, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.”

She took a breath, and something flashed in her eyes. Anger, he was guessing, and could only think join the club. But it wasn’t temper alone sparking in her eyes—there was something more. Something that held far more heat than anger.

“You lied to me for years, Belle. Now I know the truth and until I’m satisfied, until I have everything I want out of this situation, I’m sticking.”

She planted both hands flat on his chest and pushed. He let her move him back a step.

“And what is it you want, Wes? What do you expect to find here?”

“Whatever I need.”

Four

Whatever I need.

Wes’s words echoed in her mind all night long. Even when she finally fell asleep, he was there, in her dreams, taunting her. It was as if the last five years had disappeared. All of the old feelings she’d had for him and had tried so desperately to bury had come rushing back at her the moment she saw him again.

She had three older brothers, so she was used to dealing with overbearing men and knew how to handle them. Isabelle wasn’t easily intimidated, and she wasn’t afraid to show her own temper or to stand up for herself, either. But what she wasn’t prepared for was the rush of desire she felt just being around Wes again.

He was the same force of nature she remembered him being, and when his focus was directed solely at her, he wasn’t an easy man to ignore. Old feelings stirred inside her even though she didn’t want them and the only thing that was keeping her sane at the moment was the fact that it wasn’t just her own heart in danger, it was Caroline’s. And that Isabelle just couldn’t risk. She had to find a way to appease Wes, avoid acting on what she was feeling for him and protect Caroline at the same time. She just didn’t know yet how she would pull it off.

“Well,” Edna said when Isabelle walked into the kitchen. “You look terrible.”

Isabelle sighed. Makeup, it seemed, couldn’t perform the miracles all the TV commercials promised. “Thanks. Just what I needed to hear.”

Edna was in her sixties, with short silver hair that stood up in tufted spikes. Her brown eyes were warm and kind and a little too knowing sometimes. Today she wore her favored black jeans, black sneakers and a red sweatshirt that proclaimed, For Most of History, Anonymous Was a Woman.—Virginia Woolf.

“Seriously, did you get any sleep?” Edna pulled a mug from under the single-serve coffeemaker and handed it over.

It was gray and cold outside, typical January weather in Colorado. But the kitchen was bright and warm and filled with the scents of coffee and the breakfast Edna insisted on making fresh every morning.

Grateful for the ready coffee, Isabelle took the cup and had her first glorious sip. As the hot caffeine slid into her system, she looked at her housekeeper and gave her a wry smile. “Not much.”

Sipping her own coffee, Edna gave her a hard look. “Because of Wes?”

She jolted and stared at the other woman. “How do you know about him?”

“Caro told us this morning. She says he’s pretty and that you said he’s a friend.” Edna tipped her head to one side. “Marco told me to butt out, but who listens to husbands? So, Wes is more than a friend, isn’t he?”

Before answering that question, Isabelle looked around and then asked, “Where’s Caro?”

“Outside with Marco. She wanted to make sure the snowman they made last weekend was still standing.” She paused. “So? Who is he?”

“We’ve known each other way too long.”

Edna laughed. “That’s what happens when you grow up in a town of twelve hundred people. We all know too much about each other. Probably keeps us all on the up and up. Can’t do a damn thing wrong around here and get away with it.” She narrowed her eyes. “And you’re stalling.”

“I know.” Pulling out a stool at the island counter, Isabelle dropped onto it and reached out to grab a biscuit she knew would be stuffed with ham and scrambled eggs. It was Caroline’s favorite breakfast, so naturally the indulgent Edna made them a lot. Taking a bite she chewed and said, “He’s Caro’s father.”

“Whoa.” Edna’s eyebrows shot up. “Wasn’t expecting that.” She leaned on the countertop. “What does he want?”

“Caro.” She took another bite and chewed glumly.

The other woman straightened up in a blink. “Well, he can’t have her.”

It was good to have friends, Isabelle told herself with a quiet sigh. She’d known Edna and Marco her whole life. They’d both worked for her family since Isabelle was a child. And at an age when they could have retired, instead, they’d come to work for Isabelle, to help raise Caro. And she knew that she would never be able to pay them back for their friendship or their loyalty.

Smiling, Isabelle said, “No, he can’t. But to be fair, he doesn’t want to take her away, he just wants to be a part of her life.”

“That’s a bad thing?” Edna pushed the plate of biscuits closer to Isabelle. “Talk and eat. You’re too thin.”

Isabelle knew it was useless to argue, so she dutifully took another one. “It’s not bad necessarily,” she said, breaking off a piece of biscuit and egg to pop into her mouth. “But it’s…complicated. Caro doesn’t know who he is and I don’t know how much he’s going to push for. Plus, he’s so angry that I never told him about her that he’s not even trying to be reasonable…”

“Are you?”

Isabelle’s gaze shot to Edna’s. “Hey. Whose side are you on, anyway?”

“Yours. Absolutely.” Reaching over for a dishcloth, Edna wiped up a few crumbs. “But come on, sweetie. The man’s a father and you never told him. Most men like to know if their sperm scores a goal.”

She snorted a laugh even while she nodded. “True. But he said he didn’t want kids.”

“That’s before he had one.” Edna sighed and leaned on the counter again so she could look directly into Isabelle’s eyes. “Even Marco didn’t want kids till we had our first one.”

