Burning Wild (36 page)

“Is your headache completely gone?”

“Absolutely. Totally.” She started to stand and he dropped a heavy hand on her shoulder, preventing movement.

“The doctor’s coming today. If he says you’re fine, then we’ll see.”

“He will say I’m fine.” Emma hesitated and plunged on to the next subject. “Jake, right before my horse spooked, I smelled something. It sounds silly, but I have a really acute sense of smell and the wind shifted and for a minute it smelled like a wildcat. Maybe a mountain lion. Could there be a large cat in the vicinity?”

Jake went very still.

Emma dropped her eyes and shrugged. “I know it sounds silly, but I can smell things others can’t. I’ve always been able to, and lately my sense of smell has been even sharper. I can tell who has come into the house before they get into the same room with me.”

He caught her chin. “Don’t do that. Don’t be afraid of saying anything to me. I’d never belittle you, Emma. You’ve been thinking about this for two days now. I knew something was on your mind. I don’t want you to keep things from me. Not your fears, not your opinions, even when they differ from mine.”

The pad of his thumb slid back and forth over her chin. “I know you think I’ve been a little crazy over this accident, but you’re black and blue. You could have been killed. And if you tell me you smelled a wildcat, then I believe you. Drake and Conner have been looking for tracks. Something had to have spooked those horses. We let that herd run free on the property but they should have been miles away. The stallion keeps them to a territory about thirty miles from the house and he always stays on the same range.”

Something in his voice caught at her. “Are you saying the horses were purposely herded or driven onto the trail we take the children riding on?”

“I don’t know, honey, but I intend to find out. I just think it’s best to keep the kids very close to the house. I’m beefing up the security when the children are outside.”

Her heart slammed hard against her chest, and for a moment she couldn’t breathe. “Do you think someone is trying to harm them? Tell me the truth, Jake. You’ve got to tell me what’s going on. I don’t like being kept in the dark like some child.”

Jake sank into a high-backed chair opposite her, a sigh slipping out. “I don’t want to scare you off.”

“Jake, if anything was going to scare me off, it would be you. You’re a very intimidating man, but do I look afraid of you?”

Faint humor lit his eyes. He smirked. “Sometimes.” She smiled at him. “Okay. Sometimes I am, but you don’t sound remorseful.”

“A little fear is good for you once in a while, otherwise you’d boss me around the way you do everyone else.”

She refused to allow him to distract her. “I won’t run. Tell me.”

He pulled his chair close so their knees were touching. “The people who are my birth parents were involved in a bizarre experiment. What they were trying to do doesn’t really matter. The point is, they wanted a child with certain talents, and when I was born, I wasn’t what they had ordered. They have an alliance with the Trents, and I believe the Trents have been conducting the same sort of breeding experiments, rather like friendly rivals. Both families are very powerful, politically as well as socially. I’m sure you’ve read the papers and the suspicions surrounding both families. Nothing is ever proved, but Bannaconni and Trent both have been under suspicion in the disappearance of young women.”

She noted that he referred to his father as Bannaconni, never as Dad or Father. Jake was always consistent in that. She tangled her fingers with his as he continued.

“Let’s just say that not only do I believe Bannaconni and Trent are guilty in the women’s disappearances, but that other disappearances have never been discovered. They’ve had women bring rape and torture charges against them in two separate incidences, but they were acquitted when, in fact, they were guilty. How do I know they were guilty? I know them and I saw them kill someone, a nanny of mine they blamed for their abuse of me. Their wives are every bit as depraved and cruel and bloodthirsty as they are. They are serial killers, yet they’ll never be caught.” He pulled his hands away from her, as if he couldn’t have physical contact even when mentioning his childhood.

She went white, she knew she did. She could feel the color draining from her face. She believed him. She took a deep breath. “Did they try to kill you, Jake?”

“There were times I wished they had.”

“All the scars?”

He nodded slowly. “Not necessarily all of them, but, yes, they liked to inflict pain. For the power and the rush. It’s all about power.” He waited a heartbeat. Two. Wanting her to know the truth. Wanting her to know what she was getting into, or maybe he wanted her to prove that she really belonged to him. “I have the same genetic makeup. Their blood flows in my veins.”

