Emma was wondering if he’d expect her to make her exit soon, when he rolled onto his side and tugged her body against him. She snuggled into the comfortable nook he created for her and felt herself start to drift off to sleep.
When she was on the edge of unconsciousness, she heard Jonah’s voice whisper into her ear.
“I know you think that we’re not good together and can’t be a family. I’m here to tell you, Emma, that I worked too hard to find you and get you back in my bed again. I may not be willing to let you go this time.”
Nine
Jonah was awakened the next morning by his cell phone ringing. He untangled from his grip on Emma’s naked body and rolled over to grab his phone from the nightstand. It was Paul, his financial advisor. With everything else going on in his life lately, it was easy to ignore the fact that he was trying to cover up his brother’s embezzlement.
“Hello?”
“It’s done!” Paul said, triumphantly. “The money is in your accounts so you can move it wherever you need to.”
Perfect. Of course, now he had to do that with Emma’s eagle eyes watching the books, but what was done, was done. If he had to explain it to her, he would. He just didn’t want to until the money was back where it belonged.
“Thanks, Paul. How much did it cost me to liquidate that quickly?”
“Er...” Paul stalled. “Perhaps a conversation better suited to a weekday at my office where we can look at all the figures.”
That meant he’d taken a huge loss. “I’ll be sure to take it, plus interest, out of Noah’s hide.”
“And we can hopefully make some of it back when we reinvest the funds.”
Ever the optimist. “Okay. Thanks again, Paul.” Jonah hung up the phone and scowled at the black screen. His advisor was working under the presumption that Noah was going to pay him back. He didn’t have as much faith in his brother. Their mother would argue that he always treated Noah unfairly. Jonah would say the same of her. She coddled him, turning him into the monster that the rest of the family had to cope with.
“Is everything okay?”
Emma’s voice drew hi
m back to the here and now. “Yes, that was nothing. Just business.”
“It’s awful early on a Sunday morning for business.” Emma yawned and curled into a ball against his chest.
Jonah wrapped his arms around her and clenched his jaw to hold in the angry words that had nothing to do with her. “Luckily we can go back to sleep,” he said instead.
At first, his worry had been that Noah would screw up the Game Town deal. Covering up the stolen money had been at the forefront of his mind until he realized who Emma was. Then he’d nearly forgotten about why he was pursuing her in the first place. Now everything was different. Emma was more than an auditor; she was the mother of his child. She was the one who had held his interest, the one he couldn’t forget about, the one who could make his blood race with a simple touch. It was possible that she could be The One.
How would she feel about what was going on with Noah? If she uncovered the truth, would she question every moment they’d spent together? Could she trust Jonah knowing he had been lying to her about this the whole time?
Jonah might very well lose the Game Town deal because of Noah, but if he lost Emma... He would never forgive his brother for screwing this up for him. This was the closest thing to love he’d ever experienced before and he didn’t want it ruined by another one of Noah’s wild ideas before it even had a chance.
“What are you thinking about?” she asked softly.
“Nothing important. Why?”
She placed her palm against his bare chest. “Your heart is pounding like mad. I was thinking you were upset about something.”
He wasn’t going to ruin this moment with Noah’s nonsense. If he had to tell her, he would do it later. “Did it ever occur to you,” he said, tugging her tight to his chest, “that I just woke up to a beautiful naked woman curled against me? That can make a man’s heart pound pretty hard. As well as other things.”
Emma’s eyes widened, teasing him. “You mean you want to do it again?”
Was it teasing? He wasn’t so sure now. “Emma, I would make love to you ten times a day if you could take it and we could get anything else done. Does that surprise you? I don’t know how it could.”
She pulled out of his grasp and sat up in bed, tugging the sheets to her chest. “A little. I mean...this is going to sound ridiculous. I’m just not used to all that. I went to Catholic school and got my sex education from nuns. I was raised to be more conservative. Not so conservative as to wait for marriage, obviously, but I’ve never really had the wild kind of nights you’re probably used to.”
“Were all the guys you dated just that boring?”
Emma frowned, a crease forming between her eyebrows. “Yes, in a way. But I suppose that was what I was looking for.”