Читать книгу: «Bound By A Baby», страница 6
“You know what I’m talking about.”
“Yeah, I do. And you’re right,” she sighed in agreement and sat up beside him on the bed.
He was sprawled naked, completely at ease. But Tula was suddenly feeling a little fragile. A little exposed. So she grabbed the edge of the quilt and tossed it over her, covering herself from breasts to knees. “Simon, you don’t have to feel guilty or make a speech. I wanted this, too. You didn’t seduce me into anything.”
“I know.”
“Well,” she said with a small, self-conscious laugh. “Thanks for noticing.”
“Not the point, Tula,” he said. “The point is, we’re still involved over Nathan and I want to make sure we understand each other.”
She turned her head to look at him. “What are you talking about?”
Frowning, he pushed one hand through his hair. “Just that, you hold the strings when it comes to Nathan’s custody.”
She nodded, unable to look away from his eyes, once so warm and now looking as cold as the damp winter night outside. Somehow, he had taken a step away from her without actually leaving her side. Amazing that he could pull that off naked, but he managed.
“I don’t want this,” he continued, voice hard and flat, “what just happened here between us, to affect that.”
Stunned, Tula could only stare at him, dumbfounded. This was not what she had been expecting. She’d thought that he was about to deliver the old, that-was-a-mistake-that-won’t-be-repeated speech. Instead, he was intimating… “What?”
His mouth flattened into a grim line and that one eyebrow lifted. Surprisingly, she found it far less charming this time.
“Are you serious?” she demanded, indignant fury driving her words. “You really think I’m the kind of person who would use this against you somehow?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Oh, yes you did,” she told him, tossing the quilt aside and scooting off the bed. She grabbed her jeans and pulled them on over bare skin when she couldn’t spot her lace thong. “I can’t believe this. After what we just did, you could think that I, how could you think that? Amazing. And I’m so stupid. I should have seen this coming.”
“Just wait a damn minute—”
She glanced at him over her shoulder. “That is about the most insulting thing anyone’s ever said to me.”
“I wasn’t trying to insult you.”
“So it’s just a bonus then.”
He climbed off the bed and went to grab his own jeans. Tugging them on, he said in a patient, calm tone that made her want to throw something, “Tula, you’re overreacting. We’re two adults, we should be able to talk about this without getting emotional.”
“Emotional? Oh, could I show you emotional. Right now I want to throw something at that swelled head of yours.”
“Not helpful,” he pointed out, then looked around as if judging what she might grab and hurl at him.
“There’s one of the differences between us, Simon,” she snapped, whipping her head around to glare at him as she grabbed up her sweater. “Throwing things sounds very helpful to me right now. See, I’m not afraid to get emotional.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Now it was his turn to look insulted. “Who said I was afraid? This isn’t even about fear.”
“Really? Looks that way to me. My God, Simon.” She cocked her head and narrowed her eyes on him. Shaking her head, she said, “You relaxed for like what? Twenty minutes? Was I on your schedule? Did you pencil me in—Sex with Tula—then back to business?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he muttered.
“Oh, now I’m ridiculous,” she echoed, tossing both hands high then letting them fall. “You’re the one making this into something it never was. This little speech you’re making isn’t about Nathan at all. It’s about you backing away from allowing yourself to feel something genuine.”
“Please.” He scoffed at her and that one eyebrow winged up. “This isn’t about feelings, Tula. We both had an itch and we scratched it. That’s all.”
She hissed in a breath and her eyes narrowed even farther until the slits were so tiny it was practically a miracle she could see him at all. “An itch? That’s what you call what just happened?”
“What do you call it?” he asked.
Good question. She wasn’t about to call it anything nice now. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. So instead, she ignored the subject entirely. “Honestly, Simon, the very minute you felt close to me at all, you pulled back and hid behind that stiff, businessman persona you wear as if it were just another three-piece suit.”
“Excuse me?”
“Oh,” she said, warming to her theme and riding on bruised feelings and insult, “I’m just getting started. You’re worried that now that I’ve been in the fabulous Simon Bradley’s bed I might try to use that in deciding Nathan’s future? Well, trust me when I say that sex with you won’t sway my decision about you taking custody…”
He folded his arms over his chest. “Was there an insult in there?”
