Tycoon Protector. Elle James
worked its way out of the normal tight ponytail at the nape of her neck.
“Paying as well as the rich gringo pays you?” Delia huffed. “Not likely.”
“Don’t call him gringo,” Ysabel automatically defended, dropping her hands to her sides, her fists tightening almost as much as the knot in her gut. “I’ll find another job.”
“So when are you going to tell him?” Her sister’s brows winged upward. “The man has the right to know.”
“I know, I know. I just can’t risk letting him find out until I get far enough away from him.”
“You really think he’ll sue for custody? A playboy like Jackson Champion?”
Ysabel snorted. “The man keeps what’s his. How do you think he got so rich?” He kept everything but the women in his life. For some reason he seemed to go through women like an addict goes through drugs. As far as Ysabel knew, she’d been around longer than any of the females close to him because she hadn’t slept with him. Up until she made the Big Mistake.
“Ysabel, a child is different. It’ll only slow him down.”
“Not if he hires a nanny to raise it.”
“Madre de Dios!” Delia crossed her arms over her chest. “No niece of mine will be raised by a perfect stranger. She has more than enough family in the area to raise her properly.”
A sad smile lifted the corners of Ysabel’s lips. “If all goes as I intend, I won’t be in this area much longer.”
Delia’s eyes glistened. “But where will you go? Mama will be devastated if she doesn’t get to spoil her first grandchild.”
“It can’t be helped. I won’t lose my baby to anyone and I refuse to let him live a disrupted life of joint custody. He deserves a chance to be normal.”
“Without a father?”
A pang of regret hit Ysabel square in the chest. “You and I both know Jackson rides life in the fast lane. He doesn’t slow down long enough to notice anything but the business.”
“He took enough time to get engaged.”
“Only because it was on his scheduled time line of ‘things to do before I die.’ I penciled that in on his goals sheet when he wasn’t looking one day. The man wouldn’t have bothered if I hadn’t.” He’d totally missed the point, too. Ysabel could still feel the pain of watching him court woman after woman to find one who could provide the right corporate-wife image. He’d thought he’d found it in Jenna Nilsson. The witch. He’d even had Ysabel order an engagement ring for the woman. Wow. She shook her head. The memory still made her chest ache.
“Still, he did get engaged,” Delia offered, wincing when Ysabel glared at her.
“For what it was worth!” Ysabel threw her arms in the air. “She was cheating on him from day one with an old boyfriend.”
“You knew?”
Heat filled her cheeks. “Yeah, but I didn’t have the heart to tell him. The man is clueless when it comes to women. He deserved her.”
“Wow, and here I thought you were in love with the guy.”
“Emphasis on past tense.” Ysabel tossed her long, straight hair behind her shoulder. “I’m so over him.”
“Right, that’s why we’ve been talking about him for the past…” Delia glanced at her wristwatch, “thirty minutes.”
Anger surged in Ysabel’s chest. “Of all people, I thought you’d understand.” She grabbed her purse and keys. “I’m going back to my place.”
“You mean you’re going back to the office, don’t you?” Delia stood and followed Ysabel toward the door. “I don’t know why you bother to keep an apartment, you practically live at the office. What are you going to do when you aren’t working there anymore?”
“I don’t live at the office and I am going to my apartment,” Ysabel lied. She’d thought of a few things she’d wanted to straighten in Jackson’s office before he showed up bright and early tomorrow.
Delia rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”
As she reached for the door, her BlackBerry phone sang out the tune to Mission Impossible, the one she’d assigned to Jackson Champion’s phone number. Her heart leaped into her throat, threatening to choke off her air. Ysabel dug in her purse for the device. “Where is that damned thing?”
“Calm down. He’ll just keep ringing until you answer.”
“I am calm!” Her fingers curled around the smooth black rectangle and she jerked it from her purse. For a moment she stared down at the name displayed across the miniature screen. Jackson Champion. Her breath caught in her throat and her fingers froze.
“Tell him, Ysabel. Tell him he’s going to be a father.”
“No, I can’t. I have to quit first.”
“You owe him that much.”
Ysabel’s hands shook. “I can’t.”
“At least answer the phone.” Delia reached over her sister’s shoulder and punched the Talk button. Then she leaned back against the wall, her brows rising up her smooth forehead in challenge.
“Ysabel? Ysabel! Are you there?” Jackson’s voice barked out from the phone, jerking Ysabel out of her stupor.
Her hands shook as she pressed the phone to her ear. “Yes, I’m here.”
“I need you down on the Bayport Terminal ASAP.”
“Tell him,” Delia whispered.
With Delia staring at her like her gaze could bore a hole into her conscience and Jackson’s voice sending goose bumps across her skin, Ysabel shook her head. “I can’t.”
“What do you mean you can’t?” Jackson asked. “I need you here now! And set up a meeting with the Aggie Four—Flint McKade and Akeem Abdul—for first thing in the morning. We’ve got big problems.”
Ysabel resisted the urge to pull out a pen and jot down his instructions on the handy notepad she kept in her purse. She took a deep breath and straightened. It was now or never. “I quit.”
“You what?” Jackson shouted.
Ysabel held the phone away from her ear until Jackson stopped yelling. “You heard me. I quit.”
“That’s what I thought you said. I don’t know what’s going on, but quitting at this point in time is not an option. Get down to the terminal now!”
It was just like the man to ignore her when she wanted something. Ysabel’s stubborn streak set in with a vengeance. “Maybe you didn’t understand what I just said.”
“I understood just fine. I also have an employment contract that requires you give me two weeks notice.” Jackson paused, breathing heavily in the phone. “Look, I’ve had a lousy voyage with a man gone overboard. You sent me a trainee when I just got back in town, a crate full of what I thought were Rasnovian saddles just exploded in front of me, I have a dead man lying at my feet and the police are trying to arrest me for murder. Either you get down here now or I’ll sue you for breach of contract!”
Chapter Two
“I tell you, as far as I knew, the box contained hand-crafted Rasnovian saddles, not explosives.” Jackson held his temper in check. Now was not the time for letting loose. Not with a rabid, foaming-at-the-mouth detective ready to accuse him of God knew what.
Detective Brody Green nodded toward the area surrounded in yellow crime scene ribbon, a snarling sneer lifting his upper lip. “Obviously,