Yield (31 page)

From the flare in his eyes, I’d roused his nastier half.
At last.

“Bad girl.”

“Mm-hmm.”

His fingers clawed into my hair, awakening familiar, delicious pain, and he dragged me onto him. Every muscle of his body was wrapped around me to keep me still or pressed against him. As he bent me backward, I had to part my thighs or risk my back snapping from the pressure. I whimpered. How I’d missed this.

He ground his mouth onto mine with enough force to make me gasp.

Then his phone rang.

Coitus interruptus? Well kissus interruptus.

I nearly giggled.

While he fumbled in his pocket, I opened my eyes. People were watching us, even if Jurgen and Pieter were being polite and not looking.

I didn’t care and tucked myself into Glass’s side.

“Hi, doc. Yeah. Yep. Yes, she’s here.” A long pause and with his next words I could hear the terseness in his voice. What had the doctor said?

I waited while he said goodbye then looked at him.

“What? It was about me, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.” He’d slipped his arm across my shoulders and now he stroked my arm. “I can tell you when we get back. Might be best?”

“And wonder what it is that can be so bad that you’re worried? I can see you are. Tell me now, please.” I put my hand up and touched his. “Please, Glass.”

“Okay.” He nodded slowly. “Okay. One of the tests was a pregnancy test.” Frowning, he eyed me.

“No,” I whispered. “It’s not possible.”

“He’s certain. He even knows how long it’s been. You’re five weeks pregnant, Wren.” His brow was wrinkling and unwrinkling. It was fucking with his head too. “But, it’s just a baby. Remember that. Just because it’s his...”

I registered his fingers still stroking mine. His explanation sank in. How easy that was to say. No. Wait. A man, for a man to say that to his girlfriend, or whatever I was, about another man’s baby, it
must
be painful.

“I’m...I need time to think. God. This is crazy.” Crazy on top of yet more crazy. “Let’s go back to your house.”

I might not have morning sickness but throwing up was on the agenda.

“Of course.”

What was I going to do with
his
child? His baby?

Once back at the house, I ended up on the bed again, staring at the ceiling, then I moved to the small secluded balcony, and looked out over the razor wire on the wall. In a haze of
what the fuck is happening with my life
, Hugh contacted us.

I have to keep this baby:
my one thought as I pressed Glass’s phone to my ear.

Whatever I said to him, when I hung up I could recall details but not exact words.

Gently, Glass took the phone from me, then pulled me around the table to sit on his lap.

“Baby girl, I wish I could take all this away from you, but I can’t.”

The sadness in his voice made me tear up. I refused to wipe them away, feeling them trail down my face as I lay there with my head resting on Glass’s shoulder.

“He said I can sign papers at a lawyer’s. Barratt and Bailey? Tomorrow at ten AM. I don’t have to go back to Australia yet, he agreed to that.”

“You didn’t tell him about the baby?” He played with my hair and my eyelids drifted down. I wished I could stay there, with him petting me, forever.

“No. I didn’t. Couldn’t. Tomorrow. Okay?”

“Sure. He needs to know. You realize, Wren, that’s partly
his
DNA the baby will have.”

“Oh shit.” I opened my mouth and let out a breath. I’d missed that. DNA was evidence. “That’s true.”

“Don’t worry about it. We can ask the doctor if there’s a safe way to get a sample. It may help...”

Track him down.
I finished the sentence.

I had
him
inside me still.

That wrecked me. It was as if he could reach out and touch me, even here.

The steady heartbeat under my ear and the solidness of my man’s body, his hands on me – that was all that was keeping me from floating away.

“I just wish...” And here was a crucial statement if ever there was one, but I said it anyway. “I wish it was our child, not his.”

I had always wanted children, just not like this.

Glass stiffened. “Wow. I’m honored. You have no idea how much that means to me, Wren. I wish it too. I thought, since we were barely together, before, that I’d lost way with you. Maybe. You know?” He breathed close, into my hair and I shivered.

I’d said too much, dived in, but I didn’t care.

