“Visited your mother today. She remains stable,” Vladimir said, as though he was speaking about the weather. And not about a woman who was in a coma.

Fury tried to break free, but Sasha clenched his jaw and kept everything he wanted to say behind his teeth. Finally, he allowed, “She remains at St. Francis?” He had to know she was safe. That his uncle had not exercised his rights set forth by Sasha’s father’s will and moved Phoebe to Childer’s Asylum. To a guaranteed death sentence.

His uncle chuckled, the sound not at all reassuring. “As usual, Alexander, where she remains is entirely up to you. So I wouldn’t recommend playing the hero with Ms. Holland.”

Sasha barked out a laugh. “I always prefer the villain’s entrance and exit. There’s something to be said for style.” He scanned the road, looking for the small green sign that marked Strawberry Grove’s gravel path.

“Eight weeks, and if all goes according to plan, I’ll allow you to visit your mother.” Vladimir ended their call.

Allow? Sasha wanted to rip the steering wheel from the dash. He wanted to smash and break everything in sight. But it would do no good. He cut the engine and slumped down in the leather seat, waiting for calm.

He eyed the house in front of him as the sun set and the windows reflected the light. Inside waited a woman who wanted nothing from him but cheesecake. Cheesecake. Yet here he was, sitting in his car and planning how to strip of her house, her land. Her defenses.

Her clothes.

Good God, he had to stop thinking about that. “Dammit,” he muttered. He rubbed the back of his neck. Maybe he should shag someone. It couldn’t be anyone around here, of course. No need for Rose to know about his activities.

He shook his head. Why did it matter if she knew? “Oh, for the love of God.” He grabbed the desserts from the passenger side and quickly got out of the car.

The soft strains of country music played in the background as he came through the back door. The glow of the kitchen light illuminated Rose. She stood at the sink, washing dishes and humming along. Ivy babbled as she lay on a mat nearby.

It was a scene so perfectly domestic and cozy that he stopped mid-stride and stared. And stared some more.

Wouldn’t this be something to come home to every night? To actually look forward to, because there was a person, a family waiting for you. Until this moment, he couldn’t remember what that felt like.

And it was for the best that he strike it from his mind.

Clearing his throat, he said, “I didn’t know what you liked, so I got every kind Daisy Barnes had.” Sasha placed the cheesecakes on the counter.

Rose stopped washing dishes long enough to glance at him, the beginnings of a smile transforming her face. “Thank you.”

His formerly bad mood vanished with the appearance of her beautiful smile. He would bring her cheesecake every day for a month if she’d keep looking at him like that.

Walking over to Ivy, he knelt down to tickle her foot. She cooed and swiped at a brightly colored fish and octopus hanging from a mobile over her head. “What is this thing? And do they make one for adults?”

“It’s a play gym for babies. Ivy can roll around and try to grab all the things that catch her eye.” Rose joined him, her dainty feet with their unpainted toenails entering his side vision. Well, he certainly wanted to grab the things that caught his eye.

He looked up at her. “Baby shower present?”

“Skye and I went in together and bought it for her—Ivy, that is.” Her pretty eyes gazed into his for a moment, then looked away.

“How old is she?”

“Why?” She stepped back and he stood, watching as she began vigorously wiping down the cracked-top kitchen table with a dish cloth.

“Just curious,” he said lightly, shadowing her.

“Would you like some cheesecake?” She made her way back to the cabinets, tossing the cloth on the counter and pulling out plates.

“Why won’t you answer me? State secret?” He touched her shoulder. A fork clattered to the floor. Well-worn jeans tightened over her perfect bum as she bent to scoop it up. Then she tossed it into the sink and yanked open the silverware drawer, pulling out a clean fork.

Black corkscrew curls tumbled down her back and around her shoulders, shielding her face from him as she opened and cut into one of the cheesecakes. “Almost five months,” she said quietly.

There was no way the baby could be hers, not biologically anyway. “So Ivy is your what?”