“Quite possibly, but I wasn’t finished.”
“Finish then. I knew there was more coming.”
“You haven’t proved to me yet that you’re anywhere near ready to take care of a baby. Heck, until you were absolutely sure he was your son, you hardly went near him.”
“And that’s bad?”
“It is when you’re too busy protecting yourself to give a child a chance.”
“That’s not what I was doing.”
They stared at each other, gazes simmering with passions that had nothing to do with sex.
“This was clearly a mistake,” Tula said a moment later, when she thought she could speak without shrieking. “But thankfully it’s one that doesn’t have to be repeated.”
“Right. Probably best.” Simon shoved one hand through his hair and said, “I still want you.”
Tula looked at him for a long moment before admitting, “Yeah. Me, too. Good night, Simon.”
She left the room and he didn’t stop her. But she couldn’t help turning back for one last look as she walked out. He looked powerful. Sexy. Very alone.
And even after everything that had just happened, something inside her urged Tula to go back to him. Wrap her arms around him and hold on.
She had to remind herself that he had chosen solitude.
Eight
“I handled it badly, I know that.”
“Yeah,” Mick agreed cheerfully the following day. “That about covers it. Were you trying to piss her off?”
“No,” Simon said, shaking his head as he thought about the night before. Hell, he couldn’t remember much besides the urgent need he had felt to get her under him. Although the fight afterward was etched clearly enough in his mind. He still wasn’t sure how it had happened. He hadn’t meant to alert her to the fact that he was aware of the power she held in the situation. Hadn’t meant to throw down a gauntlet just so that she could hit him over the head with it.
All he had really wanted to do was let her know that he wasn’t going to be led around by his groin. That he was more than his passions. That sex with her, no matter how astounding, wasn’t going to change him.
Simon made the rules.
Always.
But somehow, when he was around Tula, rational thought went out the window. Today, here in his office, away from the woman who was making him crazed, he was able to think more clearly. Now what he needed to know was what exactly Mick had found out about Tula Barrons Hawthorne.
“Never fight with a woman after sex,” Mick was telling him. “They’re feeling all warm and cozy and whatever. Men want to sleep. So hell, even talking after sex can be dangerous—if you ever want sex again.”
Oh, he did, Simon thought. He wanted her the moment she left his room. He had wanted her all night and had awakened that morning aching for her. Want wasn’t the issue.
“Just skip the advice and tell me what information you turned up.”
Mick frowned at him and Simon thought that this was the downside of having your best friend work for you. He was less likely to take orders well and more likely to deliver his opinion whether Simon wanted it or not. “What did you find out? I know she’s related to Jacob Hawthorne, but how? Niece?”
“A lot closer than that, as it turns out. She’s his daughter.”
“His what?” Simon went on alert. “His daughter?”
His mind raced as he listened to Mick give him more details.
“Hawthorne and his ex split when Tula was a kid. Mom moved with her to Crystal Bay. Tula visited her father often, but several years ago, she appears to have cut all ties with people here completely—including her father. My source didn’t know much about it, just that Tula’s a sore spot with the old man.”
He had already known about her moving to that little town with her mother, Simon thought. But why would she cut all ties with everyone here, including her father? And why had he never heard about a daughter before? Was the old bastard protecting his child? Simon wouldn’t have thought Jacob Hawthorne capable of familial loyalty.
“And,” Mick added, “seems that when she started publishing children’s books, she began using her middle name, Barrons. It’s a family name, after her maternal grandmother. That grandmother left a will that provided a trust for Tula so that she—”
He straightened up in his desk chair and leaned both forearms on the neatly stacked files on his desk. “How big a trust?”
Mick thumbed through the papers he held. “To you, fairly small. To most of the world, very nice. It at least allowed her to buy her house and support herself while writing.”
“Her books don’t earn much?”
Mick shook his head. “She has a small, but growing readership for her Lonely Bunny series. The money will probably improve, but between her writing and the trust, she gets along and lives well within her limited means.”
“Interesting.” Her father was rich and she lived in a tiny house nearly an hour away from the city. What was the story behind that? he wondered.
