Protecting Her: A Billionaire Secret Baby Romance Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Description

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Epilogue

  Thank you!

  Billionaire's Protest

  Billionaire Bad Boys

  Caught Off Guard

  EXCLUSIVE "BIG HOSE" (((NEVER BEFORE PUBLISHED)))

  Beauty and the Billionaire Sample

  Faking For Her Sample

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Protecting Her

  A SECRET BABY BILLIONAIRE ROMANCE

  KIRA BLAKELY

  Whoever left this beauty for dead will fucking pay!

  I was never capable of love.

  Eternal bachelor is more accurate.

  What rich guy wants to be tied down?

  But when I found Elspeth, injured and alone, I knew I would never be the same.

  I had never seen such frailty and beauty.

  My inner caveman was fucking roaring.

  Now, I have a new purpose.

  Destroy whoever did this!

  I’ll protect her. And the baby growing inside her.

  Chapter 1

  Finn

  I powered the white Escalade through the heavy snow that smothered Highway 77. I knew I was probably fifty miles from Lake Superior and although I’d come this far, I was tempted to turn around and head back to humanity. The place was just too damned cold and void of human life for my taste.

  What the hell am I doing here, anyway? Okay, so I’d started bullshitting with Jay and the other guys at his cabin outside Traverse City. They’d dared me to brave the blizzard warning and prove that my “fancy Cadillac” could make it to Superior and back before noon the following day. I’d had a couple of beers, but once I sobered up, I took the challenge.

  What can I say? I was spoiling for trouble, and they were obnoxious. The rest was the history that brought me to the godforsaken wilderness and threatened to smother me. The deal was that I had to mail something, anything, to Jay with a Grand Marais postmark on it—undeniable proof I’d made it. I didn’t stop to think until I hit Hwy. 28 that I could have faked the damned thing with Photoshop on my laptop and been in a Traverse City casino with my dick cradled in some babe’s hand while I played the roulette table. Hell, no! I had to do it legit.

  It was early January, and I was surprised how much later in the day the sun was visible that far north. I reached back into my high school science class and remembered something about tilt and axis and… oh, what the hell. Did it matter?

  People from Michigan called it the UP. When Jay had laid down the challenge to drive to Lake Superior, he’d held up his hand and pointed just below his pinkie finger to show me where we were. Apparently, there was no body part that resembled the upper peninsula—no scale of measurement to indicate in a conversation how far away Superior was. To me, it was just the most godawful place I could imagine.

  I was bored. I’d gotten gas just after leaving Jay’s and when I stopped a dozen miles north of there to take a piss, I realized my phone was missing. I’d still been so full of myself, I guessed I’d knocked it off the seat when I slid out. There I was—no radio signal, no phone and not even a damned CD in the car that wasn’t Christmas music! I regretted not having the satellite radio activated, but hell, who would have ever expected I’d end up in this Godforsaken nowhere? I reflected momentarily on how well we plan everything in our lives—maybe even our burials—but I couldn’t think far ahead enough to realize that when I crossed that damned bridge, I would be leaving civilization as I knew it.

  The wind was blowing loose snow into one of the UP’s fabled white-outs. They had the bridge shut down to one lane and were escorting vehicles over like high wire artists clinging to the same balance pole. They almost didn’t let me go over—called me a “high profile” vehicle, whatever the hell that meant—but I don’t think he was talking about price tag.

  I lied and told the guy I was bound for the air force base to pick up a big shot and he promptly saluted me and let me go. I guess it never occurred to him that I wasn’t in uniform and I sure as hell was glad he didn’t ask to see identification. As I looked back, I felt like an ass for having done it.

  At least the road was deserted, so I headed right down the middle. Haven’t these people ever heard of a plow? The light of the dwindling sun strobed through the endless pines; bright enough to make me squint. Off to my right I saw a pattern in the snow—looked like a pair of footprints leading from the edge of the road off across the snow. There was just one set and no sign of any return.

  That’s when I saw the billow of smoke and slowed down to look. I could see a shack-looking building set just about fifteen feet back into the wood line—and the smoke sure as hell wasn’t from a fireplace. What the hell? One corner of the roof was on fire, flames blowing smoke like a fat man with a Cuban cigar. Then I realized that the tracks led directly to it.

  It was below zero outside, and I was wearing dress shoes from the party at Jay’s. I only had my leather jacket and no gloves. What an idiot! I looked north and wondered how far it could be to a phone. Surely these people had a fire department somewhere. It wouldn’t take any effort at all for me to keep on going and let the next car behind me deal with this. I could be headed south again, and home, in about an hour.

  “Fuck!” I slammed my hand onto the top of the wheel. There was no way I could live with being blind on top of stupid, so I did the only decent thing. I pulled as close to the edge of the road as possible, disregarding that I might be burying my wheels. Opening the door, I trudged off toward the shack with snow up to my calves.

  When I got about twenty yards away, the wind shifted and the smoke enveloped me. It felt like acid in my throat, and I stooped long enough to cup two handfuls of snow to put over my burning eyes. Goddammit!

