Trey

by Christie Ridgway

  “My egg.” Mom cleared her throat. “And donor sperm.”

  He continued attempting to wrap his head around it. So he hadn’t misheard? “Not Dad’s sperm? Not Blackthorne sperm?”

  She nodded.

  “The four of us, me, Devlin, Ross, and Logan, we’re not biologically Dad’s sons.”

  Looking at him with a combination of anguish and sympathy, she pressed her lips together. “Just you, honey. Miracle, misdiagnosis, whatever the case, your father’s condition changed. Your brothers are his and conceived in the, uh, usual manner.”

  The inside of his head went quiet. So quiet. “But me, I’m someone else’s son.”

  Her expression turned fierce. “You are mine and you are your father’s, Graham’s,” she said, her tone vehement, “in every way that matters.”

  We’d call you a duck with the swans, Mia had told him, upon noting how unlike his looks were to his brothers and cousins.

  I’m someone else’s son.

  The room took a seasick spin, as if the world had lost its axis.

  “We wanted children so badly,” his mother said. “And I can’t tell you how over the moon we were to find out the procedure was a success.”

  Trey had seen photos of his mother at various stages of pregnancy with him, beaming, Graham’s arm securely around her. Graham in the delivery room. Graham holding infant Trey, the son that wasn’t his.

  “You should have told me.” His voice sounded rusty.

  “They advised us not to.” The look on her face implored him to understand. “They were the best in the country and we listened to them because they were the experts. The ones we trusted to help us gain the thing we wanted most of all.”

  We’d call you a duck with the swans.

  I’m someone else’s son.

  Trey rose, though he couldn’t feel his legs. “I’m going for a walk.”

  His mother held out her hand. “Sweetheart, please…”

  “I need fresh air so I’m going for a walk.”

  From the corner of his eye, he saw Mia stand too. “Alone.”

  Mom bit her lip. “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure.” It was perhaps the only thing he was certain of in his life—that he needed to get out of the room, this apartment, and into the cold night air of a strange city.

  Apt, for a man who was now a stranger to himself.

  “We’ll talk more as soon as you’re ready,” his mother said quickly. “I’ll stay right here until you get back, or if you’d rather, in the morning—”

  “Don’t wait up, Mom,” he said, already moving toward the front door. “And go to Ghent as planned.”

  “I can’t do that,” she said, forehead pleating.

  “Yes, you can. Please do it. Please do it for me.”

  “Trey—”

  “Now I need some time, Mom.” He couldn’t begin to imagine what more he had to say to her when he couldn’t think beyond…beyond…

  We’d call you a duck with the swans.

  I’m someone else’s son.

  Mia lay wide awake in bed when a light knock sounded on her front door. She bounded off the mattress, as sure as she knew her own name the identity of the person on the other side.

  The man whose own identity had been shaken hours earlier.

  Her throat tightened, her chest squeezed, and her footsteps paused, as she was struck by the enormity of what Trey must have been going through. What could she possibly say in the face of that? Maybe she should pretend sleep and avoid him altogether.

  Because what gave her the idea she could help him in any way? Perhaps he would resent her assumption that she could.

  Yet she was already on the move again, something propelling her toward him, the same force she’d felt when they’d been touching the fairy’s wing together. As if they’d found themselves in Paris for just this—a moment under the stars and another in the early hours, both of them needing a companion through unfamiliar emotional terrain.

  With her hand on the doorknob, she hesitated again. She’d never, not once, had a relationship with a man that involved this kind of intimacy.

  For goodness’ sake, open the door! Nic urged. Your guy is hurting.

  The disquieting “your guy” Mia ignored, and she swung open the door to find Trey standing there, his hands in the pockets of the terrible faux-leather coat, his handsome features faintly reddened with cold. “Come in, come in,” she said, scooping her hand to encourage his entry.

