The Tycoon's Secret Child
Maureen Child
A Lone Star paternity bombshell… Texas toy mogul Wes Jackson is on the brink of a billion-dollar breakthrough—until a sinister anonymous tipster reveals Wes is a dad! Suddenly his family-friendly company is in crisis and Wes's sole focus is finding the daughter he never knew. But confronting the child's mother, Isabelle Graystone, means resisting a chemistry that is as fierce as ever.Wes's failure to commit sent Belle running five years ago. Now he's back, making himself indispensable and stoking Belle's deepest passions. But is his interest in her part of a bigger ploy?
A Lone Star paternity bombshell, only from USA TODAY bestselling author Maureen Child!
Texas toy mogul Wes Jackson is on the brink of a billion-dollar breakthrough—until a sinister anonymous tipster reveals Wes is a dad! Suddenly his family-friendly company is in crisis and Wes’s sole focus is finding the daughter he never knew. But confronting the child’s mother, Isabelle Graystone, means resisting a chemistry that is as fierce as ever.
Wes’s failure to commit sent Belle running five years ago. Now he’s back, making himself indispensable and stoking Belle’s deepest passions. But is his interest in her part of a bigger ploy?
“We have to talk.”
“No, we really don’t.” Isabelle wasn’t going to give an inch. She wasn’t even sure why Wes was there, and if he didn’t know the whole truth, then she wasn’t going to give him any information. The only important thing was getting rid of him before he could see Caroline.
“That’s not gonna fly,” he said and moved in, putting both hands on her shoulders to ease her out of the way.
The move caught her so off guard, Isabelle didn’t even try to hold her ground. He was already walking into the house before she could stop him. And even as she opened her mouth to protest, his arm brushed against her and she shivered. It wasn’t fear stirring inside her, not even trepidation. It was desire.
The same flush of need that had happened to her years ago whenever Wes was near. Almost from the first minute she’d met him, that jolt of something more had erupted between them. She’d never felt anything like it before Wes—or since.
“I think I deserve an explanation,” he said tightly.
“You deserve?” she repeated, in little more than a hiss. She shot a quick look down the hall toward the kitchen where Caroline was.
“You should have told me about our daughter.”
* * *
The Tycoon’s Secret Child is part of the series Texas Cattleman’s Club: Blackmail—No secret—or heart— is safe in Royal, Texas...
The Tycoon’s Secret Child
Maureen Child
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
MAUREEN CHILD writes for the Mills & Boon Desire line and can’t imagine a better job. A seven-time finalist for a prestigious Romance Writers of America RITA® Award, Maureen is an author of more than one hundred romance novels. Her books regularly appear on bestseller lists and have won several awards, including a Prism Award, a National Readers’ Choice Award, a Colorado Romance Writers Award of Excellence and a Golden Quill Award. She is a native Californian but has recently moved to the mountains of Utah.
To the world’s greatest editors, Stacy Boyd and Charles Griemsman—in the world of writers and editors, you two shine. Writing isn’t always easy but you guys bring out the best in all of us.
Contents
Cover (#u1eb38e9b-85a4-5cf3-a9d5-e57b58f69c44)
Back Cover Text (#u6df2fffd-5175-55e1-8106-7ac3a6aa55ff)
Introduction (#u20ae36f3-3c82-5b0f-9116-7b628e98e967)
Title Page (#ucee15b05-0d67-5876-be86-b06482cd4a6e)
About the Author (#ue55b8456-db9e-5950-b99c-2617282c7bf1)
Dedication (#u3083cce3-f7b7-5d48-ad29-d68418be1451)
One (#u113571cd-9c70-5c9c-ac81-6e4d56458021)
Two (#u09b26ca2-f9ea-5c40-8b27-5b49dc745272)
Three (#u5fe3db3e-7eda-525c-b58e-f9135ca532bb)
Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
One (#u4992dfbf-618a-522f-8d14-9645f99d2879)
Wesley Jackson sat in his corporate office in Houston, riding herd on the department heads attending the meeting he’d called. It had been a long two hours, and he was about done. Thankfully, things were winding down now and he could get out of the city. He didn’t mind coming into town once in a while, but he always seemed to breathe deeper and easier back home in Royal.
Didn’t appear to matter how successful he became, he’d always be a small-town guy at the heart of it. Just as, he thought with an inner smile as he set one booted foot on his knee, you couldn’t take Texas out of the businessman.
“Am I keeping you from something important?” Wes asked suddenly when he noticed Mike Stein, the youngest man on his PR team, staring out a window from the other side of his wide mahogany desk.
Mike flinched. He was energetic, usually eager, but a little distracted today. Not hard to understand, Wes thought, considering it was January 2 and everyone in the office was probably nursing the dregs of a hangover from various New Year’s parties. And Wes could cut the kid a small break, but that was done now.
“What?” Mike blurted. “No, absolutely not. Sorry.”
Tony Danvers snorted, then hid the sound behind a cough.
Wes’s gaze slid to him, then to the woman sitting on the other side of him. Mike was new, but talented and driven. Tony knew his way around the company blindfolded, and Donna Higgs had her finger on the pulse of every department in the building. The three of them exemplified exactly what he expected from his employees. Dedication. Determination. Results.
Since everything else he’d wanted discussed had been covered in the last two hours, Wes finally brought up the most important item on his agenda.
“The Just Like Me line,” he said, flicking a glance at Tony Danvers. “Any problems? We on track for spring delivery to outlets?”
This new doll was destined to be the biggest thing in the country. At least, he told himself, that was the plan. There were dolls that could be specially ordered to look like a child, of course. But Wes’s company had the jump on even them. With the accessories available and the quick turnaround, the Just Like Me doll was going to smash all sales record previously set for...anything. He smiled to himself just thinking about it. A line of dolls that looked like their owners. Parents could find a doll that resembled their child, either online or at retail locations. Or they could special order one with accessories to make it even more like the child in question.
Wes once considered bringing the doll out early, to catch the Christmas shopping frenzy. But he’d decided against it, banking on the fact that by February children would already be tired of their Christmas toys and looking for something new.
He was counting on making such an impact that by next Christmas, the dolls would be on every kid’s wish list. And every child who had already received one would be looking for another. Maybe one in the image of a best friend or a sibling.
The possibilities were endless.
Tony sat back in his brown leather chair, hooked one ankle on a knee. “We’re right on schedule, boss. We’ve got dozens of different designs of dolls. Every ethnicity, every hair type I’ve ever heard of, and a few that were news to me.”
“You’re so male,” Donna Higgs, the marketing director, muttered with a shake of her head.
Tony winked at her. “Thanks for noticing.”
Wes grinned but not at the two friends’ byplay. His company, Texas Toy Goods Inc., was going to be the most talked-about toy company in the country once these dolls hit. Marketing, under Donna’s steady hand, was already set for a huge campaign, he had the PR department set to flood social media, and a test group of kids had already proclaimed the doll a winner. After ten years of steady growth, Wes’s company was poised for a jump that would change Wes from a multimillionaire to a billionaire practically overnight.
He’d started his company on not much more than a shoestring. He had had ideas, a partner he’d managed to buy out several years ago and a small inheritance from his father. With that, and his own driving ambition, Wes built a reputation for coming up with new ways of doing things in a centuries-old industry. He was known for his innovation and creativity. Thanks to him, and the best employees in the business, they’d built on their early successes until TTG was a presence in the toy industry. And the Just Like Me doll was going to give them that one last push over the top.