She tried not to see the understanding of his parents’ deviant need for power in his eyes. That remote, cold look he often had on his face, the determination to destroy his enemies. The ruthless traits in him that made him a bitter, relentless enemy were stamped on his face. He took apart companies like others took out garbage. He reveled in his ability to scent weakness and he circled like a shark with the smell of blood before going in for the kill. His attacks were always swift, unexpected and ferocious. Emma moistened her suddenly dry lips and tried to breathe normally.

“Do you like to inflict pain, Jake? For the feeling of power? For the rush?”

His gaze jumped to hers, locked and held. “Yes.” He wanted her to know the truth about him, about the monster living in him. Not buried deep, but close to the surface. She had to know. He hadn’t started out thinking he would ever reveal the ugliness inside him to anyone, but she deserved the truth. He owed her that.

Emma’s breath left her lungs in a rush, as if she’d been punched and couldn’t catch air. He caught her hands again, locking them together, and she had to fight to keep from pulling away. She couldn’t look away from his eyes, from the rejection there. He had bared his soul and expected rejection—maybe even was half hoping for it.

“Have you ever killed anyone? Done anything like your parents?”

“The enemies,” he corrected.

She took a shallow breath. It was the best she could do. “The enemies, then. Have you ever physically harmed another human being?”

“Not like the enemies have, but I killed a man who meant to murder Drake. I felt I had no choice. Everything happened fast and there wasn’t time to think.”

Emma was silent, trying to wrap her mind around how the conversation had taken such an unexpected, shocking turn, yet she wasn’t nearly as shocked as she should have been.

“Emma.” Jake waited until she was wholly focused on him. “I had no choice.”

He was telling the truth. She knew he was by his scent alone. “Have you ever been cruel to animals?”

“No, of course not. I would never do such a thing, nor have I ever wanted to.”

“What about the children? Have you ever wanted to hurt them?” She held her breath, terrified of his answer. He never looked away from her, although it had to hurt him that she asked.

Jake felt his stomach turn. “
Never
. Never, Emma. Remember when I told you if I ever hit them—or you—that I wanted you to leave me and tell Drake? I meant it.”

“What about me, Jake? Have you wanted to hurt me?”

There it was. The question he knew would come. The one he had hoped wouldn’t come. He kept his gaze locked with hers. He couldn’t have looked away from her even if he wanted to. He had to judge her reaction to his answer. He had to see the disgust and horror for himself. “Sometimes.” His voice was barely a thread, barely whispered aloud.

She didn’t flinch. She had courage, but he already knew that about her. She blinked up at him, digesting his answer, knowing he spoke the truth. She didn’t look at him as if he were a monster, she didn’t even pull her hands from his, but he felt her tremble.

“Why?”

It took every ounce of courage he had to look her in the eye, to answer her, to let her see inside of him to the dark, ugly truth that he was exposing to her. “To make you prove your loyalty to me. To know you’ll stay no matter what, that you want me enough to take whatever I dish out. Other times it’s been because another man is too close to you and I need to show him you’re mine.”

Again she was silent, but she still hadn’t turned away. Her gaze remained steady on his. “You’ve never hurt me,” she pointed out.

“That doesn’t mean I didn’t want to, Emma. That means I choose not to be like the enemies. It’s a conscious choice I make every single day. I choose my targets in business, people who have hurt others, and I don’t take down those weaker than me. Or those who are honest. I made up my mind that if I had to be a monster, I would at least make certain it didn’t control me.”

“I’m not laying down for you, Jake. I’ll
never
lay down for you.”

“I know that.”

“I can see you manipulating me at times and I allow it because whatever you want isn’t a big deal to me, but if it ever was, if I wanted something, nothing would stop me.” She leaned toward him. “You think about it long and hard before you ever decide to hurt me, Jake. If you hit me, I will walk away. I have too much respect for myself to put up with that kind of crap, no matter how much I love you. And I do love you. I know I do, whether you believe it or not.”