  Instinct told her not to touch him. He looked nothing like the harried businessman checking his phone she’d spied that first day nor did he bear much resemblance to the good-humored sightseeing companion she’d come to know. Those dark eyes of his weren’t tired or amused, but lost.

  “Come in,” she said again, and this time he obeyed, only to stand in the middle of her living area, blinking as if surprised to find himself in her place. Then he turned his gaze on her, as if surprised to find her there, too.

  “Are you all right?” she asked, wondering where he’d been.

  “About an hour ago I found an all-night bakery,” he said.

  She glanced at the clock. Almost five a.m. “I think it probably opens very early in the morning.”

  “I bought a baguette.” He brandished the long loaf in one hand.

  “Are you hungry?”

  He shook his head. “It was for self-defense. The neighborhood about a half-mile south of here isn’t all that good.”

  “You were going to keep yourself safe with bread?”

  For a moment he seemed to consider it. “I wasn’t thinking clearly.”

  “Right.” She opted for a brisk tone. “Do you want coffee?”

  “No.” He hesitated. “How was my mom when you left her?”

  “Okay. Tired. I helped her pack for her next trip and then she said she was going to bed.”

  “Thank you.” With another baffled look around, he gestured with the baguette. “I interrupted your sleep.”

  “I think you need some.” She took the loaf from his hand and crossed to her kitchen area to put it on the counter. “Would you like to stay here?”

  He nodded.

  “Okay.” Briskly, she crossed to the small cabinet that stored extra linens and pulled free a stack. “I’ll make up the sofa.”

  His dubious look at the piece of furniture said what he didn’t have to.

  “I’m on the sofa,” she told him, snapping a sheet straight. “You’ll get my bed.”

  “Mia…”

  He’d tossed his jacket aside and stood in the moth-eaten sweater, with its glimpses of white cotton through the holes, reminding her of the stars in the night sky they’d seen earlier. For her, he’d risked liberty and dignity to sneak into that cemetery. Surely she could offer a sympathetic ear.

  “Do you want to talk?” she asked, tossing a pillow and blanket onto the cushions.

  His hand slipped into his pants pocket and he pulled out that box of cards, looked at it, then slipped it away again.

  That had been his grandfather’s, she remembered, her chest tightening once more. The first Graham Wallace Blackthorne. God, how upended he must be feeling about now. “I might not guarantee I have any answers or certainly the right ones, but I’ll listen.”

  He looked down. “No thanks. I’m good.”

  She hoped the relief coursing through her didn’t show on her face. Keeping her relationships with men friendly but shallow had maintained her heart-whole status and it didn’t take a couch and a box of tissues in a therapist’s office to know that her parents’ ugly divorce had made her averse to any action or any man that might threaten that.

  Trey threatened everything, her instincts knew. Best to keep to friendly and shallow than to dive into something deep and scary. Her mother said that she and Mia’s father had never been in love and their daughter could only decide it was true, because true love couldn’t turn into disrespect, despair, and disaster, especially when a nine-year-old was smack dab in the middle of
that marriage.

  So she didn’t know what the heck romantic love would look and feel like. Because of that, Mia deemed it best to keep clear of thinking in that direction in case some imposter emotion tried shouldering its way in and cause a very real danger.

  Trying to appear upbeat and matter-of-fact, she made to brush past him. “Let me just get my phone and then the bedroom is all yours.”

  But once inside the small space, she turned to realize he’d followed her, making her suddenly aware of what she wore as nightgear—a pale pink vintage slip she’d picked up at one of the Paris flea markets. It was probably from the 1930s, with lace at the vee of the bodice and around the hem that landed not indiscreetly somewhere between her behind and her knees. It wasn’t particularly racy, not really, but her heart was racing all the same as she took in the way that Trey’s gaze seemed to burn right through the thin silk.

  Nic’s voice sounded in her head, amused and excited. Mia, this is—

  “Shut it,” she murmured to her friend.

  Shutting it. Going away.