Each doll was unique in its own way and was going to appeal to every child on the planet. He had visions of European distribution as well, and knew that soon Texas Toy Goods was going to be an unstoppable force in the industry. And that wasn’t even counting the upcoming merger he was working on with Teddy Bradford, the current CEO of PlayCo, or his other ventures under the Texas brand umbrella.
“So,” Wes said, bringing them back on topic, “if the parent doesn’t find exactly what they’re looking for, we’re set up for them to order specifics.”
“Absolutely.” Tony straightened up then leaned forward, bracing his forearms on his knees. “There’ll be a kiosk in every toy department. The computer will link them to us and they can put in an order for any specific detail they need. Say, if the child has a prosthetic, we can match it. If the child has a specific disability, we’re prepared for everything. From wheelchairs to braces, we can give every child out there the feeling of being special. Having a doll in their own image. Naturally, specific orders would take a little longer...”
Wes frowned. “How much longer?”
“Negligible,” Donna put in. She checked something on her iPad and looked up at him. “I know Tony’s production, but in marketing, we’ve been working with turnaround time so we can advertise it. With the wide array of dolls already available, we can put out a special order in a couple of days.”
“That works.” Nodding now, Wes leaned back in his own chair. “Make sure the factory floor is up to speed on this, and I want a centralized area devoted only to this project.”
“Uh, boss?” Mike Stein held up one hand as if he were in class. But then, he was young and enthusiastic and would eventually get used to the more wide-open discussions Wes preferred during meetings.
“What is it?”
Mike glanced at the others before looking back at Wes. “We’ve got the ads lined up and the social media blast is ready to roll on the day.”
“Good.”
“But,” Mike added, “I know it’s not my department—”
“Doesn’t matter,” Wes told him. He liked his people being interested in all departments, not just their specialties.
“Okay. I was thinking, having a dedicated area at the factory could be problematic.”
Tony actually leaned a little toward the left, putting some distance between himself and the new guy. At least the others knew better than to tell Wes something couldn’t be done.
“Why’s that?” Wes asked calmly.
“Well, it means pulling people off the line and setting them up to handle only these special orders.”
“And?”
“Well,” Mike continued, clearly unwilling to back off the track he found himself on. Wes could give him points for having guts. “That means we have people who are standing there waiting for something to do instead of working on the line and getting actual work done.”
“What changes would you suggest?” Wes asked coolly.
Tony cleared his throat and gave a barely there shake of his head, trying to tell the kid in code to just shut up and let this one go. But Mike had the bit in his teeth now and wouldn’t drop it.
“I would leave them working on the line and pull them out when a special order came in and then—”
“I appreciate your idea,” Wes said, tapping his fingers against the gray leather blotter on his desk. “I want my people to feel free to speak up. But you’re new here, Mike, and you need to learn that at TTG, we do things a little differently. Here, the customer is always number one. We design toys and the delivery system to facilitate the people who buy our toys. So if that means we have a separate crew waiting for the special orders to come in, then that’s what we do. We’re the best. That’s what breeds success.”
“Right.” Mike nodded, swallowed hard and nodded again. “Absolutely. Sorry.”
“No problem.” Wes waved the apology away. He’d either learn from this and pick up on the way things were done at TTG, or the kid would leave and find a job somewhere else.
But damn, when did he start thinking of guys in their twenties as kids? When did Wes get ancient? He squashed that thought immediately. Hell, at thirty-four, he wasn’t old. He was just busy. Running his company ate up every moment of every damn day. He was so busy, his social life was a joke. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d been with a woman. But that would come. Eventually. Right now, TTG demanded and deserved his full concentration.
Of course, his brain whispered, it hadn’t always been that way. There’d been one woman—
Wes cut all thoughts of her off at the pass. That was done. Over. He hadn’t been interested in long-term and she’d all but had marriage and children tattooed across her forehead. He’d had to end it and he wasn’t sorry. Most of the time.
Having a relationship with one of his employees hadn’t been a particularly smart move on his part. And sure, there’d been gossip and even resentment from some of his staff. But Wes hadn’t been able to resist Belle. What the two of them had shared was like nothing he’d ever known. For a time, Wes had been willing to put up with whispers at work for the pleasure of being with Belle.
But it was over. The past.
“We’ve got the accessories covered, I think,” Donna said. “When the special orders come in, we’ll be able to turn them around in a flash.”
“Good to hear. And if you don’t have it?” Wes asked.
“We’ll get it.” Donna nodded sharply. “No problem on this, boss. It’s going to work as smoothly as you expect it to. And it’s going to be the biggest doll to hit the market since the vegetable patch babies back in the ’80s.”
“That’s what I want to hear.” Wes stood up, shoved both hands into his pockets and said, “That’s all for now. Keep me in the loop.”
Tony laughed. “Boss, everybody runs everything by you.”
One corner of Wes’s mouth quirked. “Yeah. Just the way I like it. Okay, back to work.”
He watched them go, then told his assistant, Robin, to get him some fresh coffee. He’d need it once he started going through business emails. Inevitably, there were problems to walk through with suppliers, manufacturers, bankers and everyone else who either had a piece—or wanted one—of the Texas Toy Goods pie. But instead of taking a seat behind his desk, he walked across the wide office to the corner windows. The view of Houston was familiar, impressive. High-rises, glass walls reflecting sunlight that could blind a man. Thick white clouds sailing across a sky so blue it hurt the eyes.
He liked the city fine, but it wasn’t somewhere he wanted to spend too much time. At least twice a week, he made the drive in from Royal, Texas, and his home office, to oversee accounts personally and on-site. He believed in having his employees used to seeing him there. People tended to get complacent when there was an absentee boss in the picture. But if he had a choice, he’d pick Royal over Houston.
His hometown had less traffic, less noise and the best burgers in Texas at the Royal Diner. Not to mention the fact that the memories in Royal were easier to live with than the ones centered here, in his office. Just being here, he remembered late-night work sessions with the woman he refused to think about. All-night sessions that had become a blistering-hot affair that had crashed and burned the minute she whispered those three deadly words—I love you. Even after all this time, that moment infuriated him. And despite—maybe because of—how it ended, that one woman stayed in his mind, always at the edges of his thoughts.
“What is it with women?” he asked the empty room. “Everything was going fine and then she just had to ruin it.”
Of course, a boss/employee relationship wasn’t going to work for the long haul anyway, and he’d known that going in. And even with the way things had ended, he couldn’t completely regret any of it. What bothered him was that even now, five years later, thoughts of Belle kept cropping up as if his mind just couldn’t let go.
A brisk knock on the door had him shaking his head and pushing thoughts of her to the back of his mind, where, hopefully, they would stay. “Come in.”
Robin entered, carrying a tray with a single cup, a thermal carafe of coffee and a plate of cookies. He smiled. “What would I do without you?”
“Starve to death, probably,” she said. Robin was in her forties, happily married and the proud mother of four. She loved her job, was damn good at it and kept him apprised of everything going on down here when he was in Royal. If she ever threatened to quit, Wes was prepared to offer her whatever she needed to stay.
“You scared the kid today.”
Snorting a laugh as he remembered the look of sheer panic on Mike’s face, Wes sat down at his desk and poured the first of what would be several cups of coffee. “He’ll survive.”
“Yeah, he will. A little fear’s good. Builds character.”
One eyebrow lifted as Wes laughed. “Your kids must be terrified of you.”
“Me?” she asked. “Nope. I raise them tougher than that.”
Wes chuckled.
“Harry called. He’s headed into that meeting in New York. Said he’d call when he had it wrapped up.”
Harry Baker, his vice president, was currently doing all the traveling around the country, arranging for the expedited shipping the new doll line would require. “That’s good. Thanks.”
