by Amie Denman
She looked at the ceiling and laughed. “Plenty of times beginning more than ten years ago when I discovered you meant more to me than just being my brother’s annoying friend. But you were off-limits then for the same reasons you are now.”
He shook his head. “We’re not kids. The seven years difference in our ages doesn’t mean much when we’re both adults.”
She swirled her champagne and stared down at it before raising her eyes to his. “It’s not our ages. It’s a lot of things.”
“Your family,” he said.
She nodded.
“Is that really such an obstacle to us hanging out together?” he asked. He knew hanging out wasn’t the right word, but what was? Dating? Seeing each other? Making love. He cleared his throat and swallowed. “Your parents like me, at least I think they do, so would they really be unhappy if we suddenly announced we’d discovered an attraction between us?”
His argument was beginning to sound great and he wondered why he hadn’t considered it before. What if he and Autumn could date? He needed someone in his life who knew him and loved him…who more than Autumn? And as far as trusting someone was concerned, he’d stake his life on the loyalty of anyone in the Benedict family.
He put a gentle finger under Autumn’s chin. “We wouldn’t have to tell them about our first night together. That can be our secret if it would make you uncomfortable. We could say we kindled a flame on this cruise. Which is true, by the way.”
Autumn shook her head and her eyes glistened suspiciously.
“I could even offer to let your brother take a swing at me if it would make him feel better,” he said, hoping to make her laugh. He loved her smile and the way it lit her eyes.
She leaned forward and touched her lips to his and then pulled back just far enough to see his entire face. “This isn’t the real world, being here on your yacht. While we’re here, we can pretend there aren’t any reasons why we shouldn’t spend the rest of the night doing exactly what we want.”
“But?” He knew it was coming, could hear it in every word she said.
“But when we dock in Athens, I go back to being Autumn Benedict, single mom and school secretary. And you go back to being Luke Monroe, automotive inventor and tycoon.”
He laughed. “Tycoon makes me sound like a fictional character.” He sobered and pulled her close against him in his bed, their skin touching and her hair tickling his chin and arm. “But I’m real. And this could be real if you’d give me a chance to prove I’m more than just a family friend. Give us a chance.”
She didn’t say no, but he felt her answer in her quick hungry kisses she planted along his jawline and neck before continuing down his chest. She kissed like someone who was getting a final taste of something she was afraid she’d never have again. He couldn’t think about it, though, couldn’t think past the next moment or next hour, not when she was on top of him and all around him, surrounding him like a dream he could never get enough of.
Chapter Eleven
The next morning, his entire yacht was redolent with tantalizing breakfast smells. Eggs, bacon, pancakes, sweet rolls, and coffee aromas wafted up to his private deck as he stood outside breathing deeply of the fresh air. Autumn had left two hours earlier, wanting to be certain that if Carter awakened her parents early, they would find her in her room. She’d promised to see him at breakfast and find a way to set aside time for him on the final two days of their trip, but nothing more.
At the moment, he had plenty of promises running through him like hope and sunshine combined. Only good things could come his way, starting with coffee.
“There you are,” Maria said as he descended one level to the main deck of the ship.
“Good morning to you, too,” he said. His personal assistant was professionally dressed, her hair drawn back neatly, her tablet in her left hand as her right index finger hovered over it. How many times had she greeted him with exactly that same scene? Somehow, everything looked different this morning. It had to be the night with Autumn. The sex was, obviously, a highlight, especially considering how lonely his bed had been for—how long was it? Two and a half or three years?
“You look happy this morning. I’ll make a note to schedule weddings on your yacht more often and make sure we cruise around in the Aegean whenever we can.”
“Anything you say,” he agreed. He wondered if Autumn would like to try the Mediterranean, perhaps, or maybe the tropics?
“Before you go to breakfast, there’s one thing I just wanted to clear up with you just in case it’s important,” Maria said.
He waved a hand. “If it’s about work, it’s not important. I’m giving myself permission to forget about my companies for two more days.”
“It’s nothing that needs your attention. Just a mistake I made that I want to mention. When you asked me during the wedding a few days ago about your meeting with the French automakers—”
“About the date,” he said, interrupting her. A cold feeling squeezed his chest, almost as if he’d been swimming in warm water and suddenly encountered a jet of ice water.
“Yes,” she said, peering at her tablet. “I gave you the wrong date. I gave you the date you met with the Belgian auto group. Their names are really similar, Jacques something, all of them, I swear, and I was in a rush.”
He stared at her, his mouth open. He was afraid to ask the next question, the question he absolutely could not ignore no matter how much he wanted to.
“So the date of the meeting in my Detroit office with the French guys…”
She smiled and rolled her eyes. “The other Jacques, yes. It was actually three months later than I told you.” She held out the tablet as proof. “See for yourself if you’d like to check.”
He didn’t reach for the computer. Didn’t care to see the calendar, the names. Everything he needed to know suddenly crashed into him as if his yacht had collided with a battleship. Three months later. He ran the math through his head. Carter was eighteen months. Plus nine months.