  Her feet rooted to the spot, Mia watched Trey approach. That lost look in his eyes had turned to heat and when his hands landed on her shoulders, they were hot too, transmitting enough fire to speed her blood and bring up goose bumps on her arms, legs, and everywhere in between. His gaze, however, was fixated on her mouth.

  “Mia,” he said, his voice husky. “Beautiful Mia.”

  She sucked in a deep breath and felt her nipples peak against the delicate fabric covering them. Her hands went to his waist, but he reached down to grip her wrists and bring them up to circle his neck. He moved in, his big body brushing hers.

  “Do you know what you’re doing?” she whispered.

  One corner of his mouth kicked up. “Being spontaneous.” His hands slid down her arms and then he wrapped his arms around her body, pressing her flush against him.

  Her eyes closed as his head bent over hers. “What did we say earlier?” he asked. “No thoughts about the past?”

  Ah. So she would be his path to forgetfulness, she thought, willingly opening her mouth as he took hers in a deep, needy kiss. Her fingers slid through the short hair at the back of his neck a cool pelt in contrast to the burning, consuming flame that leaped in her chest as their lips pressed together and his tongue thrust to rub against hers.

  She shivered, shimmying against his hard frame, and his hands slid down to cup her bottom, then moved lower as he fisted the slip and drew it up and over her head. As he tossed it away, she considered what to do with herself, clad only in tiny panties and nothing else. But then his gaze ran over her and any chill she might have felt, any apprehension that might have cooled her blood was gone, and she reached for his sweater and took his undershirt too, getting him half-naked as well.

  Kisses came next. Fast and greedy, slow and drugging, with the metal of his belt buckle pressed to her stomach, a brand she willingly bore and could almost hope would show still tomorrow. Marked by Trey, proof that she’d let go and been touched and taken and touched and taken in return. Proof that for a night, at least, she’d mattered to this beautiful man.

  Then he was on his knees, his mouth on her belly and her hip bones, lower. Her skin burned with the embarrassment of it, but that awkwardness lasted only a few moments until he slipped her panties off. His tongue worked its way into the cleft of her sex and passed over the knot of nerves there, stroking, circling, sucking. Her head fell back, her fists at her sides while one of his hands kneaded the round cheek of her bottom and his other thumbed her more open for his wet, velvety caresses, making her take every delicious stroke.

  With a moan she lost it, an unexpected climax seizing control of her, causing more moans and shivers and a loss of any awareness save that of Trey. Handsome Trey, skilled Trey, wicked Trey who stared up at her as his mouth soothed now instead of incited. Her heart pounded in her chest, toes, fingertips, and throat, and when he laid her on the bed, she opened her arms and legs and invited him close again.

  Eyes on her body, he threw off the rest of his clothes, tossing them onto the straight chair. Though arousal began to rise again as she took in his long, muscled limbs and the heavy thrust of his flushed sex, wisdom prevailed. “Condom?” she asked, her voice throaty.

  “Someplace was open all night,” he answered, as he leaned down to fish in the pocket of his pants. For a moment she thought it might be his phone, then he pulled out a foil packet. “The condom dispensers outside the pharmacies.”

  Maybe she would have made some teasing comment about his over-confidence but whatever it might have been was lost when he came over her, his heat and scent so good, so natural. She shifted her legs so he was cradled by her hips and then he was kissing her again, like her kisses were what he’d been waiting for all his life.

  He kissed her chin and down her throat and then moved to her breasts. She arched upward, asking for more, and he gave it in the arousing sting of tiny bites until he sucked on her nipples, sensation arrowing to her sex, making her cry out, telling him her body was ready, willing, eager to be penetrated by him, for them to be connected like under that starry sky.

  She begged, pleaded, ordered, used the edge of her nails to make her wishes known and he groaned at that last. “God, you make me wild,” he said. The condom he’d tossed to the bed was found, she insisted on rolling it on, clumsy with lust, so he had to take over, laughing.

