Page 35 of Staking His Claim

Had he deliberately tried to put her off that last family? “You’re not asking me if I’m going to change my mind and keep the baby?”

“I know you won’t.”

The speed of his response took her aback. Ella realized she’d half expected him to try and persuade her not to give up on the child. “Why’ve you finally decided that?”

His eyes narrowed. Reaction bolted like lightning forks through her. His gaze drifted over her...down...down...sending shivers in its wake...then returned to her face.

Was that calculated, too? A deliberate attempt to ratchet up her awareness of him?

Or was she simply far too suspicious?

Ella forced herself to hold his gaze.

“You’re not cut out for motherhood.” There was distance between them—as wide as the Pacific and many times as deep. He shrugged. “Some women simply aren’t.”

All the frisson of awareness froze. The delicious moments of understanding beside the Christmas tree evaporated.

She tensed.

The dismissal implicit in his words, in that careless shrug, needled her.

How dare Yevgeny judge her when he didn’t even know what made her tick? How dare he assume who she was...and what she wasn’t? But she bit back the fierce tide of anger and said instead with quiet force, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Beneath the question lay a vast sea of unspoken pain.

He looked startled at the challenge. “That your career is too important. That you have other priorities.” He shrugged again, in that way that was starting to seriously rile her. “It’s not unusual not to want to be a mother. I’ve known other women like you.”

He had?

And had he been as clueless about what made those women tick?

Carefully, through tight-pressed lips, Ella said, “I’m starting to think Nadiya had a very lucky escape.”

Yevgeny rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “Of course you do.”

Then he reached forward and picked the last profile off the coffee table in front of them. “Let’s see if this couple is any more suitable than the rest.”

Ella let out the breath trapped in her lungs. This time she was determined to open to the front page and fall in love with the family revealed within. This would be it. Then the search would be over, and Yevgeny would have to live with her decision.

But it didn’t happen.

The text accompanying the photo indicated that couple had no children. And they requested a closed adoption.

That request unexpectedly rattled Ella.

Badly.

For the first time she realized what it would mean to never see Holly again—or at least not until her baby was all grown up and legally an adult who could request information about the identity of her birth mother contained in the sealed adoption records. To not know what color her baby’s eyes turned out to be. To miss out on news about her first day at school. To never see photos of her first school dance.

Ella hadn’t contemplated how much comfort having an open adoption gave her. Until now.

She didn’t need to read any further. “No.”

In the silence that followed, the thud of the folder landing on the coffee table sounded overloud. Ella flinched.

“At this rate you aren’t going to find a family for Holly.” Yevgeny sounded faintly smug. “You might find I’ll be the only choice left.”

“Never!” she vowed. That was not an option.

He smirked. “Never is a very long time.”

“I’ll ask Jo for the next set of files.”

“And when all of those families fall short of your rigorous demands, what then?”

Was Yevgeny right? Was it possible that his manipulation had nothing to do with it, that she had set her standards too high? Ella looked away from him and studied the mountain of portfolios through blank eyes, then dismissed his theory.

No, she knew exactly what kind of parents she wanted for Holly.

They were out there.

Somewhere...

Drawing a steadying breath, she pushed her glasses up her nose and glanced across the couch at Yevgeny. “I’ll find a family—and you’re right, they will be perfect, absolutely perfect, for the baby.”

Instead of the usual cocksure arrogance, there was a glint of something close to sympathy in his eyes. Slowly he shook his head from side to side. “You’re not going to find what you’re looking for.”

“How can you say that?”

“Because I know you, Ella. Better than you know yourself.”

Ella rejected that instantly. The man was delusional—he didn’t know her. At all. So much for thinking she’d recognized sympathetic understanding in his eyes. All it had been was a different kind of arrogance.