Baby for the Billionaire(96)
From the direction of the patio, he caught the distinctive sound of feminine laughter. He stood there, literally frozen in disbelief. That couldn’t possibly be Mrs. Locke laughing. Not the witch herself. He had no idea how Annalise managed to charm the woman, but he could only thank God it had happened. Then he immediately shook his head.
He did know how his wife had pulled it off. He’d watched her do it with him and Isabella, and every other person she met. She had a knack about her, a natural charm. No, even that wasn’t quite right. She welcomed people in. Even though she’d been hurt, she hadn’t allowed past events to close her down the way he had. She continued to open herself to others, despite the fact that she might get hurt again. The vulnerability remained, reflected in those magnificent eyes of hers. But she gave of herself, anyway.
The laughter had faded and he heard Mrs. Locke say, “So, tell me the truth, Annalise. Why did you marry your husband?”
Jack didn’t think he could have moved if Doomsday itself were unfolding at his feet. Everything within him strained to hear the answer. But when it came, it was spoken so softly he couldn’t catch the words he longed to hear.
He erupted from the kitchen onto the patio, the pup still cradled in his hands. He didn’t know what he’d hoped, perhaps to discover Annalise’s response still lingering on the summer breeze. Maybe to read it in her expression or glittering like gold dust in her eyes. Instead, her head swiveled in his direction and she simply smiled. Just that. A smile that made his heart stand still and left him more helpless and out of control than he’d ever been in his entire life.
“I assume that’s the last straggler? Mayhem?” she asked. “Isn’t that what you’ve dubbed him?”
“Mister Mayhem,” he muttered.
“Would you like a glass of sweetened tea?”
The prosaic question ripped him to shreds. It took every ounce of willpower to hold himself in check, when what he wanted more than anything was to tip Locke out of his patio chair and chuck her onto the street so that he could demand his wife repeat to him whatever she’d told the caseworker. He wanted—needed—to hear why she’d married him. To know once and for all whether she’d done it just for Isabella or if maybe, just maybe, she’d believed those vows she’d spoken right here in his backyard.
To love, honor and cherish …
Annalise tilted her head to one side and a wealth of curls tumbled across her shoulder. “Tea?” she prompted again in open amusement.
“Thanks, I’d love some.” He crossed to her side and dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “Everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine.”
He took a seat with Mayhem in his lap and tipped the dog onto his back. He rubbed the puppy’s plump belly with his index finger. With a wide yawn, Mayhem promptly went to sleep, his head, tail and legs splayed in six different directions.
He glared across the table at Mrs. Locke. “Have you finished interrogating my wife?” he asked.
He knew he sounded defensive, just as he had with his father. But this time he had cause. He had it figured out now. This woman wasn’t his niece’s nanny any more than she was his employee. Annalise was his wife, a woman who’d given herself to him in marriage. Given herself in every way possible. And he’d do everything within his power to protect her, to fulfill those vows he’d taken mere steps from where they sat.
“I just put away my thumbscrews,” she replied in a dry voice. “And now I have one final question before I go visit with Isabella.”
He regarded her warily. “Only one?”
“Just one.” She leaned forward and set her glass of tea onto the patio table. “I know why Annalise married you. But I’d like you to explain why you married your wife. Is this a love match or is this your clever way of circumventing CPS’s objections to your guardianship? Is Annalise here to stay, or here until we go away?”
And there it was, Jack acknowledged. The billiondollar question.
Before he could reply, Sara stepped onto the patio. “Excuse me, Mr. Mason. There’s a gentleman here to see you. He was most insistent—”
Not waiting for either permission or invitation, a tall, lean man in his late thirties, maybe early forties, strode out onto the patio. He carried himself with a military bearing. His curly brown hair was cropped short. A faded cap shaded his deep-set eyes and cast a shadow across his sun-bronzed face. Though he didn’t share Annalise’s coloring and appeared far too young to have a daughter his wife’s age, there was little doubt in Jack’s mind that this had to be her father—and his timing couldn’t have been worse.