Slamming my phone down on my desk, I ignored the crack from the screen as it shattered. It was Friday. Four, long, fucking days since I’d been able to talk to or touch Natalie.
She’d been in court on Wednesday but hightailed it out of there with her boss before I could devise a way to get her alone. Stalking her work hadn’t done me any good either. She seemed to be able to slip past me, which both impressed and enraged me.
Calling to inquire about hiring her legal services didn’t do me any good either. It seemed Natalie wasn’t being given any other cases while she was on Warren’s.
I’d just gotten off the phone with our firm’s best PI, telling me once again that he hadn’t come up with any leads as to where she was. How the fuck had she learned to disappear like that?
The door to my office opened and I glanced up, ready to bite the head off of whoever was disturbing me. Isaac stood there, glaring at me.
“Go home,” he snapped. “You’re not doing anything here but endangering our livelihood with your surly attitude. I’ll take the rest of your meetings for the day. Take the weekend, find your woman, and come back when you aren’t going to constantly be a tyrant.”
I started to argue but was cut off when the door to my office flew open and a whirlwind of energy blew in. Eden stopped in front of me, hopping from one foot to the other with a wide smile on her face. “How much do you love me?” she trilled.
Isaac rumbled with a low growl and moved quickly to stand behind her, putting his hands on her hips, possessively. Normally, I would grin, say something sappy to Eden, and give him shit about acting like a caveman. Instead, I grunted in irritation and folded my arms across my chest, brooding as I leaned back in my chair.
Eden huffed and rolled her eyes. “Wow, Isaac was right. You are being a total tyrant.” Then she clapped her hands excitedly. “Well, this should cheer you up! Guess who I just had brunch with?”
I didn’t say anything, fully anticipating she would plow on and cut me off anyway. I was right. After pausing only long enough to take a breath, she squealed, “Natalie!”
“What?” I shouted as I shot up from my chair.
Isaac swiftly stepped in front of Eden and glared at me. “Watch it, Croix. We’ve been friends since childhood, but if you yell at my wife again, I will break your jaw.”
If it were Isaac treating Natalie like that, I would do the same, so I took a step back and nodded apologetically. My temper was flaring, but I tamped it down, tapping into my limited reserves of patience. Pinching the bridge of my nose, I softened my voice and asked, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I promised her I wouldn’t tell you we were going to meet up,” Eden said, trying to peek around her husband. She finally succeeded in getting him to move and continued on, gesturing with her hands as she talked, always exuding vitality. “I didn’t promise I wouldn’t spill the beans after though!”
“Did you find out where she’s staying?” I asked, feeling a spark of hope.
Eden grinned. “I didn’t ask because I didn’t want her to ask me not to share the information.”
I visibly deflated, dropping back into my chair. Eden laughed and I glared at her.
“However, I did lift her wallet when I hugged her.”
My brows shot up in surprise. She what?
Isaac groaned, “For the love of . . . you stole”—he stopped and shook his head with exasperation—“Never mind. Get to the point, Nancy Drew.”
“Relax, babe. I put it back when I hugged her again before we left,” she insisted, patting his arm patronizingly. He muttered under his breath and drilled her with a stare, which she ignored, focusing on me once again.
“Anyway, when she went to the bathroom, I looked through it and found a valet ticket for the Four Seasons!”
At first, I was stunned by the fact that a junior associate who lived in a studio apartment was staying at one of the most expensive hotels in Baltimore. But, I set it aside in favor of fury that my PI hadn’t figured this out sooner. How hard was it to call around and check hotel registration? That’s why we paid him an exorbitant fee, to have a large staff at our beck and call.
“Don’t blame Pete,” Eden hurried to say, clearly seeing where my mind had gone. “She isn’t checked in under her real name and when I hacked their system—”
Isaac sighed and started muttering again, earning himself a withering glare from both Eden and me. He turned abruptly and stalked to the wall of windows overlooking the bustling city.
“Anyway,” she continued, scowling over at Isaac. “I hacked into the system and found the room attached to her valet ticket. It’s being paid for with a credit card belonging to a Lawrence Spector”—she shrugged—“I didn’t know who he was—”
“He’s a hotshot lawyer in Chicago,” I snarled. Rage bubbled up inside and I felt near to exploding.
“Right. But he’s—”
“He’s old enough to be Natalie’s fucking father!” I interrupted her again, my wrath on a very short leash. “What the fuck was she doing letting this guy pay for her hotel?”
“If you’d calm the hell down and let me talk, jackass,” she snapped, “I could tell you that he’s her step-father.”
I shot to my feet again, racing around the desk to plant a kiss on Eden’s cheek, only to find myself shoved roughly towards the door. “Go put your lips on your own woman and away from mine.” Isaac’s tone was deadly, but it only made me laugh because I was suddenly one thousand pounds lighter than I had been a minute before.
“We’re even for Andrea,” I quipped with a wink before striding out to get my girl.
9
Natalie
“You’re going to tie me to the bed and not have sex with me?”
