Elizabeth Power – Blackmailed Into His Arms: Blackmailed into Bed / The Billionaire's Blackmail Bargain / Blackmailed For Her Baby (страница 18)

“That’s not true. I care how I look,” Elena protested, but the words came out with so little confidence, even she didn’t believe it.

“Of course you do. But you looked fine in what you were wearing this morning. And that song you were humming when you got home from Vegas tells me you weren’t exactly chained up in Chase Ramsey’s bed all week, forced to be his love slave against your will. I think,” Alandra added, tipping her head to the side, “things between you are starting to get serious.”

Elena swallowed past the lump in her throat, her heart pounding like a kettledrum. Once again, she was reminded that she could keep no secrets from a sister who knew her so well. For better or worse, Alandra could see straight through any attempts at subterfuge.

The air shuddered from her lungs. Her shoulders slumped and she let her chin fall to her chest. “I’m in trouble,” she admitted, barely loud enough to be heard.

Her sister leaned forward, her expression going serious as she laid a hand on Elena’s knee. “You’re in love with him?” she asked.

Elena shook her head, slowly, almost as though she couldn’t quite believe it herself. “I don’t know, but I think I’m close.”

She raised her head and met her sister’s understanding eyes as her own started to sting and grow damp. “I’m really, really close.”

Nine

Between her nerves over meeting Chase’s parents and her disturbing conversation with Alandra before leaving, Elena’s stomach was in knots. Her palms were sweating, her knees were shaking and every once in a while, her chest tightened so much, she could barely draw a breath.

When Chase pulled up to the house at six on the dot, Elena made her sister stay in her room. The last thing she needed was for Alandra to race down the stairs to catch a glimpse of him or be caught peering around the corner like a child on Christmas morning, trying to catch Santa Claus piling presents under the tree.

But even though Alandra bided by her wishes and stayed out of sight, Elena knew she was watching from the upstairs window as Chase helped her into the car and they pulled away.

On the drive, she tried to make small talk, tried to respond with some modicum of sensibility when Chase spoke. But inside, her blood and muscles and bones felt as though they’d been touched by a live wire. She was surprised he didn’t notice a glow in her eyes or sparks shooting from her fingertips.

The Ramsey ranch was on the other side of Gabriel’s Crossing, but they still arrived much too soon for Elena’s peace of mind. Chase’s shiny silver luxury car bumped down a long, rutted dirt driveway, kicking up a cloud of dust behind them.

A dark blue pickup truck was already parked in front of the house. Chase pulled up beside it and cut the engine.

For a moment, they sat there, neither one making a move to get out. Elena stared at the front door, fully expecting it to fly open and the stuff of nightmares to pour out.

Alandra was right; it meant something. Despite her better judgment, she was falling for Chase, and falling hard. And for some reason, whether or not his parents liked her felt like a very big deal.

She wished it didn’t. She wished she could convince herself that this was merely another business dinner he’d asked her to attend. Meeting his parents felt entirely too much like something a girlfriend would do.

A girlfriend, not a mistress.

The click of the door latch releasing on Chase’s side of the car interrupted her thoughts and she hurried to open her own and climb to her feet. Brushing her hands on the legs of her slacks, she took a deep breath and tried to calm the jumble of anxiety tightening her stomach.

She was his mistress, she reminded herself as brutally as she could. Not his girlfriend, not his fiancée, not even, really, his lover. This might be his family, but to her, they were simply another group of strangers she needed to entertain and impress to fulfill her part of the bargain.

Chase met her at the front of the car, only steps from the narrow porch that ran the full length of the front of the house.

“Ready?” he asked, seeming to sense her reluctance, even though she was doing her best to tame it.

She swallowed hard and let him take her hand, pasting on a wide smile she didn’t quite feel. “Of course.”

He led her onto the porch and through the front door. Voices assaulted them as soon as they stepped into the house. Male and female, one on top of the other.

They moved through a wide, homey living room that took up the front of the house, and down a short hallway that opened into a dining room filled with people—the source of all the noise.

