Page 28 of A Baby to Make Her His Bride

Jasper stepped off the stair and would have stomped on Neal’s foot if the other man hadn’t stumbled backward in fear.

“Touch me and that’s assault,” Neal stammered.

“You came into this house uninvited. You’re making threats against the occupants. I think it would be ruled self-defense. Would you like to find out?”

Neal curled his lip, but he had the heart of a coward. With fading bravado, he edged toward the door.

“I’ll leave you lovebirds.” He sent a smarmy smile at Vienna. “Buckle up, darling. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.”

As he walked past her, she spat two words that were not very ladylike, but under the circumstances, completely appropriate.

Shaken, Vienna watched to be sure the SUV left, then turned back to see Jasper wearing a thunderous expression.

Her stomach rolled sickly.

“He put trackers in my things.” She couldn’t even begin to imagine where all she would have to look. Luggage? Makeup? “That’s criminal, isn’t it?”

Knowing Neal, he would claim it had been a husbandly gesture, that he was tracking property, not her. She doubted it would go very far with law enforcement, but her skin was crawling.

“You didn’t have to come down,” she continued as Jasper’s forbidding silence plucked at her overwrought nerves. “Let him see you, I mean. I could have...” She didn’t know what she could have done. Picked up her keys and left? What if Neal had walked through the house and met Jasper upstairs anyway?

She had been so confident last night when she’d told her team that Neal had no idea where she was! All that careful planning and, instead of avoiding a feeding frenzy in the press, she’d made it worse. For both of them.

“He’ll dox me. He might be posting something right now. We can’t stay here.” She could have cried. An hour ago, they’d been making love. Happy. “I’m so sorry, Jasper.”

“So am I,” he said grimly.

It’s not my fault, she wanted to cry. Wasn’t it, though? If she had just stayed in her suffocating little box of a life, not reaching for more, she wouldn’t have caused him to be discovered. She’d ruined his plans. His life could be in danger!

“I have to make some calls,” she said, lurching into damage control by searching for her phone. If she hurried to clean up the mess she’d made, maybe Jasper wouldn’t hate her so much. “I have to inform Hunter and my lawyer. I’ll ask the B-team to make a statement right away. We only have one chance to get ahead of whatever Neal might say. We’ll say he’s making more of this than it is,” she asserted, having played the spin game many times with her stepmother’s antics. “Relatives are allowed to stay in the same holiday house. There’s nothing more between us than casual acquaintance.”

She’d left her phone outside on the deck.

When she came back in with it, Jasper hadn’t moved. He looked even more severe than he had when she’d first turned up here as his unwanted houseguest.

“I’m—” She had to clear a catch of dryness in the back of her throat. “I’ll have my team arrange flights and security for us.”

The adrenaline in her system ought to be making her feel stronger and faster. Fight. Flee! Instead, her arms and legs were growing sluggish and heavy. Her brain was turning to mush, sinking into a swampy darkness so she had to fight to keep breathing.

As Jasper stood there looking like he was cast in bronze, still and cold and hard, she heard her presumption in that word “us”.

A tearing schism left her split and off-center. Her heart was on the floor as she hugged herself defensively.

Don’t be needy, she scolded herself. She’d known they didn’t have a future and this was why. She was a liability. The sex had been sex, nothing more.

“I feel responsible for breaking your cover,” she said shakily. “I would like to mitigate the damage if I can. Tell me what you need and I’ll have my team provide it.”

His reply was a choked noise that could have been insult or lack of trust or sheer disbelief at how thoroughly she had compromised him.

She swallowed, but the hard lump in her throat remained.

“If you would prefer to do your own thing...”Then I will feel like a discarded piece of trash. She wouldlooklike trash, once Neal went public with his infidelity accusations.

Why did Jasper have to be her brother-in-law? It wassosordid. She wanted to curl up in a ball, but that was never an option. No, her dirty laundry always had to be on the line for all to see. Her only option was to walk forward through the gauntlet of shame. Again.

“Call Hunter,” he said gruffly. “Make sure Amelia and the baby are protected. I’ll call my father and make my own arrangements.”

She didn’t blame him for distancing himself, she really didn’t, but she felt steeped in poison as his words filled her ears.

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