Devour Me, Baby - A Yeah, Baby Novella

She was spiraling, so I made quick work of turning her to face me. I took her chin firmly between my fingers, forcing her to stop rambling and look me straight in the eyes.

“You’re mine, baby girl. I’m keeping you,” I said in a tone that brooked no argument. “My heart knows you and right now, that’s enough. We’ll get to know all of the other stuff later. And as far as protection, I won’t ever put anything between us. You may as well accept that right now. If you get pregnant . . . I can’t wait to see you round with our baby, Lilah.”

Her eyes softened and she practically melted into me, resting her cheek over my heart. “My heart knows you too, Ethan,” she whispered. “Um, this seems like a silly question but, where exactly is your home?”

I chuckled and lifted her chin with my index finger. “Our home is just outside of Dallas. It’s beautiful there, you’ll love it.” I got her settled in her previous position and spent some time telling her about where I lived and my life there, avoiding any mention of Samuel.

Excitement was in her voice when she asked me questions and it caused warmth to bloom in my chest, knowing she was as eager to start our life together as I was.

When the water was cold, we got out and I dried us both off before wrapping her up in a hotel robe. I ordered breakfast and we discussed plans for packing up her life in New York and transporting it to Texas.

My company was fairly easy to run from anywhere since I had a trustworthy and competent staff. Thank fuck for that because I had no intention of leaving Lilah’s side. We decided two weeks was sufficient to get things in order, and it gave me time to tell her the truth and help her come to terms with it.

Chapter 6

Delilah

My eyes popped open as I went from sound asleep to fully awake in a heartbeat and it hit me—I was only a few days away from moving to Texas with Ethan. The last week and a half had flown past in a whirlwind of details. He’d worked swiftly to get everything situated so the move would be easier on me. He’d hired a moving company to pack up the apartment. Bought me out of the lease, since my mom’s estate was legally responsible for rental payments until the lease expired in another nine months. He’d even made all the necessary arrangements with the utilities.

He’d also urged me to notify Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, and Yale that I was declining their acceptance. We’d talked more about my love for drawing, and he’d encouraged me to give illustrating children’s books a try. He’d even gone so far as to hire contractors to build a studio for me on his property. An entire studio, just for me. I could hardly believe it.

Ethan was almost too good to be true, and there was a small part of me waiting for the other shoe to drop. Or maybe a not-so-small part, considering how worried I’d grown the last couple days about how he was acting. Every so often, he seemed distant. Like he was worried about something but didn’t want to share his concerns with me. I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe he was second-guessing the decision to take me to Texas with him so quickly.

Except, it didn’t make any sense because he was the one who’d pushed for it to happen. Who’d moved heaven and earth to make sure nothing halted his plans. Who’d spent each and every night we’d been together making love to me. He’d made me feel like I was the center of his world, and those weren’t the actions of a man who wasn’t sure about having the woman in his life move in with him.

Rolling out of bed, I grabbed the pink silk robe Ethan had bought me—since he preferred me to sleep naked—off the chair. After I’d cinched the belt tight, I took a deep breath and went in search of Ethan. Since the apartment I’d shared with my mom was a mess, he’d moved us back into the Hilton but into a suite so we had extra space. Not that we needed it often, since we spent much of our time together in bed.

Moving through the doorway separating the bedroom and living area, I looked towards the work space to the left but didn’t find Ethan there. Scanning the room, my gaze finally landed on him when I hit the windows. He was standing with his back towards me, staring out, but I had a feeling he wasn’t taking in any of the amazing city view we had since he seemed pensive once again.

“Ethan?” I asked softly, half hoping he wouldn’t hear me because I was afraid I wouldn’t like what he had to say. But I forged ahead anyway, needing to know if I was going to move halfway across the country with him. So I cleared my throat and raised my voice. “We have to talk.”

“About what, baby girl?” he murmured distractedly, turning towards me and opening his arms wide.

I ran into them, feeling safer in his embrace.

“Something’s bothering you,” I mumbled against his shirt. “Don’t even try to deny it.”

I felt him sigh deeply, his chest expanding against me, and his breath ruffling my hair.

“Whatever it is, you can tell me. Please.”

His arms tightened around me. “Remember when I asked you about your dad on our first date?”

I had no idea where he was going with this, but my nose wrinkled at the reminder of a man I never wanted to think about again. “Yeah.”

“I know him.”

“You know who?”

“Your father,” he replied, confirming that I’d actually heard what I thought I’d heard the first time around.

I tried pulling out of his embrace, but he didn’t let me go far. I was only able to back away enough so I could look up into his face. “What do you mean, you know my father?”

“We’re friends,” he bit out. “Close friends.”

“What? How? But—”

Apparently my propensity to blurt things out couldn’t withstand the shock of his announcement. I had no idea what to say.

“He hired me ten years ago to locate your mother. And you.”

“Ten years ago? What, did he suddenly grow a conscience and wonder what happened to his daughter and the woman whose heart he broke?”

“I don’t know what your mother told you—”

“Don’t!” I cut him off. “My mother let me keep my rose colored glasses about the man who fathered me, right up until she was on her death bed. She never, not once, said anything bad about him while I was growing up. Even though she had every reason to, considering he’d planned to trick her into signing a prenuptial agreement that would allow him to take me away from her when he divorced her.”

“Fuck,” he hissed. “I don’t know what to tell you, baby girl, except that the Samuel I know would never do that. Especially not to your mother. From everything he’s told me, and all of the information I’ve managed to dig up about their relationship on my own in the course of my investigation, he was madly in love with her. So much so that it took him seventeen years to get serious with anyone else.”

“Oh, yeah? Then why did it take him eight years to start his search? If he loved her so much back then, he wouldn’t have wasted so much time.”

“He didn’t waste any time, Lilah. He had the security team at his investment firm begin the search the moment he realized she was gone. It just took him eight years to figure out how they were bungling the job, fire them all, and hire me to take over.”

I shook my head, refusing to believe what he was telling me. He had to be mistaken. It wasn’t possible. “Maybe they messed up because he didn’t really care. Or because they knew he was a bad guy and they were secretly rooting for my mother to have enough time to get away.”

He led me over to the couch and settled me on the cushions, sitting beside me with one arm stretched over my shoulders and the other stretched out so he could hold my hand.

“I don’t know what happened back then to make your mom think what she did, but I promise I’ll get to the bottom of it. For you.” He lifted my hand and placed a kiss on the palm. “And for Samuel because he deserves answers too.”

“Why do you care about what he deserves?”

“Because he’s my best friend, baby girl.”

I recoiled away from him as it dawned on me. “At my mom’s funeral, you told me you were t

here to pay respects for a friend because you happened to be in town. But that wasn’t true, was it? You were in town because of the funeral. Because of your search for my mom and me. Because of my stupid decision to include her real name on the obituary so she could have some peace as she left this world.”

“Yes,” he answered, and tears filled my eyes. “I came because of Samuel, but that’s not why I stayed. That was all you—the beautiful girl who took my breath away from the moment I first saw her. I planned on getting a DNA sample to confirm you were Samuel’s little girl and then staying away until the results came in, but I couldn’t do it. It was impossible to stay away from you because you’re mine.”