“That’s hard to believe.” Frowning, Isabelle remembered how Marco had devoted himself to Edna and their three kids. Even now, he spent most of his free time with their grandchildren. A more family-based man she’d never known.

“Well, it’s true.” Edna shook her head and grinned. “When I told him I was pregnant the first time, the man went pale—and with that Italian olive complexion of his, it wasn’t easy.”

Isabelle laughed a little. True.

“My point is, he completely freaked,” Edna admitted. “I think he was scared, though God knows a man will never admit to that. But once he came around to the idea of being somebody’s daddy, he was all for it, and the man is the best father in the world.”

“He is,” Isabelle murmured.

“So why not cut this Wes guy a break and see what happens?” Edna shrugged. “You two might find a way to work through this.”

“Anything’s possible, I suppose.” But at the moment, Isabelle was having a hard time believing that. She could remember, so clearly, how it had felt to have him looming close to her last night. She’d felt the heat of him reaching for her. And when she’d pushed him away, she’d come very close to grabbing him instead and pulling him closer.

Really irritating that she could be furious with him and still want him so badly.

“Is there more going on here than just worry for Caro?” Edna asked quietly.

Isabelle looked at the other woman. “Too much and not enough all at the same time.”

Edna took a sip of coffee. “I hate when that happens.”

* * *

Room service brought him coffee and toast. Wes ate and drank while he ran through the latest stream of emails clogging up his inbox. Deleting as he went, he kept expecting to see another message from Maverick. Why, he didn’t know. The damage had already been done. But wouldn’t he want to gloat? Wes really hoped so, because just one more email from the mystery man might be enough to help Wes’s IT department nail the bastard.

Until that happy day, Wes focused on what he could do. The TV was on, the local news channel a constant murmur of sound in the room. One part of Wes’s mind paid attention to the reporters, wondering if he’d hear more about this Maverick mess. Meanwhile, he concentrated on answering business emails, then made a call to his VP. When Harry answered, Wes smiled. Good to know his employees were up and working as early as he was.

“Morning, Wes,” Harry said. “Sorry to say, if you’re calling for an update on Maverick, I don’t have one for you yet.”

Scowling, Wes rubbed his forehead and walked to the French doors of his suite. It was too damned cold to throw them open, so he settled for holding back the drapes and staring out at Swan Hollow as the small town woke up. The clouds were low and gray—no surprise, and yet more snow was forecasted for today.

“How is it no one can nail this guy—or woman?” Wes grumbled, not really expecting an answer. “Is Maverick some kind of technical ninja or something?”

Harry laughed shortly. “No. So far, he’s just been lucky. He got in and out of your account so fast, the IT guys couldn’t track him. But Jones in IT tells me he’s rigged it to let him know if anyone tries to breach again.”

“Well, that’s something.” It was a lot, really, just not enough. Wes didn’t function well with helplessness. Because he’d never accepted it before. Always, he’d been able to do something. He’d never been in the position of standing on the sidelines, watching other players make moves he couldn’t.

And he didn’t like it.

“Not enough, I know,” Harry said, as if he knew exactly what Wes was thinking. “But we’re still working it. On the downside, Teddy Bradford won’t take my call, so if you want to try to do CPR on that merger, you’ll have to reach out to him yourself.”

“Yeah, I tried before I left Texas. He blew me off, too.”

“It may just be over, boss.”

“No, I won’t accept that,” Wes said. “We spent nearly two years putting that merger on the table and I’ll be damned before I let some cowardly rumormonger ruin it. There’s a way to save us taking over PlayCo, and I’ll find it.”

“If you say so,” Harry told him, but disbelief was clear in his tone.

Fine, he’d proved people wrong before, and he could do it again. Turning away from the view, Wes voiced a suspicion that had occurred to him only late last night. “You think maybe Teddy’s working this from both angles?”

A pause while Harry thought about it. “What exactly do you mean?”

Wes had been turning this over in his mind for hours now, and though it sounded twisted, he thought it could just be true. “Well, we had a deal and he’s backed out—what if he and Maverick were in on it together?”

“For what reason?” Harry asked, not shooting down the theory right away.

Any number of reasons, really, Wes told himself, but the most likely one had slipped into his mind last night and refused to leave. “Maybe he’s lined up a deal with a different toy company and needed a way to get out of our merger without looking bad.”

There was a long pause as Harry considered the idea. “Anything’s possible,” he said, his voice slow and thoughtful. “I’ll put some feelers out. I’ve got some friends over at Toy America. I’ll talk to them. See what I can find out.”

“Good. Let me know ASAP if you discover anything.” Wes picked up the coffee carafe from the dining table and poured himself another cup. If Bradford was working with Maverick to try to ruin Wes and his company’s reputation, heads were going to roll. “I’m going to be here at least a few more days—”

“Yeah.” Harry sighed. “Okay, I promised myself I wouldn’t ask why you were in Duck Springs, Colorado…”

Unexpectedly, Wes laughed. “Swan Hollow.”

“What’s the difference?” Harry asked. Then before Wes could speak, he said, “Just tell me. Is everything all right?”

Wes’s smile faded slowly. Things were as far from all right as they could get, he thought, but he didn’t bother to say anything. Harry and the rest of the company had probably figured out that Maverick’s email about Wes’s daughter had been nothing but the truth. But that didn’t mean he was ready to discuss it with everyone. Not even his friend Harry.