Marrying for King's Millions

by Maureen Child

  Then he folded the newspaper, tucked it under his left arm and turned to face the winery guests. “Welcome to King Vineyards,” he called out. “My wife and I hope you enjoy your evening.”

  Because, he added silently, somebody should.

  Over the next several weeks, life settled into a routine of sorts. Julie worked in the kitchen, trying out new recipes, planning for the day when she would have her bakery. Although the excitement of her plans was muted by the fact that once she had that bakery, she wouldn’t have Travis.

  The ache of that thought stayed with her day and night. Every waking moment she wondered how she would spend the rest of her life knowing she wouldn’t have him with her. Knowing that she would be sleeping alone, always haunted by the memories of being in his arms. And she wondered if he would miss her, too.

  When they hosted the tastings together, she was almost convinced that he thought of them as a team. They worked well together, and over the last few weeks, the King winery had received more visitors than ever. Between Travis’s fine wines and the delicacies Julie made and served, they were the talk of the area.

  Now, newspaper articles focused more on the winery itself rather than the scandal that had surrounded them for so long. Julie wasn’t sorry to see the end of that disgrace, but she was worried about what Jean Claude might do next. He’d vowed not to stop in his harassment campaign and she had to assume that nothing had changed.

  So this respite was probably nothing more than the calm before a new Jean Claude storm.

  Not that that was the only thing on her mind. Or even the most important thing on her mind. Julie pulled in a deep breath and blew it out again slowly. As a matter of fact, Jean Claude was the last thing on her mind now.

  Ever since she’d found the nerve to take a little test.

  Stepping away from the cooking island, she turned and walked to the bay window overlooking the vineyard. With Travis’s cook on vacation, Julie had the kitchen to herself and right now, she needed the solitude. To think. To decide what to do. What to say.

  As it was, Julie felt like an idiot. With everything that had been going on around them, she’d completely forgotten to keep track of her monthly cycle. If she had, she would have noticed sooner that her period hadn’t shown up when it should have.

  Her gaze fixed on the horizon, she watched as the sinking sun began to paint the clouds deep shades of scarlet and gold. A wind was blowing, ruffling the leaves on the vines and sending a minitornado of dust dancing along the neatly tended rows of grapes.

  And inside her, a different kind of tornado was taking shape.

  She’d driven to Sacramento that morning, wanting to get as far from prying eyes and nosy neighbors in Birkfield as possible. She’d bought the pregnancy test kit and smuggled it into the house as if she were a drug dealer. Then the package had sat beneath the bathroom sink all day, taunting her with its presence, silently daring her to take its challenge.

  Finally, an hour ago, she had.

  It had only taken three short minutes to redefine her life.

  One little plus sign and now everything was different.

  She felt more alive than she ever had and yet more subdued. Exhilarated and worried.

  How could she tell Travis that she was pregnant with his child? This was a temporary marriage. They’d both agreed to that at the beginning.

  Besides, even if he wanted her to, she couldn’t stay with Travis simply because she was pregnant. If he didn’t love her, what would be the point? They’d only end by making each other—and their child—miserable.

  “Something wrong?”

  Travis’s voice jolted Julie out of her thoughts. She slapped one hand to her chest and whirled around to find him standing beside the cook island, watching her. Guilt slipped through her system, but she fought it back down. She was going to tell him so there was no reason for the guilt. “You scared me.”

  He smiled and snitched one of the tiny lemon tarts she’d taken from the oven only a few minutes ago. Since discovering they were Travis’s favorites, she made them often. “Those are still hot.”

  “I like things hot.”

  She flushed. Just like that. So easy, he didn’t even have to try and she felt a flash of heat inside that would have put her oven to shame. How could she ever spend the rest of her life without him? How could she raise their child without Travis’s love in her life?

  He blew onto the lemon surface, then took a bite, savoring the tartness. “Delicious. As always.”

  “Thank you.”

  “So what were you thinking when I came in?” he asked.

  Oh, she couldn’t go there. Couldn’t even let the thoughts into her mind, because she didn’t doubt that somehow, he would know. So instead, she thought about how she loved him. About how she wanted to stay with him. Have him love her back. Those thoughts, he would be oblivious to. “Nothing special.”

  “You’re not a very good liar.”

  “That’s a good thing, isn’t it?” She forced a smile and swept a dish towel across her left shoulder. Then deftly, she moved the rest of the lemon tarts from the baking tray to a wire rack where they could cool.

  “Yeah,” Travis admitted. “I guess it is.”

  Looking at her now, Travis couldn’t think of one reason to doubt her. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, she wore a dark green King Winery T-shirt and faded blue jeans. Her feet were bare and her toe-nails were painted a soft peach.