After she left, Wes sipped at his coffee, took a cookie, had a bite, then scrolled to his email account. Idly, he scanned the forty latest messages, deleting the crap. He scanned the subject lines ruthlessly, until he spotted Your secret is out.
“What the hell?” Even while a part of his mind was thinking virus or an ad for timeshares in Belize, he clicked on the message and read it. Everything in him went cold and still. The cookie turned to ash in his mouth and he drank the coffee only to wash it down.
Look where your dallying has gotten you, the email read.
Check your Twitter account. Your new handle is Deadbeatdad. So you want to be the face of a new toy empire? Family friendly? Think again.
It was signed, Maverick.
“Who the hell is Maverick and what the hell is he talking about?” There was an attachment with the email, and even though Wes had a bad feeling about all of this, he opened it. The photograph popped onto his computer screen.
He shot to his feet, the legs of his chair scraping against the polished wooden floor like a screech. Staring down at the screen, his gaze locked on the image of the little girl staring back at him. “What the—”
She looked just like him. The child had Wes’s eyes and a familiar smile and if that wasn’t enough to convince him, which it was, he focused on the necklace the girl was wearing. Before he and Belle broke up, Wes had given her a red plastic heart on a chain of plastic beads. At the time, he’d used it as a joke gift right before giving her a pair of diamond earrings.
And the little girl in the photo was wearing that red heart necklace while she smiled into the camera.
Panic and fury tangled up inside him and tightened into a knot that made him feel like he was choking. He couldn’t tear his gaze from the photo of the smiling little girl. “How does a man have a daughter and not know it?”
A daughter? How? What? Why? Who? He had a child. Judging by the picture, she looked to be four or five years old, so unless it was an old photo, there was only one woman who could be the girl’s mother. And just like that, the woman was back, front and center in his mind.
How the hell had this happened? Stupid. He knew how it had happened. What he didn’t know was why he hadn’t been told. Wes rubbed one hand along the back of his neck and didn’t even touch the tension building there. Still staring at the smiling girl on the screen, he felt the email batter away at his brain until he was forced to sit, open a new window and go to Twitter.
Somebody had hacked his account. His new handle was, as promised, Deadbeatdad. If he didn’t get this stopped fast, it would go viral and might start interfering with his business.
Instantly, Wes made some calls, reporting that his account had been hacked, then turned the mess over to his IT guys to figure out. He reported the hack and had the account shuttered, hoping to buy time. Meanwhile, he was too late to stop #Deadbeatdad from spreading. The Twitterverse was already moving on it. Now he had a child he had to find and a reputation he had to repair. Snatching up the phone, he stabbed the button for his assistant’s desk. “Robin,” he snapped. “Get Mike from PR back in here now.”
He didn’t even wait to hear her response, just slammed the phone down and went back to his computer. He brought up the image of the little girl—his daughter—again and stared at her. What was her name? Where did she live? Then thoughts of the woman who had to be the girl’s mother settled into his brain. Isabelle Gray. She’d disappeared from his life years ago—apparently with his child. Jaw tight, eyes narrowed, Wes promised himself he was going to get to the bottom of all of this and when he did...
* * *
For the next hour, everyone in PR and IT worked the situation. There was no stopping the flood of retweets, so Wes had Mike and his crew focused on finding a way to spin it. IT was tasked with tracking down this mysterious Maverick so that Wes could deal with him head-on.
Meanwhile, Wes had another problem to worry about. The merger with PlayCo, a major player in the toy industry, was something Wes had been carefully maneuvering his way toward for months. But the CEO there, Teddy Bradford, was a good old boy with rock-solid claims to family values. He’d been married to the same woman forever, had several kids and prided himself on being the flag bearer for the all-American, apple pie lifestyle.
This was going to throw a wrench of gigantic proportions into the mix. And so far, Teddy wasn’t taking any of Wes’s calls. Not a good sign.
“Uh, boss?”
“Yeah?” Wes spun around to look at one of the PR grunts. What the hell was her name? Stacy? Tracy? “What is it?”
“Teddy Bradford is holding a press conference. The news channel’s website is running it live.”
He stalked to her desk and only vaguely noticed that the others in the room had formed a half circle behind him. They were all watching as Bradford stepped up to a microphone and held his hands out in a settle-down gesture. As soon as he had quiet, he said, “After the disturbing revelations on social media this afternoon, I’m here to announce that I will be taking a step back to reevaluate my options before going through with the much anticipated merger.”
Wes ground his teeth together and fisted his hands at his sides. Teddy could play it any way he wanted to for the press, but it was easy to see the merger was, at the moment, dead. All around him, his employees took a collective breath that sounded like a gasp.
But Teddy wasn’t finished. The older man looked somber, sad, but Wes was pretty sure he caught a gleam of satisfaction in the other man’s eyes. Hell, he was probably enjoying this. Nothing the man liked better than sitting high on his righteous horse. Teddy hadn’t even bothered to take his call, preferring instead to call a damn press conference. Bastard.
“Here at PlayCo,” Teddy was saying, “we put a high priority on family values. In fact, you could say that’s the dominant trademark of my company and it always will be. A man’s family is all important—or should be. After this morning’s revelations, I have to say that clearly, Wes Jackson is not the man I’d believed him to be, and so I have some thinking to do in the next few days. As things stand now, it would take a miracle to persuade me to believe otherwise.” Questions were fired at him, cameras chattered as shutters clicked over and over again. But Teddy was done.
“That’s it. That’s all I’ve got to say.” He looked out over the crowd. “You have more questions, I suggest you throw them at Wes Jackson. Good day.” He left the podium in the midst of a media circus and Wes rubbed his eyes, trying to ease the headache crouched behind them.
Stacy/Tracy turned the sound off on the computer, and silence dropped over everyone in the room like a damn shroud. Inside Wes, irritation bubbled into anger and then morphed quickly into helpless rage. There was nowhere to turn it. Nowhere to focus it and get any kind of satisfaction.
As of now, the merger was in the toilet. And yeah, he was concentrating on the business aspect of this nightmare because he didn’t have enough information to concentrate on the personal. Furious, Wes watched his PR team scramble to somehow mitigate the growing disaster. His assistant was already fielding calls from the media and this story seemed to be growing by the minute. Nothing people liked better than a scandal, and whoever this Maverick was, they obviously knew it.
For the first time ever, Wes felt helpless, and he didn’t like it. Not only was his company taking a hit, but somewhere out there, he had a child he’d known nothing about. How the hell had this Maverick discovered the girl? Was Isabelle in on all of this? Or was someone close to her hoping for a giant payout along with payback? Whatever the reason, this attack was deliberate. Someone had arranged a deliberate assault on him and his company. That someone was out to ruin him, and his brain worked feverishly trying to figure out just who was behind it all.
Running a successful business meant that you would naturally make enemies. But until today he wouldn’t have thought that any of them would stoop to something like this. So he went deeper, beyond business and into the personal, looking for anyone who might have set him up for a fall like this. And only one name rose up in his mind. His ex-girlfriend, Cecelia Morgan.
She and Belle had been friendly for a while back in the day. Maybe Cecelia had known about the baby. Maybe she was the one who had started all this. Hell, she might even be Maverick herself. Cecelia hadn’t taken it well when he broke up with her, and God knew she had a vicious temper. But if she was behind it all, why? Her company, To the Moon, sold upscale merchandise for kids. They weren’t in direct competition, but she was as devoted to her business as Wes was to his, and maybe that was the main reason the two of them hadn’t worked out. Or, he told himself, maybe it was the mean streak he’d witnessed whenever Cecelia was with her two best friends, Simone Parker and Naomi Price. He knew for a fact that people in Royal called the three women the Mean Girls. They were rich, beautiful, entitled and sometimes not real careful about the things they said to and about people.
