Yield (45 page)

I was. Because, I guess, he’d become the only rock in the burning swamp of debris that was my life. I didn’t love him. I wasn’t sure
like
was more than a small percentage of my thoughts. He was just big and monstrous enough to fend off everything else that might happen in the near future.

“It’ll heal. You chose. That was worth getting cut over.”

He thought I’d chosen him. I hadn’t, though. I just needed someone now. Someone like him...

I shut my eyes.

Glass had died. How was that even possible? He was a mountain. Indestructible. I’d not even been there. He was supposed to be my hero and rescue me and now I wished he hadn’t tried. Maybe, if he hadn’t tried, he’d be alive.

After he stapled the wound in my back, Moghul left me in the middle of his bed then climbed in with me. I cried, as quietly as I could, for what seemed like hours. My pillow grew progressively wetter. Where did I fit in the world without Glass? What was I doing
here
, in this man’s bed?

I should’ve killed him, but those words had already lost their power. Maybe I could’ve done it...if I’d struck him before he’d told me Glass was dead.

And then...then I would’ve been so alone.

Moghul shifted and his arm fell heavily over me, his hand ending a few inches from my nose, pushing my pillow against my face.

“Shhh, enough. Go to sleep.”

“How?” I blinked at the darkness.

“It’ll get better. There’s more to me than there seems.” His thumb stroked my forehead.

“Seems?” I laughed softly, my tongue loosened by weariness. “You seem big and scary.”

“Oh, I am, but that’s how you like me, Wren. That’s what you need. Go to sleep.”

For a few bleary moments, I considered protesting but his warmth and the weight of his body and words, helped me fall into oblivion.

More of his words filtered in and barely registered.

Tomorrow, we fly out early. In a few days, I may have something amazing to tell you.

Wren

By whatever ways and means it was made to happen, I never found out, but the next morning, after being awakened and after my shoulder had been cleaned and my hair dyed blond, we took off from the local airport in a small private jet.

I, Wren Gavoche, missing rich girl, with my hair in a scarf and dyed, and with contact lenses in place that made my eyes water, was allowed through customs with barely a blink at my passport. Money talked, I suppose. It always did, since mankind’s history began and the first coin was hammered out.

At that time, I was still, perhaps understandably, in a bleak world of my own. I could have exposed Moghul, as we were ushered through customs and given VIP treatment and accelerated processing of our passports to get to our plane. I didn’t. I was consumed by the deaths of my friend and my lover, and also increasingly aware that the man into whose charge I had delivered myself, was the father of my child.

Had I delivered myself? Had I chosen Moghul in the middle of my grieving for Hugh and Glass? He thought I had, and with every passing day, leaving him became less and less urgent, less important, less something I wanted to do.

We ended up in South America, on the coastline, and the similarity to life on the coast of Australia helped me to keep myself together. I survived. Moghul, for once, treated me kindly if with the attitude of a man who brooked no disobedience from his woman. No spankings, no S and m...but I began to mourn the passing of that also.

I began most mornings by looking at his brand in the mirror.
Mine.

A week after we arrived, I was lying on a towel-draped table, out on the rear patio, having my wound examined by Florencia, the one maid Moghul had so far hired. Our house was in a gated community with security guards and she was the only other human I’d been allowed near. Since I couldn’t speak Spanish and that was all she spoke, we got along fine, according to Moghul.

Whatever she made of my steel link bracelets and neck collar, I had no clue. Only once did she examine the heart lock dangling from the new collar and then her only comment was a whispered, “Hermoso.”

This morning, after giving me a stern look and instructions to be good, Moghul had gone on some mystery errand. After the garage door clunked down, I fidgeted. My desire to be my own person and leave him was reawakening. I could climb the wall maybe even circumvent the locks on the doors. The back gate, which only sported a padlock, led over to the beach. Every night I heard the waves roll in. Sometimes I’d dreamed of flying out over the walls, like a seagull.

I was being a thorough traitor to Glass by staying with Moghul, no matter how much I was... I searched for words to explain my need to stay and only ended up with tears dribbling onto the towel while Florencia dabbed my staples with iodine. I’d have to remember not to wear white. The yellow of the iodine would mark the cloth.

“Bueno!”

The buzz of an alarm said that Moghul had returned but the maid kept fussing over my back. All the secondary hook wounds had closed over to become only dots, but they seemed to bother her and make her want to attend to them as much as the stapled L-shaped tear. Another few days and those staples could come out.

When he stepped onto the broad patio, from the double doors toward the opposite end, Florencia curtsied and retreated into the house. A curtsey. It’d taken me awhile to get used to her doing that. Was it a local thing or just a reaction he elicited in young women?

I swear my nostrils dilated as he walked slowly closer. My reaction to his maleness was unmistakable, now that he’d left me alone for a week. When every day had meant sex, his mere presence now dictated that I moisten and become aroused when I was near him. It was disconcerting especially since he appeared to know how he affected me.

If this kept up, if he didn’t make me do something like he always used to, I could see myself begging on my knees and offering a blow job just to get some action.

Wouldn’t
that
amuse him.

“Cover yourself, Wren. We have a small visitor. Well she’s more than that.” He nodded.

“Oh?” I sat up and pulled up the top of my dress to conceal my breasts then pushed the straps over my shoulders. Moghul telling me to cover myself was a small miracle.

“You’ll see.” He smiled, speculatively. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

His deep voice had been welcome after Florencia’s sharper, feminine one. And my insides had quivered. I suppose we, both men and women, have instinctual reactions to potential mates, only often we don’t recognize them and we suppress our responses. I’d simply been awakened to my body’s needs. I shouldn’t be ashamed.