  And her eyes met his with a simple honesty that he couldn’t force himself to deny.

  He kept trying to maintain an emotional distance between them, but that was getting more difficult every day. He was drawn to her. At night, he lost himself in the feel of her, the scent of her, the eagerness she expressed when he touched her.

  During the day, he found his mind wandering during meetings. He couldn’t walk the vines without thinking of her, wondering what she was doing. And the nights when she stood beside him in the tasting room, he was proud to have her there with him. She was warm and friendly to their guests, making them all feel special, and as word of her talents in the kitchen spread, their tourist traffic had more than doubled. King Winery was making its mark on the state and even Thomas Henry had noticed.

  Travis hadn’t had to wheedle his way into a distribution deal after all. Henry had come to him with a more than fair offer and there hadn’t been any more snide comments about Julie, either.

  He took another bite of the lemon tart and savored the delicious mix of sweet and sour that dissolved on his tongue in a burst of flavor.

  Sweet and sour. Pretty much described what this temporary marriage of theirs was like. The sweet—those moments when they were together, focused only on each other. The nights in her arms and the laughter in the mornings. The touch of her hand and the sound of her sigh when he joined his body to hers. The knowledge that she was there, in his house when he came in from the vines. It was all so much more than he’d expected to find in a marriage that had been meant to be nothing more than a business deal.

  But then there was the sour and that nagged at him. There was the mess with her ex. The way she’d gone behind his back to meet him—even if her reasons had made sense to him. There was the tight feeling in his chest whenever she was out of his sight for too long and the knowledge that in less than a year now, she would be out of his life.

  He could hardly imagine her not being a part of his everyday world
. Who would he talk to? Who would be there to argue with him over the best way to run a tasting? None of his employees dared to oppose him. But Julie had never had a problem with it. She stood up to him. Stood up for herself. Which is why he could look back at her meeting with Jean Claude and understand the reasoning behind it. He might not have liked it, but knowing her as he did, he shouldn’t have expected anything else.

  And on that thought, he said, “I talked to Adam a minute ago. Actually, it was more like me listening, older brother talking.”

  “About?”

  “Pierre, strangely enough.”

  He saw her flinch just before her gaze dropped to the surface of the cook island.

  “What did Adam have to say?”

  Travis leaned both hands on the edge of the countertop and felt that straight edge bite into his flesh. He kept his gaze locked on her as he said, “He set a plan into motion. Something that with any luck, will get rid of Jean Claude for good.”

  She nodded, blew out a breath and finally lifted her gaze to his. “When’s this plan supposed to take place?”

  “Soon.”

  “That’s good, then.”

  “Yeah.” She didn’t look happy, though, and whether he wanted it to or not, a doubt filled whisper scuttled through his mind. Is she happy to have the Jean Claude situation exposed and ended? Or is she worried that her compliance with him will be uncovered? Even as that thought whipped through his mind, Travis told himself it just wasn’t possible. He didn’t want it to be possible.

  Irritated, he frowned, straightened up and backed away. She smelled too good, looked too appealing for his own comfort level. “I just wanted to tell you. Keep you up-to-date on what’s happening.”

  “I appreciate it,” she said, but she didn’t look the slightest bit happy. Instead she looked worried and a little green around the gills.

  “Are you feeling all right?” Travis stopped at the doorway and looked at her closely, noticing for the first time that her skin was paler than usual. That her usually bright eyes looked a little glassy.

  “Fine. Just a bit queasy.” She gave him a smile that was meant to placate. “Probably tasted too much while I was cooking.”

  Her answer came fast and easy, but Travis went still and cold. As he’d noted earlier, she was a bad liar.

  Ten

  “R emember our wedding night?”

  “Of course I do.” Vividly. Travis stared at her, waiting. She looked nervous—the tips of her fingers plucking at the thigh seams on her jeans. She bit down on her bottom lip, shifted her gaze from his, to the wall nearby and then back again. He couldn’t recall a single moment in their time together when she’d seemed nervous before. Worried, yes. Scared, pissed off and stubborn, yes. But over the last few weeks, he’d never seen her look shaken.

  Until now.

  As he watched her, his senses kicked in and he thought maybe he knew exactly why she seemed so on edge all of a sudden.

  She opened her mouth, closed it again, then huffed out a breath.

  “Just say it, Julie.” Travis braced himself for hearing the only words that would explain both her queasiness and the tension that was clearly gripping him.

  “I’m pregnant.”

  He rocked back on his feet as those two simple words punched into his gut. The words he’d somehow expected to hear. In the blink of an eye, everything had changed.

  Pregnant.

  His gaze dropped to her flat abdomen before lifting to meet her eyes again. She was carrying his child. Even now, that tiny life was growing, already racing toward the finish line of birth.