“She hasn’t seen her father in a few years that I can find,” Mick continued. “But then, the old man almost never leaves the city, either.”
Hell, Simon thought, Jacob hardly left the Hawthorne building. He had a penthouse suite at the top of the structure that was his company’s headquarters. He ruled his world from the top of his tower and rarely interacted with the “little people.”
But as he thought that, Simon had to wince. Until the other day when he had deliberately gone through the store chatting with his employees, people could have said the same thing about him. There were some very uncomfortable similarities between Simon and his enemy.
“Is there anything else?” he asked, mainly to get his mind off that realization.
“No,” Mick said, laying the sheaf of papers on his lap. “I can probably get more if you want me to dig deeper.”
He thought about that for a moment. If he turned Mick loose and told him to dig, he’d have every piece of information available on Tula Barrons within a couple of days. But did he need more? He now knew who she was. He knew that she was the daughter of his enemy.
That was plenty.
While Mick talked, offering advice that he wasn’t listening to, Simon tried to consider the situation objectively. He was attracted to Tula, obviously. The passions she stirred in him were like nothing he’d ever known. But now he knew who she was and damned if he could bring himself to trust a Hawthorne. So where did that leave him?
“What’re you planning?”
He glanced at Mick. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Right. I’ve seen that look before,” his friend said, settling into the chair in front of Simon’s desk. “Usually just before you’re plotting some major takeover of an unsuspecting CEO.”
Simon laughed and missed his point deliberately. “No CEO is ever unsuspecting.”
“Damn it, Simon, what’re you up to?”
“The less you know, the better off you are,” he said, knowing that his friend would try to argue him out of the plan quickly forming in his mind.
“You mean the less you have to listen to my objections.”
“That, too.”
Mick slapped one hand down hard on the arm of his chair. “You’re crazy, you know that? So what if she’s a Hawthorne? Her father’s a miserable old goat. She’s got nothing to do with him.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Damn it, Simon,” Mick continued. “She split with him years ago. Doesn’t even use her real name for God’s sake.”
“She’s still his daughter,” Simon insisted. “Don’t you get it? The daughter of the man who tried to destroy my family is now in charge of when I get custody of my own son. How the hell am I supposed to take that, Mick? What if she just decides to never approve my custody of Nathan?”
“You really think she’d do that?”
“She’s a Hawthorne.” As far as he was concerned, that explained everything. God, he was an idiot. He had actually begun to trust Tula. He’d felt for her. More than he had anyone else in his life. Now he finds out this? For all he knew, Jacob had manufactured Nathan’s mother’s will. Maybe he and his daughter were in this together. Conspiring to dangle his son in front of him only to snatch him back.
He sprang to his feet as if the thought of sitting still another moment was going to kill him. Turning his back on his friend, he stared out the wide window at the view of San Francisco that Tula had admired so the first day he met her.
But instead of the high-rises and the glittering bay beyond the city, he saw her.
Her eyes. Her smile. That damn dimple in her cheek. He heard her sigh, felt the ripples of satisfaction rolling through her body as they took each other.
It had been one night since he had been with her and he wanted her again so badly, it was gnawing at him. Had she planned that, too? Had she deliberately set out to seduce him just so she could crush him later and sit with her father to enjoy the show?
His guts tightened and a cold, hard edge wrapped itself around his heart. The nebulous plan still forming in his mind was looking better and better by the moment.
“If you screw this up, you could be risking your son,” Mick reminded him unnecessarily.
“No,” Simon said, glancing back over his shoulder at his friend. “Don’t you get it? A Hawthorne is in charge of whether or not I’m fit to care for my son. How could I possibly make that any worse?”
“Let me count the ways,” Mick muttered darkly.
“You’ll see,” Simon told him, warming to his plan even as it took final shape in his mind. “I’m going to seduce Tula—” again, he added silently “—until she can’t think straight. By the time I’m finished, she’ll support me getting custody of Nathan. And when I’m sure of that, I’ll go to her father and tell him that I’ve been sleeping with his daughter. If that doesn’t give the old man a stroke, nothing will.”
“What’ll it do to her?” Mick asked quietly.
For one brief second, Simon considered that. Considered how it would be when she found out that she’d been used by him. But he let that thought go as soon as he remembered that she was a Hawthorne and that her family was more than accustomed to using and being used.