My main need now, was to decide, in this less traumatic environment, with a clearer head, what to do. I couldn’t fight him anymore. I knew that. I was done with fighting, but there might be another way past his obsessive need to keep me as his.

And if not?

What were my real feelings for Moghul? So much had happened. He wasn’t the same man I had first met. I wasn’t the same woman.

A series of barks came from within the house, then a golden puppy shot from the same door Moghul had used, far down the patio. The small bundle, a cocker spaniel, ran around and around the garden, zipping between the shrubs, while I sat there stunned, with my mouth open.

What the hell?

I’d told him no once before to a puppy; did he think it would convince me?

Then a girl squealed and ran out after the puppy, her pigtails flying. Dark hair, and so small I guessed she was somewhere around two years old. When Moghul emerged after her and ran to scoop her up with her giggling at him, thoughts crammed in. Dread too.

No one else was here. No parents.

Where did you get a child in a South American country when you wanted one?

He stalked toward me and I stood, anger brimming, insults on my tongue.

“Moghul! What have you –”

“No. Stop there.” He set the girl down but held her by one chubby hand then went to one knee to comfort her. She was staring at me, wide eyed, with one thumb wedged in her mouth. “I will not raise my voice to you here and now, Wren, but you will also speak respectfully. Apologize.”

No please. No outs or alternatives.

I froze. My anger ground down. He’d not commanded me like this, not since we came here. It’d been more a guidance, for days.

My heart fluttered, and not with irritation, with a weird sort of joy.
Oh damn.
I cleared my throat. He was right. My anger was premature.

“I’m sorry, Sir.”

“Good. This is Theresa. She is two and a half. You’ll kneel and say hello.” He smiled grimly at that, because we both knew it was for more than the child.

My gaze flicked to her and I couldn’t help smiling. “She’s beautiful.” I went to my knees. “Hello, Theresa.”

Though her fingers only received more chewing she nodded at me. Then I directed my question to him. “Where are her parents, Sir?”

This time it was he who seemed uncomfortable, his brow creasing and uncreasing. “Theresa, would you like to go play with the puppy?” Moghul pointed, smiling wider. “Look! Puppy!”

“Pup-pee?” After a last look at me, to which I nodded and repeated,
puppy
, she raced away after the dog. It was sniffing grass and within moments they were chasing each other, giggling and barking.

“Her parents. Okay. One of her parents, the father, is dead, the mother isn’t. What are your thoughts, Wren?”

I gulped. With a baby of my own on its way, seeing this child awoke a need to see her with her mother. “I think she should be with her mum. Why is she here?”

Was her mother a drug addict or something worse?

“Where is she from?”

“An orphanage in France. She is starting to speak French as well as some English. It’s taken me a long time to find her and to arrange to bring her here. My man suspected she existed but she’s had several foster families. None have kept her.”

Suspected she existed.
Those words stirred weirdness in my stomach. This girl was someone special?

My throat tightened. “That’s sad. So... Why isn’t she with her mother?”

Then he turned and went to sit on one of the big cane chairs that dotted the patio along with many hanging pots of flowers. “Come here, Wren. Sit at my feet.”

There was something he held back. Knowing him and how mad he got with something that he wanted, my head was spinning. Why did he want this girl? But I went to him and kneeled on the pillow he gave me, then rearranged myself and sat with my legs to one side. He stroked my hair and after a moment or two of that and watching the boisterous puppy and child gallop and toddle about the garden, I laid my head on his lap. A while later, I succumbed and sneaked my arm around his leg, then I hugged it. This was strangely beautiful and peaceful – sitting here with Moghul watching these two young creatures.

I put my other hand to my stomach and smiled.

“Have you guessed, Wren?”

“Guessed?”

“Who the mother is.” He stilled his hand on my hair. “Your father had her birth records falsified. But I don’t want to ruin this moment by saying more about that. I’m certain of the facts. I’ve had DNA tests run. I decided this child needed the love of her mother, but also, I have to confess, I thought it would bring me closer to you.”

Ohmigod.
I held his leg tighter. She couldn’t be.

I could only whisper my next words, I was so afraid I’d guessed wrong. “Am I her mother?”

“Yes, you are.”

I buried my face in his pants leg and squeaked out, “Are you sure. Absolutely?” I had to hear this again.

“Yes.”

It wasn’t possible. It just...wasn’t, but I leaped up and ran to her, my steps slowing as I drew near.

How could this be? This little girl was the baby I’d thought stillborn? I wanted it to be so with all my heart. I’d grieved for her long ago and the tearing of my thoughts from one extreme to the other wrecked me.

In the curve of her nose and the color of her eye I could see myself. In the way she smiled so shyly and in the glee with which she played, I saw Nathan. I stopped doubting and I
believed
.

My child.

My baby.

Watery eyed, I drew in a shaky breath.

She stopped her playing, and shoved her hand in her mouth, as if afraid. I wondered at her past and what fears she might have, but when I went to one knee and held out my arms she ran into them.

I hugged her, carefully, and I whispered to her. “Theresa. I’m going to be your mummy from now on. Will that make you happy?”

What a silly question. She barely knew me. My heart was in my mouth as she raised herself on tiptoes and wrapped her arms about my neck. Then she gave my neck a baby kiss and whispered, “
Oui, maman
.”

I cried then. Although I wept no more tears that day than I had at the death of Glass, they were far happier tears and I would gladly have bottled them and kept them forever to remind me of the day my first baby came back to me.

Maybe fate had decided I deserved something good after all that had happened. It was odd, to say the least, to have Moghul be the man to deliver her to me, this child I never knew had survived her birth, but perhaps that was his fate also, to be a perverted version of a fairy godmother. I think my love for him began from that day.