For the Sake of Their Son
Автор
Catherine Mann
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One
Elliot Starc had faced danger his whole life. First at the hands of his heavy-fisted father. Later as a Formula One race car driver who used his world travels to feed information to Interpol.
But he’d never expected to be kidnapped. Especially not in the middle of his best friend’s bachelor party.
Mad as hell, Elliot struggled back to consciousness, only to realize his wrists were cuffed. Numb. He struggled against the restraints while trying to get his bearings, but his brain was still disoriented. Last he remembered, he’d been in Atlanta, Georgia, at a bachelor party and now he was cuffed and blindfolded, for God’s sake. What the hell? He only knew that he was in the back of a vehicle that smelled of leather and luxury. Noise offered him little to go on. Just the purr of a finely tuned engine. The pop of an opening soda can. A low hum of music so faint it must be on a headset.
“He’s awake,” a deep voice whispered softly, too softly to be identified.
“Damn it,” another voice hissed.
“Hey,” Elliot shouted, except it wasn’t a shout. More of a hoarse croak. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Whatever the hell is going on here, we can talk ransom—”
A long buzz sounded. Unmistakable. The closing of a privacy window. Then silence. Solitude, no chance of shouting jack to anyone in this...
A limo, perhaps? Who kidnapped someone using a limousine?
Once they stopped, he would be ready, though. The second he could see, he wouldn’t even need his hands. He was trained in seven different forms of self-defense. He could use his feet, his shoulders and his body weight.
He would be damned before he let himself ever be helpless in a fight.
They’d pulled off an interstate at least twenty minutes ago, driving into the country as best he could tell. He had no way of judging north, south or west. He could be anywhere from Florida to Mississippi to South Carolina, and God knows he had enemies in every part of the world from his work with Interpol and his triumphs over competitors in the racing world.
And he had plenty of pissed-off ex-girlfriends.... He winced at the thought of females and Carolina so close together. Home. Too many memories. Bad ones—with just a single bright spot in the form of Lucy Ann Joyner, but he’d wrecked even that.
Crap.
Back to the present. Sunlight was just beginning to filter through the blindfold, sparking behind his eyes like shards of glinting glass.
One thing was certain. This car had good shock absorbers. Otherwise the rutted road they were traveling would have rattled his teeth.
Although his teeth were clenched mighty damn tight right now.
Even now, he still couldn’t figure out how he’d been blindsided near the end of Rowan Boothe’s bachelor party in an Atlanta casino. Elliot had ducked into the back to find a vintage Scotch. Before he could wrap his hand around the neck of the bottle, someone had knocked him out.
If only he knew the motive for his kidnapping. Was someone after his money? Or had someone uncovered his secret dealings with Interpol? If so, did they plan to exploit that connection?
He’d lived his life to the fullest, determined to do better than his wrong-side-of-the-tracks upbringing. He only had one regret: how his lifelong friendship with Lucy Ann had crashed and burned more fiercely than when he’d been sideswiped at the Australian Grand Prix last year—
The car jerked to a halt. He braced his feet to keep from rolling off onto the floor. He forced himself to stay relaxed so his abductors would think he was still asleep.
His muscles tensed for action, eager for the opportunity to confront his adversaries. Ready to pay back. He was trained from his work with Interpol, with lightning-fast instincts honed in his racing career. He wouldn’t go down without a fight.
Since he’d left his dirt-poor roots behind, he’d been beating the odds. He’d dodged juvie by landing in a military reform school where he’d connected with a lifelong group of friends. Misfits like himself who disdained rules while living by a strict code of justice. They’d grown up to take different life paths, but stayed connected through their friendship and freelance work for Interpol. Not that they’d been much help to him while someone was nabbing him a few feet away from the bachelor party they were all attending.
The car door opened and someone leaned over him. Something tugged at the back of his brain, a sense that he should know this person. He scrambled to untangle the mystery before it was too late.
His blindfold was tugged up and off, and he took in the inside of a black limo, just as he’d suspected. His abductors, however, were a total surprise.
“Hello, Elliot, my man,” said his old high school pal Malcolm Douglas, who’d asked him to fetch that bottle of Scotch back at the bachelor party. “Waking up okay?”
Conrad Hughes—another traitorous bastard friend—patted his face. “You look plenty awake to me.”
Elliot bit back a curse. He’d been kidnapped by his own comrades from the bachelor party. “Somebody want to tell me what’s going on here?”
He eyed Conrad and Malcolm, both of whom had been living it up with him at the casino well past midnight. Morning sunshine streamed over them, oak trees sprawling behind them. The scent of Carolina jasmine carried on the breeze. Why were they taking him on this strange road trip?
“Well?” he pressed again when neither of them answered. “What the hell are you two up to?” he asked, his anger barely contained. He wanted to kick their asses. “I hope you have a good reason for taking me out to the middle of nowhere.”
