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“Good.” Something occurred to him then. “Am I named as her father on the birth certificate?”
“Yes, of course you are.” She rinsed out her coffee cup, then turned the water off again. “I want Caro to know who you are—I’d just rather have been the one to pick the time she found out.”
“Yeah, well.” He leaned against the counter. At least the instant burst of anger had drained away as quickly as it came. “Neither of us got a vote on that one.”
The problem of Maverick rose up in his mind again, and he made a mental note to call home again. Find out how the search for the mystery man was going. And it seriously bugged him that he had no idea who it might be. Briefly, he even wondered again if Cecelia and her friends were behind it, in spite of Cecelia’s claim of innocence. But for now, he had other things to think about.
“Why does anyone care if you have a child or not? Why is this trending on Twitter?” She sounded as exasperated as he felt, and somehow that eased some of the tension inside him.
“Hell if I know,” he muttered and shoved one hand though his hair. “But we live in a celebrity culture now. People are more interested in what some rock star had for dinner than who their damn congressman is.”
She laughed a little, surprising him. “I missed that. Who knew?”
“Missed what?” Wes watched the slightest curve of her mouth, and it tugged at something inside him.
“Those mini rants of yours. They last like ten seconds, then you’re done and you’ve moved on. Of course, people around you are shell-shocked for a lot longer...”
“I don’t rant.” He prided himself on being calm and controlled in nearly all aspects of his life.
“Yeah, you do,” she said. “I’ve seen a few really spectacular ones. But in your defense, you don’t do it often.”
He frowned as his mind tripped back, looking for other instances of what she called rants. And surprisingly enough, he found a couple. His frown deepened.
“You’ve got your answers, Wes,” she said quietly. “What else do you want here?”
“Some answers,” he corrected. “As for what I want, I’ve already told you. I can’t just walk away from my own kid.”
“And what do you expect from fatherhood? Specifically.”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I just know I have to be here. Have to be a part of her life.”
She looked into his eyes for a long second or two before nodding. “Okay. We’ll try this. But you have to dial it back a little, too. You’re the one trying to fit yourself into our lives—not the other way around.”
He hated that she had a point. Hated more that as confident as he was in every damn thing, he had no clue how to get to know a kid. And he really didn’t like the fact that he was standing this close to Belle and could be moved just by her scent—vanilla, which made him think of cozying up in front of the fire with her on his lap and his hands on her—damn it, this was not the way he wanted this to go.
“If you can’t agree to that,” she said, when he was silent for too long, “then you’ll just have to go, Wes.”
Fighting his way past his hormones, Wes narrowed his eyes, took a step closer and was silently pleased when she backed up so fast she hit the granite counter. Bracing one hand on either side of her on that cold, black surface, he leaned in, enjoying the fact that he’d effectively caged her, giving her no room to evade him.
“No,” he said, his gaze fixed with hers. “You don’t want to take orders from me? Well, I sure as hell don’t take them from you. I’ll stay as long as I want to, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.”
She took a breath, and something flashed in her eyes. Anger, he was guessing, and could only think join the club. But it wasn’t temper alone sparking in her eyes—there was something more. Something that held far more heat than anger.
“You lied to me for years, Belle. Now I know the truth and until I’m satisfied, until I have everything I want out of this situation, I’m sticking.”
She planted both hands flat on his chest and pushed. He let her move him back a step.
“And what is it you want, Wes? What do you expect to find here?”
“Whatever I need.”
Four
Whatever I need.
Wes’s words echoed in her mind all night long. Even when she finally fell asleep, he was there, in her dreams, taunting her. It was as if the last five years had disappeared. All of the old feelings she’d had for him and had tried so desperately to bury had come rushing back at her the moment she saw him again.
She had three older brothers, so she was used to dealing with overbearing men and knew how to handle them. Isabelle wasn’t easily intimidated, and she wasn’t afraid to show her own temper or to stand up for herself, either. But what she wasn’t prepared for was the rush of desire she felt just being around Wes again.
