The Billionaire's Christmas Baby(10)

“I’m a child services worker.” Hannah’s voice halted his emotional auto-shutdown mode. He hadn’t had to use that defense mechanism for a while, but it seemed whenever family was involved it was instinctual.

“Do you want a drink?” Right now, he was thinking he could down the whole bottle of his favorite whiskey.

He glanced over at her when she didn’t reply. She shook her head. Her face was pale, but she didn’t look afraid. He walked passed her to the mahogany liquor cabinet and poured himself a double shot. When he turned around, Hannah was sitting in front of the fireplace, her hands folded in her lap. His disloyal dog was contentedly sprawled across her feet. So much for man’s best friend.

Jackson sat in the club chair opposite her. He stared into the fire, the cool crystal cradled in the palm of his hand, a contrast to the heat that raged through him. He took another drink and then spoke. “So, you’re a social worker.”

She nodded, turning her eyes away from the crackling flames to meet his. He read her expression easily and it made his tight muscles ease slightly. His gut told him that Hannah wasn’t a liar. Unfortunately for her, he wasn’t in the mood to mince words.

“I can’t stand social workers.”

He wasn’t sure how she was going to respond to that one. A few seconds later she broke the silence. “So that means you’ve been let down by the system.”

She obviously knew about his childhood. Yeah, he’d been let down. Abandoned. He didn’t bother looking at her. “Every social worker that has ever come my way was completely useless to me. Full of empty promises and false hope. Hope is the last thing you give to kids who have nothing.” The first time he told someone about the demented man who called himself a father he’d actually thought they might get help. Not for himself. If it were up to him he would have left, but his sister had refused to leave their home. So he stuck around for her. They lived in a dark, miserable hole of a house that reflected their father’s state of mind. That man that had the power to strike terror with one look, to rule over them like a dictator, had destroyed his sister. But not him. Jackson had shut himself off emotionally, and then he grew. He grew taller and stronger until father and son stood nose to nose and the man that once thought he was so mighty learned to put his fists back in his pocket.

Hannah’s soft, melodic voice clashed like lightning against the violence of his thoughts. “I know you don’t know anything about me. This is a horrible way for me to approach you. I’m sorry that this is bringing you so much pain—”

“This is not bringing me pain.” He hated that she was reading him, hated that she was right.

“You have to believe that I had the best of intentions. I had no choice. I risked everything to come here.” Her words came out quickly and she sounded almost frantic, probably because she was scared he’d kick her out.

He took another sip of the whiskey and met her gaze. She was gutsy. He ignored the sheen in her eyes, the concern that he read in them. He didn’t want to feel her compassion. He clenched his teeth against it, as though he could make himself immune to it, but there was no going back now. She had trudged in here and hauled him back to a past he’d tried to forget. He’d deal with this now and then send her and the baby packing in the morning. He could deal with one tiny social worker and a baby and then go back to his scheduled life. He had his dog and his business. What else did he need?

He leaned forward in his chair, his forearms on his thighs, the cool, smooth crystal of the glass cupped tightly in his hands. “Why don’t you tell me exactly why you are here?”

Hannah cleared her throat. “Your sister became one of my cases when she was pregnant. She was an addict who tried to stay clean for her baby.”

Jackson felt his stomach churn with revulsion as a memory of his sister, strung out, falling into his arms, bulldozed him into the past again. He hated Louise’s weakness. He hated that she hadn’t trusted him enough to keep her safe. He hated that Louise had taken the easy way out. She had abandoned him and the reality of their lives in favor of mind-numbing drugs. She had sold her soul, her body, for a cheap fix. The sound of Hannah’s voice reached in and brought him back.

“We found a group home for her and she did really well. She gave birth to a beautiful, healthy little girl that she named Emily.”

Jackson stared straight ahead, avoiding her probing stare. Don’t look over at the baby. She had named the baby after their mother, who had died when they were both children. When they were still friends. When they would tear through the woods bordering their home playing Batman and Robin until their mother would call them in for dinner, always with a smile, always with a home-cooked meal. That was all a long time ago. Such a different world that sometimes he wondered if it had happened at all.

He stared into his lap, seeing his mother’s smile, so like his sister’s. It was an image he rarely indulged in because if there was one thing that could bring him to his knees, it was the thought of his mother, of his sister, of what his life once had been. To him, that was weakness, and he abhorred weakness in himself and others. “I heard that Louise died. I didn’t know there was a baby.”

“You didn’t go to the funeral.”

“I didn’t really think there was a point.”

“She killed herself.”

He nodded, ignoring the twisting in his gut. “I know.”