Conrad clapped him on the back. “You’ll see soon enough.”
Elliot angled out of the car, hard as hell with his hands cuffed in front of him. His loafers hit the dirt road, rocks and dust shifting under his feet as he stood in the middle of nowhere in a dense forest of pines and oaks. “You’ll tell me now or I’ll beat the crap out of both of you.”
Malcolm lounged against the side of the black stretch limo. “Good luck trying with your hands cuffed. Keep talking like that and we’ll hang on to the key for a good long while.”
“Ha—funny—not.” Elliot ground his teeth in frustration. “Isn’t it supposed to be the groom who gets pranked?”
Conrad grinned. “Oh, don’t worry. Rowan should be waking up and finding his new tattoo right about now.”
Extending his cuffed wrists, Elliot asked, “And the reason for this? I’m not the one getting married.”
Ever.
Malcolm pushed away, jerking his head to the side, gesturing toward the path leading into the dense cluster of more pine trees with an occasional magnolia reaching for the sun. “Instead of telling you why, we’ll just let you look. Walk with us.”
As if he had any choice. His friends clearly had some kind of game planned and they intended to see it through regardless. Sure, he’d been in a bear of a mood since his breakup with Gianna. Hell, even before that. Since Lucy Ann had quit her job as his assistant and walked out of his life for good.
God, he really needed to pour out some frustration behind the wheel, full out, racing to...anywhere.
A few steps deeper into the woods, his blood hummed with recognition. The land was more mature than the last time he’d been here, but he knew the area well enough. Home. Or rather it used to be home, back when he was a poor kid with a drunken father. This small South Carolina farm town outside of Columbia had been called God’s land.
Elliot considered it a corner of hell.
Although hell was brimming with sunshine today.
He stepped toward a clearing and onto a familiar dirt driveway, with a ranch-style cabin and a fat oak at least a hundred years old in the middle. A tree he’d played under as a kid, wishing he could stay here forever because this little haven in hell was a lot safer than his home.
He’d hidden with Lucy Ann Joyner here at her aunt’s farmhouse. Both of them enjoying the sanctuary of this place, even if only for a few hours. Why were his buds taking him down this memory lane detour?
Branches rustled, a creaking sound carrying on the breeze, drawing his gaze. A swing dangled from a thick branch, moving back and forth as a woman swayed, her back to them. He stopped cold. Suddenly the meaning of this journey was crystal clear. His friends were forcing a confrontation eleven months in the making since he and Lucy Ann were both too stubborn to take the first step.
Did she know he was coming? He swallowed hard at the notion that maybe she wanted him here after all. That her decision to slice him out of her life had changed. But if she had, then why not just drive up to the house?
He wasn’t sure the past year could be that easily forgotten, but his gut twisted tight over just the thought of talking to her again.
His eyes soaked in the sight of her, taking her in like parched earth with water. He stared at the slim feminine back, the light brown hair swishing just past her shoulders. Damn, but it had been a long eleven months without her. His lifelong pal had bolted after one reckless— incredible—night that had ruined their friendship forever.
He’d given her space and still hadn’t heard from her. In the span of a day, the one person he’d trusted above everyone else had cut him off. He’d never let anyone get that close to him—not even his friends from the military reform school. He and Lucy Ann had a history, a shared link that went beyond a regular friendship.
Or so he’d thought.
As if drawn by a magnet, he walked closer to the swing, to the woman. His hands still linked in front of him, he moved silently, watching her. The bared lines of her throat evoked memories of her jasmine scent. The way her dress slipped ever so slightly off one shoulder reminded him of years past when she’d worn hand-me-downs from neighbors.
The rope tugged at the branch as she toe-tapped, back and forth. A gust of wind turned the swing spinning to face him.
His feet stumbled to a halt.
Yes, it was Lucy Ann, but not just her. Lucy Ann stared back at him with wide eyes, shocked eyes. She’d clearly been kept every bit as much in the dark as he had. Before he could finish processing his disappointment that she hadn’t helped arrange this, his eyes took in the biggest shocker of all.
Lucy Ann’s arms were curved around an infant swaddled in a blue plaid blanket as she breast-fed him.
* * *
Lucy Ann clutched her baby boy to her chest and stared in shock at Elliot Starc, her childhood friend, her former boss. Her onetime lover.
The father of her child.
She’d scripted the moment she would tell him about their son a million times in her mind, but never had it played out like this, with him showing up out of the blue. Handcuffed? Clearly, he hadn’t planned on coming to see her. She’d tempted fate in waiting so long to tell him, then he’d pulled one of his disappearing acts and she couldn’t find him.
Now there was no avoiding him.
