Staking His Claim. Tessa Radley

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СКАЧАТЬ Keira not know how much this hurt? What she was asking? The pain that pierced her chest was sharp and unforgiving. And guilt made it worse. Ella wished she could burst into tears… weep and wail. But she couldn’t. Instead, she fought for composure.

      She’d always been the adult in their relationship. No doubt Keira had known all along she would agree to sort everything out.

      Her heart was racing, and her head had started to pound. The ache in her back seemed to be growing worse by the minute. Ella knew all this couldn’t be good for the baby. She had to calm down. Think of the baby. She drew a shuddering breath… counted to five… and exhaled slowly.

      Pulling a cloak of assumed indifference around herself, Ella said with every bit of dignity she could muster, “I have a job—a demanding job. I don’t have time for a pet, much less a baby.” Ella would’ve loved a pet—a cat. But she didn’t have time to care for any living thing.

      Keira was staring at her again, her bottom lip quivering.

      Ella refused to feel one bit guilty. She was not going to be left holding the baby; she couldn’t keep it. That had never been the plan. The baby had been conceived for Keira—and Dmitri—to parent. This was not her baby.

      Lifting her hand from her belly, she said, “Then we’re in agreement. I have no choice but to give your baby up for adoption.”

      “If you see no other way out.”

      Before she could reiterate that this was not her preference, that the baby was Keira and Dmitri’s responsibility, to her horror Ella felt the warm, wet flood as her water broke.

      Keira’s baby girl was not going to wait another week to be born.

      Night had already fallen by the time Yevgeny Volkovoy strode into the waiting room set aside for family visitors on the hospital’s first floor. He didn’t notice the calming decor in gentle blues and creams lit up by strategically placed wall sconces, or even the soft-focus photographs of Madonna-like mothers cradling babies that hung on the wall. Instead, his focus homed in on where his brother sprawled across an overstuffed chair while watching a wide-screen television.

      Fixing startlingly light blue eyes on Dmitri, he demanded, “Where is he?”

      “Who?” Dmitri swung a blank look up at him.

      “The child.”

      “It’s not a boy… it’s a girl,” his brother corrected him even as the soccer game on the television recaptured his attention. “I told you that after the ultrasound.”

      Yevgeny suppressed the surge of bitter disappointment. He’d been so sure that the ultrasound had been read wrong. He should’ve known! For almost a century his family had produced boys… there hadn’t been a girl in sight. How typical of Ella McLeod to give birth to a girl. Contrary creature.

      He waved a dismissive hand. “Whatever. I want to see her.”

      Retracing his steps out of the family room he emerged in time to see his sister-in-law appear through the next door down the carpeted corridor. Yevgeny strode forward. Nodding at his startled sister-in-law as he passed her, he entered the private ward beyond.

      Keira’s icicle sister was sitting up in the bed, propped up against large cushions.

      Yevgeny came to an abrupt stop. He had never seen Ella McLeod in bed before.

      The sight caused a shock of discomfort to course through him. Despite the fact that she barely reached his shoulder when she was on her feet, she’d always seemed so formidable. Stern. Businesslike. Unsmiling. Even at family occasions she dressed in a sharp, formal fashion. Dark colors—mostly black dresses with neck scarves in muted shades.

      Now he allowed his gaze to drift over her and take in the other differences.

      No scarf. No oversize glasses. No makeup. Some sort of ivory frilly lace spilled around the top of her breasts. She looked younger… paler… more fragile than he’d ever seen her.

      The icicle must be thawing.

      Yevgeny shook off the absurd notion.

      As though sensing his presence, she glanced up from the screen of a slim white phone she’d been squinting at. Antagonism snaked down his spine as their eyes clashed.

      “What are you doing here?” she demanded.

      “Where is the baby?”

      He’d expected to find the child in her arms.

      He should’ve known better. There wasn’t a maternal bone in Ella McLeod’s frozen body. No softness. No tender feelings. Only sharp, legal-eagle eyes that she usually disguised with a pair of glasses—and from all accounts, a steel-trap brain. According to the rumor mill her law practice did very well. No doubt her success came from divorce dollars siphoned off men with avaricious ex-wives.

      Ella hadn’t answered. A haunted flicker in her eye captured his attention, but then the fleeting expression vanished and her focus shifted beyond him. Wheeling about, Yevgeny spotted the crib.

      Two strides and he stood beside it. The baby lay inside, snugly swaddled and fast asleep. One tiny hand curled beside her cheek, the fingers perfectly formed. Her lashes were impossibly long, forming dark curves against plump cheeks. Yevgeny’s heart contracted and an unexpected, fierce rush of emotion swept him.

      It took only an instant for him to fall deeply, utterly irrevocably in love.

      “She’s perfect,” he breathed, his gaze taking in every last detail. The thatch of dark hair—the Volkovoy genes. The red bow of her pursed mouth.

      A smile tilted the corners of his mouth up.

      Reaching out, he gently touched the curve where chin became cheek with his index finger.

      “Don’t wake her!”

      The strident demand broke the mood. Turning his head, Yevgeny narrowed his gaze and pinned the woman in the bed.

      “I had no intention of waking her,” he said softly, careful not to disturb the infant.

      “It’s only a matter of time before she wakens with you hovering over her like that.”

      “I never hover.” But he moved away from the cot—and closer to the bed.

      Ella didn’t respond. But he’d seen that look in her eyes before. She wasn’t bothering to argue… not because she’d been swayed by his denial, but because she was so damn certain of the rightness of her own opinion.

      The woman was a pain in the ass.

      The polar opposite of her sister, she was the least motherly woman he’d ever encountered—with the single exception of his own mother.

      Maybe it was as well she wasn’t cradling the baby; she’d freeze the little bundle if she got close enough. Ella was ice to the core—he’d been mistaken to imagine a thaw.

      “Dmitri called to tell me you’re planning to give up the child for adoption?” No discussion. No consultation. She’d made a life-changing decision СКАЧАТЬ