Watching From The Shadows: Trident Security Book 5 (8 page)

“Mara was born three and a half weeks early. You can confirm it with my doctor, but she’s yours.”

He almost missed her whispered confession. Swallowing hard, his gaze stayed on the darkness outside the window. “I know she is. What I don’t understand is why I’m just finding this out now. Were you ever planning on telling me if I didn’t find out by accident?”

Now he turned back to face her, trying hard to keep his anger in check. But what he didn’t expect was the rage he saw on her face. “What are you talking about? You already knew!”

Shaking his head, his eyes narrowed in confusion. “What are
you
talking about? I didn’t know anything about her!”

“Bullshit, Marco,” she spat out with venom. “When I first found out, I tried to tell you. I called and called, but your cell kept saying you were unavailable. I figured you were on a mission. So I called the office and told your secretary that I needed to talk to you. You didn’t return a single call. Then I was all set to confront you at your house when I got your letter by messenger.” The volume of her voice began to increase with every word. “By a fucking messenger, Marco! You couldn’t even tell me to my face that you had already found out I was pregnant and you wanted nothing to do with me or our baby. So, fuck you! I’m raising her without you! I don’t need or want your fucking help!”

Her shouting prompted Foster to open the door and stick his head in. “
Um
, sorry, but you might want to keep it down. I’m getting dirty looks out here from the staff.”

The man didn’t wait for a response and shut the door once again, leaving them gaping at each other. Her in anger, him in total bewilderment. When it looked like she was going to start laying into him again, he made a ‘T’ with his hands. He did his best to keep his voice down. “Timeout and take a deep breath, please. I don’t want you getting sick again. I’m telling you the truth, Harper. I knew nothing about any of this, and I sure as hell didn’t know anything about the baby. I swear on Nina’s grave.”

Those last five words struck home as he’d hoped, and now it was Harper’s turn to look lost. “But…but the letter. The…what…then who the hell sent me that letter? The handwriting looked like yours.”

“I don’t know, but it wasn’t me. I swear. Do you still have it?”

Biting her bottom lip, she shook her head. “No. I was so pissed at you that I shredded it and threw it in the garbage. But what about my phone calls? Why did I keep getting a message that you couldn’t be reached?”

He had a theory about the how, but not the who and why. He’d have to check with Brody to find out if the idea had merit. “Again, I don’t know, but I have a question for you.” His mind was jumping all over the place, between what was currently going on and what happened thirteen months earlier. “You said you were on the pill back then, so how the hell did you get pregnant?”

“I
was
on the pill, but as they say, it’s not one hundred percent effective. My doctor thinks with all the stress of Nina passing away and the funeral, my system was out of whack. I honestly didn’t think about it until…until I was late. I was still taking the pills up to the point I realized I might be pregnant. I was terrified they would hurt her. Thankfully, that wasn’t the case.”

Shit.
First, Nina’s death. Then the pregnancy and fear the baby might have been harmed while she’d still been taking the birth control. She’d gone through all that alone. Well, she’d had her mother, but he should have been there for her…whether he wanted to be there or not. Brody was right. It was time to man-up.

“Marco, what the hell is going on?”

His mind was reeling, but nothing made sense to him either. “I have no idea, but I’m going to have Egghead check out a few things. In the meantime, we have other stuff we need to talk about.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Marry me.”

Silence filled the air as Harper’s eyes widened until he couldn’t take it anymore. “Say something.”

“I think I need another CT scan because it sounded like you just said ‘marry me’.”

“I did.”

She snorted and pointed at his face. “You know, every girl dreams of the day some guy proposes to her, but in my dreams, the guy never looked like he just received an enema, followed by a death sentence.”

Marco didn’t realize he was frowning until she gestured toward his mouth with her finger. He tried to relax his features. “I’m serious. I think we should get married.”

Crossing her arms, she stared at him in disbelief. “Why? Because one of your sperm took a wrong fucking turn? I don’t think so.” There was no mistaking the scathing sarcasm and annoyance in her voice.

