“Jackson King,” he said, holding out one hand.
“Dani Sullivan.” She shook his hand, turned to Casey and lifted both eyebrows.
Casey ignored her and did her best to rise above the charm level Jackson was using. “I can’t go with you and leave my car here.”
“Don’t worry about it. One of my guys will drive it over to the house later.”
“Your guys?”
“Employees,” Jackson corrected for her benefit. “Besides, your little compact’s not the safest car in the world to haul a baby around in.”
Casey was stunned. “Of course it’s safe. I take it in for checkups regularly.”
“Not what I mean,” he said, waving one hand at the pale-blue compact parked on one side of her driveway. “Look at it. In an accident, you might as well be riding a skateboard.”
Dani winced and Casey stared at him. “I don’t get in accidents.”
“Not purposely,” he conceded. “But then that’s why they’re called ‘accidents’.”
“He’s got you there,” Dani muttered.
Casey scowled at her friend, then shifted that same expression to Jackson. “My car is perfectly serviceable.”
“Uh-huh, maybe it used to be.” He turned, pointed to the black monster parked at the curb, then looked back at Casey. “That’s your car, now.”
“I—my—what?”
“I bought you a car,” he said, in the same tone he might have used when saying, I made you a sandwich. “Had the dealer install a top-of-the-line car seat for Mia, so you’re all set there, too. Much safer for you and the baby.”
Casey wasn’t an idiot. She could see that he was most likely right about that monstrous car/bus being safer to ride in. After all, it looked the size of a small tank. But she couldn’t keep allowing him to ride roughshod on her life anymore. A line had to be drawn. Might as well be done now.
“Jackson, you can’t go around doing things like that,” she said, staring at the car now and trying to imagine herself behind the wheel. It was so huge it would be like driving an eighteen-wheeler. And the thought of how much it would cost simply to fill the gas tank gave her a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach.
“Why not? You needed a safer car, I got it for you.”
He really didn’t get it. Didn’t seem to understand that she wasn’t the kind of woman to be taken over by some big strong male who thought he knew what was best for her. For heaven’s sake, she was an adult. She’d been making her own way and her own decisions for most of her life.
Now, all because she’d felt it was his right to know about Mia’s existence, her life was wildly spinning out of control. That old saying about good deeds never going unpunished, was certainly true enough.
But that ship had sailed and there was no going back. Dani was right, she’d have been furious if Mia’s father hadn’t wanted to know her, too. So there really had been no win to this situation and the fact that Jackson was clearly determined to be a part of his daughter’s life said something about his character.
And even if she didn’t like it, having a father would be good for Mia. That’s what she had to keep in mind, here. What was best for Mia.
Still, she had to make him see that while he might be related to Mia, he had no control over Casey. So she tried again, speaking slowly and plainly. “I don’t need a new—”
“It’s in your name. Temporary registration and insurance information are in the glove compartment. Why don’t you drive it on our trip back to my place, get used to the feel of it?” He smiled and started for the house. “I’ll just check with the movers, make sure they know where to take your stuff.”
“I already told them—” Her voice trailed off as Jackson walked away, clearly not trusting her to have been able to instruct movers. “Did you see that?”
“Deep breath,” Dani said, putting one hand on Casey’s forearm. “Okay, I see what you mean. He is a little—”
“Overbearing? Bossy?”
“Yeah.” Dani gave her a pat of reassurance. “He is. But it seems like he means well.”
“He’s impossible.”
“Honey, it’s only six months.”
“Six months,” she repeated and thought that very shortly, she would be using those two words as a mantra.
Casey turned to look at the little house that had been hers. Where she and Mia had built so many memories. She knew she was looking at her past, because no matter what happened over the next six months, she and her daughter wouldn’t return to this place. And nothing would be the same, ever again.