  Then neither of them made a sound as he slowly came inside her, hovering over her body with an elbow on each side of her, his eyes trained on hers as he drove with powerful, steady strokes. The room was the muted gray of dawn, smudging the details of everything in it except Trey—solid Trey, sexy Trey, the master-of-her body Trey.

  They came, one after the other, in near silence, the only sound their heavy breathing. His face against the side of her neck, his weight pressing hers to the mattress, he recovered for long minutes, then he lifted his head to look at her.

  She stared back, wishing to avert her eyes but caught by something in his she couldn’t name. “I think…” he started, then dropped kisses to her brows and her nose and finally her chin.

  “I hate when people start a sentence and then drop it,” she said, sounding cranky, because she was desperate to know his thoughts and wasn’t that a disaster just in itself?

  “I love your sulky mouth,” he said, kissing her there, soft and quick.

  “Tell me,” she demanded, her hands gripping his broad shoulders. He was still inside her, she could feel him there, but then she thought she might always feel him there.

  More disaster!

  “You think…what?” she tried again, going for winsome.

  His smile grew like the sunrise, basking her in light and heat. “I think we should have a Paris fling.”

  Chapter Seven

  Trey sat on the couch in Mia’s living area, his phone to his ear, as his call connected to Greg Tulley, head of Tulley Investigations in Laguna Beach, California.

  “I’ve been expecting to hear from you,” the other man said.

  “Yeah.” Trey checked a nearby clock, realized that nine a.m. meant it was midnight Pacific time, and grimaced. “Late for you, though. Sorry.”

  “Not a problem.”

  Still, Trey decided he’d add a bonus to the hefty bill Greg would surely send for the rush job he’d requested last night from a bench along the Seine river. Then it had been heading toward midnight in Paris, but still business hours on the West Coast of the United States. Not for a minute did he doubt that Greg hadn’t already found something to report.

  Though Trey could have turned to the security head of Blackthorne Enterprises, a woman in whom he had complete trust, he’d decided to call Greg for this. They’d used the former Navy intelligence officer in the past when someone threatened, via regular mail postmarked in Southern California, to burn down the original whisky distillery in Maine. The culprit turned out to be a bored and basically harmless seaman based in San Diego with an overblown allegianc
e to the brand of spirits made in his Kentucky hometown. Greg had tracked him down and after a chat with the kid and his commanding officer, the problem had been neutralized.

  But during the investigation, both Trey and Brock had spoken with Greg and developed a confidence in the private detective as well as a genuine liking for him. So last night, reeling from the new knowledge imparted by his mother, Trey had decided to contact the other man. As expected, he’d taken the assignment with professional aplomb and with the promise he’d immediately get to work on the issue.

  “What can you tell me?” Trey asked now.

  “First, some background.”

  “All right.” Though he’d done a little basic research himself the night before, again from that bench along the river, he’d listen to what Greg had to say.

  “The first baby born through IVF is over forty years old,” the other man told him. “It’s now done all over the world and there are various regulations for it and for sperm donation as well.”

  “In the US?” Trey thought he knew the answer.

  “In the US there are no rules about who may donate sperm. Private expert groups offer recommendations, but there is no enforcement of guidelines or any sort of tracking.”

  “What did you find out about the specific clinic my mother used?”

  “I think I know which one it is…pretty simple detective work given the year you provided and the relative newness of the procedure at the time. I called and they confirmed they offer completely anonymous donorship and that exclusivity is available…for a very hefty fee.”

  “Of course. But price would have been no issue for my mother and…” Hell. Pain sliced through his head. “For my mother and Graham.”

  “A member of my staff made another call,” Greg continued, “posing as someone who recently learned they were conceived at that clinic and fathered by an unknown donor.”

  Trey pressed a hand to his temple. “Posing as someone like me.”

  “Yes.” Greg’s businesslike tone somewhat lessened the ache in Trey’s head.