  “Hey! Anybody in there?” I paused long enough to listen for a response over the crackling of the fire. The shack was old and the paint long worn off. It was pure tinder and whoever’s tracks led into that open door might already be dead.

  That’s when it occurred to me that it could be a trap. Maybe some asshole was sitting in there with a mask, waiting for some innocent to come to try and save him. Then he’d shoot or knock them over the head and leave them to die while he took off with their wallet and car. This is like the goddamned Wild West!

  I had no choice, although the coward in me was considering a dozen or more. I ran toward the opened doorway, calling out as I got closer. No one answered. Finally, there was no other way to avoid it. I was in the doorway and peering inside. At least the fire was casting some light so I could see.

  Sure enough, there was something roughly the size of a body on the floor, but still in the shadows. The fire was b
urning just inside the door, and I leaned in to look for a window. I couldn’t see clearly, so I peeled off my leather coat, shoved snow quickly down the neck of my shirt and then held the coat over my head as I ran in.

  It was a body—a woman from the looks of those curves. She was petite with long dark hair and was dead or passed out. I couldn’t wait to check, so I scooped her over my shoulder, threw the jacket over the two of us, and ran back through the doorway. My lungs burned—I had to get away from the boiling clouds of black smoke. She was light, so I ran in the direction of the Escalade, dropping to my knees about halfway there to feel for a pulse.

  She had one… I ripped open her blouse and held my head to the soft flesh just above her rounded breasts to listen. Not sure what the hell I was doing, I gave her my version of CPR, copied from what I’d seen in the movies. It must have been close enough because I could see her chest rise, so I kept it going.

  It seemed to take forever, but I’m sure it was only a minute or so before her mouth opened and she sucked air into her lungs on her own. She broke into a coughing fit, and I wanted to do the same damned thing. She rolled onto her side, a mixture of gray saliva and perhaps something else spilling across the virgin snow. I tried to scoop clean snow to her face to help her, but she pushed my hand away and struggled to get to her knees.

  “Help me. I’m so cold!” Her ragged voice was soft, and I could hear a bit of a Southern drawl. She turned to look at me, fear widening her eyes, and that’s when I felt it. I was lost.

  Chapter 2

  Elspeth

  My throat, oh God, my throat. How I wished I had a glass of sweet tea with a hundred iced cubes—no wait, a gallon of it! I may as well have wished for a hundred gallons; there wasn’t anything but miserable snow around me.

  “Let’s get you in the car!” said the man who was leaning over me. I wished he would quit wiping my face with that infernal snow! It was nasty, just plain nasty. Everything about this place felt nasty.

  I was so cold, though, and my chest felt heavy and clogged. As much as I didn’t want to trust him, I had no choice. I looked around for another option, but it had begun to snow hard, and it was dark. I nodded, and he picked me up again, this time carrying me like a small child. I huddled against his chest, no matter how wet it was.

  I’d begun to shake; I couldn’t make it stop. My tummy was queasy, my head ached… Sweet Jesus, I felt horrible. I wrapped my arms around the neck of the man carrying me, hoping that wherever he was taking me, I would feel better.

  I heard a beep and then suddenly, ahead of us in the pummeling snow, lights flashed on and a car engine whirred to life. He continued—sort of walking, sort of staggering. I hoped I wasn’t so heavy that he’d just drop and be done with me. He didn’t. The man’s arm left me long enough to open the car’s door and then he slid me onto the back seat and climbed in with me. It made me feel safe; the thick leather was clean and dry, not to mention luxurious. It was cold, though, and I looked around for a floor mat, an extra coat—anything that would warm me up.

  The man leaned forward between the front seats and tapped some buttons. Immediately, a rush of delicious, warm air blew through the vents, onto my wet skin. I felt so sleepy. I wanted to sleep and not wake up until the pain in my chest and the cold were gone.

  The man rolled to his knees and fumbled behind our seat. He came back with a zipped bag, tugged at the plastic furiously, and then yanked out a plaid stadium blanket. He shook it open and spread it over me.

  “You have to take off your clothes,” he ordered crisply.

  “What?” He’s going to rape me? I went on high alert, at least as high as I could in my misery.

  “No, it’s not like that. Hypothermia. You’ve got to get the damned wet clothes off; they’re pulling what little heat you have in your body. Believe me, you’ll feel better. I’m going to get out now and get behind the wheel. You’ll have your privacy. We need to find a town, or even a house, and get you some dry clothes.”

  He didn’t wait for an answer but opened his door and the cold rushed over me again. There was a slam and the interior lights stayed on as he immediately climbed into the driver’s seat. I heard his keys jangle as he inserted one into the ignition and the car continued to idle.

  “Get those clothes off!” he barked at me again, and I could see him watching me in the rearview mirror he’d adjusted. I wanted to just go to sleep, but knew he was right. I tried to focus on how nice it would be to be warm again, rather than my timidity at being watched.