Blackbeard jumped on the counter and Rose scooped him up in her arms, turning to face Sasha as a wealth of emotions played across her face. Without knowing it, she was beginning to trust him. This was going to be easier than he’d thought.

At that very moment Sasha didn’t know who he hated more: himself, his uncle, or the townspeople willing to sell out one of their own.

“Summer’s daughter. I’m taking care of Ivy for her.”

Of course she was. Hell, Blackbeard had probably been some half-dead animal she found on the side of the road and nursed back to health. She supported her family. She’d taken him in to spare Jemma Leigh’s feelings.

Men like him shouldn’t be allowed to roam the earth. He rubbed the back of his neck. “Is there anything else you’re keeping secret—a cure for world hunger? Energy crisis? Perhaps you run an orphanage in the greenhouse?”

She shrugged lightly, but her face was somber. “It’s what family does. Summer wasn’t ready to have a baby.”

He walked up to her and gently tugged at a loose curl. It wrapped around his finger. “But you were?”

“Sometimes life doesn’t give you a choice. Besides, I love my sisters, even when their choices affect me.”

“Does everyone assume Ivy’s yours?”

Rose shook her head. “Most people know.”

“And the rest?”

A broom propped against the wall fell to the floor. Blackbeard hissed and Rose jumped. “Oh no,” she whispered and grabbed her cross.

Sasha carefully unwound the lock of hair from around his finger. “Falling housekeeping equipment means something, I take it?”

“Company’s coming.” Impossibly wide eyes narrowed. “Who did you invite to my house?”

Only the town board’s lawyer, Jason Everett, but Sasha hadn’t actually invited him to her house. He was joining Sasha’s business dinner. “I had to get your Jeep back here somehow.”

“Why would you need to get someone to drive it?”

“I bought a car.”

“And?” Gone was the sweet smile that minutes earlier had him happy as a lunatic. Thinking like one, too.

He crossed his arms over his chest and moved to the side, leaning one hip against the counter. “I drove it here. Got your money as well. Want it? All you have to do is pick the right pocket of my trousers. I recommend starting with the front one.” He winked at her, but she didn’t say a word.

Instead, she placed Blackbeard on the floor and reached for Ivy, her movements jerky and hurried. She muttered something under her breath, but he couldn’t understand what she was saying. Then she left the kitchen. Without the damned cheesecake he’d brought her.

He followed, his long strides easily keeping up with her much shorter ones. “Will you tell me what this is all about?”

Black hair streamed out from her head as she turned a corner, her palm supporting Ivy’s neck. “Don’t you have a dinner to go to?” She jogged up the stairs.

He glanced at his watch before taking the stairs two at a time. “I have an hour.”

“It’ll take you longer than that to get ready,” she said, opening Ivy’s door.

He rolled his eyes. “There’s nothing wrong with looking good. Now slow down and talk to me.” He stopped in the doorway and watched as she changed the baby, put pajamas on her, and sat down in the rocking chair.

The wooden floor creaked as it moved.

“Tell me,” she said, the vulnerable look on her face making him blurt out the truth.

“Jason Everett.”

She blinked twice rapidly then looked away. “I need to get Ivy down for the night. Please, close the door behind you.”

Oh, hell.

Chapter Six

Sasha shrugged into a cashmere overcoat as a knock sounded on the door. He opened it and Jason Everett slipped inside before Sasha could stop him.

Jason scanned the foyer as if he was expecting something—or someone. “Where’s Rose?” he asked, confirming Sasha’s suspicions.

“Above stairs.”

“I’ll go say hi.”

Jason started for the staircase, but Sasha put a hand up to stop him. He flashed an easy grin that didn’t match the rising tide of jealousy flooding his body. “She’s trying to get her baby to bed.”

“Her baby?” Jason laughed. “I know for a fact that it’s her sister, Summer’s.”

Sasha clenched his jaw. Ivy wasn’t an it. “Ivy is the baby’s name.”

“Whatever,” he said with a shrug. “Ready to go? We’re meeting Brenda and Harrison at Market House.”

