The Billionaire's Surprise Babies

by Sophia Lynn

  "Oh, oh, Cord, I love you, please . . ."

  She didn't even know if he had heard her breathless whisper. The next moment, her body exploded with a kind of pleasure unlike any he had given her before, and then he was resting his weight on top of her, his own climax shaking through his body. Her arms came up around him of their own accord, and she simply clung to him, burying her face in his chest.

  "Jordan? Darling? Are you all right?"

  Jordan made sure that her eyes were thoroughly dry before she looked up at him. The smile wasn't hard to find. It was pushing back the rest that was difficult.

  "Just fine," she said, her voice a little hoarse. "I’m not sure that anyone's ever called me darling before."

  "That sounds like a hideous oversight, because that is absolutely what you are," he said, and he alleviated the solemnity a little by smiling at her.

  They both seemed reluctant to let the other go. Cord rolled to one side, their bodies still joined intimately, and stroked her hair gently. To her relief, he didn't say anything about her outburst. Perhaps he hadn't heard it at all.

  "Do you have any idea how special you are?" he whispered, and though Jordan wanted to make a joking response to it, she couldn't. She’d had her break from her quest. Sooner rather than later, she would need to get back to it, and the thought of continuing made her ill. It was just that she couldn't hide from it anymore, as she had been hiding for the past few days.

  "Don't," she whispered, shaking her head. "Just don't."

  For a moment, it sounded like he was going to fight her, but then he went still. The quiet that existed between them felt like a chasm, a dark place that held monsters in its depths. Finally, Jordan took a deep breath.

  “I . . . I know you have some feelings for me. I have some for you as well, but I mean, let's face it. You're the lord of the manor, and I'm your maid. It doesn't get much more divided than that, does it?”

  “The world usually bends to my needs and not the other way around,” he growled, and she reached up to touch his face.

  “I know my place and what my goals are,” she said softly. “I . . . I think you should know the same. Let's not make this any more complicated than it needs to be.”

  She should have left it there. It would have been so much more intelligent to leave it there, but something in Jordan refused to let it lie.

  “Besides,” she said lightly. “Let's . . . let's be honest with each other. If we let this go forward more than it has, if we simply let things go on and on and we never check ourselves, I know that things are going to break down. You're going to decide that it's not worth it for to you to date a girl from the wrong side of the tracks, and soon enough—”

  “Don't say it,” he said, and his glare was so fierce that she looked up, startled. “Don't say it. I wouldn't pay you off.”

  She smiled a little, and something about her face made him pause. It made sense. It was a strangely painful little smile.

  “Thank you for that,” she said. “I wouldn't want you to do that at all.”

  Before she could lose her nerve, Jordan leaned up to give him a kiss on the cheek.

  “What we have is good. Let's . . . let's not jeopardize it.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  It took a little bit of trial and error, but over time, they worked out a system. At some point during the day, if Cord wanted to see her, he made it a point to find her as she went about her business and gave her a significant look. It was all that needed to happen. On that signal, Jordan would finish out her day as normal, and then she would go to him at night.

  In bed, everything was good. He took her to the point of ecstasy and beyond, and more than once, he forced from her lips the words that she had sworn to herself that she would never say. She always meant to keep it to herself, but he would touch her and kiss her and drive her to the edge of distraction, never letting her spill until she told him she loved him.

  To her relief, they never spoke about it.

  Afterward, they lay in bed and talked in soft voices, touching each other lightly and laughing. Then, she would rise from his bed and sneak back to hers, and that would be that. Jordan told herself that it was the way things needed to be, and sometimes, she even believed herself.

  It didn't matter that during the day, she yearned for him. It didn't matter that it felt like every time she looked up, she wanted to see him. That all mattered less than her revenge, and she redoubled her search for something, anything, that would tell her that Lance Everett was the villain she knew he was.

  It was almost two months later when she wondered if she had it all wrong. Perhaps it was her father who was the liar. Perhaps he was the one who had sunk his own life, and it took no impetus from Lance Everett at all.

  “I've told you about my family,” Jordan said to Cord one night. “Why do you never talk about yours?”

  He had laughed with indulgent amusement, and he told her a story about how his mother had always been a brilliant dancer, so skilled that she charmed heads of state when she was young and traveling with a ballerina troupe. Cord told the story with such skill that she forgot that she was digging for information, but then what she said next got a strange reaction.

  “Your father must have fallen in love with her immediately.”

  Cord's laugh was harsh, and she instinctively drew back at the darkness on his face.

  “Something else,” he said. “I wouldn't call it love. I also don't care to speak of my father.”

  That had been that, but it gave her the feeling that Lance Everett was no angel. She didn't dare bring up the matter to Cord again, and so she continued her search.

  It was getting harder, Jordan had to admit. On one hand, she was proving herself with Mrs. O'Donnely, and she could go almost everywhere she wanted to in the house. On the other hand, it seemed as if staying up late with Cord was sapping her strength and her energy. Sometimes, all she wanted to do in the middle of the day was lie down and sleep, and sometimes, she just felt so sore all over.