“Shit, Harper.” Why she was making this so difficult, he had no clue. He ran a hand through his hair in frustration. “I’m trying to do the right thing here. If we get married, you and the baby will be covered under my pension and insurance.”

“Oh, please,” she scoffed as her eyes rolled upward and he squelched the urge to reprimand her. She wasn’t a sub. “You can put Mara on the pension. I don’t need it. This isn’t the 1950s and no one is holding a shotgun, so there’s no need for us to get married. I’ll only marry someone I’m in love with and who’s in love with me. Otherwise, the marriage certificate isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. So you’re off the fucking hook.”

Standing, he paced the room while she watched. Finally, he stopped at the end of her bed and tossed his hands in the air. “Fine. Then move in with me. That way I can protect both of you. Even if this was random, you must have ex-husbands who blame you for their wives walking out.”

As soon as he’d said for her to move in with him, she’d started shaking her head and was still doing it when he stopped talking. “No. I will take the protection Trident is willing to provide right now, and I’ll pay for it.” She ignored his growl and furrowing brow. “I’d be stupid to not have someone watching Mara and my mother until we figure out if the attack was random or not. But after this is over, you can go back to your house, and Mara and I will go back to ours. We’ll come up with an agreeable visitation contract for you to be part of her life. I won’t deny you that, but my heart and body are not part of any agreement.”

* * *

After the nurse finished charting her vital signs, which had been normal, she quietly left Harper’s room, leaving her to return to her tossing and turning. It was three a.m. and she hadn’t been asleep more than twenty minutes since Marco had left for the night. She knew two men were stationed outside her room, but it wasn’t her safety which had sleep eluding her. It was the conversation Marco and she had earlier.

When she first found out she was pregnant, she had freaked—there was no point denying it. Knocked up and single wasn’t how she imagined the next few months of her life to be. She had still been grieving over Nina’s death, but each day seemed a little brighter, producing a new reason to smile with every hour that passed. She had begun to remember all the good times and they pushed the sad ones to the side.

But once the shock of her OB/GYN’s announcement had worn off, she began to relish the tiny life growing inside her. She hadn’t lied to Marco. She had tried to contact him, but once she got that letter, all thoughts of a perfect, happy family had gone out the window. So, instead of breaking down, she built herself up and prepared for the birth of her daughter. Determined to give Mara the best childhood ever, despite the lack of a father figure, she recorded every milestone in a diary she planned on giving the girl on her eighteenth birthday. Her daughter would always know what it was like to be loved.

Her mind flashed back to Marco’s ‘marriage proposal’. Oh, how she’d wanted it to have been real…and a lot more romantic. She realized why his perceived rejection of Mara and her had hurt so much back then—she was in love with the man. And had been long before Nina’s death and the fateful encounter with her friend’s brother which had altered Harper’s life in more ways than one.

She wished she’d told him that night she was a submissive in the lifestyle since her college days, but it wouldn’t have made a difference in the long run. They might have played together a few more times, and she would have finally known what it was like to submit to Master Marco. But she was certain the end result would have been the same. Marco was never falling in love and getting married—to her or any other woman. Harper found the thought was sadder for him than for her.

C
HAPTER 7

Kristen exited her doctor’s office in complete disbelief. What had started as her required, routine checkup and blood work for her club membership, had turned into something more…something wonderful. Her mouth had dropped to the floor when the doctor congratulated her on her pregnancy. The thought that she might be pregnant never occurred to her since her periods were back to being irregular. Devon and she had agreed she would stop taking her birth control shortly after their wedding and let nature take its course.

Holy shit-balls!
She was fucking pregnant! As in having a baby. Starting a family. Something she’d always dreamed of was now coming true. She couldn’t wait to tell Devon—but she would have to. She didn’t want to do it over the phone or when he was so exhausted between guarding Harper and Mara, and dealing with both businesses. She wanted to tell him when he was relaxed and not so many things were on his mind. For now, it was her little secret. She wasn’t telling anyone until she told her husband. Thankfully, the doctor was willing to withhold the information from her medical clearance for the club. It helped that her new GYN was a member of The Covenant and knew Kristen wasn’t into any play which would be harmful to the baby.