He didn’t know if she’d had anything to do with what was happening, but there was one sure way to find out. Leaving his employees scrambling, Wes drove home to Royal to confront his ex and, just maybe, get some answers. The drive did nothing to calm him down, since his brain kept focusing on the photo of that little girl. His daughter, for God’s sake.
He needed answers. The only one who could give them to him was Belle, so finding her was priority one. His IT staff was now focused on not only mitigating his business disaster, but also in finding Isabelle Gray. But until he did locate Belle, Wes told himself, at least he could do something. Knowing Cecelia could always be found at the Texas Cattleman’s Club for lunch, he headed there the moment he hit town.
Cecelia was in the middle of what looked like a lunch meeting with a few of her employees. And though breaking it up would only encourage gossip, Wes wasn’t interested in waiting for her to finish. The TCC was a legend in Royal, Texas. A members-only club, it had been around forever and only in the last several years had started accepting women as members—quite a few of the old guard still weren’t happy about it. The dining room was elegant, understated and quiet but for the hush of conversation and the subtle clink of silverware against china.
On the drive from Houston, Wes’s mind had raced with the implications of everything that had happened. A child he didn’t know about. A merger in the toilet. His reputation shattered. And at the bottom of it all, maybe a vengeful ex. By the time he stood outside that dining room, he was ready for a battle.
“Mr. Jackson.” The maître d’ stepped up. “May I show you to a table? Are you alone for lunch or expecting guests?”
“Neither, thanks,” Wes said, ignoring the man after a brief, polite nod. Wes speared Cecelia with a cold, hard gaze that caught her attention even from across the room. “I just need a word with Ms. Morgan.”
Once she met his cool stare, she frowned slightly, then excused herself from the table and walked toward him. She was a gorgeous woman, and in a purely male response, Wes had to admire her even as his anger bubbled and churned inside. Her long, wavy blond hair lay across her shoulders and her gray-green eyes fixed on him, curiosity shining there. She wasn’t very tall, but her generous figure and signature pout had brought more than one man in Texas to his knees.
She gave him a smile, then leaned in as if to kiss his cheek, but Wes pulled back out of reach. He caught the surprise and the insult in her eyes, but he only said, “We need to talk.”
There were already enough people talking about his business today, so he took her forearm in a tight grip and led her away from the dining room to a quiet corner, hoping for at least a semblance of privacy. Cecelia pulled free as soon as he stopped and hissed, “What is going on with you?”
“You know damn well what,” he said in a gravelly whisper. “That email you sent.”
Those big, beautiful eyes clouded with confusion. “I have zero idea what you’re talking about.”
He studied her for a long minute, deciding whether she was lying or not. God knew he couldn’t be sure, but he was going with instinct here. She didn’t look satisfied with a mission accomplished. She looked irritated and baffled.
“Fine,” he said grimly and dug his cell phone out of a pocket. Pulling up his email, he handed the phone to her and waited while she read it.
“Maverick? Who the heck is Maverick?”
Her expression read confusion and a part of him eased back a little. But if she wasn’t Maverick, who was?
“Good question. I got an email this morning from a stranger. They sent me a picture of a daughter I never knew existed.” He opened the attachment and showed her the picture of the smiling little girl. That’s when he saw the flash of recognition in her eyes and he realized that Cecelia knew more than she was saying. Her face was too easy to read. His daughter’s existence hadn’t surprised her a bit.
“You knew about the girl.” It wasn’t a question. His chest felt tight.
Taking a deep breath, Cecelia blew out a breath and said, “I knew she was pregnant when she left. I didn’t know she’d had a girl.”
“She?”
Cecelia huffed out a breath. “Isabelle.”
He swayed in place. He’d known it. Seeing that necklace on a little girl with his eyes had been impossible to deny. Isabelle. The woman he’d been involved with for almost a year had been pregnant with his daughter and hadn’t bothered to tell him. More than that, though, was the fact that apparently Cecelia had known about his child, too, and kept the secret. Belle had left town. Cecelia had been right here in Royal. Seeing him all the damn time. And never once had she let on that he had a child out there. He couldn’t rage at Belle. Yet. So it was the woman in front of him who got the full blast of what he was feeling. Every time she’d seen him for the last five years, she’d lied to him by not saying anything. She’d known he was a father and never said a damn word. What the hell? And who was Maverick and how did he know?
“You knew and didn’t say anything?” His voice was low and tight.
She tossed a glance over her shoulder toward the table where she’d left her friends, then looked back at him. “No, I didn’t. What would have been the point?”
He glared at her. “The point? My kid would be the point. And the fact that I didn’t even know she existed.”
“Please, Wes. How many times have you said you don’t want kids or a family or anything remotely resembling commitment?”
“Not important.”
“Yeah, it is.” She was getting defensive—he heard it in her voice. “She was pretty sure you wouldn’t be happy about the baby and I agreed. I just told her what you’d said so many times—that you weren’t interested in families or forever.”
Having his own words thrown back at him stung, but worse was the fact that two women he’d been with had conspired to keep his child from him. No, he’d never planned on kids or a wife, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t want to know.
“Then what?” he asked, his voice sounding as if it was scraping along shattered glass. “You wait a few years, find this Maverick and tell him? Help him slam me across social media? For what? Payback?”
Her head snapped back and her eyes went even wider. “I would never do that to you, Wes,” she said, and damned if he didn’t almost believe her. “I wouldn’t hurt you like that.”
“Yeah?” he countered. “Your rep says otherwise.”
She flushed and took a deep breath. “Believe what you want, but it wasn’t me.”
“Fine. Then where is Isabelle?”
“I don’t know. She only said she was going home. A small town in Colorado. Swan...something. I forget. Honestly, we haven’t stayed in touch.” Tentatively, she reached out one hand and laid it on his forearm. “But I’ll help you look for her.”
“You helped enough five years ago,” Wes ground out, and saw her reaction to the harsh tone flash in her eyes.
Too bad. He didn’t have time to worry about insulting a woman who very well might be at the heart of this Maverick business. Sure, she claimed innocence, but he’d be a fool to take her word for it. When he rushed out, he barely noticed the waiter hovering nearby.
Wes’s entire IT department was working on this problem, but he should be researching himself. His own tech skills were more than decent. He could have found Isabelle years ago, if he’d been looking. Yeah, he’d have to sift through a lot of information on the web, but he’d find her.
And when he did, heaven better help her, because hell would be dropping onto her doorstep.
* * *
Isabelle Graystone sat at the kitchen table working with a pad and pen while her daughter enjoyed her post-preschool snack.
“Mommy,” Caroline said, her fingers dancing as she spoke, “can I have more cookies?”
Isabelle looked at the tiny love of her life and smiled. At four years old, Caroline was beautiful, bright, curious and quite the con artist when it came to getting more cookies. That sly smile and shy glance did it every time.
Isabelle’s hands moved in sign language as she said, “Two more and that’s it.”
Caroline grinned and helped herself. Her heels tapped against the rungs of the kitchen chair as she cupped both hands around her glass of milk to take a sip.
Watching her, Isabelle smiled thoughtfully. It wasn’t easy for a child to be different, but Caroline had such a strong personality that wearing hearing aids didn’t bother her in the least. And learning to sign had opened up her conversational skills. Progressive hearing loss would march on, though, Isabelle knew, and one day her daughter would be completely deaf.
So Isabelle was determined to do everything she could to make her little girl’s life as normal as possible. Which might also include a cochlear implant at some point. She wasn’t there yet, but she was considering all of her options. There was simply nothing she wouldn’t do for Caroline.
