Maura’s complete surrender.
“Don’t you hello me, Jefferson King,” she shot back, lifting one hand to shake her index finger at him. “How can you stand there looking so smug and proud of yourself? What kind of man is it to do what you’ve done?” Briefly, she threw both hands up in disbelief. “I don’t even have the words for it. How could you? How could you be so hard? So mean? So…”
“Cruel?” he helped out. “Callous? Uncaring?”
“Aye,” she snapped. “All of those and more, though ’tis clear to me you’ve not the decency to be ashamed of it.”
She was more furious than he’d ever seen her before and that gave him pause to wonder if maybe Justice hadn’t been right. But it was too late now, he told himself. He’d set a course and he wasn’t a man to back off just because the road got a little bumpier than expected.
“I see Cara gave you the news.”
Maura bristled. Since the moment her sister had come to her at the farm, crying over an opportunity lost, Maura had been able to think of nothing else but coming here and facing Jefferson with what he’d done. She’d driven into the city like a madwoman, steering the lorry he’d given her down the familiar roads in a blind rage. The desk clerk had taken one look at her and had pointed out the elevators, obviously unwilling to take a chance on trying to stop her. A wise choice on his part.
Now that she was here, the fury riding within was bubbling to the surface. Jefferson’s casual attitude wasn’t soothing her any. He looked smug and sure of himself as he watched her. So much so she felt a distinct urge to kick him. Hard. And only barely resisted. Her entire body was shaking with temper and disappointment and hurt.
He’d shown a side of himself she’d never guessed at. How had she not seen what he was capable of before? How had she trusted this man? Given herself to him? Thought herself in love with him?
She looked up into pale blue eyes and saw only cold distance glittering back at her. As if he were standing right in front of her, a part of him was sealed off from this confrontation. As if his mind and heart had taken a step aside, leaving only the ruthless businessman in their place. For the first time since she’d known him, Maura saw his fierceness. The steely resolve of a powerful man who would do whatever he must to ensure he got exactly what he wanted.
Tension coiled and crackled in the air between them. She could hardly draw a breath for the iron band tightening around her chest. Her heart.
“You’ve gone too far,” she told him, her voice hardly more than a scrape of sound.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Don’t pretend ignorance. It insults us both,” she said and tossed her purse atop her coat. “You’ve fired Cara from your movie.”
He shrugged and walked past her toward one of the twin couches set in the middle of the luxurious room. “She wasn’t working out.”
She watched him go, vaguely noticing how at home he was in the lush surroundings. How this place, this life seemed to suit him and how it also seemed to mark the difference between them. But Maura pushed that thought aside and concentrated on her reason for being there.
“That’s a lie. You told me yourself you thought Cara a fine actor. So it’s not her work you’ve a problem with. It’s me. You think to use my family to get my cooperation. That’s the mark of a small man, Jefferson King.”
“You’re wrong,” he said, whirling back around, returning to her, coming close enough that she could see his eyes were now shining with an inner light that blazed with banked temper and conviction. “It’s the mark of a man who goes after what he wants any way he has to. I warned you I wouldn’t give up. I’m Jefferson King. And a King does what he must to get what he wants.”
“No matter the cost?” She searched his eyes for some sign of the man she’d fallen in love with, but he wasn’t there.
“I told you going in, Maura. You’re carrying my child. I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure he’s taken care of.”
She knew, logically, that his determination to care for his child was a good thing. After all, not every man would care, would he? But Jefferson used his wealth and privilege as a club, swinging it wildly, knocking aside whoever might stand in the way of his goals and that she didn’t understand. Or forgive.
“You’ve no right to draw Cara into this,” she said, silently congratulating herself on the calm, reasonable tone of her own voice. “It’s between us, Jefferson. No one else.”
“You brought her into this,” he said, “when you wouldn’t see reason.”
“And because I don’t agree with you, out come the bully tactics?”
He winced, or she thought he had. The expression was gone so quickly, she couldn’t be sure. “You wanted this the hard way, Maura. Not me.”
“I only want—”
“What?” He grabbed her, big hands coming down on her shoulders, holding her in place. “What is it you really want, Maura?”
Something he had no interest in hearing, she thought sadly, staring up into his eyes and finally, finally, seeing the man she knew and loved looking back at her. He was as torn up by all of this as she was, Maura knew that. She felt his frustration as surely as she did her own.
And oh, what a tricky question he’d asked her. What did she really want? She wanted the fairy tale. What she wanted was to love him and be loved in return. To marry Jefferson King and make a family. She wanted it so badly, in fact, that she was ashamed to admit even to herself that she’d recently begun to actually reconsider his pitiful proposal. If she married for the sake of her child, it would be foolish, she knew. But oh, the temptation of saying yes. Of living with him. Being with him.
Yet even in the midst of wild dreams, she knew also that if she allowed herself to weaken on that point, she would, eventually, regret it.
So she kept those wants locked away inside her and said only, “I want you to give Cara her job back.”
“And you’ll do what for me in return?”
Temper drained away to be replaced by a sorrow that went soul-deep. She lifted her hands to his, linking them, as she looked into his eyes. “Not what you’re hoping. I won’t marry you for the sake of the child, Jefferson. I can’t do that. Not to myself or to you. Sentence all three of us to half a life? What would be the good in that?”
He dropped his forehead to hers. “You’re as thickheaded as I am,” he murmured.