Read And Then Came You for Free Online Page B

they did.
    “Good-bye, Sam,” Emma said, and turned toward the door on the right. As she walked, she managed to drag her feet as if they were both chained to anchors. Clearly, she didn’t want her father to miss the fact that she was disappointed. And just as clearly, Emma had inherited the Marconi flair for drama.
    As soon as Emma was gone, Sam could breathe again. However, her whole body ached, as if she’dbeen tackled by a three-hundred-pound linebacker. She’d had her feet knocked out from under her and her breath slapped from her chest. Shaken, she kept a firm grip on the doorjamb, just in case her knees suddenly decided to give out.
    “I wasn’t expecting to see you,” he said. His voice rumbled through the room, sounding like far-off thunder.
    “I guess not,” she said quietly, watching him walk across the elegantly appointed room. As she’d expected, he’d taken a suite. The wood gleamed, crystal vases were filled with fragrant flowers, and warm colors and overstuffed furniture made for a soft, cozy space.
    And for as much as Sam gave a damn, it could have been a concrete cell painted beige.
    He closed the door on Emma, shutting the girl out of whatever they might have to say. Then he turned and walked back toward Sam. His expression carefully neutral, he kept his gaze on hers and waited for her to speak first.
    “She doesn’t know me,” Sam whispered, her gaze shifting now to the closed door standing between her and her child.
    “Why should she?”
    Sam snapped him a look and hissed at him. “I’m her mother.”
    He was unimpressed. “You
were
.”
    New pain, fresh and sharp as a well-honed blade, sliced through what was left of her heart. Her fingers dug into the doorjamb until she wouldn’t have been surprised to see half-moon indents from her nailspressed into the wood. “I gave her up so that she could have a family.”
    “Spare me.” He laughed shortly and stepped nearer, closing the space separating them until he could whisper harshly and be sure she heard. “You
gave
her to my mother.”
    “What?”
Sam finally understood that old cliché about “seeing red.” A crimson haze surrounded her vision, clouding everything in a shimmering wave of pulsing fury that pounded and rippled in time to the beating of her own heart. When she thought she could speak without blowing the top of her head off, she whispered, “Are you out of your mind?”
    He sneered at her. No other word for it. The expression was one tyrants and despots reserved for the peon who made the mistake of crossing them. And he had it down cold. Must be in the genes, she thought wildly. Grow up rich and learn that sneer from the cradle up.
    “Drop the act, Sam. No point in it now, is there?”
    There went the top of her head.
    She punched him. Hard. Her fist hit his chest and bounced off like a bullet ricocheting off a brick wall and it didn’t help a bit. “You
are
crazy.”
    A muscle in his jaw twitched and a flash of memory blasted through Sam’s brain. Jeff had always been one of the most . . .
controlled
human beings she’d ever met. That had been part of his fascination for her when they first met. Since she’d grown up in a houseful of people who shouted more often than they spoke, meeting a man whose aplomb was rarely shaken had been . . . intriguing. The one sign he’d shown of temper was that jaw twitch. And with enough of a push,she knew she could make him surrender to the anger and give it free rein.
    That would suit her just fine. The way she was feeling at the moment, there was nothing she’d like better than a good old-fashioned screaming match.
    But even admitting that to herself, she couldn’t give in to the urge. Not with Emma . . .
Emma
. . . right there, in the next room. She had to find a way to fight in
his
style. Cold. Controlled. Reasonable.
    It wouldn’t be easy. What she was feeling went beyond pain. Beyond fury. Beyond anything she’d ever known before.
    Reaching out, she grabbed a