“After lunch,” Isabelle said, “I have to go into town. See some people about the fund-raiser party I’m planning. Do you want to come with me, or stay here with Edna?”
Chewing enthusiastically, Caroline didn’t speak, just used sign language to say, “I’ll come with you. Can we have ice cream, too?”
Laughing, Isabelle shook her head. “Where are you putting all of this food?”
A shrug and a grin were her only answers. Then the doorbell rang and Isabelle said, “Someone’s at the door. You finish your cookies.”
She walked through the house, hearing the soft click of her own heels against the polished wood floors. There were landscapes hanging on the walls, and watery winter sunlight filtering through the skylight positioned over the hallway. It was an elegant but homey place, in spite of its size. The restored Victorian stood on three acres outside the small town of Swan Hollow, Colorado.
Isabelle had been born and raised there, and when she’d found herself alone and pregnant, she’d come running back to the place that held her heart. She hadn’t regretted it, either. It was good to be in a familiar place, nice knowing that her daughter would have the same memories of growing up in the forest that she did, and then there was the added plus of having her three older brothers nearby. Chance, Eli and Tyler were terrific uncles to Caroline and always there for Isabelle when she needed them—and sometimes when she didn’t. The three of them were still as protective as they’d been when she was just a girl—and though it could get annoying on occasion, she was grateful for them, too.
Shaking her long, blond hair back from her face, she opened the door with a welcoming smile on her face—only to have it freeze up and die. A ball of ice dropped into the pit of her stomach even as her heartbeat jumped into overdrive.
Wes Jackson. The one man she’d never thought to see again. The one man she still dreamed of almost every night. The one man she could never forget.
“Hello, Belle,” he said, his eyes as cold and distant as the moon. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”
Two (#u4992dfbf-618a-522f-8d14-9645f99d2879)
Isabelle felt her heart lurch to a stop then kick to life again in a hard thump. Invite him in? What she wanted to do was step back inside, slam the door and lock it. Too bad she couldn’t seem to move. She did manage to choke out a single word. “Wes?”
“So you do remember me. Good to know.” He moved in closer and Isabelle instinctively took a step back, pulling the half-open door closer, like a shield.
Panic nibbled at her, and Isabelle knew that in a couple more seconds it would start taking huge, gobbling bites. As unexpected as it was to find Wes Jackson standing on her front porch, there was a part of her that wasn’t the least bit surprised to see him. Somehow, she’d half expected that one day, her past would catch up to her.
It had been five long years since she’d seen him, yet looking at him now, it could have been yesterday. Even in this situation, with his eyes flashing fury, she felt that bone-deep stir of something hot and needy and oh, so tempting. What was wrong with her? Hadn’t she learned her lesson?
Isabelle had loved working for Texas Toys. They were open to new ideas and Wes had been the kind of boss everyone should have. He encouraged his employees to try new and different things and rewarded hard work. He was always hands-on when it came to introducing fresh products to his established line. So he and Isabelle had worked closely together as she came up with new toys, new designs. When she’d given in to temptation, surrendered to the heat simmering between them, Isabelle had known that it wouldn’t end well. Boss/employee flings were practically a cliché after all. But the more time she spent with him, the more she’d felt for him until she’d made the mistake of falling in love with him.
That’s when everything had ended. When he’d told her that he wasn’t interested in more than an affair. He’d broken her heart, and when she left Texas, she’d vowed to never go back.
It seemed though, she hadn’t had to. Texas had come to her.
“We have to talk.” His voice was clipped, cold.
“No, we really don’t.” Isabelle wasn’t going to give an inch. She wasn’t even sure why he was here, and if he didn’t know the whole truth, she wasn’t going to give him any information. The only important thing was getting rid of him before he could see Caroline.
“That’s not gonna fly,” he said and moved in, putting both hands on her shoulders to ease her back and out of the way.
The move caught her so off guard, Isabelle didn’t even try to hold her ground. He was already walking into the house before she could stop him. And even as she opened her mouth to protest, his arm brushed against her breast and she shivered. It wasn’t fear stirring inside her, not even panic. It was desire.
The same flush of need had happened to her years ago whenever Wes was near. Almost from the first minute she’d met him, that jolt of something more had erupted between them. She’d never felt anything like it before Wes—or since. Of course, since she came back home to Swan Hollow, she hadn’t exactly been drowning in men.
After Wes, she’d made the decision to step back from relationships entirely. Instead, she had focused on building a new life for her and her daughter. And especially during the last year or so, that focus had shut out everything else. Isabelle had her brothers, her daughter, and she didn’t need anything else. Least of all the man who’d stolen her heart only to crush it underfoot.
With those thoughts racing through her mind, she closed the door and turned to face her past.
“I think I deserve an explanation,” he said tightly.
“You deserve?” she repeated, in little more than a hiss. She shot a quick look down the hall toward the kitchen where Caroline was. “Really? That’s what you want to lead with?”
“You should have told me about our daughter.”
Shock slapped at her. But at the same time, a tiny voice in the back of Isabelle’s mind whispered, Of course he knows. Why else would he be here? But how had he found out?
One dark eyebrow lifted. “Surprised? Yeah, I can see that. Since you’ve spent five years hiding the truth from me.”
Hard to argue with that, since he was absolutely right. But on the other hand... “Wes—”
He held up one hand and she instantly fell into silence even though she was infuriated at herself for reacting as he expected her to.
“Spare me your excuses. There is no excuse for this. Damn it, Isabelle, I had a right to know.”
Okay, that was enough to jolt her out of whatever fugue state he’d thrown her into. Keeping her voice low, she argued, “A right? I should have told you about my daughter when you made it perfectly clear you had no interest in being a father?”
Wanting to get him out of the hall where Caroline might see him, she walked past him into the living room. It was washed with pale sunlight, even on this gloomy winter day. The walls were a pale green and dotted with paintings of forests and sunsets and oceans. There were books lining the waist-high bookcases that ran the perimeter of the room and several comfortable oversize chairs and couches.
Oak tables were scattered throughout and a blue marble-tiled hearth was filled with a simmering fire. This room—heck, this house—was her haven. She’d made a home here for her and Caroline. It was warm and cozy in spite of its enormous size, and she loved everything about it. So why was it, she wondered, that with Wes Jackson standing in the cavernous room, she suddenly felt claustrophobic?
He came up right behind her and she felt as if she couldn’t draw a breath. She wanted him out. Now. Before Caroline could come in and start asking questions Isabelle didn’t want to answer. She whipped around to face him, to finish this, to allow him to satisfy whatever egotistical motive had brought him here so he could leave.
His aqua eyes were still so deep. So mesmerizing. Even with banked anger glittering there, she felt drawn to him. And that was just...sad. His collar-length blond hair was ruffled, as if he’d been impatiently driving his fingers through it. His jaw was set and his mouth a firm, grim line. This was the face he regularly showed the world. The cool, hard businessman with an extremely low threshold for lies.
But she’d known the real man. At least, she’d told herself at the time that the man she talked, laughed and slept with was the real Wes Jackson. When they were alone, his guard was relaxed, though even then, she’d had to admit that he’d held a part of himself back. Behind a wall of caution she hadn’t been able to completely breach. She’d known even then that Wes would continue to keep her at a safe distance and though it had broken her heart to acknowledge it, for her own sake, and the sake of her unborn child, she’d had to walk away.
“That was a hypothetical child,” he ground out, and every word sounded harsh, as if it was scraping against his throat. “I never said I wouldn’t want a child who was already here.”