  I need to tell him no sometimes, she thought with amusement. I think we both need our sleep.

  However, when the time came, she always went to his room, she always fell into his arms, and it was always a pang at leaving him.

  Well, once I find out what I need, I'll be leaving anyway, she told herself. I might as well enjoy this while I can.

  It was an excuse and she knew it, but still, she couldn't do any differently. Not with Cord. She couldn't deny his touch, his mouth, his smile. Somehow, whether she had wanted it to happen or not, he was in her bones, in her blood, and she could not see her own body without imagining his hands all over it.

  That was the way things stood for two months, and then Cord told her he was going on a trip.

  ***

  “I would take you with me if I could,” he said with a rueful smile. “I would love nothing more than to seduce you in a beautiful hotel room far above New York, but nearly every moment is booked. There are people I need to see and obligations to fulfill. I'm sorry, little cat.”

  “Did you wait to tell me this when I was already exhausted?” she asked with a smile. “Because it's working, but it's not very sneaky for a supposed business mastermind.”

  He was propped up on one elbow to look down at her, and she knew all too clearly what he was seeing. She was sprawled completely naked on his bed, glistening with sweat and perfectly pleasured. He had once said that it was his favorite way to see her, and she couldn't really argue.

  “Hardly. That wouldn't really be sporting at all,” he teased, but then she leaned up to kiss him.

  “It's all right. I'm more than happy staying home. I've got a day off coming, and I think I’m going to spend it catching up on all of that sleep I've lost because of you.”

  He frowned at that, and then she kissed him again with a little more depth, a little more fire.

  “I wouldn't trade our memories for anything in the world,” she whispered, and he smiled. It took all she had not to tell him
she loved him then. It was strange. She felt that urge when he smiled more than when he was making her shout with pleasure.

  He made love to her for long hours that night, not allowing her to return to her bed until dawn was streaking the sky. It was a small comfort that he was only going to have a few hours of sleep himself before he needed to get on the plane.

  Jordan got a few hours of sleep herself, and she braced herself for the day.

  This is the best chance I have to do what needs to be done. If I can't find them now, there may not be anything there to be found.

  She knew exactly where she was going to start, too. The bookcase in the master bedroom had never been searched. The only time she had tried to search it, he had found her, and that had been the start of it all. Ever since then, no opportunity had presented itself. It had to be that night, while he was away.

  Jordan was so tired that day that she shirked some of her chores to take a little nap behind the couch in the second-best parlor. Mrs. O'Donnely would be furious when she saw that the rooms had gone undusted, but by the time she figured that out, Jordan would likely be long gone.

  Jordan suffered a pang at the idea of leaving Waverly, and to her surprise, a little bit of a pang about leaving Jordan the maid, too. Waverly Manor was a stern place, but somehow, she had gained confidence here that she had never possessed anywhere else.

  She napped and woke up feeling a little more human, and after that, it was chores until she was off.

  Sneaking up to the bedroom felt like just another night, but with a pang, she knew that it certainly was not. There would be no passionate kisses at the end of this evening, no sweet smiles or needy touches. It was just a little conniving liar in the room of the man who had awakened her womanhood, seeking to bring down that man's father.

  Jordan pushed those thoughts out of her head, because right now, she simply could not afford them. She needed to be focused, especially since a foot set wrong could still make noise that would summon a curious onlooker.

  The bedroom felt strange without Cord in it. It felt cold and sterile, more like a tomb than a place where she’d just twenty-four hours ago made love with a man who made her scream with pleasure. She glanced at the bed, and for a moment, Jordan simply wanted to do what she had told Cord she was doing the first night they made love. She wanted to climb into the covers and dream about his arms around her. She wanted to wait for him and smile when he returned.

  Jordan shook herself, turning away from the bed resolutely. The book case had the same locks as the ones in the library, and soon enough, they clicked open under her hands. She smiled in satisfaction, but that smile faded quickly when she started taking files down from the shelves. She had found what she was looking for, and it was terrible.

  Lance Everett had been a monster, and he had been an even worse one than she had thought he was. She hadn't found information on her father, but what she did find was far worse. Carelessly tucked into a leather file were years of police reports, all summarily yanked from the public records, all marked for disposal.

  They painted a grim picture of a man who was seemingly the pillar of a community and who could beat his wife and his son viciously. The written reports were terrible, relating incidents of abuse and injury in clinical detail.

  Far worse were the pictures taken by medical professionals. Cord's mother, Evelyn, was a delicate woman with her son's blue eyes. The bruises on her arms, her back, and her torso were deep blossoms of injury on her fair flesh. She looked far too fragile to have lived long under such abuse, but somehow, she had.

