Instinctive Male Read Free Page B

sometimes relaxed in this room filled with furniture his family had made. Occasionally his brother, Jarek, used the showroom to romance his wife away from their new home. The Do Not Disturb sign meant the Stepanovs were in the showroom and did not want to be disturbed. He clicked the lock on the showroom door closed. “I can wait.”
    “You would.” Ellie was on her feet, stalking the room filled with the heavy walnut furniture. A restless woman, she stopped to smooth the wood admiringly, to open a drawer, closing it smoothly, to trace the intricate hardware of a dresser.
    Mikhail dismissed the too-tense sensation prowling hisbody as he watched her move gracefully, a pampered woman whose only obsession had been her own indulgences.
    She turned on him like a tigress, fists clenched, her hair and body softly outlined by the lights from the parking lot. “You’re amused. I see it in your expression. I don’t like being your entertainment du jour. Au revoir, bud.”
    With that, she walked past him to the door and reached for the lock.
    Mikhail studied her. Ellie Lathrop was too tense, too brittle…and she had cried. What game was she playing?
    “Walk out that door and you’re not getting a second chance.” He watched her hesitate and her slender hand slid from the lock. What could be so important as to make Ellie sacrifice her pride?
    Why did he want to tug her back to him, hold her safe and warm against him?
    He tossed that thought aside. It was only natural for a Stepanov man to want to protect a woman in dire need.
    The tingle at the back of his neck warned him that his own instincts could endanger him.
    With her back to him, Ellie shook her head, and a spill of sun-lightened hair caught the soft light in sparks. “You’re so much like Paul—my dear old dad. No wonder my mother left him as soon as she was able, leaving me, too, of course. My half sister’s mother did the same. It seems that maternal instincts don’t run in our family. You know that I’m tired—dead tired—and you’re pushing. You pick others’ weak moments like a shark scenting blood… anything to get your way. I should have expected no less. You’re not going to make this easy.”
    She turned slowly, leaning back on the door, her hands behind her. In the soft lighting, her face was pale, her eyes huge and shadowed. She spoke in an uneven whisper. “I have a child. She needs protection. And you are my last resort. I’ll do anything you say to keep her safe. Just help me—rather help her. If I have to beg, I will.”
    The honest plea in her voice struck him…a tired, desperate mother seeking shelter. She seemed to sag then, against the dark heavy wood of the door, her head down. “I can’t run anymore, Mikhail. I need your help.”
    “Details,” he demanded roughly to cover his unsteady emotions. He didn’t know if he should trust this submissive Ellie. “You were married. Less than three and a half years ago, wasn’t it? I received an invitation to the wedding.”
    “And I received your gift. Crystal, wasn’t it? I forget. It brought a nice price when I sold it. I’ve sold a lot of things in the past few years.”
    He’d chosen the crystal vase because it reminded him of the woman—glittering, perfect and hard. “He’s the child’s father?”
    She scrubbed her hands together now, as if trying to dislodge a cold that came from her bones. “I wish he were. Mark would have been a wonderful father, but he couldn’t accept someone else’s child. We’re divorced. I took back the Lathrop name, just to torture Paul, to remind him that he does have a daughter…. Parental obligations and all that. Or let’s just say I’ve inherited Paul’s perversity. By the way, has my dear father called?”
    Mikhail nodded, remembering Paul’s brisk, slightly angry tone. “Several times in the past six months. He wondered where you were.”
    “That’s why I didn’t let you know that we were coming. I didn’t want him to know until