A tiny flicker of guilt jumped into life in the center of her chest, but Isabelle instantly smothered it. Five years ago, Wes had made it clear he wasn’t interested in a family. He’d told her in no uncertain terms that he didn’t want a wife. Children. Love. She’d left. Come home. Had her baby alone, with her three older brothers there to support her. Now Caroline was happy, loved, settled. How was Isabelle supposed to feel guilty about doing the best thing for her child?
So she stiffened her spine, lifted her chin and met Wes’s angry glare with one of her own. “You won’t make me feel bad about a decision I made in the best interests of my daughter.”
“Our daughter, and you had no right to keep her from me.” He shoved both hands into the pockets of his black leather jacket, then pulled them free again. “Damn it, Isabelle, you didn’t make that baby on your own.”
“No, I didn’t,” she said, nodding. “But I’ve taken care of her on my own. Raised her on my own. You don’t get to storm into my life and start throwing orders around, Wes. I don’t work for you anymore, and this is my home.”
His beautiful eyes narrowed on her. “You lied to me. For five years, you lied to me.”
“I haven’t even spoken to you.”
“A lie of omission is still a lie,” he snapped.
He was right, but she had to wonder. Was he here because of the child he’d just discovered or because she’d wounded his pride? She tipped her head to one side and studied him. “You haven’t even asked where she is, or how she is. Or even what her name is. This isn’t about her for you, Wes. This is about you. Your ego.”
“Her name is Caroline,” he said softly. He choked out a laugh that never reached his eyes. “I’m pretty good at research myself. You know, you’re something else.” Shaking his head he glanced around the room before skewering her with another hard look. “You think this is about ego? You took off. With my kid—and never bothered to tell me.”
Was it just outrage she was hearing? Or was there pain in his voice as well? Hard to tell when Wes spent his life hiding what he was feeling, what he was thinking. Even when she had been closest to him, she’d had to guess what was going through his mind at any given moment. Now was no different.
She threw another worried glance toward the open doorway. Time was ticking past, and soon Caroline would come looking for her. Edna, the housekeeper, would be home from the grocery store soon, and frankly, Isabelle wanted Wes gone before she was forced to answer any questions about him.
“How did you find out?” she asked abruptly, pushing aside the guilt he kept trying to pile on her.
He scraped one hand across his face then pushed that hand through his hair, letting her know that whatever he was feeling was in turmoil. Isabelle hadn’t known he was capable of this kind of emotion. She didn’t know whether she was pleased or worried.
“You haven’t seen the internet headlines today?”
“No.” Worry curled into a ball in the pit of her stomach and twisted tightly. “What’s happened?”
“Someone knew about our daughter. And they’ve been hammering me with that knowledge.”
“How?” She glanced at her laptop and thought briefly about turning it on, catching up with what was happening. But the easiest way to discover what she needed to know was to hear it directly from Wes.
“I got an email yesterday from someone calling themselves Maverick. Sent me a picture of my daughter.”
“How did you know she was yours?”
He gave her a cool look. “She was wearing the princess heart necklace I once gave you.”
Isabelle sighed a little and closed her eyes briefly. “She loves that necklace.” Caro had appropriated the plastic piece of jewelry, and seeing it on her daughter helped Belle push the memory of receiving it from Wes into the background.
“You liked it once too, as I remember.”
Her gaze shot up to his. “I used to like a lot of things.”
Nodding at that jab, Wes said, “The same person who sent me the picture also let me know my Twitter account had been hacked. Whoever it was gave me a new handle. Real catchy. Deadbeatdad.”
“Oh, God.”
“Yeah, that pretty much sums it up.” He shook his head again. “That new hashtag went viral so fast my IT department couldn’t contain it. Before long, reporters were calling, digging for information. Then Teddy Bradford at PlayCo called a press conference to announce the merger we had planned was now up in the air because, apparently,” he muttered darkly, “I’m too unsavory a character to be aligned with his family values company.”
“Oh, no...” Isabelle’s mind was racing. Press conferences. Reporters. Wes Jackson was big news. Not just because of his toy company, but because he was rich, handsome, a larger-than-life Texas tycoon who made news wherever he went. And with the interest in him, that meant that his personal life was fodder for stories. Reporters would be combing through Wes’s past. They would find Caroline. They would do stories, take pictures and, in general, open her life up to the world. This was fast becoming a nightmare.
“The media’s been hounding me since this broke. I’ve got Robin fielding calls—she’ll stonewall them for as long as she can.”
Wes’s assistant was fierce enough to hold the hordes at bay—but it wouldn’t last. They would eventually find her. Find Caroline. But even as threads of panic unwound and spiraled through her veins, Isabelle was already trying to figure out ways to protect her daughter from the inevitable media onslaught.
“So.” Wes got her attention again. “More lies. You’re not Isabelle Gray. Your real last name is Graystone. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that. Isabelle Gray didn’t leave much of a mark on the world—but while typing in the name you gave me, up popped Isabelle Graystone. And a picture of you. So yeah. Surprised. Even more surprised to find out your family is all over the business world. As in Graystone shipping. Graystone hotels. Graystone every damn thing.
“You didn’t tell me you were rich. Didn’t tell me your family has their fingers into every known pie in the damn country. You didn’t even tell me your damn name. You lied,” he continued wryly. “But then, you seem to be pretty good at that.”
She flushed in spite of everything as she watched his gaze slide around the room before turning back to her. Fine, she had lied. But she’d done what she’d had to, so she wouldn’t apologize for it. And while that thought settled firmly into her brain, Isabelle ignored the niggle of guilt that continued to ping inside her.
“Why’d you hide who you were when you were working for me?”
Isabelle blew out a breath and said, “Because I wanted to be hired for me, for what I could do. Not because of who my family is.”
Irritation, then grudging respect flashed across his face. “Okay. I can give you that one.”
“Well,” she said, sarcasm dripping in her tone. “Thank you so much.”
He went on as if she hadn’t said a word. “But once you had the job, you kept up the lie.” His eyes narrowed on her. “When we were sleeping together, you were still lying to me.”
“Only about my name.” She wrapped her arms around her middle and held on. “I couldn’t tell you my real name without admitting that I’d lied to get the job.”
“A series of lies, then,” he mused darkly. “And the hits just keep on coming.”
“Why are you even here, Wes?” She was on marked time here and she knew it. Though it felt as if time was crawling past, she and Wes had already been talking for at least ten minutes. Caroline could come into the room any second. And Isabelle wasn’t ready to have that conversation with her little girl.
“You can even ask me that?” he said, astonishment clear in his tone. “I just found out I’m a father. I’m here to see my daughter.”
Damn it. “That’s not a good idea.”
“Didn’t think you’d like it.” He nodded sharply. “Good thing it’s not up to you.”
“Oh, yes, it is,” Isabelle said, lifting her chin to meet his quiet fury with some of her own.
Funny, she’d thought about what this moment might be like over the years. How she would handle it if and when Wes discovered he had a child. She’d wondered if he’d even care. Well, that question had been answered. At least, partially. He cared. But what was it that bothered him most? That he had a child he didn’t know? Or that Isabelle had lied to him? At the moment, it didn’t matter.
“You don’t want to fight me on this, Belle.” He took a step closer and stopped. “She’s my daughter, isn’t she?”
No point in trying to deny it, since once he saw Caroline, all doubts would disappear. The girl looked so much like her dad, it was remarkable. “Yes.”
He nodded, as if absorbing a blow. “Thanks for not lying about it this time.”
“Wes...”
“I have the right to meet her. To get to know her. To let her know me.” He stalked to the fireplace, laid one hand on the mantel and stared into the flames. “What does she know about me?” He turned his head to look at her. “What did you tell her?”