“If I ever hit you, Emma, I would know it was time to pack it in. I wouldn’t be worth much as a human being.”

“And I would never, under any circumstances, tolerate another woman. If you decide to hurt me emotionally, know I will walk if you choose that as your test of what I will or won’t do for you. I’m trying to be as honest with you as you’re being with me.”

She was killing him. Destroying him. Making him so vulnerable inside, he felt like paper in the wind. She turned him inside out. She should be loathing him, despising everything he was, but instead she looked at him with her soft eyes, her warm heart in them, and she
loved
him. It was there. That look. The one he’d been waiting for. She made no pretense of hiding it. She sat exposed, unafraid, courageous, letting him see inside of her. And she made him weak and scared. Not just afraid.
Terrorized
.

He dropped her hands and stood up, knocking the heavy chair backward, pacing like a caged animal. “What the fuck is wrong with you, Emma? You should be running screaming out of here. I just told you about my bloodline. I told you that sometimes I want to hurt you—test you—yet you’re sitting there, all wide-eyed like some innocent virgin, thinking love conquers all. I don’t even believe in love. You know that, right? You should be running, damn it. Do you really think you’re going to be able to live with me? With the kinds of things I’ll demand from you? Your idea of love . . .”

“Is adolescent?” She raised her eyebrow as she quoted him back. “Because I don’t know about the kind of sex you want?” She didn’t raise her voice at all.

She stood too, crossing the small distance he had put between them. His head was down, in stalking mode, his eyes fierce, focused, frightening in their intensity. She ignored the wall he was attempting to build and went right up to him, ignoring the danger signals, turning her face up to his, her heat surrounding him, her scent deliberately enveloping him. She kept her voice a low, intimate tone, but made certain she enunciated each word.

“I may not know about your adult sex. But I know about love, Jake, and you don’t. You can teach me about your hard-core, kinky sex and I’ll teach you about making love. Being in love—real love—the kind of love that endures. The kind worth fighting for. The kind of love where when I look at you and you look at me, we can see each other all the way, deep down to everything hidden, and know we’re where we’re supposed to be. The good and the bad, strengths and weaknesses, everything we are and know. At the end of the day, we’ll know we’ve been truly loved.”

Emma put her palm on his chest, over his heart. “I’m not afraid of going where you lead. I believe in you. And I trust you with my life, but more importantly, with the lives of our children. I’m willing to put everything that I am into your hands because I trust you that much. I trust that you’ll put me first and protect and care for me with everything that you are. I’m not afraid of what you came from, or the monster you think lives inside of you. You’ve learned a lot of things about life that are ugly, but that doesn’t make me afraid either. Why? Because I know you. I see you. You aren’t hiding from me. I’ve lived with you for two years and I know you.”

She tilted her head to one side, studying his face. “Do you trust
me
? I think that’s the real question here. Do you trust me enough to put
your
life in
my
hands and follow where I lead? Do you have the courage to let yourself love? That’s the kind of man I want and need, Jake—a man with the courage to let himself learn from me. Because if there’s one thing I do well, it’s love.” She stood on her toes and kissed the corner of his mouth. “You’ll have to decide. Right now I’m going to go upstairs and get ready so the doctor can assure you I’m well enough to take my house back. And I’ll buy the most beautiful cocktail dress you’ve ever seen so you can get all sorts of interesting ideas for later on. In case you didn’t get it, I’m very proud of the man you’ve become.” She turned to walk away and he caught her wrist.

“Emma, wait. We’ll see about you going anywhere. Don’t set your heart on it.”

She made a face at him. “We won’t see. Nurse Tell-Me-What-to-Do can leave and I can have my house back.”

“We’ll see,” he repeated.

“If the doctor says I’m fine, then I want to go into the city and pick out a dress for the party.” When he frowned, she glared at him. “Unless you’ve changed your mind,” she said hopefully, “and decided I don’t have to go with you.” Although she was still going to get out of the house and off the ranch and just breathe for a while.

He massaged the nape of her neck. “You’re not getting out of it. If I have to go, you have to go. I’m not suffering alone.”