4
“Yes,” she admitted in the lengthening silence, her voice rough, scratchy. “It’s my signature.” Her body spasmed again.
Jirrah snarled, “So you admit it. You gave our daughter to strangers like she didn’t matter. Like I never mattered enough to you even to keep my child, or even name me as her father! Explain that form of bloody grief to me if you can, Mrs. Beller!”
But her reaction floored him.
Her knuckles gleamed white as she gripped the sides of the table; her eyes burned like zealot’s gold in a wraithlike face. “I—I…oh, God, my baby, my baby…my Emily’s alive. A-adopted…”
Her body lurched out of the chair in a final jerking spasm. She stumbled toward the bathroom but fell to her knees outside the door and emptied out her stomach in slow, violent retching.
Jirrah closed his eyes, whacking his forehead with an open palm. “Oh, you bloody idiot. You stupid, brainless jerk.” He ran to wet a facecloth and towel.
When he returned with the cloths and a glass of water, he found her leaning against the wall beside the door, ineffectually wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.
He cleaned her face with the wet cloth, then handed her the glass. “Here, Tess. Sip it, don’t gulp, or it’ll come back up.”
She took the glass in a trembling hand, and rinsed her mouth. “Sorry,” she whispered: a threadbare sound.
He cleaned the mess with brutal efficiency. “Don’t sweat it. I deserve it for being such a dumb-arse jerk. I actually believed them.” He took the towels and threw them in the trash.
When he came back she’d slumped sideways, the fallen glass creating a slow puddle over the floor, and on her shorts. So he carried her to the sofa, laying her down and covering her warmly; but she broke into fits of shivering beneath the blanket. He pulled her close, swearing beneath his breath at the way his body reacted to the feel of her soft curves laying against him.
But the pain twisted his heart at the sight of the devastation ravaging her, in fits of hard, hurting shivers. “Those bastards.” He stared down at the face he’d never been able to forget. “My God, Tess, what they’ve done to you—to us both.”
But within seconds she pushed him off and sat up, though she swayed still. “Don’t touch me,” she muttered as he moved to help her again. “I’m not going to faint.”
He didn’t trust her to know right now. “You should get some sleep. You’re in shock. You’ve been through too much today.”
She clutched the blanket around her, her face pale and strained—a ghost of moonlight and flickering fire. “I don’t want to sleep. I want answers! How long have you known?”
“Tess, you’re white as a ghost. You only just found out about me, then I told you about Emily. You thought we were both dead. Hell, it shocked me when I got the birth certificate, and I didn’t know you’d been pregnant. We can talk in the morning.”
“No. Now!” she all but yelled. “Don’t presume to know me. You don’t have a clue what I need. You haven’t seen me in six years.”
That stung. “What about our daughter?” he asked, in soft challenge. “Do you need her, Tessa?”
Bam. Dead-on target and straight back to life. Her gaze burned into him, blistering his skin with its fever. “Are you sure?” she hissed, her eyes narrowed. “Do you know she’s alive?”
“Someone left an envelope in my effects when I made parole—my death certificate and the adoption papers. The warder said it was from my barrister.”
“Could this be another plot? I mean, another fake certificate to make you hate me?”
He shook his head. “I got my lawyer to check. It’s authentic—the adoption’s sealed, but real. She’s alive. And if it’s not your signature on the adoption papers it’s damn close to it.”
She frowned. “That day, that whole week is a blur to me. I could have signed anything.” She held her arms, shivering again. “God, what a fool I was. I should never have trusted them.”
He frowned. “You never suspected they’d done this?”
She shook her head. “When they said she was dead, I started screaming. I don’t remember anything for weeks but crying for Emily and taking pills.” She glanced at him with sad, bewildered eyes. “Why do you think they left the papers for you?”
“Insurance. They wanted to let me think just what I did think—that you betrayed me in a way I’d never forgive. They made sure I’d never want to see you again, so you’d never know I was alive, and I’d never know you thought Emily was dead.”
“Oh, yeah,” she muttered. “Machiavellian plots are Cameron’s specialty. Especially when it comes to getting what he wants from me, or climbing higher on the social ladder. Destroying other people’s lives to improve his wouldn’t even faze him.”
Looking at her, he knew she’d reached the limits of what she could stand. She’d learned enough today to send anyone into shock. “We’ve got a long day ahead of us. We need to talk about what we’ll do from here, but it can wait. You take the bed. I’ll sleep out here.”
She nodded and got to her feet, holding the blanket around her like a talisman. She looked fragile, vulnerable, so tired; but he knew her inner core of strength and staunch courage. He’d known it firsthand when the millionaire barrister’s shy daughter braved the contempt of her world seven years before, following her heart to love a humble carpenter. So he expected her next words, waited for them. “I have to know what happened to Emily.”
He nodded; and filled with deep, if reluctant respect, he looked at her, really looked at her for the first time that day. He didn’t see Theresa Earldon-Beller, the spoiled society woman he’d hated; he didn’t see Tessa, the innocent girl he’d loved. He didn’t see a helpless, abused woman needing protection. He saw the woman she was now…and before God, she was beautiful.
Her offbeat, just-crooked slant of nose and mouth, and one dimple, would never be classic. But the vivid face that had stunned him seven years before, the slanted line of cheek, the silken waterfall of hair, the amazing amber eyes in the face of a proud Aztec priestess, still left him speechless. Even the remnants of suffering added gentleness and grace to her unconscious dignity: a charm so incorruptible that age would not weary it, an inner magic so strong mere beauty could never lay claim to it.
He’d never be immune to her. He’d want her until the day he died. But loving her almost killed him once. Losing Tess ripped the soul from him and shredded his heart, leaving him locked in a cage—physically and emotionally. He’d never let it happen again.
But he swore he’d set her free from Beller’s obsession with her if it killed him…and he’d make Beller and Duncan Earldon pay for what they’d done. He owed Tessa that much, at least.
“I’ve been looking for the baby—Emily—for a long time,” he admitted. “But it was harder for me to get anywhere. I couldn’t claim parentage to get the birth certificate. I tried, but they put father unknown on it.”
The torment in her eyes hurt his soul. “Thank you,” she said.