Jackson stepped out of the house, walked to the edge of the porch and looked at her. Across the yard, despite the presence of the movers, Dani, and the kids, Casey felt the power of his steady gaze reach out to her. Even from this distance, even surrounded by people, she felt heat building inside her. Just a look from him gave her shivers. Her body didn’t seem to care that he was the human embodiment of a bulldozer. Didn’t care that he was taking over her life.
All her body wanted, was his body.
Six
Through the baby monitor, Casey heard Mia whimpering in her sleep. Slipping out of her wide, sumptuous bed, Casey grabbed up her terry-cloth robe and headed for the door of her room.
It wasn’t surprising that Mia was awake and fretful. Their day had been filled with strange people, strange places. Even Casey was finding it hard to sleep in a new place. No wonder then that the baby was feeling just as unsettled.
Skylights dotted the roof over the long hallway, letting in moonlight that guided her way along the corridor to the room beside hers. While she hurried to Mia, Casey’s mind raced.
Jackson had naturally stepped in and taken over moving day. When they arrived at his sprawling hilltop home, Casey had been amazed to see just how much the man had accomplished in one week. Not only was her bedroom the most elegant, luxurious room she’d ever set foot in, but Mia’s nursery was the sort she was used to seeing in celebrity magazine articles.
There was a mural of forest animals on the walls, a closet stuffed with clothing, shelves filled with toys and a crib fit for a princess. The lower half of the windows in the second story nursery were barred for safety’s sake and looked out over the sweeping landscape that rushed downhill toward the ocean.
Casey, on her own, never could have provided her daughter with anything like the well-appointed room. And though she appreciated all Jackson had done to make their daughter a space in his life, she couldn’t help feeling the sharp sting of envy.
He was using his money to point out the differences in their lives and he was doing a good job of it.
She reached Mia’s room and the door was partially open, as she’d insisted it remain earlier. The baby’s cries had stopped on Casey’s short walk down the hall, but she had kept going, wanting to reassure herself that Mia was safely back to sleep. Now, Casey heard whispers just carrying over the baby’s sniffling breaths.
Curious, Casey pushed the door open silently, and paused on the threshold. Moonlight flooded this room as well, and the night-light that had been left burning was a magical thing that threw patches of stars onto the ceiling.
But she hardly noticed any of it. Instead, her gaze focused on the man standing beside the crib, holding Mia against his chest.
“No more tears, Mia,” he murmured and his already deep voice was a rumble of hushed sound. “You’re safe here. This is your new home….”
Casey’s heart twisted as she watched him soothing their daughter. Clearly, he’d left his own bed to come to this room. He wore silk pajama bottoms that hung low on his narrow hips and the chest he held his daughter against was bare and gleamed like carved bronze in the moonlight. His dark head was bent toward Mia’s and Casey heard his soft whispers as he soothed the tiny girl he held so carefully.
“Go back to sleep, baby girl,” he said on a soft sigh.
“Dream of rainbows and puppies and long summer days. Your daddy’s here now and nothing will ever hurt you�
��.”
She couldn’t tear her gaze from them. There was something so sweet, so…right about the picture they made. Calling himself Mia’s daddy, promising that sweet little girl that she’d never be hurt, all of it made Casey want to both smile and cry.
Jackson swayed gently, continuing the quiet rush of whispers and Mia’s tiny sigh sounded gently in the room. And Casey’s tears won the battle, stinging her eyes, blurring her vision until she had to fight to hold them back.
As if sensing her presence, he turned, still cradling Mia, and smiled at her. “I’ve got a monitor in my room, too.”
Casey walked close to them and reached out one hand to smooth her sleeping baby’s hair. “Of course you do.”
His eyes narrowed a bit. “I am her father.”
“You’re right,” she said, meeting his dark gaze. “I’m just used to being the only one getting up in the middle of the night.”
The look in his eyes gentled some at that admission. His hand moved up and down Mia’s back, soothing, stroking. “I can understand that,” he whispered. “But you’re not alone anymore, Casey. I’m here. And I’m going to be a part of Mia’s life. I’ve already missed too much.”