  It was hard to get the zipper to lower due to my shaking fingers. I couldn’t keep a grip on the frozen zipper tab.

  “I-I can’t…” I mumbled.

  “Can’t what?” He was perturbed, and I was shaking even more at the idea of his anger.

  “It’s fr-r-ro-zen and my fingers are sha-shaking.” I felt tears beginning to surface in my frustration.

  The man turned his head to look back at me. He cursed beneath his breath, rolled out of his front seat and opened the door to mine, climbing in beside me. “Okay,” he said, “think of me as a doctor or something. Can you do that?” he asked, although he wasn’t really waiting for an answer.

  I realized then that he intended to help me, and I pulled back instinctively. My head was aching, and I began to cry more earnestly.

  “Dammit!” he cursed.

  “Close your eyes!” I begged.

  “Look, we can sit here and argue the social niceties while you slowly pass into a hypothermic sleep from which you may never wake up, or I can get these clothes off. You close your eyes!”

  I did as he suggested, but not because it preserved my modesty, but because I was drifting into that sleepy world where the pain was dulled and it felt warm.

  Chapter 3

  Finn

  I felt frustrated beyond belief at my circumstances, and that wasn’t something I tolerated often. I had people who took care of things. It was my job never to look back. The girl was obviously in deep shit—she was quivering like a martini shaker and now she’d fallen asleep. I knew that wasn’t good. I couldn’t say I was feeling all that warm myself.

  She was limp and malleable in her sleep; at least that much was good. I pulled back the stadium blanket, hoping it hadn’t soaked up too much of the dampness from her clothes. Her hand was lying on her lower belly, the effort to lower the zipper obviously more than she could manage. I began, instead, with her blouse, as it was a lighter-weight material and I could pull off what was left of it more quickly. I’d already ripped it when I listened for her heartbeat outside the shack.

  I glanced back toward the burning building and could see it was about to collapse. It had been perhaps a century old and most likely was somebody’s hunting shack, which would account for why it wasn’t maintained. It looked as invitingly warm as a giant campfire, but there was no way I was taking her back there.

  I bent forward and pulled at her buttons, some of which popped their threads and spilled to the car floor. Reaching behind her neck, I pulled her upright to lie against my chest as I unsnapped her bra and pulled it, along with the remaining cloth of her blouse, off in one movement. That was when I saw the bruise on the back of her neck, just below her hairline. I frowned; she’d been hit from behind.

  She fell back as I released her, and I felt myself go hard as I viewed her. Her skin was the color of light butter toffee, smooth with the moisture that came naturally with good health. Her dark, mahogany hair lay in damp soft curls almost to her waist and its color was echoed in even, natural brows and thick eyelashes. Her mouth was very kissable—a bit pouty with a full bottom lip that revealed small, virginally white teeth. Her breasts were perfectly shaped for my hands, full and rounded. Her nipples were perfect buds that invited me to suck them.

  She wore a necklace, one of those pendants that girls wore with their first name. E-l-s-p-e-t-h, it spelled.

  I shook my head to clear my lustful reverie, reminding myself that she was in trouble. My hands froze as I realized her j
eans were next. Buying time, I pulled off her leather boots and socks, which were entirely inadequate for this climate, but then who was I to be critical in my dress shoes?

  My fingers shook a bit as I unbuttoned her jeans and pulled down that zipper. As it lowered, it revealed a pair of soft pink lace panties; the reveal was like a stage curtain opening to a pristine world of innocence. I coaxed the jeans downward, revealing the apex between her legs. The nylon of her panties was wet and her mound of soft hair perfectly outlined. It took everything I had not to put my hand over it—to penetrate its entrance with my fingertip.

  I had to move her onto my lap to pull the jeans completely off. It took not a second’s consideration to pull the pink panties with them and with a sense of awe, I realized she was limp, naked, and completely spread before me. Her one leg dropped to the floor, opening her to my full view. God help me.

  Grabbing the stadium blanket, I wrapped it around her as best as I could and reached over her to drape her clothing on the hanger hook over the window. They would catch warm air from the vent that way and eventually dry.

  I moved her back to the seat, because my own clothes were soaked. I looked at her longingly but I had to find some help, so I pulled away and climbed back into the front seat.

  Throwing it into gear, I hit the gas… and while it began to inch sideways, we weren’t moving forward. “Damn!” I rammed the lever upward into reverse and gave it gas. Nothing… but the sound of spinning tires. “Fuck!” I crawled out and surveyed the wheels, but the vehicle had slid off the shoulder and was solidly embedded. The snow was growing in depth at an unbelievable rate. I could barely make out the roadway; it had become a uniform blanket of depth. I got back behind the wheel and tried to rock the car, but it wouldn’t move free. We were stuck.

  I knew she was in trouble, and I was headed in the same direction. I had less than a third tank of gas and there was no telling when someone would drive by. The road, in my opinion, was probably impassable. We were just going to be there for a while. In the darkness with no moon and nothing to light us—not to mention that we were in a white vehicle—we were an unmovable target.