The question sounded completely ridiculous, and I could barely believe it was coming out of my mouth. When I’d climbed onto the plush, king-sized mattress, I hadn’t planned on falling asleep. I hadn’t even bothered to take off my clothes since I’d only intended to lay down for a few minutes before ordering room service. It had been a hellish week at work, and I missed Jax like crazy. If it hadn’t been for the amazing service at the hotel, I wasn’t sure I would have been able to make it through the last four days.
When I’d left Jax’s office on Monday, I’d been so damn confused. I knew that if I didn’t find a way to distance myself from him physically, then I was just going to fall back into his arms the next time I saw him. I had zero willpower when it came to that man, and I’d been desperate to buy myself more time to help me figure out how to keep him and my job. So I did something I never thought I’d do—I called my step-dad and told him I needed to stay somewhere other than my apartment for a little while. I was lucky he’d seemed distracted because he didn’t ask any questions before he got his assistant on the line and told her to set me up at the Four Seasons.
The room was booked under his name, which I figured would keep Jax from being able to hunt me down outside of work. It wasn’t like I could afford a place like that on my own, so why would they look for me there? But when I woke up after my unplanned nap, my wrists were handcuffed to the headboard and Jax was sitting on a chair next to the bed. Somehow he’d managed to remove all my clothes while I’d slept through it, only to put me into a silk nightie I’d had in the dresser. When I’d expressed my surprise at what I was wearing, he’d explained that I didn’t need to be naked for what he had in mind.
“Spanking your ass doesn’t seem to be working as an effective form of punishment,” he explained. “It just turns you on. Gets you wet.”
It wasn’t like I could argue with him when just hearing him talk about it was making me slick between my thighs.
“Which means I’ll end up making you come because I’m fucking addicted to the sounds you make when you fly apart for me.”
“Then why am I in handcuffs?” I wiggled my hands for effect, making the metal bang against wood while my skin slid against the fuzzy interior circling my wrists.
“Because eve
ry time I let you out of my sight, you take off running,” he growled. “And I’m not going to let you do it again, no matter what I have to do to prevent it.”
“Didn’t they teach you at Harvard Law that kidnapping is a felony?”
“Are they dropping the ball at the University of Chicago, or didn’t they explain that it’s only kidnapping if I’m restraining you against your will?” He rose from the chair, climbed onto the mattress next to me, and slid his palm along my inner thigh. “If I move my hand any higher, I’m pretty damn sure I’ll be able to demonstrate exactly how not against your will this is.”
“Which leads me right back to my original question.”
“Shit!” he hissed, leaping off the bed to pace next to it. “The cuffs might have been a tactical error on my part. Even with you all covered up, just knowing you’re at my mercy has me as hard as a fucking rock.”
“Maybe you should try punishing me with too many orgasms?” I asked hopefully, pressing my legs together.
I stilled when he rubbed his face with a deep sigh and dropped back down onto the chair. “I don’t think you understand how crazy it makes me when you won’t even talk to me.”
The defeated tone in his voice struck me straight in the heart. “I’m sorry,” I offered softly. “I really, really am.”
“You can make it up to me by giving me tonight. Let me hold you, feel you in my arms all night long.”
“If that’s what you want.”
Rising from the chair again, he leaned over the mattress and freed my wrists, rubbing them gently. “It isn’t what I want, sweetheart. It’s what I need.”
How could I do anything else other than scoot over and make room for him on the bed when he put it like that? Especially when I had a feeling it was exactly what I needed, too.
With his arms wrapped around me, we spent a couple of hours talking about nothing in particular before I drifted off again. It was my most restful night’s sleep since I’d checked into the hotel, and I felt better than I had in days when I woke up in the morning. But Jax looked like he hadn’t gotten more than a couple hours of sleep, based on the dark circles under his eyes.
“Go back to sleep,” I murmured, running my fingers through his hair. “You don’t need to wake up just because I am.”
“I don’t want to miss a minute of my time with you, not when you might up and disappear on me again come Monday.” I dropped my head to his chest and squeezed my eyes shut, trying not to cry. “I get why you’re fighting what’s happening between us. I really do.”
“I wouldn’t call it fighting, exactly,” I mumbled. “I meant it when I told you that I’m yours, Jax. But the timing is messed up. I’m brand new to the firm, representing my boss in a divorce case, and a relationship with you would be a clear conflict of interest that I would have to disclose to him. One I could lose my job over because of whatever happened when you left the firm.”
“You might have to disclose it to him anyway, regardless of how much time we spend together.”
I lifted my head to peer into his eyes. “What do you mean?”
One of his hands slid down to rest on my lower abdomen. “You could be carrying my baby already.”
“Am not.” Whoa, that was the best comeback I could think up?
“I’ve taken you bare each and every time, sweetheart. It’s a definite possibility.” He sounded damn smug about it, too.
I did some quick math in my head, counting backwards to when my last period started, and groaned. “My period isn’t even due until the middle of the week. What the hell am I going to do?”
“Take one of those early tests and see what it says.”
“I don’t think they work this soon.”