“You’ve lost nothing. I heard from Jurgen how you waited for me, how much you tried to find me, how you went back there, after months, to see if you could do something.” I took a big breath then plunged in. “Maybe this is too early to say the love word but I still want to try and see if we work out. I do.”

“Me too.”

We breathed together, for a while, and my cares lifted away. I needed to be near this man.

“Wren, this child, it’s half yours. To me, that’s what counts. I’ll stand by whatever you want. Okay?”

“Okay. Thank you.”

“It’s nothing. It’s what anyone with sense would say.”

I snorted and smiled. Glass’s
nothing
was better than most people’s everything. Then I drew his hand up to my face and kissed his fingertips. I pulled his hand over my eyes and hid under there. Peaceful, that was how I felt with Glass holding me, at peace.

Moghul

At two-twenty PM the first text from the surveillance summed up her situation nicely.

The subject is five weeks pregnant. Staying at the house of previously mentioned Male One. She will be with Male Two at ten AM tomorrow for legal matters. Paper signing, etc.

I stared at the screen for ages before tossing it to the bed and heading out to the pool.

Pregnant.

The baby had to be mine.

Two things stood out as important.

First. I’d left evidence inside her, and therefore would have to change the brand of condoms I used, or stop fucking my women so hard. Haha.

Second. Damn. That was mine. Wren was having my,
our
, baby.

A hundred and fifty laps was enough and I stood in the water, leaned on my forearms on the edge of the pool, with my chin resting on my arms, and I stared at the patio where I’d once whipped and fucked her.

The sandstone was warm and as relaxing as a massage after that long swim.

How...how could I possibly leave her with Glass with my child growing in her?

Fate was toying with me and having another laugh. I never changed my mind after deciding something this important. Yet I’d already reversed a little and had her watched. And if I hadn’t done that, who knows what would’ve happened? Could they get my DNA just from her blood?

Wet, I padded to the laptop, dried my hands, and googled if you could extract the baby’s cells from the mother’s blood. Seemed like it would be possible, later in pregnancy due to the baby shedding cell-free DNA, but not yet. What better reason could I possibly have to retrieve her?

I could have her killed and her body disappeared, but that was as likely as me buying the moon. The thought that she might have an abortion made my gut twist. Such a decision was possible and, as things stood, I had no say in what happened to my child. Fuck that.

This was as good as a sign from above, if I believed in anyone above, that I should have her. I’d thought her an impossible puzzle and thought not to hurt her so much that she would no longer be Wren, but this was a sign saying,
try
.

A big, neon, fireworks-display, orchestral accompanied, sign.

And it was what I’d wanted all along.

I walked back to the room naked, still dripping, and picked up the phone, sent the text.

I want her back.

Say again?

I want her back. Do it.

Impossible. Before it was her and one man. Now it’s two separate security operations. Man One’s and Man Two’s. Impossible.

I thought for ten minutes, lying flat on my back on the bed. I never changed my mind. Now I’d done it within a few days over something ridiculous. He probably thought I’d gone mad.

Name a price.

I’d need far more than five men. Twelve or more. Someone will get hurt doing this.

Name a price.

Two hours later his answer arrived.

Men will die. But it might be possible due to inside info. One million now. One more when it’s done, successful or not.

I read it, did some maths, and sent my reply.

Money will be transferred by ten AM tomorrow. Do it. Do it successfully or no second payment.

Received. I’ll text you when we have her.

Well, well, well. Done. I whistled as I walked to the kitchen, did a quick spin on my heels when I entered, and smiled.

I opened the fridge.

Bottles of wine, milk, and not much else except ancient salad and three-day-old chicken. Time to order something appropriate for a celebration.

I speed dialed the restaurant.

“Hi. I’d like to order your Greek pizza with aioli, garlic bread, and some of those barbecue buffalo chicken wings.”

Glass

Watching Wren, in her businesslike black dress and those sinful high heels, disappear up the steps to the lawyer’s, played with my heart. Badly. I didn’t quite trust Hugh.