“I…uh…forgot something in my room,” he said. He whipped around and charged up the steps toward his suite without another word of explanation. He closed and locked the door and leaned against it. Through the open bedroom door, he saw his bed, the sheets still tangled, the fragrance of Autumn still lingering on them.
Autumn. His best friend’s sister. His child’s mother. And the woman who had kept his son from him and lied. Lied even as they made love throughout the night. Lied with every kiss, every touch. Denied him his son, the chance to be a father like the father he’d hardly known.
He drew a deep breath, unlocked his door, and raced down to the dining room without any plan except a bone-thirsty need for truth. When he reached the dining room, his feet thudding down the steps and across the wood floor, he discovered damn near every one of his guests was already seated around the table. His chair at the head of the table was empty, but the chair at the far end was filled. Carter sat in his booster seat happily picking up pieces of pancake and shoving them in his mouth.
His anger and resolve melted as he looked at the child and, for the first time, thought of him as his son. He dragged his eyes from the boy and realized everyone around the table was staring at him as if he was on fire.
“Autumn,” he ground out through his gritted teeth. “I need to talk to you.”
The color drained from her face and she glanced around the table at her relatives who were now staring at her. Everyone looked shocked at his entrance and tone except for Julie. She looked curious. As if she was wondering how he was going to fly the plane now that he’d hijacked it.
Autumn rose and followed him after he jerked his head toward the deck outside the dining room. He heard her quiet footfalls behind him and tried to reign in his anger before he spoke again. As soon as he snapped the glass door shut behind them, he turned to her.
“When were you going to tell me? Were you? Ever?”
Her lip trembled, but he wasn’t stopping now. He had a right to info
rmation. A right to his anger. A right to the hurt and betrayal churning through his chest.
“When were you going to tell me that Carter is my son?” he said, his voice rising as he emphasized each word. He needed to say them and hear them, and he didn’t give a damn at that moment who else heard them.
Autumn turned and looked out at the water, and both of them had their backs to the glass wall dividing them from the dining room. It didn’t matter, he thought bitterly, everyone was going to know the truth soon. It had been hidden for far too long.
“Why, Autumn?” he asked, lowering his voice. “There had to be a reason.”
He saw her shoulders heave and knew she was quietly sobbing, but he couldn’t go to her and put his arms around her. He needed the truth more than she needed comfort.
“I wanted to protect you,” she said.
Had he heard that right? She was protecting him?
“You have to do better than that.”
“That night,” she said. “What we did. It wasn’t planned. It wasn’t something either of us thought through at all. So soon after Vanessa died.”
“Not that soon,” he said. “Four months. It was almost four months later.”
“But you were a wreck,” she said. “Like you were living inside a bowl filled with water, not hearing and seeing anything around you.”
He breathed out through his nose and felt an ounce of calmness. He remembered those long shapeless months of blaming himself for Vanessa’s death and trying to find the new normal, the way he could go on. But still…
“And that night I took you dinner and you confessed to me the secret you hadn’t told anyone else,” Autumn said. “That you never loved her.”
Luke closed his eyes and tried to shut out the truth of her words, the ugly truth about his marriage he hadn’t told anyone else.
“And about your baby.”
With his eyes closed, he almost lost his balance on the deck of his yacht. He’d never allowed himself to think about the boy or girl they barely knew about when his wife died.
“I blamed myself for what happened between us that night,” Autumn said. “I should have offered you comfort and friendship, but I went too far.”
“We both did.”
“But I had no excuse. I wasn’t grieving someone, I was clear-eyed and clear-headed. And that’s why I took responsibility. Think of how you would have felt if I showed up pregnant on your doorstep just months after losing Vanessa and losing your—”
“So you decided not to tell me,” he said flatly, interrupting her. “Congratulations on taking responsibility for something that wasn’t only yours. You weren’t the sole owner.” He knew he sounded like he was arguing a business deal instead of a child—that sweet-faced boy who was eating pancakes on the other side of a glass wall. Luke didn’t even cast a glance backward, though. He knew every eye in that room had to be trained on the scene on the deck even if they couldn’t hear everything clearly.
A new and horrifying thought hit him like a rogue wave.
“Does your family know?” If his best friend knew and hadn’t told him…
“No,” Autumn cried, waving her hands. “No one. I decided when I found out I was pregnant that it would be my secret to keep. Carter would be mine and that was all anybody needed to know. I couldn’t go to my family and tell them I’d had a one-night stand with you. They would have been furious.”
“With me?” Luke asked.
“And me. I should have been a friend when you needed it, and instead I acted on a decade of love for you and took what I could get for that one night.” A tear slid down her cheek, glistening in the morning sunlight. “And what I got was Carter, the love of my life.”
“He’s mine, too.”
She nodded.
“Your secrets end now,” Luke said. He whirled and opened the glass doors before sweeping into the dining room.
“Wait,” he heard Autumn say behind him, but it was too late. “Good morning, everyone,” he said. “I hope you’re enjoying your breakfast. I’ve just had quite the appetizer for mine as I’ve just discovered I’m a father.” He pointed at Carter who was blissfully unaware of the tension zipping through the air like fireworks.