A baby!
She climbed into her car and sat there a moment, still trying to wrap her mind around the news. A fluttering in her gut was most likely butterflies taking flight, but the thought that it could be the little life developing there had a silly grin spreading across her face. The doctor had prescribed pre-natal vitamins for her and she planned on stopping at the pharmacy after her book signing event at a little local bookstore, which specialized in selling romance novels. Speaking of which, she had to hurry to make sure she wasn’t late. The publicity assistant provided by her publisher had called before Kristen went into her 10:00 a.m. appointment and informed her the line was already out the door and down the block. And that had been a little over an hour ago.
Leather & Lace
was an even bigger hit than
Satin & Sin
had been and she was hoping her newly finished book,
Velvet Vixen,
reached similar success when it was released in a few weeks. With Devon acting as her muse again, this time for the fictional Master Zach, how could it not be?

Twenty minutes later, she parked her car behind the bookstore to avoid the throngs of fans at the front. Janice, her assistant, was waiting at the rear door, along with a man Kristen did not recognize, but based on his attire and the flowers he was carrying, she assumed he was a deliveryman. It wasn’t unusual for her to receive presents from fans, and some would have them delivered if they couldn’t attend the event.

As Kristen approached them, the man stepped forward. “Kristen Anders Sawyer?”

“Yes, I’m she. Janice, can you take them for me, please?” she asked, pulling off her light-weight coat and shifting her purse to the other shoulder. But instead of handing over the flowers to either one of them, the man pulled an envelope from beneath the bouquet and held it out to Kristen. Instinctively, she took it and looked at him in confusion. It was then she realized he’d called her by both her maiden and married names. “What’s this?”

“A summons, Mrs. Sawyer. You’ve been served. Have a nice day.”

* * *

Taking his ID back from the armed guard at the gate, Darius Knight followed the man’s instructions to pass through the second gate and park his convertible next to the building which housed Trident Security. He had been here twice already during the Omega team’s selection process, and today was his first official day on the job. He’d been thrilled to be hired by Ian and Devon Sawyer, having been on SEAL Team Four with them for a year before both men retired to the private sector. Now five years later, he was looking forward to, once again, working with the six former SEALs who made up the original Trident team.

He was supposed to have been here earlier in the day, but Ian’s secretary had called and advised him the boss was going to be delayed and Darius should arrive at noon to meet the others on his team. Climbing out of the vehicle, he stretched while taking in the surrounding compound. His buddies had done a great job with the facility, having recently added an obstacle course similar to the SEALs’ O-course, a helipad, and a training building. An outdoor ‘Hogan’s Alley’, otherwise known as a shooting gallery, had been erected using false store fronts with pop-up targets and bad guys. Instead of live guns and ammo, it utilized laser weapons, which allegedly felt, sounded, and responded like the real thing, and he couldn’t wait to try them out. The high-tech toys had been obtained under a prototype trial through one of Trident’s government contracts. The fictional town set-up sat next to the training building on the south side of the property while the helipad and O-course were on the north end.

From what he could see, Brody ‘Egghead’ Evans had worked his magic with the compound’s security system, and a ‘tango’, or bad guy, would be nuts to try to gain entry. As far as Darius knew, two attempts on the lives of the team members and their women had been thwarted, thanks to what some people might call extreme security measures resulting from paranoia. But in their business, paranoia was usually based on reality.

Striding toward the entrance to the offices, he froze when a large, black lab/pit mix came running full speed around the corner of the building on a mission, before sliding to a stop in front of him. The dog had been introduced to him during both his previous visits, but knowing it was a trained guard dog had him wary. He relaxed when the canine dropped a hard-rubber ball covered in slobber at his feet and looked up at him expectantly, its tail wagging furiously. “Beau, isn’t it?”