The Billionaire's Colton Threat

by Geri Krotow

  “About your proposal, Alastair, what exactly are you putting on the table?”

  “Tea, Halle. Wait for the tea.” He’d already filled a measuring glass with water and it was heating in the microwave. Without much fuss he’d found the mugs and put a tea bag in each. The clean cuts of his casual, outdoorsy wear screamed “expensive” and the tall Scot looked as polished as the granite countertops her father had installed mere weeks before his death. He’d been in the process of updating the ranch house, his skills as a carpenter budget-friendly. Unlike her need to hire an expert for the more laborious tasks. Her father had said he’d wanted the ranch house “ready for when you come back home.” Of course she’d never planned on returning to Shadow Creek so quickly, and worse, to an empty house.

  The microwave beeped. Alastair opened the door and reached for the measuring cup. Halle saw the water, still boiling. “Wait! There are pot holders in the drawer there, to the right of the stove.”

  “I’ve handled boiling water be—Oow!” Alastair muttered a few more words under his breath as some of the water splashed on his hand. He set the cup on the counter and ran his hand under the faucet for a few seconds.

  Halle was in the kitchen next to him in no time. “Are you blistering?”

  “No, no, nothing serious. I’m running the cold tap merely as a precaution.”

  “You’re ‘running the cold tap,’ eh? We usually say ‘running cold water,’ plain and simple.” She jokingly smirked.

  “English is a vast language.” He shut off the water and dried his hands with the floral dishcloth, the girly print emphasizing his masculinity. He ignored her as he poured the water over the tea bags and picked the mugs up with each hand. “Where shall we sit?”

  “Um, the living room.” Anywhere but where she’d have to look into his eyes so up close. The man didn’t know how to be anything but intense.

  Halle sat on the sofa and noted how easily her father’s chair fit Alastair’s athletic form. Long and lean as Chancellor had been, Alastair settled into the space as if he’d been living at Bluewood for years instead of on his second visit to her home.

  He looked at her over the steaming liquid. “Sip it slowly. You can leave the bag to steep—it gets better as it cools.” He took a drink and she wondered if his tongue was made of steel as he didn’t even flinch at the heat.

  You know his tongue is one hundred percent male flesh. And her memory of how he’d used it on her skin still made her shiver.

  “Alastair, please don’t take this wrong—and I don’t want it lost in translation between Scottish and American English.” Her soft teasing didn’t seem to lighten his mood. “You say you want to marry me. While I appreciate your offer, it’s not necessary. We can sign a custody agreement, and you can go back to Scotland until the baby comes. I’ll keep you posted on the progress, and I understand that you’ll want to meet him or her right away. You can be at the birth.” He was a businessman; she was betting that he’d go for the optimal negotiation.

  “Absolutely not.” His immediate response reverberated in the small room. “I’m not going anywhere, Halle. You’re going to marry me.” The implications of his entrenched position echoed not only in the kitchen but her heart. She’d misjudged him. Apparently the ruthless billionaire had impeccable personal integrity.

  “You may have spent four days with me on the trail, but you don’t know me, Alastair. I’m not the marrying kind, and I’m definitely not going to agree to something so crazy when my hormones are trying to run the show.” Heat rose from her chest, up her neck. But it wasn’t the result of her pregnancy woes. He opened his mouth to speak and she held up her hand.

  “No, let me finish. My life is Bluewood Ranch. And even though it looks like it’s going to go belly-up, I know its potential. If I work with a couple of other independent ranches in the area to coordinate business and tours, I can be solvent within eighteen months. I don’t need as much seed money as you might think.”

  “It doesn’t matter how much you need, Halle.”

  “Oh sure, I get it. Several thousand dollars is pennies to you. But it’s my entire future. The baby’s future.” She faltered. The baby was never going to solely rely on her, not financially. She’d never have to worry about a college fund. Alastair could pay for several lifetimes’ worth of degrees. The power of his position began to sink in, and Halle wasn’t feeling so spunky all of a sudden.

  “Are you through?”

  “For now.”

  “I’m not going to agree to a business contract, Halle. We must be married—it’s the quickest way to ensure my child will be my direct heir and he or she will bear my name.”

  “What you’re proposing is a business contract, Alastair. You plan for us to divorce in a year. Wait.” Icy fear ran down her spine. “You’re not planning on taking the baby from me, are you?”

  “Of course not. As long as you agree to marry me. If you don’t, we’ll have a long, drawn-out custody battle before the baby is born. It’d undoubtedly bleed over into the first year after his or her birth. I don’t think you want to put yourself or Bluewood through that.”

  Halle stared at him. His expression wasn’t smug or patronizing. It could be, as he must know he had her right where he wanted. She’d never be able to afford the legal fees. Not with her current portfolio.

  She wanted to damn the man and more, damn that night of passion with him. But she couldn’t regret the actions that created the baby she was carrying. As much as it’d been a surprise, she was already thinking about how it would feel to hold him or her. She was looking forward to becoming a mother, less than ideal circumstances and all.

  At her silence, Alastair leaned forward. “It’s a marriage in name only as far as you and I are concerned, Halle. But it’s everything for our child. This will eliminate any doubt about where they came from, who they belong to.”

