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She wanted to throw something at him and hug him at the same time. Damn the man! Of course everything wasn’t all right. And she couldn’t tell him why. She could only hope that she didn’t disgrace herself in front of him. Now would not be the time to display weakness. “I’m fine. Just winded,” she lied and quickly clamped her hand back over her mouth.
Unconvinced, he retraced his steps and stood in front of her. “Are you feeling well?”
His concerned tone pushed the tears over the edge of her eyelids. They made a trail down her cheeks. She couldn’t move, couldn’t straighten fully without losing the contents of her stomach. Damn, why had she eaten that pizza with her sister? If she never saw another pizza again, it would be too soon.
Jackson’s fingers clamped around her wrist and he tugged her hand down. “What’s wrong Ysabel? Why the tears?” He scanned her face and looked down at her bare lips. “Your face and lips are pale. Perhaps you should sit down. Do I need to have the emergency personnel check you out?”
“No!” Her eyes widened. Fear he’d find out her secret made her reply more sharply than she’d intended. “No, I’m fine. Really. I must have eaten something that didn’t agree with my stomach.” Beads of perspiration sprang up on her brow. If only he’d back off and leave her to handle her problem on her own.
Jackson pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “I think you should see the EMT.” He glanced behind her.
Afraid he’d wave down one of the emergency responders, Ysabel straightened, pulling her hands out of his and swallowing the bile rising in her throat. “No, really.” She smoothed her hands down her skirt and forced a smile. “See? I’m better already.”
His frown deepened as though he didn’t believe her for a minute. Then he shrugged. “Okay, then let’s get out of here.”
Holy Mary, Mother of God, that smell! A gentle gust of coastal wind pushed the horrible smell across Ysabel’s nostrils and she was a goner.
Her stomach upended, regurgitated pizza and apple juice launching from her insides. Poor, unsuspecting Jackson, who still stood directly in front of her, didn’t have a chance.
She emptied the contents of her miserable gut on his trouser legs and shoes.
Jackson yelped and jumped back, but not soon enough to avoid her unplanned aim.
Unable to stop, Ysabel retched and retched, tears squeezing from between her tightly shut eyelids.
Then she felt hands pulling her hair back behind her head and warm fingers holding her shoulders. The same hands that had stroked every inch of her body with such smooth sensuality, now held her gently, providing support and comfort.
Jackson’s tenderness did nothing to stem the flow of tears coursing down her face. If anything it only made them worse.
When her stomach let up, she was able to ease to an upright position. Embarrassed and certain she was an undignified disaster, Ysabel turned her back to Jackson. “Leave me alone,” she moaned.
“I can’t.” He turned her toward him and patted her face with a clean cotton handkerchief, drying her tears and mopping up what he could of her gastronomic pyrotechnics.
“I’m sorry. I guess the smell got to me.”
He smiled and smoothed her hair back from her face. “It happens to the best of us.”
“But not to me.” Ysabel grabbed his wrist and relieved him of the scrap of cloth, her lips pressing into a tight line. She couldn’t take much more of his concern. Not when she had to get away from him and Champion Shipping forever. Not when her heart was shattering into a billion pieces.
What a dope. How could she be so stupid to fall so completely in love with her boss?
Chapter Three
Jackson insisted on driving Ysabel’s compact red car with its sparkling set of rosary beads dangling from the rearview mirror, folding his six-foot-two-inch frame behind the driver’s wheel. After tossing her cookies at the container yard, Ysabel was too shaky and weak to maneuver Houston traffic—or so Jackson reasoned after wrestling the keys from her stubborn, unwilling hands.
Truth was, his own hands were shaking and he wasn’t feeling so steady. Not that he’d ever admit it. The great Jackson Champion had narrowly missed being blown up and faced the possibility of going to jail all upon return from a two-month sabbatical from his home in Houston. But what had him confused and shaking inside was Ysabel being so violently ill.
Ysabel, the one constant in his life. The person he’d come to depend on for just about everything. The woman he’d betrayed by taking her to his bed in a fit of rebound sex.
His hands gripped the wheel so tightly that his knuckles whitened. Late at night the traffic in Houston was almost tolerable. He didn’t have to sit in jammed lines of vehicles and pray his car didn’t overheat in the unrelenting Texas sun.
“I thought we were going back to the office.” Ysabel sat beside him, her normal color almost returned to her face, back in professional mode and ready to take on any challenge. She was amazing.
And that was the problem. She didn’t know when to take time out for herself. She’d let him drive her into the dirt before she cried uncle. His lips pressed together. Wasn’t it time to take others into consideration for once? Had he been that incredibly selfish? “I’m taking you back to my place.”
“No!”
Her sharp reply made him risk a glance her way. In the light from the dash, her eyes rounded and she gripped her purse like the rail on the edge of a sheer drop-off. Was she scared of him?
The muscles in his chest pulled tight, especially the big one conducting blood through his system. He’d done that. Made her afraid of him, but that didn’t change the fact she’d thrown up in the container yard and that he didn’t think she should be left alone. “You’re not well.”