The man had been great for a while but the long waiting time after her abduction had turned him against me for some reason I hadn’t fathomed. If anything, I suspected it was my criminal activities. If ever there was a man with a broomstick up his ass, it was Hugh. Funny, because I’d seen him skirt the law to keep Wren safe.

I leaned against the Land Rover and Jurgen stuck his head and elbow out the window,

“We’re good? Just waiting for her to come out?”

“Yup. She’s got her phone. I told her to contact me if she needs backup. I can run up those stairs and beat Hugh to a pulp if I have to.”
If he makes her cry.

I’d never seen her cry as much as she had during the past few days. Though that was an expected side effect.

“If she’s in there more than an hour, we go in.”

Jurgen pulled a face and screwed up his ugly nose. The bar through his eyebrow glinted silver. He pointed up the street and his multicolored arm tattoos flexed along with his biceps muscle. If he weren’t big and male, I’d call him out for prettying himself up. “We’ve got the back covered. The underground garage entrance is that next gate up that you see.”

“I know.” I crossed my ankles and let myself wonder if Hugh would give in over Australia. Wren wanted to stay away entirely.

That was impossible, even I knew that.

He’d insisted on seeing her alone except for the lawyers. I owed him some time with her and she wanted to talk to him too. They had years of history and I was the recent man that really should never ever have had the slightest chance of getting near Wren. She was pretty, rich, clean, and she was...innocent. No longer though. No longer innocent. I still felt a tearing at my inner self whenever I thought of how much blame I carried. She’d said not to worry myself, but my thoughts never went away.

I sighed.

Why did life have to be so hard for a woman like her? Unfair. Me, Hugh, sure. We deserved everything thrown at us. Her, no. She was my angel.

The metal gates to the underground car park began to roll up at the same time as my phone buzzed with a text message. I scrambled into the car and two black limos roared out. No three.

Sam, a blond, clean-shaven, clean-skinned man who looked like a boy band member next to Jurgen, had our engine going. “Is that her?”

Why would it be? But, I frowned at the message.

Going to another address where the lawyer is caught up in work. See you there.

The address was a couple of miles away and the limos were going the right direction.

I slapped the back of the driver’s side seat rest. “It’s her. Go. Wait. Jurgen you drive, switch with Sam. Sam, go in and check the office. Make sure this is all okay. We’ll pick you up on the way back.” I watched as he hopped out and ran for the stairs. “Now we can go.”

I got on the comm to the others to make sure they followed then sat back. If Hugh was trying to pull some stunt with this, Wren would give him an earful. She might be teary but she still had backbone.

Wren

This was not one of Hugh’s usual vehicles. A black sedan, sure, and it was clean, but the insides looked rough, like the car had seen use for years.

When Hugh and the lawyer’s receptionist both informed me that Mr. Bailey was tied up at other offices and we were going to have to drive there to do the documents, I was fine with it. I had no reason to think Hugh would do anything wrong. He never had.

But when I reached for my phone, I found someone had swapped my phone for another. The password was always the same for my phone. Hugh had badgered me to change it, but knew I kept using the same one. Slick and rapid theft was one of his specialties. When?

I stared at the phone, the car jogging me sideways. “Hugh, what are you doing? You’ve got my phone, haven’t you?” I cocked an eyebrow at him, smoothed the skirt of my dress, all the while wondering if I should pull the Beretta from the handbag.

To use on Hugh? No. Silly.

In the front seats, past the glass partition, were his driver and a guard I recognized from years of having Hugh and his men shepherd me around. He was as old as Hugh and had babied me from when I was nine or so. Lollipops had been his specialty back then.

“We’re going to the airport.” Hugh’s steady gaze brooked no argument.

Fuck that. I’d had enough of being meek.

“No. We are not. Glass will be following us. He won’t allow this if I don’t wish to go. I won’t allow it. You can’t even have a passport for me.”

“Glass is following a different set of cars. I can get around the lack of passport. You know that in a place like this.” He jerked his chin at the passing streets of Port Moresby. “I can do what I like with the right connections.”

I nodded. “Okay. Yes. You probably can. But this is kidnapping, Hugh. Are you prepared to do that? Just to get me to go to Australia and talk to the police?”