Falling for King's Fortune / Seduction, Westmoreland Style: Falling for King's Fortune

Okay, Travis and Julie hadn’t been trying to have a baby, but Jackson wouldn’t make the same mistakes. “When it comes to that sort of thing, I’m Mister Careful. I’m so careful I’m practically covered head to toe in plastic wrap. I’m—” A hideous thought flashed through his mind, jolting him from his chair to his feet.

“You’re mistake-proof, I get it….” Travis prodded, waited for a response and when he didn’t get one said, “Jackson? You okay?”

“Fine,” he muttered, already hanging up when he added, “Gotta go. Bye.”

Careful?

He hadn’t been careful the night before. Hell, he hadn’t even thought of careful until just this minute. Last night, he’d been too caught up in the woman with blue eyes and a luscious mouth. Last night, he’d let himself get lost in the urgency of the moment.

For the first time in years, he hadn’t used a condom.

Jackson muttered a curse, kicked the bottom drawer of his desk and ignored the slam of pain that rocketed from his foot up his leg. Served him right if he’d broken something. How could he have been so stupid? Not only hadn’t he been careful, but he’d been with a stranger. A woman he knew nothing about. A woman who, for all he knew, had deliberately set up the situation to try to get pregnant by one of the wealthy King family.

He shoved one hand through his dark brown hair, then stuffed that hand into the pocket of his black jeans. Every muscle was tensed. His back teeth ground together and he told himself that no matter how difficult this turned out to be, he had to find that woman.

Casey.

Had to find her, discover who the hell she was and what she’d been up to the night before.

Still furious with himself, he stared out the window at the view stretching in front of him. A few of the King Jets were lined up on the tarmac, their deep blue paint shining, their tail fins proudly displaying the stylized gold crown that was the King family logo. Usually, his sense of pride swelled when he looked down on those jets. On the empire he’d taken over at twenty-five and built into one of the most enviable in the world.

Now, as he stared, unseeing, one of those jets roared down the runway, tore into the sky and lifted off to sail into the clouds.

While Jackson stood, earthbound, feeling like he was sinking deeper and deeper into a mire.

He had to find her. Especially now. He couldn’t risk losing this merger with the Cornice family.

And he sure as hell wasn’t ready to become a father.

* * *

A week later, Casey held the phone in a grip so tight her knuckles were white. “You’re sure? There’s no mistake?”

“Honey, I checked and rechecked.” Casey’s best friend Dani Sullivan’s voice came through loud and clear with just a touch of sympathy. “There’s no mistake.”

“I knew it.” Casey sighed, leaned back against the kitchen wall and stared up at the rooster clock hanging on the wall opposite her. The hands went to five o’clock and the rooster crowed. Why had she ever bought such a ridiculous clock? Who needed a rooster crowing every hour on the hour?

And who cared about the stupid rooster?

“Thanks for putting a rush on this, Dani.” Dani worked full-time at a private lab and she’d done the testing herself, just so Casey could not only get the results faster, but be absolutely sure about those results. “I appreciate it.”

“No problem sweetie,” she said. “But what are you going to do now?”

“Only one thing I can do,” Casey said, straightening up and walking across the room to grab her iced tea off the kitchen counter. The old fashioned wall phone’s cord was stretched to its limits and slowly reeled Casey back in. “I’ve got to go see him.”

“Hmm,” Dani said thoughtfully, “considering what happened the last time you went to see him face-to-face, maybe you should consider a phone call instead.”

“You’re never going to let me forget that, are you?” The whole point of a best friend was having someone you could tell your deepest, darkest secrets to. So naturally, she’d spilled her guts to Dani. The downside was, Dani wasn’t shy about offering her opinion.

“The point is, you haven’t forgotten it, have you?”

“No,” Casey said. She hadn’t forgotten. Worse, she’d dreamed of Jackson almost every night. She kept waking up hot and flushed, with the memory of his hands on her skin. And that memory, rather than fading, was only getting stronger. With only a small effort, she could almost taste his kiss again.

And she didn’t want to admit just how often she expended that effort.

“But,” she said, lifting her chin before taking a sip of her tea, hoping the icy drink would cool her off a little, “that doesn’t mean I’d make the same mistake again. Once bitten and all that.”

“Uh-huh.”

“You know, a little support wouldn’t be out of line,” Casey said, frowning.

“Oh, I’m supportive,” Dani argued, her voice low enough that no one else who worked with her could overhear, “but I still don’t think it’s a good idea for you to meet him face-to-face, so to speak, again. With the kind of news you’re going to deliver, I really think you’d be better off making a phone call from a safe distance.”

Probably. But she couldn’t do that. She really resented being put in this position, but there was nothing she could do about it now. By all rights, Casey never should have had to make this decision. Things had changed though and she’d been backed into a corner. So there was really only one thing to do. The right thing.

“Nope,” she said. “I have to tell him. And I have to do it while I’m looking at him.”

“Never could change your mind once it was made up,” Dani muttered.

“True.”

“Just be careful, okay?” her friend said. “He’s one of the Kings, you know. They practically own half of California. If he decides to, he could make your life really difficult.”

Fear curled in the pit of Casey’s stomach. She’d considered that already. But she’d done her homework. She’d done research on Jackson. She knew he was the playboy type. The footloose and fancy-free kind of man. The kind who didn’t want entanglements.

So she was pretty sure that despite the news she had to deliver, he wasn’t going to make trouble for her. He’d probably thank her for the information, offer to write her a check—as if she’d take money for this—and then quietly go back to his lifestyle of easy women and mega money.

“He won’t,” Casey said firmly, wondering if she were trying to convince herself or Dani.

“I hope you’re right,” her friend said. “Because you’re certainly betting a lot on the outcome of this.”

Oh, Casey was well aware of that.

Three

Jackson looked across the table at the woman he was planning to marry and felt the slightest buzz of interest for her. But compared to what he had felt for his mystery woman, it was the voltage of a double A battery alongside the frenzied energy of a nuclear power plant.

He’d assumed that whatever attraction there was between them would grow with time. Hadn’t happened yet though and he was forced again to remember the instant chemical reaction between he and Casey Whoever during their one night together. And what kind of statement was it that he’d had a better time with a perfect stranger than he was having with the woman he was expected to propose to? Images of Casey smiling, Casey naked, reaching for him, filled his mind and despite everything, Jackson felt his body burn and his chest tighten.

His mystery woman.

What had she been after?

She’d deliberately seduced him. Gone out of her way to entice him, then disappeared without a backward look. Who did that? And why?

If he didn’t get answers soon, he was going to go nuts.

“My father says you’re interested in the airstrip in upstate New York,” Marian said, snapping Jackson’s focus back to her.