The Cowgirl's Little Secret. Silver James

twisty, bendy parts of his psyche were plotting ways to use the fact they had a son together to his advantage. He wanted Jolie. He always had. Now he had leverage.

      “I need some space.” Cord stared at Chance.

      “That’s not a good idea.”

      “Get out, Chance. I want to talk to Jolie. Alone.”

      His brother wasn’t very happy, as evidenced by the tense set of his shoulders and grim expression, but Chance did as he asked and vacated the conference room. Once they were alone and he was positive Chance didn’t linger at the door to eavesdrop, Cord studied Jolie. She looked nervous. Defensive. And, oh, yeah, there was a healthy dose of guilt, too. That was good.

      “What do you want, Cord?”

      “I think it’s pretty obvious.”

      “Well, it’s not.”

      “I want to work things out. Between us. And I want something else, Jolie. Space.”

      * * *

      Jolie watched Cord closely, waiting for the rest of his demands, but air escaped from her lungs in a soft whoosh of relief regardless. She could handle space between them. “Okay. Yeah. I guess that’s a good thing.”

      When she’d first run into Cord at the restaurant, Jolie had never been so angry in her life. Despite moving back to Oklahoma City, despite harboring some romantic notion that Cord might have changed and that they might grab a second chance, she knew it to be the pipe dream of a naive girl. She no longer had stars in her eyes. She was a mother. And a darned good one. She’d brought CJ into this world all by herself and she’d taken care of him. All. By. Herself. She didn’t need Cord Barron. And she didn’t want him to have a place in CJ’s life.

      Then she felt fear. Seeing her son sitting there in Cord’s lap had panicked her. The Barrons were just as powerful as her father. Why had she been stupid enough to come home? It was inevitable that this would happen, and she’d been an idiot to believe otherwise.

      But now it looked as if Cord was willing to give her some breathing room.

      “I don’t think you understand.” Something hard glinted in Cord’s eyes, a flash as bright and inevitable as lightning in a summer thunderstorm. “I want time, Jolie. Time with CJ. And the space to get to know him on my terms.”

      Was it possible to sweat icicles? To be so hot and cold at the same time? Jolie stared at him, the word no already forming on her lips.

      “Do you really want to drag him through the court system?”

      She sputtered and had to breathe through the surge of anger. “You’d do that to him?”

      “To see my son? To spend time with him? To be acknowledged as his father? Damn straight I would. You’ve already cheated me out of so much, Jolie. You don’t want to deny me this.”

      She forced her fingers to loosen from the fists they’d formed without her knowledge as she considered Cord’s threat. The planes of his face looked as if they’d been carved from the alabaster stone that formed amid the red dirt of Western Oklahoma.

      “I want to get to know my son. To make up for the parts of his life you stole from me.”

      Her eyes burned with a hot flush of tears, but she blinked them away. Straightening her shoulders, she pasted on her best poker face. “No.”

      Cord did nothing except raise one eyebrow as if to say, “Really, Jolie? You truly want to do this?” He wore the mask well but he looked so pale, so...wounded. He’d almost died from his injuries, but now she knew without a doubt that she’d ripped out his heart. Just as he’d ripped out hers.