A Texas-Sized Secret

by Maureen Child

  “But yes, it is.” He leaned toward her again, reached out and covered her hand with his, and smiled into her eyes. “You will marry this man soon, yes?”

  “Yes.” One word, squeezed past the knot of fury and humiliation lodged in her throat.

  “Then you are able to afford to help me, sì? I have a film in production, and I want you to finance it for me. We will be business partners, bella!” He released her hand, sat back and smiled benevolently at her. “You, me, our bambino.”

  Blackmail. Plain and simple. It was an ugly word, but it was the only one that fit. Naomi felt like an idiot for ever involving herself with this sad, shallow man. She could only hope that her genes would wipe out whatever of Gio was lingering in her baby. But even as she thought it, she realized that Toby would be her child’s father. He would be the role model her child needed—the guiding hand, the understanding heart—and that would more than make up for Gio’s faulty genes.

  “Do we have an agreement, bella?” He pursed his lips, shook back his hair and positioned himself in the single slice of light piercing through a window. “I will keep your secret about the baby. I will not demand my fatherly rights. All you must do is help me with this. Is not such a bad bargain, sì?”

  Naomi took a deep breath, shook her head and said, “No, Gio. It’s not a bad bargain.”

  He smiled, clearly delighted with her.

  “It’s a terrible one.”

  His smile disappeared. “Bella, do not be foolish.”

  “You know when I was foolish, Gio?” she asked. “When I looked at you and saw more than was actually there. I’m thinking clearly now.” Leaning across the table toward him, she said, “I won’t give you a penny. You’ll get nothing from me, Gio. Ever.

  “So, you do your worst. Tell the world you’re the baby’s father. In fact,” she said, as brilliance flashed in her mind, “I approve. Go ahead. Take out an ad in every paper...splash it across cyberspace, claim my baby as yours. It’ll be easier to sue you for child support.”

  He gaped at her, his mouth opening and closing like a fish on a line. Oh, he hadn’t expected this. He’d thought that Naomi would roll over and do just what he wanted to protect her own name. But she’d learned something with Toby’s help. You stood up to bullies. You didn’t let them dictate your actions. So she was taking a stand here, to protect herself and her baby.

  He looked absolutely stunned, and the knowledge that she’d caught him off guard gave Naomi a huge rush of pleasure. Pushing up and away from the table, she looked down at him. “My husband will be my baby’s father, and no child could ask for a better one. So do what you have to do, Gio. But you’ll never get a dime from me.”

  Smiling, she turned around and stalked out of the plush bar. She felt...liberated, and she couldn’t wait to get home to the ranch and tell Toby all about this meeting and how she’d handled it.

  Naomi never noticed the man in the corner who’d been surreptitiously taking pictures during her encounter with Gio.

  * * *

  When his phone signaled an incoming text, Toby checked it, expecting to hear from Naomi that she was headed home from Houston. He opened it, stared and felt his stomach drop to his feet.

  A picture of Naomi and a dark-haired man seated at a table together, looking cozy, as the man held her hand and looked meaningfully into her eyes. The message accompanying the photo was short and to the point.

  You’re a fool. She’s meeting Gio Fabiani behind your back.

  Gio. Her baby’s father. Toby actually saw red. His vision blurred and darkened at the edges as he stared at the damning photo. Naomi was meeting the man who’d gotten her pregnant and turned his back on her. The man she’d claimed she didn’t want anything to do with. Yet they looked pretty damn friendly, with him staring into her eyes while he held her hand.

  She’d told Toby she was going to do some wedding shopping in the city. Instead, she’d gone to meet another man. She’d lied to him. So what else had she lied to him about? His heart felt as if it were being squeezed by a cold, tight fist. He couldn’t breathe, because the cold rage rising inside was choking him.

  This was exactly what he’d worried about. Getting closer to Naomi only set him up for the pain he’d felt the last time he allowed a woman into his life. Naomi knew what Sasha had put him through, and now she herself, the woman he’d thought of as his best friend, was doing the same thing?

