Sanctum (Masters and Mercenaries #4.5)(13)

Peace settled over him. Sure he was upset about her not telling him about the baby, but he’d made mistakes too. She’d probably been scared to tell him. She might have thought he wouldn’t care or that he would take the baby away from her. A million things had likely gone through her head. But all that mattered now was that they had a family and they had to work something out.

Keith frowned. “Tell me something. What just went through your head?”

“It doesn’t matter. Tell the investors I’ll take the deal for the idea, but I want a million.”

Keith’s eyes narrowed, a shrewd look crossing his face. “I wasn’t telling you the whole truth. They already voted, and they’re willing to let you run the company.”

Shit. It was everything he’d wanted. He’d worked his ass off to get back to where he’d been before. But he had Jillian to think of. He couldn’t work his way back into her life if he was obsessed with his business. It would hurt, but he had to walk away because he owed her and the baby. “I have to think about my family. One million and a five percent share of the company.”

Keith rolled his eyes. “That’s not happening. I’ll give you six hundred thousand and two percent.”

Asshole. “You’re in charge of this, aren’t you?”

“I am.”

“Six fifty and three percent.”

“You’re just a shareholder. You won’t have anything to do with the day-to-day running of the business.”

That was why he was taking the deal. “I need to concentrate on Jillian and the baby.”

“Why do you need to concentrate on Jill’s niece?” Keith took a short sip of his whiskey. “Didn’t I mention that? Her sister, Ashley, had a baby. The dad skipped out. Jill’s been taking care of everything. No medical insurance, of course. Jill’s been very slowly paying off the bills. When I found out she was working at that damn strip club, I started looking for something she would take. She’s got some pride in her. I couldn’t get her to work for me and she wouldn’t take money from me. This was the best I could do.” Keith sat back, studying him like he hadn’t just ripped the floor out from under him. “Does that change your plans?”

Fucking bastard. He’d forgotten just how manipulative Keith could be. “I don’t have a kid.”

“You could. As far as I know Jill is perfectly capable. I know damn well you probably won’t if you quit working at that club and take this start-up. You’ll get right back to where you were before. You’ll obsess with the business and after a while, you’ll decide to find a sub and she’ll be utterly incidental.”

He felt his fists tighten. He didn’t like the way Keith was talking. Did Jillian feel the same way? “She wasn’t incidental. She was the best part of my day.”

“But she was the smallest part of your day. You had a D/s relationship, not a romance. Did you even know she had a sister?”

“I knew everything about her.” No one could accuse him of this. “Would you like a rundown of her family history? Her dad walked out. Her mother died when Jillian was eighteen. She had to skip college to get Ashley through the rest of high school. I know everything about that woman. Well, everything she would tell me.”

She would wait up late for him to come home from work, and after they’d made love, he would lie in the moonlight and ask her questions because he loved to hear her talk. He knew about her childhood, her high school years, how she’d been introduced to D/s.

“Now that I didn’t expect.” Keith’s fingers tapped along the table. “Look, I know you think I’m being an ass, but I really am trying to help you. I remember how you would look at her. I think she was trying to be what you thought you needed at the time. You wanted an easy sub. You wanted someone to take care of, but who wouldn’t need too much from you, someone you could throw money at and she would be satisfied with the little time you could give her, but she loved you.”

“I loved her too.” But now he was thinking about what she’d said. His love hadn’t meant much. “I thought I was honoring our contract.”

“She’s more than a contract, man. You see everything in black and white.”

“We had our roles, and I failed in mine.”

“Then you should take the company. Walk away from her because she deserves better than to be placed in some role. She’s more than a sub. If the relationship you truly want is a Master/slave partnership, then take the CEO job and allow Taggart to find you someone who doesn’t really care about love. You need a woman who finds true strength only in service. Oh, wait, when the chips were down, you didn’t let Jill do her job.”

Ryan looked at Keith, startled by the accusation. “What are you talking about? What was I supposed to do? She was the sub. I signed a contract to protect and provide for her.”

“And what was she supposed to do? Provide you with sex and obey you? Is that all she was good for? Let her go, man. She would rather be your wife than your sub, and it’s obvious you don’t want a wife.”

Because a wife’s job was to share the joys and the burdens, to help him through the pain. Would she have stayed?

It hit him like a freaking bolt of lightning. He hadn’t passed Jillian off to Keith because he was worried about her comfort. That had been in there, but he’d really done it to spare himself the heartache of her leaving him.