His eyes were gleaming, his jaw was set and every line of his body radiated tension and barely controlled anger.
“I told her that her father couldn’t be with us but that he loved her.”
He snorted. “Well, thanks for that much, anyway.”
“It wasn’t for your benefit,” she said flatly. “I don’t want my daughter guessing that her father didn’t want her.”
“I would have,” he argued, pushing away from the mantel to face her again. “If I’d known.”
“Easy enough to say now.”
“Well, I guess we’ll never know if things would have been different, will we?” he said tightly. “But from here on out, Belle, things are going to change. I’m not going anywhere. I’m in this. She’s mine and I want to be part of her life.”
Isabelle was so caught up in the tension strung between them, she almost didn’t notice Caroline walk quietly into the room to stand beside her. Her first instinct was to stand in front of her. To somehow hide the little girl from the father who had finally found her. But it was far too late for that.
Instantly, Wes’s gaze dropped to the girl, and his features softened, the ice melted from his eyes and a look of wonder crossed his face briefly. Of course he could see the resemblance. Isabelle saw it every time she looked at her daughter. She was a tiny, feminine version of Wes Jackson and there was just no way he could miss it.
“Hi,” he said, his voice filled with a warmth that had been lacking since the moment he arrived.
“Hi,” Caroline said, as her fingers flew. “Who are you?”
Before he could say anything, Isabelle said, “This is Mr. Jackson, sweetie. He’s just leaving in a minute.”
He shot her one quick, hard look, as Isabelle dropped one hand protectively on her daughter’s shoulder.
“We’re not done talking.” His gaze was hard and cold, his voice hardly more than a hush of sound.
“I guess not,” she said, then looked down at her baby girl. Using her hands as well as her voice, she said, “I heard Edna’s car pull into the driveway a minute ago. Why don’t you go help her with the groceries? Then you can go upstairs and play while Mommy talks to the man.”
“What about the ice cream?” Caro asked.
“Later,” she signed. Sighing a little, she watched Caroline smile and wave at Wes before turning to head back to the kitchen.
Once the little girl had hurried out of the room, Wes looked at Isabelle. “She’s deaf?”
“Good catch,” she said and instantly regretted the sarcasm. No point in antagonizing the man any further than he already was. “Yes. She has progressive hearing loss.”
“And what does that mean exactly? For her?”
“That’s a long conversation better suited to another time,” Isabelle said, in no mood whatsoever to get into this with Wes right this minute.
She wouldn’t have thought it possible, but his features went even icier. “Fine. We’ll put that aside for now.” He lowered his voice. “You should have told me. About her. About everything.”
Fresh guilt rushed through her like floodwaters spilling over a dam, but she fought it back. Yes, she remembered what it had been like to discover that Caroline was losing her hearing. The panic. The fear. The completely helpless feelings that had swamped her for days. Now she could look into Wes’s eyes and see the same reactions she’d once lived through. He had been hit with a lot of information in a very short time, and if it had been her, she probably wouldn’t have been as controlled as he was managing to be.
For some reason, that really irritated her.
Isabelle was willing to live with the consequences of the decision she’d made so long ago. Besides, in spite of being faced with Wes now, she was still sure that not telling him had been the right choice. “I did what I thought was right, Wes. You more than anyone should appreciate that.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Oh, please.” She laughed shortly and wished tears weren’t starting to pool behind her eyes. “You go through life making split-second decisions. You trust your gut. And you go with it. That’s all I did, and I’m not going to apologize for it now.”
He moved in on her until she swore she could feel heat radiating from his body and reaching out to hers. She caught his scent and helplessly dragged it into her lungs, savoring the taste of him even as she knew that going down this road again would lead to nothing but misery.
Besides, she reminded herself wryly, that wasn’t passion glittering in his eyes. It was fury.
“We’re not done here, Belle.”
She gulped a breath, but it didn’t help the sudden jolt to her heart. No one but Wes had ever called her Belle, and just hearing him say it again brought her back to long nights on silk sheets, wrapped in his arms. Why was it that she could still feel the rush of desire after so long? And why now, for heaven’s sake?
It had taken her years to get past those memories, to train herself to never relive them. To push her time in Texas so far back in her mind that she could almost believe it never happened. Until she looked into her baby girl’s face and saw the man she couldn’t forget.
“I can’t talk about this now. Not with Caroline here. I don’t want her—”
“Informed?” he asked. “Can’t take the chance of her finding out her father is here and wants to be with her?”
“It’s a lot to put on a little girl, Wes, and I’m not going to dump it all on her until you and I come to some sort of agreement.”
“What kind of agreement?” His tone was cautious. Suspicious.
“Like I said, not here.” She took a breath to steady herself and wasn’t even surprised when it didn’t work. How could she find her balance when staring into the aqua eyes that had haunted her dreams for years? “Once you get back to Texas, call me and we’ll talk everything out.”
A half smile curved his mouth then disappeared, leaving no trace behind. “I’m not going back to Texas. Not yet.”
“What? Why? What?” Her brain short-circuited. It was the only explanation for the way she was stumbling for words and coming up empty.
“I’ve got a room at the Swan Hollow Palace hotel,” he said. “I’m not going anywhere until I get some time with my daughter. So that agreement you want to work on? We’ll be doing it here. Up close and personal.”
Her heart was racing, and breathing was becoming an issue. As if he could read exactly what she was thinking, feeling, he gave her that cold, calculated smile again, and this time, Isabelle’s stomach sank.
“What time does she go to bed?”
“What?” God, she sounded like an idiot. “Eight o’clock. Why?”
“Because I’ll be here at eight thirty.” He headed out of the room, but paused at the threshold and looked back at her. Eyes fixed on hers he said, “Be ready to talk. I’m staying, Belle. For as long as this takes, I’m staying. I’m going to get to know my daughter. I’m going to catch up on everything I’ve missed. And there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.”
* * *
Swan Hollow, Colorado, was about thirty miles southwest of Denver and as different from that bustling city as it was possible to be. The small town was upscale but still clearly proud of its Western roots.
Tourists, skiers and snowboarders visited and shopped at the boutiques, antique stores and art galleries. Main Street was crowded with cafés, restaurants, bars and a couple of B&Bs, along with the shops. There was even a small mom-and-pop grocery store for those who didn’t want to make the drive to the city.
The buildings on Main Street were huddled close together, some with brick facades, others with wood fronts deliberately made to look weather-beaten. Tall iron streetlamps lined the sidewalks and gave the impression of old-fashioned gas lights. Baskets of winter pines with tiny white lights strung through their branches hung from every lamppost. Every parking spot along the street was taken, and hordes of people hustled along the sidewalks, moving in and out of shops, juggling bags and exhaling tiny fogs of vapor into the air.
If he were here on vacation, Wes might have been charmed by the place. As it was, though, his mind was too busy to pay much attention to his surroundings. Amazing how a man’s world could crash and burn within forty-eight hours.
The Palace hotel stood on a corner of Main Street, its brick facade, verdigris-tinged copper trim and shining windows making a hell of a statement. He’d already been told by the hotel clerk that the place had been in business since 1870. It had had plenty of face-lifts over the years, of course, but still managed to hold onto its historic character, so that stepping into the hotel was like moving into a time warp.
He walked into the lobby, with its scarlet rugs spread out across gleaming wood floors. Cream-colored walls were decorated with paintings by local artists, celebrating the town’s mining history and the splendor of the mountains that encircled Swan Hollow on three sides. The lobby was wide and warm, with wood trim, a roaring fire in the stone hearth and dark red leather sofas and chairs sprinkled around the room, encouraging people to sit and enjoy themselves. He was greeted by muted conversations and the soft chime of an elevator bell as the car arrived. The quiet, soothing atmosphere did nothing to ease the roiling tension within him.