Part of her ached to run to Elliot and trust in the friendship they’d once shared, a friendship built here, in the wooded farmland outside Columbia, South Carolina. But another part of her—the part that saw his two friends lurking and the handcuffs on her old pal—told her all she needed to know. Elliot hadn’t suddenly seen the light and come running to apologize for being a first-class jerk. He’d been dragged kicking and screaming.
Well, screw him. She had her pride, too.
Only the baby in her arms kept her from bolting altogether into her aunt’s cabin up the hill. Lucy Ann eased Eli from her breast and adjusted her clothes in place. Shifting her son to her shoulder, she patted his back, her eyes staying locked on Elliot, trying to gauge his mood.
The way his eyes narrowed told her loud and clear that she couldn’t delay her explanation any longer. She should have told him about Eli sooner. In the early days of her pregnancy, she’d tried and chickened out. Then she’d gotten angry over his speedy rebound engagement to the goddess Gianna, and that made it easier to keep her distance a while longer. She wouldn’t be the cause of breaking up his engagement—rat bastard. She would tell him once he was married and wouldn’t feel obligated to offer her anything. Even though the thought of him marrying that too-perfect bombshell heiress made her vaguely nauseous.
Now, Elliot was here, so damn tall and muscular, his sandy brown hair closely shorn. His shoulders filled out the black button-down shirt, his jeans slung low on his hips. His five o’clock shadow and narrowed green eyes gave him a bad-boy air he’d worked his whole life to live up to.
She knew every inch of him, down to a scar on his elbow he’d told everyone he got from falling off his bike but he’d really gotten from the buckle on his father’s belt during a beating. They shared so much history, and now they shared a child.
Standing, she pulled her gaze from him and focused on his old boarding school friends behind him, brooding Conrad Hughes and charmer Malcolm Douglas. Of course they’d dragged him here. These days both of them had sunk so deep into a pool of marital bliss, they seemed to think everyone else wanted to plunge in headfirst. No doubt they’d brought Elliot here with just that in mind.
Not a freakin’ chance.
She wasn’t even interested in dipping her toes into those waters and certainly not with Elliot, the biggest playboy in the free world.
“Gentlemen, do you think you could uncuff him, then leave so he and I can talk civilly?”
Conrad—a casino owner—fished out a key from his pocket and held it up. “Can do.” He looked at Elliot. “I trust you’re not going to do anything stupid like try to start a fight over our little prank here.”
Prank? This was her life and they were playing with it. Anger sparked in her veins.
Elliot pulled a tight smile. “Of course not. I’m outnumbered. Now just undo the handcuffs. My arms are too numb to hit either of you anyway.”
Malcolm plucked the keys from Conrad and opened the cuffs. Elliot massaged his wrists for a moment, still silent, then stretched his arms over his head.
Did he have to keep getting hotter every year? Especially not fair when she hadn’t even had time to shower since yesterday thanks to her son’s erratic sleeping schedule.
Moistening her dry mouth, Lucy Ann searched for a way to dispel the awkward air. “Malcolm, Conrad, I realize you meant well with this, but perhaps it’s time for you both to leave. Elliot and I clearly have some things to discuss.”
Eli burped. Lucy Ann rolled her eyes and cradled her son in the crook of her arm, too aware of the weight of Elliot’s stare.
Malcolm thumped Elliot on the back. “You can thank us later.”
Conrad leveled a somber steady look her way. “Call if you need anything. I mean that.”
Without another word, both men disappeared back into the wooded perimeter as quickly as they’d arrived. For the first time in eleven months, she was alone with Elliot.
Well, not totally alone. She clutched Eli closer until he squirmed.
Elliot stuffed his hands in his pockets, still keeping his distance. “How long have you been staying with your aunt?”
“Since I left Monte Carlo.” She’d been here the whole time, if he’d only bothered to look. Where else would she go? She had money saved up, but staying here made the most sense economically.
“How are you supporting yourself?”
“That’s not your business.” She lifted her chin. He had the ability to find out anything he wanted to know about her if he’d just looked, thanks to his Interpol connections.
Apparently, he hadn’t even bothered to try. And that’s what hurt the most. All these months, she’d thought he would check up on her. He would have seen she was pregnant. He would have wondered.
He would have come.
“Not my business?” He stalked a step closer, only a hint of anger showing in his carefully guarded eyes. “Really? I think we both know why it is so very much my business.”
“I have plenty saved up from my years working for you.” He’d insisted on paying her an outlandish salary to be his personal assistant. “And I’m doing virtual work to subsidize my income. I build and maintain websites. I make enough to get by.” Her patience ran out with this small talk, the avoidance of discussing the baby sleeping in her arms. “You’ve had months to ask these questions and chose to remain silent. If anyone has a right to be angry, it’s me.”
“You didn’t call either, and you have a much more compelling reason to communicate.” He nodded toward Eli. “He is mine.”
“You sound sure.”