  Why was she meeting Gio? Was she playing both of them against each other? Was she planning on walking out on him in favor of the guy who’d gotten her pregnant?

  “What the hell, Naomi? What the hell is going on?” He couldn’t stop staring at the picture.

  Maverick was behind this texted photo, he knew. Who the hell else would be watching Naomi and making sure Toby knew what was happening? Bastard had a lot coming to him when he was finally caught.

  Shutting his phone down, he stuffed it into his pocket as if he could wipe the image of Naomi with another man from his mind if he just didn’t have to look at it. Pain stabbed at him. This was so much worse than when Sasha had walked out. It cut deeper because Naomi was a part of him. She’d been his friend. His lover. His fiancée.

  And now she was...what? He didn’t know. All he was sure of was that he had some thinking to do. He wouldn’t hold her to their engagement if this Gio was what she really wanted. But he’d be damned if he’d wish her well with the guy. Betrayal stung hard and settled in the center of his chest.

  “Damn it, Naomi,” he muttered. “What the hell were you doing with him?”

  After all they’d shared, all they’d planned, she went to Gio in secret? Why? Naomi was his. They were building a damn life here. Didn’t that mean anything? He had half a thought to drive to Houston, hunt down this Gio and beat his face to a pulp. But as satisfying as that would be, it wouldn’t change the fact that Naomi had sneaked off to meet him.

  Toby needed time to think. Space to do it in. Slamming out of the workshop, he stalked to the stables and saddled a horse. It’d be best for all involved if he wasn’t at the ranch when she came back. Because he wasn’t sure how he would handle it if she looked him dead in the eye and lied to him. Again.

  Good thing he wasn’t in love with her—or this would be killing him.

  Astride the big black stallion, Toby headed out, and the horse’s hooves beat out a rhythm that seemed to chant, it’s over, it’s over, it’s over...

  * * *

  By the time Naomi made it home to the ranch, her anger at Gio had dissipated and she felt as if she was thinking clearly for the first time in days.

  It was time to stand up to all the men in her life. She’d sent Gio packing, and heck, maybe she’d scare Toby into taking off, too. But she was tired of pretending, living a half life.

  She was in love with Toby McKittrick, and today she was going to tell him just how lucky he was to have her. She didn’t care if he wasn’t in love with her right now. Naomi could wait. Because he loved her for who she was, and that was enough for her—for now. She had no doubt that he would come to feel the same way she did. He was only protecting himself after what Sasha had done to him. Hardly surprising that he would keep his heart safe after having it crushed by betrayal.

  But she was going to show him that love didn’t have to be about pain. And she would make him listen.

  She steered her car into the long, curved drive toward the ranch house and realized that in the past few weeks, Paradise Ranch really had become home. Her heart was here. In the wide-open spaces. In the stupid chicken coop and with Legend, lying buried under a live oak at the rear of the property.

  Her heart was with the man who had always been her friend and was now her lover. The man who had offered to be a father to her child. How could she not love him and everything they’d found together?

  She didn’t need Hollywood. She didn’t
need dreams of fame and fortune. She didn’t even need her parents’ approval anymore. All she needed was Toby.

  When she parked the car, Naomi raced into the house, calling for him as she went from room to room. She’d been longer than she’d planned and so she expected him to be in his office, as he was most afternoons, working on plans for another amazing invention. But he wasn’t there, so she headed to the kitchen and tried not to hear how the heels of her shoes sounded like a frantic heartbeat against the wood floors. “Toby?”

  “He’s not here,” Rebecca said, poking her head into the room from the walk-in pantry. “Took off on that big black of his a few hours ago. Haven’t seen him since.”

  Disappointed, Naomi asked, “Do you know where he went?”

  “Nope.” Rebecca shook her head, then went back to whatever she’d been doing before. “He took off like a bat outta hell, though. Must be something bothering him.”