“Doesn’t matter,” he ground out.
“Whatever you say.” Mick stood up and shook his head. “I’m heading home now, but before I go, one more piece of advice.”
“I’m not going to like it, am I?”
Mick shrugged. “Whoever likes unsolicited advice?”
“Good point. Okay, let’s have it.”
“Don’t do it.”
“Do what?”
“Whatever it is you’re planning, Simon.” Mick locked his gaze with his friend’s and said in all seriousness, “Just let this go.”
Simon shook his head. “Hawthorne cheated me.”
“His daughter didn’t.”
“She lied to me. About who she was. Maybe about why she’s in my damn house.”
“You don’t know that. You could just ask her.”
Sending a warning glare at his friend, Simon said, “You don’t understand.”
“You’re right,” Mick told him, turning for the door. “I don’t. For the last week or so, you’ve been almost…happy. I’d hate to see you screw that up for yourself, Simon.”
He didn’t say anything as Mick left. Hell, what was there to say? There was an opportunity here. A chance to get back at Jacob Hawthorne while at the same time indulging himself in a woman he wanted more than he was comfortable admitting.
An image of Tula filled his mind and his body went hard and heavy almost instantly. Remembering how responsive she was in bed had him wanting her so desperately, he’d have done anything to have her that minute. Even that damned fight they’d had hadn’t cooled him off any. Instead, it had stoked the fires already inside him. He’d never enjoyed a fight more.
Didn’t mean anything though, he told himself. Yes, he’d admitted to liking her. But that was before he knew who she really was. Now he didn’t know if he could believe the person she’d shown herself to be. Maybe it was all an act. Maybe everything she had done since arriving at his house had all been part of an elaborate show.
If it was, he would have the last laugh. If it wasn’t…he shook his head. He wouldn’t consider that. Tula Hawthorne was a grown woman. She could make her own decisions. And if she decided to join him in his bed—and she would, again—that would be her choice.
She’d be fine.
He’d have his revenge.
And his son.
“He was a complete jerk,” Tula said into her cell phone, then caught the baby watching her warily. She didn’t care what some people thought about children and their awareness to the world around them. She knew that Nathan was sensitive to tone and her moods, so she instantly forced a smile, despite the sheen of ice that felt as though it was coating her insides.
“Honey,” Anna’s sympathetic voice came over the phone. “You’re the one who always reminded me that most men are jerks at one point or another.”
“Yes, but at that point?” Tula said in a hiss, still smiling for Nathan’s sake. “Seriously, Anna the glow hadn’t even begun to fade and he turned on me like a rabid dog.”
“Well, I hope you gave it right back to him.”
“I did,” she said, remembering their fight last night. It had completely colored everything that went before it and that was saying something.
Sex with Simon had been even more amazing than she had imagined it could be. But to have it all ruined because Simon had donned his metaphorical suit right after was just infuriating.
“Nothing I said got through to him though, so it hardly matters that I fought back,” she mused, plucking a windblown brown leaf from the blanket and tossing it into the air. “He was so cold. So…”
“Believe me I know,” Anna assured her. “Remember how awful Sam was in the beginning?”
“That’s different.”
“Really, how?”
Tula laughed halfheartedly. “Because this is about me.”
“Ah, well sure. Now I see.”
Another laugh shot from Tula’s throat helplessly. “Fine, fine. You suffered, all women suffer. But my suffering is happening now.”
“Okay, there you’ve got me.”
“Thanks. So. Advice?”
“Plenty, but advice isn’t what you need, Tula. You already know how to handle this.”
“Really, how’s that?”
“Get Simon ready for Nathan and then come home. Where you belong.”
Where she belonged.
For so many years, the tiny house in Crystal Bay had been just that. Tula’s haven. The one spot in the world where she felt as if she’d carved out a place for herself. But now, thinking about going back to her old life of work and friends sounded somehow…empty.
Her gaze turned on the baby laying on a blanket spread over the grass of Simon’s backyard. She didn’t know if she could go back home. Her small house would now be crowded with memories of a baby that had brightened it so briefly. She would hear Nathan’s cries in the night, find his toys tucked under the couch. She would wonder, always, how he was, what he was doing.