  “They can have all of that without us being married. Marriage seems so important to you, but what do you know about divorce, Alastair? That’s just as ugly.”

  “We’ll be divorced within a year of the baby’s birth. Too soon to affect them. They’ll grow up knowing both of us and whomever we each choose to be with in the future. It’ll seem normal to them.”

  “You have it all figured out, don’t you?” She heard the fear in her voice, felt her gut tighten into a spasm. He was hitting her at her most tender place. She knew all too well what it was like to grow up with only one known parent, as her mom had died in a freak ranch accident when she was a child.

  “I’m suggesting what’s best for everyone involved, Halle. It’s what I do for my business every day.” A flicker of an emotion she didn’t associate with the billionaire crossed Alastair’s face. Doubt?

  “And you’re sure this is best for all of us, Alastair?”

  * * *

  He stared at her. Had she mistaken the cause of his doubt? The niggling guilt that his status could disappear if he didn’t get a handle on his bleeding stocks increased in urgency.

  “I’m certain about this, yes. It’s what’s best for our child and in the long run, you and me as well, Halle. It’s important that we’re amicable as we raise this child together.”

  “We’d draw up a contract, sign it? Or maybe you’ve already done this?”

  “Yes, and to make sure you don’t feel as though I’m taking advantage of your situation, I’d want you to have your lawyer look it over, too.”

  Her face relaxed for a millisecond. “It’s just so much, so soon.” Her voice was but a whisper and he looked closer. Her skin was green and a sheen of sweat was reflected at the base of her throat.

  “Excuse me.” She bolted for the small loo off the kitchen and the door slammed shut. But she didn’t take, or more likely have, the time to turn on the sink taps. He heard every wretch, each moan she made in between what sounded like three rounds of
morning sickness. At three thirty in the afternoon.

  Remorse sucker punched him. He should have continued to try to reach her after he’d left Bluewood three months ago, never given up. At the least he could have asked Jeremy or Adeline to find out how Halle was doing in a casual way. Although the chances of the Kincaids knowing about Halle’s personal life were slim. From all he’d seen, Halle was a loner.

  The bathroom door opened and a subdued version of Halle walked out, moving with slow deliberation. “Do you mind if we keep talking in the living room? I feel better when I lie flat.”

  Alastair was up and next to her. He reached for her but she brushed his arms away. “I’m fine.” He watched her shuffle to the sofa and lower herself onto it, on her back, bending her knees and placing her arm over her eyes. “Please, take a seat. It’s just what it is right now. My midwife says I need to ride it out. I saw her after my doctor’s appointment.”

  He took the large easy chair, pushing aside the ottoman in front of it. “Shouldn’t you be seeing a doctor exclusively?”

  “The midwife is a nurse practitioner who works directly with my doctor. She knows her stuff, and I trust her. If she thought I needed a referral to an obstetrician, she wouldn’t hesitate. I thought that the social medicine system in the UK utilized midwives, too?”

  “I, I don’t know. My mother’s a surgeon, but we’ve never talked about it.”

  “Why should you have? You’re a single, financially independent whiskey baron. But you did tell your mother about the baby? Or how would you have known about the ginger tea?”

  “I didn’t tell my mother, but I did tell my sister. I trust her most, we’ve always been tight since we’re less than eighteen months apart.”

  “I’ve always wanted a mother to talk to. Mine died when I was very young.” She sighed and peered at him from under her slim forearm. “I’m not myself. I’m being a bit of a bitch and I’m sorry.”

  “I understand. Well, of course I don’t understand, but I can empathize. And you’re not being a bitch.” Later, after he’d solved it, he’d share with her the ordeal he was going through with the possible hostile takeover. Halle was a woman who invited openness, not something he was used to. The women he got involved with, no matter the length of time, were usually all about trying to stoke his ego, having a good roll in the sack and enjoying the perks of his financial status. If he was honest with himself, it had always been about the sex for him, too.

  Not that he’d ever minded the latter but the inflating his ego part had grown old years ago. Alastair wanted to have a conversation with a woman where sex wasn’t seen as a possible tool to get ahold of his fortune or to obtain the kind of lifestyle his money bought.

  “Tell me about your family, Alastair.”

  Her polite demand startled him. “It’s all available on the internet. I’m sure you’ve discovered more than I’d tell you in conversation.”

  “Maybe, but it doesn’t matter to me what it says on Wikipedia. I want to know about your family and your life’s story from you.”

  Impressive.

  “I was born in Glasgow. My parents still live there. And my grandmother lives on the large estate with all of us, in her own cottage. It’s what you call ‘independent living for seniors’ in the States, I think. She’s totally on her own but with her family there for support.”

  “What a loving family.”

  “We’ve been blessed but we all have our foibles. Do you have any siblings, Halle?”

  “No, none at all. My dad used to say that he and my mother planned to have a baseball team—nine kids. But since my mother died, that didn’t happen. I barely remember her. My father raised me, and he never remarried. I used to dream he would find someone, a woman who was wonderful and had kids of her own so that I’d have brothers and sisters.”