  It was the pictures of Cord that made Jordan gag. God, he had been such a small boy, completely hiding any sign of the large man he would become. In every picture that showed his face, he gazed at the camera in open defiance, and if the bruises were terrible on a woman, they were even worse on a child. If Lance Everett hadn't been dead, Jordan could have killed him for that alone. Somehow, she was balanced between rage for the dead man and the urge to take Cord into her arms. The abuse was long ago, but she wanted to soothe him, to tell him that she would never allow anything like that to happen, ever, ever, and that he would be safe forever. He might have laughed at her, but she wanted to say it to him nonetheless.

  She stood, standing back from the carnage of three lives wrapped together, and she felt a wave of nausea hit her. She barely made it to the bathroom in time, but she managed it somehow, and after throwing up her dinner, she washed her face and her hands under cold, cold water.

  Come on. You've seen worse. Get back to it.

  The rest of the file was cut and dried. It included two death certificates. One was issued for a sudden heart attack, but she had a feeling that the one that was a few hours older was the true one. It described acute liver failure due to alcoholism, and with a shudder, she put the papers away.

  There it was, everything that would reveal Lance Everett as the monster she knew that he was. She could publish it all anonymously online with the help of a few tech-savvy friends, and though they might take it down, they would never be able to get rid of the rumors that would circulate ever after. Lance Everett's reputation would be destroyed, and her father would be avenged.

  It would destroy Cord too.

  She had known Cord for just two months, but she had already become very aware of his pride. Cord was as proud as any man she had ever met, and she could imagine the rage that would strike him when evidence that he had ever been vulnerable as a child came out. Perhaps it would even hurt his business, destroy the industry that his father had created. Wasn't that what she wanted?

  No, no, I don’t want to hurt Cord, Jordan thought miserably, but she knew that when she had started this venture, she was after Everett's heirs as much as she was after the man himself.

  She sat with the papers in her lap for what felt like a small eternity. Perhaps if she simply sat here, time would freeze and she would never have to make the decision. She would never have to choose between avenging her family or harming the man whom she knew she loved.

  A slight lightening in the room told her that time stood still for no one, however, and she rose from the floor. She put everything in the cabinet back the way that she had found it, but she kept the damning file with her. It felt as if it weighed a thousand pounds, but somehow, she managed to walk away with it.

  Jordan couldn't bring herself to look behind her at all. If she did, there was too much of a chance that she would simply return the file to its place and allow everything to return to how it had been before. She knew that was impossible.

  Jordan refused to look back.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Cord had known that he would be thinking about Jordan a great deal while he was gone. In fact, he had been counting on it. He had known that with every mile he traveled from her, he would start to feel as if he should turn back, and he knew that when he flew into New York, he would suffer another pang when he thought about her being able to be there and to see all the sights with him.

  That was why Cord finished off his meetings and took a place at the expensive hotel bar with every intention of drinking himself to sleep.

  He had enough reasons not to make it a habit, but he had found that alcohol smoothed over the rough edges of things, and where Jordan was concerned, he was entirely a rough edge. Of course, she didn't help by being entirely unlike any woman he had ever met before.

  If she had let him, Cord would have plucked her from her maid's work and taken her all over the world. He would give her nearly everything that she wanted, and she would want for nothing. Instead, she chose to spend her days sweeping and polishing, and her nights . . .

  Cord took another deep drink from the glass in front of him. The fact that she wouldn't be with him at night hadn't been lost on him either.

  Any of the women he had been with would have leaped at the offer he had tried to make her. Some of them had held out and led him on a merry chase, but in the end, one and all, they had succumbed to the lure of his money and his power.
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  Jordan was different, and it was maddening to him.

  After that fateful night at the bed and breakfast, he had found himself replaying her cool words to him at odd moments. He remembered the way she had chilled, how she had told him that she didn't need or want what he was offering. He had never dealt with a refusal like that one, and sometimes, it still left him reeling.

  Sometimes, Cord found himself getting angry. Who the hell did she think she was? She had said herself that everyone had a price, so what was hers?

  Directly after he had those thoughts, Cord felt shame wash over him. She was a girl who met the world on its own terms, and he had the feeling, starting from the time when he had first met her, that she was not going to be beholden to anyone. She refused to consider a world where she was his mistress, and so it would be.

  What . . . what if she didn't want to be a mistress?

  The thought had been sneaking around the edges of his mind for almost two months. One day, she had risen from his bed wrapped in a white sheet, and his brain and his heart had immediately seen her as a bride, dressed in white and with her eyes downcast, walking down the aisle on her wedding day.

  Cord had always joked that he was allergic to the idea of marriage, but there was nothing funny about the idea of Jordan in a wedding dress, walking toward him and getting ready to join her life to his.

  What if she were a bride instead?

  Cord wondered if there was something wrong with the alcohol. He could feel his throat close up, and his chest felt tight. He imagined her smile, and beyond a shadow of a doubt, in that moment, he knew that he was in love.

  Just as quickly as Cord acknowledged it, he pushed it away.

  God, what the hell was he thinking? He was older than she was. She would shrivel and grow furious in the social circles he ran in. She was the goddamn maid in the house where he had grown up.