“They do,” he insisted. Then he shocked the crap out of me by climbing out of bed and tugging me with him to cross the room and pull a pink box out of the toiletry bag he’d set in the bathroom the night before. “You can take this one up to six days before your period.”
“Holy hell,” I breathed out. “I’m still asleep and dreaming this all up, right? You didn’t actually research pregnancy tests so you could go out and buy me one.”
“Being mine means that it’s my responsibility to take care of you.”
“This is going way above and beyond in your duties,” I cried out, waving the box around. “You’re a guy. You should be freaking out at the very idea of knocking me up.”
He chuckled as he nudged me towards the toilet. “Why would I freak out when you carrying my baby is exactly what I want?”
I was so befuddled, I didn’t even think about the fact that I was peeing in front of him. I just followed the directions before placing the test on the counter while I washed my hands. Then we waited for what seemed to be the longest three minutes of my life until time was up.
“I don’t think I can look,” I said nervously.
Jax pulled me into his arms, kissing the top of my head. “No matter what it says, everything will be okay. I’ll make sure of it. And, if it’s negative, I’ll double my efforts to make sure the next one is positive,” he finished with a wink.
I kept my face buried in his chest, holding my breath while I felt his arm reach around me to grab the test from the counter.
“Two pink lines,” he crowed, tossing the test back down to pick me up and twirl me around. “You’re pregnant, sweetheart.”
“I’m pregnant,” I repeated, my nerves suddenly settling as a sense of calmness filled me. There was no avoiding my conflict of interest anymore, not when I was carrying Jax’s baby. “I’ll meet with Mr. Warren first thing Monday morning to disclose my relationship with you.”
“And I’ll be right by your side when you do it.”
His tone made it clear there wasn’t any point in arguing, but I had to try anyway. “You can’t be there for this, Jax. Not if I have any hope of keeping my job.”
“You don’t know him like I do, sweetheart. There isn’t a chance in hell I’m going to let you face that asshole alone.”
“What happened between the two of you? This has to be more than sour grapes because he got a partnership before you.”
“Is that what the fucker told you happened?” His laughter held no humor as he tugged me into the sitting room of my suite and settled me on the couch, cuddled on his lap. “Warren isn’t the kind of lawyer who believes in professional courtesies. He’s always had a reputation for peppering his interactions with bullying and deception. To him, dirty tricks are the name of the game when it comes to unsettling opposing counsel in his attempt to win cases. His track record, combined with his bad reputation, should have been enough to get him fired from the firm. He knew it, and he took drastic measures to make sure it didn’t happen.”
“What did he do?”
“He proved he was willing to lie, cheat, steal… and marry if it meant making partner. Andrea and Eden’s father used to be the firm’s biggest client. His marriage to Andrea ensured that he was untouchable and garnered him an early partnership.”
No wonder they were getting divorced. “That poor woman.”
“Trust me, there’s no poor Andrea in this situation. She had just as much to gain from their arrangement as he did, including a trust her grandfather settled on her that paid out in its entirety on the day of her marriage. A fact Warren learned when he was working on their family files, and one he had no qualms about using to his advantage.”
It sounded like a soap opera, not a respected law firm. “How have I never heard about any of this before?”
“Smith and Yates were in too deep with Warren once they’d realized the kind of man he really was. There was no way he’d let them buy him out of his newly minted partnership, so they’ve done what they could to protect him and the firm by keeping it all a secret.”
“Which sucks for me because if I’d known all of this, I never would have taken a job with them in the first place,” I groaned. “But at least I don’t have to worry about being fired on Monday morning, not when I really shou
ld just quit instead.”
“Do it,” he urged. “Screw going into the office on Monday at all. Send them an email now. Tell them you’ve received a better offer. Come work with me.”
“I can’t work for the guy who knocked me up!” I exclaimed.
“Why not? I think Harvey, Croix, and Croix has a nice ring to it.”
10
Jax
Natalie recoiled at my statement and my heart cracked.
“You can’t make me a partner!” she gasped.
I felt marginally better when I realized her reaction wasn’t about what it would take to make her the second Croix from my comment. Except . . . I was also a little annoyed that she seemed to skip right over the fact that I’d practically asked her to marry me.
“I’m a junior associate, Jax. I’m not ready, and besides that, I would be doing exactly what I left Chicago to get away from. People won’t respect me if I’m given my position, I have to earn it.”
“Of course, sweetheart,” I agreed. “You’ll work with Isaac until the day you make partner.”
“Oh”—she paused thoughtfully—“Okay. That could work.” Then she poked me in the chest with a finger. “But, no interfering. You have to let Isaac manage me.”
I frowned, unhappy with the thought of all the time he’d get to spend with my girl, but logically, I knew she was right. So, I let it go with a simple nod.
She smiled and started to move off my lap. I held her tight around her hips, keeping her firmly in place. “I think you missed the whole point of what I was saying, sweetheart,” I growled. I fought the desire to pout. You’re a fucking man, asshole. Act like it.
A look of confusion crossed her face and she was obviously replaying our conversation in her head. “What do you—wait…”
The Yeah, Baby Series: Limited Edition 9 Book Set Page 38