Two men sat at one end of a long pine table already set with plates and silverware. One was older, one younger, but Elena could tell right away that they were related. Chase’s father and brother, she would guess.

Beside the younger man stood a high chair with a brown-haired little girl seated inside, seemingly content to occupy herself by chewing on the wrong end of a small plastic spoon.

While Elena was taking in her surroundings, a swinging door opened and two women came out, both carrying a bowl or platter in each hand as they smiled and chatted.

“Chase!” the older of the two cried the moment she spotted them standing there. She quickly set sliced pot roast and buttered green beans on the table, then rushed toward them.

“Hi, Mom,” Chase said, returning the woman’s hug as she threw her arms around him and squeezed.

When they separated, his mother turned to face Elena. “And you must be Elena. Chase told us he might bring you along.”

Elena returned her greeting and shook the woman’s hand when she offered it, with Chase adding to the introduction.

“Elena, this is my mother, Theresa. And this is everyone else,” he said, pointing as he went around the room. “My father, Isaac; my brother, Mitch; his wife, Emma; and their daughter, Amelia. Everyone, this is Elena Sanchez.”

They all smiled and said hello, and she felt her anxiety begin to ease as Chase pulled out a chair and waited for her to take a seat, then sat down beside her.

Pot roast, mashed potatoes, green beans and sliced peaches were passed around the table, the room filling once again with noise as everyone started speaking at the same time. Voices and laughter mixing, conversations overlapping and turning on a dime.

Instead of being overwhelmed, Elena found the exuberant atmosphere comforting. It reminded her of some of her own family’s gatherings, back before her mother died. She, Alandra and their father still ate meals together as often as possible, but they tended to be quieter, more subdued affairs these days.

Although she didn’t take a large part in the interaction, she responded whenever questions were directed at her and found herself laughing several times at one thing or another. And as if the meal itself wasn’t delicious enough, Theresa brought out a fresh-from-the-oven pecan pie that nearly made Elena weep.

With everyone stuffed, and little Amelia’s eyes drooping, things began to quiet down. Elena helped Theresa clear the table and fill the dishwasher while Emma took the toddler upstairs to sleep and the men moved from the dining room to the living room. A few minutes later, they heard the front door open and then close, and Theresa rolled her eyes.

“Isaac thinks I don’t know about those filthy cigars he likes to sneak after dinner. Like I can’t smell them on him for hours afterward.”

She reached into a cupboard and removed three short-stemmed wineglasses to go with the bottle of chardonnay she’d already set on the counter. Holding the three glasses upside down in one hand and the neck of the bottle in the other, she nudged the kitchen door with her hip and led the way through the house to the sitting room.

“He takes the boys outside with him so he can claim they needed to talk. I won’t say anything tonight, though, since it will give us girls a chance to chat, too.”

Emma came back downstairs then, to curl up in one corner of the overstuffed sofa. She smiled and thanked Theresa when the older woman passed her a half-full glass of wine.

Elena took a seat on the other end of the sofa, not quite at ease enough to put her feet up. But then, she was a guest here, not a daughter-in-law.

Theresa handed her a glass, too, then sat back in a matching armchair to sip from her own.

“So,” Theresa murmured casually, “tell us how you came to be dating my son.”

“So what’s up with the raven-haired beauty?” Mitch asked, sipping at the three fingers of scotch he’d poured before their father had dragged them outside so he could sneak a few puffs from his cigar before their mother discovered him.

Chase took a sip from his own glass before responding. “Nothing’s up. She’s a friend, that’s all.”

“Mm-hmm.” Keeping his gaze on the barn and paddock several yards from the house, his brother said, “You haven’t brought a woman home to meet Mom and Dad since we were in high school.”

“She seems like a nice girl,” Isaac put in from farther down the porch railing. “I like her.”

Chase elected not to respond to that. Mitch was right about him not bringing a girl home to meet his parents since they were both teenagers, but he didn’t want to give anyone ideas.