  Worry replaced disappointment, and Naomi chewed at her bottom lip. What could have happened while she was gone? “Okay, thanks. Um, I’ll try his cell.”

  “Phones on horses,” Rebecca muttered. “It’s a weird damn world...”

  Naomi called him as soon as she was in the great room, and she listened to the ring go on and on until finally his voice mail activated. She didn’t leave a message, just hung up. And as she looked out the window at the sprawl of the ranch she considered home, she wondered where he’d gone. And why.

  * * *

  An hour later, Toby opened the front door and stalked into the house.

  She’d tried to reach him a dozen times, but his phone went to voice mail and her texts to him went unanswered. By the time she heard him enter the house, Naomi’s nerves were strung so tightly she could have played a tune on them.

  She followed the sound of his footsteps and found him in his office, pouring scotch into a heavy crystal tumbler. He glanced at her when she walked into the room, but there was no welcome on his face.

  “Toby? Is everything okay?”

  “Interesting question,” he said without answering at all.

  The only light in the room came from the dying sun drifting through the wide windows at his back. He was a shadow against the light, and even at that, she saw the tightness on his features, the hard gleam in his eyes. And she wondered.

  “I was worried,” she said, walking a little closer.

  “Yeah?” He laughed shortly, took a long drink of scotch and said, “Me too. So, did you find some great wedding stuff in Houston?”

  “Actually, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  “Is that right?” His hand tightened around the glass, and even at a distance, she could see his knuckles whiten.

  “I didn’t really go to the city to shop.”

  He snapped his gaze to hers. “Yeah, I know. See, you weren’t the only one texting me today.”

  “What do you mean?” Worry curled in the pit of her stomach and sent long, snaking tendrils spiraling through her bloodstream.

  He pulled his phone from his pocket and held it out to her. “Here. Tell me what you think.”

  Naomi suddenly didn’t want to know what was on his phone. What had made his eyes so cold and his mouth so relentlessly grim. But she forced herself to walk to him, take the phone and turn it on. The photo was already keyed up.

  She and Gio at their shadowy table, leaning toward each other, his hand covering hers. They looked...cozy. Intimate. If she didn’t know what had happened between them, she might believe that they were lovers, intensely focused on only each other.

  Oh, God. What he must have thought when he saw this. She took a breath, looked up at him. “Toby—”

  “You lied to me.” His features were colder, harder than she’d ever seen them. Even when Sasha left him, he hadn’t looked this closed off. Untouchable.

  “I didn’t lie.”

  “Semantics. By not telling me you were meeting Gio, you lied to me,” he ground out through gritted teeth. “Damn it, Naomi.”

  He whirled around and threw the glass tumbler into the empty fireplace, where it shattered, sounding like the end of the world. Despite the heat of that action, Toby was coldly furious. When he whipped around to look at her, his sea-blue eyes were stormy and glinting with banked fury. “You’re meeting Gio behind my back?”

  “It wasn’t like that.”

  “Really?” He pushed both hands through his hair. “Because that’s just what it looks like in that picture. Maverick said I’m a fool, and I’m starting to think he’s right.”

  Stunned, she stared at him. “Until now, Maverick was a lowlife. Now you’re ready to take his ugliness over what I’m trying to tell you?” She took a step toward him. She hated that he stepped back, keeping her at bay. “Gio texted me. Said it was important that I meet him. So I went there to tell him to leave me alone.”

  “Yeah?” He cocked his head and gave her a sour smile. “You needed a quiet little romantic corner to do that?”

  “It wasn’t romantic, Toby.” She couldn’t believe she was having to explain this. And wanted to kick herself for keeping it from him in the first place. “I don’t want Gio. I want you.”

  “What’s the matter? Gio not interested? Or, hey, maybe you’re going to keep us both dangling. Is that the plan?” He shook his head and said, “Don’t bother answering that. I don’t need another lie.”