  His baby.

  Travis’s brain worked frantically. He didn’t know what to think. What to feel. How was a man supposed to react when he found out he was going to be someone’s father?

  Panicked, that’s how.

  That emotion wasn’t one Travis had a lot of experience with. He always knew what to do. He never had to wonder if he was making the right decision or not. He was always sure of himself. And now, a tiny being the size of his thumbnail had him feeling as if he was sliding off the edge of the earth, scrambling for a handhold to stop his fall.

  Scrubbing one hand over his face, Travis told himself he was a man who liked being in charge. A man who made his own choices in life. Now, though, he was a man caught firmly in the grip of a very whimsical Fate.

  Travis King…a father?

  Boggled the mind.

  He took a breath and waited a second for it to kick in, maybe air out his mind so his thoughts could clear up. But that obviously wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.

  “How long have you known?” The words were squeezed out from between clenched teeth. Did it matter when she had found out about the baby? Yes. It did. He had to know if she’d been keeping this from him—the thought of any secrecy irritated him. Or if she would have kept quiet about it altogether had he not asked her flat out what was bothering her.

  “An hour,” she said and folded her arms around her middle, as if instinctively protecting the child within her body. “I was going to tell you tonight.”

  An hour. She’d only just found out herself and, judging by the expression on her face, the news was as overwhelming to her as it had been to him. Her eyes looked wide and a little confused. Well, hell. He knew just how she felt.

  Travis’s chest suddenly tightened to the point where he was half afraid he wouldn’t be able to draw another breath. He stared at her as if seeing her for the first time. Her hair shone with dark red and gold lights in the final rays of the dying sun. Her face was pale and her eyes looked huge in her face.

  She was more beautiful to him in this moment than he’d ever thought her before. His instincts fired. His woman. His child. Everything in him, everything he’d been taught as a child, his belief system—or morals—railed at him to protect her. To care for her. To stand between her and the world. Hell, it was all he could do to keep from rushing at Julie, lifting her off her feet and carrying her to the nearest chair, forcing her to sit down.

  But instead he just stood there, trying to come to grips with the latest wrinkle in his world. He hadn’t planned on being a parent. In fact, he’d gone out of his way to insure that he wouldn’t be a father. Travis had made it a point in his life to be careful with the women he spent time with. He hadn’t wanted to be creating life carelessly with a woman who was no more than a brief blip on his radar.

  Now he was married—albeit temporarily—and his wife was pregnant with his baby.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” she said quietly.

  “Oh,” he said, with a short, sharp burst of laughter. “I doubt that.” Hell, even he couldn’t keep track of his thoughts. No way she would be able to make sense of them.

  “You’re wondering if this baby is even yours.”

  She’d surprised him again.

  That thought had never crossed his mind.

  Her arms tightened around her middle and she lifted her chin as if trying to win a battle he hadn’t even engaged in yet. “It’s your baby, Travis. It’s not Jean Claude’s.”

  He shook his head. “What are you talking about?”

  “I know you’ve had your doubts about me.” She paused for a breath. “With the trouble Jean Claude’s cau
sed, I can even understand that to a point. But this is different. This is our baby. And I don’t want you to think even for a second that—”

  “Stop,” he said quietly, cutting off her speech because he didn’t need to hear it. He hated that she felt as though she had to defend their child to him. Hated that he’d made her feel as if he would doubt her about something this big. “I know it’s my baby, Julie. Our baby.”

  Strange, everything they’d been through the last few weeks, and he hadn’t even considered that the child could have been her ex’s. Almost laughable now, he thought, that he’d been so incensed by a photo of that Frenchman kissing her. He’d doubted her loyalties. Doubted her feelings.

  But on this, he had no doubts.

  Julie would never foist another man’s child on him. It wasn’t in her to be that duplicitous. She was too honest. Too straightforward.

  God, he was an idiot.

  How could he have ever believed that she was in cahoots with her ex? He should have trusted her. Hadn’t he known her long enough to know that she had a core that was as scrupulously honest as his own? Had he really been so thrown by Pierre’s foolish plans that he was willing to lump Julie in with the man?

  It was a wonder she was still speaking to him. Julie simply wasn’t the kind of woman to sink to those kinds of games. And he should have realized that simple truth before now.

  She blew out a breath and nodded. “Thanks for that.”

  “You shouldn’t be thanking me,” he said tightly. “You should be furious at me for not believing in you all along.”

  She shrugged a little and laid the flat of one hand against her abdomen, as if she were shielding the child within. “I was before,” she assured him with a small laugh that sounded strained and tight. “You’ve made me furious lots of times over the last several weeks, Travis. And sometimes talking to you is like talking to a wall—only the wall would probably listen better.”