AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I have every claim.”
Balthazar’s voice was pure ice.
Kendra made a soft sound that might have been a gasp, as if he’d punctured her straight through. He rather hoped he had.
“Whatever life you think you might have had here, you forfeited your right to it when you involved me,” he told her. Ferociously. “You must realize that there exists absolutely no possibility that I will allow you to give birth to my child anywhere that is not under my direct supervision.”
“If I’m pregnant,” she said, and on some distant level he noticed that she almost stuttered over that word, “I will handle it. My way. It has nothing to do with you.”
“I will require genetic testing to determine paternity, obviously. Because oddly, Kendra, I do not trust you.”
“Genetic testing...” She blinked, then lifted a hand as if warding him off. “I understand that you take great pride in crashing about the planet, ordering everyone around and taking your revenge when they don’t do what you want. But I have already spent a lifetime putting up with that from my actual relatives. I have no intention of allowing you to take up where they left off.”
“How will you stop it?” he asked with genuine curiosity, though there was a kind of silken threat in his voice.
He did nothing to hide it.
And he expected her to cower. To look away, keep her eyes downcast, make herself small, the way most of his subordinates and rivals did in his presence.
Instead, Kendra Connolly charged across the few feet remaining between them and actually brandished her finger in his face.
It was...astonishing, not alarming.
Such a thing had never happened before. Not with anyone other than his father, that was.
“You can go straight to hell,” Kendra threw at him. “And you can start by getting out of my house.”
Balthazar shrugged. “Whether I am in this house or out of it, that will make no difference. The outcome will be the same.”
“You have absolutely no authority over me. I don’t evenlikeyou. And even if I did, the state of my womb is none of your business.”
“Think again, Kendra.”
He saw sheer murder on her face, and something about it...delighted him.
Balthazar had now seen a number of different versions of this woman. The fluttery, overcome, supposed innocent that night in the gazebo. The cool, controlled businesswoman who had sold herself so matter-of-factly and then kissed him like the culmination of a lifetime of his most erotic fantasies. The sunny, happy little waitress at the winery.
And even the woman who had greeted him at the door tonight, seemingly angelic. Bathed in light and not nearly as intimidated by him she ought to have been.
Now there was this version. Unafraid, uncowed, and somehow even more beautiful because of it.
He had come here wanting to do absolutely nothing but crush her, and instead he found himself hard again. That longing, that impossible need, stormed through him as if it intended to tear him apart.
She had no idea how close he came to simply sweeping her into his arms and tasting her mouth again. To lose himself that completely, that quickly.
No matter what she’d done to him.
This weakness will soon rule you,a voice inside that sounded far too much like his harsh father lashed out at him.Then you will be no better than she is. Is that what you want?
His trouble was he knew exactly what he wanted.
Kendra dropped that finger, but only so she could prop her hands on her hips. “You make a lot of threats but I think we both know they’re empty. Because this is the modern world, not whatever medieval daydream you have going on.”
Balthazar laughed, then. “I would advise you not to make yourself comfortable with that fantasy.” He laughed again when she scowled at him. “I would prefer it if you agreed to my terms. I would prefer it if you took those tests now, to spare us both the suspense. But I don’t require your agreement or cooperation,kopéla. Either way, I will have my answers in the end.”
“Either way?What are you going to do?” Kendra scoffed at him. “Kidnap me?”
But Balthazar only smiled.
