Teddy Bear Heir (5 page)

"I'll wait for her. Just for a little bit."

Curiosity. It had killed the cat and it just might kill her. She had to know what Nancy looked like, what the attraction was. She had to see the woman who was going to have everything she'd ever wanted.

"You're a sweetheart."

He was staring at her with the strangest expression. She held up her hand to ward off the words she knew were coming.

"Don't, Cameron—"

"I wish it could've been different."

"Don't." She turned her head away from him.

He hesitated for a moment then she heard him get up from the couch. She closed her eyes as hot tears seeped between her lashes.

Then she heard the sound of a door closing.

* * *

Nancy stood by the huge map in the BART station. Nervously she chewed a fingernail as she tried to figure out how to get to the Four Seasons Clift.

She was somewhere in Berkeley, last time she'd asked. She'd gone back up above ground and had a cup of cappuccino and a chocolate biscotti at Caffe Mediterraneum on Telegraph, and bought a paperback psychology book with tips on good communicative skills in marriage.

But she still wasn't quite sure where she was.

A street musician had set up a few feet down from the map and the mournful sound of his saxophone filled the air.

She walked over to him and waited patiently until he finished playing. Then she tossed some change into the basket he'd placed in front of him.

"Do you know which train I should take to get to the Four Seasons—"

He smiled and she realized he was a little too happy. Drunk, stoned, or both.

"Be happy, pretty lady. There's a full moon out tonight. It’ s time for us to play!"

She walked back to the map and started chewing another nail.

* * *

The Scotch had made her tired. And depressed.

Michaela wondered why Cameron hadn't come back yet. And where was Nancy? She returned her empty glass to the bar and paced the length of the luxurious suite. She'd kicked off her heels while she'd been sitting on the couch and the plush carpeting felt good against her bare feet.

Curiosity...

She couldn't resist and slowly walked down the hall, her feet soundless. She stopped outside the master bedroom and slowly pushed the door open.

The room was beautiful, the furnishings sumptuous. The covers of the king-sized bed had been turned back and a basket of freshly baked cookies was on the bedside table.

Feeling like a thief casing a house for a robbery, she walked over and snitched a cookie.

The rich crumbs melted in her mouth as she wandered around the room, wishing with all her heart that fate had given her a second chance and that Cameron was coming back to her. To be with her.

She walked to the window and stared up into the sky. A full moon floated in the clear night sky, luminous and huge. She couldn't stop looking at it, it positively mesmerized her.

A full moon. A night for lunatics. Or lovers.

She ate the last piece of cookie and studied the moon. She'd stay just a little bit longer but leave before either Cameron or Nancy returned.

Suddenly she was so very tired and no longer curious.

* * *

Cameron took a last swallow of his drink and smiled at the cocktail waitress. In the old days he would've had her phone number by now. Hell, he would've talked her into coming up to his room when her shift was over.

Now he suddenly wasn't sure what he wanted.

His grandfather had stunned him with his ultimatum. And strangely enough, in the process of drawing up the contract, he'd felt like he was growing closer to Michaela.

Her husband had been a fool. To have been truly loved by a woman like that and then be stupid enough to throw it all away? He couldn't conceive of it.

In the deepest part of his soul he knew Julian Black was right. His entire emotional life was one big bluff. His grandfather had called him on it. Secretly he sometimes found himself yearning for a closer relationship with a woman but he still wasn't sure if he was capable of feeling that much.

"One for the road?"

The cocktail waitress was cute, with a curvy figure, red hair and freckles. Suddenly he didn't want to lead her on.

"I'm waiting for my fiancee," he said.

"Oh." She was flustered for a moment but quickly recovered. "It’s a beautiful night to be with someone you love. There's a full moon."

He'd noticed it on the way over, sailing luminous and silver through the night sky.

"So, that’s it?" she asked, and he knew what she was asking him.

"Yeah." He filled in his suite number on the bill and left her a generous tip. He was about to leave when her words stopped him.

"You're that teddy bear guy."

Cautiously he nodded his head. The bar was deserted at this hour, it was clear she was almost at the end of her shift.

"Then you found her."

"Yeah."

"She's a lucky girl."

"Thank you." He hesitated and thought of going back up to the suite and bedding Nancy. He wondered if he was doing the right thing. Then he thought of his grandfather and how his older relative didn't have that many more years left.

"What the hell," he muttered. "I'll have another one."

* * *

Julian stood next to the huge window in the master bedroom of his Nob Hill estate. He knew his grandson was at an expensive hotel tonight with the woman he'd picked to father his child.

He took a sip of his drink and gazed out into the night sky, depressed.

Nothing had gone as he'd thought it would. He'd pushed his grandson into a compromising situation because he'd been too damn proud to go back on his ultimatum.

Mary would have known what to do. He was so godawful clumsy and inept when it came to emotions.

The window was open and the cool, ocean-scented air chilled his pajama-clad body. Turning, he headed back toward his closet, intent on finding one of his silk bathrobes.

He was rummaging in the vast closet when a small box fell off one of the top shelves. He picked it up and almost jammed it back onto one of the shelves. But something stopped him and he opened it.

Julian smiled. He and his wife had traveled the world in search of toys that would amuse children. Mary had been something of an artist and he'd encouraged her to sketch various animals. Later he'd sent the pencil drawings to their stuffed animal department, where they'd been painstakingly transformed into accurate playthings.

He gazed down at the little pre-Columbian Venus in the box, wadded in among a clump of tissue paper. Mary had found it somewhere in South America, in a tiny shop far off the beaten track. She'd been enchanted with the little statue's swollen, pregnant belly, and had brought it back in the hopes that it might give them more grandchildren.

It hadn't quite worked out that way.

But maybe it will tonight...