“I know you. I see the truth in your eyes,” he said simply.
She couldn’t argue with that. She swallowed once, twice, to clear her throat and gather her nerve. “His name is Eli. And yes, he’s your son, two months old.”
Elliot pulled his hands from his pockets. “I want to hold him.”
Her stomach leaped into her throat. She’d envisioned this moment so many times, but living in it? She never could have imagined how deeply the emotions would rattle her. She passed over Eli to his father, watching Elliot’s face. For once, she couldn’t read him at all. So strange, considering how they’d once been so in sync they could finish each other’s sentences, read a thought from a glance across a room.
Now, he was like a stranger.
Face a blank slate, Elliot held their son in broad, capable hands, palmed the baby’s bottom and head as he studied the tiny cherub features. Eli still wore his blue footed sleeper from bedtime, his blond hair glistening as the sun sent dappled rays through the branches. The moment looked like a fairy tale, but felt so far from that her heart broke over how this should have, could have been.
Finally, Elliot looked up at her, his blasé mask sliding away to reveal eyes filled with ragged pain. His throat moved in a slow gulp of emotion. “Why did you keep this—Eli—from me?”
Guilt and frustration gnawed at her. She’d tried to contact him but knew she hadn’t tried hard enough. Her pride... Damn it all. Her excuses all sounded weak now, even to her own ears.
“You were engaged to someone else. I didn’t want to interfere in that.”
“You never intended to tell me at all?” His voice went hoarse with disbelief, his eyes shooting back down to his son sleeping against his chest so contentedly as if he’d been there all along.
“Of course I planned to explain—after you were married.” She dried her damp palms on her sundress. “I refused to be responsible for breaking up your great love match.”
Okay, she couldn’t keep the cynicism out of that last part, but he deserved it for his rebound relationship.
“My engagement to Gianna ended months ago. Why didn’t you contact me?”
He had a point there. She ached to run, but he had her son. And as much as she hated to admit it to herself, she’d missed Elliot. They’d been so much a part of each other’s lives for so long. The past months apart had been like a kind of withdrawal.
“Half the time I couldn’t find you and the other half, your new personal secretary couldn’t figure out where you were.” And hadn’t that pissed her off something fierce? Then worried her, because she knew about his sporadic missions for Interpol, and she also knew his reckless spirit.
“You can’t have tried very hard, Lucy Ann. All you had to do was speak with any of my friends.” His eyes narrowed. “Or did you? Is that why they brought me here today, because you reached out to them?”
She’d considered doing just that many times, only to balk at the last second. She wouldn’t be manipulative. She’d planned to tell him face-to-face. And soon.
“I wish I could say yes, but I’m afraid not. One of them must have been checking up on me even if you never saw the need.”
Oops. Where had that bitter jab come from?
He cocked an eyebrow. “This is about Eli. Not about the two of us.”
“There is no ‘two of us’ anymore.” She touched her son’s head lightly, aching to take him back in her arms. “You ended that when you ran away scared after we had a reckless night of sex.”
“I do not run away.”
“Excuse me if your almighty ego is bruised.” She crossed her arms over her chest, feeling as though they were in fifth grade again, arguing over whether the basketball was in or out of bounds.
Elliot sighed, looking around at the empty clearing. The limo’s engine roared to life, then faded as it drove away without him. He turned back to Lucy Ann. “This isn’t accomplishing anything. We need to talk reasonably about our child’s future.”
“I agree.” Of course they had to talk, but right now her heart was in her throat. She could barely think straight. She scooped her baby from his arms. “We’ll talk tomorrow when we’re both less rattled.”
“How do I know you won’t just disappear with my son?” He let go of Eli with obvious reluctance.
His son.
Already his voice echoed with possessiveness.
She clasped her son closer, breathing in the powder-fresh familiarity of him, the soft skin of his cheek pressed against her neck reassuringly. She could and she would manage her feelings for Elliot. Nothing and no one could be allowed to interfere with her child’s future.
“I’ve been here all this time, Elliot. You just never chose to look.” A bitter pill to swallow. She gestured up the empty dirt road. “Even now, you didn’t choose. Your friends dumped you here on my doorstep.”
Elliot walked a slow circle around her, his hand snagging the rope holding the swing until he stopped beside her. He had a way of moving with such fluidity, every step controlled, a strange contradiction in a man who always lived on the edge. Always flirting with chaos.
Her skin tingled to life with the memory of his touch, the wind teasing her with a hint of aftershave and musk.
She cleared her throat. “Elliot, I really think you should—”
“Lucy Ann,” he interrupted, “in case it’s escaped your notice, my friends left me here. Alone. No car.” He leaned in closer, his hand still holding the rope for balance, so close she could almost feel the rasp of his five o’clock shadow. “So regardless of whether or not we talk, for now, you’re stuck with me.”