She took a deep breath and nodded. This was only their first night together. She was going to have to find a way to deal with Jackson’s rights as a father.
Forcing a smile, she said, “You seem handier with babies than I expected.”
Apparently realizing that she was willing to if not end their little war, then to at least declare a temporary ceasefire, Jackson smiled. “I’ve got two nieces, remember? Emma and Katie. Emma’s a little more than a year old and Katie’s about three months. I’ve put in my babysitting time.”
Her surprise must have been stamped on her features because his smile widened into a grin that made her catch her breath.
“Didn’t know that, did you?” he asked.
“No. I mean,” she said, “I knew about your brothers’ children, I just never thought you would—”
“What?” he challenged. “Love my family?”
Well, that made her feel small and petty. She should have known better. Should have guessed. In the research she’d done on Jackson before meeting him in person, she’d learned just how tight the King family really was. She just hadn’t even thought that a man more interested in jetting off to exotic places would be so attentive to his infant nieces.
“Of course not,” she said softly as Jackson turned and expertly laid a sleeping Mia back in her crib, “I just didn’t think a man like you would want anything to do with babies.”
“A man like me?”
She moved past him, bent over the top rail of the beautiful white crib and ran the flat of her hand down Mia’s back. Listening to her child’s quiet snuffles and sighs, she smiled. “You know,” she said as she turned back to him.
“The playboy type.”
He laughed quietly. “You think I’m a playboy?”
She turned her head to look at him and almost wished she hadn’t. While he’d been holding Mia, he was gorgeous, but somehow safe. Now that he wasn’t…he looked much too tempting. All that bare, tanned, muscled flesh. The sleep-ruffled hair. The shadow of whiskers on his jaw. The heavy-lidded sexiness of his eyes.
Oh, God.
“I only know what I read about you,” she said and moved for the door. Best to get back to her own room fast, before she did something really stupid like reaching out one hand to trace the planes of those muscles of his.
He was just a step behind her and when they moved into the hall, he caught her arm. Heat shot from his touch to rocket through her body like an explosion battering off a series of walls. She was forced to lock her knees to keep from swaying into him. His eyes were dark, fathomless and when he spoke, she had to fight for focus.
“And just what have you read?”
“I think you know the answer to that,” she said, trying to tug her arm free of his grasp. “You’re practically the poster boy for fast jets and faster women. So you can understand how seeing you, being so gentle, so tender, with Mia like that, could throw me a little.”
He snorted. “You’ve got a narrow view on the world, don’t you?”
“No, I don’t.” She tried again to get free, but Jackson wasn’t ready to let her go just yet. He parted her robe and ran one hand up her arm. Even though the terry robe she wore wasn’t exactly sexy, seeing the curve of her breasts beneath the soft fabric was enough to make him hard and ready and way too eager. Despite the fact that she had the ability to seriously annoy him.
“Sure you do,” he said with a sneer. “You read some one-sided articles about me and decide that I’m what? Some rampaging guy, only interested in what he can take out of life?”
She stilled and chewed on her bottom lip. He’d like to help with that, but he resisted.
“Do you think the tabloids would be interested in doing a story on me babysitting my nieces? No,” he answered for her. “They want sensationalism because that’s what people like you want to read.”
Her eyes, a dark, passion-filled blue, widened. “People like me?”
“Not fun being judged, is it?” he countered. “Yes, people like you. People who see a headline about me on a grocery store paper and assume you know me.” He bent down, until their gazes were on the same level and his mouth was just a breath away from hers. “I’m not that guy, Casey. There’s more to me than that, just as I assume there’s more to you than the woman who seduced me just to get a DNA sample.”
She tried to pull away again, but wasn’t successful. Jackson stared down into her eyes and felt the tug of the attraction between them arc like a downed power line, sparks flying, hissing, through the air.