He should have been gratified by the shocked looks on everyone’s faces. Should have felt justified in his anger and the gut-punch of betrayal he felt from Autumn’s secrets. But as he looked around the room and saw people he’d known and respected, even loved, for years, he felt like an empty shell, a firework that had blown itself out.
Without a word, Grady pushed back his chair and stood. He strode to Luke, drew back a fist, and punched him right in the face. An explosion of stars went off in front of his eyes, and that was the last thing Luke remembered as he went down.
****
Autumn saw the entire thing as if it was in slow motion. Grady’s new wife screamed, Autumn’s mother unfurled her linen napkin and held it in front of Carter’s face, and Autumn wanted to sink into the Aegean Sea.
Everyone scattered. Grady’s wife grabbed his arm and hauled him away, the maid of honor’s boyfriend and a crew member propped up Luke and got him a wet towel with some ice, Jessica and Julie took Carter and went outside, and Autumn was left with her parents who looked even more shocked than they had the day she’d told them she was pregnant. She hated putting them through this. Hated the disaster she’d made out of her brother’s wedding cruise. The festive atmosphere was destroyed. Her brother’s lifelong friendship with Luke had ended in a sucker punch, and she had to somehow pick up the pieces for the sake of her son.
Their son. The secret was not just out, it had exploded.
“Our room,” her mother said, taking her arm. Autumn numbly walked between her parents toward the hallway. No one said a word until they were behind the locked door of her parents’ stateroom where Carter’s crib and blankets reminded Autumn where her son had spent the night.
And where she had.
If only she had told Luke instead of him figuring it out—however that had happened. Only Julie knew, and Autumn knew her cousin wouldn’t have betrayed her. Maybe Luke had finally done the math, a memory had been triggered, daylight had dawned after their night together.
“I ask this without judgement,” her mother said, sitting on the bed and patting the space next to her. Autumn’s dad stood mutely, twisting a linen napkin in his hand that he must have taken from the breakfast table without thinking. “Is Luke Carter’s father?”
“Yes.”
Her mother nodded and her father’s eyes grew wide.
“And he just found out—I’m guessing—sometime this morning?”
“Yes.”
“Okay,” her mother said.
“It was just once,” Autumn said.
“And it was…after—”
“Yes. After his wife died.”
Her mother blew out a breath. “For a smart man, I don’t know how it took him this long to put two and two together.”
“He didn’t know about Carter. Didn’t know I’d had a baby at all. He’s been out of touch, busy. He’s been in Europe most of Carter’s life.”
“I can’t believe Grady never mentioned it to him,” her dad said. “Those two are close, almost like brothers.”
“I’m the one who’s been secretive,” Autumn said. “I didn’t come out and ask Grady to keep my news private, but he seemed to understand it was what I wanted. I haven’t spoken to Luke since that night, and I think he was genuinely shocked when I got on his boat with a child.”
“But…why?” her mother asked. “Why didn’t you just tell us?”
Autumn let her tears fall freely as her mother patted her back and stroked her hair. “I thought you’d be furious at Luke. And furious at me for taking advantage of him when he was down after his wife died.”
“I’d say he took advantage of you,” her father said, a hint of anger lacing his words.
Autumn shook her head adamantly. “That’s not what happened, but I didn’t think an
yone would understand.”
“Okay,” her mother said evenly. “The important question now is what we’re going to do. What’s best for Carter, what’s best for everyone.”
“I’m going downstairs,” her father announced abruptly as he stalked to the door and banged through it.
Autumn covered her face with her hands. “Do you think he’s going to do something rash?” she asked.
“Someone will stop him,” her mother said.
“Poor Grady,” Autumn said. “I ruined his wedding.”
Her mother gave a short laugh. “You certainly made it memorable.” She shook her head. “I can’t believe I never suspected Luke was Carter’s father. Now that I think about it, they look a lot alike. I knew that baby reminded me of someone.”
“His laugh,” Autumn said, trying to smile as she thought of her sweet boy. “And the way he looks at you and you can just tell his wheels are spinning.”
“We have a lot to sort out,” her mother said. “But you need to start first with an apology. Luke has missed a precious eighteen months of his son’s life, and that’s time you can’t give him back. You have a lot of thinking to do while I go downstairs and see if I need to put my nurse’s cap on in case any more fists have flown.”
Autumn went to her room and splashed cold water on her face in her luxurious bathroom. Luke’s bathroom. Everything within her view belonged to him, and now he knew that her son did, too. She’d gotten so accustomed to thinking of Carter as only hers, that it was a jolt to think about sharing him with anyone. Even his father. Even Luke whom she’d known and cared about her entire life.
How? How would they share him, work it out? She couldn’t imagine Luke would try to take him away and argue for custody. She would fight that with the full force of her family behind her. She shook her head and picked up a thick hand towel to dry her face. Knowing Luke, he would want to provide for Carter. Set up a college fund. Buy him expensive toys. Take him on trips to see the world. His world.
How could she let that happen, though? Wasn’t she already providing Carter the home and all the love he needed? He was in an excellent daycare, ate his vegetables, was surrounded by her family who loved him. How would Luke fit into the world she’d built?
