Page 35 of The Billionaire's Accidental Legacy

“You know that two dysfunctional humans can’t combine to become a single functional parent. We will only make this worse if we are together.”

“I’m not suggesting we be together. But perhaps we need to figure out how we might both...”

“What whole thing will two broken shards make?” he asked.

“I don’t want to. I want a life that’s mine. You don’t want a baby. So why can’t you leave?”

She was offering him freedom. He wanted her.

But the idea of a child...

He could think of nothing worse.

Because all he could imagine was that night. The moment that changed everything. Destroyed it all.

A pale, still woman, and a baby that never cried.

Why was he here?

He could not endure it.

She would be better off without him. Because he was entirely tangled up in the monstrous legacy of this place, and the loss that happened here. The pain after.

And fathers with demons were nothing but devils.

He knew well enough that he could be Satan himself if the wind turned wrong. How could he deny it?

It was in his blood. Perhaps that was the best reason of all for his mask. For cutting off all that he’d been as a child.

Maybe his father had hated him so much because it had been like looking in a mirror.

Blood he’d been intent on cutting off. Blood that he...

But she was here and he wanted her. He knew nothing beyond that. It was desire that had brought them here and desire was the one thing he could understand.

Why was he here?

For this.

And he found himself closing the distance between them.

Then he lowered his head, and pressed his mouth to hers.

CHAPTER FIVE

JESSIEFELTLIKEshe was on fire. She wanted to cry, and she wanted to keep kissing him and never stop.

This was unconscionable. She couldn’t allow herself to be...seduced by the father of her baby. While he was standing there in a fury.

Why not? The damage was done.

In so many ways, the damage was done.

Why couldn’t she have him? Maren was here. In the other room. But if they went upstairs now, she wouldn’t see them. And even so, she would just have to apologize for her continued weakness later.

She was weak for him.

But she had a feeling that he would leave after this, because she had given him means of escape, and he would take it. She couldn’t blame him.

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