“Jared, you can’t fight this,” she said softly, regretfully. “I’ve discussed this with Daniel until I’m blue in the face. He won’t relent. It’s the only conflict we’ve had in our marriage in a year now. He believes he’s right. He believes Kimberly should marry a man of restrained passions, one capable of controlling what he considers her ‘wild inclinations’.”
“He’s a self-righteous prig,” he snapped.
“Why do you care?” she asked him, frowning now as he paced the room. “I understand your desire for her, Jared, but there have been other women you’ve desired and couldn’t have as well. What makes her different?”
“She makes me crazy,” he growled, pushing his hands into the pockets of his slacks as he hunched his shoulders against the tension invading them. “She makes me want to throw her over my shoulder like a damned caveman, and at the same time I want to wrap her in cotton and protect her from anything and everyone who could hurt her. I want her happy.”
His voice, his body, vibrated with that need, with the complete certainty that he could make her happy.
“And you think marrying her will do that?” she questioned him with a shadow of mockery. “Jared, Daniel will never allow Kimberly to marry a man as sexually intense as you so obviously are. And she’ll lose everything she’s fought for to this point if she accepts you.”
“She’s mine.” He winced as the words tore from him. “Damn, didn’t that sound arrogant enough?” He laughed with an edge of self-mockery.
But he couldn’t escape the claim he had just made. As the words came from his lips, the knowledge wrapped around his heart. She was his, even if he couldn’t have her. He had seen the pain in her eyes, the sexuality that tormented her, the ache that shadowed her eyes. And so much more. He saw the need to be touched, to be held, to let go and share the passion, the heat that built within her.
“Do you love her, Jared?” his mother asked again, her voice firm now, demanding.
He stared back at her, meeting her gaze with a determination of his own.
Did he love her? He sighed with weary acceptance. Yeah, he loved her, more than he had thought it possible to love a woman.
“More than you know,” he finally said, his own need echoing through his body. “More than you could ever know, Mother.”
For a moment compassion filled her eyes. She had waited years for him to find the one woman he felt he could spend the rest of his life with, and settle down into a relationship that fulfilled him, as much as her marriage to his father had fulfilled her.
“Then you have a choice to make,” she said gently. “All her life Kimberly has been forced to choose, and always it’s been a choice that’s ripped another wound in her soul. Can you ask her to add your heart and your needs to her burden?”
He stared back at her, restraining the fury erupting inside him. Swallowing tightly, he shook his head with a rough, negative movement. He couldn’t force her to make such a choice, and they both knew it. But he didn’t know if he could force himself to let her go, either.
Carl Stanton had a lot to pay for. It had been the nasty divorce with his wife that had spurred the first of the rumors. Kia Stanton had wanted out of that marriage, and when Carl had refused, she had let the first rumor free. But Kia was no longer associated with the membership there, so how had the rumors of his and Kimberly’s membership leaked out? Even more worrisome though, was the threat that his father’s previous association would be revealed as well.
“Does Madison know about Father’s connection to The Club?” he asked her then. “Is this causing you problems?”
He would kill the bastard if he had dared to abuse the petite, fragile woman that Jared knew his mother was.
She smiled mirthlessly. “You forget Jared; this is a marriage of convenience. But as far as I know, Daniel hasn’t heard any rumors he shouldn’t have. But if he did, it would serve him no good. He can’t harm me with it. But that isn’t the point. What will you do now?”
What else could he do?
“Let her go,” he whispered bitterly. “The only thing I can do.”
Chapter Four
She could have been a spy, Kimberly thought, but the additional training didn’t go hand in hand with enforced chastity. There was always modeling, but Kimberly always thought that doing without pizza and losing that extra fifteen pounds that tormented her would have just been too painful. And being a rich man’s mistress was just out of the question; there was only so much shopping one could do before it became rather boring. Besides, just like being a spy, it would require the loss of her virginity. Everything else was just boring, so she joined the Police Academy instead, going from there to several security agencies that specialized in protection.