Baby and The Beast

But though Michael had grown in stature and appearance, Isabella could feel the oppressive heat of the anger and the resentment he still carried. A weighty burden he looked unlikely to discard anytime soon.

“I want you to know that I really appreciate your putting me up,” she told him. “I won’t be a bother, I promise.”

Michael’s features tightened. “Fifteen years ago you and your father took me in, Bella, treated me like family. It’s a debt I’ve never forgotten. And one I intend to repay.” He graced her with a slash of a smile—something she imagined he didn’t do very often. “I’m glad you’re here, and you’re welcome to stay as long as you want.”

Her heart began to soften like clay in a warm palm, but she fought it. His voice was thoughtful, but the meaning was clear. He was offering her his home and his protection because he felt he owed her and her father.

“Thanks,” she said with a calm she didn’t feel. “That’s a very generous thing to say. But you don’t owe me anything. One night’s stay is all I’ll be—”

“We’ll see about that,” he interrupted, plowing a hand through his hair. “We’ll see what the doctor says tomorrow.”

Just then, an arrow of pain shot into her lower back, making her wince. These little jolts were coming all too frequently the past few weeks. Her little one obviously wanted to see the world. And Mommy can’t wait to see you, my sweetie. Just give me a little longer.

“All right, Michael,” she said, too tired to argue something that sounded so reasonable no matter what his motivations were. “But I don’t want to take your room from you. I can easily move into a guest room or—”

“That’s not necessary.” His smoky gaze briefly scanned hers. “You look very comfortable right here in my bed.”

Her eyes widened and her breasts tightened. One night. Just one night.

“I won’t have you moving,” he said. “I’m going downstairs to make sure that Thomas is on his way. I’ll bring you up some dinner. Soup sound all right?”

She nodded, grateful that he was going to leave for a while so she could breathe normally again. “Sounds perfect.”

“My housekeeper only comes during the week, so we’ll both have to suffer my cooking until tomorrow. Anything else you need?”

“A little sunshine would be great,” she joked lamely.

He turned then and uttered the word “drapes,” and the wall of chestnut fabric in front of her parted to reveal floor-to-ceiling windows.

Isabella gasped, both at what seemed to be his magic and at the view. The dim bluish light of a late afternoon in early winter seeped into the room. Outside, she could see gnarled, leafless trees, a pond frozen over and acres and acres of white under a gray sky. To any true Midwesterner, it was a beautiful scene.

And Michael’s amazing technology had brought it to her in one simple command. She’d certainly read about his inventions, just never seen one.

“Very impressive, Michael.”

He shrugged. “It’s actually a pretty simple process.”

“Not to the technologically impaired. My VCR has been blinking 12:00 for a good decade.”

“Well, I can’t make a cinnamon roll. To me, that’s impressive.” He regarded her for moment, the cogs of his mind working behind his eyes, then he turned to leave.

“It’s good to see you again,” she called after him.

He paused at the door, but didn’t look back. “It’s good to see you, too, Bella.”

Then he was gone, and the room felt cooler. Which was odd because his attitude and manner were not particularly warm.

She turned toward the fire. Why in the world did she feel so safe here, in his lair, his hideout from the world, as the media called it?

“The millionaire recluse who lives in an enormous house of glass on thirty acres of woodland high above a sleepy town,” she’d read. “Driven to levels of success that most mortals wouldn’t dare strive for.”

He was an enigma, they said. At thirty-one, Michael Wulf made the world wonder—about his personal history, as well as his extraordinarily profitable high-tech developments.

Though he seemed to have no past, he was truly a man of the future. He created houses with brains and cars that responded to vocal commands. But unlike others in his field, he had no taste for celebrity.

They also wrote that he had no wife, no family, few friends and a giant chip on his shoulder. They said that he walked with a limp. And they speculated that perhaps the lone wolf had once been caught in a trap.

But Isabella knew a truth that all those journalists who wrote about him would never know. How he’d been tossed away by his parents for a handicap he couldn’t control and shoved into a boys’ home. How he’d been treated by his peers for being different. How determined he’d been to rise above them all.

And it seemed that he’d succeeded. He did indeed live high above a sleepy little town, a town that had once rejected him. But in her opinion, living in hiding was no way to live.

She exhaled heavily, her hands moving to her belly. Perhaps it was this new nurturing side of her, but she wanted to help him, lift him out of that black hole that held him hostage. But somehow she knew that if she did, if she got close to him again, the odds of reviving that adolescent crush were great.

Not that her potential desires mattered. The boy from years ago had looked on her as a little girl, while the man today apparently looked on her as an unpaid debt.

Not to mention that you’re eight months pregnant and resemble a beach ball.

She rubbed her stomach and said softly, “But I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

What she needed to do was concentrate on this new life she was carving out for herself: opening her pastry shop, creating a home, raising her child and putting the past to rest.

But rest appeared unlikely as long as she was under the same roof as that past: the very handsome and disturbing Michael Wulf.

Two

Michael leaned back in his armchair and took in the view.

Several feet away, Bella lay asleep in his massive bed, wrapped in the royal-blue robe he’d loaned her. She’d grown into a beautiful woman over the past decade, and her pregnancy only accentuated that beauty.

She hugged the down pillow like a lover, her face content, her tawny lashes brushing the tops of her cheekbones. And as the last flicker of red from the fire illuminated her long blond hair, he couldn’t help but wonder if this angel from his past had been sent from heaven to torture him.

Tonight, however, he hadn’t let himself spend enough time with her to find out. After Thomas had left, he’d gone down to the kitchen and opened a can of chicken soup, made some toast to go with it, then brought it up to her on a tray. She’d wanted him to stay and have dinner with her, but he’d declined.

He never ate with anyone. As a child, the chaos of living and eating with sixty hungry boys, of having to fight for every scrap of food, had made him yearn for solitude and peace. And he’d found them both out on the road when he’d finally escaped from Youngstown School.

Even when he’d come to Fielding, stayed with Bella and her father, his newfound independence had continued. Emmett would say something like “A man has to have a little space,” then hand Michael a plate of food and a glass of milk.

Emmett Spencer had been one in a million. Michael knew he would never forget how the man had taken him in, no questions asked, and acted as a father figure, a mentor, even taught him all about electronics. Then there was Bella, who had taught him about kindness and given him her friendship.

But tonight, Michael thought as he watched her, tonight, as he’d laid that dinner tray before her, he hadn’t looked on her as a friend. He’d even contemplated making an exception to his dining rule. For her. And both of those realizations unnerved him. Unnerved him enough to cry “work” as an excuse and get the hell out of there.

Just then, Bella sighed in her sleep. Rubbing his jaw, Michael cursed softly. He’d never been a voyeur. And he didn’t have time to think about the past. There was work to be done and deals to be made.

But today, when he’d opened that car door, seen those eyes—held a very grown-up Bella against him in that car—an addictive warmth had seeped into his icy blood, making him want to stay put, hold on to her this time. And that sense of longing hadn’t subsided one ounce in the hours since. Instead, it had seemed to grow.

Obviously she was potent acid to his ironwill, eating away at his resolve, and he knew that he’d better remember why she was here. Remember the only thing he wanted from her.

Acknowledgment of a debt paid in full.