He avoided eye contact with everyone else as he walked past the check-in desk, a long, shining slab of oak that looked as if it had been standing in that spot since the hotel first opened. Wes took the elevator to the top floor, then walked down the hall to his suite. After letting himself in, he shrugged out of his jacket, tossed it onto the dark blue couch and walked across the room to the French doors. He threw them open, stepped out onto his balcony and let the icy wind slap some damn sense into him.
January in Colorado was freezing. Probably beautiful, too, if you didn’t have too much on your mind. There was snow everywhere and the pines looked like paintings, dripping with layers of snow that bowed their branches. People streamed up and down the sidewalks, but Wes ignored all that activity and lifted his gaze to the mountains beyond the town limits. Tall enough to scrape the sky, the tips of the mountains had low-hanging gray clouds hovering over them like fog.
Wes’s hands fisted around the black iron railing in front of him, and the bite of cold gave him a hard jolt. Maybe he needed it. God knew he needed something.
He had a daughter. There was no denying the truth even if he wanted to—which he didn’t. The little girl looked so much like him, anyone would see the resemblance. His child. His little girl.
His stomach twisted into knots as the enormity of this situation hit him. He huffed out a breath and watched the cloud of it dissipate in the cold air. That beautiful little girl was his. And she was deaf.
He should have known.
He should have been a part of all of this. He might have been able to do something—anything—to help. And even if he couldn’t have, it was his right to be a part of it. To do his share of worrying. But his daughter’s mother hadn’t bothered to clue him in.
As furious as he was with Isabelle, as stunned as he was at being faced with a daughter, he couldn’t deny it wasn’t only anger he’d felt when he was in that house.
“She looks even better now than she did five years ago,” he muttered. Isabelle had always had a great body, but now, since having a child, she was softer, rounder and damn near irresistible.
Instantly, her image appeared in his mind and the grip he had on the icy railing tightened until his knuckles went white. That long, blond hair, those eyes that were caught somewhere between blue and green, the mouth that could tempt a dead man. He hadn’t seen her in five years and his body was burning for her.
“Which just goes to prove,” he mumbled, “your brain’s not getting enough of the blood flow.”
He shivered as the wind slapped at him, and he finally gave up and walked back into his suite. With everything else going on, he didn’t need a case of pneumonia. Closing the doors behind him, he went to the fireplace and flipped a switch to turn on the gas-powered flames.
It was quiet. Too damn quiet. He stared at the fire for a minute or two, then dropped onto the couch, propping his boots up on the sturdy coffee table. Late afternoon sunlight came through the windows in a pale stream, the fire burned, and his brain just shut down. He needed to think, but how the hell could he when he was distracted by his own body’s reaction to the woman who’d lied to him since the moment he met her?
“Isabelle Gray.” How had she managed to get hired under a false name? Didn’t his damn personnel department do a better job of checking résumés than that? “And she’s rich,” he exclaimed to the empty room. “Why the hell was she working for me anyway?”
But the “rich” part probably explained how she’d gotten away with changing her name to get a job. She’d been able to pay for whatever she’d needed to adopt a different name. Closing his eyes, Wes remembered the slap of shock he’d felt when looking for Isabelle Gray online only to find Isabelle Graystone. The names were enough alike that the search engine had hooked onto her real identity. Seeing her picture, reading about who she really was had been yet another shock in a day already filled with them.
He had no explanation for any of this, and checking his watch, Wes saw that he had several hours before he could go back and demand she give him the answers he needed. What was he supposed to do until then?
He dragged his cell phone out of his pocket and turned it back on. He’d had it off during his visit to Belle’s house since he hadn’t needed yet another distraction. Now, the message light blinked crazily and he scrolled through the list of missed calls.
Starting at the top, he hit speed dial and waited while his assistant’s phone rang.
“Hi, boss,” Robin said.
“Yeah, you called. Anything new?” He got up and walked to the bar in the far corner of the room. He opened the fridge, saw the complimentary cheese plate and helped himself before grabbing a beer. Twisting off the cap, he took a long drink to wash the cheese down and gave Robin his attention.
“IT department reports they’re no closer to discovering who this Maverick is or even where he sent that email from.”
“I thought they were supposed to be the best,” he complained.
“Yeah, well, IT’s pretty impressed with Maverick,” she said wryly. “Seems he bounced his signal all over hell and back, so they’re having a time pinning it down.” She took a breath and said, “You already know that email account’s been closed, so the guys here say there isn’t much hope of running him to ground.”
Perfect. He had his own computer experts and they couldn’t give him a direction to focus the fury still clawing at his throat.
“What else?” Another swallow of beer as he plopped back onto the couch and stared at the flames dancing in the hearth.
“Personnel did a deeper check on the name you gave them, and turns out Isabelle Gray’s name is really Graystone. Her family’s got holdings in pretty much everything. She’s an heiress.”
He sighed. “Yeah, I know that.”
“Oh. Well, that was anticlimactic. Okay. Moving on.” She forced cheer into her voice. “On the upside, IT says the Twitter trend is dying off. Apparently you’re down to number ten today instead of number one.”
“Great.” Wes made a mental note to check with his IT guys on the status of his Twitter account when he got off the phone. What he really needed was for some celebrity to do something shocking that would be enough to push him off the stage entirely.
“And the warehouses are set up for delivery of the doll. Everything’s ready to roll out on time.”
“Good.” He set the beer on the coffee table and rubbed his eyes in a futile attempt to ease the headache pounding there. “Keep on top of this stuff, Robin, and make sure I’m in the loop.”
“Boss,” she said, “you are the loop.”
He had to smile and he was grateful for it. “Right. Did you hear from Harry today?”
“Yep, he’s on it. He’s working with PR to put a spin on all this, and when he’s got the ideas together, he says he’ll call you to discuss it.”
“Okay. Look, I’m going to be staying in Colorado for a while.”
“How long?”
“Not sure yet.” However long it took to make sure the mother of his child understood that she was living in a new reality. “You can always get me on my cell. I’m at the Swan Hollow Palace hotel—”
“Swan Hollow?” she asked.
“Yeah.” He smiled to himself again. “Weird name, but nice town from what I’ve seen.”
“Good to know. I still can’t believe you made the reservations yourself rather than let me handle it as always.”
“I was in a hurry,” Wes said and wondered why he was almost apologizing to his assistant for usurping her job.
She paused, then went on. “Fine, fine. When the final drawings on the PR campaign are turned in, I’ll overnight them to you at the hotel. If you need anything else, let me know and I’ll take care of it.”
“Robin,” he said with feeling, “you are the one bright spot in a fairly miserable couple of days.”
“Thanks, boss,” she said, and he heard the smile in her voice. “I’ll remind you of that when I want a raise.”
“I know you will,” he said and was still smiling when he hung up.
Alone again, he drank his beer, and still facing hours to kill before speaking to Isabelle again, Wes had an idea. Grabbing the remote that worked both the flat-screen television and the computer, he turned the latter on. In a few minutes, he was watching an online video to learn ASL.
American Sign Language.
Three (#u4992dfbf-618a-522f-8d14-9645f99d2879)
Wes could have walked to Isabelle’s house, since it was just outside town, but at night, the temperature dropped even farther and he figured he’d be an icicle by the time he arrived. The five-minute drive brought him to the long, winding road that stretched at least a half mile before ending in front of the stately Victorian. His headlights swept the front of the place and he took a moment to look it over.
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