Chương 8 - THE DEMAND
“The hell you aren't!” Clara shouted, charging down the staircase holding her wooden rolling pin like a broadsword. She stepped directly between me and Ethan, pointing the wooden roller directly at his chest. “Out! Get out of my sister’s house, Blackwood, or I swear to God I will break this over your billionaire head!”
Ethan didn't look at Clara. He didn't even blink at the rolling pin two inches from his nose. His grey eyes remained fixed entirely on me, standing behind my sister in my thick wool robe.
“Mark!” Ethan called out toward the open front door without breaking eye contact with me.
Mark Harrison stepped out of the dark porch shadow, holding a heavy leather briefcase. He stood respectfully in the entry doorway, looking completely unfazed by the family drama unfolding in front of him.
“Sir?” Mark said smoothly.
“Call the regional office,” Ethan commanded, his voice dropping into a tone of absolute, terrifying authority. “I want my primary legal team, my private medical staff, and my corporate security detail deployed to Beacon by six o'clock tomorrow morning.”
“What?!” I gasped, pushing past Clara and taking a step toward him. “Are you insane, Ethan?! You can’t deploy an army to my house!”
“I am not deploying them to your house, Emma,” Ethan said calmly, his eyes burning with intense purpose. “I am purchasing the twenty-acre horse farm down the road to set up an operational headquarters.”
Clara lowered her rolling pin, her mouth opening in utter, speechless shock. “He... he’s buying a farm at one in the morning?”
“Ethan, stop this!” I yelled, grabbing the lapel of his open suit jacket and shaking him with all the strength I had. “Stop treating my life like a corporate takeover! You do not own me! You do not own this baby! We signed divorce papers! You have no legal authority here!”
Ethan reached down, taking my hand gently off his lapel. His long fingers wrapped around mine—his skin warm, firm, and shaking slightly with emotion.
He didn't pull away. He held my hand tightly against his chest, right over his beating heart.
“You’re right, Emma,” Ethan whispered softly, his voice dropping into a low, intimate register that made my knees weak. “I don't own you. I signed away my right to be your husband four days ago. That was the biggest, most catastrophic mistake of my thirty-five years on this earth.”
He took a deep breath, looking down into my eyes with an intensity that made the cold midnight air feel hot.
“But I am the father of that child,” Ethan said, his voice unbreakable. “And if you think I am going to sit in a glass tower in Manhattan while you live in the woods carrying my son or daughter, you don't know me at all.”
“What do you want, Ethan?” I whispered, my strength draining under his gaze.
“I want to be here,” Ethan said simply. “I want to drive you to every medical appointment. I want to see every ultrasound. I want to buy the vitamins, build the crib, and hold your hand when you go into labor.”
“And if I say no?” I challenged, pulling my hand away from his chest. “If I tell you to take your lawyers, your security teams, and your billions of dollars and go back to New York?”
Ethan looked at me for a long, quiet moment.
“Then I will sit in my car at the end of your gravel driveway twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week,” Ethan said, his voice entirely devoid of arrogance, containing only a quiet, terrifying devotion. “I will guard this house from two hundred yards away. I will not intrude on your privacy. I will not force my way into your kitchen. But I will not leave you alone.”
Clara stared at him, then turned her head toward me, whispering out of the corner of her mouth: “Okay, creepy... but also weirdly romantic?”
“Shut up, Clara,” I muttered, rubbing my forehead as a throbbing headache began behind my temples.
I looked at Ethan. He stood there in his open suit jacket, his dark hair messy, his grey eyes pleading with me with an absolute sincerity I had never seen in ten years of knowing him.
The Ice Captain was completely thawed. The billionaire had disappeared. Only the man remained.
“You’re insane,” I whispered softly.
“Probably,” Ethan admitted, offering a faint, breathtaking half-smile that made my stomach do a slow, dangerous flip. “Can I sit on the porch?”
I stared at him. “What?”
“It’s thirty-eight degrees outside, Emma,” Ethan said softly. “Can I sit on your front porch until morning? I won't come inside. I won't disturb you.”
I looked out the open door at the freezing mountain darkness, then looked at his suit jacket.
I let out a long, exhausted sigh, shaking my head in total disbelief.
“Clara,” I said, turning back toward the stairs. “Get him a wool blanket from the linen closet and a hot cup of tea. If he tries to come upstairs, hit him with the rolling pin.”
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“With pleasure,” Clara grinned, turning toward the kitchen.
I walked back up the stairs, leaving Ethan Blackwood sitting on a wooden bench on my front porch, wrapped in a red tartan blanket, staring out into the dark woods of Beacon.