“Now that my stomach is empty, I feel just fine. Let’s get to the office and pull up that information you wanted. I can’t—don’t want to go to your place…” Her voice trailed off and she chewed on her lip.
Jackson’s teeth ground together. She didn’t trust him to keep his hands to himself. He couldn’t blame her. After all, he’d taken advantage of her giving nature two months ago and taken her to his bed. He shouldn’t expect her to warm to the idea of being alone with him in the place he’d slept with her.
It had all unraveled because of his stupid, selfish attitude. So his ego had taken a hit after being jilted by his fiancée. He’d had no right to demand Ysabel meet him at his place after office hours. He’d been so obsessed with finding out why he’d been summarily dismissed by Jenna without so much as an explanation. It completely set him aback. Why would any woman walk away from marriage to a billionaire?
Ysabel tried to make him see that he hadn’t been marrying for the right reasons. Love had never entered the equation with Jenna. He’d decided he needed a wife and Jenna had seemed to fit the bill.
Ysabel had argued that good breeding stock, with connections in the corporate world wasn’t enough to base a marriage on.
He’d countered that he didn’t want children nor the messiness and entanglement of love. No one ever won when love was involved. All he wanted was a wife to grace his dinner table when he entertained his important guests.
Ysabel had been equally passionate that love and family meant everything and that he should be glad Jenna called it off before Jackson had made the biggest mistake of his life.
Ysabel’s green eyes had flashed with her zeal. Having called her to his condo late at night, she’d come immediately, dressed in a jean skirt and a skimpy camisole.
For the first time in their five-year relationship as employee and boss, Jackson saw past the professional facade she donned every day, and he was shocked. Shocked and completely and irrevocably turned on. Ysabel wasn’t the sensible, icy exec he’d thought she was. She was fiery and sassy, strong and determined.
That’s when he’d kissed her. The kiss led to more until he woke up the next morning with her lying next to him in his bed.
He’d come awake staring down at her, thinking how right she looked with her light brown hair splayed across his pillow, and how he could get used to having her wake up next to him every day of his life.
Then reality hit him like a rockslide. He’d steered clear of relationships for a reason. They never worked. Divorce happened and kids were abandoned and grew up in broken homes or foster homes. Like him.
He couldn’t do that to any kid of his, couldn’t bring a child into the world knowing he might not be in his life to give him the love and support he’d need. Knowing that most marriages were doomed to failure.
“Okay, then, I’m taking you home. You don’t need to be working when you’re sick.”
“Really, I’m fine.” She reached out and laid her hand on his arm.
An electric shock ran from where she touched all the way through him, making his heartbeat increase, pumping blood like an overworked piston through his bloodstream. His gaze dropped to where her slender fingers curled around his sleeve.
As quickly as she’d placed it there, she withdrew her hand and clasped it in her lap, pleating the fabric of her linen skirt, clearly nervous in his company.
What a mess he’d made of his relationship with the only woman he’d ever trusted. He’d destroyed her trust.
“I don’t want to go home,” she insisted. “We need to work quickly to get this matter resolved.”
A heavy lump settled in his gut and his jaw tightened. “So you can resign?” He took a turn a little faster than he’d intended, tires skidding on the still-hot pavement.
“Madre de Dios, Jackson! Could you slow it down? I’m not partial to getting car sick and I don’t relish being involved in a wreck.”
“Sorry.” He slowed, taking the turns at a reasonable speed, recognizing the physical effort it took him to keep his foot from ramming the accelerator through the floorboard. Once he’d eased onto Interstate 45 heading into downtown Houston, he willed his fingers to loosen their grip.
“In answer to your previous question…” She sighed. “Yes. Partly. I want to have this situation resolved before I leave the corporation. More than that I want to stop whoever is using Champion Shipping to smuggle deadly and illegal substances.” Her hands balled into fists. “We need to nail the bastard.”
A smile pushed Jackson’s lips up on the edges. That was his Ysabel. She had been the most loyal employee on his payroll, doing everything in her power to ensure the success of Champion Shipping.
“Thanks.” He shot a glance her way. “I guess that’s all I can expect.”
Her shoulders rose and fell on a deep breath. “Jackson, we need to talk.”
The lead weight in his gut flipped. “We need to talk” always meant she needed to say something and he wasn’t going to like it. He risked another glance her way, trying to read the expression in her profile and failing miserably. Out of the far corner of his eye, he caught a flash of headlights glaring off his side mirror. Before he could turn and look, a dark sedan raced up beside the compact car and slammed into the driver’s side.
Having relaxed his grip on the wheel, Jackson wasn’t prepared for the impact. The car jolted and skidded to the side, bounced against the concrete guard rail and swerved across three lanes of traffic. The dark sedan slammed into the back panel, setting the car into a spin.
“Holy Jesus!” Ysabel cried out, bracing her hands against the dash.
