The One You Want. Gena Showalter

Stop. Stop!

      What kind of rare creature continuously teased the big, bad ruler of the Michaelson fortune? A golden unicorn at the end of a rainbow? It was new to him. But...he liked it, he realized.

      Was this how she’d stolen the hearts of all her lovers?

      He stiffened, hating the thought. Earlier, he’d convinced himself that West was right...that Kenna was just a sweet girl caught up in the falsity of rumor. He suspected, perhaps, that he hadn’t wanted to believe it, that he hadn’t wanted her to be just like her mother. But here she was, charming the uncharmable, stoking fires of a jealousy he’d never before experienced.

      “Do you have a kid?” The question left him before he could stop it.

      Her features shuttered, hiding all emotion. “Yes.”

      Well, then. If one rumor was true...

      “She’s six,” Kenna added. “But don’t strain yourself doing the math. I’ll just tell you. I got pregnant at sixteen and had her at seventeen.”

      Something about her tone bothered him. He heard affection and love, sure, but also sorrow and pain. “Is the father—”

      “Now, just hold on a sec, Mr. Michaelson.”

      “Dane.” Her insistence on calling him Mr. Michaelson frustrated him.

       A lot of things are frustrating me tonight.

      “I’m not discussing that part of my life with you,” she said.

      Fair enough. The fact that he’d even broached the topic stunned him. He, one of the most private people in existence, often refused to answer the simplest of questions about himself, and he always despised those who dared to ask, and yet here he stood, grilling Kenna about the most intimate details of her life. As if he had a right to know.

      He should walk away from her. He’d done what he’d set out to do. He’d apologized. But he was loath to leave things so strained between them. They would be seeing each other again, after all.

      Yeah. That’s why. Not for any other reason. “I heard you say you’re a student. What are you studying?”

      Leery, as if she expected him to laugh, she softly admitted, “Elementary education.”

      Admirable. “When do you finish?”

      “Two years. I hope.”

      “Why the late start?”

      “My daughter.”

      Reminded of the child, he frowned. “The girl whose father you refuse to name.”

      She pushed out a heavy sigh. “We’re not going to get very far like this, so I retract what I said about not discussing that part of my life. What is it you really want to know? If her dad was married to someone else when she was conceived, as rumor claims? If I’m a husband-stealing whore?”

      A muscle clenched in his jaw. His gaze slid down her body, noting again how the dress hugged each of her delicious curves. She had gorgeous legs any man would kill to have wrapped around him, with her hooker heels digging into his back.

      “Are you?” he asked.

      Her eyes narrowed, dark lashes fusing. While she had glowed with her amusement, she crackled savagely with her anger. What this girl felt, she really felt. Emotion affected her soul-deep.

      “I was seventeen when I gave birth to Norrie. I was a kid myself. That’s all. But now I will never give you a chance to get to know who and what I have become,” she said. Up went her chin. Back went her shoulders. She pasted that fake smile on her face, one that definitely didn’t glow. “Would my past make me any less of a person with feelings capable of being hurt now?”

      Hate myself. “No,” he said. “You’re not a whore. I had no right...Kenna, I—”

      “Don’t bother. You heard the gossip and judged me guilty. That tells me all I need to know about your character. Goodbye, Mr. Michaelson.” She walked out of the library, and she never once looked back.