“Fantastic.”

But Jason made no move to leave, only lingered in the foyer, his dark eyes never straying from the top of the stairs. “You sure she won’t be coming down?”

“Quite.” Sasha fished his keys out of his pocket and pressed the unlock button on his key fob several times.

“This place is like a living nightmare, but the perks of living here have to be worth it.” A knowing smile covered the lawyer’s face.

Sasha managed to maneuver Jason outside before he locked and shut the door behind him. “If by that you mean a cat that hogs the bed and a house out to get me—yes.”

***

The Mercedes easily handled the twists and turns of the back roads as they made their way to Wilmington. Sasha tried to keep the conversation light, but all he could think about was the hunger he’d seen in Jason’s eyes. That damned smile.

As they waited at a deserted intersection for the light to change, Sasha turned to him and asked, “How well do you know Rose?”

“Intimately.” Jason grimaced. “Although that ugly-ass birthmark on her thigh was almost enough to make me reconsider.”

Sasha quickly calculated how much recovery time he would need if he drove his car into the nearest tree, making sure that the passenger side took the brunt of the crash. Unfortunately, the car’s safety features would prevent Jason from being seriously hurt.

“Yet you persevered.”

“More than one way to screw a Holland.” Jason leaned forward to fiddle with the multiple buttons of the sound system.

“Obviously things didn’t work out.”

“For one of us.” Jason pulled out his cell, running his finger over the screen.

Sasha’s fingers tightened on the steering wheel, his knuckles turning white. “Cried yourself to sleep over the break-up, did you?”

“Got away just in time. She thought it was more serious than it was. I had to stop her from embarrassing herself with the L-word.” Jason shuddered. “Enough time’s passed since then, and judging by her lack of dates, it’s obvious she’s not over me.”

“Obviously.” Sasha clenched his teeth.

“I’d figured I’d try to patch things up. Take her flowers or some kind of shit women like. Shouldn’t be too hard to convince her, since I was nice about the whole thing.”

“What a gentleman.”

“Yeah.” Jason nodded. “I even took her to a real nice restaurant on our last date to break the news to her.”

Yeah, he bet the bugger did. “So she wouldn’t cause a scene,” Sasha murmured. Would the bloody light change already? He had to get to dinner before he did bodily harm to his lawyer.

“Exactly. Rose wasn’t living up to her reputation. You do know about the Hollands’ reputation?”

The slowest light in history finally changed to green and Sasha hit the gas. “Sorry, not up-to-date on all the gossip.”

Jason laughed. Too bad it wasn’t one that sounded creepy and warned women away from an ass like him. Everett was tall, fit and had a mega-watt smile. “Let’s just say that the Holland women have always had a way with men. Married, single—it doesn’t matter. They never marry the babies’ daddies. Hell, I’m willing to bet Summer doesn’t even know who her kid’s dad is.”

According to Rose, Jason would win that bet. “Lots of women make a go of it alone.”

“Every Holland woman makes a go of it alone. No strings and no emotional attachment. It’s the best damn thing about them.”

“Except for Rose,” Sasha said.

“There’s a weird one in every bunch.”

“And Skye?”

“Not a chubby chaser.”

Sasha glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. “A what?”

“I’m not into fat girls,” Jason clarified. He cracked his knuckles. “Rose was pushing it, but Summer wasn’t around. So I settled.”

The lawyer would never know how close he came to needing an oral surgeon tonight. Just as Sasha applied the brakes and began looking for a secluded spot, Jason pointed out Market House. Sasha pulled the Mercedes up to the curve and parked.

Two valets rushed over, opening their doors.

“There’s a bar on Fifth that has the hottest cocktail waitresses. We should hit it up after dinner,” Jason said.

Sasha nodded, tipped the valet, and followed Jason into the restaurant. “We should.” But they wouldn’t. If Sasha had his way, Jason Everett would be walking home tonight. There wasn’t a chance in hell Sasha would spend the rest of his night with the asshole.