He’d leapt out of bed when he’d heard Mia crying. Hadn’t stopped to consider that he’d no doubt run into Casey along the way.
It had been instinct drawing him to his crying child. Instinct to lift her from the crib and a revelation when those tiny arms had come around his neck. Love like he’d never known had dropped down on him like a thunderbolt from the sky.
Feeling the solid weight of his daughter in his arms, the slide of her tears over his skin and her tiny fingers pulling at his hair, Jackson had taken the fall. Her helplessness, her vulnerability had come together to catch him in a silken trap and hold him fast.
There was no escape for him, ever. Not even if he’d wanted one, which he didn’t. He was his daughter’s father and he would fight anyone who tried to keep them apart. Even if it meant going to war with her mother.
But looking down at Casey now, he knew damn well he didn’t want to fight her. What he wanted was to pick her up, carry her into his room and bury himself inside her. He hungered for her touch. For the feel of her skin beneath his hands. He wanted her so badly, the need clawed at his throat, nearly choking him.
A small voice inside reminded him that he was soon supposed to be an engaged man. But he wasn’t there yet. No promises had been made, so none could be broken.
And that’s when a new plan hit him. He’d told Casey that he wasn’t interested in her. A lie, of course, but one that had suited him at the time. But she and Mia were here in his house, now. And that changed things. Rather than a war, Jackson decided he’d wage a different kind of battle. A battle of seduction.
The amazing chemistry between them was too hot for either of them to pretend it didn’t exist. So maybe, if they surrendered to it, they could burn out the flame faster than they could by ignoring it.
He backed her against the wall and watched her eyes widen even further. The pulse point at the base of her throat pounded and her breath quickened until her breasts lifted and fell in rapid succession. She felt everything he did. He saw it in her eyes.
“Jackson, don’t,” she whispered, looking up into his eyes. “Like you said, we don’t even know each other.”
“That didn’t stop us the night we met.”
“That was different,” she murmured even as he covered one of her breasts
with his palm. His thumb slowly stroked across the tip of her hardened nipple.
She gasped and he knew it was from both desire and shock. She hadn’t expected him to make a move on her and damned if he didn’t like having the element of surprise on his side. And the feel of her. Even through the soft cloth of her robe, the heat of her swept into his palm, feeding the fires within until he felt as if he might spontaneously combust on the spot.
“Not really,” he whispered, and kissed her briefly, gently, a featherlight touch of his lips to hers. “Besides, what better way to get to know each other?”
“It would be a mistake,” she said, even as she arched into his hand.
“Are you so sure,” he murmured, dropping his other hand to the hem of her robe, lifting it, sliding it up her thigh, letting his fingertips trail across her silky skin.
“Um…” She closed her eyes, moaned a little and then sighed as his fingers toyed with her nipple. “Yes?”
He smiled and shifted his hand higher on her leg, sliding inexorably toward the heart of her. The heated, silken core of her body. He needed to touch. To stroke. “You don’t sound very sure to me, but then maybe I don’t know you well enough to be certain.”
“Exactly,” she whispered, her eyes flying open again to meet his.
“Help me then,” he said as he discovered she wasn’t wearing panties. He stroked her heat and watched her eyes darken even further until that midnight blue looked nearly black. “What’s your favorite color?”
“What?” Startled, she shook her head, whimpered and parted her legs a bit to give him easier access. “Color?”
“Your favorite,” he prodded.
“Blue. Yours?”
“Black. Mountains or beach?”
“Beach. You?”
“Mountains,” he whispered and slid one finger into her heat. She sighed and he asked, “Picnic or restaurant?”
“Picnic.”
“Restaurant.” Two fingers now, dipping in and out of her heat, sliding, pushing, stroking. Her eyes wheeled, and she bit down on her bottom lip to keep her moans of pleasure stifled. “Paris or Rome?”
Falling for King's Fortune Page 7
