Black Widow Bride. Tessa Radley

inside her until she felt she would explode with emotion.

      How dearly she loved him.

      They were a family. No, more than family. In a relatively short time he’d become her whole world. All her reservations about what a poor mother she’d make given her lack of loving example had long since evaporated. She loved T.J. with all the fierce adoration of a lioness. He was hers. All hers. For once in her life she had someone that nothing and no one could take from her. Today she’d kept her silent promise and had rushed through her tasks at Chocolatique to spend some quality time with T.J. this afternoon. Except for dark shadows beneath his eyes, little sign remained of yesterday’s illness.

      With a still-sleeping T.J. bundled in her arms, Rebecca made for the unit, her stride quickening under his leaden weight. As she stepped onto the deck, a tall man straightened from where he’d been leaning against the wisteria-covered pergola that shaded the deck. Rebecca froze.

      “You have a child!” Damon’s voice was accusing, his face blank with shock.

      Her grip on T.J. tightened. “Yes,” she bit out and, radiating defiance, she faced him down over T.J.’s head.

      A muscle worked in Damon’s jaw. He looked odd, shaken. She frowned. If he suspected…

      No. It wasn’t possible. She’d taken such care.

      She swivelled away, keeping T.J. screened from his line of sight.

      Damon stepped out of the shadows formed by the tangle of ivy and wisteria. “I didn’t know.”

      “And why should you? I don’t count you among my intimates.”

      His head snapped back as she parroted his response from this morning back at him, and Rebecca watched over her shoulder with feline satisfaction as his pupils flared at her sharp tone.

      Good! Let him know what rejection felt like.

      Her gaze swept the street. “I don’t see your car.” The sleek silver Mercedes would’ve been difficult to miss in the empty street.

      “I parked around the corner.”

      “Oh?” Had he suspected she might run if she knew he was lying in wait for her? Had he already known about T.J.? Was this a trap? But then, why play out the shocked charade pretending that he didn’t know the child existed? Thoughts whipped back and forth until her head started to ache.

      “T.J. hasn’t been well. He needs rest. So you’ll have to excuse me.” Rebecca hitched T.J. higher, measuring the distance to her front door, anxious to escape.

      “Wait a minute.” Before she could reach the wooden door, Damon barred the entrance and took the keys from her nerveless fingers.

      “What’s the matter with him? And what the hell kind of name is T.J.?”

      “What’s wrong with T.J. need not concern you.”

      Ignoring the second part of the question, she shouldered her way past Damon and made for the carpeted stairs, determined to evade him. But the sound of his footsteps hard at her heels told her she’d failed.

      Rebecca halted in the doorway of T.J.’s bedroom, keeping her back firmly to Damon. “You don’t need to come in. You can wait downstairs.”

      He ignored the obstruction she’d attempted to create and stepped past her, his gaze roaming the room, taking in the sunny yellow walls, the mound of soft toys at the foot of the bed, the wooden tracks and brightly coloured trains in the corner.

      The room shrank, Damon’s powerful presence reducing it to the size of a closet. Rebecca was uncomfortably aware of his unwelcome proximity…of her rapid, shallow breathing.

      Why couldn’t he have stayed downstairs? And why did her body still respond to him with such irrational intensity? Rebecca ground her teeth with frustration. “Look, T.J. needs his sleep. The last thing I want is for him to awaken and find some strange man in his room.”

      Damon swung his attention away from the train-station mural she’d painted in bold colours on the wall above the bed, his gaze clashing with hers, his sensuous mouth askew with mockery. “He’s not accustomed to waking to find strange men in his house? Now that amazes me, Rebecca.”

      The inference took her breath away.

      “Now listen to me,” she huffed. “I don’t give a f…fluff what you think of me. But in my house, around my son, you will address me with respect. Right now I’m tired and T.J.’s been unwell. I need to put him to bed.”

      All at once the tension that had been throbbing inside her became too much. She bit her lip and looked away, blinking furiously, determined not to let the unaccustomed prick of tears show.

      “I’m sorry.”

      For some reason, his unexpected apology was the last straw. Her throat thickened unbearably. She swallowed and shot him a desperate look. “Please…”

      “Just go?” he finished, giving her a strange, whimsical smile, and crossing to the bed, he pulled the Thomas the Tank Engine cover back. “That’s not the first time I’ve heard that today.”

      She moved closer, T.J. heavy as a block of lead in her arms. “Then I’m sorry to bore you,” she said in a thin, high voice that sounded totally foreign compared to her usual husky tones.

      “Bore me?” His mouth dropped open, his eyes glinting with something she didn’t quite recognise. “Bore me?”

      The sudden silence rang in her ears. Damon was standing so close she was conscious of his height, of the solid breadth of him. If she stretched her hand out around T.J.’s sleeping body, she could touch Damon’s chest, feel the strong, vibrant beat of his heart.

      “I think boring is one thing you could never be guilty of, Rebecca.” He blew out hard, muttered something softly in Greek, then said with a touch of roughness, “Here, let me take the boy.”

      She jerked away as his fingers brushed her arm.

      At once, the hands reaching for T.J. pulled back and Damon spread his palms. “Okay, okay, I get the message! I’ll wait downstairs.” He threw her a hard, glittering look. “Never give an inch, never show any weakness, hmm?”

      Rebecca ducked her head, refusing to meet his angry eyes, reluctant to reveal how much the electrical charge of the accidental touch had unnerved her. After a moment Damon’s footsteps retreated, and for a wild instant she felt a sudden stupid sense of loss. Shaking, she hugged T.J. tightly against her breasts and inhaled his special baby smell until her turmoil calmed.

      Then she gently deposited T.J. onto the royal-blue sheet and held her breath as he rolled over and gave a short grunt. He didn’t waken. Instead his breathing steadied into the deep rhythm of sleep.

      For a minute Rebecca stared at his sleeping face, the soft baby skin, the tousled dark curls, and pride and love stretched her heart to a tender pain.

      T.J.

      T.J. was her priority now.

      Not her career. Not Damon. Not the wild, all-consuming attraction that had once upon a time nearly destroyed her. The most important thing in her life was T.J. And he rewarded her devotion with an uncritical, unconditional love that she would never, ever consider trading for the ferocious and destructive passion Damon had once stirred.

      

      Damon’s narrowed gaze and the sheer, untrammelled intensity emanating from him as he stood legs apart, arms folded, caused Rebecca’s nerve endings to prickle warningly as she entered the living room.

      “The boy is sleeping, yes?”

      “Yes,” she replied, pausing inside the doorway, more unsettled by his speculative stare than she cared to admit. Her gaze slid away. Took in the tailored suit that accentuated the hard, sleek lines of his body. His trademark white silk shirt was open at the neck, tie gone, the top button undone to reveal a glimpse of his tanned throat. She yanked her gaze