LITMIR.BIZ

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“The last thing I want is you dead.” And she meant it.

      He stared her, those ice-gray eyes seemingly going right through her. “Get inside,” he ordered. “You might not value your life, but I’d prefer you stay alive so I can figure out who the hell you are.”

      She debated it, but in the end she couldn’t dismiss the part about bullets going through glass. Yes, despite his comment that he preferred her alive, Jackson Malone might indeed have murder on his mind, but right now Bailey felt safer with him than she did with the ski-masked intruder. She only hoped she didn’t regret trusting her instincts. She certainly didn’t have a good track record in that department.

      Bailey stepped out of the sunroom and into the main part of the house, and Jackson immediately closed the double doors and locked them. He pressed some numbers on a security system keypad, and then stepped in front of her to prevent her from going any farther.

      “We’ll wait here,” he insisted.

      Here was a casual living room with a butter-colored sofa. Floral chairs. A fireplace. There were toys in a basket on the hardwood floors.

      That caused her breath to catch.

      “Who’s the intruder?” Jackson asked her, checking the phone again.

      Bailey pulled her attention from the toys and that phone so she could shake her head. “I don’t know, but maybe he came here to kidnap the baby.”

      “Funny, I was thinking the same thing about you,” Jackson mumbled, making it sound like profanity. He shoved the gun into the back waist of his pants, crossed the room, pressed some buttons, and a bar opened from the wall. He poured himself a glass of something from a cut crystal decanter, tilted back his head and took the shot in one gulp.

      “You have someone after the intruder?” she asked. “Someone who can stop him from getting inside?”

      “I do. And my son has been taken to a panic room where no one can get to him. We’ve called the sheriff, and he’s on the way. Now, what does the intruder want?”

      Because her legs felt shaky, Bailey stepped to the side so she could lean against the wall. “I don’t know.”

      “Then guess,” he demanded. “And while you’re guessing, try to figure out how this intruder could be linked to you.”

      “To me?”

      “You,” he verified.

      He walked back to her and got close. Probably to violate her personal space and make her feel uncomfortable.

      It worked.

      Everything about him, from his clothes to his scent, to the liquor on his breath, screamed expensive, but that look he was giving her was from a powerful man who knew how to play down-and-dirty.

      An attractive man, she reluctantly admitted to herself.

      That’s the first thing Bailey had noticed about him when she saw his photo in the newspapers. With his perfectly cut, but a little too-long hair, Jackson Malone looked like a bad boy rocker turned billionaire. He was drop-dead handsome, and despite the lousy circumstances and her personal feelings about him, her opinion about his looks didn’t change. He was the kind of man women noticed, and she apparently wasn’t exempt from that.

      He glanced at her jeans pocket. “Why did you ask me about the two women in the photos?”

      It was a simple question; and unlike many questions, Bailey actually knew the answer to this one, but she had to debate how much to tell him. She could just come clean about everything. That could cause him to gather up his soon-to-be adopted son and go deep into hiding, where he could keep the baby away from her.

      Bailey wouldn’t blame him for that.

      But she couldn’t risk Jackson leaving with the baby. She had to know the truth.

      “Four months ago, when those men stormed into the hospital and took everyone hostage, I was in recovery. I’d just had a C-section.” Bailey had to take a deep breath. She didn’t remember much about that afternoon, and what she did remember wasn’t good. Just blips on her mental radar. “I didn’t know at the time, but the gunmen wanted to kill me.”

      “Because they thought you could identify them,” he supplied. “I read about that.”

      She nodded. She’d read all about it, too—after the fact. “Apparently, the two gunmen tried to break into the hospital lab the day before, and they thought I’d seen them without their masks. I might have,” she admitted.

      “You don’t remember?” he questioned.

      “No. I was there for some pre-op tests, and my mind was on the baby I was going to have. But they didn’t know that. They thought I was a threat. So they found out who I was and made a bogus call for me to come to the hospital for a bogus appointment. But I was already at the hospital because my labor started early.”

      He checked the phone monitor again. “Why didn’t the gunmen just go into the recovery room after you?”

      Bailey heard the question, but she had to know what was going on. Jackson kept looking at the phone, but he was giving her no clues as to what was happening. “Where’s the intruder?”

      “Still at the rear of the property. My men are closing in on him. Now, back to the question. Why didn’t the gunmen go into recovery after you?”

      “Because someone hid me, and my baby. I don’t know the person who did that, but I think it might be one of the two women in those photos. Both of them worked at the hospital at the time of the hostage incident.”

      He made an impatient circling motion with his finger when she stopped. “Keep going.”

      “The woman told me she had to take my son because the gunmen might hurt him.” Bailey had to pause again when she relived those last moments with her baby. “She took him and disappeared. I’ve been looking for him ever since, but I think someone doesn’t want me to find him. There have been three attempts on my life.”

      Jackson made a sound of mild interest. “I read the gunmen are dead now, and the person who hired them is in prison.”

      She nodded. “But I’m pretty sure someone has continued to follow me. I don’t know if it has anything to do with my missing son, or if it’s just someone who wants to do a news story. Some of the former hostages have been hounded by reporters.”

      No sound of mild interest this time. He groaned, a deep rumbling in his throat, and cursed. “Still, someone tried to kill you, but you decided to come here anyway?”

      “Those attempts on my life have nothing to do with this visit.” She couldn’t say it fast enough. “It’s been days, weeks even, since anyone has followed me. That’s why it was time for this visit. I thought I should come here today… .”

      “Say it,” Jackson demanded when she stopped.

      Bailey wasn’t sure she could. She’d searched for so long, and it was bittersweet to think she might be this close and still be so far away from having the life she’d planned.

      “I thought if I could see the child you’re adopting,” she whispered, “that I would know if he was—well—mine.”

      There it was. She’d just let him know that Caden James Malone could be the child who had been stolen from her.

      And in Jackson’s mind that meant she was the enemy.

      She’d read all about him. The ruthless business practices, the endless string of properties and businesses he’d acquired, often through hostile takeovers. His failed marriage in his early twenties to a woman who’d turned out to be a gold-digging opportunist. Rumors were, the sour relationship had embarrassed him and his family and had cost him millions. And it had also caused him to vow to stay single for the rest of his life.

      Obviously, that vow hadn’t extended to fatherhood.

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