Just as she would wonder about Simon.
The bastard.
How dare he make her care for him and then become just…a man? How could he have experienced what they had shared and then turn his back on it all so mechanically? How could he simply flip a mental switch and shut off his emotions as easily as turning off a lightbulb?
Or maybe she was reading too much into him. Giving him too much credit. Maybe he didn’t have any emotions. Maybe that suit that so defined him had stunted any natural human feelings. Hadn’t she warned herself the very first day she had met him that he was too much like her father? Too caught up in the world of corporate finances for her to be interested in him?
She should have listened to herself.
Then she remembered the look on his face as he had stared down at Nathan, knowing the baby was his son. His features had been easy enough to read. The man was capable of love. He simply wasn’t interested in it.
At least, not with her.
“Yoo-hoo?”
“Huh? What?” Tula shook her head and said, “Sorry, sorry. Wasn’t listening.”
“Yeah, I got that,” Anna said wryly. “You’re not ready to come home yet, are you?”
“I can’t. The baby and—”
“No.” Anna’s voice was soft and filled with understanding sympathy. “I mean, you’re not ready to walk away from Simon yet, are you?”
Tula’s shoulders slumped in resignation, though her friend couldn’t see it. “No, guess I’m not. That makes me some kind of grand idiot, doesn’t it?” Then, without waiting for her friend’s response, she answered her own question. “Of course it does. Why would I think I could have feelings for a man so much like my father? Why didn’t I stop myself?”
“Because sometimes you just can’t, honey.” Anna laughed. “Look at me! I took that mural job Sam offered me because I needed the money. I even told him to his face that I couldn’t stand him! Now look where I am…married and pregnant. Sometimes, the heart just wants what it wants and you can’t do anything to change it.”
“Well, that’s not fair at all.”
“And so little is,” Anna commiserated. “Now, back to my original question with this phone call…do you still want me to come to the city this weekend? Do the mural on Nathan’s wall?”
Tula thought about that. Knew Simon would probably hate it—he of the beige-with-cream-trim designing skills. Then Tula looked at the baby, waving his little arms at the naked tree branches high overhead. And she knew that if she couldn’t be with him, then at least she could leave behind a physical reminder of her presence. One that both Nathan and Simon would see every day.
“Yeah, I do,” Tula told her friend. “Nathan’s room needs some brightening up.”
“Great! I’ve already got some fabulous ideas.”
“I trust you,” Tula said, then added, “I’ve only got one request.”
“What’s that?”
“Paint in the Lonely Bunny somewhere, will you?” She reached out and smoothed her fingertips along Nathan’s cheek. “That way it will almost be like I’m still here, watching over him. Even after I’m gone.”
“Oh, sweetie…”
She heard the sympathy in her friend’s voice and steeled herself against it. Tula didn’t want pity. In fact, she wasn’t sure what exactly she did want. Beyond Simon, of course, and that was never going to happen.
It would have been easier to seduce Tula if they hadn’t already been to bed only to have the fight that had left both of them furious.
But Simon was nothing if not determined.
He dismissed Mick’s warnings that seemed to repeat over and over again in his mind. After all, Mick was married. He and Katie had been together since college. They fit together so well, it was hard to believe they hadn’t started out life joined at the hip. So how could his best friend understand the tension, the stubborn refusal to back down once a position was taken? How could he know anything about the sexual heat that flared during an argument?
How could he ever understand the enmity Simon felt for the Hawthorne family?
Simon knew exactly what he was doing—as he always did. And the fact that Mick disagreed wasn’t going to stop him.
This plan of his was going to kill two birds with one impressive stone, he told himself. Not only would he be able to indulge himself with Tula—something he hadn’t been able to stop thinking of—but he’d also have the revenge on her father that he had been dreaming of for three years. It would absolutely fry that old man when he found out that his daughter had been in Simon’s bed.
But first things first. Before his plan could get into motion, Simon had to start making arrangements for when he had custody of Nathan. He wouldn’t have Tula to care for the baby while he was at work, so he would need someone responsible for the job.
He didn’t let himself think about the fact that when that day came, Tula would be out of their lives.