  “I’m not lying to you,” she countered. God, she’d handled this all wrong. She should have gone to him, asked him to go to Houston with her. To face down Gio together. Instead, she’d wanted to clean up her own mess, and now it looked as though she’d simply traded one bad situation for a worse one. How could she make him see? Make him understand that he was wrong about all this?

  Then she realized what she had to do. What she should have done weeks ago when she’d first admitted the truth to herself. “Toby, I love you.”

  He laughed, but the sound was harsh, strained, as if it had scraped along his throat like knives. “God, Naomi, don’t. You really think telling me that is going to convince me?”

  Stung, she swallowed the ache and demanded, “Well, what will?”

  “Nothing,” he said, staring at her as if she were a stranger.

  Naomi’s heart hurt, and her breath was strangled in her lungs. She was losing everything and didn’t know how to stop it. Toby’s gaze was locked with hers, and through her pain, Naomi realized that she wasn’t just hurt, she was insulted. She was closer to him than to anyone she’d ever known. He knew her and he was still going to take Maverick’s word over hers?

  She had to reach him. Had to fight for what they had, because if she gave up now, he’d never believe in her. Never accept that she loved him.

  “You know me, Toby,” she said and saw his eyes flash.

  “Thought I did,” he acknowledged.

  “Well, thanks for the benefit of the doubt.” She crossed her arms over her chest and hugged herself for comfort.

  “What doubt? That picture says it all,” he said.

  “That picture says just what Maverick wanted it to say,” she countered. His eyes were shuttered, his mouth tight and grim, and every inch of his tall, muscular body looked rigid with tension. She wasn’t reaching him and she knew why. This wasn’t Maverick and his nasty tricks. This went back much farther than that.

  “This all comes back to Sasha,” she said tightly.

  “It has nothing to do with her.” Toby stalked across the room, as if he needed some distance from her. As if shutting her out wasn’t enough. Then he turned around to face Naomi. “She’s gone. Been gone for years.”

  “And she took your heart with her,” Naomi said, though it cost her to admit it.

  “Please.” He snorted.

  “I’m not saying you’re still in love with her,” she said, voice c
old as steel. “I’m saying that the part of you that was willing to trust, to take a risk, left with her. You loved her, and she walked out.”

  “I don’t need the recap,” he said. “I was there.”

  “Yes, me too,” she reminded him. “I was there for you. I saw what you did to yourself to get past her. You closed off a part of your heart. Your soul. You didn’t want to trust anyone because you were afraid to be hurt again.”

  “Afraid? I’m not afraid.”

  “Come on, Toby,” she said. “At least be honest.”

  “Oh, like you?” he asked with a snort of derisive laughter.

  She winced, because even she knew she’d had that shot coming.

  “Today was the first time I’ve ever lied to you, Toby, and I didn’t like it. You know me. So whatever it is you’re feeling right now isn’t about me meeting with Gio.”

  “Is that so? Then what is it about, Naomi?”

  “It’s about you using Maverick’s photo as an excuse to back away from me before I get too close.”

  If anything, his features tightened even further. “That’s bull.”

  “Is it?” She stomped across the room, stopped right in front of him, tipped her head back and looked into his dark, angry eyes. “I didn’t do anything wrong. Well, okay,” she admitted, “I should have told you that I was meeting Gio today.”

  “Yeah, I’d say so.”

  “But,” she continued as if he hadn’t spoken at all, “other than that, I’ve done nothing to earn your mistrust, Toby. You’re my friend. My lover. The man I trust to be a father to my baby.”

  A muscle in his jaw twitched furiously, but he didn’t speak. That was fine by Naomi, because she wasn’t finished.

  “Sasha hurt you so badly you don’t trust anybody.”

  “I trusted you,” he said quietly. “Look where that got me.”

  “You didn’t. Not really.” Funny, she was only just seeing it now. “You’ve been holding back all along. Waiting for something to go wrong. For me to screw up. To prove to you that I was no better than Sasha.”