involved the same family.
Her family.
“Why are you involving the Taite family?” she finally asked, rather than facing the emotions tearing through her or a feeling she knew she couldn’t hold on to.
His arm moved, his fingers caressing across her stomach before coming to rest against the top of her thigh.
The physical caress sent waves of warmth washing through her. A warmth that invited her to lie back and bask in the aftermath.
“For several reasons,” he finally said quietly. “One being the fact that the two men who checked into your death in Afghanistan are watching Stephen Taite. Someone is obviously waiting on something where you and your family are concerned and reporting to someone. The best way to get a response is to give them something to report.”
“Someone really knows I’m alive, then and that I’m Francine Taite’s daughter,” she whispered painfully. “Nothing lasts forever, does it?”
“Some things do,” he said with a sigh. “Unfortunately, this didn’t.”
Tehya licked her lips. The nervous energy surging inside her should have been enough to force her out of his arms. Instead, she was still lying there, still trying to make sense of what she should do versus what she wanted to do. And how she was going to handle the fact that she was no longer as safe as she thought she was.
“I won’t reveal myself to them,” she stated, fighting back her tears knowing she couldn’t bear to face them or to endanger them. “This has to be done without their knowledge. It’s too late for me to go back, Jordan. It’s too late to be a part of a family that’s doing fine without me.”
Jordan remained quiet behind her. Her eyes closed, pain twisting inside her at the fear that it was what he had planned. That his intentions all along had been to bring Tehya together with her family.
He might not love her, but Tehya knew he cared for her. Years before, he had suggested that she go to her family, that she let them know she was alive. She’d refused then, and she wouldn’t change her mind now.
“I wouldn’t force such a decision on you.” The clipped words assured her she had managed to offend him. “Do you believe I would hurt you in such a way, Tehya? That I would risk your future like that now, while I know your past hasn’t yet been resolved?”
It wasn’t her future that frightened her, it was the rejection she knew she would face and the possibility, slight though it was, that the dangers she faced would risk them as well. Besides, the last thing the Taite family would want would be her return.
And Stephen Taite knew his family would lose Taite Industries to Tehya and her heirs if she returned. When Bernard Taite, Tehya’s grandfather, had been forced to change his will after his daughter hadn’t been found, he had named his only brother, Stephen, as his heir. But there was a codicile in the eventuality that his daughter or her heirs were ever found.
If they were, his estate, in its entirety, would be turned over to her and his brother would be regulated to CEO of the business only.
It would breed resentment and discomfort. Whether Tehya claimed everything or not.
There was also the small matter of an inheritance that only Tehya could collect.
Bernard Taite had created the wealth the Taite family enjoyed, but for the past fifteen years, Stephen Taite and his son Craig had called it their own. They wouldn’t want to relinquish it now, and she couldn’t blame them.
It would give them a reason to reject her. A reason to fear her.
She could turn the companies over to Stephen or his son Craig, but there was a portion of the inheritance, held in reserve that had been set aside in case Taite Industries had ever failed. An inheritance that would, in cash, gold, and bonds, total far more than Taite Industries was worth by now. An inheritance Tehya was determined to hold on to in the eventuality that her dream of being a mother herself was ever realized or that the danger she faced was ever defeated.
“How are you going to manage this without the Taites knowing who I am?” Her fingers curled into the pillow as she held back her tears. She was absorbing the fact that she would have to face the family she could never allow herself to have and possibly to accept.
“You’ve already made a first contact, Tehya. Why are you so frightened to face the rest of the family when you employ your second cousin and have obviously become friends with her?” he said, as she felt her heart sink.
Micah would have run a background check on everyone that walked into that bar before the team ever arrived. Tehya should have thought of that.
“How long did it take you to find her?” he asked when she said nothing.
She closed her eyes. She had wanted to keep that connection to herself, to enjoy it, to relish even this small contact with at least one family member. She hadn’t wanted it tainted by the danger she faced.
“I knew before I arrived,” he revealed. “How long were you planning to make contact?”
“I’ve kept an eye on her for years,” she revealed. “I learned she had come to America to go to college just before the team disbanded.” She almost smiled. “She’s as wild as the wind, Jordan. I didn’t want her getting into trouble.”
“So you came here to watch over her?” he guessed, his tone carefully controlled, as though he knew any show of anger would only ignite another confrontation between them. “She’s a lot like you. She has your temperament. Micah’s report on her is like reading your life if you had been born into that family. A rebel. Independent and stubborn as hell, she and her grandfather are rumored to go head to head often, and according to my sources, the only reason she wasn’t sent to a private girls’ college was because the Queen of England herself intervened and ‘requested’ her father uphold the Taite family tradition of sending the girls to America to complete their education.”
Yeah, that was Journey. She was so young, so damned determined. It made Tehya proud as hell to know her. And she was damned calculating in getting her way as well.