Staking His Claim

“As you pointed out, I’m the mother. The legal birth mother.” Did she think he’d missed her point? Yevgeny wondered. “I get to make the decisions,” she was saying now. “I need only to consider the best interests of the child.”

The look on her face made it clear that his solution was not what she considered in “the best interests of the child.”

He froze as he absorbed what she was getting at. “How can that be true? This is the twenty-first century!”

“Quite correct. And a child is no longer a chattel of the head of the household.”

The eyes he’d been admiring only minutes earlier gleamed in a way that caused his hackles to rise.

“So I have the final say in who will adopt the baby,” she continued, “and it won’t be an arrogant, unmarried Russian millionaire!”

“Billionaire,” he corrected pointedly and watched her smolder even as his own anger bubbled.

“The amount of money you have doesn’t change a darn thing. She’s going to a couple—a family who wants her, who will love her. That’s what I intended when I agreed to be a surrogate for Keira, and that’s what I still want for her—I’ll make sure the adoption agency is aware of that requirement. You’re not married—and you’re not getting the baby. End of story.”

Her bright eyes glittered back at him with the frosty glare of newly minted gold.

A challenge had been issued. And he fully intended to meet it.

Ruthlessly suppressing his own hot rage, he murmured, “Well, then, it seems I’ll just have to get married.”

Yevgeny watched with supreme satisfaction as Ella’s mouth dropped open.

War, Yevgeny suspected, had been declared.

Ella did a double take. “You? Get married? So that you can adopt a child?”

She hadn’t thought Big Brother Yevgeny could surprise her. She’d thought she had his number. Russian. Raffish. Ruthless. But this announcement left her reeling. What would this playboy Russian billionaire want with a child, a girl child at that?

Which led her to say, “But you don’t even want a girl.”

Something—it couldn’t be surprise—sparked in the depths of those light eyes. “What made you think that?”

“I heard you…” Ella thought back to that moment of tension when she’d heard his voice in the family room next door.

“When?”

“As you came in.” She searched to remember exactly what he’d said. Slowly she said, “You asked where the boy was. You never even considered that the baby might be a girl.”

“Aah.” He smiled, a feral baring of teeth. “So obviously that meant I wouldn’t welcome a girl, hmm?”

Sensing mockery, Ella frowned. “Why would you want a child? Any child?” Wasn’t that going a little far—even for Yevgeny—to get his own way?

Yevgeny shrugged. “Perhaps it is time,” he said simply.

“For a trophy toddler?”

“No, not a trophy.”

“Not like your girlfriends?”

That dangerous smile widened, but his eyes crinkled with what appeared to be real amusement. “You yearn to be one of my trophies?” he asked softly—twisting her insides into pretzels.

An image of his latest woman leaped into Ella’s mind. Nadiya. One of a breed of supermodels identified by their first names alone. Ella didn’t need a surname to conjure up Nadiya’s lean body and perfect face that were regularly featured in the double-page spreads of glossy fashion magazines. Barely twenty, Nadiya was already raking in millions as a face for a French perfume, which she wore in copious amounts that wafted about her in soft clouds. Six foot tall. Brunette. Beautiful. With slanting, catlike green eyes, which devoured Yevgeny as though he were a bowl of cream. Enormously desired by every red-blooded man on earth. A trophy any man would be proud to show off. So why should Ella imagine Yevgeny would be any different?

“That’s a stupid question,” she said dismissively.

“Is it?”

“Of course, I don’t want to be any man’s trophy.” Ella was not about to be dragged into the teasing games he played. She gave him a cool look—mirroring the one she’d caught him giving her earlier—and let her eyes travel all the way down the length of his body before lifting them dismissively back to his face. “Anyway, you’re not the kind of man I would ever date.”

He was laughing openly now. “That’s not an insult. From my observation, there is no kind of man you date.”

The very idea that he’d been watching her, noting her lack of romantic attachments, caused a frisson to run along her spine. She refused to examine her unease further, and focused back on the bombshell he’d delivered. “You can’t adopt this baby.”

He came another step closer to the bed. “Why not?”

“I’ve already told you. You’re not married.”

“That’s old-fashioned.” He leaned over her. “Ella, I never expected such traditionalism from you.”

His closeness was claustrophobic. He was so damn big. “Everyone knows you’re a workaholic—you’re never home.” Yevgeny had less time for a kitten than she did.

At that, he thrust out his roughly stubbled chin. “I’ll make time.”

Right.

Somewhere between his twenty-hour workday and his even more hectic X-rated nightlife? The man obviously never slept—he didn’t even take time to shave. His life was littered with women—even before his latest affair with Nadiya, she’d seen the pictures in the tabloids. Keira and Dmitri remained fiercely loyal and insisted the news was all exaggerated but Ella ignored their protests. They’d been brainwashed by the man himself. Ella knew his type—she’d seen it before. Powerful men who treated women like playthings. Men who kept their women at home, manacled by domesticity and diamonds, before stripping them of everything—including their self-respect—when the next fancy caught their eye.

“Sure you will.”

“Damn right I’ll take care of her.”

As if the baby felt his insistence, she made a mewing noise and stirred. The pretzel knot in Ella’s stomach tightened, yet thankfully the baby didn’t wake. But at least it got rid of Yevgeny—he’d shot across to the cot and was staring down into the depths.

Ella breathed a little easier.

“Money doesn’t equal care.” She flung the words at the back of his dark head.

At her comment, his dark head turned. Ella resisted the urge to squirm under those unfathomable eyes.

“What’s her name?”

“She doesn’t have one.” Ella had no intention of picking out a name—that would be a fast track to hell. Attachment to the baby was a dark and lonely place she had no wish to visit.

“Keira didn’t choose one?”

“Not a final name.”