Baby Trouble. Beth Cornelison
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she told him she was pregnant, he changed. He took new interest in food and exercise and spending time with Adam and generally engaged in life more. He got stronger, and gradually, as her belly grew, the haunted look faded from his eyes. He quit eyeing closed doors suspiciously, and the nightmares seemed to fade.
For a while there, she’d wondered if he was too far gone, if she’d be able to pull him out of the emotional abyss into which he’d fallen. But this baby seemed to have done the trick. She rubbed her rounded tummy affectionately. Things were working out better than she could ever have dreamed. Life was darned near perfect.
Nick stared at the laptop on his desk for the hundredth time. He’d been avoiding the thing for months, ever since Laura had told him she was pregnant, afraid to rock the boat of this new life. Everything was so good for him—for all of them—that he had no desire to do anything to threaten the perfection of it all.
But his curiosity had been building. Maybe it was a sign of his recovery that he was starting to feel the tug of waiting answers. What had happened during those lost years? Why the lies about his identity? Who’d had him kidnapped and thrown into a box? And why hadn’t that person or persons just killed him outright?
Certainty that he did not want to know the answers, no matter how tantalizing they might be, still raged in his gut. Whatever his former life had been, he had no pressing need to resume it. Laura was wealthy enough for them and their children to live in the lap of luxury for several lifetimes. Whoever else he’d left behind in his old life had no doubt made peace long ago with his disappearance and gotten on with their own lives. His return now could only cause disruption and chaos.
But what if his old life, his old identity, came looking for him?
Nah. Surely that had been the whole point of his kidnapping. To turn him into a ghost. Make him disappear for good. As long as he stayed a ghost, made no effort to resume his former life, there was no reason for his past to come looking for him. Right?
The key was to keep a low profile. He closed the laptop with a solid thunk. Nope. Curiosity or no curiosity, he was not going anywhere near his old life.
Laura sighed. Her perfectly orchestrated schedule for the day had been blown to heck by her obstetrician running nearly two hours late. Not that she begrudged some other patient an emergency C-section. But today, of all days, she’d really needed her doctor to be on time. Because of the delay, she hadn’t had time to swing by home and drop off the baby with the nanny before this important meeting with Nick’s lawyers.
She winced at the sliding noise of her minivan’s side door. Baby Ellie, six weeks old today, was asleep inside, and Laura desperately needed her to stay that way for the next hour. She detached the baby carrier from the car seat base, threw the baby bag over her shoulder and hurried across the parking lot toward the glass and chrome high-rise housing Tatum and Associates, the law firm that would be representing Nick in the upcoming AbaCo trial.
Nick was the star witness for the prosecution. As such, Carter Tatum expected him to come under withering cross-examination by the defense lawyers representing the company’s chief of security, Hans Kurtis Schroder. He’d been accused of masterminding a kidnapping and human-trafficking ring using AbaCo ships without the company’s knowledge. Personally, Laura doubted Schroder was the top dog in the scheme. He was the sacrificial lamb to protect his bosses.
Today was a coaching session for Nick in how to act on the witness stand. It was guaranteed to be stressful. A part of her that she was trying darned hard to ignore worried that Nick wouldn’t be able to handle it. But he’d endured worse. He’d be fine, right?
She stepped out of the elevator and a receptionist ushered her to a plush conference room. Nick smiled and came over to relieve her of baby and bag. Her heart still swelled when he looked at her like that, so tall and dark and handsome. He’d filled out in the past year, lost the gaunt pallor, rebuilt the athletic physique that had first caught her attention in Paris. A shorter haircut than he’d worn then gave him a polished air that felt more Wall Street than European Bohemian. He cut a smashingly gorgeous figure. Her hands itched to get inside his shirt.
As observant as ever, his gaze went dark and smoky. “You are quite a temptation, yourself,” he murmured. “Shall we cancel this meeting and go somewhere private?”
She smiled regretfully even as she leaned toward him, pulled in by his magnetic appeal and completely uninterested in resisting it. He stepped forward and his head lowered toward hers. Her breath hitched and she was abruptly hot from head to toe.
A door burst open behind her and several people walked into the room. Nick’s gaze shifted briefly to the intruders and then, ignoring them, he completed the kiss. It was a relatively chaste thing, but her toes still curled into tight little knots of pleasure in her Jimmy Choos heels.
“Ahh. You’re here, Ms. Delaney. Good. We can get started.”
“Sorry I’m late,” she murmured. “The doctor was backed up, and I had no time to get home and back here.”
Nick cupped her elbow, escorting her to the table and holding her chair for her. “And how’s our little angel?” he asked, gazing down at his daughter fondly.
Laura’s heart swelled at the adoration in his voice. “Mother and daughter both received clean bills of health.” More precisely, daughter was over her mild jaundice, and mother was finally cleared to have sex again. The past six weeks of abstinence had been murder on her. Nick had just laughed, saying that five years locked up had taught him a great deal of patience.
“Can I get you something to drink, darling?” Nick asked. She shook her head, and his fingers brushed lightly across the back of her neck as he made his way to his own seat. She shivered from head to toe in anticipation of tonight.
Carter Tatum spoke from the end of the table. “This afternoon we’re going to try to approximate how AbaCo’s lawyers will question Nick. As unpleasant as it may be, I would remind you we’re on your side.”
Laura, a former CIA operative, had been through training at their infamous Farm, and she highly doubted a bunch of lawyers could throw anything at Nick that she hadn’t seen before.
Carter gestured and in short order a trio of lawyers was taking turns rapid-firing questions at Nick. They started with his kidnapping. The Paris police believed he’d been drugged at the Paris Opera and taken to the shipping container in which he spent the next five years. Nick denied remembering any of it. If only she’d gone to the opera with Nick that night, but her CIA partner—and ex-lover, truth be told—had been missing, and she’d been following up a lead.
The lawyers pressed Nick about any enemies who might have paid people to ghost him, and she listened with interest. This was a subject he’d flatly refused to discuss with her. It worried her mightily that whoever’d had him kidnapped was waiting to pounce again. Again, he denied knowing anything.
The next lawyer pushed harder and Nick’s shoulders climbed defensively. When the third lawyer pressed even more aggressively for information about Nick’s past, he crossed his arms stubbornly and quit speaking altogether. Darn it. That was the same thing he did to her whenever she brought up the subject.
“Water break,” Carter announced abruptly.
Laura released the breath she’d been holding. Nick slumped in his chair, his head down. She put a supportive hand on his arm. “Are you okay?”
“Yes,” he answered roughly. But his arm trembled beneath her palm, and his jaw clenched so hard he looked about ready to crack a molar.
She suggested gently, “Let’s call this for today. We’ll come back another time when you’re feeling better—”
“We finish it now,” he snapped uncharacteristically.
She drew back, startled. Nothing ever flustered