  He looked at her as she shrugged off her childhood dream, something that hadn’t come true for her, as if it was no big deal. Did she have any idea how strong she was?

  “Well, now you’re starting your own team.”

  “Perhaps.”

  She didn’t have to say the rest. The baby was the only family Halle had. It might very well be the only child she ever had. The realization that she had no one besides the baby made his worries about Clyde Whiskey seem almost trivial.

  “Halle, if we marry, you’ll be ensuring the baby has the big family you never did.” She’d be making sure she had one, too, including Alastair. On paper.

  “You know how to maneuver your opponent into a place where there’s no choice but to do your bidding, don’t you?”

  “You’re not my opponent.”

  “Au contraire, Alastair. If I don’t agree to marrying you, that’s exactly how you’ll treat me.”

  “You’re reading me wrong again, Halle. There’s no way to treat you but as the mother of my child. That will be the same no matter what you decide. But if you marry me, the child will be more secure, more protected. And the ranch will be secure.” He knew he was repeating it but he wanted her to understand that his intent was to add to her life, in a good way. Not take away anything that mattered to her.

  “Are there a lot of papers in your contract?” A gleam he hadn’t seen in her eyes appeared. She was actually thinking about it. He was grateful he was sitting as he thought his legs would give out, he was so relieved. Not a usual feeling for him, not since maybe his first successful business deal after university—over a decade ago.

  “No. Only a few.”

  “I’m totally willing to sign that I don’t want any part of your fortune. This is only for the baby.”

  “Which is why I’m not having you sign any papers to that effect. I get it, Halle, and I—I trust you. Trust me that the marriage, the paperwork, is to make things most expedient for the baby. To give him or her their birthright.” Only after he said the words did he realize how much he did trust her. Stupid of him, perhaps, but he’d always trusted his gut. “My solicitors, however, do insist that there’s a paternity test.”

  “I’d expect no less. I’ve already given my blood sample for one—my midwife only needs your cheek swab to send in the kit. Wouldn’t you like to wait until the results are in to get married?”

  “No. If the test proves I’m not the father, we’ll divorce immediately. If I am, as both you and I know I must be, then we’ve done the right thing.”

  “Why are you trusting me, Alastair? You’ve known me for such a short time. I could have been to bed with countless cowboys, as you said.”

  “From all accounts, that’s not who you are. And I have to confess something to you. I’m a bit superstitious when it comes to any dealings in life. I think it’s important to leave some things to chance, in a good way.”

  “Please tell me that you don’t think, by having faith that the baby is yours, that you believe it will somehow protect the baby, keep it safe from everything that could happen to it.”

  “Maybe not that far, but let me just say it’s my way of acknowledging I don’t have all the answers. In my line of business I have to be on top of everything, know all the answers. It’s a relief and downright joy to be able to let go and trust whenever I can.”

  “And you’ve chosen me to trust.”

  “I have. And I trust the process of it all. Face it, Halle, this is bigger than both of us. We tried to prevent it but it happened anyway. Fate is involved.” The golden gleam in her eyes turned into a full-fledged flame.

  “How can I argue with that? I’ll call the town hall as soon as they open in the morning.”

  Alastair was wrong about the relief he’d felt moments earlier. It wasn’t relief—it was jubilation. Over a woman he barely knew agreeing to marry him with a ticking clock of one year.

  “Allow me to do at least one thing right here, Halle.” He got to his knee on her hardwood floor and grasped her hand
s in his. “Will you marry me, Halle Ford?”

  His breathing and heartbeat stopped in unison as he waited for her response. To his immense satisfaction, a kind of joy he couldn’t articulate, tears welled in her eyes. As if this meant something more to her, too.

  “Yes, Alastair Buchanan. I’ll marry you.”

  Chapter 7

  “Here. Eat.” Maggie Colton balanced a basket of laundry on one hip as she slid a plate of French toast toward Halle.

  “You know, this is the first time I haven’t wanted to throw up at the sight of food.” And Maggie’s original recipe had everything to do with it. “Being pregnant looked great on you. You have to tell me how to make this.” Halle swirled the maple syrup in thin loops over the browned cinnamon roll bread, still amazed that her stomach wasn’t revolting. Yet.

  “It’s all in the bread.”

  “Which you made from scratch as usual.”

  “Actually, no.” Maggie lowered the basket to the floor. “I’ll fold that later. How often do you and I get to talk? The last time I tried to make bread, my elbow hit the bowl with the rising dough and tipped it all over the floor. I was hosting Easter brunch for Thorne’s family the next day and had no time to start over, so I improvised with the bakery’s cinnamon loaf. Thorne couldn’t tell the difference, so it’s my new recipe.” Maggie’s eyes remained trained on Halle, her speech casual but her laser-sharp awareness evident. Maggie topped off her coffee before sliding into the chair across from Halle’s at the kitchen table. “You look pale, Halle.”

  “It’s the not eating. My morning sickness has been awful. I wasn’t kidding—this is the first full meal I’ve had since, since—” she counted back “—since he showed up at my door.” She’d left Alastair at the ranch house, his nose buried in his computer. As much as it would have been nice to see what Maggie thought of him, Halle needed girl time.