Julian blinked. For just a moment he could've sworn he'd heard Mary's voice. Carefully, with fingers that trembled, he freed the funny little statue from its tissue paper nest. Then, thoughts of his bathrobe completely forgotten, he took the statue to the large bedroom window and set it on the windowsill.

The moonlight silvered the swollen little belly and Julian smiled. He could dream, couldn't he? He could hope for a miracle, pray for one.

He didn't quite know how he hoped to accomplish it, but he still wished with all his heart that Michaela could be the mother of his first great-grandchild.

* * *

The Scotch made her sleepy and didn't help her thinking. Usually a single glass wouldn't have affected her this way but she'd had more than one. And on an empty stomach. She'd been too depressed to eat dinner.

This is ridiculous.

Michaela thought of getting a room—she could afford it—and requesting a wake up call in time to call in sick for work. She wandered over to the large bed and sat down, trying to collect her thoughts.

You're going to end up one of those little old ladies with her hair in a bun, with a hundred cats and a rocking chair on the front porch.

She laughed at the idea but bit her lip against the strong flood of emotion.

All alone...

It was a frightening thought. She lay down on the king-sized bed and put her head on one of the pillows. She'd rest for just a moment. Ten minutes. Until her head cleared. She took off her suit jacket and draped it over the back of one of the chairs by the bed. Reaching up, she switched off the bedside lamp and the room was plunged into darkness.

Within seconds, she fell into a dark, dreamless sleep.

He'd had enough to drink at the downstairs bar that he didn't notice the pair of elegant pumps in the suite's living room. Nor did he bother to check to see if the legal documents on the table had been signed.

Cameron Black was in a foul, highly emotional mood, and was now simply determined to get the matter at hand accomplished.

Impregnation.

Cold and clinical. What Julian wanted. Perhaps it was for the best. Maybe his grandfather was right, pushing him in the direction of a commitment he wasn't sure he would've ever been up to making on his own. Deep in his heart, Cameron had always known he had no desire for a superficial relationship.

Then why have you had so many of them?

He smiled then, a bitter, highly sardonic smile. What foolish dreams he'd had. Boy's dreams. He'd dreamed of a grand passion, a love powerful enough to sweep away all obstacles.

The time he'd spent participating in the battle of the sexes had convinced him that such a relationship didn't exist, not for him. The woman who could've conquered the darkness in his soul hadn't been born.

Impregnation.

Something he was probably quite good at. God knows, he'd had more than enough practice. It probably wouldn't take more than a couple of tries, what with Nancy being as healthy and robust as she was.

He hesitated at the door of the master bedroom, placing his hand against the wall to steady himself.

Not too drunk,
he decided.
Just enough to get the job done.
He'd surprised himself downstairs, wishing fervently that it could've been any other way. And why had his mind played such tricks with him, continually conjuring up Michaela's image?

A night of sensual pleasure with a desirable woman was one thing. A night in which the objective was to conceive another human life put an entirely different slant on the proceedings. As he'd never attempted to consciously father a child before, the feelings that were flooding him were foreign. Almost frightening.

It shouldn't have to be this way.

But it had to be. Cameron laughed softly, the sound bitter. Damn Julian, but he'd even been right about Michaela. They would've made a good match but his grandfather's ridiculous demands for a child made their relationship impossible.

Michaela's demands made their relationship impossible. She wanted love and he'd decided long ago that he didn't have any more left to give. It had all been burned out of him, so long ago.

He didn't have to follow Jules's directive. He knew that. He didn't need the money and he'd never been afraid of his grandfather. It was just that the old man had done so much for him, given him so much. Was it too much to ask for a great-grandchild?

A small, precious piece of immortality.

Cameron closed his eyes for a moment, suddenly desperately tired. And in the midst of his mental struggles, Michaela's voice came to him clearly.

Doesn't it take a lot of work, Cameron? Keeping it all inside, all that emotion?

She'd asked him that one night, several weeks after they'd met, while working late at the office together. It had shaken him to his very foundation that she'd seen inside to the bankrupt nature of his soul with such utterly intuitive insight.

He shook his head to clear it of the memory of her voice. And with sudden ruthless clarity, Cameron knew he was about to do the right thing. For Michaela was the sort of woman who would've probed every last little secret out of him in the name of love. Because she would've cared. He would've never been able to manage their relationship and steer it away from such emotional ground.

Nancy Kilpatrick, fresh-faced and innocent, would pose none of those problems.

Nancy would leave him alone.

Nancy would never touch him as deeply.

Nancy, he could control.

* * *

Nancy couldn’t find the name of the hotel.

"Lady," the cabdriver began again, his tone a study in patience. "How am I supposed to take you to this hotel when you don't know which one it is?"

"It's here somewhere," she muttered, tearing through her backpack. "I stuck it in this pocket, I know I did—"

"Up to you. The meter's running."

She dumped the contents of her burgundy backpack all over the backseat of the cab and began scrabbling through its contents. Carefully, each crinkled piece of scrap paper was smoothed out, examined, then tucked away.

Within ten minutes, she admitted defeat.

"Can you call this guy?" the cabbie demanded. "Leave a message at his office?"

Nancy sighed, staring out at the San Francisco skyline.

"I guess I'd better go home and call him in the morning."

* * *

He opened the door to the master bedroom and saw the feminine shape outlined in moonlight. And heard regular, deep breathing.

Fast asleep.

He smiled, feeling a certain sort of tenderness toward the girl. He'd decided from the first that he'd be gentle with Nancy, try not to frighten her. He was a man of voracious sexual appetites and knew she was far more inexperienced. Innocent. Easily embarrassed.

He crossed the room and quietly shut the heavy drapes, plunging the master suite into complete darkness. Then he shed his clothing and stretched out on the bed next to the sleeping girl.

Gently, ever so gently, he stroked her hair.