Jackson fought to regain control of the car, bringing it to a hair-raising stop on the far shoulder against a concrete barricade, facing oncoming traffic.
The smell of burned rubber and exhaust fumes filled the interior of the small car.
Ysabel scrambled for the door handle, frantically trying to unlock it.
“Stay in the car, Izzy.” He grabbed her hand, stopping her crazed attempt to get out. “We don’t know if that guy will come back and hit us again.”
“I don’t care. I have to get out.” She flung the door open and it crashed into the concrete. Then she dived out onto the ground.
Jackson jumped out and rounded the car.
Ysabel crouched on her hands and knees heaving, her entire body shaking with the effort. But nothing came up. The sound of her tortured gasps tore at Jackson’s heart.
He dropped to the ground and gathered her against him. “Izzy, sweetheart, breathe.” He sat back on the pavement, settling her in his lap. “Breathe, baby.”
Her pale face glowed in the moonlight, her cheeks shining with tears. “I’m sorry.”
“What have you got to be sorry about? I should have been paying attention.”
“I’m not usually sick.”
“I know, and that has me worried. I’m taking you to the hospital.”
She stiffened. “No.”
“I won’t take no for an answer.” He climbed to his feet, carrying Ysabel with him. “We’re going to the hospital. This isn’t right.”
“No. I’ll refuse treatment. Just take me home.”
“Okay, so no hospital. But you’re going home and I’m calling in my physician. End of subject.”
She stared at him, her face close enough to kiss, her eyes rounded, with dark smudges beneath them.
The need to take her lips was more than an urge, it was an obsession. If he didn’t think she’d slap his face, he’d have followed his desire. But Ysabel had had more than enough excitement for one day. He set her in the car and strapped on her seat belt, adjusting her seat back so that she lay fully reclined. “Don’t worry about a thing. I’ll take care of you.”
AN hour later, Jackson had reported the hit and run to the police and managed to get the corporate physician to pay a house call at Ysabel’s apartment. With Jackson pacing the floor of her compact living room, Ysabel lay on her bed behind her closed bedroom door, a cold stethoscope pressed to her chest, willing the doctor to declare her fit and get the hell out.
Dr. Adams folded his stethoscope and shoved it into his bag. “How long have you known?”
“Known what?”Ysabel asked, her gaze darting to the closed door of her bedroom. Could Jackson hear their words through the wooden panels? She couldn’t afford for him to find out now. She had to think, make plans and get the hell out of Houston.
“It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure this out.” Jackson’s corporate physician smiled as if making a joke. “You’ve missed a period and you’re throwing up, otherwise you’re perfectly healthy.”
She buttoned her shirt and climbed off the bed, putting distance between them. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’ve done the math. Question is, have you?” He waited, unmoving.
She teetered on the edge of lying again, but she’d had enough lying. “How accurate are home pregnancy tests?” Ysabel asked, her voice a soft whisper.
“They’ve been pretty accurate as long as you’ve gone past a period. I take it you’ve tested positive for pregnancy?”
Ysabel spun, a finger to her lips. “Shhh! I don’t want anyone to know.”
“You mean you don’t want Jackson to know?”
“That’s not what I said,” she argued, her words guarded, her brows drawing together. The doctor had guessed about her pregnancy, would he also guess the father of the child to be Jackson Champion?
Dr. Adams laid a hand on her shoulder. “You don’t have to worry. I respect doctor–patient confidentiality. Your secret is safe with me.”
“Thanks.” Ysabel swallowed the vile taste of guilt and nodded. “What are you going to tell Mr. Champion?”
“I’ll tell him it might have been a mild case of food poisoning and that you’ll be fine. Not the truth but not exactly a lie.” He squeezed her shoulders in a reassuring grip. “Ysabel, I hope you have the good sense to let the father in on your secret. A man has a right to know he’s got a child on the way.”
She stared up into the man’s eyes, tears forming in her own. After a long pause, she dipped her head. “I will.” As soon as she knew how she could retain custody when the father of her child could buy half of Houston with the amount of money he had.
“Fair enough.” Dr. Adams opened the door and stepped out into Ysabel’s small living area decorated in bold shades of red, yellow and orange. “She’s fine, Jackson. Nothing a good night’s sleep won’t cure.”
“But why was she throwing up?”
“Hard to say without blood tests, probably food poisoning, but it appears as if the worst has passed.”
“Don’t you think we should take her to the hospital and run those blood tests?” Jackson stared over Dr. Adams’s shoulder to where Ysabel stood in the doorway.
Butterflies turned somersaults in Ysabel’s stomach. “I told you it was nothing. We don’t need to waste any more of the doctor’s time or burden the hospital with nothing but a little bit of food poisoning. Go home, Mr. Champion. Like the doctor said, I could use a little rest.”
Jackson’s forehead furrowed. “I’m staying.”
“If you stay, I’m sure to get no rest at all.” As soon as the words came out of her mouth, Ysabel realized how they could be misinterpreted and her face heated. “Just leave. I’ll be at work bright and early in the morning.”
